Perspective is relative, don't you think ?

*At the Hokage's office*

"I'm telling you ! There is no way one child could gather so much information in such a short time ! They must have spies !" Screams one old man.

"But the report from Inu and Weasel showed that Fuji the Jade had contact with the Jinchuriki and recognized his resemblance to his father ! Add to it his sensing ability and it explains everything ! Don't be daft, Homura !"

"It can't just be a coincidence that he just found him Koharu ! And it doesn't explain their knowledge of an Uchiha's involvement in the Ninetails attack ! We must locate their spies at once !"

"They didn't you old fart ! They surmised it from the Uchiha's situation, we have to put a third party bounty on Fuji the Jade and update his file at once."

"Calm down, Kohara, Homura, we must consider all possibilities. Finish your update on Fuji's file while investigating our oprations for any spies. We must be discreet, we can't have another Great Village knowing our business. What is important now is to figure out how to explain this to both the Council and the Daimyo."

After much grumbling, the advisors finally went back to work. With none of them noticing the glint on Danzo's eye.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Chakra is truly a mystical energy, it can allow people to shape the world around them, shift the perception of their enemies, and even heal grevious wounds. But one thing that somehow just drives that point home is seeing an antique old man jump from tree to tree faster than Usain Bolt can run.

Ebizo -even in his old age- seems to be still spry enough to catch up with the group as they're gunning it outside the Land of Fire like their life depends on it, because it seems it does.

Evidently, even though they may have outrun any possible pursuers from the back, it didn't stop whoever put an order for their head to send a message to outside operatives. Fuji signals the enemies' presence as soon as he sensed them, which was almost too late as they were particularly skilled at hiding their presence.

"Be careful ! They have a seal on their tongue so they must be Danzo's stooges !" He shouts.

As soon as he says so, three black cloaked shinobi with Root's uncharacteristic masks burst out of the surrounding treetops towards them, with one targeting Ebizo probably due to his importance, and the others go for Fuji, either due to him being a sensor, or that Danzo designed as a priority target, or both.

The first one takes out a suspiciously wet kunai and tries to stab Ebizo, only to be stopped by a wind-blade wielded by Baki, which the ninja dodges as soon as he senses danger. Meanwhile, the remaining two try to cut Fuji up, each of them using their similarly soaked tantos to cut him up in different diagonal directions.

"Careful, these are just bait ! I barely sense another 3 hiding in different directions ! One up front, and two on our left and right !" Shouts Fuji while a solid blue shield materializes in front of him, completely blocking both tantos.

Baki, who is still engaging with the other ROOT ninja, responds.

"These guys are good ! And their blades are poisoned, not one of ours though !"

Pakura, instead of locating the exact location of the others, simply makes a comically big heat orb, sending it to the front. The general direction simply evaporates seconds after another ROOT jumps out of the general impact zone, the orb -still intact and moving towards the other two ninja's locations- acts as a brutally direct way to make them abandon their hiding position.

While all this was happening, the solid blue shield suddenly opens up two holes in front of the two masked shinobi, Fuji then thrusts two chaotic chakra swords right into their heads. But instead of the usual spurt of blood and brain matter, they just erupt in a deafening explosion, incapacitating a couple other escorts attempting to backstab them.

"Tsk, no wonder their chakras felt similar, I just thought they were brothers or something." Says Fuji, covered in dust and completely unscathed, after closing the holes second before the shockwave could pass through the holes.

"I really want to learn that jutsu." He continues as he charges with a fast jump towards the ROOT who had a similar signature to the shadow clones as he attempts to sneak on Ebizo's back mid-chaos, the other three being occupied by either Pakura, Baki, or almost slaughtering the other escort ninjas.

The ninja throws his Tanto at Ebizo's neck as soon as he notices Fuji, which just as it's about to connect, gets blocked by another solid blue shield. Anticipating the outcome, he continues with a very fast-paced series of handseals, and just when an earth spike start to form beneath his feet, he finishes his just.

[Suiton : Raging River Jutsu !]

Before getting impaled by an earth spike, a huge torrent of water bursts out of the ground under his feet, destroying the earth spike and heading straight for an occupied Ebizo. Realizing the inability of the small shield to stop the flowing water, the blue shield floating behind Ebizo's enlarges and morphs into a comically large rapidly rotating drill that slowly turns green.

and as Fuji engages the cloaked ninja with a frightfully sharp chakra sword, the drill simply starts digging along the ground in a different direction, diverting the dangerous torrent of water straight towards Ebizo and co's unrestricted opponent.

