February 12th 1987… Iga Province, Yamato Protectorate… Hattori Clan Compound…

Harry never liked the synchronized kenjutsu exercise that he and the other children of the village did every morning. Every morning! Seven times a week! No matter if it was even on holiday!

They, when Harry meant they, meant the twenty or so, five to nine year old jisai shinobi practitioners that lived in the village or surrounding households would gather at the center of main branch Hattori compound at the crack of twilight. Where they started what he could best describe as dancing. Which, sorry to say, he was doing as well.

Yet, his uncle Flea and aunt Euphie, called it a morning magical ritual. Whatever that meant. Harry intellectually knew about magic. It was the opposite of what he possessed. The Null. Or also known as negative magic, yin magic, psionics, and his personal favorite anti-magic.

Harry had learned about it from Euphie of course. His aunt was a great teacher and was practically his mom. Though he always wondered whatever happened to his real parents. He had a photo of course, and his uncle never delved into the subject. Something scratched an itch that his six year old brain could never configure. However, that was all overrun with Harry's most pressing concern. How his arms ached after doing intricate sword movements for the last two hours in the freezing cold winter air.

Still, around him, his friends, his classmates, his older sempai moved with intense intensity. From the youngest and oldest moved together as one. They parried together. They lunged together. Their footwork was identical. Even though each of them had different heights, weights and ages, in this small time, they were all one entity. One mind as Harry could feel in the back of his skull the thoughts of his twenty classmates thinking the same thoughts.

Front foot forward. Swing the arm forward. Lung! Parry! Backup. Channel. Release.

Channel and Release the Null. As Harry felt and watched his left handed blade light up with a flicker of dark inky black outline of energy that crackled with even blacker electricity and bubbling energies. Then Harry released like he had done felt like a million times before. One second there was a black outline, the next it dissipated like a pebble dropped in a pond, but instead in the open air.

Harry conducted this exercise again, and again for the next thirty minutes as he and his classmates conducted increasingly sophisticated maneuvers. Maneuvers that he had never technically been taught, but knew instinctively. The from moment he had descended into the morning ritual when he was five, he simply knew and performed. Like all his classmates and senpais had done before. It was normal.

When they were done, they stood breathing heavy white clouds in the frigid air. As an assembly of elders and teachers prowled before them. Correcting postures, techniques and providing criticism or praise when needed. Harry himself had never been praised. But neither had he been criticized either. At the end, all he hoped was doing it right. Unlike his friend and classmate, Inukai Minoru, who was being harshly criticized by two clan elders. His friend, ever stolid, ever calm took the abuse in stride.

It made, young boy mad more than he believed possible. Harry knew his friend, he moved with dedication and purpose that few equaled. Except, because his parents were mahoujanai, muggles, regular non-magical folk, he was heaped on with suspicion and derision. It was unfair to his friend, as the young boy overheard his friend being upbraided for a slight wavering of his sword that half the class did at one point or another!

He was wondering what to do, when a loud whistle signaled the end of the exercise so they broke out of their formations, each of them marching to their assigned rooms. Thankfully, with his friend Hattori Kaede, an impish girl that always seemed to tease him and Inukai Minoru, who while nervous and anxious was always steadfastly calm and smart under pressure. He was no longer an outsider. He was here to say.

The classroom was a standard affair in this austere and spare village that they resided. Tatami mats and rice paper walls are hardly insulation against the chill of the winter winds. But was quickly made up for the fact by the blazier that was light burning, blossoming heat in the chilly room. For long minutes, Harry and his classmates knelt down on the mats waiting for their usual sensei to come. He never did.

Only when the sliding walls parted ways did an older kunoichi stroll and stand before them in an elaborate pink silken kimono dotted with black flowers. Her black hair spun beautifully in a knot in the back of her head. Her face was occluded with a white painted mask that made her look like a pink Oni. A devil or troll ready to devour them in a moment's notice. Her body was riven with knives of all sorts. Kunai, fletchetts, darts, tantos, and many other mysterious blades strung up and down their new instructor's exterior. More Harry suspected he couldn't see. She looked formidable. Then she began to speak in a very thick edo-era accent. With nary a welcome or introduction.

"Your instructors have taught you what it means to be a Shinobi. To channel and release the Null that resides in each of you." Their new instructor demonstrated as much by channeling the Null through the entire body. Herself haloed in that inky electric blackness. That seemed to suck in the space around her.

Their mysterious instructor continued her speech as her aura grew. "You've learned to walk in the shadows. To camouflage yourself from others. To soften your footsteps. To climb impassible and impossible obstacles. All without Null. You understand what it means to be without."

She brought the palms of her hands together in front of her, causing a small wave of space to generate around. "You've studied the annals of your ancestors. Learned our sacrifices and trials. You know it means to be Shinobi. Now, we begin the first steps in discovering whether you are merely just Shinobi, or reaching to something… like a Kage."

The last word was a whisper as her blinding aura collapsed in on her, vanishing their instructor before their eyes. The class gasped. Minoru had his mouth so wide that if there were any bugs Harry was sure, it would fly right into his mouth.

