The author makes no claims to the ownership of the story Naruto or Spirited Away...Though I really wish I could, this is just a fanfiction.

Blood calls to Blood

Haku and Kohaku

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What meaning has time to the timeless?

He…

Undulated lazily, slowly… slowly, slowly becoming aware.

He…

Stretched his arms and touched the heavens, or at least seemed to, the heart of his domain was an underground reservoir hidden within an old volcanic magma chamber long inactive. From there he meandered across the mist-covered island nation until he kissed the sea.

He…

Was awakening reluctantly, there was something summoning him from the depths of slumber. A strange double echo, a pulse had startled him a few days ago and now it beat relentlessly at the edges of consciousness, persistently, insistently calling.

Blood calls to Blood…

Idly he shifted from side to side, eyes still closed, for good reason too. The last time he had awakened and the two times before that, his domain had been choked full of rotting corpses. Enraged at the desecration, he had cleared them with a massive flood and retreated into hibernation. He had hoped that by the next time he awakened the Age of Man would be over. He did not stir from his rest at all, not even when the humans he had contracted with invoked his power and tried to summon his direct intervention. After all, they had broken their oath, to protect his river, first.

Still, blood calls to blood.

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The land of Water Country was a mysterious, mist covered place. The capital of Water Country was on an island a quarter the size of Fire Country, it was surrounded by a ring of seven smaller islands. Some were home to single villages built around a trading port under the rule of a minor lord or lady. Others were too small to support anything other than a a plantation with a small coastal fishing village as a disguise for a hidden ninja outpost.

The life of a Water Country resident was a simple one if hard. For many years prior to the formation of Kirigakure, the Ninja Clan Wars had raged. Even isolated as they were from the mainland; the precursor of Water Country was not spared strife. Back then the islands were divided into private fiefdoms each with their own warlord and private mercenary clans that fought for conquest, glory and power.

Humans are so foolish.

It would have continued on indefinitely if the formation of Konoha hadn't spurred the other countries to take notice. A handful of battles was all that was needed to show the viability of the new military model. A number of disparate clans grouped together to form an organized and well-balanced mercenary company. With the support of a rich nation and the backing of regular samurai, these ninja became a powerful military force that made the fractious warring clans look like rabble.

In only a handful of years Fire Country had ballooned to more than ten times its original size and power absorbing its neighbors and forcing other nations to hurriedly form their own ninja military system if for nothing more than for protection. Just like that, in the space of a few years, the age of the Ninja Clan Wars ended and the time of the Hidden Ninja Villages began. Water Country, isolated though they were, had also been forced to see the truth. In part due to outside pressure and in part due to the conquest of the largest of the islands in that chain by the forces of the future Daimyo. Thus out of necessity Kirigakure, the village hidden in the mist had formed.

Humans were still foolish.

The Daimyo of Water Country, if he could be called such, was merely the strongest of a group of warlords. Some of the stronger lords of the other islands paid only lip-service to the title and were home to small but powerful ninja clans. Others from less important islands bought the Daimyo off with an annual tribute and went about their own business without interference.

Disloyal servants make for an unstable country.

Assassination was the primary cause of death for a Water Country noble, more so than any other. Second place was a tie between choking in ones sleep and accidentally falling down some stairs. Those nobles who lived to old age usually attested their survival to luck, a heallthy dose of paranoia, a good body double and a closely watched heir or heiress.

Not even the Daimyo were exempt from this.

It would seem counter-intuitive to say that the Mizukage actually encouraged such bloodthirsty practices to continue, yet not only did he do so, more often than not Kiri ninja were the preferred assassins. The primary source of income for a Kiri ninja however, was in guarding the boats that carried trade goods to and from Water Country. For an island nation trading for supplies was a necessary evil and the one who controlled trade controlled Water Country.

The Mizukage had been contracted by the Daimyo to provide protection to these trade ships after the samurai guards assigned to protect the monthly shipments, had been regularly and brutally slaughtered by pirates and the valuable goods stolen. This contract had been cemented into permanence after the 'pirates' had been hunted down, exterminated and the goods returned to the ports minus what had been destroyed.

An easy task since the Mizukage had been behind the majority of the pirate attacks in the first place, framing some minor mercenary clan with the deed to deflect blame.

