The Mist's Freezing Queen, Mizuki Haruka

The Birth & Family
Mizuki's story begins in a place that one would never expect a ninja to be born. She wasn't born in the village known as Kirigakure. The woman was born on the outskirts of the village, outside of its protection, where only the poorest of the poor lived. Her family lived among the lowest of the low. They lived in wooden shacks on the muddy shores of the island that held the village. Those who were the children of thieves, merchants who's lively hood had been destroyed and those orphaned by war lived out there. They were people who the villagers did not want to see. They were those who were not good enough for the village. These poor souls often found themselves watching the sewage and garbage flow into their shores, up to the foot of their homes. The village had no time for them; they only had time for those who could be useful.

Mizuki’s family was made up of foreigners who went to the village but were outcasted because of their bloodline. They were people who could become fierce shinobi if threatened, but they were also people who hid their abilities in fear of the old ways. Her family were the remnants of a mighty clan who had survived the sways of civil wars from the past. They and their clan had sided with the wrong people, and as such, their clan and bloodline was hated and feared. They were not welcome in the village, and they were barely welcome in the slums. It wasn’t until after the fourth Shinobi war that they once again attempted to enter the village. They were welcomed at first. When the true talents of their people became more noted, the village began to use the family. The children of her people were given the finest educations, taught everything a shinobi could need. They were given the highest positions possible and married to the richest families. Then they were then used in various high ranking missions throughout the land. They were used as cannon fodder. Her people were outcasts with great power, but no matter how much power they had, they were still outcasts. They weren't kin to the people of the village, so the elders had no trouble using their powers for themselves. Especially when it became clear not all of the children these people had possessed the clan’s ability.

The powers nature gave to them, and the greed the village leaders possessed clashed two generations into their movement to the village. There were those in the family who wished to live freely, not as tools of the government, but as citizens who could decide if they wanted to be a shinobi or not. However, others enjoyed the privileges given to them by the government, even if they couldn't choose if they wished to be shinobi. The family was split between the two opposing sides. The half that wanted the right to choose tried to live normal lives, but harassment from the other half and the government soon forced them to the slums, into the poor muck they neglected.  

Mizuki was born at a time when the bloodline trait had all but vanished from those who went to the slums, so the thought of their child being an ice user was never foreseen by her parents. Mizuki's mother was a midwife who ensured babies could be delivered as safely outside of Kirigakure as they could be inside the village. Her father was a man who worked repairing roofs and helping to build homes for others living in the harsh conditions of the outer slums. Their names were Mizaya and Itsuki. They were Mizuki's entire life, no they didn't die in her childhood through some dramatic event. In fact, they held a very active role in their daughter’s life.

Mizaya  expected her daughter to grow up to become a midwife like she had. Itsuki couldn't care less what Mizuki did as long as she stayed away from the village. The memories of his grandfather's words, the stories about the family feud caused by the village were always fresh in his mind. He was determined to make life on the outskirts of the village better than it was during his childhood. His resolution made him work late nights, building docks to walk over the mud and tide.

The Innocent Childhood
From the moment Mizuki was born her father made a resolution to keep her safe and give her a life that could rival those of children living within Kirigakure. She rarely saw her father, but Mizuki often heard praises from older villagers who all loved what he was doing. He was creating docks to keep them out of the mud, fortifying their shacks into sturdy small homes and creating fences along the water to keep out the vicious aquatic life and some of the sewage from seeping to their homes. She was proud of her papa, and so was her mother.

Mizaya was the one who usually kept watch on Mizuki. The girl rarely strayed far from her mother, finding herself often clinging to her apron as they walked through the slums they called home. The outskirts of the village had a much lower population that that of Kirigakure, so children weren't born as often. Mizuki's mother rarely worked, and when she did it was usually once every couple of months. So, on most days she acted as a teacher for the slum's children. Mizaya would turn the one room home of the family into a school three days a week to teach the children how to write and read.

