The Uzumoreru clan has existed along side the history of Sunagakure since it's inception. The clan's creation has been lost to time though three prevailing legends that survived time say that it was one of the First Men, a human of powerful greed that wanted to be like the Ancients and have his own kingdom. Another claims it was a pissed off Sky Court Ancient that wanted to rule men with his own set of twisted rules. Finally there is the legend that they were created by another, stronger, deity to help keep the balance between men and Ancients so that nothing would change.
Due to their supposed, mystical origins, the clan was steeped in old legends, prophecies, and deep superstitions. They tended to be a paranoid lot and the upper echelon stayed to the shadows while the lower tiers blended in with regular society. To those who knew of them they were more like a cult in the old days, but after the Rebellion and having been forced to retreat into the caverns, they became more known for what they were known for now; killing people. The clan turned it into a fine art for profit as it was the only way they could survive and continue to practice the old skills that had remained from the devastation of the Rebellion. To that end they burrowed deeper than most Sunans and built a grand castle deep in the caverns for themselves and those accepted into their clan to live as they continued to blend in with society from afar. After a few years of political strife, an internal war rose up that lasted for ten years in deciding who would rule the clan. Multiple families had become part of the Uzumoreru in the years that followed their underground movement but according to ancient text only one bloodline could rule. Of the three major bloodlines that tied closest in relation to the oldest family, only one was allowed to become royalty while the other two were completely purged. Once the first king and queen were placed in their thrones they used ancient magics that would allow them to see the future be used to celebrate their victory. The spell chosen was costly but the words were clear: the child with the black blood will save the clan. For some that meant money; for others redemption. It was no secret that most families hated living in the castle that was once cramped and now haunted. Yet another two generations would pass before Toushin, the child with the black blood, would be born.
By the time he was born the clan had been whittled down into three bloodlines, period. The castle was extremely empty, the training started as soon as he could walk, and no one was his friend. Toushin never knew either of his parents for, according to prophecy, he was not allowed to. His dark and horrible childhood was filled with torture, torment, and death; the ideal childhood of the perfect assassin. By the time he was twelve, he had the skill of a Jounin level ninja and not a single emotion. Due to this he began to become famous over the years and not just in his community, but in the Underground in general; the first step to his own personal downfalls. Slowly he started to understand and harbor the emotion of pride. Having never been praised over anything he had done as a child to be flooded with it as a teenager overrode his assassin training. By the time he was in his early twenties he had the cockiness that would expect from a man who proclaims himself as the "Prince of Assassins" due to his royal heritage.
The second downfall of his career was when the Science Wars in Suna started ramping up. Being stuck underground meant a lot of crazy inventors were coming up with great ideas that others who strive for stardom for no work had need of. He was contracted by a jealous scientist to kill his rival outright; a man named Ryuu Tama. It wasn't the first time he had encountered a scientist in his line of work, but it was the first man he was paid to kill and didn't. It was the first time he had dealt a killing blow that didn’t fell someone. The scientist survived the first attack and on the second, came prepared. For the scientist had in his employ his own protection in a woman named Kitani. In all the years Uzu had been a killer of men never had he encountered a woman as beautiful as her and never had his blade been so still at the sight of someone. She offered a trade; a night of passion for Tama's life. If only the assassin had slid the blade across the inventor's neck right then, perhaps so much misery could of been stopped. Toushin's pride, however, felt it needed a reward by breaking some taboos.
Before long Uzu fell in love with the woman only to find out that she was married. Just as he used his body in service to his job so had she, and at first he felt betrayed and enraged for falling for such an easy trap...until she came looking for him. Their affair continued in as secret as they could make it and, before long the assassin's heart began to mend itself through their moments of embrace. In time he came to find that he hated his lifestyle and decided to break himself away from the Uzumoreru clan permanently to live a peaceful life as a weapon instructor at the Sunan Academy. With his network of strings to pull getting his wishes were simple and the remaining two bloodlines were only too happy to get rid of the heir to the throne. It was then things began to fall apart for the poor assassin. The woman he had left everything for decided her love for her husband was stronger, however, a greater problem prevailed; she was pregnant with children from both men.
Twins; a boy and a girl.
The news all at once terrified and escalated Toushin. The woman's husband was not a man to be trifled with and was more than capable of killing the assassin even if he tried to strike first...yet the thought of being a father - outside the clan - thrilled him.
So he kept to a quite life of personally training a red-headed teenager named Amejisuto, whom he only did as a favor to Ryuu Tama who pretty much black-mailed him every chance he got; as he did. Months went by somewhat peacefully and he was proud to say that his student was coming a long fine...but as a way of life for a man who has the karma of a hundred souls weighted on his soul, things never stay nice.
