Naruto. Yugito Nii. 028. Children.
Title: Nothing Like A Child
Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Yugito Nii
Prompt: Children
Word Count: 645
Rating: G
Summary: She was nothing like a child.
Author's Notes: Takes place right after Of Books and Bento Boxes.



Kumiko stood at the entrance to the temple, watching Yugito gather up the rest of her kunai and place them in her belt, precisely spaced apart, shined to a mirror-bright finish. Yugito had stumbled back as soon as she mentioned the bento box, going pale before hurrying past her into the courtyard where a kunai target was set up.

She had watched Yugito set up the target yesterday, struggling to hold the heavy sandbag, and ached to help, to jump down from the trees and grin at Yugito and hold it up while Yugito tied the knots. But she couldn’t. And the fact that Yugito hadn’t even glanced at the caretakers, hadn’t even thought of asking for help, spoke volumes.

Yesterday, Yugito had spent the entire day in front of the target, hurling kunai after kunai. She was calm, and cold, and utterly methodical about it. When she missed, she simply picked the kunai back up, paced back and forth while figuring out what went wrong, and tried again.

She was nothing like a child.

“Ready?” she asked. Yugito glanced up, nodded, and glided across the sand without disturbing a single grain to Kumiko’s side. Kumiko turned and unlocked the gate, swinging it open and stepping through. Yugito followed, her pale eyes darting up and down and around, absorbing everything she saw.

The trees were changing into brilliant red and orange and gold, the sky a clear, deep blue. Yugito walked in silence beside her, her muteness reminding Kumiko of the nights, when the Nekomata prowled the temple grounds.

“Are you excited about going to school?” she asked, looking down. Yugito met her gaze with eyes as blank and flat as polished glass, her brow furrowing.

“Yes,” she said, before looking away, staring at the squirrels that chased each other through the branches. “What are those?”

Kumiko followed her pointing finger. “Oh, those things? Those are squirrels. They eat nuts and run out in the streets and bang on my mom’s kitchen window to irritate the dog. Why, you never seen one before?”

“No,” Yugito said, before pointing at something else. Kumiko looked, saw the horse standing by the fence contently munching on hay, and explained the horse, too.

When they passed by, the animal reared, white eyes rolling, ironclad hooves striking the fence and buckling the wood, its shrill scream ringing through the cold fall air. Yugito jerked, and yet didn’t cry, didn’t reach for Kumiko’s pant leg like her little brother might have done.

‘The horse must sense the Nekomata.’ Unsettled once more, Kumiko glanced down, saw the thick black waves of ink peeking out from the neck of the too-big shirt, closed her eyes and shuddered.

Yugito asked another question, and then another, and with each question about innocuous things, things that all children should know, Kumiko’s heart broke a little bit more.

“What is a dog?”

“What are those things on the trees called?”

“What are the white things in the sky?”

They finally reached the tiny gate set into the high walls around Kumo, a gate just built scarcely a month ago. A gate that only Yugito and her caretakers would use.

“Okay,” she knelt, showed Yugito the lock, “take the key- here’s your copy- and stick it in the keyhole- not hard- and turn it. Good job!” The door swung open, and she led Yugito through, turning to close it behind her.

They were standing in the backyard of the Academy, and children- even her brother, Kensuke- were running madly through the front yard, screaming, laughing, playing, making mud pies and splashing in the puddles of last night’s rain.

But Yugito stood by her, silent, her face pale and pinched, her kunai gleaming in her belt, her fingers already developing the calluses of the shinobi.

Kumiko looked at her, the child who had never been a child, and mourned.