Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Chapter One

Shouts and the sound of metal clanging against metal woke the young girl from a deep slumber. She rubbed her eyes and looked around the dark room. Her brother wasn't lying on the futon next to her and she felt the presence of her parents hurrying to the chamber.

The screen slammed open to reveal a tall blonde man with a pretty redheaded woman. The woman ran to the confused girl and quickly dressed her in her training clothes. Once the sturdy new sandals were on her feet, urgent palms forced her to meet the clear gray eyes of her mother.

"You have to run," Suki whispered. She brushed her hand through the girl's dark blonde hair. Suki took the necklace she wore off of her neck and placed it around her daughter, tucking it under her shirt.

"What?" she asked.

"Follow the peach trees," Suki said. "Follow them and then the river. Run with the flow, sweetie. Do you understand me?"

"Mother…"

"We don't have much time, Suki," the man interrupted, looking over his shoulder at something. Sweat beaded on his forehead and frown lines appeared on his face. The girl focused her eyes and saw the chakra strings that emerged from her father's hands. She knew that meant he was working.

"Is it a mission?" she asked innocently, but with a shrewdness that revealed her mental age.

"Yes," Suki murmured. Her daughter immediately turned to wrap her kunai holster around her left leg and grab the weapons pouch that hooked onto the waistband of her black pants. She smiled bitterly and guided her to the window. "Keep your chakra low, but keep your pace fast and silent."

"Where am I going?"

"In three, maybe two, days, depending on how fast you run, you'll find a village near where the river ends. It's called Konohagakure. When you get there, show the guards the necklace. They won't hurt you. They'll take you to a palace with the word 'Fire' on the top of it. Give the necklace to the man with blonde hair—everyone will call him the Hokage. He'll tell you the rest of your mission then. Warai, do exactly as he says. Obey him like you would me or the Mizukage."

Warai nodded at each sentence and grasped the necklace underneath her shirt. Suki was amazed as her youngest calmly took the information and stored it away. The child wasn't fazed by the sounds of battle obviously in full swing around them. She just looked up at her mother.

"What about nii-chan?"

Shadows covered Suki's face for a moment as she frowned. The girl didn't need any other motions or words to understand that her brother was as good as dead. Whether their enemies captured him or he was truly deceased, it didn't matter. As of this moment, Taka Warai didn't have an older brother.

A blast from the doorway of the chamber brought the females' attention away from each other and the girl screamed as she saw the kunai buried in her father's chest. Cloaked figures strode into the room and a fire jutsu headed for the two by the window. Suki blocked most of it from her child, taking the brunt of the attack.

Blood spilled from her lips as she tried to order Warai to leave. Warai stared in shock as the figures kicked her father in the stomach and her mother fell to her knees, burn marks evident on her face and arms. The child's calm façade broke and tears filled her eyes. Seeing was different from hearing.

Seeing was very different than hearing.

Warai felt a wave of chakra push her towards the window and remembered her mission. She ducked when one of the figures reached out to grab her and bolted out the window. The figure tried to follow, but was held back by multiple chakra strings.

"Warai! RUN!"

The eight-year-old didn't see what happened to her mother, but the urgency behind the yell spurred her into action. Her feet tripped over themselves as she ran through the orchard that her family managed and protected for the daimyou of Water Country. Luckily, she caught herself before her chin hit the damp ground. She brushed her dark blonde hair impatiently out of her eyes and kept running, following the peach trees.

The cloaked figure looked at the fleeing child and then down at the two bleeding figures on the ground. A sneer spread across his features and narrowed his eyes. They were the last family in their clan of shinobi. Once he was finished, the Taka Clan will cease to exist. But these two couldn't just die. Even when the situation was hopeless, they fought.

Pathetic.

"You won't succeed, traitor!" Suki spat, glad that Warai was no longer in the room. "You'll never gain power over the Taka Clan's secrets!" She knew her husband was using the last of his strength to keep their enemies from Warai. They just had to stall them until their daughter got a decent lead. Taka children were fast on their feet, and none were as fast as Warai.

Suki focused her energy and prepared to use the last of her strength to thwart the man who so selfishly ruined their lives. Activating her kekkei genkai, Suki snarled at the man in front of her. Her previously gray eyes were now glowing an eerie ice blue. Sharp blue chakra gathered the water in the air. The water turned into ice and solidified into claws that extended from her fingernails. She dug the claws into her ice blue orbs and viciously blinded herself.

"Stupid bitch. We will learn the secret of your bloodline limit," the figure murmured. He gestured to the ice claws still attached to Suki's fingers, although the woman could no longer see the movement. "In fact, I learned a little something just now. Your claws are still here, so it's obviously not a true doujutsu."

Damn. Suki's body shook as she cursed silently. I didn't mean to give that away.

