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"Where were you? Minato and the rest of them already came back like an hour ago!" Tsunade frowned. The last time she had spoken to Katsuro was before the previous meeting, telling her of his fight with Madara, the Shodaime cells, and the Zetsus he had uncovered.
"I heard about Orochimaru, I went to confront him," Katsuro replied, studying Tsunade's face. She immediately looked away, clearly upset by the news. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," she muttered, "I just… didn't think he would do something like this y'know. Those experiments, then fleeing from the village. He told me before, about the fragility of people. Who knows, maybe he'll come back."
"I don't think so," Katsuro sighed, "they're going to capture him immediately if he returns. I handed him a Zestu body so that he could experiment in the future without hurting others, and so that he could heal the arm I cut off."
"You cut off his arm?!" Tsunade said, "to be fair, that's less of a punishment than he should've gotten. To be honest, I thought you might've killed him."
"What do you mean?" Katsuro narrowed his eyes. Tsunade saw Katsuro's confusion and elaborated.
"Dont you know? They found children that Orochimaru experimented on." Tsunade held her breath knowing what her husband's reaction would be.
"He experimented on a child?!" Katsuro was filled with anger, hearing Orochimaru had stooped much lower than he had expected. "Where?"
Tsunade didn't try to hold back, knowing Katsuro would find out himself even if she didn't tell him herself. "Around the opposite side of the village, outside of the barrier."
Without waiting, the Senju Patriarch immediately used Flying Raijin and teleported away.
"I didn't get to tell you the craziest part," Tsunade muttered.
—
Katsuro quickly headed to the outskirts of the back of the village, where he saw an opening the ground, from which multiple Anbu members hurriedly rushed inside and out. With them they carried barely conscious children and adults and shinobi, as well as bodies covered in white sheets on stretchers. He quickly found Sakumo standing by the side of a small looking, large eyed child, who looked younger than Kakashi.
"Sensei, what did they find?" Katsuro got straight to the point, the formalities and catching up would have to wait for later.
Sakumo grimaced. "Multiple brutal experiments conducted on many adults and around 30 children. He was practicing and developing Forbidden Jutsus, we can't tell what the exact goals were, its mostly been abandoned. They found only a few notes and scribbles with anything of importance having been taken away. A number of kids seem to be from the same clan… the Iburi clan?"
"What?!" Katsuro exclaimed, "so many from one clan? How were they unaware??"
The White Fang continued with a grimace, "that's the thing, they seem to have been aware, and even willing to take part in these experiments…"
The vein on Katsuro's forehead popped as his anger overflowed, "The Iburi clan… they have betrayed their flesh and blood, even demons wouldn't do the same…"
The White Fang paused before continuing, and looked around, before lowering his voice. "That's not all though. But from what we can tell, most of the experiments conducted on the children were in attempts to recreate the Wood Style Kekkai Genkai with the use of cells from the First Hokage."
"What?!" Katsuro's eyes widened. So that's what he was using the cells for!
"No one knows where he obtained them from, but regardless it's mortifying, when you see what's down there. A lot of those children are dead, but it seems like he managed to get somewhere…" Sakumo glanced down at the young boy who clutched the side of the White Fang's clothes. "This young boy here, was one of the surviving children of the experiments, and seemed to be the final one experimented on. Obviously, Orochimaru didn't get to find out, but…" Once again Sakumo paused and looked around before continuing. "he's able to use Wood Style."
There was a moment of silence between the two, as they both stared at the boy, who looked back.
"What's your name, kid?" Katsuro patted the boy on the head.
"I… don't know, Lord Senju," Tenzo said quickly. Sakumo grimly nodded at Katsuro who looked at him.
"Do you not remember?" Katsuro asked softly. The boy shook his head.
"Where are your parents?" Katsuro asked softly.
"I don't have any parents. They're both dead. I am an orphan," the boy said hurriedly, as if he didn't want anyone to notice him.
"I see," Katsuro paused. He reminds me…of myself. But this poor kid had the incredible misfortune of being the victim of such cruel experiments. "You can use Wood Style?"
The child paused, and caught himself before answering, as if he had been trained to not give up such precious information so easily.
"Don't worry," Sakumo nodded at him, "Like I said, only a select number of people will be aware of your ability. People like us, who you can trust."
The boy looked at Sakumo, before turning back to Katsuro.
"I'm sorry, I can, but barely, I can only make a few tiny trees grow."
"That's incredible, really, I only could do that last year, and I'm an adult!" Katsuro smiled. The boy's eyes widened and he smiled back. "How old are you?"
"I am 10 years old."
Around 3 years younger than Kakashi… Suddenly, Katsuro had an idea. Lord Tobirama said that anyone who was able to use Wood Style was already a Senju- in that case…
"I know this is a bit rushed, but would you like to live in the Senju compound? If you have no parents, I'm certain we can find someone or a Senju couple to take care of you. They're my people, so I can see to it that you will be treated like family."
His motives stemmed not only from the poor clearly traumatised boy who had suffered much more than anyone of his age should, as well as the actions of certain clans betraying their own. It led to Katsuro's own sense of comradeship and family to come to the forefront.
The young boy's eyes widened. He once again went completely quiet before answering.
"I… Lord Orochimaru said something to us, that the lucky one who succeeded would join the Root, under the wing of Lord Danzo's subordinate."
Katsuro and Sakumo immediately looked at each other, thinking the same thing. Even in prison, Danzo is still able to make moves on the outside…
"Don't worry about that anymore, you won't have to join the Root, you've been through far too much," Sakumo said reassuringly, patting Tenzo's head. "Let's give you a name, for now."
"Yeah, what name do you want?"
"I'm not sure…" Tenzo's eyes went into a haze as he thought of a short brown haired, fair skinned girl with freckles and blue eyes. The two adults were more than happy to wait, not interrupting his rare peace till he finally whispered. "Tenzo…"
Katsuro and Sakumo both smiled, as they went through the process of settling Tenzo in. It would be a long process and making him open up would take time, but for the boy who was now one of his own in more ways than one, it would be worth it.
But on the contrary to the hopeful atmosphere, thoughts kept disturbing Katsuro. Orochimaru stooped lower than I could've imagined, even if he got 'permission'. But how, how was he able to do all this by himself? How did he get the equipment, people and money all while hidden. Even for him, that is difficult… More people are involved, but as soon as Orochimaru was exposed they hid, abandoned him like cutting off a dead limb, almost like they were prepared to do so. Katsuro's face became stern, it seems some of the rot in the village has managed to survive.
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