Love, Mom and Dad

[Back at the Yuki clan village, not long after Dad and I fled. Enemy Shinobi Commander POV.]

I had to admit, Miyumi Yuki showcased the full splendor and power of the the Yuki clan bloodline, living up to her name of the Yuki clan princess. The killing power of her ice release jutsus were unparalleled, taking down ninja after ninja with the ease of a scythe harvesting blades of grass. It made me want her bloodline all the more.

Fortunately, her jutsus were more geared towards one on one fights than group combat. Even the most feared jutsu of the Yuki clan, the demonic mirroring ice crystals, was useless against a large group of enemies who could attack from outside the encirclement of her mirrors.

I could tell she was beginning to tire. Just a bit longer, and she would be mine. I knew how to capture her. Finally, I could tell it was time. She stood, panting heavily, and surrounded by my forces on all sides. I flickered over in front of her after giving HIM orders to prepare.

"Yuki princess." My voice rang out imperiously, creating a pause in the combat around us. She looked over at me with eyes full of killing intent. I smirked.

"Heh... I saw something interesting earlier. A man fleeing the village with a boy on his shoulder. He seemed to come out of the same house as you."

She paled, her clenched fists trembling in rage and hatred, but she didn't speak.

"I've sent an elite tracker squad in pursuit. There are two jonin in it. They won't be able to escape. Probably, they've already been captured. You should have already realized we're from Kirigakure. We plan to end the resistance of the Kekkei Genkai clans here and now, in this wave of attacks. So, we've begun gathering research samples from each Kekkei Genkai clan to bring back to the village."

"A living sample is better than a dead one according to our scientists. I personally don't see the difference. But either way, usually they only need one research subject. In the case of the Yuki clan, they wanted you or your son. If you let us experiment on you, maybe we won't have to do anything to your son. Of course, if you're dead, we'll use both of you."

My tone suddenly changed from a mocking, smug tone to one of command.

"Surrender. Now. And maybe your son can avoid our research labs."

I knew this wouldn't be enough to convince her. But it still achieved its intended effect. She was hesitating, her mind in a mess as she deliberated with her guard having slipped down. It would be enough for him to act.

Kushimaru Kuriarare. Member of the seven, wielding Nuibari, the sewing needle.

Shiiing!

An odd sound split the air as the form of a masked ninja with long, thick brown hair appeared behind the Yuki princess with a creepy laugh.

"Ahhhh!" A scream of pain burst out from the lips of the Yuki Princess, as a burst of blood could suddenly be seen coming from her wrists.

Sure enough, the seven swordsman would never fail a mission like this. With a few quick movements, Kuriarare was easily able to stitch her hands together, making it impossible for her to make hand seals.

"Good job, Kuriarare! Everyone, move in to restrain her!"

'Good, good, good! That had gone more smoothly than I ever thought it would. Who knew a mother's love for her child could be so useful? She was distracted so easily!' I thought to myself gleefully.

"You sick bastard!" She screamed at me, struggling to fight off the ninja attacking her.

I smiled, and body flickered behind.

As I sent a chop down towards her neck, knocking her out, I answered with one word.

"Yes."

I stared at her body, collapsed on the ground in front of me.

"Add the Yuki princess to the other prisoners!"

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[Kaito POV]

The next day. A dull but persistent ache encompassed my body as I woke up.

Something heavy pressed down on my shoulder. I blinked, trying to understand what was going on. When my eyes finally managed to focus on the weight on top of me, I suddenly wished they hadn't. Dad's blank eyes stared back at me.

"DAD!"

I involuntarily release a scream, the events of last night rushing back to me in a maelstrom of emotion.

Salty tears streamed down my cheeks and my nose burned with the pungent coppery smell of blood, but I didn't care. The only thing I felt was the coldness of my father's skin, the only thing I saw was the paleness of his face.

"DAD!" I tried to shake him with my tiny arms, wishing with all my being that his eyes would open and once again shine with that loving gleam.

It was useless. He didn't budge.

Finally, I gave up. My body collapsed back to the ground beneath him.

Kiyo watched on helplessly, silent in the back of my mind.

A half hour later, I recovered enough to regain some clarity of mind. I strained my two year old body, heaving the lifeless body of my father off me. I sat on my knees next to him, my thoughts wandering. 'Why... Why did this happen? Am I someone cursed to never feel the warmth of my parents love?'

My eyes were suddenly caught by a storage scroll clasped in my father's hands. I picked it up and unfurled it. On top was written the kanji for 'Live.'

"Kiyo, how do I use this?"

"Just inject a bit of chakra into it and you can see its contents."

There was a bit of distance in our words.

"Sigh... Kiyo. I don't blame you for not giving me chakra. It wouldn't have helped the situation. I know this, so don't worry."

Relief could be seen in the phoenix's eyes.

