"Are you sure this will work?"

"What have we got to lose? He gets found or he dies, either way we'll be rid of this brat forever! If they come for him, we can tell them we have no idea where he is!"

"I know, it's just..." long lost maternal instincts came to the front, thinking that perhaps abandoning her sister's son was a bad idea. However that was squashed by the fact she had no love for the boy and it was probably better for him to live out his life away from her husband who absolutely loathed her sister for being different.

He didn't leave her much choice, taking the three year old boy with him outside England and to a country few rarely went to because of how dangerous it was. He left him in a mountainous region where clouds perpetually hid the middle of the mountains from view.

He didn't know that someone had come to investigate the child's crying a few hours later and put him in an orphanage with other children, or the angry face the man had for someone abandoning a toddler in a very hazardous area.

He knew he was going to die. He had chosen to take his twin's place so that the clan's bloodline would never fall in the hands of the scum who tried to kidnap his niece. Right as they were about to kill him for his eyes, someone broke into the room and nearly killed the medics.

During the scuffle, he received a minor blow to the head in a place where it wasn't dangerous to his health, but it caused memory loss. Specifically who he was and where he came from. He remembered his ninja training, basic facts, and the date, but everything about what made his personality was gone.

It would be years before the effects of sparing his life would be felt.

"Crap, crap, crap! I am so freaking late!" bemoaned a young genin.

He had recently graduated from the Academy, but because of his teammates he had failed spectacularly and was stuck with remedial classes for another year.

Fortunately his teachers knew he could easily pass again, and the fact that someone else was teaching him taijutsu meant he could skip those classes entirely to the annoyance of his fellow students.

He was five foot seven, with neck length fire red hair in a short tail, bright green eyes behind indestructible black glasses. On his back was a long katana, almost long enough to be called a tachi but a few inches too short. He wore a deep blue hoodie that could hide his distinctive hair color when put on. His kunai and shuriken pouches were on his left and right leg respectively. His pants were black, comfortable, and went down to his ankles. He had hid legs taped where the pouches were. His shoes were Kumo standard and well worn.

He also had an odd lightning shape scar, but his hair was so long no one ever saw it.

"You're late brat. Maybe I should train someone else," said the old man.

"Sorry Jiji! I got stuck with clean up duty at the Academy and those jerks made it harder by knocking over the bucket three times!"

"Hmph. Well at least your reasoning is acceptable."

He grinned and bowed to his taijutsu teacher, a blind old hermit on the mountain. He had met him years ago on a dare from the other orphans and once he realized how cool the man actually was he kept pestering him until the man relented and taught him.

He didn't mind the brat, who brought him his weekly groceries and the mail. He didn't like to socialize anyway, and this was the perfect excuse not to go into town.

The only real downside was that he had unofficially adopted the brat and the kid always called him Jiji. At least the kid didn't complain when he sent him into town with weights he could barely pick up just to get the mail and food. Or when he had him sharpen all his weapons once a week just to insure they could kill someone.

"Are you ready to continue the exercise from yesterday?"

"Yes Jiji!"

"Assume the stance."

He spread his legs in a way that made it easy to spin around.

"Remember, chakra is a part of you, but it needs to be conditioned before you can use it properly. You must have absolutely perfect control to be able to shut or open tenketsu with any efficiency. Now, try to expel the chakra on all points."

"Hai!"

He closed his eyes, and began to expel his chakra all over his body. The resulting power surge caused his body to spin rapidly. Fortunately he was used to such sensations, so he wasn't as dizzy as he could have been. Suddenly his left foot cross his right, and he tripped.

"Hiroto, what have I said about keeping your feet straight?" said Jiji tiredly.

"Fancy footwork isn't going to do you a damn bit of good if you can't keep from tripping on your own feet," said Hiroto tiredly.

"Now, again!"

Hiroto straightened himself out and tried again. He was able to keep it up, but the problem was keeping his feet from tripping him. For a Wind element he was extremely clumsy. According to the old man, this was because his body had yet to grow into his full height, and his gangly legs would only hinder him until he was able to handle having such long limbs.

