these_lines1 (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} these_lines1) wrote,@ 2007-11-20 21:08:00 |
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Naruto. Yugito Nii. 024. Family.
Title: Unworthy
Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Yugito Nii
Prompt: Family
Word Count: 612
Rating: PG
Summary: We didn’t deserve it. We never will.
Author's Notes: None.
Kumiko tugged at the woolen neck of her ANBU shirt, sweat beading at her neck and rolling down her back. ‘Great, a second set of blacks that needs to be washed. Just what I needed.’ She reached up and resettled her hawk mask, leaning back against the trunk of the tree and gulping water from her flask.
The job wasn’t all that exciting, really. The most excitement she had so far was when a old man whose son had died at the Nekomata’s hands tried to infiltrate the compound. He got over the wall before one of the other ANBU killed him. But in all honesty, she couldn’t complain.
Guarding the temple was easy, compared to the constant border patrols the other ANBU squads were running in an attempt to stave off attacks from the other countries. The tales of Kumo’s weakness against the Nekomata had leaped the borders scarcely a week ago, and there were rumblings of war from the south.
She looked down, hands occupied with sharpening her nin-wire to a razor edge, just in time to see three of the caretakers- one woman, two men, their genders identifiable by their strides- step into the courtyard of the temple, the patterns of the sand destroyed by their feet.
The caretakers were anonymous; only the Raikage knew their names. Even their ages were unknown, and their faces? The caretakers were swathed in black robes, their faces hidden behind veils that concealed their expressions. She snorted. ‘Getting anything out of them is like trying to stop the lightning.’
The veils served a useful purpose, though. The girl- Kumiko was an anomaly among the villagers of Kumo by even thinking of the weapon as having a gender, much less a name- would be unable to bond with any of them, growing up without attachments, without family.
A needed attribute for the unstoppable machine the Raikage intended her to become.
‘Here she comes.’ The last of the four caretakers descended the steps into the courtyard, holding the girl in her arms. The girl was awake, her eyes- Kumiko blinked at the slanted, pale blue eyes, an unaccountable feeling of wrongness settling over her- flickering back and forth. The caretaker holding her flowed silently across the courtyard to join the others, the four veiled shinobi standing underneath the bone-white branches of the dead cherry tree, the child in their midst feared and hated perhaps more than anything else in the world.
Their silence, their mechanical movements, their unceasing uniformity reminded her eerily of monks, sworn to the service of their god.
Except monks didn’t hate their god.
The girl had already become eerily quiet, compared to the happy, grinning infant she had seen scarcely a week ago, as if she understood already that no one cared, that no one loved her, that she had nothing and no one that could be called ‘family’.
One of the caretakers muttered something to the one holding the child. The woman holding the girl nodded, holding the girl as far from her as she could without dropping her. The last word of the man’s sentence was easily audible, carried by the breeze:
“Filth.”
No, Kumiko realized, suddenly exhausted by the enormity of the tragedy that was the child, by her powerlessness to do anything-
‘Did you know this was her fate?’ She thought to the spirit of her ANBU captain, the child’s father. Only silence answered. She swallowed. Yes. He had known. He had known, and he had sacrificed himself and his child for Kumo anyway.
‘We didn’t deserve it. We never will.’
“Filth,” the man said louder, voice glass-shard-sharp with hatred.
No. There was nothing here like family.
Title: Unworthy
Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Yugito Nii
Prompt: Family
Word Count: 612
Rating: PG
Summary: We didn’t deserve it. We never will.
Author's Notes: None.
Kumiko tugged at the woolen neck of her ANBU shirt, sweat beading at her neck and rolling down her back. ‘Great, a second set of blacks that needs to be washed. Just what I needed.’ She reached up and resettled her hawk mask, leaning back against the trunk of the tree and gulping water from her flask.
The job wasn’t all that exciting, really. The most excitement she had so far was when a old man whose son had died at the Nekomata’s hands tried to infiltrate the compound. He got over the wall before one of the other ANBU killed him. But in all honesty, she couldn’t complain.
Guarding the temple was easy, compared to the constant border patrols the other ANBU squads were running in an attempt to stave off attacks from the other countries. The tales of Kumo’s weakness against the Nekomata had leaped the borders scarcely a week ago, and there were rumblings of war from the south.
She looked down, hands occupied with sharpening her nin-wire to a razor edge, just in time to see three of the caretakers- one woman, two men, their genders identifiable by their strides- step into the courtyard of the temple, the patterns of the sand destroyed by their feet.
The caretakers were anonymous; only the Raikage knew their names. Even their ages were unknown, and their faces? The caretakers were swathed in black robes, their faces hidden behind veils that concealed their expressions. She snorted. ‘Getting anything out of them is like trying to stop the lightning.’
The veils served a useful purpose, though. The girl- Kumiko was an anomaly among the villagers of Kumo by even thinking of the weapon as having a gender, much less a name- would be unable to bond with any of them, growing up without attachments, without family.
A needed attribute for the unstoppable machine the Raikage intended her to become.
‘Here she comes.’ The last of the four caretakers descended the steps into the courtyard, holding the girl in her arms. The girl was awake, her eyes- Kumiko blinked at the slanted, pale blue eyes, an unaccountable feeling of wrongness settling over her- flickering back and forth. The caretaker holding her flowed silently across the courtyard to join the others, the four veiled shinobi standing underneath the bone-white branches of the dead cherry tree, the child in their midst feared and hated perhaps more than anything else in the world.
Their silence, their mechanical movements, their unceasing uniformity reminded her eerily of monks, sworn to the service of their god.
Except monks didn’t hate their god.
The girl had already become eerily quiet, compared to the happy, grinning infant she had seen scarcely a week ago, as if she understood already that no one cared, that no one loved her, that she had nothing and no one that could be called ‘family’.
One of the caretakers muttered something to the one holding the child. The woman holding the girl nodded, holding the girl as far from her as she could without dropping her. The last word of the man’s sentence was easily audible, carried by the breeze:
“Filth.”
No, Kumiko realized, suddenly exhausted by the enormity of the tragedy that was the child, by her powerlessness to do anything-
‘Did you know this was her fate?’ She thought to the spirit of her ANBU captain, the child’s father. Only silence answered. She swallowed. Yes. He had known. He had known, and he had sacrificed himself and his child for Kumo anyway.
‘We didn’t deserve it. We never will.’
“Filth,” the man said louder, voice glass-shard-sharp with hatred.
No. There was nothing here like family.
