“Water Release: Wild Water Wave.” Daisuke shouted as he jumped spewing a burst of water in a waterfall-like fashion. The amount of water was enough to wash away the dozens of bandits that came toward him, before falling on the water’s surface and surfing on the torrential water toward the screaming bandits. Unsheathing his sword, he lowered his position and started to cut through the bandits.

“Damn it!” Two genins rushed towards him, also running on the water, but nowhere near the same ability that Daisuke had. One of them rushed with his tanto, and apparent kenjutsu user. Both Daisuke and he started exchanging sword movements; while Daisuke wasn’t precisely an expert with sword techniques, his physical ability was enough to help him cope with someone with more training and technique. Though it could be debatable whether the other kenjutsu user had more experience, given that Daisuke’s been fighting with bandits for a couple of years, while these genins were only terrorizing normal civilians or other bandit groups.

“Water Release: Water Pellet!” Shouted the other genin that stood back to make use of their numeric advantage.

Seeing the incoming fist-sized water bullet, Daisuke deviated his opponent's sword before sweep-kicking him, throwing him towards the water bullet’s path. “ARGH!” Shouted the shinobi after receiving friendly fire.

“Fuck!” Looking at this, the other guy could only form more hand seals before he started shooting more water bullets.

“You’re a bother.” Daisuke muttered as he suddenly turned into water and ‘fell’ over the remaining water of his initial attack.

“Huh!?” The genin was quickly surprised but soon turned around, only to find Daisuke’s sword on his neck, decapitating him.

“Touki!” Shouted the kenjutsu user as he rushed toward Daisuke with a chakra-coated sword.

Running forward, Daisuke also coated his sword in chakra as he fought against the bandit, taking his time while studying the technique used by the genin. While it was certainly a rough kenjutsu, it was still more than what he knew, which could only be called swinging his sword around.

As soon as he couldn’t get any more insight from his enemy, he ended the fight, parrying his enemy’s sword with a single hand, while his other took a kunai from his pouch and cut the bandit’s neck.

After looking around, and noting that there were no more enemies alive, he made his way into the bandits' camp and started to loot them. He found these guys by luck, contrary to the other times when he either accepted a commission from a poor village or was attacked by bandits on the road instead of at their camp.

“Nothing much, huh…” Daisuke thought as he looked around the camp, taking anything that could be of use for him. Contrary to some of the other camps he raided, this one didn’t have too many things of value. “Maybe they’re newly formed?” He tilted his head. After grabbing thousands of Ryo as he moved outside of the camp, going back to his latest hideout. He’s now 7 years old and has been a runaway even before ‘waking up’ in this world, causing him to have to run from place to place. 

Thankfully for him, the post-war situation of Kirigakure has been a key to his survival; after asking around in some of the bigger towns he’s visited, as well as to some merchants, Daisuke figured out that at the time he woke up in this world, the war had already finished, meaning that by that time, Minato was already named Hokage, or was about to be it, and with that, the attack of the Kyubi, as well as Naruto’s being born wasn’t that far.

“It’s been almost four years since I woke up here…” Muttered Daisuke as he cooked the meat of a rabbit he hunted on his way to the hideout. “Thankfully, the amount of bandits has increased, and fighting them it’s been a great help for me to adapt, but if this keeps going on, I won’t advance… Even if I sometimes get lucky enough to get some scrolls, I can’t even use the freaking basic jutsus for an academy graduate.” He said as he sighed. “I guess I need to plan my next move, huh… I can’t even get close to freaking Kirigakure, that shithole is probably already being controlled by Obito, and they were hunting me for unconsciously showing signs of Ice Release, no way they will let me live after having taken care of the whole Yuki clan, even if I’m not from that clan…” He sighed.

While it’s true that Daisuke is able to use Ice Release, it’s mostly because of the blessing of the Dragon Souls giving him a great affinity to both Wind and Ice, making it easy for him to access the Kekkei Genkai without being born from the Yuki clan that was thought to be the only one able to use it.

“This doesn’t let me too many options… at least inside the Land of Water… Maybe I should go to Konoha? No… Scratch that… While the Hidden Leaf is certainly calmer than the other ones, with the fucking Danzo being there I can’t get in there without being ‘kindly’ recruited into the root to become a puppet, that is, if I don’t get killed first. Kumogakure… I don’t know, those guys are sketchy, but from what I remember, they’re at least the least dangerous when it comes to their people, that is if you’re born in Kumo. Ha… I guess I could go to a smaller Hidden Village… But I doubt those are accepting of strangers, even more, those that look slightly trained in the ninja arts.”

