» ALLIELOUISE.
NEWB
"i'll be the nightmare you never asked for."
Posts: 9
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Post by » ALLIELOUISE. on Jul 17, 2009 23:48:05 GMT -5
nanako akiko
“after a while, I think I forgot who I really was;
and maybe, just maybe, everyone else did, too.”
- nanako akiko She is many people, and she has many names; some that are seemingly true to her, and some that aren’t. She will lie when it suits her to, or she will be who she is at the time. Many do not really know her true self – her true selves, at that. She is neither called this, nor that and yet she is. She will be someone, one moment, and then the next she could very well be replaced by someone else. She drops personalities and picks them up, sometimes sticking to the dominate ones, sometimes having no control over it all, whatsoever. She has come to be known as the Pretender, and that is the one of the only identities that stay true.
Sometimes she wonders when she was born, or whether she ever did have a birthday. When she looks at herself in the mirror, she finds that she doesn’t look old. She has smooth skin and her body looks young. But her eyes are ancient; they’ve seen the horrors of this world too many times, they’ve looked death in the face more times than she can count on her fingers. Is it wisdom that makes her eyes old? Or is it experience? Is she an old woman, trapped in a young girl’s body? Or is she a young girl, trapped in an old women’s mindset? This she wonders, as she wipes the fog away from the mirror.
She remembers being in a park, catching leaves on an autumn day, while someone watches not too far away; they’re sitting on a bench. She feels warm, happy. Is it contentment that she feels? She thinks it’s because of the person watching. She wants to call out to them, but she does not know their name. She looks at them, but they’re always cloaked in shadows, and she cannot see them, even though they are in plain sight. She tries to approach them, but they’re always just out of her reach. She cannot tell if it is a memory that she is remembering, or if it is merely an illusion of the mind. Maybe it is what she had, or maybe it is what she wants. She figures that it does not matter, for she surely doesn’t have it any more, and she’s too flawed to obtain it.
Is it her fault that she cannot remember? She asks herself this when she feels a strange sense of regret. Did she make herself forget her past, her name, who she used to be? She decides that she does not want to know if she was responsible. She still wonders, however, if she ever belonged somewhere. Did she have a mother? Sometimes she can recall the familiar scent of cinnamon and flour, a lady with a blurred out face except for a warm smile; arms open wide, welcoming. She doesn’t think she had a father, she doesn’t want to know if she had one. Why? She cannot determine. Maybe it’s because she shrinks away from the idea that she could have been close to a man. Maybe it’s because she never had much of one.
A person once told her that home is where the heart is. She thought it was ridiculous, at first. For despite all of her intelligence… she couldn’t quite grasp the concept of how home was where your heart was when her heart was clearly in her chest and she was definitely not home. She asked the person how that could be, but all she got in return were vague words with the underlying message of, “you’ll understand one day.” She doubted that, but she didn’t think anymore of it and continued to wander the world with no destination in mind. She preferred it that way, and still does to this day.
Her employers often ask how strong she is, what rank. They mention ninja, kunoichi; something about chakra. She’s heard of them, she’s learned about them and apparently she uses the similar techniques as them. But something forbids herself from associating herself with them. She tells herself that she was never one, and she is merely alike in a way or two. Deep down, she sometimes thinks that she doesn’t allow herself to think that she ever was one because maybe she was one but she’s not allowed to be one anymore. But why? She doesn’t know. And she isn’t sure she wants to know, either. She tells her employers that she’s not affiliated with anything to do with shinobi; she is merely a bounty hunter.
the pretender
“she was many things, all at once;
and she was many people, too.”
- rizu amaya Akiko is an enigma, made up of many twists and turns and sharp corners; she’s a dash of this and a dash of that, and yet she a lot missing from herself. She has many personalities, many kinds of different people seemingly all crammed into her head. Some of them are known quite well, and others are underneath the surface, festering into something ugly or another defense mechanism. Whether her multiple personalities are because of a mental disorder, or if she’s just pretending has become thing that no one bothers to question. The few that actually know her realise that Akiko is neither sane nor insane, yet at the same time she is both. While she isn’t mentally stable enough to be described as sane, she is not as far gone from the state of sanity to be properly classified insane. She stands on the border that separates the two, teetering on the edge of a knife, swaying to one side and the other. At times, she is sane, others she is insane. Her personality’s conflict with what is expected of her; they are what separate her from the real world, and what keep her from a twisted place of an obscured mentality. They keep the scales of her mental stability hazardously balanced.
While she herself, the person who actually is Hitomi – the one behind the rest of her personalities, the real person – doesn’t think of herself as someone who is sane, she refuses to view the multiple personalities that she does have as the effects of a mental disorder. For she is not crazy and there are not voices in her head, she is merely a person who pretends to be different people at different times. She chooses to be ignorant of the obvious facts, to be able to give her peace of mind at the relieving thought that she is not completely crazy. Instead of facing up to the reality that she has a mental disorder, she will lie to herself. And she’ll all too readily believe those lies, eating them up to contain the fear; the fear that she has a large enough weakness which could very well be her downfall as much as her savior. So instead of believing that, she views her ‘personalities’ as different personas that she tends to use when certain situations call for them. No matter that the real person inside hasn’t got enough control over the personalities to be able to use that as an excuse.
Her personalities themselves are individual and unique. Should a person meet one of them, they might never suspect that the personality they saw wasn’t actually the true person that they had met. Her personalities draw themselves to be in control according to the circumstances that Hitomi is in; they have a surprising amount of control over her body and mind as a whole, and have been able to be developed to the stage that they might as well be actual people. For each seem to have their soul. Each one has different opinions on matters, different thoughts, and different feelings. While one is quick to kill, another displays mercy at the sight of death. Some are stronger than others, and have more control over who gets to have authority. In all, there are four personalities – other than Hitomi’s herself – that are displayed frequently. Two are the oldest of them all; the earliest ones to be developed once Hitomi’s state of mind reached that point of instability. They are as opposite to each other as the sun and moon, yet in the same way as those two vital things in the world, the personalities have a few similarities. One is the protector, the other is the keeper. The other two dominate personalities, while like the ones before them are the opposites of each other, play important key roles to the balance. One holds the answers to her forgotten past, and the other holds the questions needed for the desired future.
