“NO!!” Your frantic 10 year old self screamed as your blue-grey eyes shut tight to block out the image of your parents’ bloodied bodies hitting the floor of your home.  You kept your eyes shut, willing that maybe it would stop this all from being the truth, but as something closed around your small wrist your eyes shot open immediately in panic.  Although realizing that it had only been your older brother’s hand was relieving, the grave expression on his face did nothing to calm your raging emotions. You followed his gaze to your older sister’s back, Nami, who was standing defensively between her younger siblings and her dead parents and their killer.

“Get away from here,” she growled out in a low and upset but firm voice.  That horrible crooked smile on your family’s attacker’s face grew larger and his deranged lavender eyes flashed.  You glared at him in an attempt to back up what Nami had said, but the command hadn’t been directed towards the crazed Mist shinobi.

“Right, I’ll get her to safety,” your brother replied with a curt nod and pulled you out the door and into the street of your small village. Your grey eyes widened in horror at the scene they had found of the street. Bodies and spilled blood littered the street along with crumbling rock and shattered glass.  Nearly every building you saw was being eaten by flames.

“Akira…” you started quietly as your brother’s blue eyes darted frantically around the street searching for any possible escape route. He didn’t seem to notice that you had called his name until you screamed “AKIRA!! Nami’s in there!!!” Akira jerked his head around to face where you were pointing and noticed the vague figures setting fire to the place that you both had grown up in.

“Kuso,” he hissed, taking a step backwards before whirling on his heel and taking off again with you in tow.

“But what about Nami!” you shouted up at him, worry and grief evident in your voice.

“There’s no time!” he spat angrily. That shut you up. Nii-san’s never yelled at me that way before, you thought sadly as you ran behind Akira.  But then something caught your eye and made you stop short… something silver… and red… Yuki… Of course stopping short while being pulled by a stronger person than you resulted in you tripping and falling into the dirt and glass.  But you never took your eyes off of the small, bloodied, silver-haired corpse.

“Yuki….” You weakly mumbled the name of one of your closest friends as your eyes began to sting.  You were on the verge of tears now as you stood up and brought your left hand up to your face.  That’s when you noticed that Akira’s hand was no longer wrapped protectively around your fragile wrist. Your emotion-filled eyes darted to where your teenaged brother was grasping his ankle, a look of anguish on his face. His foot had managed to get itself wedged between some large rocks when you had stopped running and now his ankle was bent at a weird angle. You gasped at the sight and your hands shot up to cover your mouth as you asked hurriedly, “Are you okay!?”

Akira opened one eye slightly and noticing your worried eyes, smiled weakly. “Yeah,” he replied “I’m fine, just the klutz that I am decided to break my ankle.” He pried one hand off of the throbbing ankle and placed it on top of your head while chuckling lightly at the irony. Confusion flashed through your blue-grey eyes as you couldn’t figure out exactly what was so humorous.  Akira’s face suddenly became serious as he grabbed both your shoulders in his hands and looked you straight in the eyes. “Listen, Shikiri, I can’t run anymore.  You have to get out of here. Get off of Yukato Island by any means necessary. And never come back here. Do you understand?” You hesitated at first but then nodded slowly, your eyes showing that you already had a destination in mind. “And don’t go to the Mist Village either.” You stopped nodding.

“But…”

“Just listen to me!” Akira scolded you sharply making your heart even heavier than it already was. Akira sighed and continued in a calmer tone. “You need to get as far away from here as possible. And don’t ever come back to either Yukato Island or the Mist Village, do you hear me?” You nodded sadly. “I need you to promise me.” You nodded furiously this time with your eyes shut tight, trying to force your tears back into their place of origin.

“I promise!” You managed to choke out as you felt him pull you into a short hug.  You started to return the gesture but were promptly pushed away and into the forest before you could. You heard your loving older brother’s cry of pain soon after the sickening sound of metal piercing flesh reached your ears. Your grey eyes widened in fear as you took off running into the forest.

Back where you had left him, Akira was sitting in the dirt near Yuki’s dead body, his foot still caught between the rocks and now blood was forming pools around his abdomen where a slender katana impaled him to the ground.  Akira’s blue eyes glared up at his attacker who was showing absolutely no emotion at all. “What is this about?” Akira hissed through his clenched teeth.