Because of the low population outside of the village, Mizuki only know three other children around her age. The four of them made up the 'terror squad' as they were known in the slums. The members made up a shy girl named Aki, a rough loud boy named Yusuke, and another boy who was as mysterious as his name, Shin. Aki had been Mizuki's neighbor since birth, both of their families being long time outcasts from the village. Apparently, Aki's family had been one of thieves and murderers that terrorized the village before being sent out to the slums. As for the boys, Yusuke was actually her cousin. He had been born two months before her and he always loved pointing out how he was older. Shin on the other hand was quiet, but he wasn't shy like Aki. It was like he felt he it wasn't important to talk, but rather to act.

The original group consisted of Aki, Yusuke and Mizuki. Shin had only joined them recently when his family showed up in the slums, claiming that a scandal involving their eldest daughter had forced them to leave. It was a common reason. Most people whose relatives did horrible things often felt shunned and ran from the village. However, those people usually left within two months to other villages. Shin's family never left. Instead, they began to help out with the building of the docks and homes that Mizuki's father was doing. Since Shin's parents were constantly working with her father, Mizuki invited Shin with them to do things constantly.

When the group wasn't in the class held by Mizuki's mother, they were usually exploring the beach they lived on. Although it was made mostly of mud, the docks Itsuki build reached out fairly far, allowing them to walk for quite a while and step off it with their rain boots whenever they saw something cool. This, however, didn't mean they still didn't come home covered in mud. In fact, it seemed like the four of them spent hours rolling in mud. It often left adults shocked at how dirty the four of them would often get. After a few months, the adults got tired of trying to scold them and told them to "Swim home so you'll be clean at least"

So they did that.

Every day was a day filled with hunts for roots, clams and crabs followed by long swims in their clothing. Their parents didn't mind as long as it wasn’t cold, because they could always dry the clothing and at least the children got bathed. So, the children would just swim, play and learn about their own little world. Even Shin, who was usually silent, would laugh. In fact, it was during one of those swim sessions that Mizuki felt a fluttering in her chest and a weakness in her knees at the sight of Shin laughing. Of course, being four, she didn't think much of it.

The Discovery
It was during one of their days swimming off the shore of the lake that Mizuki heard a scream. It was Yusuke. He had been trying to show off to Aki by swimming much deeper than the adults allowed them to go. Mizuki swam toward Yusuke, shouting at him to return. It was in that moment that she noticed the red seeping into the water. She couldn't see Yusuke moving at all. Panic filled her eyes and her shoulders began to shake as she frantically swam deeper toward him, completely ignoring the black shadows underneath her. Shin swam past her, showing remarkable speed for his age. She called out to him, pleading for him to get to Yusuke. He only nodded and continued swimming.

Mizuki's eyes went wide when she took notice of the fins that were surrounding the two boys once Shin got to Yusuke and was taking hold of him. Without thinking, she cried out, calling for Shin instead of her cousin. The fins were getting closer and now she could make out the shape of the large fish. They were large catfish that lived in the sea; the ones that didn't differentiate humans from the other fish in the bay. And they were heading straight for Shin and Yusuke.

Her world stopped for a brief moment. It was as if she was trying to will the fish to leave them, to make something stop the teeth that were speeding toward all three of them, just to make the screams from Aki at the shore go away. The water began to shake, trembling as if something bigger was coming up from below the surface. Mizuki found herself paralyzed in the water, as if all her energy had just been drained. The water was still trembling, whatever it was wasn't finished. Mizuki just floated there, finding herself lost in her own mind.

She was snapped out of it when a whistling filled the air. There was a shinobi walking on the water toward them, throwing his kunai casually at the fish, piercing them all in their eyes. The fish swam off frantically, frightened by the man. He looked down to the three kids, Shin holding onto the bleeding boy frantically, Yusuke passed out, being said bleeding boy, and Mizuki who was now slowly sinking due to her sudden lapse of energy.

