Chapter 1: Rebirth
AN: Given the setting, expect a lot of OC's. It's basically unavoidable.
-0-
Death is a funny thing. It comes when you least expect it, yet it seems entirely expected when it does come. Some people are familiar enough with death that they give him high fives whenever he comes around for a visit. As for me, well, what can I say but that it really wasn't that surprising when he came for me. However, if you want me to recount the story of how that happened, then sorry, but you're about shit out of luck there. One minute I was alive, the next, I wasn't.
Funny that.
In my previous venture in the realm of the living, I wasn't what you'd call "convinced of an afterlife." I wasn't an atheist per se. I just wasn't really sure. For some reason, I always had a niggling feeling in the back of my head that reincarnation in some form was what actually happens after we die. That's not a statement of conviction. It's more like a weird lizard brain thing that I don't understand.
So, imagine my surprise when I seemingly die only to find myself not dead anymore an unspecified amount of time later. And as a baby, too.
Actually, it'd be more accurate to say I was a toddler. I have extremely vague and cloudy memories from before then, but my earliest solid memory is from when I was four, as is often the case. Funny enough, it's of a child's birthday party, though whether it's mine or not, I'm not sure. I want to think it's mine in the same way that people in Hell want to think that that lake is full of cool, refreshing water.
Speaking of cool water, I discovered something pretty neat recently. I'm pretty sure I'm a waterbender or something. I don't think that's what people call it here, but anything else like "water-type shinobi" is too much of a mouthful, and I'm still four, so…
Ah, before I get into that, I should mention my family. Trust me, it's actually relevant.
First thing's first, the hometown. The place I live in is called Yukimura, or Snow Village. Not because it's snowy (though we do get seasonal snow here), but because it's owned by the Yuki clan, of which I'm a member. The town is located in the south of a large archipelago called Mizu no Kuni, or Water Country. I know. We're very creative with our names. Listen, when this is your life, you learn that it's best not to question it.
It's not a terribly big town by any means, but it's ours. We're descended from some sort of local Lord who pledged fealty to the Water Daimyō a long time ago, and the other families who populate the town are mostly our vassals. I think. There are others too, like travelling merchants and the occasional ninja, but most everyone here knows everyone else. And at the center of town, next to a lake, is the Yuki manor, an old Japanese-style house that makes my house in my old life look like a squalid hut by comparison.
Our family isn't as large as it used to be since many of the males have died fighting in wars, because of course. Currently, the family is the smallest it's supposedly ever been, with only two branches descended from the same line. Starting from the top, you have the family matriarch, my grandmother, Himiko Yuki. Then, you have the patriarch, my father, Byakuya Yuki. Then there's my aunt, Kyōka Yuki who heads up her own semi-independent branch. The last of my parents' generation is my mother, Eri (no surname given). Finally, you have us kids, my older cousin Tōko, and myself. My name is Hyōsuke Yuki, but you can drop the "-suke" if you want. Everyone does.
(Mind you, it took me years to get all the excess information straight in my head.)
Oh, we've also got a family retainer named Sayaka Gotō. She's a samurai or something. She'd be mad if she knew I almost forgot her.
Anyways, one summer when I was four, I was playing with Tōko and some village kids by our lake when I accidentally summoned a wave and splashed everyone. It was an honest mistake. I remember there was a bit of an uproar afterwards, and Sayaka, who was looking after us, took me home to talk to my father.
The following conversation went a little something like this:
I was sat seiza in the family dojo, my father sat across from me. I remember his weathered face was perfectly framed by his straight black hair which was long enough to reach his waist. He wore the traditional blue hakama and black obi of Water Country noblemen with the Yuki clan crest (just a regular old snowflake) emblazoned on the back. I think his typical pencil-thin mustache was weirdly poofy that day for some reason, but I never bothered to ask.
When I entered, Sayaka took up a guard position next to the sliding rice paper door. When I took my place, he began.