The Uzumoreru clan, now being lead by the last remaining bloodline after another war fired up and ended since his leaving, decided to kidnap Amejisuto in order to lure Toushin into a trap. Immediately he knew that if he tried to rescue her himself he was doing what they wanted. So with a great helping of humble pie, the assassin approached the only man who had the power to take on an entire clan of killers and walk out alive; the only person he didn't kill when given the chance.
Upon finding out that his friend Amejisuto had been kidnapped the scientist, whom now had control over his chakra and a wide array of ninjutsu, stormed the castle by himself and destroyed the remaining Uzumoreru clan in a fit of fury while Uzu rescued Ame. In the aftermath of the Ryuu's wrath there was nothing left of the assassins and their castle fell deep into the cavern it had once hung over. In order to fully absolve the clan's sins and bring justice to all the men, women, and children their black order had killed, Tama placed on Toushin a seal that would lock away his unique chakra channels and keep him from ever using the special techniques that his clan had drove into his body. With the Uzumoreru destroyed, his lover gone, and Ame once again in the safe hands of her blacksmith family, Toushin decided that he needed to leave Sunagakure behind. Right as he had planned to leave and brave the maelstrom, he heard rumors of a woman who just gave birth to twins of two different fathers. The assassin dropped everything and infiltrated the hospital to find the twins swaddled behind a glass window. Two medical charts hung from their cribs, one stating the known father, and the other as unknown.
An hour later and Toushin was at the gates with his daughter in a protective papoose carrier. As he waited for his expertly forged documents to be cleared Amejisuto came walking up behind him. She didn't speak a single word and kept a solemn look of determination as she presented her passport and went on ahead. After a few moments the fake documents were cleared and Uzu followed after his pupil with curiosity. Standing there before the gates with the deadly wind howling at her back, the sixteen year old girl faced the man and demanded that he take her wherever he went. She started to go into a speel about how he would need care for the child she hoped was his, there was still training she needed, and so forth, but before she could continue the assassin laid a finger to her lips and only nodded with a sad smile. Together they braved the winds. A year later the Cabal attacked those same gates.
The two moved into a house Toushin built with his saved up funds on the outskirts of Soon's Haven. In the next six years the two spent their life together raising the daughter Uzu had fathered but repressed any feelings they had towards each other due to their Master/Student relationship. Yet the port of Soon had grown to know and love the couple and eventually gathered together to push the two into the relationship they both kept trying to hold off even though it was more than obvious they meant everything to each other. For three years after, the assassin lived and enjoyed life for the first time, truly, ever. In that time he picked back up his physical training and started to train their daughter on the basics of combat and chakra control.
When his daughter turned ten Ame got a letter from her father that was only sent to her because he finally passed away. Inside of it was a map and a letter that wrote in the wereabouts of a legendary sword that had been lost to their clan. The location was only recently discovered and it had cost her father everything to keep that information private. She saw it as something she had to do. Uzu wished to go with her but besides having to watch after the child he was also starting to build up a small spy network to get himself a little extra money for their family on the side. To this very day he regrets not going with her.
After a grueling journey through the mountains of the Lightning Country she came upon the sword she had sought; along with an Tengokai, but she had never met Tama’s father. His reasoning behind was never revealed as when the swordswoman recognized the man as Tama she immediately dropped her guard. The monster that she thought was her friend killed her in a single blow. After absorbing her soul and memories it found out who she was, who Uzu was, and what he could do to make his son’s life hard. To torment the assassin, the Ancient branded Ame's forehead with his dead clan's symbol, severed her head, and sent it to the assassin in a brown paper package. Uzumoreru Toushin's fury that day rivaled the gods.
Without thinking twice about how Tama had managed to overcome the powerful swordswoman that had been his wife he set up his daughter to be taken care of by close friends in his spy network, cut his long growing hair short, and opened a chest locked away in the back of his closet. Inside was clothes and the weapons of his old trade along with a few relics that were able to seal evil without the need for chakra or energy. After pulling a few strings and gathering the right documents the furious man crept into Suna and started gathering information. In a week the ex-killer located the Ancient's secret lair inside of the ruins of Suna's old cities.
He thought he had everything planned out. Six holy traps, three runic weapons, and an arsenal of blood activated scroll sealed ninjutsu. Yet the moment Ryuu Tama covered his face with the hood of his Ancient robes the power that radiated from the creature defied everything Toushin believed in. He wasn't facing some demon or a bio-engineered humanoid. The thing before him might of well been a god. The traps were swatted away, the weapons did minimal damage, and every single ninjutsu thrown at the Ancient was either absorbed or reflected. Yet thankfully the assassin had the foreknowledge to have an escape route planned, and though he lost his right arm and part of his left foot in the attempt, Toushin made it out alive.
