AN/ I don't own Naruto, etc. Only the OCs are my own creation, and I'm trying to keep others in-character.

As you may noticed, I've switched to first-person, and I'm keeping this. It means that you'll learn things as soon as Hazuki does -puls it helps me keep better track of what my character is going through.

Please review, but no flames, etc. Enjoy

I sat with my back against a tree, removed from the main party of shinobi gathered around the fire, laughing as they blew on their hands to keep warm. They were mostly Chunin or Jonin. But I didn't care –I didn't care about any of them, and they all hated me.

I was wearing black, as dark as the night and the same colour as my hate. My pants were shorts that were cinched shut just below the knees, with the lower halves of my legs wrapped in bandages. I wore a shirt that resembled a sleeveless kimono over my iron-meshed fishnet vest, tied shut with an obi. I wore black fingerless gloves and metal arm guards. I kept a tight grip on the tanto I had been given.

This wasn't my homeland –I was sure of that much. I couldn't remember anything beyond two years ago. But just by looking around, I saw the differences. So many of them were dark-skinned or tanned, so many with almost white-blond hair –and I was pale-skinned with red hair and dark-hued eyes.

My dark-red hair was something I couldn't hide. It was a flame upon the black that I wore. When it had been long, it was the target of bullying Genin and pre-Academy graduates, who had attacked my hair with scissors. Since then, I had kept it short, the loose bangs secured back with a ribbon of the same hue.

I wasn't a ninja of the Hidden Cloud –I was just a tool. I had been trained extensively, learning only the fundamentals and the points of the human body that were vulnerable and easy targets for a fatal kill, pushed to the point of breaking in the basics of kenjutsu and taijutsu time after time after time… in fact, I had broken once…

It had been over a year and eight months ago, right at the start of my training; Yugito had been training me back then, focusing on taijutsu and kenjutsu. She was nice; she had treated me as though I was a human. I thought I had been making good progress –until the Raikage had come to test me.

My head was slammed into the ground, held in the iron-grip of the Raikage. He was pinning me with only a tiny portion of his vast strength –I could feel it.

"Come on! Put up a fight, you useless sack of garbage!" he had shouted in my face, picking me up and throwing me back into the ground.

He kept calling me names, insulting me, beating me –then my blood had started to thump in my veins, drowning out the words, stirring up a strange and uncanny desire for blood. Something had whispered in my ear, tempting me, promising to punish those hurting me. I had taken the offer.

Everything had gone dark, a pitch-black dark. I hadn't known what was going on in the real world –not until I was suddenly wrenched out of that darkness and left, drained and on the verge of collapse. I had fainted from exhaustion soon after that.

Since then, the Raikage had been harsh and demanding, the training had increased in intensity –but he seemed to have noticed my breaking point. I hadn't had a relapse, at any rate. I was pushed until I was mentally and physically drained, but I hadn't heard that voice that had bayed for blood again.

But the training wasn't the only thing that was harsher –I had somehow, without being conscious of it, destroyed almost a quarter of the village. The villagers, who had once been treating me like an ordinary child, now shunned me –none of the children came near me. Security measures had been put in place –in the form of Curse Seal jutsu on the back of my neck. If I so much as looked at someone wrong, someone of Jonin or higher level could cause an electric sheet to wrap around my entire body, sending bolts of energy through every fibre.

And a lot of Jonin just used it because they could. A lot of brats in the village seemed to have invented a game of telling lies about me to their parents –I had struck them, I had scared them, I had deliberately sliced them during training –and I got punished for it.

So I avoided people; I kept my rage hidden behind the cropped bangs of my hair. I trained hard so I could prove that I had some value; I wasn't their ace because I wanted to be –I was their ace because, inside, I was already dead inside.

I didn't understand the concept of being part of a family –if I had once, I couldn't remember. There was no-one waiting at home for me, no-one who would mourn me if I ended up dead tonight –in fact, the people of the Hidden Cloud village in the Land of Lightning would probably rejoice if I died on a mission. They could say that I was a useless rusty tool that had snapped on the battlefield and only good for being disposed of, and return to being happy –whatever that meant.

"Hey, Hazuki," someone said, and I looked up to see Yugito standing over me. Yeah –that was another thing; Yugito was different –she didn't treat me like the others did. She had never used the Cursed Seal on me, although others shocked me if I so much as addressed them 'incorrectly'. I couldn't figure out what her angle was yet.

"What is it?" I asked.

"The caravan should be passing our position in the next hour," she said. "The rest of the squad will draw off the ninja guarding it. Your mission is to…"

"Assassinate the drug lord," I said, interrupting her –if she had been any other Jonin, I wouldn't have done it. "I know, Yugito."

"I will be going in with you," she said. "If it's too difficult for you, I will perform the act. Hazuki, I…"

"I'm not your student," I say, my voice a soft growl. "I'm a tool for the village. The mission comes first, regardless of emotions. I can handle killing a person." It helped that said person was also a cowardly criminal who was in fear of his own life. I didn't say that out loud.

