#hatake lore.

The Hatake were extremely nomadic in the early days, before/during the warring states era -- branching from the southern mountains of the land of iron, into the lands of frost, lightning, sound, hot water, and fire. They also started branching into the land of Earth, but for various political, social, and cultural reasons, the Hatake were not very well received there at all, and were essentially hunted into extinction. The three main branches of the Hatake are geographically and even culturally distinct. 

The northwestern branch of the Hatake clan remained in mostly mountainous/cold areas in the north, and are considered "wilder" (physically, and also because of the fact that they are decentralized and live in large part in isolated family units), and they are not considered some of the indigenous peoples in the lands of Iron and Fang. They are greater in number and farther between than the southern branch of the family, and they are by and large kind of terrifying. Locally, they’re considered isolationist wolf-people, with sharp teeth and noses and pack-instincts and atypical marriage, birth, coming of age, and burial traditions. Because of their scattered nature and their tendency to live only in small groups, they have lived largely separate from established villages and towns, and escaped the majority of the damage to numbers inflicted on the shinobi Hatake clans of the land of Lightning and the land of Fire. They traditionally intermarry with another wolf-like people, the Gekko, with local farmers and samurai, and with other Hatake from distant family groups.

The northeastern branch settled largely in Kumo. The family groups that settled in the land of Lightning largely shared values with the people that were already there, and otherwise were for the most part culturally assimilated. The Kumo Hatake are considered a founding clan, and are in reality a fairly powerful political force. The Kumo Hatake are less visually distinct than the other two branches, due to the fact that their marriage laws were removed and they began marrying into other bloodlines pretty much as soon as the village was established-- almost 40% of Kumo shinobi boast at least one Hatake ancestor, regardless of their current clan affiliation. The Kumo branch clan also tends to live longer and have better fertility rates than the other two branches, which contributes to their thriving in the area.

The southern branch, those that settled in the warmer climate of the land of Fire, are considered the ‘tamer’ family branch. They lived in larger family groups, working as farmers, mercenaries, and weavers, largely attempting to stay outside of clan politics during the upheaval before the formation of the village hidden in the leaves. Closer toward the end of the warring states era, the southern Hatake had gathered quite a bit of land, money, and respect as a clan. They were considered strange, but locals came to see them as more dog than wolf: tamed, loyal, less likely to bite the hand that feeds. After the formation of the leaf village, the Hatake were considered a founding clan and given a council seat, though their numbers very swiftly dwindled through the shinobi wars and the brief periods of peace between them, due in part to extremely low birth rates, early deaths outside of missions, and a high mortality rate on missions, where their distinct appearances made it fairly easy to hunt them outside of the village.

The similarities in these branches basically amount to:

pale hair, be it white or grey or blonde or silver

varying shades of grey eyes

tall and lean

specific style of kenjutsu favoring speed and chakra blades

canid traits (teeth, sharp senses)

lightning nature chakra

heart problems, low fertility rates

❝ The snow is beautiful and glittering, especially if it goes untouched. ❞

In the abandoned Hatake compound, there is a single tomb. Within that tomb is a skull with no teeth, a pair of white chakra blade wakizashi, and a bracelet of frail white hair and a red ribbon. This tomb has received no offerings for decades.

She'll forgive it. She isn't hungry anymore.

In a land to the north a girl left her family behind. She was a seeker in the way that her mother was a seer-- she was mad with it, barefoot and tracking her bloody footprints in the great expanse of snow as she escaped her life.

She was hungry then.

Hayate watches her, when he dreams under a full moon. She has long white hair and features like his father's, like Kakashi's, taking great strides as she sprints over snow she leaves untouched-- she isn't like her mother, she will not die in the harsh lands in the north, she has to find

Gekko Fuyu takes the hand of a girl so small she could fit into a teardrop. She's nothing special, she was born to die. We were all born to die.

First you have to live.

Fierce women know that you only get from life what you can take. Hatake Miyuki watched madness and solitude waste her mother away until she walked out into a storm and never returned, and she told herself she would cheat, steal-- whatever it took, to keep her freedom. She burned cold, the wolf moon over the plateau, vast and blinding and

Kakashi sees her in the mirror. With one eye closed, he lifts his fingers to his lips and presses until he can see the gap where he's missing a canine tooth. He touches his cheekbone. Were her cheeks so thin? Was she hungry like him?

