Hikari Kohaku was born on August 15th in the village of Takigakure no Sato as a healthy baby boy, however due to some complications during birth his mother soon passed away, and the father, whom was away on a mission, would never return to the village. The boy was not without hope though, for the family had a close friend whom would take the boy into his own family and raise him as such. This man gave Hikari the name Mizushima which was added onto his first and former last, now middle, name effectively naming him as Hikari Kohaku Mizushima.
Hikari's infancy and toddler years were filled with many milestones for the young child. Many of these milestones being the classic, first steps and first words, however one milestone was a bit impressive for someone even his age. By his third year Hikari was already able to mold basic chakra. Seeing much potential in the toddler his foster parents began to teach the boy in the basics of being a shinobi for the next two years before enrolling him in the academy when he was six months away from turning six.
However his years as an academy student were like a plague to the young boy. Outcast from almost everything any of the other students did outside or even inside class by the students themselves because of his anger issues, Hikari began to suffer from depression at the age of seven caused by the extreme loneliness he harbored within his heart. This depression caused his violent tenancies to become much worse and by the time the boy became the age of eight he got into a fight with the other student whom he assumed to be the ring leader. He beat the kid to a pulp, and would have likely killed the kid if the chuunin hadn't found and stopped him in time. This in the end only caused the other kids to outcast him even more going so far as to run away every time they ran away. They even began to make his name a taboo words as if saying it would cause him to suddenly appear and kill whomever spoke it.
However there was a single child that did not fear Hikari. She was the daughter of the man that had taken in Hikari, and often referred to Hikari, her step-brother, as Kohaku rather than Hikari. She had brighter skin than Hikari's that complimented her honey colored hair and equally as sweet eyes perfectly. Having grown up with Hikari, whom will now be referred to as Kohaku, most of her life she knew that she didn't have to be afraid of him, and Kohaku having grown up with her all his life felt rather secure when with her. If it weren't for her, Kohaku would have likely killed himself in a depressed rage a long time before he ever reached the age of nine.
Hey Kouhi-nee, want to go to the river? Shall we teach that fish that was mean to Kohaku-nii a lesson?
Yeah!Kohaku and Kouhi were like an inseparable pair even through the days from which they would graduate from the academy. They were so inseparable that when they were about to be parted into two different teams they argued with the chuunin and jounin day in and out until they were forced to give up. Thus at ages 10, Kohaku, and 11, Kouhi, they were placed in the same three man cell with another genin, whom would turn out to be the boy Kohaku beat up two years prior.
For the first month, Kohaku's genin team didn't do so well in working together. It was mostly because Kohaku continued to be excessively harsh to the kid he had beaten up years before often considering him a loser that couldn't amount to anything. This caused their teamwork to suffer for the next month until their team was forced to take a higher ranked mission. It was during this mission that the kid's, whom will now be referred to as Kazuki, bravery stood out to Kohaku. When Kohaku was injured from an enemy attack and unable to move due to a broke leg, it was Kazuki that rushed in and intercepted the enemy attack that would have likely ended Kohaku's life using his own katana to counter attack. It was from that point onward that Kohaku had new found respect for the kid and decided to make up to him.
With their teamwork heavily improving over the next year, Kohaku's jounin sensei decided to enroll the trio in the chuunin exams. Upon entering Kohaku, Kouhi, and Kazuki, now dubbing themselves as Team K, were quite confident they would pass the exams without much issue at all. Even in the faces of all of the other teams that were entered into the exams none of them seemed to falter even once in the face of the challenge. In fact, Team K proved to be one of the top contenders in the exams all the way up until the end of the second exam.
At the end of the second exam, Team K were just about to reach the finish line when they were ambushed by three other teams that had decided to join forces. Lo and behold all three of these teams were from the same village. Fighting tooth and nail against the other three teams, Team K, just seemed to be too heavily out numbered to get much of anywhere. Even with Kohaku's extensive knowledge with Suiton, Kouhi's Fuuton, and Kazuki's Kenjutsu the group just couldn't seem to move forward. Then, after what felt like hours of fighting an uphill battle, it happened. Kazuki was disarmed and to make things worse, impaled through the stomach with his own katana from behind.