"I understand you've discovered something new about yourself," he said, jumping in with no preamble. I nodded, and he continued. "Do you understand what this means?"
"I… maybe," I mumbled. I wasn't sure if I should be scared or not. Father was always a strict man, and somewhat distant, but he wasn't cold.
After letting the silence drag out just long enough for it to become painful, he smiled. "Come," he gestured behind him with his right hand. "I've something to show you, Hyō-chan." He stood with noble grace, and I was left scrambling to keep up, wondering why I'd bothered to sit in the first place. I looked back at Sayaka, but she shook her head and elected not to follow.
I followed Father into a back room behind the dojo. My brow furrowed when I entered. Inside, set into the floor, was a large onsen, complete with lush trees and a garden with a sōzu that occasionally flipped and hit a rock below to make a loud noise. I wasn't sure why the sōzu was necessary since no large animals could get in here, but okay. Even more than that, though, was that I wasn't sure how I'd never seen this place before.
"We're taking a bath, Father?" I asked.
Father chuckled. "No, no, Hyō-chan." He turned to face me and made some rapid gestures with both hands. My eyes went wide as I saw a massive liquid dragon appear out of the water and stare at me with its glowing yellow eyes. "Today, we begin your ninjutsu training."
"Nin… what?" I said intelligently.
"You are a member of the Yuki clan of Water Country. And you have demonstrated the ability to control water. With time, you will certainly be able to do even this." He added another gesture to his sequence, and the water dragon stilled and crackled, becoming frozen on the spot. Literally. It turned into an ice statue before my eyes.
"Whoa…"
"Indeed. But, we've a lot to do before you can learn this. It won't be easy, but you're my son. I expect great things from you."
"I-I… Right. I'll try my best."
Father nodded, releasing his gesture, causing the ice dragon to collapse back into water. "That's all I ask. Now, first thing's first. Before you can run, you must first learn to walk, and before you can use ninjutsu, you must first learn to control your chakra."
He made it sound simple, but it was anything but. His first task was to stick a leaf to my forehead and try to hold it there with chakra alone. Actually, I lied. The first task was learning what chakra is. The leaf sticking exercise was the second task. Sorry. It's a lot harder than it sounds. I'd somehow made my chakra respond automatically before, but I don't know how I did it. When I really concentrated, I could feel a strange core of energy somewhere in my gut, like a giant ball. But getting it to respond was a bit like trying to coax water out of a pipe and through a hose without knowing how to attach the hose. It didn't really work, and it resulted in some unusual mishaps like when, on my fourth attempt, I stuck the leaf on my forehead and concentrated myself into the wall behind me. That hurt. A lot. Father told me to take a break after that.
While we were eating lunch afterwards, I asked him, "Can Tōko do that ice thingy?"
"Not yet," he said around his bite of okonomiyaki. "She's working on the simple water spray technique."
"Still further than me," I said mutinously. "How come she never said anything?"
Father smiled. "We wanted it to be a surprise when the time came."
"Oh." I gobbled up a large chunk of my food, heedless of the exasperated look Sayaka was giving me. "Do you think I'll get it?"
"Of course. Everyone born into our clan can naturally use water and wind ninjutsu. Nobody expects you to get it right away. Just be patient. You'll get there eventually. It'll just take some time."
"Okay."
And that was my first day learning to waterbend. All in all, I didn't really accomplish much, and I got tired and collapsed after my ninth attempt at the exercise.
~o~
"Hey, Sayaka-san? Who are those people?"
Sayaka was giving me a piggyback ride in town on our way to another kid's house. It was a few weeks after I started attempting to learn water ninjutsu. There wasn't any particular reason for her to give me a piggyback ride other than that I wanted one and she was okay with it. As it was, I was clutching onto the neckline of the twenty-something onna-bugeisha's flowery kimono with all the strength my toddler hands could muster, my face half-buried in her thick brown hair as the meticulously neat bun of her marumage hairstyle scratched my cheek. It was nice.
She craned her neck to look at me out of the corner of her eye and smiled. "Those people are shinobi, Hyō-sama."
