Edited: 07.02.2019

Maelstrom

Chapter Song: Ben Moon ft. Veela - Majesty

5 months later

"Long hoodies aren't the most ninja-appropriate attire, runt." Zabuza scoffed. I chuckled inwardly, amused by the lack of any real disdain behind his voice.

"I'm going to learn how to do one-handed seals anyway, so it doesn't matter." I flopped down from the branch I was sat upon, allowing only my legs to hang around the branch. The hoodie was indeed long, and the sleeves easily covered my hands while still having enough length for the remaining fabric to fold over on itself when I lifted my arms, but it was Zabuza's fault for leaving me alone in a shop. I came. I saw. I stole.

He wasn't wearing his usual bandaged mask, and I didn't fail to notice how the side of his lip tugged upward ever so slightly. "I don't know why you're so convinced you'll learn how to do one-handed seals. It's a hard feat to achieve, and that's coming from someone who knows how to do them."

Because my brother did.

Not yet, but he would.

"Why are you so convinced I won't be able to learn how to? I learned how to mould chakra around my body and walk on water in two months with no prior training whatsoever. Personally, I think I can do it, especially if you're teaching me." I winked, a very obviously feigned sweet smile splitting across my face.

"I learnt how to all that in one month, kid." Zabuza responded, ignoring my somewhat mocking attempt of flattery.

I frowned, narrowing my eyes at Zabuza, who was sitting on the floor sharpening some kunai, and currently looked upside down from my hanging position. "And I'm from a civilian background!"

"As well as from one of the most notorious clans the elemental nations have ever known." He retorted.

I grimaced slightly, recalling the history lesson about our clan that Zabuza had given me and Haku. The clan was one of the most historic of the elemental nations and had a reputation of particular notoriety around the period of the warring states. But even then, they didn't often come into contact with clans such as the Senju or Uchiha all too often, given their geographic location, until the villages had been formed. They mostly battled with, and often decimated, the Kaguya clan, and nearly entirely wiped out their Shikotsumyaku bloodline in the process. We had been in an alliance with the Hozuki Clan, which Zabuza attributed to the fact that their bloodline limit was horribly weak against ours but worked amazingly when accompanying the other.

The Yuki clan had been one of the original clans of Yukigakure, but that apparently that didn't help in erasing everyone else's memory of the destruction we tended to leave in our path after a battle. This was what made us both equally valued and feared in the earlier years of the village's existence. We were why the village often was on the winning side of wars, but after the battle, only gruesome memories of our relentless killing and destruction seemed to exist among the civilians outside the village. Clans that possessed kekkei genkai were hated. And then, eventually, this became the case for those within the village too, and fear began to overtake whatever respect and value had previously existed.

Hate always seems to manifest out of fear.

The persecution and prejudice began as a non-violent thing, but eventually lead to killing and riots, until under the rule of Yagura's predecessor, when the true purge began, our clan was finally forced out of the village and into hiding. My mother would've been a child around this time, so it was before the third shinobi war, and before Yagura's rule. Albeit we weren't the only clan that had been driven or bloodline limit users that had been driven out, but clans like the Hozuki had been allowed to stay due to their connection with the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, as well as the fact their bloodline limit was nowhere near quite as feared or deadly. Apparently, what I knew of our clan's abilities and power went far beyond what was shown in the anime through Haku. And, as well as this, according to stories and rumours, our clan possessed some super rare ability or something, but Zabuza wasn't even sure what it was. They were all unconfirmed, and all varied from person to person. Some claimed our hair turned white, some claimed we froze entire towns, some claimed we were the reason certain parts of the Land of Water never stopped snowing. It was all quite outlandish, really. But if this was widely believed, then I can understand why people were so scared of us.

"Notorious, yet all still murdered in cold blood." I commented.

"You were also one of the most formidable clans in cold blood."

I sneered, ignoring the blood rushing to my head. That was the thing that had given our bloodline away to Zabuza—the fact we weren't actually affected by the cold. Which was, most likely, the reason he actually decided to pick us up. But I doubted he would ever admit that outright. It would ruin his saviour façade. He just happened to stumble across some amazingly rare assets who he believed he could mould into compliant accomplices in his impending attempt of a revolt.

But I guess I didn't hate him as much as I had.