There are three things she discovers for the first time in the south: Sleeveless shirts, trees so tall and wide they seem like pillars to hold up the sky, and a boy, with teeth like hers and a love warmer than any she'd ever seen.

Daughter of the moon, what was it you sought in the south?

There isn't anything unblemished about her. She was born to die, but she left her mark on the world all the same. A thousand bloody footprints of her own, a man missing three fingers on his left hand. Hayate spots an old man in Iwa with his nose and half his cheek gone, looking like he got mauled by a dog. He watches him. The man is retired. He has grandchildren. The moon is very bright that night.

Kakashi presses a finger to his birthmark, then his jaw. The corner of his eye, open, dark. Was she sharp, like him? Did she have a gentle bone in her body? When she held him, did she smile with all her teeth?

There is no blood curse. Nothing about the mountains, or the moon, nothing of fate at all in her end. She's lucky, and she's good, until she's not. In a copse of river birch sticking out from the ground like bone-white fingers, Miyuki meets the beginning of her end. His name is Sakumo, and he smiles with half his mouth, and his teeth are crooked, and his hands are gentle when he touches her. He loves her, for whatever that's worth anymore.

Daughter of the moon, did you find what you were looking for? Did you know satisfaction?

Her mother once sat her down and told her of the three noble gods, of Tsukuyomi's changelings. In the warmth of the hearth, her cheek resting on Akira's thick ruff, Miyuki had thought it might be nice, to let someone else wear her face. Then she could leave, and she could do what she wanted. She'd said to her mother: I want them to take me. What do I need to do? And her mother had laughed and said: They already have you, Miyuki. You're as much Gekko as you are Hatake.

Kakashi lets his hand fall from his face. He touches the scar over his eyelid and thinks to himself: she definitely didn't have this. He pulls up the mask, leans away from the mirror and

The woman stands next to Hayate, looming over him in his bed. She smiles with her lips closed, lifts the blankets and covers him up to his chin. Her white hair falls and brushes his nose, cold and delicate like powdery snow. She had nothing left to give, if she ever had it in the first place. But she's just as much Gekko as she is Hatake.

Snow falls only to melt. Beauty wears out its welcome. As bitter winter ends, that's all anyone can hope for.

My girlfriend and I saw you across the bar and we hate your fuckin' vibe bro, we're gonna kill you

Parents:

Hisoka (b. 873) is the matriarch and clan head of the Hatake during the end of the warring states era and the formation of the hidden Leaf village. She was fairly young when she negotiated terms with Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara around the Hatake entry into the village (890), around the age of seventeen. Known for being openly transsexual (in a time when this was rarely discussed or seen), exceptionally well-spoken, fair-minded, and more than a little bloodthirsty when crossed, Hisoka and the Hatake at large were a fairly contentious addition to the young village. In order to forge alliances and strengthen the Hatake's position, Hisoka married Nara Katashi, one of her closest friends, and took on Inuzuka Akira, the woman she was madly in love with, as a concubine. She dies at 83 years old of a heart attack three days before Kakashi is born. 83 is considered an exceptionally long life for a Hatake.

Inuzuka Akira (b. 890) was not technically a shinobi, she was a clan huntress for the Inuzuka, and known to be a very severe, no-nonsense woman that was more bite than bark. She was born the year the village was declared and is technically a bastard, born to an Inuzuka mother and an Uchiha father out of wedlock. She became Hisoka's concubine officially when she was 25 (915). Akira dies when Kakashi is four at the age of 73 (963), after imparting seriously terrifying old lady wisdom on his young, impressionable, spongy brain.

Nara Katashi (b. 865) was a serious man and most definitely the diplomat of the family, known for talking both his wife and his wife's wife out of more combative strategies in politics and personal lives. He was the youngest son of the Nara clan head, which makes Shikaku and Kakashi distant cousins by marriage, and he is two years younger than Hisoka, whom he married when he was twenty two. Katashi did quite a bit of important work helping design the school system and standardize the shinobi and civilian curriculums in Konoha, and was KIA 6 years after Sakumo was born. He has some bastard children with various women, which were largely folded into the Nara clan if they showed promise for their bloodline talents.

