flashback

Ichijin was five at this time, he and his mother were visiting his father at the cave mine operation. His mother lightly held his hand and led him inside the dark cave together with his father in front of them who was giving them a tour of the caves.

"Hey son, look at all these gold," his father said as he pointed at the carts with gold coming out of the cave. "You know, one day you will grow up to be a fine young lad just like your pops," he laughed as he patted the head of his young son.

"Daddy? When will you be coming home?" Ichijin asked quietly.

"Your daddy is busy and you must respect that Ichijin," his mother gently replied.

"Right, anyway as soon as we are done digging these caves, we will be as rich as those…" his dad started to say but stopped. He sniffed the air and smelt gunpowder, he knelt down and used his fingers to rake in some of the loose soil and lifted it to his face where he inspected it thoroughly.

He softly gasped before he started digging in that particular corner with his hands; soon he uncovered two barrels, one which had a note on it with some black ink on it.

"Shit, Tanya get him out, I need to alert everyone," he said as he realised the gravity of the situation, if two barrels of gunpowder were here, this operation was sabotaged, there was going to be a cave in and there could be other explosives elsewhere. He ran deeper into the cave leaving his wife and his kid alone.

He ran up to a pillar where a red bell was and started using a small mallet to hit it. He rang it in a particular order and many miners turned their attention to him. He shouted, "Get out! There is going to be a cave in!"

An explosion went off under the pillar blasting Ichijin's father away. A series of explosions went off timely after that causing the rocks to loosen and crush people under them.

Ichijin and his mother were running towards the cave exit together with all the other cave miners. Suddenly another explosion was heard except this time it was much nearer. His mother looked back and whispered a small prayer before continuing to run to the exit. They were very near the exit when it was blocked by a person with his hand to his mouth, suddenly a flame shot through the air above their heads and hit a pile of hidden explosives causing a chain reaction as the cave started to cave in totally.

"Boom!" the loud explosion tore through the cave bringing more and more boulders down crushing many miners. The explosion was so near to Ichijin and his mother that they were thrown out from the cave due to the explosion.

Ichijin shakily stood up. He has been lucky, his mother had covered him from most of the explosion but he was still severely hurt. He looked towards his mother and saw that she was lying motionless a few feet away. He lost consciousness then and fell onto the rocky floor.

He woke up on a comfy bed, as he looked around he saw that he was in an abandoned shack with several essential items nailed onto the wall and a small kitchen to his right.

He tried to sit up but experienced unimaginable pain at his chest. He looked at it and saw that his chest was bandaged up tightly and most of it covered the upper part of his chest. He spotted something black that the bandages were trying to cover up. He pried through the bandages and found a black triangle with several squiggly lines surrounding the outside, on his skin just above where his heart was.

"Nothing but a scar," a voice interrupted his thoughts and he looked around at his rescuer, who pointed at the 'scar' on his chest, which was slowly starting to disappear. "You have been hurt at numerous places but that scar was the worst injury of all." He was greeted with silence from the child when Ichijin was trying to figure out if he had imagined that scar, which had totally disappeared.

"What's your name kid? My name is Kane."

End Flashback

It was a dark and silent night, with the full moon out casting its moonlight over the Kotaro's residence. It was covered with flames that danced in the rhythm of the clashes of metal against metal.

"I will…kill…you…" Ichijin kept saying out loudly over and over again with each swing of the giant blade which the ninja easily blocked with a deft twist of the kunai.

The ninja was silent as he dodged the swings and stood still as if mocking the young and inexperienced boy.

"Grr…" Ichijin growled under his breath, the sword was starting to get very heavy and his movements were sluggish as he took a flying leap with both hands on the sword and using gravity to add power and speed to the swing, he slashed down at the ninja.

The ninja surprised by the sudden move jumped back quickly, but not quickly enough. The sword whizzed inches from his head but cut the skin from the left shoulder all the way to the right hip, blood staining a little of his vest.

"Damn you, why do you even fight for that old man anyway, according to our sources, you are not even his son!" the ninja said, holding his left arm which was numb due to Ichijin severing part of the muscle.

"Shut up! He is my father!" Ichijin stubbornly cried out and used the ninja's open weakness, his weak left side, to his advantage.

Ichijin sprinted parallel to the wall and towards the enemy's right side; clumps of dirt were loosened and thrown into the air. The enemy was preparing to defend himself against anything that Ichijin might try. When Ichijin was 2 feet away from the ninja, he leapt towards the left, at the same time bringing the sword downwards from his right to left.