With his teammate critically wounded, Kohaku went into a blind rage. He fought with new revived strength the other's hadn't seen before and actually started to tear the guts out of one of the man's stomachs. This in turned caused the others to freak out enough to actually retreat leaving their comrade behind for dead. After his rage finally subsided, Kohaku was alone in the clearing with the corpse of the guy he had murdered. Growling to himself with disappointment in his ability to control his anger he moved onward to find his team. However, when he reached the finish line and found his team he discovered that Kazuki had succumbed to his wound.
While he felt a sort of rift open in his chest, Kohaku did not show his emotions, instead he took Kazuki's katana and vowed to keep his teammate's memory alive by finishing the exams with nothing but Kazuki's Katana. Kohaku did just that, and actually proved to be a natural with the katana. By the end of the exams Kohaku managed to be promoted to Chuunin, not entirely for his prowess or leadership skills, but because he village leaders saw the potential in the eleven year old to become a tool of mass destruction if he was raised just right.
After the exams, Kohaku returned Kazuki's katana to his family deciding from now on he would train to fight with his own hands and techniques. At this point he also moved out of his foster father's home and began to live on his own using a tent in the woods just outside their village. He did this because he saw that living like this would teach himself several lessons. For starters it would make him stronger and teach him survival tactics.
For the next several years, Kohaku would continue to live like this training on his own using extensive tactics such as carrying a large boulder on his back, ect... to increase his own strength. He would also be taking missions at this time with many of them being much more difficult than those he had taken before because of his rank up. As such Kohaku would also train himself to have better stealth capabilities as well as speed so that he would be able to strike in a moment's notice and then fall back without being noticed. He would also show exemplary leadership skills at this time often leading his teams to success so long as they followed his commands and worked as a single unit. However there have been a few mishaps, but none too notable since those that happened were when people strayed from Kohaku's orders and panicked or dove in head first.
As such at the age of seventeen Kohaku became the rank of Jounin and thus capable of leading a genin team although he chose not to. Around this time he also continued to work on enhancing his strength, speed, and stealth as well as Ninjutsu pertaining to Suiton eventually learning a technique that would create a field of sticky syrup and trap the enemy's feet in it. As such by the age of eighteen Kohaku was recognized by the organization of ANBU within their village and recruited.
Thus began many years of receiving orders directly from the village leaders and carrying them out, with many of those orders being assassination missions. With most of these assassination missions going without any sort of hitch Kohaku now dubbed as Kakuzu was able to quickly ascend through the ranks of the ANBU by showing his various skills. By the time Kakuzu was thirty-two he was Captain of the ANBU. However at this time when Kakuzu became ANBU Captain, the village received a most specific request. The head of Hashirama Senju.
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: HASHIRAMA SENJU
He was the Captain of the ANBU at the time that his village received the request for Hashirama Senju's head. As such, he was dispatched with a small team of three ANBU to take care of the matter. Traveling to the Land of Fire was no problem, nor was infiltrating the village that Hashirama himself had constructed. No the main issue would be getting past the younger brother of the Hokage, Tobirama Senju. As such, Kakuzu devised a plan. He would send two of the ANBU out to assassinated Tobirama or at least hold him back while he handled Hashirama. The third he would position as look out to make sure no one else was coming. Everyone took their orders without complaint and the real mission then began.
He appeared behind the Hokage, silently dropping down from the ceiling just behind him within his very own office, however something was off from the very beginning. When Kakuzu moved to assassinate Hashirama, he technique did not decapitate the Hokage, but rather a wooden replica of himself. At that exact moment Kakuzu knew he had been had. Hashirama appeared as if out of the wood work and kicked Kakuzu so hard he flew through the window pane. Landing on a roof top not too far away the Hokage engaged Kakuzu himself in one-on-one combat.
The first thing Kakuzu noticed was the wood attempting to coil upward beneath his feet. Moving as swiftly as he could and never stopping for longer than a moment, Kakuzu did his best to avoid the wood techniques of the Shodai Hokage.
