Chapter : Haku

These kids in here...wear the same desolate expression that I do. Its one of loss, or hopelessness. We're all in the same in our feelings really. There are only a few things that change and tell us apart. Our appearance, how we got here, and our pasts muddled in the spite that no one really wants us. I never have doubted this philosophy ever since I learned it from my father. I'll tell you my difference from the others here. What made me...like this.

I was born to two parents. One was my father, a strong 'man's man' and a brave person. My mother was a soft spoken woman with a kind heart, but a layer over her most of the time. I was born in the winter, on the first snow. My parents called me their wonder child. I was their little snow baby.

My early childhood was actually very good. I loved to learn things like knot tying and arm wrestling from my father, but I still learned more effeminate things like flower arrangement and cooking from my mother. My father was a merchant, gone for most of my early years, so I grew extremely close to my mother.

My mother, I guess, was the most important person in my life. She was everything. She was kind. She was harsh. She was sweet. She was stern. She was both parents wrapped into the one person who could never be replaced in my life. But through it all she had a dark secret.

My mother was borne with a kekkei genkai, or a power that went down through the blood line. Through her blood it was passed down to me. Back then, our clan of blood relatives were few and far in between. Everyone feared those who had extra powers through the blood, and most clans were hunted down to near extinction. This was the cruel thing I learned from my mother when I was five. I was told never to use my powers around my father. When I asked why, she smiled sadly and said, because. I didn't wish to get in any trouble, so I listened to my mother with the greatest respect.

Our kekkei genkai was a stronger trait. We could turn water to ice. My mother did not show me, except to show that we did have powers. When I first discovered what I could make when I was five and a half. The first thing I made was a flower, a lily actually. A delicate light flower of death.

I played with my powers when I was sure no one was around. I'd make mirrors, dolls, giant snowflakes. Anything that struck my fancy. I was very creative. I loved to make things with this power, to see my full capabilities. One day my mother caught me playing though. She looked at me shocked, making me turn the ice structures back to water. She walked over coldly and slapped me across the face. That was the first time I saw mother's tears.

Then, when I was six, the event that made me like this happened. It started out as a normal day, I was in the back yard, my mother was out and my father was suppose to be on a long trip to a foreign country. I was using my powers to make ice structures again. I was working on a masterpiece this time, a girl in ice, with water flowing down her cheeks. It took a while to figure that one out, but it was well worth it, or so I thought so at the time. I played outside for a while more when I heard yelling from inside my home. It was my mother and my father. My father had a look in his eyes, the kind that makes you cautious around a particular person.

My mother pleaded with him about something, me due to my youth, was only thinking about how mother and father never truly fought. My father stormed into the kitchen and came back with a long, bone-handled knife. Now I was just as scared as my mother, who had taken a defensive stance to shield me from my father's rage. I watched as my mother tried to fight him without her power. Then I saw her lying on the floor, my father repeatedly stabbing her with the long knife. Then he turned towards me.

I darted away from the kitchen, to the backyard, where he followed suit. I remember him calling my name, his hands holding the instrument towards me. I screamed no. He didn't listen and came closer. The knife glinted in the sunlight. I let out a high pitched scream and closed my eyes. When I opened them...my father was impaled by my ice sculpture, her hand sticking out of his back. I curled up into a ball and sobbed the loss of my father.

My village sent me here after that. No one wants a monster, not even this place. I don't know what I'll do now.