The first thing I realized when I came to a tangible consciousness was that in this world, strength ruled supreme.

I was born to two commoners. Both of them were ignorant of the danger around us. However, because of that, I became different, not because I was born with any special abilities, techniques, or memories, but simply because their death had awakened the ultimate sense of crisis in me.

I was around seven years old when it happened.

Our village was in flames before lunchtime even arrived, I and my parents hid in the cellar of our house as soon as the danger arrived, but it wasn't enough to avoid our fate.

We were found, caught, and dragged out to the middle of our humble village, which now lay in ruins as most of the houses were being smoldered in the fire that the invaders had created. A thick smoke entered my young lungs as I looked around and coughed. My eyes widened in horror as it was the first time I saw such a horrible sight.

I could see blood stains on the ground, and when I looked a little bit farther, a headless body could be found thrown away without any care, sprawled in an awkward position that made it look like it tried to run away before its head and shoulders met their severing.

I choked on my vomit as I could almost swear that something in me broke at the sight of the body, and in my subconscious, I knew that I was going to die the same way.

However, I wasn't the first one to depart this earthly realm.

My father tried to plead as he kneeled in front of the bandits that pillaged our village and killed our neighbors, friends, and other villagers.

He tried to plead for my, and my mother's lives, but the bandits didn't even look into his eyes as they glanced at each other, and a sick laugh came out of their mouths.

They were in great numbers, and our village had no protectors or warriors, we were all commoners who lived off the land.

We were easy prey for slaughter. Our grains, food, and tools were already being put onto their mounts.

My family was the last one left alive due to our quick hiding.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough, my father met his end similar to the body that I sighted a few seconds ago, his head flew into the air with a grieved expression on his face, and his mouth was open, still trying to plead for my and my mother's safety.

A soundless scream escaped my mouth as I looked at my father's death, my mother couldn't help but tremble and hug me as she tried to protect me with her body.

But how could a common woman be able to resist a bunch of tough bandits that lived how they wanted?

Her grip on my back was immediately dropped as she was taken by the foremost bandit. He was tall, had an eyepatch on his left eye, short silver hair, and a big sharp nose.

His face was scarred in my mind as he grabbed my mother's breasts and gave her an ugly look before his lone eye moved down to me.

He looked towards his comrades before he said:

"Boys, do we have any use for a kid like this?"

One of his cronies immediately quipped:

"We can sell him with the others, or we can keep him as a slave. Since he is the last one he must have good luck if he escaped us up till now, we could also use him for treasure hunting in the mountains!"

The leader nodded at his comrade's words before he grabbed me by the hair and lifted me as if didn't weigh anything at all.

His lone eye bore into mine as he said:

"You are quite a cute brat, aren't you? Taking after your mother I see, it would be a shame for such a cute face to be sold, keeping you around would improve my mood when I'm down."

I couldn't help but move my face away. The bandit's breath was terrible and he also missed some teeth, showing an even uglier face than before.

However, the bandit didn't like that, he immediately dropped me to the ground as his face scrunched up and kicked me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me and making blood sprawl out of my mouth immediately.

My mother who was restrained by the other bandits immediately tried to break away as she shouted:

"Not my Minato! Please, don't hurt him! I will do anything you ask of me!"

The top bandit smiled at those words and didn't continue attacking me anymore, he took a few steps towards my restrained mother and kissed her on the mouth, my mother would have normally revolted, but she closed her eyes and didn't say anything as she accepted it while tears continuously dropped from her eyes.

I couldn't help but clutch my stomach as I tried to get up, however, one of the bandit cronies grabbed me by the back of my neck and put me over his shoulder as if I was a sack of potatoes.

My wounds made my consciousness woozy, and when I woke up, I found myself in a dirty room with a small patch of hay and a hole in the ground a few meters away from me.

There was a door in front of me which I tried to open, but I realized I couldn't move from the injury to my stomach, the moment I tried to get up a striking pain hit me directly, paralyzing me to the spot.

I coughed some dark blood onto my palms and realized that I shouldn't move if I didn't want to make things worse.

Time slowly passed, and my injury continued to haunt me, I couldn't even sleep, and after a while, a dark-haired bandit entered my room with a wooden bowl filled with what seemed to be dark water.