Shortly after getting back to Soon, the assassin wasted no time in placing his daughter in the protective custody of friends inside of Suna where he knew she would be most safe; however they were given express instructions that her real identity not be revealed to anyone. He then went and burned down his house and began a journey to find a way to destroy Ancients or at the very least seal their powers so they could be killed by normal means. Five years later, Toushin returned to Soon with uncut hair and ragged clothes. With the wisdom gained in the last five years the ex-assassin started back up his spy-network, changed clothes, and began amassing large amounts of old relics, books, and rare metals. In all of this he did manage to send his daughter a single letter promising a visit soon.
Once he got to Suna, though, he found things in far more disarray than he had expected. His daughter was out going into the ends of Suna he had hoped she would be kept away from. In his anger he perhaps acted a bit too harshly against his daughter's lifestyle and nearly ran her off. However over the following year he was able to come to an understanding. She reminded him of himself so much he was terrified to see her go anywhere or do anything but he knew that just like himself, when Chiyoko wanted to do something, she did it. As to such he decided to protect her the only way he could - from the shadows. In the earlier part of the year in his return the man learned that Ryuu Tama was no longer the evil that was ruling the Underground and a small war had broken out underneath the notice of the city above. Calling in on his spy network from Soon he gathered a team of six and went in to do the exact same thing Tama had done nearly thirteen years ago.
In the months that followed he quickly became the Shadow King. He ruled the Underground with the very tips of his fingers but kept his identity a complete secret to everyone but two people - his daughter and Takahashi Sousuke. The latter is something he just suspects rather than it having been information he passed on freely as since his takeover the violent crime rate in Suna dropped a whole 36%. With his iron grip on the Underground two things have been made clear; you don't ask who the Shadow King is and you don't even look at Uzumoreru Chiyoko.
Or at least so it was. Toushin’s greatest downfall, twice in a row, was his trusting of people that got close to him. The first was his second apprentice, a young man he had began to think of as an adoptive son. With the techniques given to him, the youth dismantled his entire network but, could not fell the king himself. Then after another two years of rebuilding his networks, a sweet single year as the “king” again, and a woman he had began to dote on pulled the rug out from under his feet. Before he knew what had happened, she had his entire fortune and was long out into the desert; which he sincerely hopes she died in. After that he was forced out of his swank condo and moved in with his daughter and her horrible taste in men.
During that year he spent sleeping on a pull-out couch, the once renown ‘king of assassins’, the father observed his daughter’s day-to-day. Suddenly it dawned on him that he wasn’t getting younger, that he had started to grow complacent, and that death was creeping up slowly. At the end of the year, it finally reared its ugly head.
Cancer, and not just any kind either. It was an extremely rare chakra cancer that ate away at the body’s organs slowly as it grew stronger with every pass through the Coil. The Uzumoreru bloodline had a genetic fault, it turned out. Every once in a while a child with black blood was born, and they were hailed as heralds of their clan’s ancient prophecies. The truth was the blood was enriched with chakra laden iron due to a birth defect that caused their red blood-cells to ‘cling’ to iron particles. The result gave the children superhuman stamina, sometimes strength or speed, and a high intelligence; for half the normal life-span.
An Uzumoreru assassin rarely lived beyond 40. Those born with the black blood saw death by their early twenties due to their bodies breaking down under the strain, and the clan covered it up as death during a mission. False Heralds, they were called, and six of them had been born before Toushin. The only reason he had lived out such a long life was due to the seal that Ryuu Tama placed on him before he left the village with Chiyoko. It had been done to keep the old assassin from becoming a threat to Sunagakure from the outside, but it in turned had actually allowed him to live a full life instead. Since it had been removed in order to find a cure for his daughter’s same condition, the blood had began to circulate more and more. Tama and and the old king were able to find a way to remove Chiyo’s cancer, but when his own showed up a month later the duo found they could not do the same for Uzu. The ritual that removed the bad genes from his daughter also removed a full third of her life. She would die sometime in her early sixties without modification; Toushin had no more life left to give.
So Ryuu Tama offered him an out.
Instead of letting the cancer slowly eat away what remained of his life, the scientist gave him the option to enhance his body beyond what the disease could take away from him. It would only delay the inevitable, as eventually the cancer would circulate enough to infect his heart and brain, but with an enhanced body he could actually do something with the few extended years Tama was offering him. War was threatening Sunagakure. Some asshole named Dominius was threatening the place his daughter called home…so he obliged.
Now Toushin is more metal than man. His clan’s stamina and a special bio-core implanted beneath his heart that powers it all allows him to preform feats that merits strength beyond what he had in his prime. Though the metal grafted into his flesh is painful at the best of times, he has learned to ignore his body barely putting up with the new parts; all of it to secure his daughter’s future. In full pursuit of that he finally met with Takahashi Sousuke, face to face for the first time in decades, and politely asked to officially join the Sunan Military. With his skill-set he determined to be best placed in ANBU, where he could use his skills to their greatest strengths. While at first he had balked at the idea of working with the ‘secret police’ as he saw them, the assassin eventually came around to the idea once he realized it would bet best if Chiyo didn’t know what all he was doing, or why.
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