Prelude

  This is a place where no man has ever traveled before. The knowledge that this very planet exists will not be obtained for another century or two.

          Another Day

A clouded sky hung over the hills where the highest mountains on Ankhwa met the vast plains. The sky was stained a brilliant red from the glow of the two suns that anchor the planet in place.

A lone creature sat as still as a stone on the slight outcrop in front of the entrance of a hidden cavern. A slight breeze stirred the air indicating an approaching storm. The odd-looking human-like creature started sharpening the point of a spear he held in his hands. The shaft, made of some unknown lightweight wood, quivered under the resonance of the sharp scraping of the two rocks against each other. The creature sat there in silence with the grating of the stones as his only company.

It had the basic features of a normal human body except for the yard-long jade green lizard-like tail with a tip shaped like the head of the arrow on the spear he was sharpening. He had a distinctive look; tanned skin indicating a lifetime of being exposed to the rays of the suns, he looked to be about 16 or 17 years of age, silver hair that turned blue at the roots, pointed ears with black stripes from the tips to the middle of the ears, tiger-like stripes on the right side of his chest going down the navel and vanishing under the belt of the garment that covered his lower half, a black stripe on the left side of his body that went from his head over his left eye all the way down to his waist and vanished under the belt along with the tiger-stripes and ended on his foot, and last of all, his eyes. The creature’s eyes lacked pupils. They were just dark bluish-grey orbs with white surrounding the color. As he turned his head to listen as a rock rattled down the side of the cliff and quietly as night another one of the creatures hopped down on to the ledge. The big difference between the two was that this one didn’t have any black markings and a different end to his tail. By the looks of the two they appeared to be related, brothers even, considering the older one had the same silver hair as the younger one without the blue roots.

“If you keep sharpening that it’ll disintegrate and you won’t be able to kill a damn thing with it,” spat the older brother.

The younger boy just kept on grating the stone against the spearhead, ignoring his brother.

“Where’s the squall?”

“Not here yet, but you better as hell get inside when it hits. You know what’ll happen if you get stuck out here again and to die because you were too busy with your little stick would be an embarrassment to our family.”

He kept on sharpening. “I’m not that stupid Amida.”

“Sometimes I have my doubts,” he sighed. “By the way, mom wants you to come in pronto Kakashi.”

“I’ll be there in a few.”

“Nah, she said now. If you ain’t in there soon she’ll be pissed at me for not bringing you in.”

“So.” Kakashi stood up and with the spear and granite in hand walked over to the stone wall of the mountain. He slid down a cover and pressed a couple buttons on the number pad, laid his hand on the scanner, and let the machine read his signature. The rock wall came to life as the mechanical sliding doors opened into a medium sized central lounge where everyone could congregate. There was a bunch of cushions on the floor, which were used for seating like a recliner or sofa would be used. There were other various toys and machines used for entertainment lying around the room. The temperature was surprisingly cool compared to the warm eighty-degree weather outside. The large doors slammed shut behind them.

“I really don’t care if mom strangles you or not. Actually I’d prefer she’d strangle you, it might knock some common sense into that unth sized brain of yours baka.”         

“Kashi!” a pink haired blur raced toward Kakashi and Amida and latched onto Kakashi’s leg.

“Hey Sakura! How are you today? You’ve been hiding from me, ne?” he said as he ruffled the young pink haired kage’s hair.

“No I haven’t Kashi, you were outside when we’re not aloud too be remember. Mama told me to not go out there.”

He smiled and walked on with the 4-year-old girl strapped to his leg. He strolled through the wide doorway that led to a room that resembled a kitchen. There was a large stone hearth-shaped opening on the far wall and a low table in the center with a menagerie of low pillows used for seating. The floor was made of the smooth polished stone of the mountain in which the large dwelling was constructed, as were the walls. Various cooking utensils were hanging on hooks and shelves that were attached to the walls. Another older female kage was kneeling in front of the hearth where smoke was billowing up into a vertical tunnel that emptied out into the open air above the mountain and was dispersed evenly among the molecules to keep the location of their home hidden.

“You called for me mom?” Kakashi stood behind his mother who was stirring some type of stew in a metal pot over top of glowing rocks that seemed to have the same properties as coal. She had waist-length hair as black as night and light blue eyes that looked like an ocean. She was 27 years old and stood no taller than her son than a few inches.

Sakura dropped off of his leg and scurried away to play with the other youngsters in the main room.

“Yes. How many times have I told you to stay indoors when the weather starts taking a turn for the worst?”

“I was going to come in soon. I can keep tabs on the storm, mother. I have eyes you know.”

“I don’t care. The point is I told you not to go out and you flat out disobeyed me.”

“But mom-“

“No buts Kakashi.” Yutsuko gave her son a hard look.

“Yes mom.” He hung his head down low and sulked off, back through the doorway into the main room.

