Chapter 10: Unfortunate son

"Good to see you, Kuma."

"Good to see you too, Yurei." Replied Kioshi as Izaku sat beside him.

Kioshi had a rather... Unfortunate life. You see, his mother, an civilian outsider, died from childbirth. By consequence, he never experienced mother love, nor father love from a young age.

His father was always away, telling him that he has his obligation towards the clan, being a spy and all. But Kioshi knew, he knew that his father gave up on him, he knew he couldn't handle the grief of his deceased wife every time he sees him.

And so, time passed until he was 6 years old, he lost his father to a risky mission in Iwa.

It was rather unfortunate but, he somehow felt less than he should be, maybe because of the absence of his father, maybe because of his negligence, who knows.

From that day on, he had no place to call home-as in his opinion the orphanage wasn't one- he had no light to latch onto, he had no person to live up to.

He lived as a shunned person, an child of an outsider, the kids around him always taunted him for not being one of their own, always mocked him for having a weak outsider as a mother.

And so he started to fight back, he fought and fought to keep the little he had of his family, he fought those who treated his mother as weak, he fought those who mocked him because his father run away from him.

At the end of the day, even with all of that, he felt empty, as if his fight was fought without real intention to protect the honor of his family, he felt shallow.

Slowly, he turned cold, he turned hostile to those around him, he became a loner with no purpose in life.

*Flashback*

One day, when he was 7 years old, he was sitting in the compound training ground as usual, tired from training aimlessly as he just punched anything to vent and call it 'training'.

And one of those day, as he was sitting in his habitual ground surrounded by trees, he heard a voice that made his soul nearly jump out of his body.

"You call this training?" He turned to the voice, and he saw a child around his age, up in a tree, 'shinobi?".

He eyed the child in front of him warily with a glint of hostility in it, he spat, "Who are you."

The child, who had long silky black hair and brown eyes, sighed, then jumped in front of him, "I am Yoriichi Utsukame, I am getting some training done in the area before my father evaluate me, what do you think about helping each other?"

At that, Kioshi froze, does the kid know that he is a son of an outsider? What if he is trying to trick him? What if they finally decided to get ride of h-

"Hello?" Yoriichi tilted his head in confusion as he saw the persons in front of him gone silent.

As Kioshi woke up from his daze, he stated, "You know I am the son of an outsider and an orphan."

Yoriichi, instead of having his face morphing into one of disgust and hostility, he replied instead "So do I, where the problem at?"

Kioshi, having all his life living alone, abandoned, mocked, saw a glint of light as the persons in front of him said those words, he almost yelled, "What do you mean 'where the problem at', Didn't you get shunned by the clan?! Didn't you also get mocked by them?! They despise outsiders like us! They disrespect us more than anything and you ask where the problem at?!"

At that, Yoriichi eyed him confusedly, the sighed, "I may never lived the life of yours, but I never interacted with kids my age, my father, since my mother sickness, always stood for me, educating me, and training me, resulting in me not having time to having a social life."

Kioshi snorted, "We don't have a future in this clan, we are bond to become canon fodder as time passes and become Agents."

The young black haired child shook his head, "If kids are the way you described it, adults however are not. They see us as members of the clan like others, the ones you hate are just peoples following bullies, most of them don't mean to call you like that."

Kioshi is stunned, as he though he saw a layer of hope in him before, the feeling reinforced. If he knew that the future is not as hopeless, maybe he had not given up on this clan, maybe he would start actually learning and training to be accepted.

But now, he knew he must prevail, he must try, with his new comrade, he had this idea that now nothing could stop them if they teamed up.

He had someone to live up to.

*Flashback ends*

Some times later, they trained together, they ate together, they became brothers more than ones of blood.

Later on, he was adopted as his brother convinced his father to adopt him.

Kazuhiko is a strict men, his training was harsh, his learning method was hard, but he knew he loved his son.

While he was not as happy to adopt Kioshi, he was not negligent nor was he hostile to him.

And that was enough as he now had a family.

But now he was dead, 6 feet underground because of his incompetence.

And that ate him to this day, he couldn't forgive himself losing a brother because of his negligence, because of his laziness, he should've trained harder.

When he returned, to their house, he tried hard to convey the news as softly as possible.

As he was about to knock, Kazuhiko opened the door, and he saw his bandaged firearm as his hand was gone.

He was about to rush to Kioshi but froze.

From his expression alone and the absence of his son, he knew.

Just then, he got silent, he opened the door wide for Kioshi to enter the house, then gone to the street.

He returned later on the night, blackout drunk.

And it continued like that from that day on.

"How... How have you been?" Asked Izaku as they were silent for a long time now.

Kioshi looked at him, he raised his eyebrow, "Take a guess."

Izaku sighed, and hung his head down, "Yeah right, that was a dumb question."

"Indeed, a dumb question from a smartass like you." Snorted Kioshi and he replied, "Well, what brought you here? Don't tell me you are here to check up on me 'cuz you know that it is not true."

Izaku raises his head, and glanced at him, "Well, because my home became suffocating after the death of my mother, but also to check up on you."

Kioshi growled, "I already said not to lie."

"Why would I", asked Izaku.

"Well, maybe because I am an outsider and you are one of the heirs of the clan." Growled Kioshi.

At that, Izaku raised an eyebrow, "What does that have to do with our team? Beside, I don't care about who your mother was as I see everyone here as kinsmen's, you have our blood whether you want it or not."

Kioshi gone silent, he tried to find an answers to that, but as he tried to say something, nothing came out of his opened mouth.

"You are a friend to me Kioshi, you two were my first ones since I came to this world, don't believe you are alone against the world Kioshi, you have a whole clan behind you." Sighed Izaku.

They sat silently as time passed, Kioshi, beside Yoriichi, none had called him a friend, no less a heir of the clan calling him that.

He sighed, he struggled to speak up, to say something back after all this time, he decided to finally say it, pride be damned, "Th... Thank you, Iza."

Izaku raised an eyebrow at that, as he snorted, and smirked, "That was... Rather surprising coming from you, was it that hard to say it? is your big ass ego alright?"

"Tsk, shut the fuck up." Grunted Kioshi, all the while Izaku was laughing.

As the laugh died down, Izaku though it was the right time to ask, "Well, what is that procedure the Secretary was talking about?"

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By the way I made another Naruto Fanfic, and NARUTOxMHA fanfic about Uzumaki's, If you want to have a glimpse of the last stand of Uzumaki's go check it out!

1400 words!