He absolutely hated his life right now. He hated his job, he hated the monsters in his country, he hated how damn cold it was outside, and he hated how tired and hungry he was. The list went on and on. Right now, Kurogane hated just about everything in the world, with or without a pulse.

He really had no one but himself to blame for his current state of body and mind. If he was just a bit stronger, a bit more detached from emotions, he would not be feeling as miserable and hopeless as he did now. Life as a ninja was difficult, but he knew that from the start, and after years of active duty he should have been used to it. He had honestly thought he was. Up until recently he had been successful in keeping his cool in every battle he had ever fought in. He never showed an ounce of any type emotion, other than the thrill of an oncoming fight, whenever he was sent out to the battle field. People could have been dying all around him, bodies could have been falling left and right and he still would have kept on fighting without any sign of mercy or dismay.

But every now and again he found himself in a situation where something like that was simply impossible to do. This had been one of those rare occasions that managed to make his heart clench so tightly that it seemed as though it was trying to suffocate itself.

He had been sent out to a small village where a lone monster had been reportedly terrorizing the local townsfolk. Three others had been with him, two young boys and an old veteran of Souma's ninjas. The job was not supposed to be all that difficult. It was more or less supposed to be a training ground for the two newcomers, who just so happened to be twin brothers. What they hadn't expected, was that one monster to call for backup.

The young ones had fought well, trying to stay out of Kurogane's way, and assisting each other as best as they could, but they had not been the problem. It was the old man.

Maybe he had been trying to show off in front of the kids, or maybe he had been trying to prove something to the town he was trying to protect, Kurogane didn't know. What he did know, was that the guy started getting careless and all hell broke loose. Not only did he manage to get himself killed, but he basically murdered the two young boys with them. The two young boys who had just gotten their first chance at a real battle, two young boys who had wanted nothing more than to protect the country they loved, two young boys who had been forced to die honorably at such a frail young age.

Kurogane felt sick about the whole damn thing, even more so when he looked back on those final moments before those two died. They knew it somehow. They had sensed that they would not be able to return home that night. They knew they were going to die. So what did they do? They took it like men and accepted it. They did not cry and beg for life, like the old man had done seconds before he had been devoured. They stood firm, fought side by side, and made sure that he was the one who made it out of the battle alive. For they knew that if he was killed, left for dead on the battlefield, then all hope would be lost.

Their final wish, their dying request, was to deliver their swords to their only other living relative, their older sister. They had hoped that she could sell them and have some type of income until her wedding in the fall. They had been smart, brave, and unselfish until the very end. And Kurogane had been the one to tell a worried older sister that her baby brothers had died before they got the chance to see her become a bride.

He had not eaten since he left that fragile girl sobbing in the arms of her fiancé. He had been running on nothing but pure adrenaline for three days, and tonight he was finally going home. But it didn't help one bit that it had not stopped raining since he had delivered his batch of bad news to those kids older sister. It only fueled his hatred for the world around him.

As usual, he was deadly silent when he entered the main house of the castle. His cloak was removed, his shoes left tossed aside on the door, and his armor taken off and left to dry beside an open fire.

He stayed there for a while, simply content with looking at the embers in the fireplace he had seated himself in front of. The fire, he found himself thinking, was a lot like life. It started out small, slowly gaining strength and rising to its peak as the seconds flew by, only to die out leaving nothing but ashes in its wake. It was so frail too. All it really took was some water, maybe a passing wind, or even another fire, to take out what was supposedly one of the strongest things in the world. Ironic, really, how the most precious thing in the world was something everyone was bound to lose someday. No one could protect it forever.

His ears picked up the sharp cackling of burning wood. The sound reminded him that he could not dwell in his thoughts forever, no matter how much pity he wished to wallow in that night. He forced himself to focus his attention back to the fire in front of him, with all the intention of putting it out and going off to bed. But when his eyes finally focused on the real world, there was a boy kneeling in front of the fire.

The child was only about seven years old. His slightly darker than pale skin glowed in the embers of the rustling flames. His crimson eyes watched a teapot, which had been placed over the fire without Kurogane's knowledge, with a patient intensity while his midnight blue hair wore the fires luminescent rays like a halo over his young brow. Beside him was an off white dish with a few small onigiri placed neatly on top. They were pretty basic. Nothing too extravagant, but to the hunger ridden ninja who had eaten nothing for three days straight, they were the equivalent of a five star meal.

The dark ninja looked on in silence as the child stood up and took a quick look around the room. If the boy knew that Kurogane was there he did a good job of pretending he didn't.

"Isamu." The man called out.

The little boy noticed a long narrow bookcase off in a far off corner of the room. He wasted no time scampering over to the old piece of furniture.

"Isamu." Kurogane tried again.

But the boy, Isamu, simply took his time in inspecting the contents of each individual shelf.

"Isamu."

Finally, Isamu settled on removing two slightly worn porcelain cups from one of the dusty shelves. He then slowly strolled back to his previous spot in front of the fire and gently set the cups down next to the plate of rice balls. His gaze instantly went back to the fire.

"Isamu, answer your father." A fading thought passed through the swordsman's mind, somehow managing to leave its mark in the tired ninja's head. Once his brain was fully able to process it, the boy was in his arms in an instant. "You can answer me can't you? Have you lost your voice? Can you hear me? Did you go deaf while I was away?"

He could feel the boy struggle against his grip. "Father!" The boy whined. "Let me go!"