Kakashi went to the far wall of the main room toward another door. He walked up to it, pushed the up arrow button and the doors opened, revealing a small little room, just like an elevator. He stepped inside the dull little cube and watched the doors slide close. He pushed a symbol on the number pad that was in the shape of a boomerang with a tail attached to the middle of the curve. The button glowed a brilliant green and the elevator slowly started to rise. As he stood there on his way to the fifth floor of the multi-leveled grotto he silently contemplated his mother’s over-protectiveness. He could look out for his own self for kami’s sake! His family is renowned within the kage world for being vicious fighters and adept at surviving the worst nature can throw in their path. Did they not have faith in him? Do they think of Hatake Kakashi as a pitiful little child who can do nothing to protect himself, to live up to his family’s expectations?

Still seething, the kage did not notice the door opening until a little blue ball hit him in the face.

“Stop day dreaming and get off the damned elevator Kakashi. People with start talking about how my brother is insane, sitting out in the middle of that maelstrom doin’ nothin’ but sharpening a damned spear head like some sort of moron and standing in an elevator like he’s been turned to stone.”

“Nice to see you too Leiko.” Kakashi just breezed on by his older sister who looked a lot like Amida only her features were smoother and more lady-like, her hair was shoulder-length and silver, and she had bright yellow eyes. ‘Kami knows where the hell she got that color eyes.’ He thought to himself.

“Hey, have you seen Amida? That asshole took my sound chip from my player.”

“Oh, that unth… last I saw him he was in the main room doing something. Not like I keep tabs on the baka.”

“I’ll kick his ass!” Leiko hopped in the elevator and pushed the button that would take her to the first floor. The doors closed and the sound of the gears and mechanics working could be heard.

Kakashi sighed. Why did his parents have to have so many children?

The long, fairly wide hall in front of him was lit with wall sconces that looked a bit like Chinese or Japanese decorations but were adorned with characters from the kage culture. Every 50 to 70 feet or so there was a hardwood or what looked to be hardwood, door with a sign attached to the wall beside each door. This was where the Hatake family’s private chambers were located. Each door had its own special symbol indicating the family member that occupied that room. Kakashi walked down the airy hallway until he reached the far wall from the elevator, there, two halls merged to for a ‘T’ shape. He took a left turn and went all the way to the very end were a door marked with a shape similar to that of the button on the elevator only it looked just like the end on Kakashi’s tail. This was how he was distinguished everywhere in the compound because he was the only known kage to have this certain genetic trait. It made things simpler for everyone else. He pressed his right index finger on to the blank area below the symbol on the identification tag beside the door. A blue beam read his fingerprint and the door unlocked it self. He stepped inside the dark room and closed the door behind him. “Lights: on.” The lights in the room automatically switched on, illuminating every square inch of his very high-tech, genius-child, room. “Dim: twilight.” The intensity of the lights dulled, easing the throbbing ache in his skull. Straight across from the door was his bed. The head board, or where the headboard should be, was against the wall opposite the door. The sheets stained with a bright array of colors and designs. He walked across the hard floor, which was covered with various rugs and carpets and flopped down on to the bed. He stared up at the boring dark colored ceiling with a bland look of distaste on his face. “Skylight: open.” A large square area of the ceiling of his room slid back, revealing the evening sky. The skylight was not visible from the outside but anyone on the underside could see the sky in its entirety perfectly. The right side of the bed, which was more like a futon, was up against the wall which was covered in various drawings and sketches, some being blueprints for other high-tech anomalies and others landscapes and artistic elements. Against the wall to the left of the bed sat a low desk with other mechanical parts and pieces of broken machines that were being reformed to create an entirely new mechanism in itself. Under the desk was a box full of other parts and tools used to create those machines. An instrument, which was similar in construction to a laptop computer, was sitting next to the components and the screen had a 3-D rendering of an odd looking creature that was similar to a horse but its front and hind legs were fused together and it’s head was oddly shaped, lacking eyes, and much too small to be that of any normal equid mammal. In the human sense of normal that is. A small hallway was cut through the wall on the right side of the bed and this led to a back room where hundreds of failed ideas and piles of junk were laying everywhere. If you could manage to get through the sea of mess, however, you would notice the hidden door on the other side of the rubble. This door led to a hidden spot on the outside of the mountain. It was shielded from view from below and not many creatures could manage to get above, but just incase it was backed up with a 2 ton reinforcement panel Kakashi had created and installed himself, as was most of the stuff laying around his room.

“Hey Kakashi, let’s go already!” Kakashi woke with a start, only to find himself staring maliciously at Obito’s black spiky head that looked like it hadn’t been brushed in days, or weeks to be more accurate. Kakashi snickered to himself, patting himself on the back for his clever thought. “If you don’t get up and off your ass now we’re going hunting without you Mr. Uki.” Obito danced circles around his best friend, teasing and taunting him.

“Fine, I’ll get up, but only if you stop dancing!” He raised himself off of the hard, earthen floor of the small cleft between the two sets of mountain chains. The position of the suns indicated that it was only around noon and they had about 4 hours to bring home the creature that would sustain the pack of kage for the next week.

