Not everyone is so lucky...

Voiceless It Cries

Rend 1.1

Underneath The Great Tree

"Report."

"Hai, Danzō-sama," comes the reflexive response. My most promising young ninja maintains her kneel, masked eyes on the floor, heaving breath making no sound even in the echoing confines of the austere, dark Root base. "This agent has administered the ethylene glycol solution on schedule, and the protection detail show no signs of having taken notice. The operation may proceed as planned."

"Very good," I praise, taking note of the slight preening she fails to hide.

A curious case, this one. Though my scouts found her young enough to undergo the emotion elimination process, it failed to take hold. Thankfully, the more traditional pleasure/pain conditioning worked without a hitch, if slowly. In truth, it worked so well I've been considering switching back over to it.

Unfortunate hesitation in the face of the darker aspects of ninja work aside, the social awareness she has retained more than make up the slack. Even the most skilled actors in my Root tend to be discovered early during their infiltrations, due to their lack of genuine emotions. It's a quandary I've been wrestling with for some time.

It's also a quandary I have no real answer to. Emotion seems inextricably linked to both drive and innovation, a conclusion that has answered my long-held ignorance over the curious skill disparity between those of my forces who retain their hearts and those who don't. Maybe I should revert to the conditioning protocol after all, but institute some other, more reliable method of ensuring none of my agents go rogue? It's something to think about.

"Dismissed." When my ninja hesitates, clearly wishing to continue the debrief, I allow some aggravation to seep into my tone. "Speak."

"This agent has been experiencing surreal, waking dreams, Danzō-sama. This phenomenon began occurring spontaneously three nights ago while breaking her fast, though they seem to pass instantaneously and have not adversely affected her focus or efficiency."

I hum in thought. My first instinct is to have the kitchen scoured for poison, whether it be in the food through ignorance or malice. I'll have to check with my administrator, but… "Describe these dreams." …what if it's something else? An unknown bloodline, perhaps?

"The first was of a flying machine: an iron bird lined with windows, populated by civilians in strange clothing sitting in rows. The second was of a television hanging from a wall, though it was far more technologically advanced and aesthetically pleasing than those available in this world today. The third was of a peanut butter sandwich in the process of being made-"

"Enough." If I don't stop her, she'd continue on until she collapsed of thirst or I was moved to homicide. It's one of the more annoying aspects of controlling a brainwashed force of ninja. "Are all of these dreams fantasies, or do you have something concrete to report?"

My ninja shuffles awkwardly, which immediately grabs my attention. She shouldn't be capable of that kind of hesitance, not unless she has something truly ridiculous to- "The eighth dream appears to depict the formation of the alliance between the Senju and Uchiha. It was drawn and backlit on the strangely advanced television, in a curious, two-dimensional art style."

How strange. "What happened exactly?"

"Senju Tobirama-sama, Senju Hashirama-sama, and Uchiha Madara-sama were arrayed on a battlefield, the latter on his knees." Her tone is as blandly pleasant as ever, despite the subject matter. "Tobirama-sama attempted to slay Madara-sama to end the conflict between their clans, but Hashirama-sama stopped him, declaring that would only renew the war. Then, Madara-sama suggested that Hashirama-sama kill himself to achieve the peace he so desired. When he began to do so without hesitation, Madara-sama was moved, and assented to peace."

I still. Tobirama spoke to me of that day – it happened exactly as my kneeling ninja described. It was never written down, there is no way she could know. It must be a bloodline. It must be. "Tell me. Do these dreams share any commonalities?"

"They all appear to be from the perspective of a young, blonde, civilian woman. This agent glimpsed her in a mirror in the seventh vision; her facial features are strangely arrayed and her clothing matches the style of the civilians on the flying machine."

"I see." My hands steeple themselves before my face of their own accord, a telltale sign that I'm deep in thought that I've never been able to break. Though the workings of her bloodline limit are unknown to me, it seems I have stumbled upon a potentially endless source of raw information. The question becomes: how do I best make use of it? "Do any other visions contain such knowledge? And, how many have you had?"

Because that's what they are: visions, not dreams. Dreams are the creation of imagination and emotion and hidden desire, and are ultimately worthless. Visions, on the other hand, are an art I didn't think mankind was capable of practicing. Visions are priceless works of knowledge into the secret histories of the world.