The very first separate personality that developed is known as ‘Akiko’. She is the personality that is fiery and defensive, with a near uncontrollable temper and harshness towards everything around her. While these qualities seemingly just provide a further barrier to recovery from past hurts, they are also what protect the body and mind safe from the horrors of the world around it. She is also known as ‘the Protector’. Because of that, she is the most dominate personality and is therefore given the most control over the body, which is named after Akiko. She is normally the personality in control when the body as a whole is faced with talking to a stranger, or if they are facing a dangerous situation. She is in charge of missions that involve hunting a target for bounty. Her focus is to protect and to eliminate the things that she thinks are a risk to the body. She is violent and unmerciful, sadistic almost. The majority of her anger and hostility when in a crowd is towards men in their late teens to early forties. Her source of hatred to them lies in a key event that happened in the past, something that is never approached by any of the personalities. Towards males of over ages – old men, very young males – she is wary but mainly indifferent. Akiko, over all, is the most prominent personality.
Fumiko, as she called herself, is one of the two dominating personalities – next to Akiko. She is the one who is wisest of them all, but in a tricky, riddling type of way. She speaks cryptically and because of that is viewed to be the ‘craziest’ of all of the personalities. However, in a way she is the most sane and stable of them all. She is like an old woman, gone senile after living a life of adventure that gifted her with the knowledge of a world. But she is also like a child who has a simple, rather innocent version of knowledge; the type that many seek yet no one finds. Fumiko is the one personality that is capable standing up to Akiko’s temper; she is the only one that can keep a leash on her anger and ensure she stays in check. In a way, Fumiko is Akiko’s ‘superior’ and she could very much as directly take the control from Akiko’s grasp and become the most dominate personality. She however prefers her position as ‘the Keeper’. She keeps the body’s mind in check; she is the security in place which keeps the scales of the mind’s mental stability balanced. As the Keeper, it’s her job to ensure that the flow of sanity and insanity are relatively even. Fumiko’s position is the most vital for the mind to survive.
As the desired future, Shizuka represents both what Hitomi could have been and might possibly one day be. Seemingly the sanest out of all personalities, Shizuka is a mixture of patience and silence. It’s rare that she chooses to be in control of the body, as she prefers to reserve herself to the mind. However, when the situation calls for it Shizuka will be a perfectly balanced mixture of both Akiko and Fumiko. She’s wise yet not on the level of Fumiko so that too much knowledge will conflict with decisions. She is capable of protecting the body and the mind at the same time. It is because of these qualities that she has been pinpointed as ‘the Future’. Out of all of the personalities, even Fumiko, Shizuka is the one that is most unaffected by a male’s presence. In control of the body, she might involuntary shiver should the man brush past her, but she feels only indifference toward them. Neither like nor dislike. Her over all ‘people skills’ are the most civil and acceptable in society. However, even though it would seem like she is the best candidate to therefore be the one with most dominate controls in situations concerning people, her indifference is seen as a weakness. One that could lead to a serious threat to the body, and therefore it is rare that Shizuka is ever permitted much control of the body or mind by Akiko when a male is present.
The fourth main personality is also the ‘youngest’ in the sense that she comes off as a child and because she was the latest to become one of the main personalities. Masami, as she is called, is rather the counterpart opposite of Shizuka. She began developing when Akiko suppressed the memories of Hitomi’s past. Over the years, they grew and festered into the shy, timid and rather fragile personality that is Masami. She is the key to Hitomi’s forgotten memories, and her past itself. Because of that, Masami is treated as an enemy and a threat, on the level of a male, by Akiko; for she believes that the past will inevitably ruin the already delicate Hitomi. Reluctantly, Fumiko is forced to always agree with her own counterparts views. And as such, Masami is normally shut away from the mind, and any contact that she might have with Hitomi, or chance to voice anything along the lines of speaking the past. She is kept safe by Shizuka, however, as the two have an unspoken yet understood bond that helps them to survive. Even so, Masami has been forced to learn to stay cautious; rarely ever speaking to Akiko, and avoiding the chances to have control over the body.
The actual person herself – Hitomi – is a seemingly lost individual. She has little next to no control over her multiple personalities these days, and is rarely ever present. It’s as if she dwindles through ever day, fading completely into the background. The few times she is present, or in control of the body, Hitomi seems to be hollow; vacant, as if there isn’t anything left inside of her. To fill the voids, she fabricates pretty little lies about herself. Because of that, she’s earned her own alias as ‘the Pretender’. She’s pretty good at that, at pretending. It’s like second nature to her, a survival instinct. A lie is just as easy as breathing, and just vital. She craves the pleasure of lying about herself, because she believes it all too readily and for a time, she doesn’t feel as if she is merely drifting from one place to another. Lies create memories, a personality, and a soul and over all, they can create a person. She likes to think that one day she satisfied with her lies enough to stop pretending.
a vague mirage
“she was the kind of girl that wasn’t breathtakingly beautiful,
but had a pretty enough face to catch your attention.
what lay beyond the pretty face, however, wasn’t always so nice.” - raikiri gorou She is a person of many identities, and as such, she is also a person of many faces. When certain personalities are in control, the changes will almost always be obvious – in a kind of subtle way. Typically, she is a generally well proportioned, good looking woman. Her features are well balanced, as is her body. Yet she still has something to her that makes it seem as though she has many imperfections to her. It’s hard to tell whether it is her strong, almost sharp jaw line that can look slightly masculine at certain angles or her uneven, messy hair with a bad part – or something else about her. She’s a mix of something pretty with a dash of something unknown that tends put her out of balance. Perfect or imperfect, however, if she passes you by on the street, it’s certain that she’ll catch your attention.Out of her entire appearance, her hair is the main thing that is almost constantly untidy. That’s probably because she tends to cut her own hair with a knife; chopping at it here and there, taking away what she thinks gets in her way. The back of her hair is considerably shorter then the front. And her fringe is kept short on the right side, while she keeps the left side of her fringe long and to the side. The part of her hair is towards the left side of her head, and it rather messy, while what is viewable of her hairline seems choppy as well. She prefers to keep it her hair short, just a little down past her ears. While her hair is untidy, it holds that air about it that it seems almost stylish, in a way. It also frames her face rather well.With strong, striking features, her face can easily look severe. Normally, her face doesn’t show much expression, and is well guarded. While it’s said that ‘the eyes are the window to the soul’, in her case it’s not really so; as Akiko’s deep sea blue irises are blocked to the outside world. Not allowing anyone to look into her, to see what she’s feeling or determine her next actions. They aren’t completely devoid, however, for they still hold a spark of life to them. Above her eyes are shaped eyebrows; thin, yet not unattractively so. Her nose is well shaped, if slightly smaller than average at times, and at certain angles it can tend to look a little prominent or sharp. She has an average sized mouth, with lips that aren’t too full.