Siblings:

Sango (b. 917) was the eldest, twins with Sayuri and born 18 years before Sakumo. She was born under a blood moon, and died when she was 16 defending a settlement from raiders. She was mainly a kenjutsu specialist and used a chakra blade crafted specially for her that got passed to Suzume and then to Sakumo. She was considered short for a Hatake and full of rage.

Sayuri (b. 917) was just a few minutes younger than Sango. She was captured in the second Shinobi War and put to death by Suna as a prisoner of war when she was 14. She was willowy and stealthy, and a talented assassin.

Suzume (b. 921) was born 14 years before Sakumo, and was considered too “sickly” to be a ninja. She trained to be a medic and married a civilian woman named Naomi, and died in the beginning of the third shinobi war when she was in her late 40′s. She declined the position of clan head.

Shou (b. 925) was born 10 years before Sakumo, and he was also sickly as a child. He was always very, very sweet, and loved bugs. He died when he was 7 years old of a severe fever.

Satoshi (b. 930) was born 5 years before Sakumo, and was nonverbal and whip-quick his entire life. He wrote a BUNCH of Hatake clan history down, and then started on clan ninjutsu and kenjutsu techniques that had never been recorded before. He died when he was 28 years old under ~mysterious~ circumstances.

Sakumo was born in 935 when Hisoka was nearing sixty two, and Akira was forty five, soon after the formation of Konoha. Known as Konoha’s White Fang. He was 24 when Kakashi was born in 959, and 30 when he dies.

Hatake Miyuki, Kakashi’s mother, was born to a northern branch family of the Hatake and is from the land of iron.

Siblings:

Miyuki (b. 937) was Kakashi’s mother. She’s 22 when he’s born and 25 when she dies. She was nearly six feet tall with white-blonde hair and slate grey eyes, and had vivid red tattoos on her arms, chest, and neck. Miyuki left the land of Iron two years after her mother died, when she was ten, and traveled for a decade on her own before she made it to the land of Fire. She used two chakra blade wakizashi, had two wolfdog summons, Riku and Amoi, and Pakkun was gifted to her as a puppy as a betrothal present from Sakumo, though they were never married. She was intensely private, rough around the edges, but she took a delight in life that’s kind of.... rare.

Raiden (b. 940) is 3 years younger than Miyuki, and remained in the land of Iron when she fled. He is a swordsman, though he never affiliated himself with any lord, and he has never left the Three Wolves range he was born in. Miyuki and Raiden lost contact when she left the country, and he and Kakashi do not know one another exist.

Gekko Hisakata (b. 932) was born to Gekko Fuyu before she married into the Hatake, and raised by Fuyu's parents as her younger brother, rather than admit to a bastard being born out of wedlock. Gekko Hisakata is Gekko Hayate's (b. 962) father, and flees to the Leaf village a little after Hayate is born. Miyuki never knew about his existence, even as a cousin, because Fuyu's parents kept him away from her in an effort to conceal her so-called transgression of youth.

parents:

Hatake Katsuo (b. 900) was Miyuki’s father. He was a towering man, known to be a bloodthirsty and greedy warlord local to the Three Wolves range in the land of Iron, and married Fuyu in an effort to consolidate power in the region in 936. He did not treat her well, and contributed heavily to the local belief that she was a madwoman. Miyuki tried to kill him just before she left the land of Iron, believing it was his fault her mother killed herself.

Gekko Fuyu (b. 915) was Miyuki's mother, a seer woman from the Gekko of the land of Iron. She was considered largely insane by the locals, and died when one day she walked out into a snowstorm barefoot and never came back when Miyuki was eight. That was the only story about her family Miyuki ever told to Sakumo, Hisoka, and Akira.

     As the Hatake Clan strayed from their ancestral homeland and traveled into the lowlands in search of finer weather and better opportunities, and they grew more warlike, their tradition of sacrificing their sheep turned into a tradition of sacrificing the enemy. This sacrifice was really more of cleaning the bodies up and stripping them of armor and laying them at the edge of the woods to be feasted upon by the White Ones after every battle, whether that was physically or metaphorically. Being eaten by one of these creatures was considered the highest honor among the Hatake Clan, and it was one that was granted to every Hatake and any enemy that fell to them in battle. 