They’d been searching the foothills for about 15 minutes when the terrain leveled out and gave way to the vast plains. ‘There’d surely be something of substance out here.’ Kakashi thought. Not long after that the group of hunters stumbled upon a herd of unths, large herbivores that were about as tall as the 8 foot ceiling of a home, had two front tusks, one longer than the other, and air sacks on their sides that they inflate to produce a billowing sound, hence the name. The group spread out and got into a killing formation to surround and enclose the prey. Just then, an eerie howling, whistling sound was heard and suddenly a skewer swooped down out of the sky and seized an unth on its lance. It soared into the sky going perpendicular to ground and flipped over, releasing the unth and allowing its partner to catch the mutilated creature in mid-air and mimic its companion. The unth herd, unnerved by the slaughter of one of their own, turned and charged off, away from the pack of kage. “Aw man, this really sucks! The damned skewer ruined a sure thing.” Obito threw his spear down on the ground and plopped down, discouraged. The shattered carcass crashed back to the earth and was immediately swarmed by jet darters, small scavengers that feed on dead matter. Kakashi stood there, staring at the ruined creature that was alive no more than a minute ago. Hearing the skewers retreating to the big blue beyond, the group decided to get up and search for another herd or possible food source. As he stood up to leave Obito turned to look at Kakashi. Obito’s eyes widened to an impossible size. “Kakashi! Behind you!” Surprised Kakashi turned to look but as soon as he did he felt a sharp, agonizing pain in his chest and the world went black.

Kakashi sat up, sweating and gasping for air. “What a dream,” he mused. He sighed, turned over to look at the digital reader on the low table beside his bed. Its LCD screen read, “ < “ telling him it was the last quarter of the night before the clock turned over, 9:00. ”Uhg.” He flopped back down with sigh and closed his eyes. Faint sounds could be heard through the door, which was the only thing that wasn’t sound proof. The hard rock of the mountain acted as a natural sound buffer. He could hear Amida’s loud voice arguing with Kichi, Kakashi’s twin, over some trivial matter, which Kichi was undoubtedly right about. The arguing stopped and a door was slammed. Judging by the location of the sound Amida gave up and went to bed. He heard footsteps coming down the hall toward his door. They got closer and closer until he heard a knocking at his door.

 “Who is it?” he asked with his eyes still shut tight.

 “It’s me Kashi. Can I come in?”

“Sure. Door: open.” The door swung open and light shone in to the dark room. The kage walked in to the room and sat on the edge of his bed. She looked almost exactly like her twin brother only lacking the markings and she had more rounded, girlish features.

“Why didn’t you come down for dinner Kakashi?” Kichi leaned over her brother, studying him for any signs of illness or malady.

“I fell asleep. That’s all.”

“Are you sure you’re ok? Are you mad at mom? Are you sick?”

“I’m fine! I told you I just fell asleep. I had a headache and I came in here to lye down and I fell asleep. That’s all.” Kakashi was slightly annoyed at his twin for asking so many questions but quickly sobered for fear of hurting his sister’s feelings, which he seemed to be doing a lot of lately.

“Ok Kashi. I just wanted to know if you were all right. I’ve been getting weird vibes from you lately and I was worried about you,” Kichi admitted.

“It’s ok Kichi. Every little thing has been getting on my nerves lately,” Kakashi put his arm around his sister’s shoulders to comfort her. He really didn’t want to hurt her but things have been a little on the rough side. He didn’t know why but he’s been more testy for the past few days than he’s ever been before. It felt like PMS, only guy style. Kichi looked up at the desk sitting across from Kakashi’s bed. She noticed the 3D creature on the screen of the database and turned to her brother, wide-eyed.

“Kakashi! You’re not going to try that again are you?”

“Try what?” he looked at her.

“You’re not going to go out and try catching a Gyrosprinter are you?” Kichi asked her brother in all seriousness. “You know what will happen to you don’t you? If you mess up, if you fail?”

Kakashi sat there staring at the image on the screen. He stood up, walked over the desk and sat down in front of it. He pressed a few keys on the pad and a holographic image of the Gyrosprinter popped up. A few more nimble strokes of his fingers and the image was set in motion.

“I’ve been studying its habits, the way it moves, and the way it behaves. I’ve been testing different ideas and scenarios and the hologram plays them out. So far none have been efficient enough and all have failed but at least I used the statistical mechanism in this database instead of my own hide.” He flashed a handsome smile at his sister.

“Kakashi, please don’t do anything stupid. Promise me that much.”

“I promise I won’t get myself killed Kichi. Can you promise to have faith in me, unlike everyone else?” Kakashi looked his sister straight in the face and his eyes silently pleaded with her.

“I promise Kakashi.” Kichi said, hugging her brother. “Good night Kashi.”

“Good night Kichi.”

Smiling, Kichi stood and walked out the door, down the hall, and all the way to the far end to her door which Kakashi fitted with her own scanner and voice-activated system. There were only two of those systems in the entire grotto.

“Door: close.” Kakashi laid back down on his bed and closed his eyes. “Lights: off.” The lights turned off, allowing the kage to finally get a peaceful sleep.

The hologram of the Gyrosprinter continued to run in place, never being able to reach its destination.