It was a day like any other in the Sound Village, Jin was outside with his father, a tall muscular man with long spiky silver hair and eyes; which Jin had inherited. The boy was 13 and was pretty strong for his age, he had a scar running down his face and through his left eye. He wore a pair of black trousers that reached under his knees and his black Shinobi sandals connected to his pants, making no skin visible. On his upper body, he only had a large belt-like leather band that went over his right shoulder and the left side of his hip. His father was teaching him the family Jutsu, the Hair Thread Jutsu. They'd been at it all day and Jin's 3 year old sister was starting to lose patience.
"Jin! I wanna play hide and seek!" she cried for the millionth time today.
She was sitting on her swing looking gloomy. She had the same silver hair and same grey eyes that her dad and older brother had. Her hair was also spiky, only it was shoulder length, whereas theirs was waist length.
"I told you, Chinatsu. I'm training." he sighed in exasperation.
He turned back to his father and waited for him to come at him again, but he wasn't in a fighting position.
"You know what? I think we should stop for today and you can go play with your sister."
"But dad! I need to learn the Jutsu!" he complained, trying to get out of playing baby games with Chinatsu.
"No buts, Jin."
The young ninja dropped his arms in defeat and turned back to his sister, a grin on her face. She dragged him inside and their laughing father followed.
"Let Etsuko join in too." he said, before disappearing into the kitchen where their mother was cooking dinner.
Jin went upstairs with his sister and his 6 year old brother walked out of his room. He also had the same eyes and hair like the rest of the family had, only his hair was short and more messy than spiky.
"Etsuko! We're playing hide and seek, wanna play?" asked Chinatsu.
They young boy nodded and ran into his room to hide. Chinatsu didn't bother telling Jin he was counting and ran into the bathroom. He didn't need to think about where they could be hiding because they always hid in the same places: Chinatsu in the bath tub and Etsuko under his bed. Knowing they would come out in an hour or two, Jin went back down stairs and sat at the kitchen table where his dad was reading his favorite book.
"Where are Chinatsu and Etsuko, Jin?" asked his mum, still concentrated on the food.
"Hiding."
"Aren't you going to look for them?"
"No."
"Jin!"
"Okay... I'll go look for them..." he sighed.
"Good." She smiled.
"...In a couple of hours."
"If you don't play nicely, I'll stop you from seeing Kazama." threatened his dad, looking up from his book.
This wasn't the first time he'd come up with that, but Jin didn't want to risk it, just in case he might be serious. Kazama was his one and only friend, a bit scary for a twelve-year-old but not enough to scare Jin away... not like all the other kids in the Ninja Academy. The main reason he was feared was because of his appearance, he wore white bandages all over his body, face included. That was the result of a childhood accident but he didn't like to talk about it. He had a bone mohican and wore a black leather vest and black trousers, both with chains. He walked around with an axe and a spiked club. Sighing heavily, Jin dragged his legs upstairs and found his sister and brother exactly where he knew they'd be. He found his sister first, so she had to count. His predictable brother hid under the bed again and Jin ran downstairs and hid in the closet, opposite the front door. He heard my sister yell "Ready or not, here I come!" and sighed. She would take forever to find either of them, she always did. Jin's reminiscences of his past hide-and-seek games were interrupted by a knock on the door. He watched his father answer it through the keyhole of the closet. He opened it and Jin saw his body freeze. He was thrown back and hit the boy's hiding place with a force that had Jin jump back, bashing his head against the back of the closet. He looked through the keyhole once more, too scared to come out. His already wide eyes grew wider when he caught site of his dad's attacker, it was a huge white snake. It slithered into the room, towards his now unconscious parent. The reptile opened it's mouth wide and a long sword slid out slowly. Jin stared in terror as it cut through his father's chest, making blood splat over the walls. He held his breath, gulping down the sobs that threatened to give away his position to the murderer.
"AAAHHH!"
Jin froze at the sound of his mother's scream, who was standing in front of the scene of her slaughtered husband. The snake rose in a fighting stance, the sword still in it's mouth. In half a second, he cut through her neck and both of her parts dropped to the ground with a sickening thud. The animal looked around, then turned as if to leave but stopped in the doorway and turned it's head in the direction of the stairs. A few second later, Chinatsu came running down them, saying that she was giving up the game of hide-and-seek. Jin wanted to yell for her to run, but his mouth stayed shut. He refused to look at the scene, even with his fingers in his ears, he could still hear her screams and the ones of Etsuko followed shortly after. He don't know how long he stayed in the closet, but it felt like an eternity.
"Jin?"
The silver haired kid jumped out of the closet at the sound of Kazama's voice, he was starring at the dead bodies of his friend's family with wide eyes. Jin ran towards him, trying not to cry in relief that it was him and not someone else.