He force-fed me the dark water before he left me alone once again.

The water wasn't anything special, it was water with mud in it, and I almost choked from the force-feeding, but my thirst somewhat went down after I spat out some of the mud.

I tried to get up, but my wound was still hurting hard, so all I could do was go to sleep.

The next time I woke up, I could finally move my upper body, and after that, I got up on wobbly legs.

My injury was still there, but it didn't hurt to the point it impeded my ability to move anymore, but I was weakened from thirst and hunger now.

I was injured, hungry, and thirsty, my mother was a slave and my father was dead.

My eyes narrowed as an immense amount of anger exploded into my tiny body, slightly punching the hard ground below me, but what good did that do?

My weak knuckles started to bleed slightly as I caressed them quickly afterward, but the anger still burned quietly, simmering inside my psyche.

I was just seven years old, but I have already witnessed horrors beyond what some people would see in their whole lives.

I wasn't smart, I didn't know what to do, I was angry, I was weak.

My eyebrows trembled as I dropped into the patch of hay below me, tears slid down my face, but I didn't make any sound, who knew what would happen if I annoyed the people who captured me. I already saw what they were able to do, and annoying them was the last thing I should do if I wanted to survive.

For the time being, I had to wait for the person who came in beforehand so I could ask him what they would do to me next.

Time slowly passed, and the same dark-haired bandit entered my room once again. He had a bowl of the same dark water and a piece of hardened brown bread in his hands this time around.

He looked surprised to see me awake on the patch of hay, he most likely thought that the injury their leader gave me should have kept me unconscious for a little while longer.

I got up from the hay and I asked in a trembling voice:

"What.. are you gonna do to me…?"

The dark-haired bandit didn't look into my eyes as he left the water and food onto a cleaner part of the room before saying:

"The chief didn't say anything about you, for the time being. He only told me to come and give you water and food every 12 hours, while you were unconscious I force-fed you, I'm still quite surprised a small brat like you was only unconscious for four days before you regained some strength."

I nodded, the bandit looked rather reluctant to talk to me for some reason, maybe he was guilty?

I for one didn't know the principle of guilt among other things, but I could feel his emotions through his eyes.

Seeing the death of my father awakened something in me, it was a sense of danger.

The person in front of me didn't seem to exude any of that danger, so he was trustworthy, for now. Regardless of my doubts about the bandit leader's reason for keeping me here, there was nothing I could do for the time being.

Not like I could do anything else besides observing right now, the bandit left, and I had to eat and drink to regain some of my strength. The food was disgusting, but having something in your stomach was better than having nothing. I was used to eating small amounts of food, after all, my parents could barely scrape their existence together.

After a little bit of thinking, I went back to sleep, but then I awoke in the morning with a cold water shower and the same bandit that fed me beforehand.

He grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and made his way outside the room, multiple corridors and places that I have never seen before flashed my eyes before we arrived in a place with a lot of trees.

There was no one else around. Only I and the dark-haired bandit seemed to be in the forest.

The bandit introduced himself as he left me on the forest floor and said:

"My name is Mikutsuhi, from now on I will take care of you so you can earn your keep in our bandit group! Our leader fancies your face, but he also said that you can't eat and drink based on our face alone!"

I touched my face and looked up at the dark-haired bandit that was now known as Mikutsuhi.

"You will raid and pillage after I'm done with you, you will become one of our bandit brothers, tch."

Mikutsuhi seemed annoyed as he said those words, and it looked like his former apprehension about me turned to slight anger and jealousy.

However, all I could do was follow.

****************************

My days with Mikutsuhi were long and dangerous, his training was intense and I could feel that the injury that the leader gave me didn't heal yet, my worries for my mother were also stopping me from fully concentrating on whatever Mikutsuhi was trying to teach me because I didn't see her in the whole base where I and Mikutsuhi were living.

When I asked him about my mother, he only told me that the leader got bored of her quickly and then sold her away.

Which was rather strange, why would he sell away my mother but keep me?

I didn't have any way of understanding that person's mind, so it wasn't worth thinking about it. My family was in shambles, and my life was in their hands, all I could do was obey, but if the opportunity to strike ever happened… I would do my best to decapitate all of these beasts just like they had done to my father! As for my mother? There was no way to know where she would be after she was sold…