Shimizu Masato. Big, strong, intimidating and a quiet guy. He was the living definition of tall, dark and deadly.

Ishida Roku. Loud, incredibly fast, had excellent aim, and was an outspoken twat.

Fujimoto Asahi. Remarkably stealthy, young and a timid boy.

This was fireteam six, and Shiba Chizuki had no idea why she was put in charge.

"Um…hi?" She waved at her new squad.

Masato didn't say anything, giving her a once over. Asahi shyly waved back…

"Who the fuck are you?"

And Roku was a brat.

When she was three, Yurei learned about her nearly extinct clan.

"We are the Akumu," He father had said to her. "We are the nightmare clan…and we're sort of scattered all over the continent."

"Nightmare clan?" She had asked, curiosity peaked.

If that doesn't sound badass, I don't know what does.

He nodded, deciding that it was time for her to learn her heritage. "The Akumu were a very diverse clan, much like the Uzumaki."

"How so?"

"The Uzumaki had a powerful life-force, giving them tremendous stamina, large reserves of chakra, vitality and longevity. Some have regeneration, sensory prowess and chakra chains. Most of them were born with a talent for fuinjutsu.

The Akumu on the other hand, are considered the closest clan to the dead and afterlife. Our clan has several variations of Kekkei Genkai. Some of our clansmen can summon skeletons to do their bidding, we call this Yatsufusa (March of the dead). Others can see and interact with the recently deceased, also known as Obake no me (Eyes of the haunted), and some can phase through objects like phantoms, which is Mukei (Intangible)."

Yurei and listened with wide eyes and a gaping jaw. She already knew what she wanted. Having a skeletal sidekick would prove to further bring wonders to her reputation as a demon child.

Holy fucking shit. My family is OP.

"However, having such abilities, we do have glaring weaknesses. Yatsufusa requires massive amounts of chakra that most Akumu cannot summon more than one or two at a time. Obake no me drove more than half of its users insane, and Mukei users can get lost in the void."

Her father gestures to himself.

"I have Yatsufusa." The man then casually stomps his foot, cracking the earth beneath him. Yurei then got to watch skeletal hands burst forth from the chasm in the ground, as a skeleton hauled its ass out of the floor to stand beside her father. "As you can see, it gives me an extra comrade. Meet Kokkaku."

Bones? Real creative Dad.

The skeleton gives a cheerful wave, and her father dismisses it, letting it sink back into the earth in which it came from.

"When an Akumu turns three, its tradition to find out which of the Kekkei Genkai that they possess," he explains as he lays three identical looking stones in front of her. They looked remarkably like skipping stones, and her hands itched to throw them across the small pond in her backyard. As if sensing her thoughts, her father swatted her over the head with a mock scowl before pointing at the assembled rocks. "Pick one."

Her eyes skimmed over them, before snatching the last one on her left before scrambling to her feet and making her way to the backyard. She didn't get very far when her father grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and dropping her back onto the couch. He pried her fingers off the stone and turned it over, showing the character for 'Void'. It was glowing blue, and Yurei was unimpressed with the supposed fortune-telling stone. He flipped the other stones over, showing the characters for 'Skull' and 'Eye' that weren't glowing.

"Well," he said. "It looks like you have Mukei."

A year passed and she turned four. It was also the time that she had to attend the academy, and coincidently (or not) was the next time she saw her arch nemesis. The ceremony began with the Hokage talking about the Will of fire, which she tuned out (she knows propaganda when she sees it). There was some dude in front of her with silver hair that looked like the back of a porcupine. It was a very in-your-face sort of thing that was very hard to ignore, so Yurei stared at it for the entire speech.

It was absolutely fascinating.

When the ceremony finished, the boy with the spikey silver hair turned around, and she recognized him immediately.

The hair, the mask, even the holier-than-thou expression was the same.

And the first thing she said to young Kakashi since their initial meeting three years ago was a venomous, "You."

He gave her a startled look, before narrowing his gaze at her.

"Do I know you?"

Yurei spluttered.

What a fucking brat!

"Let me refresh your memory."

And then she high-fived him in the face. Really, really, really hard. He returned the favor with a swift punch to the stomach, in which she paid him back with a kick in the balls.

This was how Yurei started her first fist fight with Hatake Kakashi…right in front of the Hokage.

"Do you see that Sakumo! She's making friends! I'm so proud," Taiyo preened, as he watched his daughter from the rooftop of the academy.

Sakumo sighed in nostalgia. "Doesn't it remind you of our first fist fight?"

"Yeah. I trounced you."

"…That's not how I remember it."

"You wanna go Sakumo?!"

"Oh, it is on Taiyo."

Yurei figured that it must have looked really vicious for a school yard brawl. Like really vicious…for a couple of four year olds. Kakashi was yanking on her hair and she was inches away from plunging her index and middle fingers into his eyes when they were interrupted with a cough. They both turned to look up at the Hokage, who seemed to be rather entertained at their situation.

