more than human

"Do you have a solution to your missing leg yet? Or will you simply stay a burden on our organization" Danzo asked, standing in the practice field he ordered me to meet him in.

"As a matter of fact I found a solution to the problem just last night, I just need a method to apply it to me" I said with a satisfied smile.

"Ah? And what is preventing you from continuing?" he asked, his one visible eyebrow rising slightly in curiosity.

"Well I can't apply it myself, and sadly Sai isn't good enough at fuinjutsu without some more practice, which he simply doesn't have time to do, so I was wondering if you knew anyone who was good at fuinjutsu? They just need to be as good as I am, nothing more" I said.

"There seems to be a certain misunderstanding that I have not effectively cleared up, so allow me to be perfectly clear about your position in Konoha at this moment" - Danzo said, staring at me with his lone, cold eye, as if someone had taken the darkness of a moonless night and frozen it solid just to be his eyes - "there is one singular reason that you are still a shinobi of Konoha and that I have accepted you into my organization even after your many idiotic mistakes. You are in possession of an unheard-of talent for fuinjutsu. You may very well be one of the greatest masters of fuinjutsu in the five great villages" he said.

"Are you seriously saying that I might be one of the strongest shinobi?" I asked doubtfully.

"Your moronic arrogance knows no bounds, does it? It is quite the wonder that only one of your friends died from all the deadly situations your stupidity has gathered" - Danzo said, looking at me as if he was truly curious that so many people had survived my friendship - "what I told you is that you may be one of the best at the most time consuming, situational, and least widespread art, and yet you still twist that into some sort of praise" he said with disgust.

"Oh, uh, right, I guess I really am the tallest dwarf" I said with a self-mocking chuckle.

"Now, before I forget your petty problem, why exactly is it that you cannot create the seal yourself?" he asked, once again completely neutral in his tone.

"Well, the thing is that the seal has to be placed on my sternum and ribs, so I obviously can't do it myself" I said.

"That is a shame, since I do not expect to find anyone other than you capable of carving the seal. So either you can stay a burden, in which case you force me to never let you leave on a mission and instead stay here and create weapons for us, or you can do the surgery on yourself" he said with a cold stare towards me, clearly expecting me to pick one choice over the other.

"But- but the anesthetic will hinder my muscle control! And you must know what can happen when a seal is made improperly, so I can't" I said desperately.

"then you will simply have to carry out the surgery without the anesthetic, won't you?" - he asked coldly, as if disappointed that I would even hesitate - "in fact, I order you to carry out the surgery yourself, without anesthetic, or you will never be useful, and you will always get everyone around you hurt" he said, and I could feel the fear overtaking my mind.

"I- I can't- I just- I can't do it, please, don't make me, I'll do anything, but, I just can't carve a seal into my own bones" I desperately begged, panicking at even the thought.

"of course, of course, I completely understand, it is scary, and if you wish to break your promise and go against my orders then that is completely fine, although I would be more careful with going against orders if I were you, especially after what has happened until now when you are in charge" he said.

"… I- fine, I can at least try" I said.

"Good, now, I want you to start running" he said with a satisfied tone and a twitch of his lips.

"But… I still only have one leg?" I asked.

"I am aware of that, and while that is a hindrance to your physical training it should not stop you from trying, so, run" he said, his face once again a mask of stone.

When he finished speaking, he moved, his hand shot out to wrench my crutches from my grasp, causing me to fall on my back without them.

"The tunnel you used to get here has been closed, as have many others, the closest open one is twenty kilometers from here, if you hurry, you should be able to get there before it closes at dusk, otherwise you will have to crawl back through Konoha and the main entrance" he said coldly, before disappearing in a blur.

I stared at the empty space where Danzo stood moments before. Did he honestly just tell me to run twenty kilometers with one leg and no crutches? That was insane, the man is insane, I can't do that! Well, I could probably do that back when I still had both legs, easily in fact, when I took my stats into account, but now? No way.

I looked around to see if I had any options other than running, or crawling, more accurately, but sadly it was an empty field, so there were very limited options even if I did decide to climb through the trees.

"I suppose I'll just have to run" I said to myself.