The shinobi narrowed his eyes and dove into the water after Mizuki, who was now several feet under. Mizuki only watched, eyes opened as the sun disappeared behind the blue screen of the bay’s surface. She couldn't bring herself to close her eyes. Large shadows loomed over her as she sunk besides them. They were giant blocks of ice. How had those gotten there? There were still bubbles in them; it was like the water had rapidly frozen. Her head went dizzy as she felt herself land against something solid. It was a block of ice that ruptured out from the giant block. When had that gotten there? In her last fading moments she caught sight of the shinobi swimming toward her, blocking the blue sun with his head.

When Mizuki woke up, they were back in the slums. The man had left them there. Her father was pacing their small house, chewing on his fingernails like a worried girl. His eyes opened widely as he took notice that Mizuki was now awake. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it and brought a hand over his face and walked out of the house. Mizuki stepped outside a few moments later.

Aki was sitting outside of Yusuke's house down the deck, hugging her knees softly and crying. Mizuki walked up to her, asking what had happened. Aki explained that after the man saved the three of them, he brought them back to the village. Yusuke had gotten treated, but he still hadn't woken up and Aki was worried. Then, she added that it had been three days. That was when Mizuki felt her mind freeze. She had been asleep for three days?

She turned, her eyes growing wide as she took notice of who was standing next to the door of her house. It was the shinobi from before, but this time he was accompanied by two other men. He smiled at Mizuki, and she shivered. Something wasn't right. Mizuki didn't want to be near him anymore, so she grabbed Aki's hand and brought her into Yusuke's home. When they entered, she stopped dead in her tracks. Yusuke looked a lot worse than she remembered. He had swum too far out and the dangerous marine life had taken a large chunk of his left arm. His entire body was cut up and bruised, like he was a mud doll that had been dried in the sun and then broken by children only to be glued together clumsily by adults. Aki mumbled quietly next to her that the adults didn't even know if he would recover or even live. Mizuki's eyes opened wide as she turned and ran from the house, trying to escape the possibility of her cousin's death.

Her first steps outside landed her in the arms of the shinobi. He smiled sweetly at her, but as he opened his mouth to talk, Mizuki's father stepped out of their hut and grabbed his daughter, dragging her inside before walking out to talk to the man. She waited inside the hut, leaning against the halls and hugging her knees, staring at the ground. After a few moments, Mizuki heard her mother crying outside and her father screaming. She stood up, staring at the closed door, her hands clenched softly on the edges of her dress. Mizuki opened the door, only to see the man standing in front of it, smirking.

He gave her two options. Leave to Kirigakure to train to be a shinobi and take Yusuke with her so he could get the medical treatment he needed, or stay in the slums and let Yusuke and her talents die. She chose the first. Her parents were screaming, crying for their daughter to stay, but Mizuki climbed onto the small boat that held Yusuke. There was a third child on board, it was Shin. Shin was coming with them too? She blinked, staring curiously, but he didn't say anything. Mizuki turned to the dock as the boat began to move, sitting at the edge of the boat and watching as Aki waved to them, standing alone on the dock. Aki was all alone now. Mizuki felt tears building up on the rims of her eyes and overflowing.

The corruption
When they arrived at the village Mizuki felt as if she was stepping into an alien world. The streets were clean and the floors were well put together, devoid of trash or mud. It was an alien concept to her, but she kept her mouth closed. Yusuke was taken from the boat and they didn't let her follow him. Instead, they led Shin and her to an apartment near the center of the village. Along the way, Mizuki found herself staring in wonder at all the different buildings. They looked much sturdier than the ones in her home.

The apartment was white; it looked sterile and unlived in. Shin seemed to know where to go as he walked into one of the only two rooms in the small apartment. The adults left them alone and Mizuki sat on the sofa in a confused manner. After a few moments, Shin stepped out of his room. He had changed and washed up. Now the boy was wearing slick clothing that made his normal outfit back in the slums look old and worn. He stared at Mizuki then, asking why she wasn't dressed. She jumped off the sofa, asking what he meant. Soon, he had explained that they were suppose to start training in the Academy as soon as they arrived. He sat on the sofa, next to where Mizuki had been sitting and let the girl wander off into what she assumed to be her room and get dressed.