          It is said that when the Hatake rode to war, there was always a pack of wolves lurking at the edges of the battles, much in the way that carrion birds typically would. 

     Thus their funerary traditions were a bit atypical: they were a kind of open air burial, a feast left for the gods and scavengers alike. Being buried was for people that had shown great disrespect to the clan or the gods or both, and was actually considered the worst way to be disposed of-- an eternity of never seeing the sky again. After a few extremely hard winters, Hatake Kitiara reportedly made the decision to keep her people from starving by shifting this custom occasionally into cannibalism; after all, that was a lot of good meat they were wasting.

     Whether the rumors were true or not, other clans firmly believed that if you met death at the hands of a Hatake your flesh would be consumed by man and beast alike. They hunted and spread tendrils through the great mountains of the land of Earth and the rocky plateaus of the land of Lightning and then finally the massive forests of the land of Fire like wraiths, ghostly as they flickered in and out of sight. The Hatake were almost as much boogeymen as the wolves they hunted for. 

     That being said, by the time what might be considered the main branch of the Hatake made it into the land of Fire to settle and farm and sell their blades for money and influence, they tended to try and settle disputes between other clans with diplomacy-- after all, that’s a principle on which their clan was founded: the idea of reconciliation with an enemy that becomes your dearest friend was the origin of their very first legend. Diplomacy was both easier and harder when your intended audience believes you will eat them if peace talks fall through, and as clans jockeyed for power and influence and land it seemed to happen far more often than it should. The Hatake punished broken bonds with swift acts of extreme violence and prejudice, and soon it was realized that the clan was one of their word and it did not take lightly a broken treaty. 

    Once their farms were established and food was more plentiful for the traveling swordsmen, the cannibalism fell a bit to the wayside, even if the stories and rumors of it did not. The Hatake continued to leave the bodies of the dead for the White Ones, and the White Ones continued to work with them. As the Warring States Era came to a close and Konoha made agreements with the clan (an exchange of their land and loyalty for the protection of a massive hidden village), Hatake Hisoka officially wrote the banning of cannibalism into clan law as a concession to a more ‘civilized’ time and place.

          The Tenets Of The Wolf are as follows:

     The Wolf And The Body Are The Land; All Shall Be Respected      Pack Belongs to Pack And Shall Be Protected      Those Who Endure Shall Be The Judge      Combat The Wills Of The End Wherever They Breed And Grow      Respect The Territory Of Others      Accept The Surrender Of Others Honorably      Littermates Shall Not Be Paired      Secrets Are For Mortals; The Land Shall Have The Truth      The First Share Of The Kill For The Pups And The Elders      The She-Wolf Reigns But Serves The Pack      The She-Wolf May Be Challenged During Times Of Peace      The She-Wolf May Not Be Challenged During Times Of War      Travelers Must Follow The Tenets In Hatake Territory      Take No Action Causing A Tenet To Be Violated

          Thousands of generations back, the first war the Hatake of the highlands fought was not with men, but with the wolves of the higher altitudes. 

     Legend has it these wolves were massive, white as the snow and as swift as the wind. Legend has it that they were fierce and territorial and their feet carried them silent and sure through mountain passes, that their teeth were as large as a man’s hand and their howls could split rock and stop a heart. Legend has it that they belonged to the land as much as the land belonged to them. 

         Legend doesn’t even begin to do the beasts justice. 

     The first Hatake to meet a White One was a shepherd, a boy of no more than twelve who described them as “appearing from the vast stretches of white as though they were wraiths, the size of a man. Three of them, pale as death, with golden-yellow eyes that froze me to the ground--” before succumbing to his wounds. The wolves had wanted his sheep, but a shepherd’s duty is to protect his flock. The Hatake lost a son and many of their sheep that night. Winters were about to be hard as they crept down the mountain with less food and milk and wool than they were used to, and still they geared up a hunting party. 

     The guerrilla-like struggle that unfolded over the next several decades between the Hatake and the White Ones was bloody and desperate, until one day the leaders of both clans came together in the valley at the base of mountains that would come to be known as The Three Wolves. Many had been lost, killed, and eaten on both sides until their numbers dwindled to almost nothing, and so they were to come to an agreement. 