"Regardless, you're not alone in this," she said, laying a hand on my shoulder. I shrugged it off, getting to my feet. A true ninja never shows attachment –it only endangers the mission. Surely, as a Jonin, Yugito should know that.

The caravan passed by right on time. I peered through a spy-glass as I crouched in the branches of the trees that lined the road. I was wearing a radio-headset so that I could hear what was going on.

"Kumo ninja –attack!" I heard the Jonin in charge say. The caravan rumbled to a stop as the Kumo ninja leapt down the hill and into the ranks of the defending ninja. I got a glimpse of their forehead protectors –they were from the Hidden Waterfall Village. I stayed away from the battle, concealed in the branches of a tree.

The battle was turning in our favour. And apparently the crime-lord knew that as he stuck his head out of the window, shouting to the enemy ninja. I saw my chance, and reached into my ninja gear bag, pulling out a pair of senbon. They had caps over the ends, which I removed –there was no longer a need for a safety to avoid being poisoned by myself.

I threw the senbon as he preached to the badly beaten Waterfall ninja about how he should have never hired them –and tried to buy the Cloud ninjas' services. The metal bolts hit his jugular –a fatal spot with no additional muscle to protect against an attack, piercing the flesh and allowing the poison to seep into his bloodstream.

He was dead in moments, succumbing to both blood-loss and poison. The leading Jonin checked his pulse, and found him dead. The mission was complete. The Waterfall ninja just let us go –after all, they had been dismissed from their position as his body-guards moments before his death.

I lay on my small bed that night, staring up at the ceiling, wearing only my iron-meshed fishnet vest that I generally wore under my shirt and my trousers. It was chilly down here, in the cell deep below the Raikage's building with the entrance concealed by a bookcase in a stark and empty room –but I had gotten used to sleeping behind bars. I still hated the Kumo ninja for everything –all the torment and the agony I suffered on a daily basis here was the source of that hatred.

I turned my head to look at the bag of ninja gear that I had on the table beside my bed. I had often wondered why I was alive, what my purpose was.

Right now, my existence was empty, meaningless. And to live without a reason to fight that was your own –to live with a dark void inside you, to be a source of fear, whose only purpose was to kill or be killed –I had been one of the walking dead for so long.

I had no purpose for being here, no reason to keep on fighting. I was sick of life –I couldn't take it out on others, but I could take it out on myself.

I pushed myself up from where I was resting, reaching out a hand towards the bag –it would be so easy –when I heard the door at the top of the stairs clanking open. I got to my feet, trying to see who it was. Surely it wasn't morning already?

"Hazuki? Are you awake?" asked a female voice, and I had it pegged the moment the second syllable was out of her mouth.

"Yugito, what are you doing here?" I asked as she appeared at the other side of the cage door.

"First, answer me –what is your purpose for fighting? Why do you serve the Cloud village?"

I sat there, stunned for a moment –she knew the answer to this! "I fight because it's what I was born to do," I say. "I'm a tool for the village."

"That's not a reason," Yugito said. "I fight not just because it was my duty –I do it because this is my home, and I would gladly give my life for my homeland. But you –Hazuki, I've seen the way they treat you. This isn't your homeland –fighting for us was never your true fate. To them, you'll never be an equal –you'll never be free. Hazuki, you're a prisoner here –your only ties to us are only ones of hate. I've seen you crying when you thought no-one else could see you."

I was stunned by the speech –it had confirmed what I had suspected all along. I wasn't one of them. And I was shocked that anyone had heard, let alone cared, when I had cried; after the first few times, I had found that it wasn't going to do me any good. But after that –even tonight –I had only let tears run down my face when there was no-one else around. I often sobbed in the dark of this cell until I had fallen asleep.

"I don't get it," I said. There was the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs –someone else was coming. I saw the dark skin and blond hair and thought, for a brief moment, that it was the Raikage. Then I saw the tattoo on his right shoulder, with the kanji for "iron", and the one-strap white flak jacket. It was Killer B, the brother of the Raikage.

"When you have a demon within you, your heart goes hollow. But if you have things you can't bear to lose, they become a light for you to follow. The power of the tailed beasts within me and Yugito –and the demon inside you, although yours isn't one of the Tailed Ones –that demonic chakra isn't the only source of strength for a host. It is what was in our hearts before the monster was sealed within us that empowers us to any length –that is the true source of our powers."

I had a demon –inside of me? I remembered that welcoming darkness –had that been the influence of the demon? But when had it been placed inside me? And who had done it? I still didn't understand –B's words just confused me even more. A time before I had had this demon inside me? I couldn't remember that.

"You'll figure it out," B said.

How was I supposed to do that while trapped in this cage –while I was a prisoner? My thought was answered as Yugito stuck a key into the lock of my cell-door, turning it.

"This is a one-chance only deal," Yugito said as she pulled the door open. "We can't risk being found out. If you don't take the chance now, there won't be another."

Freedom was beckoning me –there was no way I was going to not take it. I moved quickly, pulling on my shirt and securing my hip pouch to the right-hand side and slipping shruiken into the holster on my right thigh. Ready to go, I snuck through the open door. Yugito locked it as I ascended the stairs, Killer B ahead of me.