"What are those things on their heads?"
She frowned. "Those are their village headbands. They wear them to signify their allegiance to a particular ninja village. In their case, those shinobi belong to Kirigakure, which is the Hidden Village of our country."
"Oh." I frowned and tilted my head to the side, pushing further into Sayaka's hair. "But aren't shinobi supposed to be sneaky? Why would they want to wear symbols of their shinobi-ness in public? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?"
Sayaka gave me a strange look like the thought had never occurred to her. Then, she choked back a laugh as her shoulders quaked silently. "I suppose that's one way to look at it." Once she schooled her expression, she continued. "The main reason they wear them, I think, is for the benefit of their military unit. That way, their comrades recognize them as one of their own even if they don't know each other and aren't wearing their village's standard uniform. Or something like that."
"I see." She adjusted me on her back as she continued toward our destination. I continued. "What are they doing here?"
"I guess I can't really hide it from you. You'll find out sooner or later, one way or another. Our country is currently at war."
"Who with?"
"Everyone. Apparently, it's the second time this has happened, but I was your age back during the first. The war has been raging for some years now with no signs of stopping any time soon. These men are here to protect us, since we're on the edge of Water Country."
"But who are we in danger from? Aren't we way far from the mainland?"
"Yes, we are, but that doesn't mean we're safe. Especially since you guys are nobles with a rare power, you're considered VIP's. Anyone could try to take one of you for your powers and, since we don't live in the village, we're especially vulnerable. Plus, we're on the coast, so we could be attacked from the sea. That's why they send ninja to protect us."
"They must be pretty cool, then, right?"
Sayaka just gave me an uncomfortable smile. "Well… I guess that's… a word you could use."
"What do you mean?"
"Hm…" She stopped in the middle of the street as a group of ninja passed us by with a wave. She nodded in their direction, then looked back at me. "Maybe I'll tell you when you're older."
I watched as the group of ninja took to the roofs of the town, travelling so fast my eyes couldn't even keep up. My heart thrummed in my chest. I knew, right then, what I wanted to do with the ninjutsu I was learning. "Sayaka-san. I think I wanna be a shinobi when I grow up!"
Now, she just looked weirdly embarrassed at my proclamation, which was spoken so loudly that others on the street were staring at us.
"You'll…" she said, a bead of sweat rolling down her temple. "Talk to your father." She exhaled deeply, shrugged, then set off again toward our destination.
~o~
It was only later that night, while I was bouncing around in my futon with excited energy thinking about my future as a ninja, that I really started to process everything Sayaka had told me. It was only then, for the first time since I'd been mysteriously reborn, that it finally clicked in my head exactly what reality I'd been reborn into.
I… had a lot to think about.
There's someone out there, somewhere, who's laughing at me right now. I have no doubt about that.
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AN: A note on honorifics. The -kun and -chan honorifics are simply a means of referring to someone politely but familiarly. Despite common non-Japanese misconceptions, they are not, in fact, gendered (though they are often used that way). For instance, your boss at work may refer to you with the -kun honorific regardless of your gender. This same principle applies even all the way up to the Prime Minister and Parliament. The -chan honorific is less commonly applied to boys than the other way around, and you would pretty much never use it in reference to an adult male, but for a child (especially your own child), it's more acceptable. In this case, it demonstrates a hierarchy, as the parent is, of course, always above the child.
All this to say, try not to confuse yourself with this stuff. Hyōsuke is male, and he'll be quite happy to remind you of that fact (at least, earlier on; Haku isn't the only Yuki clan member who's sort of androgynous).
Kanji for the names are thus:
Hyōsuke Yuki - 雪 氷介
Byakuya Yuki - 雪 白夜
Eri - 恵利
Himiko Yuki - 雪 氷美子
Kyōka Yuki - 雪 鏡花
Tōko Yuki - 雪 冬子
Sayaka Gotō - 後藤 鞘化
See if you can figure out a pattern to them. :)