“Mizukage’s orders,” the dark haired attacker responded casually. “He likes all his shinobi to live within the Mist Village where they can be watched. He seems to think you Yukato residents are to something. And by the way you all run away from us or fight us who are trying to fulfill our leader’s orders, I’d have to agree with him.

“That’s insane…” was Akira’s reply. The other man stooped down to Akira’s level and gripped the handle of the weapon.

“And if that’s your opinion, then that’s why you die.” The katana was then yanked from Akira’s body who winced in pain and bit his lip to keep from screaming as the man walked off leaving the boy there to perish.

You, on the other hand, were running as fast as your legs could carry you to the island’s coast with your dark brown tresses streaming behind you.  As you were running you felt a sharp pain hit the side of your knee and travel a few inches up your leg.  Wincing and stumbling a little you pulled out the shuriikin that had imbedded itself in your thigh and tossed it at another quickly approaching shuriikin.  The two weapons collided sending both back in the direction they came.  But since you were running still, this presented no threat to you, although judging by the grunt of pain you heard from the shadows it could be assumed that you had hit your target.  You smirked at the thought and at the fact that you had now reached the pier. Most of Yukato Island’s coastline was covered in piers and docks seeing as the sandy shore acted as quicksand most of the time.  The pier had started in the marshy forest but you could now hear the waves crashing up against the wooden structure.  You made it to the edge of the dock before halting right at the edge.  You looked both to your right and left, the mist made it hard to see more then 100 feet on either side of you but you didn’t see any boats or rafts that the attackers could’ve used to get on the island. 

You gave a short nod to the ocean, confirming to yourself that you were facing North.  You knew the attackers were from the Hidden Mist Village which was to the South of your island, there were no boats here meaning they hadn’t come this way.  You took half a step forward but quickly took it back.  You couldn’t leave your home… it was the place where you had grown up and made so many friends and had such good times with them.  You lips managed to pull themselves into a small, sad smile at the memory of you and Yuki climbing the unique trees native to the Water Country.  You would climb around the oddly shaped branches, which were ideal for acting like little ape children or simply taking naps in whilst using the stringy grey moss which hung from the limbs as cushions.  Nearly every time you went up in those trees, your sister Nami would be standing below you, scolding you and whatever other children you were playing(or arguing)  with that you were going to fall and hurt yourselves.  And when your bubbly red-headed friend Momoko did fall but was caught by Nami, Nami insisted on lecturing you all on the fact that the older girl wasn’t always going to be around to protect you “insolent children”. Your smile faded, realizing that tonight was the last time your older sister could protect you.  Squeezing your blue-grey eyes shut as tears began to stream out, you clenched your fists before diving into the sea. 

The salty water immediately reminded you that you had a nasty gash on your left thigh and you grunted in response and prayed with all your heart that the blood wouldn’t attract sharks.  While treading water, you managed to pull off your right ninja sandal with your left foot.  Then you brought your left foot up to your face and tore through the rather tough material at the ankle of the sandal with your unusually sharp canine tooth. You kicked the parts that covered your foot off into the water then slide the upper part up your leg to cover your wound as a makeshift bandage.  Wincing at the pain in your leg, and in your heart, you quickly and silently swam off, never looking back at Yukato Island. You didn’t know where exactly you were going but you were going to keep your promise to Akira, you were going to go as far away as possible.  It… it was his dying wish… you thought sadly as your salty tears blended with the salty ocean water. I can’t die. You thought as the stinging in your leg grew more intense. Then, then they would have died in vain!

You had been swimming for about two hours and had covered a great amount of distance, or so it seemed. You might have been swimming in large circles for all you knew but you preferred to think you had made progress. You were, obviously a very fast and very strong swimmer as any young person training to be a Mist shinobi or kunoichi would be, but the swim was beginning to take its toll on you. After all, you were not some “half-fish freak” as you had so kindly dubbed some of your classmates who possessed shark like qualities. You frowned and slowed your swimming, thinking of one boy that you had regretted throwing insults at.  He was really skilled with swords and even some of the Seven Swordsmen had taking a liking to him. THE Seven Swordsmen of the Hidden Mist! You couldn’t deny now that you had been jealous of him… he was destined to be Zabuza’s apprentice and Kisame was always showering him with compliments. Not only that but his family was highly respected and privileged. You on the other hand were supposed to be the victim of a massacre dealt out by your own sempai-tachi.   Neither Zabuza nor Kisame were very respected after they left the Mist of course but you couldn’t rudely point out this fact to your secret rival as a point of his inferiority to you since the boy had disappeared when you and your peers were 5 years of age.  When you had all found out about his mysterious disappearance in class, a wave of guilt had swept over you. Although his absence made you top of the class you couldn’t kill the feeling of remorse for your cruelty towards him. You shook your head to rid yourself of the thoughts and suddenly felt very dizzy. You wished you hadn’t slowed your movements; ironically it made you realize how exhausted you were.  You felt the darkness creeping in and didn’t even have time to panic about your fate before it enclosed you.