I see, you're definitely worth that bounty on your head, Shodai.After long moments of confrontation, Kakuzu had managed to employ a trick that would at least wound the Hokage, albeit only via a small scratch to the man's face. At this rate, Kakuzu knew very well that he couldn't best the Hokage. This mission, it was suicide. The appearance of Tobirama through out the fight proved that this mission was suicide for the brother of the first was covered in blood, his comrades' blood. At that exact moment, Kakuzu knew he would die unless he did something. Landing on top of a river using the water walking technique at some point during the confrontation, Kakuzu got an idea. He created a water wall and used the mist created by it to conceal himself while he switched out with a water clone and fled the scene himself as fast as he could.
It wasn't too difficult to fade into the shadows, however now an entire village was on the look out for him. Shinobi of all kinds pursued him everywhere he went, and he had to use the cleverest of his ANBU tactics to evade them. It would take Kakuzu three long weeks to reach home because of the constant fights he would get into if shinobi managed to catch up to him during rest periods even if he were careful, or just plain evasion tactics that took the longest route possible to evade everyone.
However when he did reach home, he did not return with Hashirama's head like he had initially promised.
KAKUZU OF THE EARTH GRUDGE FEAR
Kakuzu returned home to report the results of the mission. With the mission as a failure Kakuzu faced harsh penalties. First he was stripped of his rank as ANBU Captain and placed back on the bottom of the totem pole despite being one of their most skilled ANBU.
It's a shame really, but I see we were wrong about you.
What? You will not become a weapon for our village it seems.
You were... Just using me? For the betterment of the village we will do anything.
You.... Goodbye boy. Seems you're not even good enough to start a war properly. Enjoy your life in prison.
You.... used me.... you.... YOU BASTARDS!Upon the threat of being imprisoned along with a shinobi placing a shackle on his wrist, Kakuzu snapped. He fell into a blind fury and broke away from the shinobi attempting to arrest him before killing the poor sod.
You want a monster... THEN I'LL GIVE YOU ONE!The elders that stood before him all fell that day, each one of them with their hearts torn from their chests. In his rage from the betrayal he felt from the village Kakuzu stole away into the night, not only personally himself, but with the scroll containing all of the secret techniques of the village as well. At that moment in time he abandoned everything he had once been to the village that had raised him not wanting anything to do with it. The only thing he kept was the codename he had given himself in the ANBU, Kakuzu.
Kakuzu spent a year covering his tracks as well as constantly being on the move so that no village could locate him. He also took this time to completely change his appearance allowing his hair to finally grow out as well as getting dark blue rings tattooed onto either arm. At this point in time he abandoned all of his gear as an ANBU and adopted new clothes as well, his signature item of clothing being a hooded black trench coat that he would usually wear with the hood pulled down over his face. Once he was done concerning with his appearance Kakuzu began a new life for himself.
At first he started spending time around taverns, simply looking for work in any form. This was where he began to hear the rumors about how good bounties had been popping up everywhere and how a certain guy had recently made a crap ton of cash off of another man's bounty. Knowing that just about anything and everything you needed in life would cost money, Kakuzu decided to start there, and thus he looked into how to become a bounty hunter, where the local offices to trade in are, as well as a bingo book with all of the latest bounties in it.
He wasn't surprised at all when he found his own former picture in the bingo book. However it wasn't too much of a good one as he rarely ever allowed himself to be pictured, and it was also highly inaccurate. Finding the information about his own bounty amusing, he knew full well now that there would be no permanent hiding in this shinobi world, not with a bounty on his head that was that high anyway. Guess that's what you got when you killed a village's elders.
Kakuzu spent the entirety of his thirty-third year either hunting down bounties or messing around with the techniques in the scroll that he stole from the village. He knew the rumors that had traveled around the village about their secret techniques; the ability to extend one's life span. That seemed like something that was interesting, as well as other things such as immense strength and other rumors he had heard. However never once during his thirty-third year did he figure out anything within the scroll.