My current theory is that my agent – she needs a codename, now that she has managed to distinguish herself – possesses the unique power to peer into the life of her descendant. In this far-flung future, humanity has teased apart the secrets of flying machines, improved televisions, and other such things. The history of the world must have been drawn in an audiovisual format and marketed to the masses, possibly for education purposes but likely for money. I'll have to be on guard for misinformation, biases, and slants, but I can't ignore such a potentially useful source.

"The seventeenth vision is of a classroom, a detailed series of images depicting human anatomy projected onto a large, white board. This agent believes the subject to be a trainee medic, albeit an unskilled one." A pause. "There have been twenty-one visions in total, Danzō-sama. Three on the first day, six on the second, nine on the third, and three more so far today. They have become more coherent and lengthy as time progresses."

In time, my agent may view the entirety of her descendant's life. If she does so, however, her conditioning may break; I'll need to schedule more sessions with her, just in case. Especially not now, with how useful she may be. Losing her would be a disaster.

This matter requires further thought. Some things, however, are obvious enough without time spent reflecting on it. First and foremost is the chance that she'll die on a mission before she can relay the entirety of her descendant's memories. In order to prevent that, I'll need to make her into a strong and skilled combatant, perhaps with no small skill in tracking for search and destroy missions, and not the stealthy infiltrator I have been training her as.

I rise from my throne and stride over to her kneeling form. "Good work, bringing this to me. You have done well." I pat her head affectionately, feeling her all-but humming in joy at the simple contact. "You are now codename Asuka, meaning 'the fragrance of tomorrow.' Agent Kinako will oversee your training effective immediately. Report to him tomorrow at dawn. Dismissed."

Asuka leaves, visibly refraining her squeal of happiness at being deemed worthy of a name. She's taken to the conditioning well. There might not be need of further sessions after all – I very much doubt that she will ever betray me.

"I am Kinako. You will refer to me as 'shishō.' While under my tutelage, I expect unflinching obedience and peerless attention to detail. You will approach the complex art of the ninja with the proper respect and devotion." He pauses in his low monologue. "You will learn as if your life depends on your success, because it does. Teaching a corpse will be a waste of my time, and I do not waste my time. Are we understood?"

"Hai, shishō!"

"Good. We will begin with taijutsu. Attack me with the intent to kill."

In the heartbeat of silence and stillness that follows, I notice a lot of things.

First is my opponent, superior, and master. His ANBU Root gear looks like it's been recently scavenged from a battlefield and painstakingly repaired to full effectiveness, in practice if not in aesthetics, marred by burns, scars, and what can only be water damage. The man behind the armor is no better, Sharingan eyes dark as blood and scruffy, raven hair falling in wild tangles down the curve of his neck. The juxtaposition of clean bandages and shiny, new sandals against his general demeanor of being Orpheus fresh out of Hell is jarring. With his face covered by the bone-white mask, I can't tell if he's twenty, thirty, or a hundred years old.

He seems perfectly at home in the black stone enclosure, which I take in second. The glistening earth eagerly feeds on the waning light of the lone lantern set roughly in the center of the round room. Looking as if it were carved by the scalpel of a god, the perfectly circular wall arcs up and over me in a perfectly proportioned dome, the ceiling some fifteen feet above me. Moisture leaks from the rock and trickles down to the floor, which is scuffed by the weight of ages and a thousand thrown blades, fireballs, and whips of water. If it weren't for the random stalagmites and stalactites extruding from the walls like angry needles, beckoned from the earth by the handseals of a ninja, it'd be a marvel belonging in a museum and not to a secret organization of shinobi.

Third is the door, which seals itself shut to the rumbling roar of shifting earth. I find myself feeling curiously offended. Danzō-sama commanded me here; I would sooner die than disobey his will. By blocking off my exit, Kinako-shishō is implying that I would flee should our training session exceed some arbitrary threshold of pain or fear. For that alone I truly would come at him with intent to kill, even had he not ordered it. It's insulting.

Victory is out of my grasp, however. My only advantage over him is my small size. He has superior strength, speed, reflexes, skill, talent, cunning, experience, reach, and form. I will try my best – Danzō-sama will accept no less – but I fully expect to get pounded into the ground.

And I am. Painfully.