She’s quite a petite woman, although she isn’t all too short. Her over all body is kept fit, well toned and trimmed with subtle muscles that aren’t too prominent. In a way, she’s a tad bit scrawny. She consumes very little food or drink at meals and therefore doesn’t she the entirely appropriate amount of substance the body needs to function properly. In a way, she’s rather unhealthy, for she also suffers for a case of insomnia that’s slightly mild. She has a modest bust that’s fit for her body type, and a typically thin waist, with subtle hips. Her thighs and legs aren’t very shapely, either. One of the main imperfections and most prominent scars that she has on her body is one that was slashed in an ’x’ in the middle of her chest.
While she doesn’t always like to wear a typical outfit everyday of her life, she does have a ‘usual’ one that she tends to favor. The very bottom layers consist of practical underclothes, with classic chest bindings and an undershirt. Over that she sometimes wears a long-sleeved, intricately designed dress. It’s short, yet not drastically so; split in places to prevent it from interfering with fights. She has a few of them, each in different colours; dark blue, maroon, black. Over the dress, she wears a black coat, which has the same measurements as the dress underneath it. As for accessories, she favors scarves – which she also has in different colours, according to her dresses. She also wears a belt that’s designed to hold her katana while on a job. When she’s not on a job, however, she will normally carry the katana around in a black, material case. Her hands are almost always covered by a pair of gloves. And she prefers to wear black, lace up boots. At times, she also wears a pair of black stockings. Other things that she constantly has on her persona is her traditional katana and a knife. She is never without them.
As for facial expression, habits and overall characteristics, she changes with each personality. Akiko is the most harsh, severe looking of all and can come off as highly intimidating. She scowls a lot, and is known to snarl at times. She talks bluntly and sugarcoats nothing. Even to a stranger or someone harmless, Akiko is normally hostile towards them. Her facial expressions range from a glare, to a less severe glare, to indifference. Her counterpart, and completely opposite, ‘fellow personality’ Fumiko is the type to hold an air to her that makes her seem as though she’s off with the fairies. She tends to stare at things for too long, and verbally ponders over her thoughts. These traits make her come off as, bluntly, crazy. While she isn’t severe, Fumiko rarely ever shows kind or happy expression. She’s simply wistful.
Shizuka is a generally stoic kind of personality who can come off as a drunk. She indeed does delve a little too much into the wonderful world of alcohol, and whenever she’s dominate in the body and mind, she’ll almost certainly always be drinking or had of been. She tends to smell like sake. She tends to look scruffy and unkempt, as if she’s just rolled out of bed. Her mannerisms are entirely lacking, and she talks to any person as if they were all on the same level. Her manner of speech is also quite lacking in delicacy and grace. Shizuka’s own counterpart, Masami – like Akiko and Fumiko – is also her opposite. Masami is a naïve, child like little girl who believes all too willingly. She’s the most unguarded out of all the dominant personalities, and also the most affectionate and kind. She smiles too much, yet there is always a looming sadness in her eyes. Her behavior and characteristics are indeed that of a child’s, and she tends to speak like one as well.
Hitomi – the real person in the body and mind – is the kind of person that you would think is entirely displaced in the world. She’s socially awkward, inept at conversation and doesn’t handle being in a crowded place well. She fidgets, a lot, and unless she has taken on a lie of a personality, she’s looks obviously fragile; broken, almost. She’s almost too wary of anyone or anything that she comes across, and is ridiculously suspicious. She hates any part of her being exposed to the world, and covers herself with as much clothing when she’s in control.
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» ALLIELOUISE.
NEWB
"i'll be the nightmare you never asked for."
Posts: 9
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Post by » ALLIELOUISE. on Jul 17, 2009 23:48:20 GMT -5
what was lost
“i just wanted my little girl back, you know?
I wanted her to smile, to laugh, to be hitomi again.
but she was lost, and even though I tried so hard… I couldn’t find her.”
- miyamura himiko
She wondered when it was that she stopped hoping Hitomi would one day return to her. About how she would look, and whether or not she would be Hitomi or someone else entirely. Would she come back as her little girl? Or would she come back as the frail, cold, lost women who had been so horrifyingly abused? The idea of it scared Himiko. But still, she would take either girl and she would love them with all she had.
A boy moved in next door; a young, strapping chap with deep blue eyes that reminded Himiko painfully of what she had lost, years ago. She wished he was a girl, so that maybe she could easily ignore the fact that he had blonde hair, and she could pretend he was Hitomi. But he wasn’t, and she couldn’t pretend, so she made do with what he was and took what she could. It irked her when she realized he was a shinobi. Another life waiting destruction at the hands of evil that had so made their place in this now dreadful world. He was nearly just as how Hitomi had been, the month before she Konohagakure had discharged her. Was he going to go away, too? She hoped not.
His Father had been a shinobi, and his Mother had been a civilian. Just like Hitomi. But unlike her, he was naturally talented with a gift for his career. He didn’t have to work so hard to survive in the shinobi world, not like Hitomi. Himiko had to wonder if she partially resented him for that. Did she resent everyone with natural talent, because Hitomi hadn’t had it easy like them? Or was she just bitter towards shinobi because that life had so destroyed her darling little angel? She suspected that it might have been a bit of everything. She loathed prodigies, the very word made her shudder. Every Abarai was a prodigy, weren’t they? Except for the bastard child, except for Hitomi.
Himiko doesn’t like to regret. But she can’t help to feel sick every time she thinks about how she made the biggest mistake of her life, sleeping with an Abarai. The prestigious family wasn’t the type to let little accidents slip by easily. They didn’t like their bloodline to be tainted. But Himiko was smart; she covered it up, hid the identity of her daughter’s Father and made sure nothing could link her or Hitomi to them. Despite all of her efforts, however, they found out. She didn’t know why they had to try so hard to fix all the mistakes. She didn’t want anything from them, from Hitomi’s Father. She never approached for a thing. But the Abarai’s were too cautious, too careful. They said sooner or later it would get out, and they weren’t going to let it happen like that. Unwanted or not, Hitomi was an Abarai, and she would be raised as one. And all Himiko could do was let them, for she couldn’t fight their legal and literal power.
That was the second biggest mistake that Himiko made in her lifetime.
“She used to be such a happy child,” she reminisced to the boy – Takashi was his name – one day. He’d asked about the little girl in the pictures, covering nearly every wall in the house. “My daughter, Hitomi. She was a kunoichi.” There wasn’t any pride in her words, or her eyes when she said that. Rather, there was an underlying, thick layer of spite. “Think of her as the opposite of you, dear,” she smiled a sad smile. “She didn’t have much talent for being a ninja, you know? She liked to paint, to draw. She always wanted to be an artist when she was a little girl.” But she never got the chance. The words went unspoken, but understood. “Her Father’s family are… well, they stick to tradition. They’re a shinobi family. Everyone in it becomes a shinobi, they’re all prodigies, you know?