His training was certainly good. And efficient. There wasn't a day my muscles didn't scream at me to stop going through such vigorous training regime, or that my chakra pathways didn't burn from the strain, or a day where I didn't learn something new. Not since we started.

And yet, there also wasn't a time I had felt so alive.

Zabuza talked more than I an anticipated. Even now, in the night, when my brother was asleep, but I refused to be. I often struggled to sleep since, even despite travelling with and being protected by an S-class ninja, I couldn't quite get over the fear that someone was going to murder me in my sleep. Trauma was fun! But Zabuza seemed to have no issue with this beyond mild irritation, and never seemed to sleep whenever I couldn't either.

Despite the selfish motivation he had, I felt an undeniable sense of gratitude toward him. I hated myself for it, but yet I had to admit to myself that he saved me and my brother—that he was looking after us.

We're just tools to him, I told myself, don't get caught up.

I chose to change the conversation. I didn't want to dwell on the clan I had been the deprived of, nor the mother. So, I asked, "Do you think life is worse for a shinobi or a civilian?"

"A shinobi, definitely." He immediately replied, with a tone that very much implied by question was an extremely obvious and extremely stupid one.

"Why?" I queried back, wanting an elaboration regardless.

"Far more death. Far more betrayal." He paused, a pensive look forming on his face. "Life is more brutal. You're trained to be a puppet from an early age—you're raised to be a killer, stripped of your emotion, and told to not let it get in the way. Your worth is dependent on your strength and ability to absentmindedly serve the village."

I chewed on my lip, hesitating my next question. "Don't you become used to all the pain and death at some point?" I mumbled, my tone sounding near hopeful.

"You become used to the killing, but never losing a comrade. You just become more able to moderate the way you react. You're expected to let your anger drive you, but never enough to cloud your judgement or take over your impulse. The feeling of losing a comrade never goes away."

Careful, Zabuza. Your humanity is showing

I flipped off of the tree branch, perhaps a little too dramatically, and landed on the floor beneath, only narrowly avoiding the fire. Perhaps I should've been more focused on the landing than the execution, but I did have a slight flair for the dramatic. And I was particularly good when it came to acrobatics. I had always been rather flexible growing up in this life, but that had only become enhanced when the whole shinobi training thing started. Slowly, it was becoming a rather integral part of my fighting style.

And I had a pretty strong kick, too. For some reason I tended to pull my punches, but I was pretty good when it came to the kicking part of kickboxing. My upper-body strength wasn't as good as my lower body strength anyway.

"You know, as much as I agree that shinobi have a generally worse life, I think civilians react to the emotional turmoil of death a lot worse." Zabuza's eyes fell on me as I sat on the log across from him, prompting me to continue. "You see, shinobi are exposed to death and killing from an early age. They're basically taught how to deal with it—how to not let it interfere with everyday life. Civilians aren't—they don't have that."

He turned his eyes away again. "Death is a far less common thing in the civilian world."

My own eyes stared blankly at the fire in front of me. "Not if you're caught in the crossfire."

Zabuza had stopped questioning why I seemed 'wise beyond my days' and spoke so sophisticatedly for a child, especially with the lack of a formal education. I told him I had an old soul. He said didn't believe me. I laughed.

"You forget that murder and crime and violence and corruption all exist outside of the world of ninja." I allowed myself to think of my old life for a moment, and of the world I lived in, and of every evil thing that plagued it. "Gangs, criminal organisations, wars...these aren't ninja specific things. They're all things normal people indulge in. They're all things civilians are subjected to. Death definitely isn't this foreign thing that only comes with old age. Civilian life, it's…I don't think it is worse, per se, I just think civilians are less adept."

A few awkward moments of silence followed, before Zabuza finally spoke. "I still think life for a shinobi is worse."

I sighed in defeat. If this world was the same as the one in my last life, I would have disagreed with him vehemently. However, in this life, "I think I agree."

We had yet to go to Kiri. Zabuza had a particular disdain for the village—more specifically, Yagura—so he chose to travel instead. Yagura didn't mind, even despite him being one of the seven ninja swordsmen, as long as he remained loyal to the village. He still completed missions, but the missions were sent via scroll via hawks. And, since Zabuza usually was expected to do assassination missions, being a Bingo Book worthy ex-ANBU and all, he would have to send the bodies of those he had killed back in scrolls also.