Kaede on the other hand inched into his ear to whisper. "Invisibility, the first test of a Shinobi."

Harry nodded to himself. Harry knew this was a test. Every class was a test. A test of oneself. Or a test against others. In this case, he thought it was the former. Harry was already taking in the practiced lessons of observation. Listen, and hear the world, Harry thought, closing his eyes. He heard the murmurs of his classmates drain away. He heard the drip drop of melting icicles. He heard the crack of wind passing through the poor insulated walls. He heard…

Harry barely had time to bring his hand up grabbing the wrist of the instructor. Her blade just inches from his neck. Her arm appeared first winking into physicality. Her voice a sing song of delight. "Interesting. The gaijin boy detected my movement while the rest of you didn't."

Her arm retracted as Harry felt his heart return to normal. Actually, was his heart always beating so fast? Then he felt Kaede's hand on his arm. "Are you alright, Harii-kun?"

"Uh, yeah, just, uh scared me a little. That's all." Harry said.

Kaede leaned in close, her lips practically touching his ear. Her voice excited, "You didn't look it! It was like you knew!"

Harry blushed. "I just… listened."

Kaede smiled impishly, but before she could perform her retort, a dart landed between them, returning their attention to their masked sensei. "Silence is the virtue of our profession. Learn to keep it." Harry could almost hear her scowl.

"Now could anyone here explain what I did?" Their sensei looked at them like they were stupid. Or if not stupid, then just very ignorant and dumb. Harry couldn't say whether that was true or not.

Unfortunately for their sensei, Minoru's hand shot straight up. "Uhmm…", Midori began scratching his face. "I think, when you call forth your aura you, you uh… shifted or inverted it, so that you, uhmm… reflected light making you invisible."

Their sensei stared at him for one long minute. Minoru added. "I, uh, like reading Karappo science books. They have cool pictures."

Their other two classmates giggled at this, but a look from their sensei silenced them. "Technically correct Inukai-san. I inverted my aura to function as a lens, causing your vision to divert away from me." Their sensei channeled aura again into her arm, before inverting. The effect was lopsided elliptical in nature. They could see a part of the arm until it just disappeared in a blurry half circle.

"Such a technique is simplicity itself for someone of our magical inclination." Their instructor said, phasing the arm back into focus. "Yet simplicity does not mean the rungs must be skipped. Like all techniques, all rungs must be climbed to the top."

Their mysterious sensei drew back a scroll from her kimono before unwrapping it. "To get to the point where invisibility is as much as second nature is one that requires first understanding what aura is."

Kaede raised her hand up straight. "Aura is the creation of an outer sheen of null that surrounds one body. It acts as a shield and a weapon against, as it both drains spells, rituals and wards used against it, but can also be used in close proximity to drain wizards and witches of their magic."

Harry was impressed that Kaede could recite such a complicated definition that he himself sometimes struggled with. There was a reason that Kaede and Minoru were the class's academic high achiever. Where he struggled with learning Japanese and English at the sametime along with all the shinobi techniques, his uncle's training, and his aunt's potion instructions.

Their new sensei nodded her masked face. "The new pride of Hattori is correct of course. Yet, she misses a critical feature. A null aura is the stepping stone for all other techniques that we'll learn. Invisibility is but one ability. The aura can grant one moment of great strength, speed, or agility. On other times, it can be lengthened, giving shinobi a great reserve of endurance. More advanced still, is being able to adapt the five elements to your very fingertips or empowering your strikes with Null to shatter the arcane cores of your enemies."

Sensei nodded her head. "Our first class will begin in channeling aura to a single limb. For the rest of the spring, we'll be incrementally increasing it across your entire body. First by…"

Harry's thoughts drown out the rest of his new sensei's words. The mechanism to channel was fairly simple. You imagined the sword as charged. Being highlighted by Null energies. One's mind makes it real. There was no incantation. No yelling out spell names. There were no carving runes. Or burning ingredients. Or any other magical ritual. It was one mind subjecting reality to their own version of reality.

That was what Harry learned. And so, instead of applying that to only his arm or leg. He applied it to his entire body. Throwing caution to the wind, and letting cry havoc reign. He willed himself a cloak of Null far different than impenetrable black. It was a deep purple, and it felt sick. It swirled about him in a raging typhoon that set about destruction all around him. Instead of the calm hum of Null.

The last memories Harry remembered was the collapsing building that he was in, the screams of his friends and their new sensei in front of him, her fist retracting back to deliver a sharp punch glowing with the most brilliant black light he had ever seen. Then there was a crunch. And he slipped into blackness.

February 21th 1987… Iga Province, Yamato Protectorate… Unnamed Mountainous Shrine…

"Harii keep up! We're almost at the temple!" Kaede yelled. Her outline blurred by the falling snow and the heavy cloak that she wore whirling in the mountain winter winds. Minoru was beside her similarly dressed.

"Hai, huff, coming." Harry said, trying to maneuver the extra heavy pack on his back while braving the mountain winter winds and the treacherous snow drifts that lay on his journey. This trip wasn't his first idea of a break that his uncle and the elders decided. After the Incident. Yes, everyone was calling it the Incident, with a capital i.