As the ninja realizes the futility of dodging a homing drill that comes with its own complimentary water jutsu, he distances himself at a respectable distance -allowing the originally dangerous torrent of water to mellow out- before making a set of handseals on his left hand, and another on the right one.

[Katon: Great Fireball Jutsu !][Fuuton : Cutting Whirlwind]

In a great demonstration of chakra control, the shinobi joins his hands in a final seal in front of his mouth. Taking a deep breath, he lets out a wind blazing whirlwind out in a single exhale, which creates a great steaming explosion in contact with both the drill and the water.

While this was taking place, Pakura just managed to kick her opponent back while he jumps over a heat orb, giving her enough space to momentarily observe the situation, and alleviate their predicament. Noticing that the ROOT closest to Ebizo is busy engaging Baki, she sends two of her remaining heat orbs towards his back, but wasn't able to follow up due to her opponent re-engaging her.

As Baki notices the heat orbs with his eyes, the enemy shinobi senses something wrong, which prompts him to jump sideways, enough for him to dodge the heat orbs, but not enough for evading the shockwave created by its explosion sending him flying a considerable distance.

Even though Baki's enemy was temporarily incapacitated, the Councilman realizes that it is not enough to finish him off. So he turns around just in time to see the previous flaming wind jutsu and the green drill colliding. Sensing an opportunity, Baki takes advantage of the camouflage to throw his circular, invisible air blade straight towards the unsuspecting ROOT's neck, with a form that could make Greg Maddux jealous,

The wind blade splits the steam into half, going straight through the masked man's neck. The steam dissipates at the sight of his head sliding off his body, a stream of blood flowing out of it.

Even with one of their teammates dead, the ROOT shinobi don't show any emotional reaction, only logical ones. At 4 people they were able to occupy the 3 powerhouses until the last one was able to deal with the rest.

With one dead however, and with none of them being strong enough to win a 1 vs 1 fight against any of the three, their only available method for success would be to try to suddenly gang up on one of them fast enough to at least incapacitate him/her without getting any casualties, giving them their number advantage back.

And their target was also the one they were ordered to be of second priority to kill after Ebizo, Fuji. Fuji promptly realizes this as his opponent switches from a defensive approach to a very aggressive one. It is strange considering his abundant chakra capacity -which was showcased in both his usage of the Kage Bunshin and chakra intensive jutsus- makes him the clear Ninjutsu specialist of the team.

And while his Taijutsu is up to snuff, it is also not that exceptional. So this abrupt change of pace along with both the rapidly approaching chakra signature and the foreign chakra attempting to access his system, basically told Fuji everything he needed.

Noticing that he had roughly three fifths of his chakra left, and that the next moments are the most crucial to this battle. Fuji decides to go all out instead of his usual chakra stingy (at least for him) approach.

While Fuji's allies are momentarily unable to assist him, his opponent backs up while going through a large amount of handseals in a terrifying speed, showcasing his familiarity with the jutsu. Meanwhile, the arriving masked ninja goes for a really overdrawn kick straight towards Fuji jugular, so even though it probably carries a lot of force, is quite slow.

Fuji however, fails to dodge as he notices that he is completely immobilized, and as he glances down, he finds that his shadow is connected to the unaccounted for enemy.

'Fuck ! The genjutsu was just a distraction' He thinks.

Fortunately, Fuji doesn't need to actually move to be useful. Unfortunately for the ROOT shinobi, they thought otherwise. They quickly regret making that assumption when a chakra spike originating from his neck goes through his opponents leg, the chakra spike rotates while elongating, cutting the ROOT ANBU into two parts.

At the same time, their ninjutsu specialist just finished his hand seals.

[Katon: Fire Dragon Bullet Jutsu]

The jutsu being a big fire dragon exhaled through the mouth, twice as hot as an oversized Great Fireball and equally faster, it rapidly coils towards Fuji without affecting the connecting shadow.

With extreme effort, Fuji barely manages to move his left hand, allowing it to point up in sight of the Nara ROOT.

As the immobile shadow manipulating ninja notices the signal and looks up, the last thing he sees is the blinding light of a lightning spear piercing the clouds.