I wasn't particularly bothered by the assassination missions, though. It was good practise and experience for me and Haku, but it was odd getting used to the dead bodies. And, well, killing someone. I had yet to do it myself, but I had seen it plenty of times.

Hawks were a useful thing too, I decided. And the Land of Water native ones were particularly pretty.

However, Zabuza was currently mission-less, and we had one final destination before we finally went to the Village Hidden by the Bloody Mist, and that was the one and only Uzushiogakure. Or whatever was left of it. The village had been destroyed before Zabuza's lifetime, but Kiri had been heavily involved in orchestrating its downfall according to him. It was understandable, in some ways. Although being closer to Hi no Kuni rather than Mizu, both Uzushio and Kiri were islands in the same bit of sea. Kiri wanted to eliminate its enemies, and thus Uzushio was destroyed.

We weren't going there for a history lesson, though.

As time went on, I began to realise there were many aspects of this world the anime or manga had never explored, one of which was the fact Uzushio loved to steal information from other villages and clans, meaning they most likely had scrolls including Yuki clan jutsu. I could only imagine what they did with that information when coupled with their fuinjutsu.

Whether they did or didn't have any scrolls, the plan after that was for Zabuza to return to the village at some point and infiltrate the village archives and retrieve all the scrolls Kiri had stolen from the clan. We had already started our ninjutsu training, but we were limited to the water release jutsu that Zabuza knew as well as very random manifestations of ice. If Haku and I ever started arguing, especially as our chakra reserves grew bigger, or if I were ever to become frustrated and stressed, it wasn't exactly uncommon for the temperature to considerably drop around us, or for us not to breathe out a very much sub-zero breath of air. Or even for us to freeze water nearby by accident.

It seemed our bloodline was one that responded to emotion, somewhat like the sharingan, and if that reflected on the battlefield then I may have just been beginning to understand just why we were so infamous.

"Byaku." Zabuza began in a dangerously low voice, suddenly worryingly still. "Wake up Haku. Now"

What he was looking at, I wasn't sure. Regardless, all my nerves and senses were suddenly on high alert. I quickly ran over to my Haku's tent, shaking him awake.

"Haku." No response. "Haku." He groaned. "Wake up!" I whispered in the loudest way I could.

Crunch. I quickly turned my head to the direction of the sound, only to see a kunai flying toward myself.

Fuck.

I quickly threw myself back, narrowly dodging the blade and almost falling on my butt as I did so. Haku seemed to catch sight of it too, since he was quickly on his feet, wiping away any remaining sleep from his eyes. We stood back to back, in the same way we had been trained. The attacks could come from any direction, so this was the most effective way of protecting ourselves.

Whoever through the blade wasn't trying to kill me—they didn't aim for my head or throat. They were trying to keep me, or us, alive. That, or they just had awful aim.

For some reason, the thought that they could be trying to capture us was more unnerving than the thought of them trying to kill us, because that meant they—whoever they were—wanted us for something.

Zabuza began to expel mist from his mouth, encasing the surrounding area in a thick fog. It meant Haku and I would basically be in the dark the whole time, but Zabuza would be able to hear every breath, every muscle, and every heartbeat. That was the beauty of the silent killing and hiding in the mist technique; your hearing had to fine-tune to be able to hear every sound usually inaudible to the human ear. It took years of training, and years of constant channelling of chakra specifically to your ears, and Haku and I were nowhere near that point.

But I did hear the sound of a body drop. And then another. And then another. Whoever was trying to kill us wasn't skilled enough to take on Zabuza it seemed.

Not even needing to reach inside my weapon pouch, the mist began to disperse, revealing Zabuza holding the head of what seemed to be the last assailant above the fire. The ninja, whose fear was only emphasised by the flames reflecting in his already very watery eyes, let out a cry of fear. His knees began to shake, which only prompted Zabuza to further push the blade closer to his throat.

I couldn't help but watch in gruesome wonder at how his blood rolled down the blade and into the fire.

"Talk." Zabuza commanded.

"We heard r-rumour that the Demon of the Hidden Mist," He gulped, "was in the Land of Fire with two kids that possessed a rare bloodline, and w-we were sent to kill Zabuza and bring the kids back to Konoha!" He blurted out, eyes shut tightly as the fire's flames became too much to bear.

