Saito turned 10 not long before the end of Team 11's journey from Konohagakure to Kurosawa. The event occurred with little fanfare, as the child didn't really mention it to anyone else on his team... his birthday never seemed very important, merely a way to track a year's length of time. He spent that day like he spent most others during the travel, preparing breakfast and reading a book somewhere in there, perhaps practicing his jutsu or training some other way, while waiting for the rest of his team to wake up. Such was his life until one of the early days after he reached Kurosawa, the morning of which would forever alter the child's future.Before the sun rose, the boy's eyes flew open and he pushed his body upright with a loud gasp. In the privacy of his own room in the luxury suite he and Tatsuo had negotiated for Team 11, Saito found himself awakened by... something. Something important, it seemed, happened around him in the moments before he awoke, sleep keeping him in its grasp for a touch too long. The 10-year old genin sat up silently, his keen senses attuned to the silence of the room. The darkness of the room giving him no real information, the boy activated his sensory giftings, feeling for any irregularities rather than relying on his dominant five senses. Another few moments of silence only confirmed the room's solo occupancy, after which the cloud kid uneasily laid himself back down to sleep.
Later that same morning, the child woke later than normal. He had a headache, and felt somewhat nauseous. Saito briefly wondered if he'd eaten anything questionable last night as he proceeded to see what questionable things he could eat for breakfast that morning. He frowned at the thought... he really should wait for Tatsuo and the rest of the crew before ordering from room service, and Tatsuo said none of them could go out alone... the child sighed. He'd have to wait to eat, one of the boy's least favorite realizations. He decided that he would shower and get dressed, maybe start training a little. He and Tatsuo had plans to train that morning anyway.
Preparing for the shower, Saito removed his pajama top, exposing his upper body to light and air for the first time that day. About to remove his bottoms as well, he caught something in the mirror that made him completely forget to shower that day... an eerie-looking tattoo on the left side of his torso, up and down his ribs, that he was sure hadn't been there yesterday or any day before that. There it was, in black ink and in a text that, maybe, should have looked foreign, and maybe would have looked foreign to most anyone but Saito. The 10 year old genin's shock at seeing the tattoo on his ribs, as complete as it was, gave way to an even greater shock: upon closer investigation, the child found that he had seen this writing before, this exact writing before. Panic slowly drained away as intrigue took over. Shirtless, the young cloudie ran out of the bathroom and scurried over to his backpack, in which resided a particular book.The last time Saito had taken a serious look at this book was early on the road between Konoha and Kurosawa. Its title had a script that fascinated the cloud kid, even though he couldn't read it... and the writing inside each book's pages seemed woefully smudged, as if intentionally done. It has to be a secret code or something... I'm gonna crack it! Saito thought when he signed the book out from the Konoha library. No progress had been made on this impulsively defined endeavor... until now. Pulling the book out of his pack, the child's mouth dropped open in amazement when he saw the title of the book to be the exact same as the tattoo. And now Saito understood that the book contained some sort of ritual. A ritual of... the Samsara.
Aside from his own father, and whomever else knew his family name through interaction, Saito had never seen the word Samsara written or mentioned anywhere before. Not that the child particularly needed a greater sense of familial importance than what his parents gave him before leaving him at the orphanage, but the common desire for children to understand anything related to their family or where the family came from seemed to have reached an answer before the 10 year old even thought to seriously pursue the question. To have a book bearing a ritual of his family's name, possibly of his family's origin... Saito could not have resisted reading the book if he'd tried, the genjutsu compulsion ensured that -- not that the boy needed to be seriously compulsed. Opening the cover, the child could all of a sudden read the smudged and strange writing. It was as though he had always known how to read this text. The book called out to him, urged him to delve deeper into its mysteries.
"Young Samsara, rejoice. The blood, sweat, tears, and agony of generations before you brings you to read these pages. Your tattoo draws you to this book, as surely as this book drew itself closer to you. These pages coming to your hands is the result of powerful jutsu. Pursue the ritual found within these pages without further delay. The time to meet is not merely now, but has been for perhaps ages."
Of course Saito read further. And working through the book, he realized that it contained a ritual that conferred some sort of blessing. A blessing that somehow involved all of the Samsara heritage. The child could not believe that he possessed this book... except the book itself explained the method by which it sought its Samsara owner. Saito read words that, in the few morning hours before everyone else woke, caused a great deal of his world view to shift. Everything he had done to strengthen himself up until this point, he knew only set him up for this moment. Already he could feel himself changing, his strengths and weaknesses diminishing in some ways and augmenting in others. He knew he had to incant the ritual, the need to incant it consumed him in an unfamiliar and powerful compulsion... "What... jutsu..." the child muttered, even his usually sharp ability to perceive genjutsu from reality failing to distinguish the difference between his own thoughts and any sort of outside influence. In fact, some of the child's sharpness of perception began to dull, diminished by the power of the book, muddling his ability to understand reality. Of course the tome itself said that it would compulse a Samsara to incant the ritual, though that didn't make it easier to understand how it happened. Saito HAD to enact the ritual, he absolutely knew he would die if he didn't. He opened the book and, memorizing the handsigns, he started performing the long, complicated chain, softly muttering the multiple strings of chantings that would complete the casting. It was odd... he had a choice, and yet the only choice was to do what the book told him to do.Sounds from his teammates stirring slowly filtered into Saito's consciousness. They would expect him to be active soon -- Tatsuo would expect him to be ready to train soon, actually. None of that mattered, none of it could matter... they couldn't be allowed to interrupt the ritual. Part of his brain raced, deciding what to do if he somehow ran out of time or faced an interruption. Good thing he'd kept his bedroom door closed, it would hopefully afford him a few precious moments to think.
[MFT]
Unaware of any of the shadow events going on around him, Saito upped his speed at getting through the ritual, handsigns flying and voice chanting in some ancient tongue intelligible to any but the Samsara. He had hoped having the door closed would deter Tatsuo somewhat, but such barriers did not exist between them as of yet and as such he would find himself intruded upon in a most delicate moment. I CAN'T LET SENSEI INTERRUPT ME! he thought with fierce determination; and in that moment of potential interruption where the jutsu's casting remained most vulnerable, the last ancestor who possessed the book worked into the seal a method to deter assailants. Enacted by Saito's will, his ancestor's protection took the form of shadows condensing themselves into the form of a tall, terrifying-looking humanoid surrounded by black, half-shappen beings of darkness. 