“Hitomi wasn’t, though. She didn’t have the natural ability.” She wasn’t as good as an Abarai should be. She was a bastard child. She was tainted, because Himiko was a civilian. Her lines weren’t strong like the Abarai’s, or the people they chose to marry into the family. “But she was a hard worker. She wanted her Father’s approval… but he, Toshiro, he wasn’t the type. Honestly, he wasn’t any kind of type. He just worked. Took missions. It was as if he weren’t even… alive, really. But I saw things in him, sometimes; life, a spark…” she left it there, and berated herself for talking about him. “Hitomi still tried, though. But she wasn’t born for the shinobi lifestyle. Little by little, month by month… she began to fade away.”
And I couldn’t bring her back.
Himiko didn’t say anything more, after that. She withdrew, and eventually Takashi went away. She didn’t like talking about the past, and yet she almost needed the chance to reminisce. To make sure she wouldn’t forget. Why? She didn’t know. Perhaps it was a reminder, or maybe it was just a chance to remember but not on her own. It was easier, remembering, when someone else was there. When they were the one asking questions. She didn’t have to look at her own mistakes, then. She didn’t have to face what she had done wrong, like she did when she was alone. With another person, she could easily overlook her mistakes; the big, the small. Because they didn’t know.
Sometimes she still wonders if Hitomi will ever come home. She wonders if she’s still alive, and what she looks like now. Does she still have the same beautiful long hair? Is her skin still pale white? How tall is she? She’ll sit in the rocking chair on her front porch and muse over all the possibilities; watching the garden lined path with a slowly dying hope of that maybe, just maybe, she’ll see her little girl one last time before she fades away, too.
“hitomi? that bastard kid toshiro spawned?
yeah, I remember her. nice girl. hard worker.
sad what happened to her, though.”
- abarai katsuro
Katsuro had never really expected much of his son, reproduction and humanly wise. The kid was fucked up in the head, you know? His emotional structure was stumped, cut short. He never had any lovers or even friends for that matter. He wasn’t really capable of having any. So the surprise that Katsuro got when he found out that he had a four year old granddaughter nearly blew him over. He had to wonder if there had been a mistake with the paternal tests. Even speculated that he must have gotten a little too pissed one night and spawned his own little mistake that in turn spawned the girl. But, evidently, there wasn’t much hope for any of his theories.
The Clan elders pulled a real big fuss over it. He remembers, vaguely, telling them to shove their logic up their asses because the kid wasn’t cut out to hold a bloody kunai, let alone live up to an Abarai’s expectations. They didn’t relent though, and eventually the kid’s Mother stopped arguing against it, too. He didn’t like that. Because, since Toshiro was decidedly the elder’s favourite little prodigy, he didn’t have to take on the responsibility of training his little mistake. And that meant that Katsuro’s lazy, alcohol filled days of retirement were over. Oh, he argued alright. But against the elders, most of the Clan’s elite and his own bitch of wife? Yeah, he didn’t really have much of a choice.
She was pathetically small, the kid; the runt of the litter. Having a civilian Mother weakened her bloodline. Had Toshiro of fucked some nice little Jounin brat, or even a Chuunin – she’d have had the usual traits of an Abarai. Talent, namely. He had to admit that she was pretty smart, though. And she was a damn good worker. She never complained, never whined. She didn’t cry, either. There was a familiar stubborn streak in her that refused to show weakness, or to give up. He liked that. And after a few months, she grew on him. He blamed her smiles, her warmth; and the whole Grandfather, Granddaughter natural bond shit. The closer he got to her, though, the more he recognised that she wasn’t going to make it as a ninja. She was soft hearted, timid. She liked to watch butterflies instead of tearing them apart to see how they worked (well, okay, maybe not all kids did that; maybe his son was completely screwed in the head). Sometimes he considered not teaching her properly, so that she failed any exams and the village wouldn’t accept her. But the result of that would just be a thorn in his ass. Ever the coward in face of potential consequences delivered by his Clan, Katsuro trained her.
She didn’t have any talent for genjutsu, but he eventually ensured that she was well prepared to handle any. Her eye for detail was sharp, so she could always pinpoint something out of place, something that would reveal she was in an illusion. And with a bit of practice, she could easily dispel them. She didn’t have the best chakra supply to be a ninjutsu specialist, but she got the basics down. He focused on her physical abilities for the first two years of training. She was surprisingly good with taijutsu; flexible. Her style resembled acrobatics with fluid like motion. He made sure her attacks were brutal, though.
“Aim for the vital points, kid,” he told her, “the heart; joints; tendons; muscles. Sever anything in your way.” He drilled that into her. And even though she wasn’t as vicious as he would like, she learned. After a while, he focused on her strength and speed. She had Toshiro’s knack for manipulating chakra, except it wasn’t as perfect. Watered down skills, was what he called them. She resembled Toshiro a lot, and he saw similarities in their fighting style. She was just no where near as good as the prick. He lost count of the time it took to use the chakra control to her advantage.
With a little help from his wife, the kid learned to summon chakra to any part of her body. She could strength punches or kicks, or harden parts of her body when she blocked – or didn’t block in time. The good thing about it was that the chakra stayed inside, so she didn’t use it up quickly. It was getting close to when she would have to take the Genin exams, by the time they perfected her speed as well as they could. They found ways to make it work so that she didn’t need chakra to enhance it; using weights during spars and having her run until she couldn’t move a finger. The training was near brutal, but the results paid off. She wasn’t the fastest, no; but it sufficed.
They had three months left until the exam. Her theory knowledge didn’t take long to complete. She was physically strong, she was fast, she could throw a weapon with top level accuracy, she knew every basic jutsu down to the core… but she didn’t seem like an Abarai. She didn’t have an exact specialty; and no matter what Katsuro argued with, towards the elders, they weren’t satisfied. He was tempted to do something drastic, like every time he had to deal with the assholes, but his wife forcibly held him back. The betraying bitch. He wanted to go back to his days of drinking sake at his favourite tavern, playing darts and sharing over exaggerated stories with the civilians. He was stretching it a bit far, but he was sure the kid could pass the Chuunin exams – let alone a bloody Genin test. But he knew the elder’s were right, in their own infuriating way. She wasn’t Abarai material just yet. So he continued to train her.