The 'Incident' was the talk of the village. Hells, it made it to all the nine shinobi practitioner clans and supposedly to the court of the Kōgō herself. If half the sniggering and rude comments that had assaulted him every morning since, had a grain of truth. Supposedly no one, not in nearly a thousand thousand years had ever messed up so badly. The worst part was that no one would explain what he did wrong! Or what that strange purple stuff was.

Just that he should feel lucky to be alive.

Harry pushed those thoughts aside as he nearly slipped on a snowy and wet rock. His equipment and himself almost tumbled to the ground. If not for the quick intervention of Minoru. Who grabbed hold of him by the cuff of his cloak, and dragged himself upright.

"Thank you, Minoru-kun." Harry coughed, rearranging his equipment and gazing over the cliffside. It was deep, full of rocks and trees covered in snow.

Minoru smiled. Not his rueful smile that he confronted rude sempai, but his genuine and wholehearted smile. "Do you need help Harii-sama? I know…"

Harry pushed himself up, his six year old arms and back strained from the heavy load. "It's my punishment, Minoru." Indicating to the heavy he had laid was the first of many punishments for not properly following sensei's example. "Yet, if you could keep by me…"

Kaede brushed past Minoru and propped herself against him. She smelled of flowers and snow. It made his stomach flip flop with a sensation that he only experienced a few times. "Of course, Harii-kun! We'll make sure you don't fall. Plus!" Kaede pointed in the distance that Harry could barely see the arched roof of the shrine through the wind and snow. "We're almost there!"

The next few miles of travel through increasing deep snow drifts, freezing winds and steep slopes on the mostly obscured path. Would have been impossible for him to do, if it wasn't for his friends. When he was about to fall, they helped him up. When he thought he couldn't continue anymore. They encouraged him forward. When his small six year old mind tried to grapple with the why's and what's. They made jokes and distracted him from the atmosphere around them. Until they arrived at the shrine.

It wasn't what he was expecting, Harry had to admit to himself.

The torii was dilapidated stone heavy with snow, but with markings that hadn't been seen in the village's newer wooden red painted torii. The markings were strange. They weren't kanji or hiragana. It looked old. Like really old. Where Kanji was a series of intricate curves and lines given up in complex series of shapes. This looked far simpler, yet far more organic.

Runes? Ancient Japanese runes? Harry pondered as they made their way through the arch and up into the shrine's jinja. Where again, Harry was slammed with the unfamiliar. The village's jinja, or sacred space, was usually landscaped with a variety of beautiful natural features. This one was for a lack of better term, a forest of statues.

Of many different statues. People, creatures, outsiders, and beasts of all kinds seemed to pop in and out of the overgrown trees laden with snow that seemed to inhabit the jinja. It was… unnerving. As he and his friends continued up the slippery stairs that made up the sandō, the sacred path. The six year old felt a shiver rise up his spine. He definitely thought the statues eyes were following him up the path.

At the pinnacle, sat a rather small structure with none of the garbled roofs or ornate woodmanship that the shrine in the village displayed. It didn't even have a purification well. It was so very… odd. It was completely wrought with stone. No wooden structures at all. Though, the structure did resemble wood.

While Harry was definitely not an expert in Japanese architecture. He was after all only six years and half old at this stage. Something about this structure struck him as different. It was then that he noticed.

They weren't alone.

Standing in the corner of the compound, there was a very large and fierce looking Oni. For a second it looked as if it was a statue itself. So white and gray was its skin than its usual coloration of red or blue, fooled him at first. Until he noticed that it was drooling heavily. With a look heavy what could be best described as a cat looks upon a mouse or rabbit. Harry could see even with fogged up glasses a very large club was by its side and an equally large boulder.

"Get down!" Harry yelled. As the Oni picked up the boulder and with remarkable accuracy, punted the boulder within half a meter of him and his friends. The boulder completely splintered. Sending stone fragments everywhere, one of which hit Minoru. Leaving a bloody gash that was quickly reddening his cloak.

"Keade," Harry said, ignoring honorifics, "Get Minoru inside." Harry pointed to the shrine's interior.

Kaede nodded as she bounded up toward Minoru and started dragging him inside. As Harry unloaded his equipment as the Oni grabbed its massive club. Moving towards them with alacrity as Harry unsheathed his dagger. His mind set in a desperate and foolhardy plan.

Picking up a stone from the ground. Harry hefted it, and threw it at the Oni with all his might. Even with the transformation that had occurred to Harry's body over the last year and half of morning exercise, Harry's pitiful six year old muscles could barely launch the stone. But the stone still hit the target, landing squarely against the Oni's rather flabby exposed belly.

With a snarl, the Oni abandoned the pursuit of Kaede and Minoru and directed his attention toward Harry. Harry instead retreated away from the shrine. Away from his friends. His first thoughts, a mixture of panic and determination. Not noticing that he was running toward the forest of statues. Harry decided that a little hide and seek could at best maybe confuse the beast, or at worst, give his friends time to escape. It was the only thing that the six year old could think at the moment.

