Naruto: Of bone and ice

What does it mean to be truly strong? To have power… I thought I knew. I'd spent my entire life thinking I was strong, that I was powerful. Only to have it all taken away in an instant. My day started like any other. I woke up and went through the usual morning routine that most adults had. I showered, brushed my teeth, like normal. I had a list of little chores I had to do throughout the day. The first on the list was to stop by the bank and deposit some money, the next was to go grocery shopping, and so on. Nothing was out of the ordinary, nothing seemed strange. It was just another day.

I arrived at the bank and joined the queue, I didn't like waiting but I liked to think of myself as a nice guy, even letting an old lady walk ahead of me because she seemed to be in a hurry. Today would be no different, I thought to myself. Well, that's where I was wrong. I noticed a hooded man pacing outside the window, he looked nervous. Finally it was my turn in the long line that had formed and the lady behind the counter pulled me out of my gaze, asking if she could help me.

I gave her my usual smile before speaking, but I didn't hear my own words.

"Get on the fucking ground right now!" There were shouts from the crowd and I turned to see what was going on. It was the hooded man who had been pacing outside, he had his gun pointed at him and was walking towards me.

I quickly raised my hands and slowly stepped aside as he looked at me and then at the lady at the table.

- Put the money in the bag! Come on, move! - he shouted, throwing a small duffel bag at her. He was shaking and nervous.

I know I shouldn't have done what I did, but I did it anyway. My body just moved. Closing the small distance between me and the gunman, I quickly punched him in the face, grabbing the gun in his hand, I twisted it and pulled it out of his hand. He struggled and grabbed me with his free hand, trying to grab my face. I dropped the gun and obeyed instinct.

After headbutting him in the face to stun him and knock him off balance, I quickly used my strength and threw the man over my shoulder to the ground. Other people were still screaming and some even quickly ran out of the bank. Of course, some had already taken out their phones and started recording the whole thing.

I hit him so hard that his head bounced off the floor and he stopped moving. I slowly stood up and yelled for someone to call the police. I had trained in martial arts all my life, I had been in many fights and even fought in the ring. But this was the first time I had fought someone with a gun in my hands. My adrenaline was pumping and the rush was unreal, it was hard to even breathe at that moment, but it was over, wasn't it?

I saw the man move, and then it hit me. The gun! I had completely forgotten where it had gone. I tried to move as fast as I could, but when I took my second step. Explosion.

From what I could tell, the bullet had hit me in the chest, and I was choking on my own blood, even though I had grown accustomed to the taste. My hands and feet were cold, and the screams and sirens in the distance were fading. Why was I trying to play the hero? If I had just let him take the money, I was sure it would have been insured anyway. If only I had been stronger, if only I had more power. I had to kill him before he killed me.

All these thoughts filled my head like blood on the floor. What was happening now was my last thought as the darkness began to take over. My eyes were closing and I no longer had the strength to fight it, the light faded and I took my last breath.

I woke up to loud voices, one sounding like a man's and the other like a woman's. The room was dark and it took my eyes a second to adjust to the candlelight.

"I won't let you kill him! He's my child!" the female voice says, screaming. I tried to move, but it seemed I wasn't very successful. "What the hell is going on, where am I?" I thought as the voice got louder.

"He's the cure for our clan! I shouldn't have let you keep him while you were pregnant."

I really didn't understand what the hell was going on. I slowly looked down at my body, my head weighed a ton and it took all my strength. To my horror, my body was tiny. Uh, I'm a baby!? What the hell is going on?" I tried to move and scream, but my tiny body had no strength. As for my voice, all I could do was cry or scream. So that's what I did.

The voices grew louder again. "It is enough that I will put an end to this monster in an instant!" the male voice said angrily.

- If you want to kill him, then kill me first!

I stopped screaming because my throat started to hurt.

- [Were they talking about me? Is this man trying to kill me? Just what the hell is going on? I thought I was already dead.]

I couldn't really see what was going on because the bunk I was lying in blocked my view, but I could feel the tension in the air.

"You know what his father was like! How can you defend him after what he did to you?!" a male voice said sympathetically.

The tension in the room eased a little, and it seemed like the pressure did too. "This kid isn't his father. He's not like that. No, I won't let him be blamed for what he did."

"You know what he will become. The Mist will turn him into a weapon, or they will kill him out of fear. He has no future!"

There was a moment of silence before the woman spoke. "As long as I live, no one will touch my son."

Was this really happening? It was something you were used to reading about in a fictional story or watching in a funny anime. But it was real, and it certainly wasn't like heaven.

The woman entered my field of vision and smiled down at me. "He is the unwanted snow. My Fuyun Yuki."

I had so many questions about all this. I guessed that my mother in this world picked me up and held me tightly. She was pretty, very pretty. She smiled at me, and I couldn't help but smile back. She looked at the man and put on a stern face again. "No one will touch him."

I turned my small head to look at the man who had threatened my life just moments ago. He seemed older than the woman holding me, as his hair was starting to turn grey. From what I could gather, he was not my father. He looked at me with an icy glint in his eyes, and then back at my new mother. "Very well, Kachina," he said before turning his back to her. "From this day forward, he is Fuyun of the Yuki clan." With that, he walked out of the room, leaving Kachina and I alone. Wait, where have I heard that word before?