She didn’t have the amount of talent needed for genjutsu or ninjutsu. She was good at taijutsu, sure; but every Abarai was. He focused on how she worked with weapons. She wasn’t that good with senbon needles, so his thoughts to turn her towards being a poison specialist never got off. She was adept with the average ninja tools, so being a weapon specialist was the best he could think of, for her. He noticed she learned to hold a kunai well. The flick of her wrist was nearly perfect, and the way she used the weapon like an extension of her body almost had him hitting himself for not noticing it sooner. He gave her a longer, heavier kunai to work with and drilled her. It took some getting used to, but she got the hang of it. His chances of going back to his tavern were looking even more hopeful.
It took some hard searching and a lot of ‘moving things’ – much to the Master Bitch’s disapproval – but Katsuro eventually dug up his old katanas. He would never have thought the runt would have a knack for kenjutsu. But then again, he had thought she would never be able to properly hold a kunai, either. He let hope fester and took a chance with the prospect of teaching her how to handle a katana respectfully within the confines of three months. He was a master of swords, so logic reasoned with him that if his intentions were to have the runt claim a specialty for wielding a katana within that time frame… then he was probably going senile.
Eventually, after two weeks full of mistakes that lad to physical wounds and grim little smiles full of determination and a bothersome worry from Hitomi, the runt eventually did start getting the hang of it. She was apt enough, sure. He would drill her through sequences everyday until both of them couldn’t bear to go on any longer. He made her memorize the most efficient way to hold a katana; the ideal way to use it to compliment her skill; the places of a human body that were the most vital, most vulnerable; how to strike a killing blow so quickly and effectively. Of course, even if she had all of the logic, she wasn’t exactly full of the most amazing talent. There were times Katsuro gave up, and told her to go home; he’d sulk for a few hours about how the Gods were such assholes to him, and then go and fetch the runt and drag her back to training. For twelve weeks, routine set in and it would go like that. And soon enough, Hitomi didn’t look like so much of an ‘Abarai-failure’ to Katsuro. Just an ‘Abarai-wannabe’. A considerable improvement, he thought.
Three days before the Genin exams, Hitomi was more than prepared. She just passed the approval of the Elders, and preparations were set for her to take the retched tests. She was ushered away from Katsuro and his tutelage was no longer needed. Sometimes he wonders if he should have made more of an effort to be in her life. She was his student, and in his way a friend. She was also his blood, his Granddaughter. That meant he had a sort of family responsibility to act like that crazy old coot in her life and offer her cryptic advise about boys, later down the track, right? He figured that he was supposed to. But Katsuro had never really been that good at doing what he was supposed to do. He was a lazy bastard who didn’t particularly like anyone. His wife was too much of a bitch, and didn’t even help the straining marriage with a good rut once in a while; he didn’t make any effort to like her. His son was a right little prick in his cold, detached way – that was probably his parent’s fault, but Katsuro was never good at taking the blame, either. Over all, he was content with a simple, solitary retirement. Grandchildren were only bothersome, after all.
Still, he couldn’t help but to keep tabs on the kid. She passed the Genin exam, no surprise there. If she hadn’t, Katsuro wagered his entire life savings that he would have been in entirely the wrong favor with the Elders. He didn’t hear much about her, after that. There were strings of gossip here and there about the darling little Naota taking on a Genin team with two unimportant boys and an Abarai with ‘mysterious heritage’. The Clan was good at hiding the rare mistakes it’s members made. They would have gone out of their way to ensure no one knew of the ‘scandal’ behind Hitomi’s lineage. Katsuro didn’t really see what the fuss was all about. But he put it down to the fact that they were pompous, ridiculous assholes. And maybe the fact that, considering Toshiro was the strongest in the Clan, he was in line for leadership. The Elders were known to act rashly when the state of ‘their good name’ was at risk.
As for Genin teams, Naota’s wasn’t the most talked about. It got only really got mention here and there because it was Naota’s; a pretty little Jounin Medical Ninja. Katsuro remembered her being in his squad here and there, easily thing to make blush – amusing. It surprised him that she stood up to the challenge of being responsible of a Genin team. She was a good medic-nin, sure, but from what he had observed… she wasn’t the best fighter. He wondered if the village was so low on Sensei’s that they had lowered requirements so much. Maybe he underestimated her, maybe she was capable of holding her own and watching a few Genin. But he always had that strange feeling that she was entirely wrong for it, and her shoulders weren’t wide enough for the burden of that particular responsibility. He liked to drown that worry with a lot of sake. What did he know about correct judgment for whether or not a person was capable of leading a team? He had led his to their deaths, after all.
“i… yes, I do. she was my – my student.
my gennin student. one of the two left...
well, actually, i’m not quite sure if she’s alive, these days.”
- ito naota
Ever since she was still just in the Academy, Naota had always wanted to be a Sensei. She had wanted to have a little team of her own. Two boys, one girl. The boys would be ultimate rivals for the girl’s affections, and the girl would be sweetly oblivious to their intentions. The boys would be complete opposites from each other, in terms of appearance and personality. The girl would have sweet, baby blue eyes with a hidden fire behind them and she would have blonde hair. The boys would preferably share a hidden bond like brothers, and the girl would be open and warm; eventually, they would all be a happy little family.
It was the most naïve and cliché thing, she realises, when she looks back on the past. She thinks that just to spite her for being so foolishly clueless, the Gods gave her a team that was entirely and completely not what she hoped for – or even expected.
The boys looked the same; they had dull, brown hair that was impossibly boring – not at all like the vivid black and the snow white she had thought that should have. One had green eyes, the other had strange; off coloured yellow ones. Green Eyes was Sai, a boringly common name. Yellow Eyes showed promise; his name was Susumu. She hadn’t heard that name in a long time. Sai was a bore at best. He wasn’t particularly enthusiastic, and he kept to himself. He was an apt ninja, and his abilities complimented the rest of the squad’s. Susumu was reserved, but he wasn’t as quiet as Sai. He talked a bit… but it was almost jumbled, cryptic. She couldn’t make sense of a lot of it. He used Genjutsu. She hadn’t asked about his technique with it, too much, for what she had seen from when he had used it on enemies… it was cruel. Behind the pupil-less eyes, Susumu was seemed vicious, violent.
She was hopeful for the girl to be different. She had blue eyes. But disappointingly, hers were a shade much deeper, much darker than the baby blue she was hoping for. Her hair was a plain black – so very typical, and her name wasn’t much better. Hitomi. There were so many girls with that name, these days. Even more then boys with the name Naruto. And at the realization that the girl was indeed an Abarai, Naota was already coming up with a plan to her the hell out of this predicament. Abarai’s were generally the type of people to be either boring or an acute pain in the ass with their pride and infuriating need for perfection. The girl might have been smiling, but it was as reserved as the Naruto kid. Maybe she was a rare breed of Abarai, and she was just shy? Naota liked to think that. But she knew all too well that even if it were so, there was not even a spark behind those not-so-well-guarded eyes.