The death of the Nara was right on time, as Fuji -not being as proficient in Lightning chakra manipulation as Earth and Wind- lost too much chakra to be able to create a barrier/shield strong enough to block the fire dragon heading towards him. So he only had enough time to barely dodge the enemy jutsu.

But while his chakra isn't enough to make something strong enough to stop an overcharged A-Rank Fire Jutsu, it is enough to create a blue transparent dome around the ninjutsu specialist that only breaks after delaying him amply for Baki to stab him in the ear canal with a wind blade.

Pakura shunsins next to him.

"Hey, are you okay ?"

"Yeah, I'm low on chakra, otherwise I'm unscathed. What about Ebizo-sama ?' He replies.

"Just tired, but he's fine."

"Thank god." Fuji lets out a relieved sigh.

Meanwhile, Baki addresses one of the masked Suna-nin.

"Report, what's the situation ?"

"Hai, Baki-sama ! We have 2 casualties and a couple injured, otherwise we're in condition to continue our travels." He replies.

"Good, tend to the wounded and put the dead in body seals, their families deserve to have some closure."

"Hai !"

They finish their return uncumburdened after a short break.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*After a couple of days, Sunakagure*

Rasa finishes reading the mission report next to a sitting Ebizo. Fuji, Pakura, and Baki standing at attentiong in front of his desk.

He drops the papers in front of him, adorning a very slight smile on his face.

"Spectacular job out there, not only were the results of the negotiation useful, we also managed to aquire sensitive information about Konoha. For all your contributions this mission will be registered as S-Rank along with the corresponding reward for all of you. Get some rest, you deserve it, especially Young Fuji. Dissmissed !"

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Meanwhile, in an underground facility under Konohagakure.*

"Danzo-sama, we managed to secure Team 3's bodies. They failed their mission." A kneeling ROOT ninja says to a bandaged old man.

*Slam!*

Danzo slams his cane on the ground out of anger, which the ROOT agent found highly disconcerting, Danzo-sama is always unfaillible, or is he ?

'Damn it ! I managed to keep ROOT completely secret from all of the other Great Villages for so many years ! This changes everything !" He thinks.

"Leave me."

The ROOT ninja disappears into the darkness.

'I underestimated the other villages too much, especially Sunagakure. More work has to be done, and more contingencies need to be put in place. I can't allow this to set us back too much.' He thought.

As Danzo ruminates in the darkness, he manages to gather himself back up. He couldn't help but reminisce as he looked up towards the light leaking through the cracks.

'You are the leaves, basking in the light. I am the root, growing in the darkness. And the roots must grow, now more than ever.'

'For Konoha' He takes a step. *Clap*

'For The Will of Fire' He takes another. *Clap*

'For Sensei' *Clap*

'For ME'

His steps echoes as he disappears in the darkness beneath the leaves.

He will prove his sensei wrong, thought Danzo.

He would prove them ALL wrong.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*At a luxurious japanese house*

The sound of chopsticks resound in the room, as a family of four eat in complete silence.

But somehow, instead of it having a gloomy or awkward atmosphere. The members of the family seem quite content with it.

As the father of the household puts his chopsticks aside, he asks his bigger son a question.

"Itachi, why is your sharingan on ?"

"Well..."

The following conversation turned the strange, content silence into what it is meant to be. One full of flabbergasted faces looking at the eldest child in chock.

All but one, that is.

"Niisan ! Can we get dango next please ?" Says the youngest.

Sasuke Uchiha thought his family to be quite strange at that moment as after a slight pause, they all turned towards him in unison.

'Why are kaa-san and otou-san copying Itachi-niisan ?' He thought.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*After an unknown amount of time*

In a sandy (obviously), remote training ground. A random Suna chunin stands far away from the carnage as he watches a green haired 18 year old decimate the place.

The sound of flowing sand into craters, the rolling rocks as they slide from boulders, and the constant ringing from explosions doesn't stop even as the tall Jounin stops training.

The chunin gets flabbergasted for a second as he recovers from seeing the crazy amount of chakra being used in destroying the whole space.

"Yes ?" Says a handsome, grown up Fuji right after appearing in front of chunin in a pure display of speed.

"O-oh, sorry. Kazekage-sama has a mission for you, he says it's important." Replies the chunin, still somewhat dazed.

"Ah, thank you." Answers Fuji before walking back towards the village in the horizon.

The chunin just looking at his back in awe.