In the entirety of his thirty-third year, Kakuzu managed to turn in three bounties and then a fourth right after his thirty-fourth birthday. After he turned in the fourth bounty, Kakuzu determined it too risky to carry all of his money on him and hired a banker. This banker became one of Kakuzu's closest allies and typically allowed the Nukenin to hang around the office area for even days at a time whenever he needed a place to rest. The Banker was used to dealing with Nukenin so it didn't bother him if one more hung around. However one day when Kakuzu was staying at the firm there was a loud scream from the room the banker had given to Kakuzu. When the banker investigated he found Kakuzu crippled on the floor with his body twitching every now and then. A large scroll was unraveled and laying on the floor next to him, the runes written on the inside were glimmering a bright crimson and seemed to lift up off of the paper and actually enter the Nukenin's body through a large gash on his left arm. The area around the gash under Kakuzu's skin was visibly writhing as if thousands of tiny snakes were squirming about just beneath the skin.
The Banker did what he could to help the Nukenin, his most important client at the time, however all of his efforts were in vain. Eventually after several long hours sometimes being filled with Kakuzu screaming in the immense pain the wracked his entire body, everything fell silent. Kakuzu had lost consciousness, however somehow the wound had stitched itself together, and the scroll, the runes appeared still, however now they were a lifeless ebony. No one knew it right away, but through coming in contact with his blood, the secrets within the scroll had jumped to life and quite literally presented themselves to Kakuzu was what his Banker would dub later to be Earth Grudge Fear.
Over the next several years Kakuzu slowly began to discover new things about his newly attained technique. First of all, most of his muscles had been transformed into whatever these threads were leaving very little actual muscle left. Second EGF had changed his eye color from being a glimmering emerald to being what almost appeared as soulless green irides and crimson sclerae. Not only this, but now just about every time he received a new wound, the threads seemed to close it up almost immediately, which highly intrigued the nukenin.
CLOSE CALL: PSEUDO-JINCHUURIKI TRANSFORMATION
At the age of thirty-five Kakuzu was on a bounty hunting mission when he came across the duo known as Kinkaku and Ginkaku. The brothers where in the middle of a fight with a force of shinobi numbering twenty strong, and it seemed that they were actually holding their own, if not pushing the other shinobi forces back. Intrigued by the fight, as well as searching for any good bounties among the shinobi present, Kakuzu kept himself well hidden as he observed the conflict in what some may consider a front row seat.
Kakuzu observed the brothers as they used their treasured tools to destroy shinobi after shinobi. He also observed as the shinobi forces began to rally once at fifteen strong and push the brothers back. At that point in time Kakuzu was quite dumbfounded by what he witnessed. Crimson chakra leaked from the bodies of the brothers seemingly peeling away their skin until nothing was left but the crimson form of some multi-tailed beast. Once the brothers transformed it seemed to be game over for the shinobi forces. One of the brothers charged what appeared to be a ball of compressed chakra while the other systematically killed the shinobi. By the time the attack was launched with the chakra the shinobi forces were at ten soon to be zero. The chakra killed the remaining shinobi and proceeded to rush past Kakuzu's hiding location coming within ten feet of his head.
Deeming it wise not to push his luck with these two, Kakuzu stole away unnoticed by the brothers.
MERCENARY LIFE
Near his fortieth birthday Kakuzu came upon a mercenary village that didn't seem to care who came or went from the village so long as they obeyed the laws of the village while within its walls. It was here in this village that Kakuzu decided to make his home base and spend most of his time when he wasn't working on collecting bounties or other miscellaneous tasks. As such Kakuzu soon became integrated into the life of being a mercenary for hire.
Now at the age of sixty, Kakuzu still lives within the mercenary village, however leaving it often to go do a few missions before returning perhaps months later. Between his missions Kakuzu works at the local Tavern in the heart of the village. There he is able to hear the local going ons in the village and pick up on the trail of a few new bounties through the words of traders that pass through the village. Kakuzu's main priority is still bounty hunting, however he seems to leave the village a bit less often than he did in his younger days.