Because he was jumping left and was slashing in the opposite direction, the attack was a weak one, but it has served its purpose by fooling the enemy to think that the attack would be coming on the right and making the ninja focus more of his defenses on his right. Since the ninja's left side was already weakened by the earlier cut, it could barely dodge the blade and it left a deep cut on the left side of his body.

"You Brat, you will pay for that," the ninja screamed as he cradled his wound, 'this boy is better than I expected, I will admit that, but he is still not strong enough to beat me.'

The ninja tossed a kunai towards him. It sped through the air and hit the ground allowing Ichijin only had a second to react to the fluttering explosive note behind it.

"Boom", Ichijin was thrown into the air and hit the ground before rolling to a stop; he had just barely escaped that explosion. Suddenly the ninja appeared right in front of him with his leg pulled back.

"This is the difference in skill and power between you and me boy," the ninja sneered as he kicked him right in the stomach propelling him backwards and crashing him into a wall, creating a huge indent of the boy's figure on the wall. Ichijin pushed out from the hole and fell to the floor while the weakened wall behind him crumpled.

Ichijin stood up shakily; blood flowed down his arm and started dripping from his tightly gripped fist onto the ground. It was a miracle that Ichijin still had the sword but it was starting to feel as though it weighed a ton and his arms were aching. He yelled out a battle cry and started charging towards the jounin.

"Enough games," the ninja went through several hand seals and screamed, "Earth bind technique!" Slabs of earth shot up and encased the boy, rendering him unable to move.

'Shit, this is it.' Ichijin fought back his fears as he watched his father's murderer walking towards him with a kunai in his hand, ready to perform the very thing that killed his father.

"I will ask you again, tell me the location of the stone and I will spare your life", the ninja said as he placed the kunai centimeters away from his throat.

Ichijin replied with a censored word.

'I can't die like this, I just can't!' He cried out in despair as he struggled uselessly and suddenly, time stopped and his world was plunged into darkness.

'Where am I?' He asked himself. He had suddenly appeared in a village, an abandoned village. There were no people around. The houses were built out of stones and some moss was growing in between them with some plants growing in the crevices. In the middle of this village, about 10km away, was a huge tower obviously made from a different material than the houses as it was reddish brown and it gave off a dark aura.

The sky was red and several clouds were at a standstill. Ichijin stared at the sights as he walked around. There was an eerie silence only disturbed by the light footsteps of our warrior. He glanced down the alleyways to only find some dumpsters and fences.

"Chink, chink, chink," the rustling of chains halted Ichijin in his steps.

'What was that?' Ichijin asked himself as he quickly lowered his stance. He looked at his hand and was shocked to find emptiness in his hands. He looked around desperately to find a weapon. He grabbed a rusty shield and held it at ready.

Suddenly a shadow darted out from an alley and started moving as a dark blur towards the huge tower ahead. As Ichijin looked at the tower, he noticed that it was just a few meters away. He looked back and saw that he had only walked several steps. 'Wait that can't be right, I could have sworn that it was really far away' Ichijin thought to himself.

His instinct told him to climb the tower and find out where the hell was he and to find out the identity of the dark shadow. He tossed aside the useless shield and concentrated on his task by putting one hand on the tower's rough surface and soon started climbing.

A few minutes later, he found himself at the top of the tower. Once again the laws of physics were broken. He looked around and saw that a huge ancient throne was on top of the tower. The throne was covered in many ancient runes and on the dusty floor he could spot several parts of a seal that covered the entire top of the tower.

"Heheheh, you finally came," a dark and menacing voice interrupted his thoughts, "after all these years, you finally reached here."

"Who are you?" Ichijin shouted but found that his voice was weak and wavering. He turned his head to the direction of the voice and stared at the monster before him. Its head was black without a nose or ears, his four eyes were placed like the corners of a square and were glowing, a menacing red. As it spoke, the part of the face where the mouth was suppose to be, simply stretched as though he was speaking behind a mask.

Its body was dark grey and the muscles were very well developed. Its arms were thin but long and his claws were very sharp which he demonstrated as he cut a rock in front of him as it was obstructing his view of the observing boy.

Its wings were identical to bat wings, except there were scars from battles, where it seemed like a big arrow went through it and the skin healed but left an empty patch there.

"You should know what I am, lets just say I can help you take revenge on that pathetic excuse for a ninja," the demon replied as he waved his hands and the red clouds parted and revealed the ninja with a kunai just an inch from his exposed throat. "But first, you have to allow me to use your body," he said with a sneer. The demon walked over and sat on the throne.

It was then that Ichijin noticed that a large chain was attached onto the demon's left leg.

