"Ah. This water is so hot."
An old shinobi veteran sighed as his lips were once again scorched by a scalding jug of water.
A young considerably pretty woman with smooth white skin and flowing black hair came in.
"Don't stress yourself, Elder. I have a little trick for things like this."
A slightly younger man with a black goatee and side-curled black hair patted his son's shoulder.
"Watch carefully Kai, your mother's about to show off her clan's sacred ability."
A young Kai with a devilish smile looked on with gleaming eyes.
"It better be good, Otou-san."
The father of Kai, Len sighed. His son had become amusingly emotional at the tender age of 6.
Still, he was glad that his family had integrated into society without hatred for his wife's esteemed kekkei Genkai.
The Village hidden in the mist was quite a soothing place to inhabit.
The young woman placed her hands just over the rim of the jug. In a sly instant, the water cooled, the bubbles stopped boiling, and faint traces of frost swirled around in the now slightly chalkier water.
"Woah."
The young Kai was awed. Len gave out some motivational claps. Although his wife wasn't a threat due to her leniency to stray away from battles she had enough chakra to have probably become a competent Jonin.
Before she had Kai and completely stepped away from the shinobi world, that was.
Although the small cheery family was awed and content with the young lady's talent, the old veteran had frozen.
Quite literally.
The wrinkles on his head twitched as his tongue stopped moving within his mouth.
Memories of distant wars bombarded his mind. Images of entire shinobi platoons trapped and frozen in calamities of ice. Images of entire shinobi platoons infested with wounds from ice shards. Images of ice infections that struck even the strongest warriors in the old days.
The family laughed at his shock.
"It's okay Elder, it's not witchcraft." Len quipped in.
The young Kai immediately cackled with joy.
The entire family left in a good mood.
And so a week passed as usual.
For the first time in a while, the Elder left his rocking chair. His balded head stuck out in the drizzle of the village hidden in the mist.
He moved through the village with a cane in modest silence.
Only after looking both ways slyly did he walk up to a guard with a rock up his throat.
"Guard, I have a matter that must be investigated upon and dealt with instantly."
The guard looked down with raised eyebrows.
"Is something the matt-."
"The Yuki are within our midst."
A few days passed. Council officials checked upon the evidence, the Elder had kept the jug traceless.
After acknowledging the threat of the Yuki and that if the Yuki were allowed to live peacefully, more Yuki would sprout the council of the mist village came to a swift decision.
Eliminate the Yuki.
Exiling them might cause an influx of Yuki to attack the mist in a few decades time.
Crippling them could inflict a similar effect to the previous.
The small Yuki family was still clueless about their upcoming demise.
The mist struck at night.
"Kai. Listen to me."
The young Kai looked around dully and unbothered.
"What... Otou-san... I'm tired."
Len shook his son hard. His eyes had bags and kept on darting behind him.
"Don't make a sound, not even that of a breath."
"Don't ever try to get revenge, it won't ever end in your victory."
"And most importantly..."
"Never reveal that you are a Yuki. There are no happy endings for the Yuki."
Kai looked up, annoyed.
"Okay? Can I go back to sleep now?"
Len looked back cursing.
"Don't do a thing."
Len stuffed Kai forcefully into a wooden crate, shutting the lid on him mercilessly.
Len's voice became high and squeaky.
"We're going to play a... game, Kai."
"Don't make a single noise. I'm going to try to make you do a noise. I've even hired actors!"
"If you win, you can get every last Gyoza in the entire village."
Kai beamed from within the box.
He held himself from shouting ' Okay Otou-san.' After remembering the rules of the game.
Kai complimented himself in his head.
'Gee. I'm so smart.'
Kai could see through a small hole in the wooden crate.
Soon, his mother came running into their small cottage. A look of worry on her face.
' Wow. Oka-san is such a good actor.' Kai watched in glee.
She unleashed a few shards out to the door.
"Len. They're here..."
A look of distress had squirmed all over her face.
Before Len could respond a figure dashed through the door, his figure swarmed by shadows.
The young lady turned around an array of ice shards forming all around her.
"LEAVE US ALO-." As she shrieked, her pretty face clenched shut.
A bit too early.
The Jonin dashed in slyly, he pierced her heart with a kunai before she could release her jutsu.
Blood splatted onto the floor.
Kai still watched in amusment.
Len roared out, his wife had bought him enough time to enact the necessary handsigns to release a jutsu that could avenge her.
"Fire style: Fire Fist."
Len's right fist was covered in a luminescent and mystical aura of flames.