After weeks of awkward silences, overly boring and tedious missions, failed attempts on Naota’s part to relieve some of the tension and the less than amused reactions from the Genin, she was all too ready to give up. Hitomi was opening up a bit, sure; she smiled a lot more unguardedly, and she was the most talkative out of the kids, but she was still so annoyingly reserved. Susumu was still the oddest person she had come across. Ever. And she worried, slightly, for his future. Sai was still a lazy, frustrating bore who made no effort to change that fact. He had been talking a bit more, though; he’d follow orders without that look and he seemed to have started developing a relationship with Hitomi and Susumu. As ridiculous as the notion sounded. Naota doubted any of their ability to form an actual, credible bond that even fringed upon friendship.
“I was so vain, back then.” She says to the man sitting next to her in a bar. As if he actually cares. She regrets not being the best Sensei she could possibly be for them. She regrets judging them so quickly, alienating them because they weren’t what she wanted. She regrets not trying to do more with them, to form strong relationships in the team. She regrets a lot of things. Sometimes, she’ll wonder if she could have stopped a lot of things from happening, had she of paid more attention to their teamwork and strengthening their abilities. She really had failed them as their Sensei, hadn’t she?
Naota wasn’t generally a superstitious person. She didn’t believe in horoscopes, and hated it when her girlfriends forced her to have her history read by an old, funny smelling woman. But there was always a thought, hidden in that back of her mind, that her team was destined for bad luck; for failure. First, it was the complete and utter incompatibility of the Genin themselves, personality and appearance wise. Second, it was that they always seemed to get the ‘bottom of the barrel’ missions. And later, months later, third was that once they did start getting real missions, outside of the village… all Hell would broke loose upon them. At first it was just minor things, like Sai getting a fever. Or Akiko getting lost in a strangely overly fogged forest. And sometimes Susumu would lose his pet lizard who normally stuck to him like glow. Little things at the time, maybe to some; but they set the team on edge. Sai would become delusional with the fever, and the mission would inevitably fail. Hitomi would start having abandonment issues. Susumu lost it, completely, when Jub-Jub was ‘stolen’, and the whole mission would have to be put on hold. And over time, the problems started to grow worse.
Missions that were initially low ranked would shoot up to the absurd level of a B-rank and on a few occasions, A-rank. Their targets would somehow, always, at the very last minute be aware of their presence on ‘hunting missions’. Information that they found would somehow end up wrong. And on more than one occasion, the team nearly suffered fatal losses. It was like someone out there was sincerely against Team Thirteen being ninja. And yeah, the thought was ridiculous. And sure, Naota passed it off for her team just purely and utterly sucking like all hell. But she couldn’t shake that feeling, that if they continued to be a team, something terrible was going to happen. Of course, that was even more ridiculous, so she brushed the feeling off and ignored it when it leeched onto her conscious and pulled at her, made her feel oddly guilty and rather anxious.
“Maybe it was the Gods trying to warn me or some shit,” she sighs; thoughts drifting back to that time, long ago. How many years had passed since the tragedies, way back then? Years upon years. She’d seen nothing of Susumu, and absolutely no one had seen the girl. She wonders what happened to her, where she went. Is she still alive, or did she end up dying? Naota likes to think that she eventually worked around the horrors, and made a life for herself; far, far away from all the death and mental – emotional destruction of being a shinobi. But somehow, deep down inside, like with the warning that she never listened to… she knows there wasn’t a fairytale ending in store for Hitomi. Naota still likes to come up with them, for her, regardless. It helps her to sleep at night. Because it was pretty much her fault that she wasn’t going to get a happy ending, wasn’t it? She thinks it’s cliché to do the whole hero bid and take all of the blame on her shoulders, but inside, Naota knows it’s entirely all hers to take.
“I… I should have let the mission drop once we found out more on the target.” That was the first thing she said in the verbal report given to her superior, regarding the mission that had stolen the sanity of one of her students but also the life of another. “We had been requested to investigate the kidnapping of a… a few girls in a village off of Grass’ borders. There hadn’t been any requests for ransom and – and no bodies had turned up yet, either. It had been about two weeks between the disappearances.” She tried to keep herself together, she really did. It had been a few days now, hadn’t it? She’d been in hospital during that time. Hitomi was still in there, she hadn’t been allowed to see her. She still hadn’t heard anything of what had actually happened to her, just little patches of gossip here and there from the nurses. Gossip that disturbed her.
“Go on, Naota.” It felt horrible, reporting to her superior about a failed mission that was honestly just about her inability to have a Genin squad. And it was even more horrible, because he was her brother, and she’d disappointed him beyond his belief. He had put trust in her when he’d passed her for the Jounin exams, and she’d taken that trust and ripped it up into tiny little shreds. She wondered if she was more worried about herself, at the time. She was scared for her reputation as a kunoichi; she feared that she was going to be discharged; she hated the looks she would get from everyone. She thinks back to the time, and almost wishes she could go back and strangle her younger self for being so petty, so vain; for she realises in the end that she hadn’t even spared a thought for the lives she had pretty much helped ruin. Naruto, dead. Hitomi, completely and utterly broken. And herself? She had only been in the hospital for a pathetic case of shock.
She was nervous; keeping her eyes glued to the ground. She couldn’t face the condemning look in her brother’s eyes. “We learned that similar cases had happened in other small villages around the region.” She was shaking. “The closest anyone had gotten to what had happened to the girls was that a man had taken them. They never returned. And there bodies were never found. The man was said to be a renegade ninja. We weren’t sure of his rank.” We weren’t sure of anything. “We continued to investigate, and we came upon his trail soon enough. But we didn’t fi- find him. We found one… one of the g-girls.” Chin up, don’t crack now. “She had been tortured.” Brutalized. Disfigured. Cuts, everywhere. Blood. So much blood. “Raped, beaten… and her mental state…” She couldn’t go into detail, not then. Not even now. “I sent Sai and Susumu to find where the target had escaped to; to look for any signs of him, while Hitomi and I cleaned and patched up the girl. She kept saying, ‘I’m okay now, I’m okay,’ we couldn’t get anything other information from her.