So distracted by his thoughts and panic, Harry barely had time to duck, as the Oni's giant wooden and stone club impacted with incredible force to his left. Completely shattering a statue of a kitsune. With the willful ignorance and optimism that only a 6 year old could possess. Harry kept moving forward. Dodging the increasing rain of boulders and stones that the Oni was launching toward him. Either by using the statues as impromptu shields. Or using his agility to barely outpace this blumbering beast.

All the while his mind was working on a plan that was likely suicidal. But Harry was six years old. And the he did not even know what a suicide even meant anyway! It was time to try the aura again.

Ever since the first failure, Harry had been forbidden from trying it again, until an expert sensei could come and counsel him on what he got wrong. Obviously, with his and his friends' lives at stake, he couldn't just wait around for that, could he? He needed to get invisible! Now!

He unraveled his lone smoke bomb that he had hidden in the toughs of his clothes, he banished it from his hand. A giant woosh of smoke momentarily distracted the Oni. Allowing Harry to hide behind a particularly angry statue of a tengu.

Harry focused on himself. Remembering the fragments of a conversation that he had with Minoru on the proper way to channel an aura. Instead of imagining that one is surrounded by an aura. One had to conjure from one's inside and push it outwards. It was a tough order to do in ideal settings. But to do it on the spur of the moment…

Harry shook his head. No doubts! He did this, or he and his friends were as good as dead. As the heavy footsteps of the Oni neared, Harry focused on withdrawing null from himself and pushing it outwards. For several excruciating seconds, nothing happened until he felt what was best described as an electric shock. Like if you ran your hand across the carpet too many times.

Opening his eyes, Harry discovered that he was clothed in a shroud of dark electric black null energies. Swirling around him like a gentle wind. Momentarily excited Harry unintentionally screamed his triumph, thus alerting the beast.

"Uh oh", Harry said. As the giant beast ran to him, its heavy footfalls caused snow and statues alike to fall to the ground.

Fumbling for a response, Harry's mind just wished he was invisible. That Oni didn't see him, at all. He was nothing. A burst of wind. A sea of nothingness. The thoughts bumbled around him until he was the very thing he wished. His aura changed back into a fierce purple energy that swirled around him as if a typhoon.

Before vanishing in a single moment of blinding transfixiation, Harry disappeared from view.

When Harry opened his eyes again, he saw the Oni just feet away looking confused as if unable to see him. Harry looking down on himself discovered he was too invisible. Harry could feel the knife in his hands. And he could feel the clothes on skin. The sweaty quality of his boots. Yet he himself couldn't see! It worked!

Now to something that his uncle would call, 'bloody stupid shit'. Harry laughed to himself as he could imagine Euphie's reaction to repeating his uncle's bad language. More than a few spanks on his bum.

Harry applied all the skills he had learned so far in the shinobi arts. The silent run. As he maneuvered himself close to a tree that stood right next to the tall lumbering beast. The silent climb. He scaled the tree with acrobatic prowess as only a scrawny six year old with no fear of heights could do. The jump, and the silent strike. Which he performed just as he had been instructed taking a plunging leap onto the Oni's massive bulging shoulders. His dagger gripped tightly, but not too tightly, plunging into the Oni's jugular with all the force that Harry could deliver.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough.

The Oni reared in blood curdling scream as Harry's arm and blade tore half haphazardly through the Oni's tough skin. Enough to draw blood. Yet, it seemed the Oni didn't have the same jugular that humans had. What did his uncle say about Oni's heritage? Mountain troll-ogre hybrids? Wonder what that meant in this context as Harry held on for all his worth.

Again, his six year old worth was little indeed.

The Oni bucked the six year old off of him. His knife still lodged in Oni's neck. As Harry felt his left fingers break from the shear force. And then he was airborne. For a moment he felt free. Before the snow and solid ground knocked the air out of him.

Harry barely rolled out of the way as the Oni threw a statue where he once was, with heroic resolve and will that he neither knew whence they came from. His left arm crooked in a way that told him that it was broken. His left fingers leaking blood and fluids that he ignored. His right arm though was uninjured and was pulsing with the same strange dark purplish energy that had caused all that destruction all those weeks earlier.

Harry couldn't think anything about that though, as the Oni reached and grabbed his leg with its meaty hand. Harry felt a pop and then break, before feeling the burning and painful sensation of his leg being snapped in several places. Harry finally succumbed to fear as only a six year old could know. He punched with his right hand with all the might of a scrawny six year old. Right into the Oni's big meaty hand.

Only to be surprised when it actually did something.

The resulting explosion propelled him, and a good portion of the remains of the Oni's hand against a nearby tree. The resulting impact was enough that Harry felt several of his ribs break. If not his back. He was able to barely stay awake as his hit with his hand had caused a resulting anti-magical/magical explosion that had obliterated most of the Oni's upper body. The only thing that remained were some intestines and a pair of legs affixed to the nearby trees.

Harry thought he heard Kaede screaming and her footsteps, where he once again slipped into unconscious sleep. After causing so much destruction.