Kurogane let out a sigh of relief. Quickly after releasing it he realized how foolish and stupid he must have sounded and thanked every deity he could think of for being the only adult in the room. He knew he was protective of his son. In fact he was very much aware that he was overprotective of his son. Every cut, scrape, or bruise Isamu managed to come home with was always checked over as if it were a falling limb or a busted neck. Kurogane worried constantly about his young son, especially if the two had not seen each other for a while. Needless to say, he worried more than he should have and a lot of the things he worried about were absolutely ridiculous. He supposed that was the price he paid for being a first time father.

"Father!" Isamu cried out. "I can't breathe."

Kurogane quickly loosened his grip but ultimately refused to let his son leave his arms. "Next time answer me the first time."

Isamu attempted to run out of his father's grip. His legs moved back in fourth in the air, somehow almost giving the child the illusion that he was making some kind of progress. "I didn't know you were going to strangle me."

The ninja shrugged. "Now you know." He was hesitant to let the boy go, but he knew that if he didn't Isamu would find some way to hurt himself. So he reluctantly opened his arms and let Isamu land on his feet on the floor.

His son was more than happy to be released from his father's forceful embrace. Making sure he could not be picked up again, he hurried over to the teapot and attempted to grab it with his bare hand. His hand was slightly burned from the contact. He was back in his father's arms in less than a second.

"What the hell are you doing?" He scolded. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

Isamu managed to mumble out a response with just about his whole fist in his mouth.

Kurogane had not understood a word of it. "What?"

Even though he still felt the lingering effect of the hot glass, Isamu took his hand out of his mouth. "I wanted to get the tea."

His father rolled his eyes and ripped off a piece of his damp undershirt. Using his mouth, he wrapped the cloth around his hand tightly before reaching out to take the teapot that had burned his son's hand. He held the kettle in the air for a moment, letting the frigid night air cool the heated glass, before deeming it safe enough to put down on the ground. The faint smell of lavender and mint spouted from the spout of fine glass china.

"Next time just ask me to do it."

He had to hold back the laugh that threatened to spill out when Isamu pouted and crossed his arms over his chest. "I could have done it myself."

"Uh-huh." The ninja poured a decent amount of the tea, no doubt lavender mint used to put people to sleep, into the two cups that had been set in front of the fire. "You want some?"

"Yes please." The child gingerly took the cup offered to him.

Kurogane had to admit, this was very unusual for him. He never liked tea. It was a calming drink, yes, but all it did was clear your head so that you could think. On nights like this what he needed in his system was sake. Alcohol got rid of all the unwanted thoughts in your head. It made you laugh when you really wanted to break out and cry. Something like sake knocked you out so that you could avoid the problem for a little while. But tonight his son had made him tea, and a sleeping tea no less, and he could not allow himself to refuse such a selfless gesture.

"Those onigiri for me?"

Isamu nodded and could not help but smile when his father all but devoured the small rice treats. "Are they good?"

"Delicious." He could already feel his strength returning. "It's late. What are you still doing up?"

His child yawned, doing his best to make himself comfortable in his father's arms. "I knew you were coming."

"If you were this tired you should have waited until morning to see me."

His son just shook his head. "I wanted to see you first."

Kurogane could not see many similarities between him and his son. Truth be told Isamu was more like his mother, Tomoyo. Calm, kind, generous, and most importantly, passive aggressive. Still, if there was one thing father and son had in common it was their stubborn attitude.

Isamu was especially stubborn when it came to his father, and any matter concerning his father. Every time Kurogane ventured out into the battlefield Isamu would ensure that none of his belongings were touched. Nothing was moved while he was away and everything was kept the way he left it until he returned. Upon his arrival, Isamu would demand that everyone be out of sight until he saw his father first and had the customary welcome home dinner together alone. He was very adamant about the whole thing. The only one who could ever get him to change his mind was his mother.

"And you feel sad."

The ninja was taken back a bit. "What?"

"I could sense it." The boy said softly, opening his eyes to look his father dead in the eye. "I can always tell when you're sad. Why?"

Kurogane suddenly had trouble speaking. His mind was quick to replay the events that had transpired only three days prior. Images rolled through his mind like a movie reel playing on the big screen in his consciousness. Picture of the twins who had lost their lives. Pictures of their final moments, their last smiles in life. Pictures of two children who were only six years older than Isamu.

"Father?"

Kurogane could not help himself. He held onto his son as tightly as he could, trying his hardest not to hurt what he considered to be the most precious thing on Earth. He ignored the loud clank of the two glasses hitting the floor and he found that he didn't care that the tea inside them had spilled all over the place. All he cared about in that single moment in time was protecting the most important treasure in his life from the horrible thoughts corrupting his mind.

This time Isamu did not struggle against his father's strong arms. Instead he wrapped his arms around his dad's neck in an effort to comfort the older man in any way he could. He remained still when his father's shoulders began to shake. He knew Kurogane was not crying- his father did not cry- but he knew the desire to cry was there. He also knew that he would never fully be able to understand what had made his father so upset so in the first place. Isamu would never be able to completely comfort the father he admired so much.

"I love you father." But he had to try.

And tonight…

"Love you too, son."

That would be enough.

MistressOfTime1218: Yes, I actually decided to make this into a multi-chapter story. It won't be that long though. I'll probably just add in Fai's chapter an be done with it. Unless I come up with another child and parent combination. And sorry if Kurogane is OOC. I'm not very good with stoic characters, but I tried. If it's a horrible attempt, I understand, and yes you can say so. And as for hippegal's request, I am not ignoring you and I have not forgotten. It sounds like a good idea and I plan on working on that after this little story is finished.