This chain was attached to the throne and he made a wild guess that this was what he had heard just now.

"Hah, you noticed it, haven't you, I am chained to this throne, chained and sealed in this stupid world. I can't just escape from here and that is why I need your permission to cut off this dreadful chain, this alternate dimension is inside your head anyway."

"Why should I let you go free?"

"Foolish human, can you not see that you will be dead by now if I have not stepped in and try offer my help?" the demon snapped.

"…" Ichijin's mind was whirling; there were so many questions and no answers at all. Firstly who was this demon? If the demon said this world was made out of his subconscious, then is this demon his dark side? And secondly, should he let the demon out?

"You want to take revenge, don't you?" the demon asked

"Yes"

"Then let me help you…" the demon replied as he reached out a hand and touched the boy lightly. Suddenly Ichijin was overwhelmed with hate and revenge as the demon's aura infected him. He could feel the hate take over his mind and he clenched his fists tightly and gritted his teeth trying to resist.

"Okay". The chain broke.

The overconfident ninja stopped in his tracks and jumped back quickly when he sensed a very powerful killing intent. A moment later he realized it came from the boy. Chakra started to leak out of him like an overturned tap, blasting the chakra in all directions effectively making the jutsu that had imprisoned him, crumple.

The boy raised his head; his eyes opened and shot such killer intent to the ninja that it paralyzed him.

"What…what the hell is this?" the ninja spoke, his voice layering with fear as he looked at the boy which seemed to resemble more and more of a monster as the chakra which was just blasting out started to calm down and slowly covered the entire body in a layer.

'Hmm…what a pitiful body you have, brat" the demon thought as he tried flexing his cramp arm. 'It's so sad that I can not take full control of this body and transform it into what I desire' he chuckled as he looked through the eyes of his host.

He took the sword with one hand and easily swung it, the wind caused by that swing tore through the air cutting the ground beneath it as it headed towards the ninja.

"Shit, when did he get so much power?" the ninja cursed as he jumped up into the air, the wind cutting harmlessly into the rock just behind where the ninja was. The ninja gasped in surprise when the boy disappeared from his view.

"Over here," the whisper reached his ears and he turned around in surprise before getting pummeled into a ground with a heavy punch. He crashed into the ground and created a huge crater. "Poof" the body turned into a stone tapestry which had totally disintegrated due to the force of that punch.

The ninja breathed heavily as he tried to think up of a plan, he had just barely escaped that punch and was hiding in the foliage of a tree. He observed the boy, which was looking around boringly as he took his sword with one hand and started swinging it around aimlessly cutting many trees and walls. As he looked closer he could see that a dark chakra layer was covering him and a spot on his chest, where his heart was, was glowing really brightly under the tattered clothing.

'Oh so that's it! That idiot Kane, he sealed the stone, which contained the demon, into that boy,' the jounin thought furiously. He tapped his microphone twice signaling that he had found the target and waited for a moment before tapping the microphone once telling his leader that one of their team was down.

The response came soon enough when another ninja was spotted racing across the landscape, jumped and landed deftly on top of the half-demolished wall. The demon looked at the newcomer and started licking his lips with a blood thirsty look in his eyes.

"Let's go, formation Alpha," the leader called out to his subordinate through the microphone after accessing the situation. The leader jumped from the wall and headed towards the demon, his teammate jumped out from his hiding place and joined the formation forming a vertical line.

The two ninjas split and ran around him, when the ninja on the right reached the middle of the circle; he threw two kunais with blinding speed with two extremely powerful explosive notes. The kunais whistled in the air as it headed towards the demon. One of the explosive notes exploded in the demon's face blocking his view.

The other kunai holding the last note flew past the demon and was caught by his teammate opposite the circle. He caught the kunai and threw it back at the demon unprotected side. The demon that was expecting the kunai at the other side and was momentarily blinded by the explosion took the kunai in the gut.

The note exploded causing a huge explosion rocking the ground and trees. A tree fell down and landed near the ninja who was looking at the charred remains of the so called demon. After the smoke cleared, he noticed a blurred figure standing up slowly from within the smoke.

"Impossible that was the most powerful explosive note in the entire world, created by Zen himself!" the ninja exclaimed as he looked in horror as the beast advanced. Ichijin emerged from the smoke. His chakra layer had taken the blunt of the attack but his hair was singed and his clothes were reduced to rags, he still clutched the sword as the dark layer of chakra slowly regenerated and covered the exposed surfaces.

The ninja growled before forming several hand seals and crying out, "lightning, death strike" he put his palm outward facing Ichijin, his fingers charging with electricity before releasing a huge charge of electricity towards Ichijin.