March 1st 1987… Iga Province, Yamato Protectorate… Potter Residence, Harrier's Room

Harry had barely awakened after recovering from his coma when he felt the hand of his uncle cuff the side of his head hard. "Ow!" Harry said, rubbing the back of his head. "What was that for?" Harry asked his uncle, Fleamont.

"For being a suicidal little shi…", his uncle couldn't finish his curse word before auntie Euphie slammed a chair into his uncle's groin. With but a mere flick of her wand. Auntie Euphie was cool like that.

Harry sat up in his 'hospital' bed. Which turned out to be just his bedroom filled with the accouterments of the impromptu hospital. His aunt's stack of non-magical and wizardry healing books were opened and strewn about haphazardly. Cauldrons and potion making equipment were operating with telltale fizzles and burps. A whole collection of bottles, both his aunt's and shinobis', were piled on tables that had been brought in. And Harry even saw it on the end table. A large pile of presents, getwell origami and sweets!

Looking down at his body, Harry was surprised to see how bandaged up he was! He could see bandages, plaster casts and anti-magical glyphs covered from top to bottom. And his right arm was covered in weird looking black ink tattoos! How long had he been out? Looking at the date on the calendar, Harry saw that it had been nearly a week!

"Language, Flea." His aunt said in a cool, stern voice. Before directing her attention to him. "What he means Harrier is that trying to kill an overgrown mountain troll is…"

"Bloody stupid!" Flea said, before his aunt transfigured a ball of dust into stone and slammed it against his uncle's testicles. Something which caused him to kneel on the ground in pain.

"Fleamont!" Euphie said with a voice that promised dark retribution, before she turned her attention back to Harrier. "Maybe not the right choice."

Harry tentatively protested. "But auntie Euphie! My friends were in danger, Minoru-kun was injured and…"

His aunt interrupted him. "And what if you got killed fighting this troll?" She asked, her blue eyes analyzing him as she crouched down to look into his eyes. "Where would your friends be then? Stuck in a shrine, having no idea where you are and stuck miles away from the village!"

"But…there wasn't anyone else nearby! No adults."

His aunt chuckled. "Do you think we or the clan elders would send a trio of six year olds to visit an old temple of Nara alone in the middle of a winter storm?"

Harry thought about that for a second, before concluding no, they probably would not. "So… we were being followed. Then where were they when the Oni attacked!?"

His aunt winced at the word. "Observing you from afar. By the time they got to the shrine, you and the 'Oni' were long gone into sacred space." His aunt laid her wand against the table, as her hands came together. "And I can already anticipate your next question, why was the 'Oni' there to begin with? Well, it was the protector of the shrine after all. The whole mission was to see if you could follow orders and remember your lessons."

Harry sighed, as only a six year old prodigy in his very own arts expressed so clearly. "We failed then."

His uncle stood back up, still breathing hard from the unexpected direction of the attack. "Failed? Oh, yes. However…" his uncle rubbed his neck, "It's the very nature of your failure. That interests us." His uncle said, in expectation.

So Harry told them everything that had happened in the fight. And his aunt and uncle filled in the details that he didn't know. How it began with the 'local' mountain troll that had tried to attack them first. How they supposedly didn't perform the right purification ritual which caused it to attack them. Their failure to know that if one sought recluse in the shrine or retreat to the sacred path, they would be safe. His 'genius' idea to lure the protector away had caused the ancient glyphs on the temple to activate and nearly killed his friends in the process.

When Harry finally got to the part where he tried aura and weaponized it for the first time, he saw there and then, his uncle and aunt got worried. It worsened when he explained, brokenly when he tried to cut the troll's throat. His aunt had to restrain his uncle as he exploded in swears and threats at Harry's stupidity. Then quieted down quite a bit when he described when he 'punched' the troll.

"Did I succeed in killing it?" By it, Harry meant the Oni, obviously.

His auntie chuckled menacingly. "Yes, obviously. Even trolls can't regenerate from what the Shinobi on scene said. You unleashed a mighty strong anti-magical attack using psionics. Which interfered with the magical nature of the mountain troll. Resulting in a mighty big boom!"

His aunt looked down from her spectacles in the way that screamed, 'you are in so much trouble'. "You know what me and your uncle have said about this."

Harry shook his head. Yes, his uncle and aunt said don't play with his right arm and that don't experiment with psionics. Yet, Harry hadn't linked the purple stuff with this psionic stuff that his aunt was talking about. He said as much to his aunt.

His aunt considered this, "True, but we have said, time and time again, don't use your right arm. It's special."

Harry, tentatively nodded again. They had in fact said that several times. And he had ignored it. "I don't understand why I have this arm, why I have these psionics, why I'm different. Why I'm in Japan and not where I'm originally from. Why… Why am I so special?"

His aunt looked at him before sighing. His uncle sat down on his bed. Both with a vacant, defeated look on their faces.

"I would like to say that we'll tell you later." His uncle began, "But that would be unfair. To you, and what you've gone through."

"Yet…" his aunt continued. "The information we've gathered about your abilities in the last six years is dangerous."