~*~*~

 “I’m just saying… it’ll be weighing on my conscious if we don’t at least try to help her.”

“There’s no reason to help.”

“I… just gave you a reason.”

“And a rather pathetic one at that.”

You were hearing voices…. And you felt… soft sand on your face.  I… washed up on a beach… you realized. How embarrassing.  You shifted a bit which agitated your wound and made you give out a small cry of pain and grasp your makeshift bandage. You felt a hand land on your left shoulder and you opened your left eye to see you had found you, who might be your saviors.  Three figures met your pained blue-grey eyes, their metallic uniforms shone in the moonlight and their white and red masks covering their faces contrasted with the black night sky. Leaf ANBU…

“Are you alright?” the one who was crouched beside you asked kindly.  He had tall silver hair and you recognized his voice as being the first one who spoke; he wanted to help you.

You shook your head slowly in response to his question. “No…” you started quietly. “I…” You cut yourself off when your eyes began to sting and water and brought a hand up to your face to rub your eyes.  You didn’t want to show such weakness in front of these people, or any people for that matter.  You were stronger than that, at least, you were going to make yourself stronger than that.  Nami never cried… and you decided that the ocean held your last tears. “My leg hurts…” you responded to the silver haired ANBU and tugged a little at the “bandage”. Another one of the figures, one with short brown colored hair stooped down to look at your leg.

“Mind if I take a look?” he asked beginning to slide the covering off of the wound. You shook you head, granting him permission which he apparently didn’t need.  You wince as he pulls the course material away from your open wound and off of you leg.  You had been wearing rather short shorts so the four inch gash was clearly visible and was very unsightly.  The salt water, the course and tight material that had been stopping the blood loss and the lack of fresh air the wound had been receiving all made it take on a nasty oozing appearance, like that of bloody, rotting flesh.  You grimaced at the sight and looked at the three ANBUs wondering what they thought of the wound.  The short haired male looked up at the only one standing who had long black hair and was obviously female.  She was likely the one who had objected to helping you, since the voice you heard didn’t match either male’s voice.

“It’s not a bad wound, but she should get it cleaned before it’s bandaged,” the one examining your leg told her before turning to the silver haired shinobi. “We taking her back?” The ashen haired one shrugged and turned to you.

“Hey kid, would you want to let us help you get back home?” he asked kindly but you hastily shook your head no.

“I…” you began before taking a swallow to calm your emotions. “…don’t have a home. I need a new one.” You finished and looked down sadly.  The one who had asked the question nodded to imply he understood while the female slid her katana off her back and tossed it to the short haired one before placing her hands on her hips in an assertive manner.

“Well we three are from the Village Hidden in the Leaves and are traveling there now,” she told you sternly. “We’ve wasted enough time as it is so if you wish to come with us and see what happens, climb up on my back so I can carry you. You’ll likely lose more blood if you try to walk plus we’ll likely move too fast for you to keep up.” With that she stooped down so your short self could climb on her back, which you did quickly in fear that the kunoichi might change her mind and just leave you there.  Something in the back of your mind told you that she wouldn’t do that but it was too late now to test that theory plus you really didn’t want to waste more of their time. 

As soon as you had gotten into a comfortable, stable position and the short haired ANBU had secured the girl’s katana on his back, you and the three Leaf ANBU shot off at the speed of light towards their destination.  Your new destination.  Hopefully your new home even.  The beginning of your new life; and you were not going let anything or anyone ruin it.  You were not going to pain or hurt any longer, you were not going to cry and you were not going to die before your time.

You, Amemizu Shikiri, were stronger than that. And if not… you will be.