The adults came back for the both of them later in the day. They both seemed impressed at how Mizuki and Shin had dressed themselves. Mizuki reached out nervously to hold Shin's hand, but he just pulled away and followed the adults. She looked down and followed him silently as they were led out.

Once they were inside of the Academy Mizuki felt herself suddenly become very tiny. It was a much bigger building than anything back in the slums. Hell, now that she thought about it, the apartment they had been taken two was big enough to five of her hut back into the slums into. What was even more different were the all children she was seeing. Never in her short life had she seen twenty kids her age gathered into a room. Shin seemed fine in the situation, even walking over to a group of boys and sitting with them, but as the teacher introduced Mizuki as a new student, she felt her face pale. What should she do? At first, she stood by the door, not knowing what to do, but then Shin stood back up and grabbed her hand leading her to the seat next to his. Mizuki smiled weakly, feeling relief as Shin squeezed her hand under the desk during the rest of the day.

The next few weeks passed by quickly, much too quickly for the likes of Mizuki. Every day at lunch her classmates would crowd around her asking about the slums. It seemed that the slums were referred to as "The village hidden in the reeds" or "Ri-togakure." It was a silly notion to Mizuki that her small home could be thought of something like that, but she just went along. After all, Shin didn't seem to mind, so why should she?

The Gradation
Over the next five years of her life, Mizuki was kept inside of the village. She continued sharing the apartment with Shin, and she kept visiting Yusuke every day. It became clear from the time she first visited him when they arrived in the village that his injuries had been greater than everyone thought. Yusuke hadn't woken up at all aside from brief moments where he opened his eyes and hazily spoke, asking if Aki got back to shore. Every time Mizuki was there to answer, she would take his hand and reply yes. At first, she would cry, but eventually, she just fell into the role of saying yes when he spoke every couple of months.

While her cousin stayed in the hospital, Mizuki found herself attending classes every day with Shin. They learned about being a shinobi and about the history of the village. She absorbed the knowledge quickly, and she was always near the top of her class. However, her teachers often scolded her, believing she wasn’t doing the best she could do- which was true. Mizuki’s heart wasn’t into being a shinobi. She wanted to help her cousin, but the more she thought about this, the more Mizuki came to realize that maybe becoming a shinobi could help her find ways to help her cousin.

Shin took notice and went out of his way to help her. With the allowance the adults gave them, he bought Mizuki a book on jutsu before their graduation. The two of them were always together, surrounded by unusual circumstances. Everyone in the class often gossiped about both of them, assuming they were engaged by their families or more than best friends. Some even thought they were related somehow. Both of them had shown up together, they both seemed to live together too, and they always wore the same kind of clothing. Most assumed they were siblings, but they looked nothing alike.

When the teams were made, Mizuki was assigned to a completely different team from Shin. At first she was heartbroken, not being able to spend as much time with the only piece of her childhood home she had with her.

The Genin's Mistake
Mizuki's teammates were wary around her at first. She seemed to be given special treatment by all the adults, just like Shin, but she didn't look like anything but a normal girl. Still, over time Mizuki won them over. She usually provided their main frontline power during missions, utilizing her ice jutsu in offensive and defensive mannerisms. Being twelve, Mizuki gained attention from the village elders for being able to use the clan jutsu at her young age. Her life continued like this, learning new jutsu, training and doing missions, all speckled with interactions with Shin, for a while.

That is, until the chuunin exams came around. Her team had to travel to the Village of Iwagakure for the exams. Once there they found themselves buffeted by the harsh sun and forced to wear masks to prevent them from breathing in all the dusty mountain air. Mizuki's squad passed the first stage of the exam with ease. The second area of the exam, a survival challenge, provided some challenge. Her team was cornered by a lava flow as native genin surrounded them. All the genin had been released into the mountains to fight amongst a recent lava erruption, and it seemed that Mizuki's team had met their match. It was in these tense moments that Mizuki found herself suddenly being able to summon ice from nowhere at all. The other genin were pushed back by the protective pillars of ice while Mizuki's team ran over the ice that had been pushed into the lava before it burnt completely.