I begin with a flawless butterfly kick, knowing ambition and raw momentum are my only hope of striking a debilitating blow. I twirl through the air like a top, chakra pulsing through my body in tune to my staccato heartbeat. My foot scythes through the air and almost seems to whistle in the stifling silence.

He grabs it, whirls around, and hurls me bodily across the room. I crash into a jagged pillar of earth extruding from the wall face-first and am immediately knocked out.

I awaken to a peppermint green glow and a killer migraine. With the lantern to his back, Kinako-shishō's crimson eyes seem to radiate a hellish light. Then, he speaks a word.

"Again."

I leap to my feet, fueled by a sudden and powerful surge of adrenaline. I spin, heel arcing like the crescent moon and coming down on shishō like the hammer of god.

He easily deflects it with a classic Mister Miyagi wax-off and seizes the opening by transitioning into a brutal rabbit punch. I feel something in my jaw pop as I wheel to the ground like a smoking helicopter.

A rush of chakra to the break numbs the pain enough to stagger back to my basic stance. Just in time, too, as shishō is dancing through his own far superior butterfly kick, aimed just so that my head would be sent flying like a golf ball.

I'd like to say that I gracefully duck underneath the ten-ton blow, but it feels like more of a controlled fall than anything half so impressive. The bloody gashes I tear in my wrists as they scrape themselves raw against the ground is much more preferred than near decapitation.

Once again proving that ninjas are utter bullshit, he gyrates like a carousel and only increases the momentum of his strike for the second try. My only escape is to make like the slinky and pull a handstand and cartwheel away. The uniform darkness of the arena and my own thrown velocity dizzy me worse than the Teeter Dance and I collapse in a tangle of legs.

My own lack of grace proves to be my salvation as the displaced wind of shishō's third spin caresses my sweaty face. If I hadn't bound my dark hair in a tight braid, he probably would have torn a lock off with his sheer rotational speed. As it is, an embarrassing squeak escapes my mouth and I throw my hands up in helpless reflex.

It doesn't save me from the coming hammerblow. A flash of numb shock, a heartbeat of burning agony, then-

That same green glow beckons me from Morpheus' realm. I groan, unable to complete the thought of rising before I sag against the floor like a life-sized doll. Water is poured on my face, and I splutter, before the nozzle is pressed between my lips and I drink like the metaphorical dying man.

"Two out of three to Kinako," shishō says, a hint of amusement lightening his tone. "My victory."

"Want a cookie?" I hiss, before my eyes widen in shock at my own words. I squeak like a chew toy in abject embarrassment.

"We suspected that might happen," he muses instead, cocking his head like a curious cat. "It's why infiltration-nin are given specialized psychiatric care. One doesn't simply live the life of another without being changed by it. As more and more memories are channeled through you, your mind will take on more and more of the characteristics of whoever your bloodline limit is targeting. Had this happened during infanthood, we suspect, you would likely have been overtaken entirely."

Logical. And yet, it feels… wrong. "What should Asuka do, shishō?"

A blurred handseal, and a thick, leather-bound journal rises from the earth. It's edged with spiraling silver filigree and has the Konoha leaf embossed in green on the front. The iconic symbol contrasts against the earthy brown background beautifully, just as much as the swirly words laced in the same forest green: Asuka's Dream Diary.

"For me?" I breathe in surprise, for the first time in years not speaking in the third person. I couldn't help it. No one has ever given me a gift, before. I've never owned something before. Something with my name on it, something I can call mine…

"You are to record every vision and mark them with their date, time, and consecutive number. You'll find green and silver ribbons wrapped around the back cover; you're to bookmark every vision depicting this history show you've seen in green and every other potentially useful one in silver." His eyes are still a hateful Sharingan red and his face is covered by his mask, but I get the feeling that he's smiling at me all the same. "Keep it with you at all times, okay? It never leaves your sight."

"Aah… hai, shishō. Asuka will sooner lose her head than her diary."

"Good girl." He ruffles my hair, and I straighten, preening at the affection. Only Danzō-sama ever treats me so kindly. "Though I'd like to work on the kinks I've noticed in your taijutsu, there are still the other ninja arts to look over. How is your Academy Three?"

"Adequate, shishō," I say not with humility but blunt honesty. "Asuka can cast each reflexively and flawlessly, though she can't skip any handseals and she requires a full two-and-a-half seconds. Her Replacement range is fifteen meters and limited by line-of-sight, and her Clones and Transformations are visually nearly perfect but move somewhat strangely."

