Yuuichi was born in the village of Itamachi. He is the son of Yasujiro Kano. His mother died giving birth to him. In the village of Itamachi there are two kinds of people: those that work, and those that protect those that work. The Yasujiro comprise all of the latter. Yuuichi was raised to believe that he was supposed to protect the village at all costs. That was his goal, no matter what or who the opponent was.
The members of the clan that lived in Itamachi, there were also those scattered about elsewhere, spent long hours inside of their manors, training their skills. Yuuichi was no exception to this. Everyone told him he was gifted, that he was going to be one of the strongest the clan had ever seen. His father was able to use lava release and his mother had been able to use boil release. There were rare times where someone could use both, and many thought he might be one of those.
If he was able to use both, it would make up for the fact that he was terrible at taijutsu and not all that strong. In fact, he was one of the physically weakest people within the clan. Nobody tried to make him train strength, though, because he was so gifted at ninjutsu that they figured that’s where his focus should have been. He accepted that. He wasn’t much for fighting anyways, so he wouldn’t like being in close combat.
His father taught him many things, including how to use the earth as a covering to protect his body, and how to make fire spew from his mouth in various forms, and even how to make clones of himself with the earth around him. He took it all in stride, though secretly he wasn’t a very happy young man.
He didn’t hate not having a mother. Sometimes he found himself envious of the fact that she was dead. Yuuichi hated to fight. He hated anything to do with fighting. He would refuse any spars because he had no desire to fight his relatives or friends. He was afraid to hurt them, but he also thought that fighting was an abomination of what humanity was supposed to be. War was an abomination. He didn’t want to see the day where he would fight in a war.
Kano didn’t much like having a pacifist for a son. He attempted to force Yuuichi to spar repeatedly, but Yuuichi always refused. As a result of his refusal, Kano would coat his hand in fire and burn Yuuichi severely across his body and then wouldn’t allow him to be healed by any medical ninja. He said it would build character and that he would just have to accept his role in fighting.
Regardless of this, he was in the midst of learning to combine the two chakras, fire and earth, to create lava, when the village came under attack by an army of raiders. This was the first time when Yuuichi decided it would be alright to fight. He hated combat, but he would not allow the senseless slaughter of the villagers or his family by standing by. Sometimes those that bullied had to be taught a lesson and sometimes that lesson had to be stronger than words.
Yuuichi killed a few of the raiders himself. He had no choice. Innocent lives were at stake, as they are in all wars, and he wouldn’t allow harm to come to his home. Deep down he resented it, though. He hated the fighting, hated the killing. He wished he hadn’t been forced to fight, but he accepted it and moved on.
His father boasted about Yuuichi’s battlefield accomplishments. He hated that almost as much as he hated fighting. One night he decided he’d had enough and he couldn’t live at his home anymore. There had to be somewhere else out there for someone like him. Somewhere he could live in relative peace and develop his abilities for the sole purpose of occupying his time. That place was not in Itamachi. So, the one many thought would lead the clan someday left.
He wandered throughout the Land of Fire in search of a home, a place of sanctuary, but he could find none, so he began travelling to every single land. He avoided going near most of the Shinobi villages. He had no desire to be near people who devoted their lives to fighting. In his mind, these people were the incarnation of evil. They chose to kill other humans for no reason. They chose war over peace and he could not stand that.
His one true goal is to end all war. There is nothing in the world he wants more than to bring about an end to all the wars and to allow everyone to live in peace. So he searches for a way to do this, doing his best to avoid fighting except where necessary to accomplish his goal.