Of course this was not a tactic that could be used often, nor did it guarantee Mist control of trade. The next step was to form independent, secret deals with the various warlords in control of trade routes and the storage of goods within Water Country itself.

These Warlords were then 'mysteriously' killed by assassins. Their successors were usually either ignorant of the true details of the secret deals that had been made or too enraged by the actions of the supposed perpetrators of the assassinations, handily aggressive rivals, to care. More often than not, they allowed generous concessions in exchange for protection or revenge.

The Water Country Daimyo may have been in a position to put a stop to things if he and the next three consecutive Daimyo hadn't all suffered a string of fatal accidents, death by falling out of a futon, by the lethal impact of a falling coconut, bleeding to death from an insect bite and from overexertion and excessive dehydration during a carnal encounter with a young male courtesan.

All unfortunate, if a tad embarrassing deaths that in no way shape or form could be attributed neither to the leader of Hidden Mist nor to the mysterious new commander of the world famous, Seven Swordsmen of the Mist.

The wife of the most recently deceased Daimyo and the mother of the seven year old inheritor, having lost an older child to heatstroke due to falling asleep in the bath, could clearly see the writing on the wall. Surrounded by several predatory and ruthless Warlords, she had signed over a good deal of control in matters of trade and security to the Shodaime Mizukage in exchange for her son's continued survival.

Under the oversight of the Nidaime Mizukage these concessions had allowed the Hidden Mist to become the dominant political force during the outbreak of minor skirmishes and brief rebellions in which the independent ninja clans, many of which were bloodline clans, played a major role.

The hatred, disgust and fear generated by these ninja clans in the minds of the public was taken advantage of by the secretive Sandaime Mizukage who launched, with the popular support of the weary and war-torn populace, a campaign to end the wars, citing the kekkai genkai-wielding clans as abominations who prolonged war and would not allow true peace while any of their progeny still lived.

By then bloody Mist had well and truly earned its name.

The propaganda campaign was so successful that even the merest whisper of abnormality was reported. The kekkai genkai clans either fought back or hid. Those that chose to embrace chaos and battle were slaughtered to the last man, woman and child. Their dead bodies were stacked into huge funeral pyres, burned, buried and forgotten. Those who chose to hide found little aid or succor. Places of haven were few and the threat of discovery always imminent. To have an advanced bloodline in some places, was reason enough for a lynching.

"Papa? Why is Mama sleeping? Who are thes- These people?"

-Smack-

"Ugh!"

"I'm sorry…for my parents and my sister…and all who have suffered; will suffer if you continue to live, please die, abomination…"

A teary-eyed face, filled with hatred, shame and disgust, dark gazes full of malice from the crowd behind him.

Abomination….

A descending hatched, already coated in blood.

ABOMINATION….

"Please, die."

A flash of light and then…blood, so much red blood, dripping from crystal spires, some spikes held twisted forms blue and frozen, unmentionable things littered the floor. If he stayed there a moment longer he would lose his mind. Now he understood his mother's bereaved and hopeless denial.

"Look, Mommy look!" The child had been playing in the river as his mother washed the day's laundry. They were the wife and son of a simple farmer. The youth in his innocent enthusiasm had attempted to grasp at the water flowing in the stream, to lift it out in cupped hands without spilling any. Not understanding the significance he had eagerly shown the floating amorphous globule of water to his mother.

-Slap-

Water splashed unto the ground, the child's concentration broken by shock and pain.

"No, not this child! Kami-sama, why this child!" The woman gripped the boy's thin shoulders, fingers digging them in painfully as she screamed in despair.

"Why, why, like your grandfather, why!" She sobbed and as the child began to cry, hugged him.

"No, don't cry, baby, shhhh!" She rocked him sobbing still. "I'm sorry it's not your fault. It's Mama's fault." She went on to tell him not to show that trick to others, not to tell of what he could do. She was sure that he would obey her at least for a time, when he was a little older she would explain. Tragically, neither noticed the horrified figure standing upon the crest of the hill behind their home. A farmer's tools scattered where they had fallen on the snow covered earth.

"Die, Abomination."

He opened his eyes.

Haku lay still, covered with snow.

Yet he did not feel the cold.