The demon looked at the bolt of electricity heading towards him, and raised the sword. Putting the sword in a position such that the blade was pointing towards the lightning, he waited patiently. Just when the lightning bolt was about to strike, he tilted the sword slightly to the left, catching the bolt at the tip of the blade and causing the bolt to be deflected as it followed the new path created by the sword-user. The bolt slammed into the ground and tunneled horizontally before disappearing into the air with several sparks of static electricity here and there.

While his teammate was distracting the opponent, the leader accessed the situation. One of his team had died, and the enemy was too powerful to defeat and they had already completed their mission. "Bask, fall back, our mission here is complete, our priority is to get the information to '…….'" His voice was unable to be heard when suddenly the air pressure in the area was increased dramatically.

A menacing laugh tore through the air as the dark chakra around the boy started to grow unsteadily as it started to wave around causing several large cracks in the ground surrounding him.

The two ninjas could only watch in horror as they watched the monstrosity. The dark chakra split into two before darting towards both of them. The chakra hit the air an inch before them and spread out in a sphere shape totally encasing both of them. The chakra spheres slowly began to shrink with their victims inside screaming in terror when they realized they were about to be compressed alive. The demon only stood there and laughed when he heard their screams.

"Stop it you, demon!" Ichijin shouted out to the demon in front of him who was excitedly watching the show from the television in the sky. Tears were running down his face when he thought that he was going to be a murderer.

The demon appeared to stop and think, "Nope, don't think so, beside it was you that released me in the first place…" the demon replied in a mocking tone.

"I didn't release you; you messed with my head and put all those thoughts into me, which was why I agreed!"

"One thing," the demon raised his long index finger and held it in front of Ichijin's face, "Never mess with a demon as you never know when you might die," he said as he turned and watched as the two ninja were heard screaming as they struggled to get out. "And secondly, I really hate to lose, if controlling you body is the only way to win I will do it seeing that you are incapable to do so" The chakra spheres had shrunk a lot and were compressing the ninjas slowly.

"You know, this is the best method to kill an enemy and satisfy your needs. The sphere not only compresses the ninja, it also gives the ninja a limited amount of air to breathe so as they struggle to get out, they waste their precious air and they will slowly die." The demon grinned as he watched.

"I said stop it!"

"Hmmm, nah"

"Stop it!!!" Ichijin was turning red in the face; he looked at the demon with anger in his eyes as he tried to stare the demon down.

The demon once again dismissed him and returned his attention to the screen, once in a while laughing loudly.

The boy started venting his anger as he clenched his right fist and focused all his strength on it. An internal sensation came over him as he felt it being focused into his arm. His arm started glowing slightly blue and some of the light started rising up his arm and disappearing just like a fire. This strength, he could feel it, it was like a vat full of energy and he had just merely touched the surface. He started emptying all of this energy into his fist. His entire arm was now covered with blue fire dancing in the air; the air around Ichijin starting to inch away from him.

The demon finally noticed the increased pressure in the air and sensed a source of energy. He cocked his head and looked at Ichijin with one of his four eyes, the rest focusing on the screen.

Ichijin started dashing towards the humongous creature and took a flying leap, drawing back his arm. He landed on the slope surface of the demon's back and shouted a war cry before plunging his arm straight into the creature's back.

"Foolish human" the demon commented before the world turned black once again. Ichijin glanced around and saw that around him was total blackness; he raised his hand and realised that he could see it clearly. It was like he was in a separate dimension unlike the other.

Suddenly a bright light appeared and engulfed him; he instinctively covered his eyes with his arm. When the light cleared, he saw his father. They were in the dining room; his father was sitting on a cushion on the floor. He took up a small cup of tea and blew it slightly before consuming it.

"Daddy!" a loud voice rang out. The sliding door opened and Ichijin found himself looking at his five year old self. "Daddy, look! I have got a tattoo!"

The young boy gripped the end of his shirt and gave it an upward tug, revealing a triangle with several squiggly lines surrounding it, this time however, there was a round stone in it with an upside down triangle covering the inside of the big triangle. Ichijin tried to get a better look at the seal and gasped in surprised when he passed through the table.

Kane looked up surprised and stared at the seal. The real Ichijin was standing really close to Kane and he heard him whisper softly, "I guess its time." He gasped when he remembered that the next day after the incident; his father had started on his physical training, pushing him to his limits.

Suddenly the vision was moving away from him, it was as through he was being pulled back into the present. He felt nauseas from the wave of emotions surging through him. The last thing he saw was his father's drooping head and he blacked out with a scream.