"Good enough for now, though we'll definitely have to work ninjutsu into our sessions, Replacement especially. Every ninja worth their weight in salt knows it is a vital skill: a required kunai in our pouches, so to speak. I won't consider it mastered until it can be cast seallessly and reflexively, without line of sight and with a range of at least thirty-five meters. You likely won't have the control and raw experience necessary to do that until years after you reach jōnin, however."

I blink in surprise. That kind of raw skill over the Kawarimi no Jutsu… it boggles the mind. Such a thing must be a lifelong undertaking. By the end, jōnin must be so sick of the technique that they want to bleach it from their minds.

"How about the Genin Seven? Have you learned them, yet?"

"Asuka has technical proficiency with them. She can cast them all, it… just might take her a while." Being a laundry list of so-called 'survival ninjutsu,' that's fine. Lighting campfires, drawing water from trees, and determining cardinal directions aren't typically the kind of things that need to be cast quick and dirty in the middle of pitched combat. If I need to cook a rabbit, it won't matter if it takes me three minutes instead of three seconds.

"Good, good," he says genially, then laughs, a dark, wryly amused thing. "What about genjutsu?"

"Kai!"

The world shimmers, shakes, then shatters, realigning into a white hospital room. Touch is first, soft pillows caressing my bruising body and a heavenly blanket beckoning me forth to the Pure World. Scent and taste are next, the echo of a leafy poultice on my tongue and the muted bite of old chemicals in the air. Sight is what shocks me most, Kinako-shishō lounging lazily in an armchair and dressed in the Uchiha Military Police uniform, dark eyes trained on an untitled book and shockingly young face blank of all emotion.

I'm the one to break the sound of silence. "Has Asuka failed, shishō?"

"I'm surprised you broke free of it at all, to be honest." His gaze flickers to me long minutes later, once he finishes the chapter. His book snaps closed with a muffled thump. "But, yes, you failed. Can you tell me how long you were under my illusion?"

"Since…" Pain shocks the chakra network, disrupting genjutsu. With that little tidbit in mind, there's really only one answer. "…You woke Asuka up, the second time. You must have carried her here while she was unconscious."

"Naturally. Strong though your chakra may be, there are limits to what a seven-year-old girl's body can do, and iryōjutsu can only go so far. You'll be on bed rest until dawn, no exceptions." He unseals a manila folder cleverly concealed in the collar of his uchiwa-marked tunic, then tosses it underhand at me. It lands on my lap in just the right way that the topmost loose-leaf page slides free and exposes a candid photo of a young Uchiha girl at a dango stand. "You'll spend this time filling out your vision log and studying up on your future classmates."

I blink, caught halfway through carefully straightening out the folder. "Asuka is going to the Academy?"

"Your bloodline limit was determined too useful to risk losing for the sake of the low-priority infiltration missions you've been taking. It was decided that you instead be given a single secure, long-term, and important mission, one that allows you to stay both in the village while leaving you with a lot of down-time. Taking your age into account, being drafted into the Academy and, later, sorted on a team with two potentially important figures was our best option."

I flip through the stack of sneaky photos and brutal personality reports with surprise. "Has Danzō-sama determined who her future teammates are to be?"

"He has no control over the matter," Kinako-shishō admits without shame. "A folder much like this one makes its way to the Hokage's desk and a list of teams is returned to the Academy, no objections. Most years, Hokage-sama accepts Danzo's council, but, with so many clan heirs in this year's graduating class, he won't be accepting anyone's."

So many…? I look over the stack again, and, yeah, that is a lot. There's Aburame Shibi, Inuzuka Tsume, Hyūga Hiashi, Uchiha Mikoto, Nara Shikaku, Akimichi Chōza, and Senju Nawaki. There's also the Yamanaka Head's second son Yamanaka Inoichi, the Hyūga Head's second son Hyūga Hizashi, and the future Kyūbi jinchūriki Uzumaki Kushina. None of them are even Rookie of the Year; that honor is reserved by one clanless orphan called Namikaze Minato.

The odds of such a thing just… I look over the pages again, and my suspicion is confirmed. Their ages range from seven to ten, yet they're all in the same class. It's not random chance – it's intelligent design. The village leaders wanted all of these trainee ninjas to graduate together, so they are. No exceptions.