It lit up the entire cottage.
Kai watched in awe.
Len's fist drove right through the Jonin's stomach.
Although his entire body should have combusted into flames, it merely sloshed into water.
Before Len could react once again, a flicker appeared before him.
A chakra-aided Kunai cleanly slit through Len's unprotected chest.
Kai was extremely impressed at this point.
Len slowly slumped to the floor. Before he disappeared he moved his hand eerily on the cold floor.
His voice grunted as he needed a few more seconds to write the sacred message.
"You actually went all-out against civilians? Coward."
The Jonin chuckled darkly.
"Civilians? An able Yuki and an ex-Jonin? Yeah right." His Kunai didn't shine under the light. But Kai could see a set of golden symbols engraved on it.
The Jonin stomped with a chakra-aided foot thoroughly crushing Len's chest.
The Jonin shouted up, to his comrades.
"Eliminated the parents."
The Jonin above shouted down swiftly. It had been an easy task this time.
"The child has been spotted charging down south, within a carriage. We'll chase after him now."
The Jonin nodded.
"Sure."
And so all the Jonin vanished.
After an hour or two, the time was dripping away quite slowly, Kai slumped out of the box tired and victorious.
On the ground, he found some words written in an odd red texture.
~Kai. Go North once you leave or you lose. Never ever reveal that you are a Y-.~
The last word slid off there. A small trail led to where Len's hand currently was.
Kai touched Len and realized he was too cold.
After bothering his parents for a small bit, Kai realized that they were really dedicated to their roles.
Kai looked at the task once again.
"That's it?" Kai giggled.
They didn't have to make it so easy.
And so Kai sprinted north. And it was only within a month that the truth came crashing down on him.
Kai's figure shook within the present time.
"Why do you get to be happy?"
The matured man's figure shook.
"Was all of this the price of my happiness? This great family you've got? Your stable early retirement?"
Kai moved the kunai to the outskirts of the mature man's neck.
"Is this really the person you want to be?"
A voice hissed into Kai's ears. Kai did not move from his position. Merely seeing no reflection in the kunai. His eyes were doused over with a wave of realization.
And at that moment, a crossroads formed.
One that Kai could not falter for. Something began strangling Kai, his sense of pride that he thought he had lost in that sink. The pride that he had assumed had been gurgled out.
Kai made another mistake that day.
It was not pride.
It was the devil that was revenge that strangled his neck and puppeteered his actions merely disguised as pride.
At the brisk of dawn.
Kai washed an odd pungent red liquid off of a kunai with golden carvings.
Kyoto who had just had a rather unpleasant dream looked at him in surprise.
"Where have you been?"
Kai muttered darkly.
"Out."
Kyoto shrugged at Kai's odd tone.
"Nice Kunai, where'd you get it?"
Kai shrugged.
"Just found it."
Kyoto nodded cooly.
"Lucky. I've been looking for a new set of clothes these days."
Kai's eyebrows furrowed.
"If you dare... with the funds that we have right now..."
Kyoto laughed and chortled.
"Relax... it's just a joke."
Kai looked at Kyoto's right eye in uncertainty.
"What is in your right eye? It's like a black shifting mess?"
Kyoto blinked blatantly.
"Hmm?"
The black shifting scribbles that Kai had seen retreated back. Kyoto's eyes eerily swirled from mangekyou to 3 tomoe to normal eyes.
Kai shrugged. His mind felt like plastic currently.
When Kyoto had long gone, Kai was crouched down.
His pale hands gnawed and pulled at his skin.
His eyes shook and his nails pierced his pale skin, causing red slits to form all over.
He was fine on the outside, supposedly.
But on the inside.
Well, that was an entirely different story.
Kai gagged at his past memories.
Controlled by the serpent of his past, he had gotten revenge.
Kai vomited openly. A waterfall of bodily fluids and stomach acid being thrown right out.
A hiss came into Kai's right ear.
"You may have been many things."
The hiss circulated into his left ear.
"Many many things."
The hiss went back into his right.
"But one thing that you were not back then."
The hiss swerved into his left.
"Was a weak man."
Kai's eyes shook.
The hisses came into both his ears at once.
"Good job, Kai."
Kai vomited over and over. Empowered by the sickening voice.
Merely a few minutes ago.
Kai's eyes flickered. His figure stood in front of two bloodied corpses. The lights flickered too.
"You..."
"Live."
And a small boy ran off in dereliction. Far away.
To return on the twisted path of revenge that Kai himself had recently traveled.