Without a clear solution, he decided to just finish cooking and eating. Like that, he passed his days while training some of the techniques he found around, as well as increasing his mastery with his initial jutsus. In his words, it would be better for him to get enough mastery to make use of any jutsu, even if only the low-ranked ones, without having to make hand seals, or with just a single-handed Ram seal.

Days turned to weeks, and it was already time to move to a new hideout. After all, while he was sure that Kirigakure of the Blood Mist had other things to worry about, who knows if they were still focusing on hunting down a child they considered a ‘threat’. And thanks to him getting rid of some bandit camps, it wouldn’t be impossible for a squad of ninjas to be behind his back.

As soon as he decided to part ways, he grabbed a storage scroll that he recently acquired from a shinobi bandit, and saved all his stuff in there.

“After finding another hideout, I should focus some time on learning fuinjutsu that things look a lot like programming.” He muttered as he grabbed the scroll and kept it inside his pouch, grabbing his sword and some kunais and shuriken that he keeps out of the storage scroll just in case. He also grabs a backpack and uses it to keep anything that he can’t put inside the storage scroll, as well as some money, after all, it wasn’t a high-quality one, and the space inside it was rather limited. “Well, this was a nice place, but I better start moving.” He made his way outside of the cave and started looking for a direction. “Mm… I’ve been traveling south since I started moving… let’s go west, I need to start looking for a port and move out of the Land of Water, no matter what I do later on; I first need to move the hell out of this place, even if I have to run on the water all the way over to another country.”

With that said, and a quick look at the rising sun, Daisuke started his way towards the west. A couple of days after, he stepped out of the forest, and into some kind of rocky valley. “Mm… I was assuming I would get into some swamp or something with more, well, water…” He muttered to himself as she looked at the place. Without much thought, he decided to look for a place where he could rest for the night. And so, moving through the rocky valley, he decided to look for a place where he could rest.

But as he moved forward, the mist started to increase its density, making it really hard for him to see. Or so it would be normally, but having better physiology gave him a really good eye-sight, to the point that the mist would be of no inconvenience, something he learned during the time he has lived in the Land of Water, where this kind of mist was somewhat common, either naturally, or caused by the jutsus of shinobis. Even if they were genins, it seemed like everyone in Kirigakure learned the Hidden Mist technique.

“Mm?” As he made his way towards a place that promised, he couldn’t help but notice that forward there were two shinobis, prompting him to hide from sight. Thankfully for him, his eyesight was quite good, so he could see them before they noticed him. {Shit… Are they here for me!? Did they find me already? No… That can’t be. Would they be sensor ninjas? Are there more of them?} As the thoughts invaded his mind, he finally managed to distinguish something. As he focused more, he noticed that one of the shinobi wasn’t from Kiri, and she was quite familiar to him. {Pakura of the Scorch Release? Huh? What’s she doing here… wait!} He thought dumbfounded.

Pakura was one of the characters that made an impact on him, first because she was one of the kunoichis that could contest as being one of the strongest with her Scorch Release, and second, because she was presented relatively close to the end of Shippuden, during the Fourth Ninja War, as a reanimated shinobi.

{I’m sure, this is where she gets betrayed and killed.} Thought Daisuke as he looked from afar. He knew both shinobi in front were speaking about ‘escorting’ her towards Kirigakure. But it was all a lie, so without wasting time, he decided to act. Just in time for Pakura to walk forwards, slowly passing by the Kirigakure ninja.

Rushing at his top speed, Daisuke made a Ram seal. “Water Release: Water Pellet Barrage!” With a loud shout, he spewed ten small water bullets that flew at high speed toward the Kirigakure ninja.

“Huh!?” As Pakura heard the shout, she became alert, soon enough to feel that something was wrong, she quickly jumped forwards, turning mid-air, only to see the Kiri ninja with a kunai that almost pierced her back, as could be evidenced by the small bit of blood at the tip of the kunai. Unfortunately for the Kiri ninja, he could only scratch her back, before turning to evade the incoming water bullets.

“What is the meaning of this!?” Shouted Pakura in rage. as she took a kunai of her own.

“Tch.” The Kiri-nin could only click his tongue as the initial attack failed, not daring to look behind to where the previous attack came from, that would be suicide in front of the kunoichi. “What do you think it is!? You bitch. This was the agreement made by our villages to appease our rage, but make no mistake, this wasn’t going to be enough, sooner or later your Sunagakure will fall!” He said as he rushed towards her.