"What the hell happened?" he asked.
"I-it was a s-snake!" he stuttered, his whole body trembling.
"But you're okay, right?"
Jin nodded and the bandaged boy led him to the kitchen, making him sit and made them both hot chocolates. Jin held his in both hands, starring at nothing as Kazama asked him questions about what happened exactly, but soon gave up after seeing that Jin wasn't in the mood to talk. He ended up just talking about their past, saying that he'd always be there for his pal but that didn't seem to make him feel any better.
"Good afternoon, boys."
They both looked at the man to whom the voice belonged to, he was standing in front of the kitchen door with a worried look. He was extremely pale-skinned with waist-length black hair. He had amber eyes with slits in his pupils and purple markings around his eyes. He wore grey garbs with black pants and a thick purple rope belt tied in a large knot behind his back and had blue earrings.
"Tell me, what are two twelve-year-olds doing in a house at night, with four corpses?"
Kazama stood in front of Jin with a protective look in his eyes.
"Who the hell are you?" he spat, his hand tightly gripping his axe.
"My name is Orochimaru, I want to help you." the man answered politely despite Kazama's menacing tone.
"We don't need, nor do we want your help!"
Orochimaru chuckled at his attitude.
"That's what you think, punk."
"What did you-"
"Stop it, Kazama!" Jin shouted. "We'll need all the help we can get, we can't stay here!"
He sighed heavily and stomped over to the table before sitting on it. Jin turned to Orochimaru, who was still smiling.
"So you'll come with me?" he asked.
"Sure, we'll come with you." he said after a moment of silence.
Orochimaru nodded in approval and turned to leave the house and Jin followed him, dragging a grumpy Kazama with him. They traveled for three days, he said that they were going to his hideout. On the fourth day, they arrived at what seemed to be the roof of an underground house with stairs going down to a doorframe. He led them through several tunnels and the further they went in, the more uncomfortable Kazama got. They walked into a large room with only a large sculpture of a snake in it.
"This will be your new home." smiled Orochimaru, turning to face them. "Now, I know your name is Kazama, but what is yours?"
"It's Jin."
"And are you brothers?"
"No, we're friends." muttered Kazama, obviously still uncomfortable. "Like, are you gonna be our Sensei, or something like that?"
"Yes, and you'll have a female teammate… Who should be here any minute."
As if on cue, a girl the same age as the two boys walked in to stand next to their new Sensei. She had grey hair tied up in a messy ponytail and had quite a few bangs over her pink eyes and face. She was wearing a long sleeved purple shirt that showed all of her stomach and fishnet gloves, she had a short purple skirt with a Sound headband around her waist, acting like a belt. Her shoes were standard black ninja sandals.
"This is Azuka." stated Orochimaru. "I hope you three get along nicely."
"I'm sure we will.." sniggered Kazama starring at her with pervy eyes.
"Get lost, creep!" she snapped.
"Now, now Azuka. At least try to be nice." said Orochimaru, giving her a disapproving look. "There is someone else I would like you to meet, he's my right hand man and medic ninja."
A man with white hair tied in a small ponytail and round glasses walked out of the shadows and stood next to Orochimaru.
"This is Kabuto Yakushi. Kabuto, this is Jin and Kazama, Azuka's new teammates."
A snort came from Kazama and Jin looked to see him sniggering silently, well almost silently. He gave him a what's-so-funny look and he whispered in his friend's ear.
"He looks just like that Harry Potter dude!"
Jin looked back at Kabuto and saw the resemblance, turned back to his friend and sniggered with him. Orochimaru was saying something to Kabuto, but the two couldn't understand and were more occupied making fun of the medic ninja. Kabuto noticed Azuka's lustful gaze as she stared at Jin, he had been asking her out ever since they had met and she would always come up with an excuse to say no. Azuka found a wooden chair and sat down, sighing with boredom. The Snake Sannin left the room in a poof of smoke, leaving the four ninjas to get to know one another. Orochimaru's right hand man hovered over the girl of his dreams with an irritated expression.
"What do you see in that guy? I mean, come on! I bet he doesn't even know what this is." he smirked, taking out a kunai.
"I'll believe that when I see it." muttered Azuka.
Kabuto raised an eyebrow and walked up to Jin with an evil smile on his face.
"Jin? What is this?" he asked, holding up the weapon.
"I'm surprised you've forgotten, Kabuto." the boy answered innocently.
A vein popped up on the medic's forehead.
"I haven't forgotten, it's a rhetorical question!" he snarled.
"Nah, it's a kunai."
From behind Jin came an explosion of laughter, Kazama was loving this, and Azuka let out a little giggle.