"I truly am sorry, Kaito."

"Thank you, Kiyo."

Having cleared most of the tension between us, I sent my chakra into the storage scroll. Inside was a large stock of preservable foods, water, ninja tools, regular tools, and a variety of other useful supplies. It would seem that Dad had long since been preparing for our departure and a long journey. At the front, there was a little note. I took it out and opened it.

"Kaito. If you are reading this, it likely means that your mother and I are no longer with you. In this storage scroll you will find enough supplies to last you a year if you use them frugally. There is food, water, and other basic tools and weapons you might need to defend yourself.

You always were different than other kids. You hardly ever cried. You could communicate by the age of one, and by two you were speaking fluently. We even saw you trying to train your body on occasion. I'm sure you'll be able to survive on your own. But I want you to know this. No matter how smart you are, how advanced you are compared to others your age, to your mother and I, you will never be anything other than our beautiful little baby boy.

So we sincerely hope that you will do more than just survive. Make friends. Find a girlfriend. Start a family. Enjoy life to the fullest. You are an incredible child, and you will grow up to be an outstanding person, whether it be in terms of looks, intelligence, talent or power. You have so much to offer the world, and the world has so much to offer you. Never forget this. Even if your parents can't be there to enjoy the world with you, there are still so many things for you to enjoy on your own, and with others.

Live and be happy. We will always be watching over you, so if you don't want to be punished, we better see a smile on your face at least once a day!

Love,

Mom and Dad."

I burst into tears once again, sadness, love and so many other emotions storming through his body. Even as I cried though, the smallest of smiles pulled at the corners of my lips. This was family. This was love. I would never forget these people, even if I had only spent the first two years of my life with them, and they would never forget me. The love they had shown me was carved into my soul, and forever would be. I would carry it with me everywhere, and I wouldn't want it any other way.

"Mom. Dad. I will. I will live." I choked out through my tears.

"But it's not so easy to just be happy. I want revenge. I want to make that man pay for what he's done. I want you guy to come back. I want to feel your arms around just one more time. I..."

There was so much I wanted to say to them.

But my only audience was the swaying trees, the grass shivering beneath a fine layer of snow, and the cold wind that blew around me.

It hit me, then and there, that I was truly alone.

I had no one left in this world. I knew Haku would survive, but I had no idea where he was. My best bet was to try and meet him 10 years later in the Land of Fire. The Land of Water may be a smaller country, but it was still much to big to search through on my own. Still, some part of me wanted to try.

I numbly stood up, trying to decide what to do next.

'Sigh. First let's go bring dad back to the village and bury him with mom. But... how do I move him...'

I looked through the storage scroll again, hoping to find some rope or something I could make a stretcher with. My little body could barely pull him, let alone carry him. Fortunately, I found a large amount of rope.

I look around and spotted a dead tree fallen to the ground not far from me. I ran over and began cutting off the branches using a kunai I had found in the storage scroll.

After a couple hours, I had formed a makeshift stretcher from the wood and rope, and attached two loops to the end so that I could pull it. I began trudging towards the village at a slow, laborious pace. It was incredibly hard to pull the stretcher. My muscles strained to the max with every step. If not for the snow making a smooth surface that was easier to pull the stretcher on, I wouldn't have been able to do it.

Finally, almost 6 hours later, after a number of breaks and with my body trembling from pain and exhaustion, I arrived back at the village. I suddenly wished I hadn't come back. I had never seen such a gruesome scene before. Nothing could have prepared me for the haunting sights, the nauseating odors of the slaughtered village.

Bodies of men, women and even children lay mangles all over the village, their blood staining the ground a deep red. Many had their mouths still open - they had been screaming in fear. Faces, both familiar and unfamiliar, blankly stared back at me with glossy eyes.

The enemy shinobi had taken away the bodies of any of their allies who had died in the fight.

I felt something rising up in my throat. Falling to my knees, I emptied the contents of my stomach into the snow.

'This... Is this the shinobi world? How could anyone do this?'

Perhaps it was due to my values from earth, but I couldn't wrap my head around this. It was too brutal. How could a human being kill another so remorselessly? Not even children were spared.

I took the stretcher and left my father at the edge of the village, and forced myself to enter to look for my mother. I walked through the village, slowly becoming numb to the sight of dead bodies littered around me.

'Where is she? I saw her getting overwhelmed around here.'

I couldn't find her body. I walked through the entire village, forcing myself to look at every pale face, every bloodied body. I still couldn't find her. Her body was nowhere to be found.

'Could she have survived?' As much as I wanted to believe this, I knew that wasn't possible.

'No. Even the princess of the Yuki clan couldn't survive that. There were way too many enemy shinobi. A fair amount of them seemed to even be at the Jonin level. Even two of the ones that chased Dad and I were low jonin level. She couldn't have survived...'