"We're being watched." Zabuza slowly muttered under his breath, as if considering whether the words could be true.

I felt a lump in my throat. Haku and I were now somebody's targets. Again. Because someone wanted us. Someone had been watching us. And, if they really were from Konoha, then I had my bets on who. But there was a complete lack of any headband, as well as any Konoha looking ninja attire, so they could've been from anywhere.

The shinobi pretty average looking face. A wider nose than most, and pretty unmemorable looking grey eyes which were accompanied by somewhat bushy eyebrows. Was this one of the ever-fated extras? One of the irrelevant characters nobody cared about?

Exciting.

I picked up a stick from the ground and crouched next to him, poking his face with the blunt twig. His eyes opened in absolute fear, only to be greeted by the face of an eight-year-old girl staring back at him. I couldn't help but be amused. It was a lousy and scared extra, too.

"And who is it that wanted us?" I asked him, continuing to poke with the stick, edging closer to his eyes with each poke. If he didn't answer the questions correctly, then his eye would be the victim.

Please don't answer the question correctly. Just once or twice.

"Danzo! Danzo was the one who sent us!"

It seemed Zabuza was content with me asking the questions since he didn't seem to protest when I pulled his jaw open and grabbed his tongue out of his mouth. "You're lying!" I exclaimed. He wasn't apart of root. He didn't have the stupid tattoo on his tongue. "You wouldn't have been able to tell us all this if Danzo was the one that sent you!"

A look of realisation dawned upon his face, and before either Zabuza or I had a chance to react, he pushed himself further into the blade, slicing his throat and, consequently, pushing his face into the flames.

I stared, dumbfounded, as the blood from his jugular began to pool around my feet, and the smell of charred flesh began to fill my nostrils. It was sickening, really.

Zabuza scoffed, dropping his body away from the fire.

"Someone's after us..." Haku spoke, watching with a look of pure bewilderment on his face.

Someone was after us. Someone, who most likely wasn't sent by Danzo. Or at least wasn't apart of root. And was loyal enough to whoever sent them to kill themselves were we to get close enough to finding out their identity. It didn't make sense. And it was a lousy assassination attempt—too great of an underestimation of Zabuza to even be an underestimation. I wouldn't have been surprised if Danzo was trying to get his grimy paws on our bloodline, but I also knew he was far too smart to send such unskilled ninja to take on Zabuza.

Walking over to one of the bodies, I picked up the dead ninja's weapon pouch, only to find the headband of a village I would've much rather not had an encounter with, especially not this early on. But, it seemed, no matter how many times I looked at it, the etched music note didn't seem to go away.

That goddamn snake.

We left quickly. It was unlikely another ambush was going to happen so shortly after, but we decided that since we were being watched that it was probably in our best interest to move fast.

Zabuza asked me how I knew he was lying, and I said it was a shitty way of trying to make sure he was telling the truth. As much as it didn't go the way I had planned, it at least told us that he was lying. I couldn't explain the whole root thing, since I'd have no way of explaining how I knew things about the corruption within a village I had never even been to. Zabuza was annoyed, since he wanted more intel, but better that than ending up in an inexplicable predicament.

The boat ride to Uzushio would have been relaxing, since Zabuza was doing all the work, were it not for the fact it seemed Orochimaru was keeping tabs on us. No doubt for his stupid little experiments. But he wasn't an idiot, so the assassination attempt didn't make sense. He knew to send better ninjas than those. And, if memory served me correct, Orochimaru should've still been a part of Akatsuki. It was possible he created Otogakure before or during being a part of Akatsuki, but I wasn't sure. And using Danzo as an excuse? Or Konoha in general? It was questionable.

I had the mind of someone who had been alive for 20 plus years, yet I couldn't seem to figure it out. When I did figure out something, I'd mention the fact they were Otogakure-nin rather than—what Zabuza assumed to be—defected Konoha-nin. For now, it would raise too many questions, and it was better if both Haku and Zabuza, and myself, stayed focus purely on training. I knew Zabuza would be far more alert than he previously had been, since, even if those guys were now dead, someone had been watching us, but his main priority still remained in trying to perform a successful coup d'état.

