Nekko

As the memories of the soul poured into his mind, he saw and experienced everything about the cat masked nin who once went by the name of Nekko.

Born and raised in the Hidden Leaf Orphanage for the first five years, Nekko had an official name which even he seem to have forgotten over the years. Before depression caught him at such a young age, he felt blessed that he found a friend that he could be happy with.

Whilst this friend of his was also an orphan, they didn't let themselves drown in their misfortune, as they spent every living second enjoying the life they had. When playing ninja tag, Nekko had insane agility and flexibility like a cat. Hence he was nicknamed so by his friend, who responded to the name Rei.

Nekko still remembered him winning most of the times because of his flexibility and Rei just coming at him like a bull. While the times he lost was because of Rei pulling clever tricks up at the last minute of the game.

This period of happiness didn't last as fate seemed to be angry that Nekko got to experience happiness in his miserable life.

He was scouted into the Root. His training started at the age of 5 and lasted till he was 10. During this period, instead of training him to be a strong nin, he was forged into a master assassin.

He was able to cope up with the five years of torture of both the body and mind, only for one reason. As Rei was also there alongside him. Hearing the thoughts of his friend that was filled with hope and promise of a better life, Nekko was able to sleep peacefully.

But everything changed when his training was over!

He was forced into a death-match against his one and only friend. His one and only family!

Unlike him Rei wasn't specifically trained in assassination and hence had advantage against him in close combat.

When given the choice that either one of them dies, or both within the timeframe of the battle, Nekko thought that his friend would be like him and choose to die, instead of taking the other's life.

But Rei fought him for real, and his instincts developed from training made him passively defend.

Seeing that Rei was frustrated by his giving up attitude, Nekko decided to end this farce as he made himself open to an attack.

Rayzen could hear Nekko's thoughts at the time:

' Thank you my friend, for showing me your world of endless possibilities that you made me a part of. Let me give my life as the price for it.'

As he gazed into his friend's eye with a happy smile, he expected to face death with a smile. To provoke his sad fate, that was all he could do! A smile!

As he saw the eyes of his friend that no longer had any hesitation and felt the hard punch on his chest, he thought that was it.

Contrary to his expectations, however, he didn't die. Rei had stabbed himself in the chest with a senbon.

He coughed out blood as he said to him in a tired voice: " The senbon hasn't reached my heart! But if you pull it out, I'll die slowly due to blood loss, and if you push it a bit, I'll die in moments. The choice is yours friend! Live for the both of us, 'stupid cat' ! "

Seeing his friend smiling at him while holding back the pain, he felt his heart shatter by the second. He wanted to cry, but he was unable to. His face turned serious as he said : " I'll follow you, soon! "

Pushing the senbon into his friend's heart, he ended his life, as he sat down with his friend in his lap.

" Live... " That was the last words of his friend.

He heard the footsteps of someone walking into the battle room and saw that it was the ' Lord Danzo ' , the leader of Root, the organisation that took him and Rei in.

He knew he couldn't destroy this organisation and it's leader, with just his anger and strength. But he thought of the next best thing he could do...

He closed his friend's eye that had the image of hope burnt into it and pulled out the senbon lodged into his friend's heart.

He then pointed the senbon into his chest and looked at Danzo as he prepared himself for ending his life. To mock the very purpose of this battle, this was all he could think of!

But Danzo was observing him with interest to see what he chooses. And as he was about to stab, the last word of his friend resounded in his ears : " Live... "

His hands started shaking as he lost hold of the senbon and the tears that were held back for so long, had broken the barrier.

Although he ignored Danzo's presence, he still heard his muttering :

" Although you have some potential, still you are just a failed product! *sigh* Tools shouldn't have emotions and you are still far from being useful! I need to restructure the training and Root induction again... "

...

As the years went by, he learnt that he was a failure of Root and was hence assigned to a team of failures. They were the ones to be sacrificed first in an organisation of expendables.

From what Nekko had seen, he knew what Danzo said was the truth, he had seen a lot of his predecessors and successors who were the perfect tools of Root. He realised the usefulness and threat of such tools were much more than he could imagine.

After his induction, he saw that the number of failures had reduced over the years. Although he was not entirely brainwashed by Danzo, he still chose to believe he was doing bad things for the good of the village. Like his friend used to say to him about his dreams of protecting the village once in a while.

Even the assassination missions he chose, he specifically chose those that he thought would help the village better. Although he was forced at times to be not picky, he still worked with what he got.

The times he went undercover, he would enjoy the cuisines of the places he visited, burn the images of all the beautiful places into his mind, to show all this to his friend one day.

As much as he would like to stay positive, the dark missions he did had rubbed off on him. Without the sound of hope by his ears, he was turning into a shell of a human. Losing whatever was left of his morality and emotions.

Still he preserved as best as he could, waiting for something he had long forgotten.

It was on his last mission that he rediscovered what he was waiting for. The mission to provoke and kill Uchiha Rayzen. On studying about Rayzen, he understood that the kid was close to the age when he killed his friend. And from whatever little clues he gathered, he knew that the mission was really about the kid being forced to kill him and his teammate, another failed product of Root.

He wasn't shocked by that, as he knew tools were expendable and nothing needs to be said of a failure of a tool.

His teammate although had much better combat power than him, in the end was still a failed tool!

Under his extreme investigation which he felt might have alerted Danzo, although it seemed as if he didn't care, Nekko discovered that Danzo viewed Rayzen highly. Both as a big threat to him and Root, as well as, the perfect tool for his use!