“It took days to find any trace of the target again, after that. Our search went into Grass’ regions and further until we first engaged in combat.” And what a mistake that had been. “He turned out to be of a high rank, probably from Mist.” They didn’t know his name, she couldn’t remember his abilities. All she could think of was a sickly grinning face and glazed eyes; insane, twisted. “Although we had numbers on our side… we were outmatched in comparison to strength.” Because what’s a silly medic-nin with barely any fighting talent, and three Genin, going to be compared to an expert swordsman who was always one step ahead of them? Smart, mentally fucked and a hell of a lot of experience; her team didn’t have the ability to stand up against him. But it was the last mission they would have to complete, before they qualified for the Chuunin exams. So why not push the limit? Susumu wanted to continue, Sai wouldn’t say anything, and Hitomi was still shaken up about the girl. Naota just wanted to go back to her hospital wing and forget this nightmare ever happened. Easy to do if the kids became Chuunin and went off to new squads, right?
“He retreated after injuring Hitomi. We retreated, too, to recuperate.” And after that, they should have gone home and handed the mission over to a higher ranking team; shouldn’t they’ve? “After a day, we continued the search. We paired off in search teams; Susumu and I, Sai and Hitomi.” She could feel the disapproving gaze from all three people in the room, baring down on her and burning holes in to her. She felt sick. “I shouldn’t have split the team up. He… the target, he was the one tracking us.” And one of them became his target. “He followed Sai and Hitomi. From what I gather, and the short breaks of what Hitomi reported, he was fast. He- he k-killed Sai and… took Hitomi.
“Susumu and I searched for them when we had no response on the radio transmission. We f-found Sai…” Sai, dead. Sai, with cuts covering him entirely. Sai, with his eyes pecked by the crows attacking his corpse. “Dead, three hours north-west from where we had been staying.” She would never forget the heart-wrenching moment, after three hours of high-speed search, which came once she saw the eyeless body on the ground. For everything that she had seen as a medic-nin, she hadn’t been able to handle viewing that scene without throwing up the contents of her stomach. “There was no sign of Hitomi.” The report continued on. “We assumed that she had been taken by the target, and prepared a search as soon as was possible.” It hadn’t done her much good though, had it? Naota had known from that moment that, given the target’s behavior and previous acts, there wasn’t much hope at all for Hitomi.
“We searched for three days. There was no sign of her, at all – or the target. Nobody had seen anyone even close to their descriptions. That’s around the time Special Ops responded to our call and they took over the mission from there.” She had finished the report in a rush of words; eager to be permitted to leave the room, to escape the harsh glares. But she was smart enough to know that this situation wasn’t going to be handled lightly. Even if she was his sister, her brother had a duty to the village and its laws as one of it's leaders. She wasn’t going to be let off easily in light of her negligence. Kunoichi and successful medic-nin that she was, she still hadn’t been able to lift her head and face her brother’s scorn. She had the family name; their family, a shinobi family. And worst of all, she had humiliated him.
“It seems, Naota, that you weren’t qualified for the duty of having the responsibility of a Genin team.” She remembers exactly how he said it, word for word, in exactly what tone he used and what words he emphasized. “Rather, I wonder how you could possibly be fit to be called a ninja. It seems you have been gravely overestimated. And the results of this mistake have been dire, indeed.” She had never heard him speak so formally. Honestly, she had never heard him address her as such. It was like she wasn’t even his sister, anymore. Hadn’t family bonds meant anything to him? She still wonders why he didn’t forgive her so easily. Hadn’t he done worse than what she had? “Your status as a kunoichi shall be viewed over. For now you will be taken off of active duty in the field. As for the hospital, you may stay on assignment. At least you’re not completely useless, there. Dismissed.”
“He was such a hypocrite, don’t you think?” The man asking her questions didn’t reply, he simply stared at the drink in front of him and listened. It irked Naota that he hadn’t immediately rushed to her defense and agreed with her. Her brother was a hypocrite, a failure, a good for nothing ninja who wasn’t really that special, anyway. Every one knew it, and every one said it behind his back; his glory days were soon to be long gone, long over. “Anyway. I didn’t see much of Hitomi after that. The most I had ever heard of her was that she had taken the Chuunin exams a few months later and passed. Then, later, about her being discharged.” She hadn’t been surprised when she had heard that. For the few times that Naota had dared come face to face with Hitomi… she was little more fit to be a kunoichi that Naota had been to be a Sensei. Her mental and emotional health had been torn to shreds, and Naota had doubted any amount of tape could help to put her back together again. “Say, why are you asking about her, anyway?”
“No reason. Just heard a few things, I was curious.” Was all the man said, brushing Naota off before paying for his drink and departing. Naota frowned at his untidy appearance, shaggy blonde hair and the limp to his gait. And then, stopped herself in thought after realizing she hadn’t really changed that much at all.
“abarai hitomi, eh? yeah, she was on my team. odd girl.
I wasn’t really surprised when she was discharged.
she was kinda whack, in a reserved way… y’know?”
- hamada arata
Arata was always curious about his only female teammate. Curious in the way that he wanted to know about her, yet at the same time he didn’t. The blank, glazed look that was always in her eyes gave the impression that whatever had happened to her was something that he didn’t really want to hear about. He heard a rumors, here and there, from people their age; fellow Chuunin. The most believable one was that the girl had had the misfortune of being assigned a terrible mission, and had been taken captive by the target. Arata would wonder about what had happened during that time. He recalls seeing the tiniest glimpses of scars here and there, during their missions and the time they were around each other as a team. She tried to cover up most of her skin; wearing stockings, long boots, gloves, long sleeved shirts and coats. Did she have scars covering her whole body? He couldn’t remember seeing any on her hands, and there weren’t any on her face or her neck, from what he could see. Maybe she simply didn’t like being exposed to the world?
She would always flinch if anyone on the team got close enough to brush past her, or should their fingers touch if they handed something to her. He wondered if she was one of those people who were scared of germs, but soon found that was ridiculous – because she was more than happy to shove her katana down an enemy’s throat, with no mind for the blood the seeped into her clothes, her hair. She was frightening, like that. Arata found her to be terribly vicious on missions; sadistic. But the thing the scared Arata the most, was the fact that the only targets, the only enemies that he had ever seen her disembody… were males. When it was a female, she would render them incapable, sure – but there wasn’t that glint of joy that was always in her eyes when she fought a woman, that she had when she fought a man. Was she sexist? Their team leader had mentioned to him that she was, in a way, and that Arata shouldn’t get too close to her.