The whole thing was bothering me so much that I was almost unable to appreciate the beauty that was the ruins of Uzushio, since I was too distracted by my thoughts to even pay heed to my surroundings. Whatever battle (or battles) that had taken part here must have been monumental, since half the buildings were now reduced to mere rubble and dust.

But the architecture that did remain was breath-taking. It was like walking through the ruins of Pompeii—a city (or, in this case, village) fallen, but all the glory it once stood in still lingering. Except here, unlike Pompeii, the paint on the buildings still remained, even if chipped and fading. The architecture wasn't tame like the civilian cities, or what I could remember of the anime version of Konoha. Instead, all the buildings were painted in shades of glorious red, orange and pink, and adorned with the richest browns and golds.

I could only describe it as a fusion of ancient Roman or Greek architecture, with pillars built everywhere, yet still holding all the traditional elements of Japanese buildings and architecture. There were, of course, some more modern looking buildings also, but the only thing I was paying attention to about them was the array of Uzushio swirls on each of them. The symbol of their beloved whirlpools which, ultimately, failed to protect them.

It was ironic, really. But I was beginning to figure out that life tended to be full of ironies.

Realising I was falling behind due to being distracted by my mesmerisation, I hurriedly run up to my brother to catch up, intertwining my own arm with his. He looked down at me, giving me a small smile as he did so. I smiled back, feigning childish innocence. We were polar opposites, Haku and I. He was quiet and always spoke with utmost respect, and he was kind of every bit of life he came across. It wasn't in his nature to hurt. I, on the other hand, was impudent and defiant and fiery. In an endearing way, though.

My brother's hair had begun to grow significantly longer and now reached beyond his shoulders. As much as I liked it, it didn't particularly help his case in looking any less like a girl. Our faces had started looking slightly less alike as we got older, so I started noticing the differences. I had quite large, more upturned eyes, while he had slightly more rectangular, smaller eyes which lacked the defined shape mine did. My face was more round and overall my features were softer, whereas his were more sharp. We both had extremely long eyelashes, though, which was a trait of my mother. My lips were slightly larger than his, and my nose was also slightly more upturned than his, his being far straighter. But even despite our differences, there was an undeniable resemblence.

"How do we know where to go?" Haku broke the silence.

"When this village was destroyed, it seemed they didn't find their stash of scrolls. Or, this particular stash of scrolls. About a year ago, a few comrades of mine went through this place. Found these scrolls that were hidden, took the ones they were interested in and left the rest. They said I might have some luck here."

Zabuza had only alerted a few trusted individuals that he was training two kids with the Ice Release. While the attempt of a revolution wasn't intended to take place any time soon, the intended date had been set back even further with us being thrown into the mix. We were now an integral part of the plan. Key assets in trying to kill the Mizukage.

Zabuza entered what seemed to be a completely unsuspicious building and, once entered, appeared as nothing other than an old, half destroyed trinket shop. A few of the items that had survived were windchimes, which I couldn't help but run my hand across. The sound was a bittersweet one given the circumstances, but I let myself enjoy it still. A few Uzushio swirls hung to the wall as a sort of decorative tiles, but many had cracks or had fallen apart. The rest was menial things, but one thing did catch my attention, which was a black, sort of square backpack that reminded me an awful lot of the kanken bags that had existed in my previous life, and it only seemed to be marred by the layer of dust which coated it.

I immediately picked it up, switching out all the items which were in the drawstring bag I had been using. And I also stuffed a rabbit purse akin to Naruto's frog one into it, since it was too cute to pass up. Ninja or not, I liked my cute things.

Zabuza seemed to be doing something behind the till, until he lifted it entirely, revealing a staircase. It seemed this wasn't just a trinket shop. How on earth Kiri ninja were able to find this place, I had no idea, since I would have never thought to spend two more seconds in this building looking for scrolls, let alone to lift up the bloody till! But, apparently, they did. I didn't want to go through the pain of questioning it, so I remained silent.

Entering the room which existed below the shop, there seemed to be a mountain of scrolls that had fallen off of their previously organised shelves and into an entangled mess on the ground.

"How do we even know which ones to check?" I groaned in frustration. "They're all thrown across the floor, and they all look exactly the same."

"We open them all up individually." Zabuza said, sounding too serious for my likes.

I let out a small laugh and smiled wryly. "Yeah okay, that's not going to happen."