"Dangerous?" Harry hadn't considered it. But now that he gave it some thought, he considered that in less than a month, he had killed an Oni and blew up a school classroom. All because of his powers. His friends couldn't say the same thing. Harry flexed his right arm, feeling just a tiniest bit of power singing in those fingertips. Unsure what that meant for him, his friends or his family.

"Extremely, it's…" His uncle grappled for a word that was a swear. "... like this. The power in your arm, we think, can cancel out spells or cause A/M explosions." Anti-magical/Magical explosions are the most destructive forces known to wizards, sorcerers, and anti-mages alike.

"But we don't know for sure." His aunt continued as his uncle grappled with his words. "There is much in your condition we don't know, and many of the shinobi masters and elders around here are similarly lost."

Harry sighed. So much he didn't know, and so much his aunt and uncle didn't know either. It was beginning to become frustrating. But the six year old continued on with the conversation, either unable to vent or unwilling to infront of his surrogate parents.

"So where does that leave me?" Harry asked.

"Well, for the moment, bed rest and medicine." His aunt began. His aunt softened a bit when she read the dismay on his face. "Though, since you're awake now, and your friends are around I guess we can allow you to see each other."

Harry smiled and tried to give a hug to his aunt. Only to realize, ouch, not everything had been perfectly healed. His aunt was able to see his effort, and fed him two more potions. Before giving him a hug. His uncle on the other hand merely tousled his hair and told him, 'next time' just run away and not die like some hero shit.

Harry scowled at the retreating back of his uncle. Considering some of the stories his uncle had told him about the 'Grindelwald War', his own disasters were hardly the stuff of legend or renown. Harry didn't know why his uncle was so squeamish about Harry doing that sort of stuff, if his uncle had done greater than things? Like nearly taking on an entire coven of Hungarian warlocks with nothing but a pitchfork!

Harry sighed, pushing those thoughts away as his ears picked up the familiar footfalls of his friends. The door of his room opened, and his two friends entered. Kaede practically ran to him. Her eyes, a river of tears, her usually straight black hair, a mess. She jumped into the bed and wrapped her arms about him. Her tears staining his nightshirt.

"Harii-kun! Hariii-kuun!" Kaede screamed as she hugged tighter causing Harry no end to pain. Kaede was bawling her eyes out from, inconsolable as she mumbled in Japanese so fast that Harry couldn't make heads or tails what she was saying.

Meanwhile his friend, Minoru, was oddly muted. Apathetic. Looking at him with eyes muted. Like judging an insect. It was unnerving. Had he ruined a friendship already because of his special power. It made Harry sad, not the least because he had done this for his friends.

Harry patted the still crying Kaede awkwardly. "Well, I'm still alive. So no harm done? I think." Harry said, trying to conjure a genuine smile.

Kaede pushed away. "This is my fault."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "How is this your fault? I don't remember you fighting an Oni."

Kaede almost started crying again from the pure despair on her face that Harry knew he shouldn't have joked. Instead, Kaede wiped tears on her arms. "... I was so focused on making sure you were okay with the journey! I forgot to do the ritual!"

Harry looked down. Ahh right the ritual, the purification ritual that his aunt talked about. "Well, I mean, you made sure I didn't fall down a cliff right?" Harry said, throwing a well meaning look to Minoru who was standing a little bit a way, fluffing a pillow.

Slap! Harry felt it as Kaede slapped him hard. "YOU BAKA! YOU COULD HAVE DIED!" She screamed before breaking down in fresh tears. Harry was at a loss for words. Thankfully his aunt came in to intervene carrying the crying girl away. When the door to his room slammed shut, Harry sighed. He never was particularly good with words.

"So uhmm… what do you, think Minoru-... guff!"

Harry felt the pillow slam against his face, his mouth pressed painfully close to pillow fabrics. His mouth gagged airs, and his arms flailed around wildly in his casts and bandages. "Wicked voider! Your arts foul the earth and your mind-magics corrupt all that sees you!" Minoru howled.

What! Harry's mind uttered in confusion. Is going on here! Not that it mattered too much as the pillow pressed against his nose and mouth constrained the air from him. Harry felt him drifting away as he heard Minoru howl in ecstasy. "This vessel will not serve, voided one! I will make sure that the prison you have kept us will become yours now!"

Harry in a state of increasing desperation and lack of oxygen, had a moment of clarity as through the struggle he was able to get a breath of air in. Before the pillow came down on his face tighter and tougher. "Die, child of the void! Let your soullessness be forever cured!" Minoru practically screamed.

Harry could hear his aunt and uncle pounding down the door, as well as Kaede's screams. Yet as everything became darker and darker, something else inside him awoke. It felt like something took control of Harry in that instant. Another presence taking control to rescue him.

His right hand slammed against Minoru, who shrieked like a banshee. His hand grappled so tightly against Minoru's own arm that Harry thought in passing moments of cognizance that he was going to break it! But instead as Minoru released the pillow, Harry saw what he, or It, was doing.

It was tearing a kami from Minoru's body.