When the second portion of the exam was over, the genin were all given one month to train. Mizuki had been the only one to make it past the preliminaries, one of her teammates having been pitted against Shin and lost, while the other had gone temporarily blind and had to drop out. Her teammates stayed to cheer her on during her training and Mizuki, while searching for Shin to talk to him, was approached by the jounin of her village that had come to watch the exam. Without warning they picked her up and took her to an empty room where they sat her in a chair.

In the coming moments Mizuki's sensei would approach her and explain that they would be undergoing special training to further her blooming kekkei genkai. Over the next month Mizuki was trained by her sensei from books written by people who had the bloodline trait years ago. Her training progressed smoothly; her natural talent with the ice jutsu was evident. During the final stage of the exams, Mizuki fought without mercy, dedicated to completely blowing away all her opponents in order to help Yusuke. Within the first two matches she was labeled a demon by the spectators. Shin didn't make it past his semi final round, so Mizuki never had to fight him. She was glad. Mizuki became the victor of the chuunin exam's tournament and was promoted to chuunin by the village without hesitation.

The Advancement
Upon her return to the village, Mizuki was surprised to learn that Shin hadn't been promoted. When she entered the apartment to speak to Shin, she found all her stuff was packed up. Shin was sitting on the sofa, staring at the boxes. Mizuki demanded to know what was going on, but was only given the reply that "They got what they wanted." Mizuki was moved from the apartment she had shared with Shin to a penthouse that was to be all her’s. At first, she was awestruck. This was where the richest of the rich lived.

Over the next year or so, Mizuki was put through mind numbing training. They wanted to use her for something, but she didn't know what. All she could tell was that they wanted her at the top of her game. Every day she trained, and sometimes she trained at night too. On her rare days off she spent her time researching old jutsu, the few that had been recorded and salvaged. One legend kept resonating with her. The story of the Mizukage during the fourth great shinobi war. She was a beauty of daunting power who could channel two kekkei genkais at once. She was an amazing woman, and Mizuki found herself immersed in her legend.

For the next two years, Mizuki trained. Her life became an endless whirlpool of constant training. Missions rarely came her way, but when they did, they were often important or incredibly dangerous. Mizuki did spectacular on these. Kirigakure’s little monster was serving them well, and all it took was promises of saving Yusuke.

The Reveal
At the age sixteen Mizuki became a jounin on the ANBU sqquad. She passed the exam with relative ease, using her blood line to flatten her opponents under pillars of ice. After the exam, she spent her night in the hospital sitting next to Yusuke. He had woken up that night and was whispering about Aki and other things. Mizuki just smiled as she held his hand and nodded, telling him Aki was very impressed and she was shouting that he was her hero. Spread out on the bed next to him were scrolls relating to various jutsu and missions. It was the usual night for Mizuki.

When someone knocked on the door, she turned to see Shin standing there. He was badly beaten, covered in blood and looked as if he had just ran several miles. Mizuki approached him, holding her hand out only to have it grabbed tightly. Despite his looks, Shin still had the energy to pull her from the room and run down the hall with her. As they ran, Mizuki could hear men screaming at them to stop. Shin stopped running when they reached the edge of the docks of Kirigakure and Mizuki pulled away, demanding to know what was going on. Now that they had stopped moving, she took notice of his wounds. There were none. At first she had assumed he was badly beaten because of the blood, but, there were no wounds. It wasn't' his blood. She screamed, asking who he had fought. He replied softly, "The Mizukage."