He had wondered about that warning for days. By that time, he’d only known Hitomi for a month at least. He began to study her. She was one of those Abarai bastards, gifted with a talent for killing. She never spoke of siblings or an actual family; she never spoke at all, really. There were mentions here and there of a mother, a friend. She kept to herself, strictly professional about everything. Yet in a way, she wasn’t. She wasn’t professional in the field, on duty. She killed without second thought, she acted on impulse, and she rarely ever listened to their team leader. Rather, she tried to undermine him every chance that she got. It was obvious even to Arata that she didn’t like him all too much.
He recalls overhearing Keichi, their captain, talking to an old man after things with Hitomi started going downhill a lot more faster then before. “I think I must look like him, Katsu. She hates me.” Look like whom? The question bubbled and festered in Arata’s mind straight from the moment he had heard the words. If he looked like this person, this guy, why would she hate Keichi, anyway? Did it have to do with her being taken captive? “The kid’s… I dunno, soft. Fragile. Scared, probably. She’s going to hate anyone with brown hair or anyone with some feature or attribute that is relatively similar to that bastard.” The old man talked as if he knew Hitomi, and a lot more about what had happened to her. Arata figured they must have been related; he had the same hair colour and eyes as her. “I saw his file picture… from what was left of him, what she didn’t stab or tear apart; his nose is kind of like hers. Kid probably hates herself, too.”
“I just… I don’t know about her. I don’t think she’s cut out for this lifestyle anymore. She’s too wild, too angry. And she snapped at me the other day when I called her Hitomi. Said her name was ‘Akiko’.” Arata remembered that incident all too well. Keiichi had said her name, asking her to test out a new cell strategy with the other member of their team, Gorou. She’d promptly snarled at him and threw a kunai at his head, telling him ‘my name isn’t fucking Hitomi, its Akiko – get it right, dumbass.’ The tone of her voice and the words she used were far enough from Hitomi, to have the boys seriously wondering where the hell their reserved-slightly-psycho girl had gone. But the thing with her name? It was the first time the team honestly considered her sanity might not be in such good shape.
“This life is one that she’s had forced onto her,” the old man had replied. He sounded regretful, guilty. “And it’s screwed her over more than once. But it’s the only one she knows. And it’s the probably the only thing she can do now. Give her some time. Maybe you should recommend her for a psychological counseling? The Rizu girl… Amaya. She was talking to me the other day about wanted to check up on the kid. Said Hitomi said ‘let her in’. Freakin’ hippie. Anyway, she’s based at the hospital. Third floor. You might want to get an official order from the counsel or something, though. The kid doesn’t like hospitals.”
That was the last Arata overheard of their conversation. Gorou pulled him away by the ear because eavesdropping – as he had so incorrectly called it – was entirely inappropriate behavior. Apparently he didn’t appreciate nor understand the proper way to go about investigating. But that was fine, because he had learned a hell of a lot more about Abarai Hitomi that day. She had a bad experience with a male; probably the target that had taken her captive. Because of him, she hated men and anyone who looked relatively like him. He had also seriously screwed over her mental balance, and because of him, her sanity was questionable. Arata wondered what Hitomi was like before she was broken.
A lot can happen in three months, he found. Hitomi and Gorou turned fifteen (their birthdays were a few days off from each other, oddly enough). Hitomi’s sanity seemingly continued to slip away from her. Their team captain got married. They successfully accomplished ten B to A-rank mission. The death rate of Hitomi’s victims seriously heightened. Arata was kissed by a girl who had apparently had a crush on him since their Academy Days. Gorou lost sight in one of his eyes after he tried and failed to create a new technique. And the following month after those three? Hitomi was discharged from service to the village as a ninja for an ‘unfit mental state’.
He wasn’t entirely and completely, utterly surprised when he found out, no. Because even though she had been going to a psychiatrist for two months by that time, her sanity had still been rapidly decreasing. She seemed to have been switching between three personalities regularly, up until the time she was officially discharged. The rarely seen one was the one the team recognized as ‘Hitomi’, although she was severely and most drastically changed since the time before ‘Akiko’ had taken over. She was timid, meek; fragile almost. The main personality they saw was Akiko; she was the ever brash, bitter and down right complete bitch as ever, biting at anyone who came near her, or any male who did something relatively close to wrong. The team learned to deal with her. The third personality was one who didn’t talk much, but when she did it was as if she spoke in riddles. She seemed to calm Akiko down, able to control her rage. No name had been given to her.
At first, ever since the first ‘appearance’ of Akiko, Arata had always thought Hitomi was just crazy enough to want to pretend to be a different person. But ever a while, he came to realize that they were just as much apart of her as she was herself. He asked his sister about it, and she told him about the ‘Multiple Personality Disorder’. He had heard Keiichi discussing it with a women in hushed voices, and he caught little segments of ‘we need to take this to the council’ and ‘she isn’t fit to be a ninja’. Three days after he had heard that, Hitomi didn’t show up for team practice one morning. Instead, a petite little rookie Chuunin was there in her place.
Arata never saw Hitomi again, after that. He heard that she left the village after she had been discharged. But after that, there were only rumors here and there about a bounty hunter that might have possibly been her, but he sorely doubted it.
He moved into a quaint little house after three years of being stuck in a dingy old apartment. His neighbours were all old busy bodies who looked as if they were only civilians. One of the old ladies who lived right next door would always bring him over dinner, or bake him stuff. He was slightly worried about her intentions, but he found in the end that she just wanted company. Besides, it wasn’t so hard to be in her company. She didn’t needlessly talk on and on, and she as a good cook. The first time he went into her house, though, he realised what had been nagging at him ever since he thought he recognised the structure of her face. The walls of her house were covered with picture after picture of one specific girl. Of Abarai Hitomi.
“Who’s this?” He hadn’t needed to ask, but his curiosity was buzzing and he wanted to know. His studies about his old teammate had never been too productive. Perhaps now he would learn more? The women looked older then she must have been, he realised, for she was definitely Hitomi’s Mother. She proceeded to pull out her and her daughter’s life story, once he had asked. It lasted hours, but he found out a lot more than he ever thought he would have. After the night, and over a period, she continued to indulge him in talking about Hitomi. What she was like, how she changed, who she was. He asked other people who had been in her life, as well. Her first teacher, her Grandfather, Abarai Katsuro. And her Genin Sensei, Ito Naota.
She had been a sweet, innocent little mistake; and was forced into the harsh life of a shinobi for the sake of one Clan’s pride. But he couldn’t think to blame them for how she had turned out, like her Mother did. He couldn’t blame Katsuro for not standing up for Hitomi and trying his hardest to make it so she didn’t have to become a ninja. He couldn’t even blame Naota that much, for her negligence. When it came down to it, he could only blame the world, and what it had become.
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