It had to be a Kami. The entity matched. It was an ephemeral, white, indistinct entity that transformed from a mere translucent shade into a screaming woman covered in deer hide! Nothing else could line up in the six year old's experience. Then again, he had precious little experience. Still, as his hand slowly dragged the Kami from Minoru, Harry noticed that the little bells, shells, and other trinkets lined her bodice, and started twinkling a rather melodious tune.

Whatever significance this was lost, when he, or It had withdrawn the entity entirely from his friend's body. For a moment his hand possessed a shrieking Kami that called down all sorts of insults down on him. That was when his hand clamped down hard on the spirit. A final scream that seemed to shatter all his bedroom windows foresaw Kami's last act. As his hand highlighted by fusing of purple energies, it annihilated and dissipated the spirit in one act. Killed the Kami. As a burst of soul energy that scarred the walls around Harry.

For a moment, all he could think was that he had won, when a second Kami appeared from Minoru.

Instead of a woman, this was a massive man with a giant beard covered in dragonhide and bearing a sword-staff that with one move lifted Harry up and threw him out of his bedroom's window. In what felt like the second time in only one day, Harry felt more things break. Barely lifting his head out, he saw that he had landed in his uncle's british garden. Ruining the tree that he loved to manicure and prune. He was pretty sure that he had undone all the work that his aunt had done. His aunt was going to kill him! His uncle for sure!

Unfortunately that would have to wait. As Harry fought to stay awake, the Kami just walked through his house's outer walls like it was nothing. The Kami's sword-staff pointed to him in a deadly direction. This time however, he didn't need to rescue himself. A very elderly shinobi wearing antiquated samurai armor jumped in front of him. Drawing a very large sword from his belt, the shinobi uttered words that haunt Harry for the rest of his life.

"If on your journey you should encounter God, God will be cut…" All other words were lost as another Shinobi picked up Harry and cast a simple a majutsu that put him into a soundless and deep sleep.

March 22nd 1987… Iga Province, Yamato Protectorate… Personal Residence of Fleamont Potter…

After the events of the beginning of the month, Fleamont had been expecting a visit from the absolutely ancient and decrepit demon that was clan elder Hattori Hanzo. The power that Harrier had displayed was simply unparalleled, at least in his experience. Furthermore it was not everyday that an anti-mage, especially a Britannic one, could kill a millenia old wraith. However, that was not the subject of today's chat.

"We've had an… unforeseen visitor arrive yesterday with a team of Britannic aurors." Hanzo related to fleamont in a particularly thick accent.

Fleamont had been worried for years that this might happen as he poured a cup of tea in both his and Lord Hattori's tea cups. The Dumble had finally caught up to them. It was about time in Fleamont's opinion to prompt an exit stage left.

"Dumbledore?" He asked, knowing the answer before Hanzo nodded in step. "I'm not exactly surprised at that news."

"Yes, unlike you seemingly. The Kōgō and Minister were quite surprised to receive the esteemed archmage. The visit, however, soured when Dumbledore-tono laid out his plans to retrieve his 'kidnapped' ward with or without Yamato's permission." Hanzo said with an edge of dismissal. "He made it rather bluntly clear that if we didn't hand you and the boy over, there would be ICW sanctions forthwith. Not to mention, he and his team would force the issue decisively."

Fleamont grimaced. Leave it to Dumbledore to drum up what little standing he had left with the ICW to press demands of the Yamato Protectorate. A nation so filled with null arcane practitioners, muggleborn wizards and ainu shamans, who practically owed the ICW to their continued existence on the world stage after the apocalyptic destruction wrought on the Yamato Empire after the Grindelwald war. With most of the ancient pureblood and half blood monk-wizarding families having died out. Left only the fringe groups that remained untouched by the war, which the ICW setup as the new basis of power in the archipelago.

Thus, unlike before the war, the Ministry held most of the power in the islands. Though, the sister of the Emperor who had rebelled against her brother at the beginning of the war, and her daughter, now Kōgō still retained a large amount of power. Gathered around the few pure blooded families remained.

"I'm a bit surprised that you didn't lead Dumbledore right to my doorstep, or perhaps murder me in my sleep." Fleamont deadpanned. Hanzo the Devil was not a title that was easily forgotten. Though considering he was over four hundred years old could have dampened his expectation if hadn't seen how quick he was in dispatching the second wraith that appeared on the training field a few weeks past, after Harry extracted it from his young friend.

"Bah" Hanzo waved his hands in front of his face in a grimace and disgust. "You've lived here now for six years. And I've watched Harii grow into a prodigy in the art of the null and ninjutsu. I would rather die than hand you over."

That was… reassuring, though one could never trust Hanzo to be completely honest. He was after all a shinobi that had served a variety of masters of the years. It wasn't out of the field that Hanzo was misleading him in some way. "A surprising sentiment when a month ago, you were ambivalent about us."

"That was…" Hanzo looked pensive for a second. "Some of my clan were proposing a marriage match between Harii and Kaede." Hanzo made a sour face. "No offense, Pottaa-sama, but such a match would be ill-considered. The social and genetic implications of which, well, the wider public would not approve of."