"There's only eleven," I say eventually. "How was Hokage-sama intending on making teams of three with eleven genin?"

Shishō snorts inelegantly. "Who knows? There's a few talentless civilians in the mix as well, though I didn't bother writing up reports on them – maybe he intended to make one of them reach for greatness. More likely, he'd apprentice the Uzumaki to Mito-sama and slot the Namikaze brat in an established team that recently lost a member. With you, though? He'll make four teams of three, no doubt about it."

"Won't Asuka be a nameless orphan, though?" I ask, brow furrowed.

"Whoops, forgot," he says lazily, and snaps his fingers. Yet another genjutsu breaks, and yet another piece of paper materializes in the pile. This one's picture is of a small, dark-haired girl with wide, amber eyes. Across the top, in bold?

Shimura Kazehana.

"See, this is what the Hokage and everyone else in this village is going to believe: eight years ago, Danzo and his new, yet-to-be-announced wife conceived a child. Wracked by paranoia that his enemies from the Second War were going to target her, he hid her away in his private compound until she gave birth, not mentioning her existence even to his own clan. In a surprise plot twist, she dies during childbirth and Danzo's paranoia only deepens, until he was so worried about misfortune befalling his young daughter that he erased all records of her existence and confined her to their home. She turned out a little crazy from it all, and she takes after her mother more than her father, but she's his and she's finally old and skilled enough to join the shinobi corps."

"That is the most ridiculous story Asuka has ever heard," I declare, a silly little smile overtaking my face despite my words. "Asuka likes it."

"That's good, because it's going to be your story for the rest of your life. Memorize your file before term starts next week, and when I say memorize I mean memorize. You have to know it back and forth, better than your own history, so deep in your bones that you believe it real over your own memories. Am I understood?" His voice takes on a more serious bent. "Don't fail us, agent Asuka."

"Asuka won't, Kinako-shishō."

"My name is Kagami, and that's what you'll call me above ground. I was your father's teammate, alongside Akimichi Torifu, so we were the only ones let in on the secret of your existence. We're your beloved uncles. I gave you your dream diary for your last birthday to help with your narcolepsy."

"Asuka understands."

"Good girl." His demeanor softens, and he comes over and seats himself down at my bedside. His fingers run through my unbraided hair, soothing against my scalp, and he smiles. "This isn't an order, and you can deny me if you wish, but… why do you refer to yourself like that, Asuka-chan?"

"Because…" The affection in his smile, his actions, his words, I don't think I could refuse him if I tried. "…Asuka isn't a person, she's a tool of Danzō-sama. Tools don't have senses of identity. Tools can't say 'I.' They can have names, but its only so real people can identify them easier."

He stills. "Thank you for talking to me, Asuka-chan. I'll be back later, okay?"

"Thank you for your time, Kinako-shishō."

End of Chapter One

A/N: It's a common conceit in Konoha-centric SIs that the protagonist hides their advanced cognition, lest they be subsumed into Root. This story came about when I had the thought, 'What if that decision came too late?' Incidentally, this happened while I was re-reading Rotted Rowan by Darkpetal16.

Ethylene glycol is part of what makes antifreeze kill you. Colorless, odorless, water-soluble, and tasteless but for a slight sweetness, it'd make a pretty effective poison if it didn't take so long to trigger kidney failure.

The neural plasticity of a baby's brain is amazing, but twenty years of memories is a bit much. Thus, the slow, gradual reveal.

No, the Cursed Seal on every Root agent's tongue hasn't been created yet. Root is startlingly young as organizations go, here, and are somewhat lacking in intelligence, forces, and spies at the moment.

Kinako and Kagami are both variants of mochi traditionally served at New Years.

So many clan heirs being in Naruto's year has always struck me as suspicious. It's a bit more blatant here.

No idea if I'm going to continue this or not. As above, it merely amused me that so many SIs are able to hide their advanced psyches from trained ninja for decades, so I wrote this to dispute that trope. Really, for all that they fight like acrobat wizards they 'are' ninja; when a small child was acting years ahead of her age, Root was all over that shit like white on rice. She didn't stand a chance, nor did she prove particularly resistant to classic Pavlovian methods of persuasion. Did a lot of interesting reading on cults, Stockholm Syndrome, and the like.