Why can't we be men of ice
who crack and shatter like nonsense things,
but never bleed
and never flee, nor fly in sorrow
away from life on crimson wings…
Blood. We live in it, we die in it. All I see is blood, and I hate it.
I was born in the shadow of terrible war. How goes the saying? Born in blood, farewell to Fortune, Luck and Love, cackles the old witch. But how is that fair, when the follies of greater men were not in any way shaped by my hands, so tiny and innocent then at birth.
Ack!
I remember how the land was all but ravaged then, wearied by the endless rage. Decades of civil war had scorched the earth until it burned as bleak as the bubbling tars of Hell. We were a people of water, but as you well know, the hands of violence always deal with fire and death. Skeletons of villages and villagers alike were left to smolder like carbonite sculptures for dark eternity, or at least until they crumbled beneath the wind and rain. War raged on and on, never ending, as we the people rained a plague on all our houses until the very air turned black with grief.
And they call our country the Land of Mist? Ha! Back then, they should have called it the Land of Ash!
We fled from it, of course, but it followed the innocent like a baying, bloodthirsty hound. The night would see familiar shadows fleeing like fugitives from their own homes, but every morning would sound the familiar alarm of metal clashing upon metal and the roaring heat of a bonfire blaze. But day by day, year by year, we fell into the routine of war, and the normalcy of squabbling over what could be foraged or stolen, of tempers fraying over constant upheaval and loss, and the terrible rumble of men marching by the thousands…it all became just that: normal. Discomfort dissolves into white noise, over time.
And all wars, no matter how great or insignificant, eventually draw to their inevitable close. My mother and father met during the twilight days of the war, and as the land began to heal itself, they gleaned a little happiness for themselves and were joined asunder, for better or for worse.
And the rest, they say, is history.
My brother was born before me by almost exactly two years to the day — funny how those little details can become such evocative memories, isn't it? — in the northernmost hut of a village so small that I daresay no one else is alive now to remember it. Even its name escapes me, and as for the whereabouts, why, they are so shrouded in mist and memory that home now hides better than our Hidden Village of the Mist, our beloved Kirigakure.
We were so similar, Haku and I, that despite those two years passing we could have effortlessly passed as twins. My mother's beautiful tourmaline cat-eyed stare she took to the grave, but from her we both inherited her elfin slightness, her hair—not quite blue or black but all those darkly iridescent colors in between, like a starless night—and her skin, as white as snow and fairer than any rice powdered complexion could ever hope to achieve. From our father, we took only his drive, his sense of purpose, and his desire to do whatever was necessary for the greater good, consequences be damned.
But our passions and our personalities—his as true as ice, encasing a rare tenderness underneath, mine a raging fire melting away the winter storm—that was our only yin and yang, and those aspects were all our own. And despite that, or perhaps because of it, we were in perfect balance. We were playmates, siblings, soulmates. We were inseparable.
Yes, if ever I knew happiness unmarred by pain, it was in those early days.
Yin and yang, ice and fire, alas…what can come after joy but sorrow? And listen well for what happened next, and what veered our lives from the path of placid contentment Nature intended and instead delivered us straight into the greedy clutches of none other than Chaos himself, and all thanks to his messenger, his harbinger, my foolish, foolish father…
Judge me not, for I loved him then. Truth be told I love him still. But as is typical of men reared on violence, so they now sought to whet their reconciled appetites, their lust for blood. They had tired of peace, the traumas of war forgotten in the regaling of it, all fiction and glamour with hardly a speck of truth. Admire them, yes, for they were the sort of men that would lay down life and love in equal measure for a brother or a brother-in-arms. But condemn their folly for believing in the airheaded notions of another threat, a new foe, for as everyone knows, amidst the rank and file of every loyal soldier lies the whispered threat of the worst enemy of all — backstabber, betrayer…. traitor.
But who were the traitors? Who couldn't be trusted? Why, who else but those inheritors of the elusive kekkai-genkai, the bloodlines so elusive, so mysterious, that naturally they should be feared?
And so he—they—came for my mother. Not at first, they purged the men first. The ones who had once been admired as defenders and allies during times of war, performing feats of saving grace or coup de grace, depending on their specialty, were the first to be hunted down, without mercy, by friend and family alike. And these were men who were once deeply trusted by their so-called war brothers! Was there jealousy behind the motives, or just fear? Either way, strike or be slain! They had to do it. And so they did it. For the greater good…
Who was the real traitor here? Who betrayed my mother's love, who backstabbed his own family by ordering her deaths, and that of her devil-spawned lesser fry besides? Who but my father?
For he saw us on that fateful day, splashing in the river that wound around our plot of farmland like a gentle, big-bellied mother snake encircling her something precious. Playing in the water, no,withthe water, cupping it in handfuls and molding it like clay until it became solid, shimmering ice. The sculptures we took back to mother were smashed into pieces within moments, and we were sworn to secrecy. But as you can see, it was already too late.
She tried to protect us, and with her powers, she could have easily protected herself. But what woman in love wants to harm those she loves? One fatal moment of hesitation, and my father struck first.
Only to be struck down himself within moments, for he was impaled by his own tears—crocodile tears, for all the love he showed her in her last moments! We conjured them into ice, and from ice into the weapons they once irrationally thought they feared. Strike or be slain!
And so came the end of peace and an all-too-brief era of love, my childhood, for we had become Oedipus, whose fate was well known. Only tragedy awaited a son that had the gall to murder his own father. But double the tragedy, for now there was a daughter thrown in the mix too…
Born in blood, farewell to Fortune, Luck and Love!
Ah yes, what about that song conceived by those ill-wishing witches? Eerily prophetic, you might say? Well I say not! At the end, nothing but gibberish and foolish nonsense. For I seized my fortune, spun my luck, and reclaimed love…as you shall hear.