Hiroto's dream was to become a medic nin, like Tsunade of the Sannin. This was mostly because he had seen how devastatingly effective the old man's fighting style was, incorporating lightning chakra to shut down the tenketsu of his opponent. However his control wasn't the best, and he also had to spend time on his kenjutsu, since he loved swords.

Hiroto often employed a double-handed style, which meant he was ambidextrous by default. He was one of the smartest boys in the class, but for some reason few of the kids liked him.

In a village where bringing new bloodlines was important, a nameless orphan like Hiroto was practically a nobody unless he showed real promise.

That was why he accepted the dare of the children in his orphanage and pestered the old man until he trained him. With the unusual tactics the old man used, he was sure to get noticed.

It was either that or fall back to his second option, pranks. Jiji didn't tell him to stop, only to learn how to escape his victims before he employed it on the jounin. This turned out to be wise advice after he had to clean up his first mess when his legs tripped him at the worst possible time. At least he had gotten off light...

"Again!"

Hiroto, in a fit of annoyance, returned to his stance, only this time he tried something different and channeled wind chakra instead.

"Stop! Hiroto, what was that?" asked the old man.

"I was channeling wind," he said, sitting down. It took a bit more chakra to use the element, but he hadn't tripped this time.

"Hmm...it never occurred to me that you could use elemental variants instead of straight chakra. Well, since you seem to have found a new way to use this trick, let's see if you can do the same with lightning."

Hiroto nodded, having enjoyed his short break. He assumed the stance again, only this time instead of expelling pure chakra, he used lightning chakra. The result was a dome roughly one meter in diameter that sparked like a raiton tag.

"Enough! It seems we've found a way for you to master this trick. You need to rest in order to restore your reserves, you chakra is barely genin level right now."

According to the old man, Hiroto had mid chunin reserves with barely genin-level control. It was something he took great pains to correct when he heard the boy's chosen career as a medic.

Sure, he could pinpoint all the pressure points in the human body better than most students, but his control needed a lot of work.

"What do you want Bee? I'm in the middle of something," the Raikage complained. It wasn't that he hated his brother, far from it, but the headaches he caused by his mere presence were pretty bad.

"You were at the graduation exam this year right?"

"What of it?"

"I noticed a certain red-haired menace didn't pass the second exam," said Bee.

The Raikage groaned. Ever since Bee found that red-haired kid in the forest training grounds, he had kept half an eye on him.

"From what I heard, it wasn't even the kid's fault. His team hated him from the get go and sabotaged him. His jounin sensei didn't want him so he threw all three of them back for another year."

"...Is it possible for me to take him on instead? I've seen the kid train, his sword technique is really good for his age and his taijutsu is like nothing I've ever seen."

"In six months Bee. You know the rules, throwbacks have to stay in the Academy at least six months before they can be retested by new jounin. Not to mention you have to find the kid. He disappears from the village for hours at a time. If it wasn't for the fact he has no useful knowledge worth knowing I'd be worried he some kind of amateur spy," said the Raikage.

"Nah, he just goes to some house in the middle of the mountains to train with a blind guy."

Seeing his brother's look, he shrugged.

"I followed him once when I heard he went missing a lot. I don't know who the blind guy is but ever since Hiroto started training with him he almost never leaves his house and he always has a piece of cloth around his eyes and forehead. His taijutsu's really weird though," said Bee offhand.

"Weird how?" asked the Raikage.

"From what I could see he does these little tap things to disable his opponent. I've seen the kid try something similar by channeling lightning chakra into senbon."

The Raikage immediately became suspicious. There weren't any taijutsu experts with that sort of skill in the village...if there were he would have known about it. It sounded a lot like the Hyuuga's Jyuken though and that made absolutely no sense.

The Hyuuga had avoided Kumo like the bijuu for what happened to their clan head. That had been a political mess and a half. To top it all off, Hiashi's body was never found, so they couldn't actually return it to the clan as an apology.

"If you want the kid, then you can have him in six months. In the meantime, either take a mission or get out of my damn office!" he growled.

Bee held up his hands in surrender, and left before his brother blasted him out of the office...again.

Six months later...