She said, "Do you need something Oji-san?" the same time Kakashi said, "Hokage-sama!"

He then hurriedly shoved her off him and hastily bowed. Yurei dusted off her pants before doing a much shallower bow.

"Shouldn't you be lining up with your class now Hatake-kun? Akumu-chan?" He asked in amusement.

The duo sneered at each other before making their way towards the other children.

Since there was a whole lot of shinobi hopefuls, they were assessing the children and placing them into groups according to their skill set. Imagine her delight when she found out that the assessment was a knock-out match against other children. Now seeing that said children weren't mentally reborn adults, most of them just cried when they got hurt. The ones that didn't were mostly clan kids which were few and far between.

It didn't really matter to Yurei, because she only had one specific person in mind to defeat. She had one eye on Kakashi and the other on her opponent, which made her look like some demented chameleon. She thought she might have scared some of the other kids off (her impromptu match with Kakashi just before the start of class also helped).

She rather enthusiastically attempted to continue where they left off the moment Kakashi stepped into the ring. The feeling appeared to be mutual. Yurei wasn't really paying attention to anything else other than smashing Kakashi's face in. Sadly, it wasn't going as well as she hoped.

Most of the spars that day looked vaguely like the deadly dances that they were supposed to be in the future (except Yurei who one-punch-KO-ed the people that were getting in her way of victory), but the match between Yurei and her self-proclaimed-soon-to-be-reciprocated-nemesis was more of a slugfest.

Kakashi was the first to draw blood, punching her hard in the jaw and splitting her lip, knocking out a few teeth along the way. Yurei retaliated by breaking his nose. He dislocated her left shoulder. She gave him a black eye. This went on and on, until the proctors got sick of watching two kids beating each other up and the match was declared a draw.

She high-fived him one last time in the face for good measure as the proctor pulled them apart, and felt satisfied when an imprint of her hand was left behind. The proctor dumped them in the infirmary while the other kids went home early for the day.

"Do you remember me now?" Yurei asked, voice sounding weird due to her missing teeth.

The kid with a silver porcupine for hair looked at her with one swollen eye.

"Nope."

The nurses had to strap both of them to the bed before they attempted to kill each other. Again.

In another hospital not far from the academy, a similar scene occurred.

"Hey Sakumo?" Said Akumu Taiyo, painkillers making his voice slightly dopey as he laid on the hospital cot, staring at the ceiling.

"Hm?" Came the answer from the bed beside his.

"Do you think that we're forgetting something?"

It's been three hours since everyone left. It's been three hours of glaring murderously at Kakashi. It's been three hours of trying to escape the straps that the nurses put on them.

Where on God's green earth is my father?

As if summoned from her thoughts, daddy dearest smashed through the wall beside her bed, looking higher than the helium balloon she let go of on her first birthday.

Huh…what is he taking and where can I get some?

"Yurei-chan~," he cooed. "I came early to pick you up from the academy." He giggled, completely oblivious to the fact that everyone left several hours prior to his arrival. Kakashi looked on incredulously, wondering if he was the last sane person in the room. Another figure stepped through the hole in the wall, and the boy brightened considerably.

"Taiyo, we shouldn't break walls. It makes the Hime angry," the man said in a stage whisper. Kakashi face-faulted as his father acted like he was just as inebriated as the man that came before him.

"Kashi?" The silver haired man squinted at his son. "What the hell happened to you?"

He pointed at her.

For one reason or another, her father started laughing.

"See? Like father like son. You just can't beat us."

Sakumo's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me? I just kicked your ass across the Hokage Mountain and back."

"I think you were mistaking my butt for yours," her father taunted. "Yurei-chan's gonna blow your kid out of the water."

"You must be going blind. Clearly Kakashi is going to graduate first."

"Is that a challenge I hear?"

"What? Too scared that your princess is going to lose?"

"Sakumo, Sakumo. You are walking on a very thin line."

As they bickered, Yurei wiggled around in her straps, trying to shimmy out.

"I'm going to train Kakashi till he drops."

"Yurei-chan can take him any day."

Suddenly, the doors of the infirmary slammed open, and an infuriated Slug Sannin stood at there in all her you-are-going-to-pay glory. "You little shits!" She hissed, the door knob being crushed beneath her fingers. "Do you know how much property damage you've done to my hospital and my infirmary?!"

The men glanced at each other, then at their children, then at an angry Tsunade. Both of them still had enough of their inhibitions to grab their children (along with the entire cot as there was no time to unstrap the kids) and make a run for it through the hole in the wall.

"HATAKE! AKUMU! GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE AND FIX THIS WALL!" Her father blew a raspberry at Tsunade and had to dodge a chunk of concrete that she threw in return.

It was then Yurei decided, that she really, really, really wanted whatever it was her father took, to go as wild as he did back there.

It was awesome.

"Hey Tou-san?"

"Yeeees?"

"Can you unstrap me now?"