“What!?” Pakura was shocked, but she had to leave the thoughts for later, as the current ninja rushed towards her, while from the small mountains that surrounded the valley’s pass that she was walking through, dozens of Kiri-nin jumped over, she counted seven chunin, and at least a dozen of genins, plus the jonin in front her. {They had an ambush prepared for me.} Frowned Pakura as she extended one of her palms while holding the jonin at bay with their kunai.

Two sun-like orbs quickly formed on her hand, as they shot towards two of the incoming chunin, who made their best to evade, while the rest rushed towards Pakura to help the jonin. From behind, some genins started forming hand seals while others took out shurikens and kunais.

But before any of them could do anything, another barrage of water bullets came flying towards them, interrupting the ones forming hand seals and making the others turn towards the source. The attack wasn’t strong enough to kill all of the ones it reached, but it sure was enough to stop their jutsus and hurt them.

{I need to take care of this guy first.} Thought Pakura with a frown, ignoring the help as she kicked the slightly distracted jonin, gaining some distance and forming more sun-like balls, having four of them surrounding her now. Immediately, she raised her hands. “Scorch Release: Incinerating Flare Technique!” The four balls fused together and with a hand seal, the now big flare burst into a deathly explosion.

“Water Release: Water Dragon Jutsu!” With quick hand seals, the jonin stopped the attack from reaching him, turning it all into vapor. But the technique was still enough to take three chunins and a handful of genins with it. The others survived by not being close enough to the 20 meters radius. “You bitch!” Shouted the jonin as he looked at the dried corpses of the other kirinin. “I’ll make sure you pay for that.” He growled at her.

“Go ahead! Try it if you can!” Pakura shouted back as more flares shot out from her hands.

“Water Release: Wild Water Wave!” Meanwhile, Daisuke formed a ram seal, and focusing a lot of his chakra, he spew a large amount of water that didn’t look at all like something possible to do with that jutsu. The waterfall-like wave rushed towards the chunin and genin, stopping them from advancing towards Pakura while slightly flooding the valley, making everyone jump over the water before it impacted them. Though not all of them managed it, as a couple of genins, who were still shocked by Pakura’s Scorch Release, were washed away.

“You bastard! Who are you!?” One of the chunin shouted as he jumped back high enough to evade the initial tide.

Without answering, Daisuke quickly turned into a puddle of water, before appearing behind one of the genins, successfully killing him.

“You bastard! Water Release: Gunshot!” 

The chunin shot a pressurized water bullet towards Daisuke at high speed, but not fast enough, as Daisuke quickly turned into water, appearing behind another genin, who quickly turned around to stop Daisuke’s blade. “Don’t think it will be that easy!” shouted the genin, before trying to counterattack with his kunai, but Daisuke was faster, piercing his leg with a kunai before decapitating him as the kirinin was in shock from the pain.

“Die!” Still, the slightly longer battle gave time for two of the chunin to get closer to him. Trying to finish him, one with a kunai and the other one with a tanto. Looking at both of them, Daisuke jumped back “Wind Release: Wind Release Stream.” He shouted as he flew backward while slowing the chunins back with the same jutsu.

“Water Release: Gunshot!” The other two Kiri chunins, seeing him mid-air, made hand seals and shot two pressurized bullets towards him, but instead of impacting him, the bullets were intercepted by two flares, bursting into steam.

This made both chunins turn towards Pakura, only to see the latter focusing on them while making two more flares over her hands. The Kiri jonin was now a dried corpse floating in the water.

“...” This made both chunins gulp hard, while the other two were also trying to figure out what to do. {We need to escape!} Was the thought inside all of them, including the remaining genins.

“ARGH!” Pulling them from their shock, a genin kunoichi screamed as soon as a sword pierced her chest. While Daisuke, behind her, swung his sword, throwing the excess blood from it.

“Fuck…! It’s all his fault…” Muttered one of the chunin. The plan was easy. Catch the Suna kunoichi with a surprise attack while she was supposedly in a messaging mission for Kirigakure, and then rain kunais and shurikens over her to finish the job. Everything was going as planned, but a sudden shout alerted her, resulting in the leader of the team failing to hit her spine. Kirigakure has assassination experts, yes, but they weren’t that good in frontal combat, at least most of them. “Retreat! We need to let the village know the mission failed!” Shouted the eldest chunin, while everyone started to run in different directions. Or that was the plan.

“Water Release: Water Pellet Barrage!/Scorch Release: Blackened Silhouette!” Both Daisuke and Pakura shouted as they activated their own jutsus. While Daisuke stopped them in their tracks, Pakura created four clones out of her flares that rushed towards the chunins; Daisuke then rushed towards the remaining two genins, who could only turn and fight him together.