Bee was among the jounin instructors awaiting their selection from the previous group of possible genin. He had surprised a great many people when he showed up, but he wanted to get his hands on the kid before someone else did.

Hiroto looked at the jounin bored out of his mind while reading a text on healing techniques. At least until his name was called up by the teacher.

"Hiroto. HIROTO! Get your head of the blasted book boy!"

Hiroto looked up and glared at him. He was the taijutsu instructor and the man always had it out for him because he never used what he taught. Hiroto took great pleasure in pissing him off.

"What do you want you senile old man?" said Hiroto smirking.

"Shut up you clanless brat! One of the jounins asked for you specifically, so get lost!"

"...Someone actually asked for me?" he said surprised. One of the jounin in the back waved his hand, and Hiroto walked towards him. It took him a minute to recognize the man.

"Oh you have got to be kidding. The undisputed worst singer in Kumo asked for me by name?"

"Oi!" said Bee.

"Aren't you that same guy who also followed me to Jiji's a few years back and couldn't use stealth to save his life? Your hiding place was so obvious it was sad!" said Hiroto.

Bee could tell the kid didn't mean anything of it, he was just being blunt. It was something the blind man taught him early on. If you can't be nice, be blunt to the point they leave you alone.

Bee grinned, as he tested the kid's sword skills against his own. Hiroto was good, almost prodigy level, but he needed someone who knew what he was doing to take it to the next stage. His taijutsu was flawless and damn hard to counter. His ninjutsu was good, but was limited to what he could afford in scrolls. His genjutsu, passable. His fuinjutsu, which he tested as a lark, was beyond what most genin could pull off.

Hiroto had a strange knack for removing seals though. Apparently the old man he trained with had one and it had taken three years to work out a counter.

Bee didn't even know how to test the kid's healing jutsu, so he could just pawn him off on the medic nins.

He grinned. This kid was good...he saw no reason to force him to deal with idiots until he was chunin.

"Jiji! I finally became a genin!" shouted Hiroto.

"What?"

"During the usual six-month evaluation one of the jounins asked for me. Said he was impressed with my sword skills. Now I can finally take on missions!" said Hiroto.

"Legal ones, at any rate," muttered the old man.

Kumo's orphanage had a rather unique system for the kids to earn pocket money when they were old enough to understand math. For the civilians who didn't want to go through the hassle of a legal mission, which put money back into the Kumo mainstream, they posted ads in the orphanages. The payout was lower, but they didn't have to write mission reports as the result.

The Raikage only allowed it for one reason. All the ads were for D ranks that anyone could do and they were never allowed outside the village. So the clanless kids could do the dishes and all the other rather boring chores for cash and the genin would get more time to train.

It was an imperfect system, but it was a hell of a lot better than what Konoha did by forcing all new genin to do such monotonous tasks until they earned the right for a C rank.

"Who's your teacher?"

"The Raikage's brother Bee. I swear to Inari if he starts to rap I am going to shut his tenketsu off!"

"Go ahead and try little man," said a voice behind him.

"GAH! Bee-sensei?!" said Hiroto, nearly having a heart attack.

"What? You thought I would let my new student go outside the village without finding out about the people he associates with? Give me some credit here!" said Bee grinning.

"So you are Kira Bee. I can only hope the rumors of your rhymes were exaggerated...but then again I heard about the destruction that outdoor concert caused five years ago," said the old man.

"What I would like to know is why I've never seen you in the village before. A blind man would attract attention, especially if he knows taijutsu well enough to teach it."

"For the love of... I have no idea why people keep calling me blind. I can see perfectly well, it's just I hate it when people stare at my eyes!" he said irritated.

"Your eyes are so pale and you can't see the pupils. Of course people think you're blind," countered Hiroto annoyed.

Bee was started to connect the dots.

A body that was never found. A man who lives alone and has no name who can teach taijutsu that has never been seen before in Kumo that involves shutting off tenketsu. A seal removed by a kid that was placed on the forehead.

All of this pointed to one thing, and one thing only.

Hiroto's grumpy teacher was the missing and long since presumed dead Hiashi Hyuga.

His brother was going to have kittens when Bee finally told him.