Rogue.

Another Heartbreak

From that day on I was raised by my father's advisor and the leader of the Sunagakure's Anbu forces Baki Takahashi. He quickly became like a second father to me while I was living in the dark depths of the hidden training grounds. Unlike my own father, Baki was kind and patient with me, but he was stern when he needed to be and that combination had me flying through the training. By the time I turned 14 I had almost full control of my magnetic jutsu, learning new ways to combine wind and earth, and was able to unarm my opponents within seconds of a battle starting and turn their own ninja tools against them as long as it had some sort of magnetic mineral within it.

During my time in the Anbu I'd made friend's with two other orphans in Baki's care. They became my team members, and like siblings to me. The first was an eighteen year old boy named Ryu of the Amano clan, he was incredibly tall and very handsome. His clan had turned him over to the village as payment for their own protection and he was amazingly skilled with close combat. He was my favorite person to spar with because after he'd learned the secrets of my jutsu he'd begun creating his ninja tools from anything but metal. I'd grown a crush on him over the years, but he treated me just like a little sister. Whatever affection he gave to me was playful more than flirtatious, he saved that kind of affection for the second member of our team.

The sixteen year old girl was known only by the name Hex, and what was known of her was mostly whispered rumors of a murdered clan and a desolate village. She was stunningly beautiful, with raven hair and eyes so black they could swallow you. Not just the iris either, Hex had eyes unlike any I'd ever seen, there was no white to them, just black. She was also gifted with a kekkei genkai, as rare as my own. She could manipulate and control darkness itself. She wielded it like puppets, twisting it into monsters that could swallow a man whole. Her biggest and most obvious weakness was the light, but that is why we worked so well together. I could pull minerals to block out the light, to cast darkness on the battlefield. 

I'd performed so well with my team that Baki had made me captain and the others hadn't objected even though I was the youngest. I'd led them on countless missions, and we went for weeks at a time, chaining through missions at unheard of speeds. The three of us shared a passion for the missions because they distracted us from the pain in our lives, the faces in our bingo books became our only goals. We all liked it this way, three orphans against the world, even if I wasn't really an orphan. I hadn't seen Rasa in years, and my siblings since the day I left them. Uncle Yashamaru was in the Anbu and used to keep me updated, but it had become too painful and I'd started avoiding him. I'd regretted that, and carried the guilt with me because Gaara had killed him a few years back.

If I'd have known this trip with my team would be our last I'm sure there are a lot of things I'd do differently, but how could anyone know what was to come? We had finished up a mission in the Land of Waves and were headed back home to regroup and get some more mission briefings, deciding to see how many faces we could cross out on the way home. We were only an hour into the Land of Wind when Ryu spotted an abandoned village he wanted to camp out in. 

"A fire in one of those abodes would keep us for the night." He explained, gesturing towards the half buried empty buildings. Something about the village felt dark, wrong, like something horrible had happened here. 

"We will keep moving." Hex growled, refusing to look at the place. 

"Kairi?" Ryu turned to me, expecting me to overrule her. 

I gazed at him, remember our fight from the night before. I'd tried to take his hand while we were walking along the coastline, he'd pulled away. 'I don't want you to get the wrong idea' his words had felt like a slap in the face. The voice in my head that would never shut up told me I wasn't good enough for him, wasn't strong enough, or pretty enough. I fixed my gaze in a stone faced expression and sided with Hex "I don't like the looks of this place, let's keep moving and camp in the dunes."