But I couldn't run, no matter what I tried I could not run, I could only jump on one leg for so long, and even when I tried to move on all threes I couldn't, the human body was simply not meant for moving on all fours, never mind when you took one out of the equation. It was never a question of balance, but I simply wasn't fast enough. Was this everything I amounted to? Was I simply dead weight after one stupid mistake? Could I even be useful anymore? I lay in the grass, after hours of work, barely a tenth of the way there and already it was almost dark, and I knew I would not make it. I wasn't even winded, my stats made sure of that, but still, I couldn't make it with only one limb to move with… but did I truly only have one limb?

I mean if my constitution let me move for hours upon hours without the slightest strain in unnatural ways, what did my other stats let me do? Why was I still moving as if I was just another human when I had a body ten times more powerful? Shouldn't my dexterity and mental stats keep my balance without even thinking about it. I slowly rose to one leg, keeping perfect balance without even thinking, it was easy, it took no effort at all to stand perfectly still even on only one leg. I took a deep breath, leaned forwards, and flipped into a handstand. It was, once again, completely effortless to stand perfectly on my hands. I slowly started moving, slowly at first, then when there was no challenge at all I moved faster, and faster until my hands moved beneath me at a speed beyond what any normal human could, and I ran on my hands faster than a civilian could on their feet. I started laughing at the fact that I had been stumbling around for weeks on my crutches as if I was completely normal just because I lost a leg when I could have been running. Then my hand hit a rock and I fell, or, I should have fallen, but my instincts took over, and my wisdom stat showed it's worth when my superpowered subconscious moved my body through a spinning flip instead of me falling to the ground. I my conscious mind went blank when I realized that I could do acrobatic maneuvers I had never done before with no conscious thought, and only seconds later I realized that my hands kept me running without the slightest input from me. It slowly dawned on me as I ran that I had been treating my body as if it could simply do what a normal person could but faster, when in fact it was capable of so much more.

A short hour later I arrived at the entrance, only slightly winded and sweaty as I flipped into a perfect landing right before the secret entrance and opened it easily.

"I see you finally came to understand that your body is more than just human" Danzo said.

"Yes, is that what you tried to teach me?" I asked.

"Correct, it is one of the most important things for a great shinobi to understand, many simply act as you did only hours ago, limiting themselves to human movements because that is what they grew used to through years of it being ingrained into their minds. Now, I believe you have some preparations to make" he said coldly.

"For what?" I asked.

"The chunin exam is to take place in a mere two weeks, during that time you will have to devise a weapon more powerful than what you have now, implement the seal you made to compensate for your one leg, and study enough medical knowledge to be comfortable with the procedure" he said.

"And you're sure I can't just make use of my newfound understanding of my own body?" I asked, the fear in my voice audible to even myself.

"Quite. Unless you expect the shinobi villages who want us dead to send civilians to kill you and our clan heirs, because while you can keep up with a genin on your hands, do not expect those who come to infiltrate Konoha to be mere genin" he said.

"I suppose you're right" I said begrugeingly.

"You would due well to remember that, to remember that I am always right, and that as long as you do as I command, you will not cause anymore pain to those you care for" he said, before turning away, and leaving me to the dark hallway.

The next couple of days went with me studying surgery and biology in the Konoha hospital in the mornings and afternoon, before I spent my evening either finetuning the movement seal or working on my new weapon. Day after day went by with nothing out of the ordinary, until one day I was walking through the hospital.

"Anno? Where in the world have you been?" I suddenly heard Sakura say behind me.

I whirled around in surprise, panic rising up in me, I wasn't supposed to talk to any of my friends, why in the world did I have to run into her "oh, hello Sakura, I got, well, a jonin sensei in a sense, he wanted me to catch up and told me not to go talk to you" I said, with a smile, trying to stomp down my irrational panic.

"Really? He told you not to talk to us even after training? That's strange, who is your sensei? I might be able to get Kakashi-sensei to talk to him" Sakura said with a frown.

"I would love to talk, but I really have to become a good surgeon as fast as possible, or it could get a quite painful, so I need to observe, this surgery now, and you probably have things to do too based on your nurse uniform, but tell the others that I'm sorry for what happened, it was completely my fault" I said hurriedly.

"What are you talking about? Whoever that shinobi was shouldn't have been able to get ins-"

"SAKURA, GET OVER HERE, NOW" someone called out, and Sakura ran away with an apologetic glance.

The patient whose surgery I was observing died on the table. I suppose it really does make horrible things happen when I disobey orders, since neither the doctor nor the blank-faced nurse could explain why the woman died.