Fleamont nodded. While he was inwardly sort of outraged that shinobi clans still practiced arranged marriage and eugenics, he would be a hypocrite to say that his own progenitors didn't practice the same. He also understood that Japan even with how more open and accepting it was versus the previous pureblood administration. The islands remained much like Britannia, very isolationist and xenophobic. Mixed race children were likely to suffer social stigmatization, if not exile.

"I can't condone that sort of thinking, Hattori-sama, but I can understand your job restraints as the provisional lord of your clan." Fleamont replied neutrally. "But we've gotten off track. What was your government's response to Dumbledore's demands?"

Hanzo scratched his beard. "The Kōgō flat out refused of course. She had given you sanctuary all those years before, and the Kōgō is not one to violate oaths. Even non-magical ones."

That was very good news indeed Fleamont thought. "And the Minister?"

Hanzo chuckled darkly. "His staff had to restrain him from dueling Dumbledore-tono, there and then. Which caused one of the Britannic aurors to react prematurely." Hanzo gave him a lopsided smile. "... After which some of my clan jumped in to defend the minister. Which caused a major fight to occur that was only prevented from going further by the Kōgō's direct intervention."

Hanzo leaned forward, his features scowled. "The incident has already been reported in several dozen international newspapers. Your own newspapers are drumming the drums of war talking about our slide back to villainy, and other racist caricatures. Likewise, they and some other ministries are threatening severe sanctions."

Fleamont sighed. The Britannic press were widely panned as being some of the worst in the world. As most of the domestic newspapers were considered in international audiences to be little more than trashy tabloids lacking journalistic integrity. It showed here from whose hand they were feeding from.

"I'm unsurprised in that aspect, Hattori-sama. For the rest…" Fleamont closed his eyes in thought for what this meant for him, Euphie and Harrier. "Dumbledore and his team?"

"He's under lockdown for now surrounded by several powerful shamans and shinobi practitioners." Hanzo took a sip of his tea. "All of his "protection" team is in Manase Dōsan Hospital, suffering from core exhaustion. So for the moment, he is indisposed, though that won't last forever."

Hanzo peered at him questioningly. "Already his allies are gathering another expedition to help him search for his lost ward, with or without our Kōgō's express permission. My own government is preparing countermeasures if they are needed…"

Fleamont heard the emphasis and the unasked question. "Yes, well, Britannia's wizengamot awarded him guardian rights a few years ago, if I heard correctly from my contact."

"May I ask, how that may be. From my understanding, your own brother gave you the child to raise, would not such end the issue rather decisively." Hanzo enquired.

Fleamont sighed, thinking how his brother had lost control of the situation so spectacularly. "Unfortunately no. My brother had sworn a magical oath to deliver the child to Dumbledore or another family member. My brother quickly realized what that meant for Harrier, and gave me the child without any legal paperwork filed. I suspect when Dumbledore found out, he was furious."

"After that my information is shakier. Seems that my brother and his son had a falling out. My guardianship was withdrawn through a wizengamot vote, and was awarded to Dumbledore. We thought, given we left through muggle means and that through anti-scry charms my girlfriend had set up would leave us safe. That no longer holds true." Fleamont relayed.

Hanzo leaned back, his ancient features pensive in thought. "Thank you for telling me this, though this leaves us in a legal predicament."

Fleamont nodded once. "Yes, well, considering the information you've given us, it's probably for our mutual interests to leave shortly."

Hanzo eyed him carefully. "If you're absolutely sure, while there would be some that protest you remaining here, you would not be unwelcome. As there are ways to hide you and your family here through other means available to us. Especially as Harii's training is still incomplete."

Fleamont hesitated before nixing that idea, as Fleamont had an idea what he was alluding to. "Thank you for your hospitality and generosity on this issue. Yet, I feel remaining here gives you and our hunters too much of a target. Best if we leave quickly and quietly. "

Hanzo peered at the table for a long moment before affixing him with a stare, "I can't in good conscience leave Harii's training undone, nor for you to leave Kōgō's sanctuary unprotected. If you will, I'll have a trusted Shinobi travel with you for a time, if that is satisfactory with you?"

Fleamont thought for a second, before nodding. Having a second negative arcane user might be useful if he and Euphie had to battle Dumbledore. Or at least provide a distraction for him to scoop the boy up and flee. "That works for us."

Hanzo nodded. As he languidly stood up, he bowed in respect to Fleamont. Quite the sign of respect that Fleamont felt humbled by. "Do you have a destination in mind?" Hanzo asked.

"Yes. Though, I can't inform you. Better that way, since you can truthfully say in front of legilimens, that you have no idea where we are." Fleamont stood and offered his hand.

Hanzo nodded, eyed his hand and shook it. "Then I wish you luck. If you ever need us. You are not unwelcome." With that Hanzo retreated from his residence, leaving Fleamont to gather his thoughts and begin preparations for the next leg of their journey for the Oceanic. They would after all might have some idea how to teach Harrier better control of his hand. It was that, or waiting for Harrier to accidentally walk into Diagon alley and the resulting explosion wiping a good portion of London.