Zabuza said nothing, and Haku knelt to the floor and began undoing a scroll.

My smile dropped. "You—no, you're joking. There's hundreds."

It seemed, Zabuza was not kidding.

"This is soul draining." I mumbled, opening up scroll number 163. I didn't know whether keeping count was helping or not, but I felt as if it at least gave me some sort of control over my slowly spiralling sanity. This was excruciatingly, mind numbingly boring. I didn't even know how many Zabuza or Haku had opened.

Not every scroll we opened was completely useless, though. Some were rare wind and water techniques, and I wasn't about to limit myself to only ice jutsu, so I picked them up also. I also happened to stumble across a super old Uchiha one, and I couldn't help but put it in my backpack should I ever one day have the chance to give it to Sasuke. But the rest were useless to me.

"I found one!" I heard from my brother and I swore, in that moment, I could've hugged Haku to death.

"Let me see it!" I insisted, eager to see what type of techniques it had. I skimmed over each one, reading the titles of each to get an idea of what was on it. Most of the techniques were about utilising the whole controlled body temperature thing, but not all. One of them was particularly interesting, though. The Zettai Zero technique. Or, in other words, Absolute Zero.

It was derived from another technique on the scroll—the 'air freeze technique'—and, in short, it consisted of the user dropping the surroundings temperature to -237 degrees Celsius, and essentially killed all life in the area to the point it could never grow back. Maybe that was why it was written in big red ink, as if it were trying to give a warning, or maybe it was because of the fact the technique causes the user to suffer considerable chakra depletion, as they have to keep their own body temperature at a level which they can endure, as well as drop the surrounding temperature to the lowest possible.

That would take...monstrous amounts of chakra. It had to be an S-Rank, even if it was a short-range technique. There was no way it couldn't be an S-rank technique.

Zabuza hovered over me, his eyes skimming over the scroll too.

"This means we're done, right? We can go now?" I asked, not even bothering to conceal the hope in my voice.

"There could be more." He answered back, and my eye twitched.

"Surely this is enough!" I nearly shrilled. I was annoyingly impatient. Again, not one of my usual traits, but instead a by-product of my age. At least that's what I thought, anyway. When Zabuza's resolve, once again, did not budge, I stood up and sighed. "Fine. But I'm going to go read this scroll and find out how this whole-body temperature thing works while you two continue. Who knows, maybe I'll even have learnt a technique or two by the time we're done here."

And so, I got up and left the building, ignoring my brother's light protests as I did so, and sat on a clear patch of grass next to the building. Or, the clearest patch of grass I could find, considering the copious amounts of rubble everywhere. Haku was free to join me, but he was too concerned with pleasing Zabuza. I'd have to do something about that soon, since I wanted to avoid Haku ending wrapped around his finger and making his every wish his command. I wanted to avoid him becoming a tool that served Zabuza and Zabuza only. Whatever it took, I wouldn't let that happen. I needed to reassure him that, even if we needed Zabuza now, we wouldn't need him forever. We could leave, eventually.

The sun had begun to set, and the orange of the sky only seemed to emphasise the warm colours of the walls. I allowed myself a moment to breathe—a moment to take in nothing but the peace, and the pure serenity of it all. Ever since the night my father killed my mother, and tried to kill me, I didn't know peace. Even now with Zabuza, life was so fast-paced, even if better. I had to bask in these moments of bliss when I could, since they were fleeting.

But I couldn't allow myself to get too caught up, either, because my life would never know peace again. Not as a ninja; not since that night. If I allowed myself to enjoy the peace for too long, I would become deluded by it—I'd crave it so badly that I'd naively fool myself into believing that one day, maybe, it'd become attainable. It never would. Peace was a momentary thing, only lasting a few minutes before we're once again thrown back into the chaos of our lives.

Maybe it was ironic that I found such serenity in a place of death and destruction, but maybe it highlighted just how much better off earth would be without our presence, no matter what version it was. All we did was wreak havoc in order to fulfil our own selfish desires and I—I was no different. I didn't care what I had to do, as long as it meant my brother and I could stay safe.

So, after the moment was over, I began to read the scroll which, unbeknownst to me, would become the first step in becoming known as the 'Rabbit of the Snow'; the Yuki no Usagi.

I can see the air I breathe