"Ok, so I hold the needles like this… aim for the trachea… release with fingers extended."
In his dimly lit apartment, Haruto followed the directions in the manual before him as he practiced using senbon to attack the fake human skeleton before him. The old man had given him a very strange look when he had asked for a cadaver or a skeleton. But, really, how else was he supposed to learn about human anatomy?
Admittedly, it was one of his most hated topics of study as there were so many scrolls to read and terms to remember. Haruto didn't understand why he needed to learn the different positions of signature chakra points on the dorsal and ventral sides of the body or the opposing direction of blood flow in veins versus arteries.
Sometimes he wished he had not made that promise to be the best in ANBU before becoming Hokage. Apparently, many of the best ANBU members ended up as hunter-nin, which required them to know detailed information about human anatomy. Needless to say, this stuff was hard on the mind. Haruto might have given up had he not made a fortuitous discovery. While searching through the ninja archives one night, he chanced upon a bundled pile of dusty old scrolls. They contained the collected writings, or rather scribbles, of a kunoichi named Tsunade.
As far as Haruto was concerned, the writer was a genius, though an almost illegible one in his opinion. Her writings contained insights not found elsewhere and helped him make immense progress in understanding the minute details of the body. Tsunade apparently possessed a creative mind and plenty of practical experience. Sure, he still didn't know what half of the terminology meant, but he recognized that the training techniques and combat tactics she talked about could be extremely useful. She was also very powerful if her writings were even fractionally truthful, which made him wonder why her stuff was left where no one could find it.
As Haruto completed another milestone in his training, he wished he could thank his ghost tutor for all the help her writings gave him. Then he saw the date on the scroll and frowned, Too bad she'll be an old hag by now.
A knock on his door pulled Haruto out of his thoughts. The young boy tensed. He had lived by himself long enough to know that nice people rarely visited him. Cautiously opening the door to an empty hallway, he was greeted by a piece of paper left on the ground informing him that the old man wanted to see him.
Haruto smiled for a brief moment before realizing that the Hokage probably wanted to question him about the horrific incident last week. He frowned at the thought. It was a meeting that the young boy was definitely not looking forward to. Barring the worst of his nightmares, this was perhaps his most traumatic experience. It was also the reason why he remained indoors all week.
Haruto shook his head to clear the images as he tossed on his "stylish" tiger suit. I might as well get it over with, he thought.
"Old man, what is it?"
"Haruto, how are you? I haven't seen you all week! What's this I hear about you not pulling any pranks? The entire village is on edge."
The blond child chuckled. "Let them stew on it. I'll have something cooked up in a couple of days."
The Hokage smiled mildly. He had no doubt about that. "You haven't answered my first question. How are you?"
It was only recently that the Hokage had recognized how devious and slippery the little bundle of excitement could be. He realized it was almost impossible to get the boy to talk about things he did not want to talk about. If it were not for how precocious the youth was, Sarutobi would swear the youngster had a silver tongue that even the savviest politician would envy.
"I'm ok, I guess. I just… I just don't understand why he did it! He was my hero, and he killed his own family! Why?"
The Hokage had no answer to that pointed question. It troubled the old man how rarely he had answers for his young friend these days, but what was he supposed to say? What excuse could there be for Itachi's actions? In the end, Sarutobi settled for redirecting the youth's attention away from his former hero.
"Haruto, listen to me. I'm sorry you had to see that, but had you not led your pursuers to the Uchiha compound, the entire clan most likely would have been wiped out. You helped save a lot of people, Haruto."
Haruto and a task force of jounin and ANBU had stumbled into the Uchiha complex just in time to see Itachi kill his own father. Driving the ex-ANBU captain off had been a brutal affair, one that left half a dozen of Konoha's elite shinobi in the hospital's intensive care ward. As usual, the bashful blond scratched the back of his head and executed a choreographed "aw, shucks" routine.
"Haruto, why did you go there? Do you know how angry the Uchiha clan was with you?"
"Angry" would be a gross understatement. The Uchiha clan had been the target of over half of Haruto's pranks in recent times. Not only that, the clan was predisposed to despise the demon container, far more so than the average citizens of Konoha. The reason why the Hokage sometimes assigned precious ANBU bodyguards for Haruto, as opposed to chuunin guards, was to ward off a potential Uchiha attack. It was a tragic, though understandable result. After all, the Uchiha clan had suffered more heavily and grievously from the Kyuubi's attack than any other clan in Konoha.
"What if they had caught you?"
"They wouldn't have," Haruto responded firmly. "Besides, your ANBU guards were right behind me, so the Uchiha couldn't have done anything."
Sarutobi blinked. He had been hesitant to reveal just how dangerous it was for the young child to fool around with a clan that wanted him dead. Could it be that he was aware of his predicament? And if he knew about that, what else did he know?
"I just wanted to teach them a lesson. I always said that they had the worst security system and they still do. They don't even have a sentry at the main gate half the time. I can get in and out without a problem. All the other clans stepped up their security after I spray painted their walls a couple of times." Haruto grinned, his blue eyes sparkling with mischief.
Sarutobi shook his head even as he fought off a memory of a similar smile. Only Haruto would even dream of teaching one of the noble clans "a lesson."
"Very well, Haruto. Please be careful. And do get out and visit this old man from time to time. I believe you haven't left your room all week," the Hokage suggested with a wink.
Haruto nodded before running off with all the enthusiasm of a normal kid.