The trio of Kakashi's group left the Hokage office after that, moving to go to the I.T department.
As they walked towards it, both Kakashi and Naruto had lost expressions on their faces, they looked at Haruto occasionally but seeing his cold and unfeeling expression they quickly looked away.
Kakashi was dragging his footsteps, deep in thought, trying to think of a way to help Haruto escape from the cursed tongue eradication seal, but he failed.
None of the root operatives he'd tried to interrogate over the years had ever survived after being captured. He hadn't heard of any exceptions to the seal before, not in his own life, or from his friends and colleagues.
Even he hadn't been blessed with the cursed tongue eradication seal when he'd joined the ROOT, Danzo had simply exploited the darkness in his heart and his hatred for the Third Hokge for letting the Fourth Die.
It looked like Haruto's life was done… he was going to become an unwilling slave to an indomitable master.
Kakashi then looked at Naruto.
The boy was too young for all this.
What had happened to him today would've made grown men break down and cry themselves to the point of death or god forbid madness.
Yet Naruto only seemed angry, there was hatred burning in his eyes for sure, but he hadn't broken down, at least not completely.
Still, there was hope… if they could somehow find a way to take down Danzo himself, the seal on Haruto would become meaningless and his life could be saved.
Could he rally the other clans of the village to send top tier shinobi to ambush Danzo when he went on a mission outside the village?
The Fire Daimyo was bound to call the new Hokage in a month or so, that would be their chance. Danzo would be too far from the village to get support from his ROOT combatants and he would be too isolated to send out any signals to alert them.
If they could take him out then, they could become free.
They could end this cursed regime.
Kakashi steeled his eyes and looked in Haruto's direction once again, he averted his gaze quickly before it settled onto Naruto.
'I won't let them suffer like I did.'
'I will save them.'
And so with a firm resolve, Kakashi finally picked up pace, dragging the two kids with him to Konoha's slaughter house.
As they reached the I.T department, Kakashi looked at Naruto once again and sighed before telling Naruto something simple, "Keep yourself in control once we go inside."
"Huh?" Naruto blanked out, confused about the sudden warning but then he smelled it. The smell of blood.
His pupils dilated as he followed Kakashi blankly into the floor that Haruto had already worked on before in his career.
As they walked past the torture cells, Naruto nearly vomited on the spot as his stomach churned with the food he'd eaten in the morning.
He felt bile rising up his throat and barely managed to control himself when he saw Kakashi walking down the corridor without any fear.
However, Naruto noticed that along with several adult shinobi there were kids around Haruto's age following them around. They weren't in any better condition than him, in fact several vomit puddles lay mixed with blood and unidentifiable bits and pieces.
Every shinobi seemed to be teaching the younger generation.
'Is this the life of a shinobi?' Naruto questioned himself as he looked at a particularly nasty cell where a man, still alive, was hanging from chains but the lower half of his body was missing.
'Is this even fair?'
'Is life so cheap that anyone can control it and toss it aside whenever they want?'
They eventually reached the cell Kakashi was assigned to and entered it quietly. In it was a prisoner kneeling, tied to supports with his chakra suppressed.
Kakashi pulled out a kunai from his tools pouch and walked up to the prisoner tied onto the torture plank.
"Watch closely, what I'm about to shove my kunai into is the Sciatic Nerve cluster, this will cause him immense pain in the legs and in extreme cases shut down the body's breathing mechanism."
Naruto gulped.
But he wasn't given further time to process what was about to happen. Like a sharp rip of a bandaid, Kakashi stabbed the kunai into the prisoner's lower back.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The man's screams resounded not only through the hallways but also through Naruto's mind. The bile that had been suppressed till now splurged forth before spilling out of Naruto's mouth and falling onto the wet bloody floor.
The screams died shortly after as the prisoner seemed to adjust to the pain, so Naruto glanced at Haruto, but he found him to still be looking stoically at the scene, watching keenly as if ready to pull out a notebook and note down all the prisoner's reactions.
Seeing the prisoner fall silent, Kakashi twisted the kunai deeper, causing another round of immense pain and suffering along with a few more tortured screams ringing all around.
"Next is the Femoral nerve." Kakashi announced pulling out another kunai before stabbing it into the man's leg, causing him to scream once again.
Naruto's pupils trembled in shock.
The kind Kakashi he'd seen at his house earlier that day seemed like a lie. Was Kakashi going to hurt him like this too?
Naruto didn't have an answer to that question.
All he knew at this moment was that the Third Hokage had lied to him about what it meant to be a shinobi of the leaf village.
His dreams, his aspirations and all his ambitions suddenly seemed to fall apart.
'Is the Hokage just the cruelest of them all?'
"STOP IT!!!! STOP ITT!!! I'LL TELL YOU WHATEVER YOU WANT TO KNOW!!!!" The prisoner suddenly shouted, breaking Naruto out of his machinations.
Kakashi nodded and wiped his hands on some rags hanging from the walls before asking the prisoner a simple question, "Did you kill your teammate and sell his head off for the bounty?"
"Yes! Yes! I did! I did it!! Now stop torturing me! Please! I beg you!"
Kakashi nodded, he pulled out another kunai and watched as it gleamed in the night before asking the prisoner another question, "Who helped you hide your deeds? The total bounty for your teammate was two million, but we only recovered one million from your house, where did the other million go?"
Naruto's eyes widened.
His opinion of shinobi that was already at rock bottom suddenly fell even lower.
The shinobi suddenly fell silent, refusing to speak once again.
Kakashi just sighed and began tutoring the spectators once again.
"Next is the Brachial Plexus. It's in between the neck and the shoulder. Watch carefully, getting the most pain out of this is slightly tricky without killing him outright."
"No!!! Please noo!!! He said he'll kill my family if I tell you about him!!!" The prisoner pleaded heartfully, but Kakashi didn't stop, he looked to Naruto like an emotionless machine, exactly like or even worse than Haruto did at this moment.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGHGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
After a few more stabs the man was finally ready to speak again.
"It was… Orochimaru… his subordinates helped me smuggle the money into Konoha… they told me if I didn't take the blame… they'd kill my wife and my little girl… please… you've got to kill him before he kills them all!"
Kakashi however was unconcerned by the dying man's rambles.
He slowly turned to Naruto and spoke calmly.
"Naruto, come here… now it's your turn to finish him off."
***
You can now read 10 advanced chapters on my patreon for just $3!!! Thank you for your support everyone! pa treon.com/hooin_kyoma_au