"But your eyes are important enough to your 'gift' that you're willing to destroy them to keep me from examining them. But there are still the other's in your clan. Not to mention the corpses of your son and daughter, as well as your husband."

Suki felt a small surge of fear followed by a larger wave of smugness.

Little did the man know that her clan's kekkei genkai was a female trait; passed on from the X chromosome of the Taka Clan's DNA as a recessive gene that only fully manifested itself in the women of the clan. The men could use some of the jutsus created by those with their bloodline limit, but only through years and years of training and the attacks were never as powerful as when the women performed them. He would learn nothing from her son's body and Warai would soon be lost to him.

Neither would he learn anything from the corpses of the women of her clan, if he killed them already. Every woman of Taka blood had a seal tattooed onto their bodies once they showed signs of their kekkei genkai. The seal destroyed the eyes of the marked person after her death. Suki felt blood pool into her eye sockets and smirked. It was dramatic, blinding herself this way, but she needed to divert this man's attention away from her child.

She smiled grimly when she heard her husband grunt in pain and felt the point of a kunai stab her abdomen. Her body fell heavily onto the wooden floor and she saw her children in her mind's eye along with the face of her old sensei.

Yondaime-sama, she thought. Take care of my daughter.

Warai didn't know exactly where she was going, but she knew that she had to get away from the killing intentshe felt smothering her. The emotion practically seeped into the early morning mist that regularly occurred in this part of the country. When she glanced behind her, Warai noticed the flashes of kunais hitting one another and scented the heavy tinge of blood in the air. Muted screams and shouts echoed through the orchard and followed the girl.

She was almost out of the orchard when she felt the presence of two people running behind her. She turned and stopped when saw that the figures wore porcelain masks. Her gray eyes widened when she recognized the symbol on the masks. They were from Kirigakure; they were from the Hidden Village of Mist. They were Mist nins like her father and mother; they were comrades. A sob of relief passed her lips as she ran to the warm arms of the people sworn to protect her.

Rough hands caught the slight form of the young girl and kept her from getting too close to the owner's body. She was shaking so badly that she didn't notice that she was clinging to him more than he was supporting her. She felt warm liquid on her cheek and her mind identified it as blood. She looked up at the ninja and saw a bloody bag hanging from the ninja's neck. Warai reached a hand to touch the pouch and felt shock run through her body when her fingers clasped around the four, soft, orbs it contained.

Horror and rage flew through her as she realized what she was holding and her soul recognized the chakra of the man standing before her. She stared at the blank mask of the ninja and growled. Her gray eyes flashed ice blue and the temperature around them dropped ten degrees. Warai ripped the bag from the ninja's neck and jumped back until ten feet separated them.

"You sounded exactly like your mother for a moment," the man remarked in a silky voice.

"What did you do to her?" Warai snarled, pulling out a kunai.

"I don't want to damage you," the ninja sighed. "Come here."

"What did you do to her?"

"She's dead."

"LIAR!"

"Stop playing around," the other ninja whispered to his partner. "We need to go on with the mission. Sensei expected us back hours ago."

Warai's eyes widened at the word. Mission? Why would Kirigakure order our deaths? She remembered what her mother told her and frowned. She knew she had to leave—now.

Acting mostly on instinct, Warai raised her right hand in front of her face, her index and middle fingers extended. She closed her eyes and calmly concentrated her anger into her jutsu. The men watched in wonder as the mist around them began to grow heavy. The mist became snow and the snow became ice. The first ninja stepped forward, only to have the ice slice his arm open.

"What?" he asked.

"You made a mistake coming after me in the mist," Warai whispered. Her eyes opened and glowed the same ice blue as her mother's did.

"Hyoro no Jutsu!" (Ice Prison Technique)

The ice enveloped the two men and froze their bodies in the crystals. Warai turned and ran out of the orchard, but not before throwing a kunai with an explosive tag at the human popsicles. She was already a hundred meters away when she heard the explosion. A bitter smile crossed her face as she pushed more chakra to her feet and ran out of the orchard. The river flowed slowly to the southeast and Warai took off.

She made sure that her tracks were covered and that her chakra was low enough that only an Elite Jounin or Tracker could sense her. Warai thanked her parents for playing tag and hide-and-seek with her and her brother every day—even when the two children declared themselves too old for those games. Now she realized that, under the pretense of a simple children's game, they taught her how to evade and run from an enemy.

It made her wonder what else her parents taught her using such "games." As the kilometers between her and her old home grew, more thoughts ran through her mind. But one stood out among the rest.

I'm only eight and I've already killed, she mused. Father would have been proud.

A/N:

If there's any confusion about the genetics of the Taka Clan's kekkei genkai, ask in the review section. I'll try to make everything clearer.

This is my first try at fanfiction, so please be nice. My beta is my cousin, some of you might know her as blacksyryn, so if the style's the same you can blame our English teachers. She's the one who gave me my pen name too! I love Zannen.

Until then, review please :)