     You see, both sides were simply trying to survive. The shepherds had encroached on the White Ones’ hunting grounds, and the wolves needed to eat. And though the wolves knew nothing of animal husbandry, they discovered that the Hatake had a somewhat symbiotic relationship with their sheep-- they killed and ate them as predators would, but protected them like Pack. And so the Great She-Wolf known as Azumi and the Matriarch of the Hatake, a towering woman named Katsumi, came to an agreement at the base of those three mountains. They deliberated for hours, Azumi seated with her golden eyes narrowed, and Katsumi kneeling with her chin tipped up defiantly, shrewd to the last. 

     It was agreed: the Hatake clan and the White Ones are Pack. The White Ones live in the higher altitudes and they prey upon the goats and the yaks and the hares and foxes and all manner of wild creatures of the highlands, and in the deepest heart of winter, the Hatake make their way up the mountain with ten head of sheep, which they are to slaughter at the treeline, and leave. The Hatake are to live by the tenets of the wolf, and they are to keep other humans from climbing into the mountains and killing the White Ones’ game. The White Ones are to aid the Hatake on their Hunts and teach them the ways of the Pack. One pup from each litter for five years is promised to the Hatake for the second year of their life, and each Hatake firstborn is sworn to the Pack for five years. Such was the agreement, until the Hatake started to move further south and out of the mountains. 

     In the days just before the Sage of Six Paths the Hatake remained secluded in the highlands, close to the sky. Their agreement with the White Ones made them deadly-- fleet and silent and cunning, survivalists, pack-oriented. They tend their sheep, they sell their wool and meat for whatever they cannot grow or gather to survive, and they guard the hunting grounds with their steel and their wits. 

          It’s a cold and rough life. 

     Hatake Kuro is the next name of legend to enter the records-- for he was said to be as swift as flashes of light. He was the second child of a swordsman, doomed to herding the family flock and easily bored, said to be in constant motion and always exciting the sheep. The time of the Gods were long past, so who was awake to hear him brag about being faster than the frigid northern winds? Who was awake to hear him brag about being able to outrun a raging avalanche, the coldest snowstorm, even the rising sun over the cliffs in the morning? It wasn’t Fujin-the-destructive-wind. It wasn’t Amaterasu-the-royal-sun or Tsukuyomi-the-proud-moon or Susanoo-the-chaotic-storm, no. 

     Hatake Kuro, second child of a swordsman, shakes his fist at the sky and laughs and taunts, and the one to answer him is the one they call Raijin. The lightning-god, a being of destruction and protection and, in some tales... mischief. Raijin hears his taunts to the gods and he watches him and he sees that the young man is indeed quite fast, so he appears before him in a crack of blue-white lightning, and rather magnanimously he makes the boy-man a deal because he likes his spirit. The deal is simple: if Kuro is swift enough to catch a bolt of lightning, he may keep it. 

          What, the young man asks the god, if I fail?

          Raijin smiles at Hatake Kuro and says only, You had better not fail. 

     Kuro accepts the challenge. Raijin bids him to run where the mountain meets the sky and so run he does, all across the steppe like hell follows on his heels. As he approaches the point Raijin lets out a bellow that booms like thunder, cocks his arm, and pulls a lightning bolt down from the sky. Kuro sees the great flash of light streaking towards him and steels himself against his fear, stretches out his hand, leaping into the path of the bolt and--

          Catching it. 

     Hatake Kuro catches lightning in his fist. He had bragged to the gods of his speed and his pride had not been misplaced, but man is not meant to hold lightning in his fist. The strike stops his heart and kills him dead on the spot, still standing with his feet planted and his fist raised to catch the lightning and smoldering slightly. Hatake Kuro dies, and Raijin stands for a moment and ponders all of this because, well-- killing him was rather an accident. The boy was victorious, he needs some kind of reward even in death. 

     For three days Raijin lets him keep the lightning as he brings rain upon the steppe, thinking about how best to reward the brave and foolish man-child Hatake Kuro. For three days he watches, until Kuro’s elder sister Niko climbs to where her brother’s body still crackles with energy, and he has an idea. Kuro has kept the lightning festering in his corpse for three days, and when Niko weeps and curses his name and reaches out to touch his charred face one last time, the lightning leaps to her, and it lives.