'Unless... Could they have captured her to bring her back to Kirigakure? To research the Yuki bloodline? It's possible, I guess... If they were going to take one person, they would choose her, the princess of the clan with one of the purest bloodlines. But... that doesn't mean she's alive...'

Honestly, I was afraid to hope. I didn't want to go through the pain of losing her twice. And I knew how Yagura and Kiri win operated. They wouldn't show mercy, and wouldn't hesitate to kill. And Mom would never accept any conditions of surrender, not after what they did. I felt the last bit of irrational hope I had fading - the chances of her being alive were too slim.

'Still... Can I just leave for Konoha like I planned before? Should I search a little bit? Although, even if I do, what can I, a child not even at the academy level, possibly do?'

I returned back to where my father's body lay waiting, just outside the village. It was a slow, conflicted walk.

'For now, let's deal with Father.'

I pulled a shovel out of the storage scroll. I was determined to give him a proper burial, even if I had to dig for days. As it turned out, I almost did. It took me an entire night and most of the next day to finish digging the hole. My already strained body was close to breaking at this point. But I pushed on, there were only a couple more things to do, and then I could rest.

I solemnly rolled my dad's body into the grave I had spent hours digging. I had lined the grave with door frames I had found intact in the village to create a makeshift coffin. By this point, I didn't have any tears left to cry. But my dry cheeks ached with just as much sadness as before as I slowly covered the bodies of my father with the big plank of wood, knowing I would never get to see their faces again. I began filling the grave with dirt; each shovel of dirt I threw in feeling like a hammer striking my heart, cementing the fact that my parents were gone.

Finally it was done. I sat down, panting, to recover for fifteen minutes, numbly staring at the freshly turned mound of dirt. The death of my parents' had truly set in, but the pain hadn't faded it all.

'Sigh. I shouldn't stay here any longer.' I heaved myself up with a sigh.

I walked back into the village, my eyes focusing on only the ground beneath me. I made my way to the clan leader's house while looking at as little as possible of the village. I was going to retrieve our clan's inheritance scrolls that were hidden somewhere in his house. I had heard about from some clan elders who had been talking near me, assuming a baby wouldn't be able to understand their words anyway. It was hidden in a secret compartment in the clan leader's home underneath a stone somewhere, that required the blood of the Yuki clan to open.

As expected, I found the house to have been completely trashed when I entered. The enemy shinobi had likely been looking for the same inheritance as I was, but when they couldn't find it decided it was not worth the trouble to continue looking as there were no remaining Ice release bloodline descendants anyway.

I looked around the stone floor, hoping to find some hint as to beneath which part it was hidden. I didn't notice any.

'Hmmm... I guess I'll just try every stone starting in the center then.'

I bit my thumb to draw some blood, and smeared it onto the center of the floor. To my surprise, I heard a click sound, and then the stone popped up slightly, allowing me to lift it out of the floor.

'How lucky... I probably would have suffered from blood loss if I had to check every stone in here.'

Reaching in, I could feel three scrolls inside the compartment. One of them was labelled 'Yuki Clan Water and Wind Inheritance,' then next 'Yuki Clan Ice Release Inheritance' and the last 'Yuki Clan Forbidden Jutsus.'

The first one, the water and wind inheritance scroll, contained a list of all the signature water and wind jutsus that could be found anywhere, as well as some unique jutsus particular to the Yuki clan. There was even the Hiding in Mist technique of Kirigakure. It seemed that this scroll was likely meant to be used predominantly by those who couldn't awaken their bloodline for whatever reason, and by those who married into the clan. Of course, all the Yuki clan would learn some jutsus from it even if they possessed the Ice release.

The second was the signature Yuki clan Ice release jutsus, from the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals to the Certain-kill Ice spears.

The third scroll contained jutsus that the Yuki clan had gathered over the years, but deemed to dangerous to let the public learn for varying reasons. The majority were ideas for shockingly powerful ice release techniques that most simply didn't have enough chakra to perform.

Having accomplished everything I wished to do, I walked back to my parents grave. I gave a low bow towards it, and said aloud, "Goodbye, Mom and Dad. Thank you for everything. I will never forget you, and I'll try to listen and find happiness in life. You will always be in my heart."

I then turned and gave another bow to village.

"I'm sorry. I cannot give you a proper burial. I can't even burn your corpses as it would alert the ninja who attacked us that there were survivors. I will carry the will and inheritance of the Yuki clan, and make sure to keep the Yuki bloodline alive."

Although it may be silly to talk to dead people, it did bring me some small sense of closure.

Having completed my tasks in the village, I quickly departed, not wishing to stay in that place full of nauseating memories any longer. My small form was quickly swallowed up by the shadows of the forest, the words 'Love, Mom and Dad' echoing through my head.