The chunins could only scream as they were burned by the clones as these wrapped themselves around them. While the genins were dispatched by Daisuke after a couple of minutes.

In the valley, only corpses, both dried and with sword wounds, remained.

“Ha…” Daisuke sighed as he looked at the kirinin. {Backstabbing bastards…} He thought with a frown, as he still remembered how he and his parents were hunted by Kirigakure.

“Who are you, brat?” Asked Pakura, a kunai still in her hand, with four flares floating around her. “Why did you help me?”

“...” Daisuke looked at her while scratching the back of his head. He also didn’t have a reason to save her. While it’s true that he got a great impression from her, it’s not like he was infatuated with her. “I just saw that these bastards were going to backstab you, decided to help…”

“Are you not a ninja from Kirigakure?” Pakura frowned.

“No,” He shook his head. “If anything, I’m being hunted by them, or was, I’m not really sure at this point.” He said as he looked at the corpses. “I and my family were hunted while I was three years old, they wanted to get rid of me. I somewhat survived, and have been running since them.”

“...” Pakura frowned. {Why would they hunt such a talent? Are they idiots?} “What’s the reason you were being hunted?”

“I was suspected to be a user of Ice Release, and Kirigakure was on the hunt for every member of the Yuki clan.”

“Huh? Ice Release?” She widened her eyes. “And you’re from that Yuki clan?”

“No.” Daisuke shook his head. “I’m not from that clan, it just happens that I somewhat got it, just that I don’t know how to effectively use it now…”

“That’s weird.” Pakura frowned. “From what I know, only people from the Yuki clan have the Ice Release Kekkei Genkai. What’s your name, brat?”

“Daisuke. Suzuki Daisuke.” Daisuke said as he sheathed his sword. “Well, miss… It was a pleasure meeting you, but I have to move, I don’t want to be hunted by jonins.” He smiled awkwardly, as he started moving towards the exit of the valley. From what he knows, it’s better to go the way he came to help Pakura, after all, that’s the way she came from, and she was going towards Kirigakure, so it only made sense to move in the contrary direction.

“Wait, brat.” Pakura suddenly said, the flares no longer present, and the kunai kept in her pouch.

“Mm?” Daisuke turned to her with a tilted head.

“Come with me.” She said with a smile.

“Huh? Go with you? Were?” He was confused, tempted, but confused.

“To Sunagakure. If you stay here, Kirigakure is sure to hunt you down after helping me. Why not come to Suna with me? You’ll be safe there.” She said with a smile.

“Um, Miss-”

“Pakura, my name is Pakura.” Pakura quickly interrupted him.

“Right, Miss Pakura, but from what I heard, you were sent here by Suna's orders, right? Wouldn’t it be dangerous if I go with you?” He asked, causing Pakura to frown.

“That’s right… I still have to go back and ask for an explanation…” She said, with a hint of anger clearly present in her voice. But despite that, she quickly turned to him with a smile. “You don’t have to worry. Once I get back, I’m sure I’ll get a satisfactory explanation. After all, I’m known as the Hero of Sunagakure.”

“Oh, is that so?” Daisuke tilted his head, not really surprised. “But, why do you want me to go with you?”

“First, because you saved my life, and I can repay you by taking you out of here. Second, because I see you have a great talent, after all, you’ve managed to reach far without anyone’s help. So I would get Suna a great shinobi if I take you there.”

“Mm…” Daisuke nodded with a thoughtful face. {If I go with her, I can get an easy way out of this hellhole… And if she gets to solve the betrayal situation, I would be getting a place to grow, and a strong teacher… Also… I wouldn’t have to worry about Danzo there, just an idiot Kazekage…}

“So? What do you say, brat?” Pakura asked with a raised eyebrow. Truth be told, she was surprised by him. Not only did he save her, but he also put quite a show while fighting against the other genins, granted, he didn’t exactly go against the chunin, but for a mere brat without official training, he wasn’t bad at all or so thought Pakura. {Bringing him back to Sunagakure would strengthen the village. And if he can learn to use his Ice Release, maybe in the future a new clan might be born.}

“Well, I guess it can’t be worse than staying in this hellhole.” Daisuke shrugged, accepting Pakura’s proposal. “I accept.”

“Great, now follow me, brat. We need to rush out of here before Kirigakure knows their plan failed.” Pakura said as she started running back to the Land of Wind, Daisuke following close behind, thanking her inwardly for not going at her top speed and giving him time to follow up.