Ten fingers flexed slowly, free of frostbite, his bloodline sustained him, even after having fallen asleep in a snowdrift for two hours.

"What…what happened?"

He remembered his mother's limp form, lifeless.

Unable to rest after that fleeting image he rose to his feet and continued on, walking blindly, he heading away from the house, impaled by spikes of ice. He sought to put as much distance between himself and that…(abomination)…and that -memory as possible.

It was not surprising then that the six-year old who had not ever had cause to venture far from home was lost within minutes, stumbling slowly in the general direction of one of Water Country's larger villages. He did not know this but should he have survived the long and solitary march; then that was where he would have ended up. Ended up as another one of the countless, worthless orphans begging for sustenance as they struggled to survive.

But then, Haku fell in the river…

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Having stretched across the length and breath of his domain Kohaku was oddly pleased that there were no dead bodies polluting his river. Other than the ones that should have been there anyway, the small creatures that lived out their lives within his domain.

He felt it now more urgently, a summons to the World of Man.

But still he procrastinated, idly playing about in the current of a stream, in the roar of a waterfall, in the unfathomable depths and deceptively fast flowing waters with something akin to glee.

Then a body fell in.

With a frustrated growl Kohaku was instantly there, moving through his domain with the merest thought. At the time his reasons for saving the child hadn't been exactly altruistic. His thoughts on the matter were simply. "Not another dead human, polluting my river!"

Small pudgy hands grasped instinctively at the scaly form as it swam past the flailing form. Long coils of a sinuous body undulated and buoyed the child to the surface, then deposited the gasping human on the river bank.

A lupine head lowered and sniffed disdainfully at the wet bedraggled form. Emerald green eyes narrowed at the sight of steam lifting off of the child's shivering form, watched as the Hyouton bloodline struggled to keep its final inheritor alive, calling all the while to the river spirit. .

Blood calls to blood.

Kohaku snarls at the sight but relents. This child is one of Her children after all. He watched as the boy awakened, and before he regained full consciousness, altered his form as necessary.

Brown eyes meet green.

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Bubbles burst before his eyes, the river was dark and he'd lost his sense of up and down. The cold should have killed him but yet he still struggled, he wasn't drowning but he couldn't breathe. Then there was a flicker of something silver, like a flat slate river rock. His dimming sight saw something moving past him and he reached out in desperation. In his mind was a single desperate thought.

"Air!"

"..."

His next thoughts were of the blinding white sky and of the pair of green eyes that looked at him intensely. Remembering the villagers he started and weakly tried to back away.

"Don't be afraid, I just want to help you." The 15 year old boy before him said, Haku stopped edging away and waited hesitantly, watching warily.

"You shouldn't be out here alone, where are your friends, where is your family? If you know where you live I can help you find your home." The boy asked and offered with eyes shining in concern. The water hadn't been enough to wash the blood-stains out of Haku's clothes.

The six year old spoke numbly. "Dead." He answered.. "Gone." He added. "Mama, Gone!" He cried.

"Please die, Abomination."

The boy before him seemed disturbed at the news and stared at the river, deep in thought.

Blood calls to blood.

"I know a place where you can go…" The boy said hesitantly. "It's come under new management over the years but I don't have many pleasant memories of it." He looked at Haku reassuringly. "But if you were to go there you would be safe. You'll have to work hard though." The older boy said. "Would you like me to bring you there?"

The six year old nodded.

"Fine then, take my hand, close your eyes, and hold your breath until I tell you it's safe to breathe. Can you do that?" Kohaku asked seriously.

The youngster smiled apprehensively "Yes!" he said, slightly moved by the older boy's grave tone.

Gently Kohaku took the boy's hand and murmured. "Spirits of Wind, Spirits of Water, Heed this call made in my true name, Kohaku, Please bless this child and grant him protection, open a path to Sanctuary…."

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An old witch scowled from behind her desk. One of the objects of her ire flinched and tried to hide behind the other, unflappable, stoic visitor.

"Say that again!" Yubaba snarled.

"Just as I told you..." The older boy murmured.

The slightly whimpering voice cried out stubbornly despite her attempt at intimidation.

"Please, I need a Job!"

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AN: This story was an idea that wouldn't go away. Will of the Future: Old Men 50percent done. There'll also be a side story addedafter Old Men.