The breath caught in Mizuki's throat as she tried to insist he was joking, but all he did was shake his head. She started screaming again, wanting to know why he would do something so stupid. Shin in turn screamed that Mizuki was the stupid only. He continued screaming that the only reason they had been brought to this village was to be used as weapons. The village had taken them in after they found the giant glacier formed at the bottom of the bay. They couldn't figure out if Yusuke, Shin or Mizuki created them since all three of them had been in the water, so they brought all three of them to the village. As it turned out, Mizuki had been their golden goose. Mizuki clenched her fists, her shoulders trembling as he shouted at her. The line that ended his life was: "You never even noticed that they haven't been working on healing Yusuke-kun! You were too busy being turned into their own personal monster!" At that moment, Mizuki snapped. Spikes of ice rose from the ground, stabbing at Shin. He did his best to avoid them, but in the end, he fell victim to Mizuki's deadly thorns.

When the other shinobi arrived, they found Mizuki standing alone, staring in disbelief at the corpse of her childhood friend, love and roommate. The shinobi filed the report as Mizuki having tracked him down and fought with him, ending his life. She was congratulated and even promoted to the Mizukage's personal guard. The Mizukage was an old man who had held the position for nearly fifty years, and he always eyed Mizuki like she was the most valuable thing in the village. She hated him. She didn't know why, but she hated him so. Maybe Shin's words had affected her more than she thought, but the way he acted, as if money and pedigree were the most important things in the world disgusted her. He was the reason the village was split up so much, and now she was his bodyguard.

The Promotion
It had been five years since her services to the old Mizukage began when the village was attacked.. It was a full scale invasion from a rebellious force of an outer island. It appears the government had done more to the people than outcast them from the village to the slums. The nation had been repressed and stolen from the small island due to a bloody revolution they had attempted to start several generations ago. They had finally had enough of being punished for the acts of their forefathers and rose up against the village. They started with the slums outside of Kirigakure as they made their way to the village.

Smoke consumed the water village as Mizuki was forced to escort the Mizukage to the safe house under a lake in the center of the island, however, when they arrived to the entrance, she turned back and took notice of the burning huts on the horizon. It was the slums, they were on fire. She opened her mouth to protest leaving the villagers outside during the attack and not assisting the slums, but the Mizukage merely screamed at her to follow him in order to protect him. He then muttered that a lower population would be easier to deal with. Mizuki was dumbstruck as she followed him. Why was the Mizukage saying such things? Silently they descended into the underwater safe house. Mizuki stood in stunned silence as the old man spoke about survival of the fitness and such, apparently he was fit? His gut said otherwise. Still, she stood there, listening to the old man speak. He had always been like that. All he did was talk big, but he never did anything. If the old man had once been a great shinobi, there was no trace of it now.

An explosion rocked the safe house, and the old man fall back, landing on his behind. He screamed, cursing at Mizuki for not ensuring he hadn't fallen. It was then that something clicked inside of her. They were all alone. She was his most trusted guard, or rather, the only one who's skills he trusted enough. As far as he was concerned, she was just a product of the village to be controlled. It never occurred to him that she would have a will of her own. For the past five years, he had forced her to stop visiting Yusuke to watch over him at night as well. He didn't think she was capable of anything but that. It happened quickly, quicker than Mizuki would have liked to admit. The kunai found itself in her hand, and before she could even think, it was in his throat. She didn't stop there either. The kunai was shoved in and out, over and over as she screamed. With each stab she avenged her family, she avenged Shin, she avenged Yusuke and she avenged herself. By the time she was finished, her emotions were so mangled that the safe house was trembling as ice began to pierce the hull, letting in water. Before she knew it, the entire place was torn apart.

The old Mizukage's body drifted off, found later after the attack. His death was blamed on attacks by the rebels, and Mizuki just silently nodded along. Mizuki was relieved from her guard duty and returned to the ANBU where in due time she was promoted to Captain. After two failed Mizukages passed through Kirigakure, Mizuki was chosen by the counsel to become the next kage at the age of twenty-one. Many disagreed with it, but none felt they could challenge the power of her blood line.

This be Chiisai