Naruto. Yugito Nii. 025. Strangers.
Title: Once Again A Stranger
Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Yugito Nii
Prompt: Strangers
Word Count: 371
Rating: PG
Summary: The other children all turned away, and Yugito was left once again a stranger.
Author's Notes: Takes place right after Nothing Like A Child.



Yugito stared after the woman in black as she disappeared up into the trees with a wink, promising to return when school was over. Something- grief at the sudden loss of the only person who was nice to her- howled inside her, clawed its way into her throat, escaped as a muffled moan.

“Okay, children! Line up by the door, please!” A tall man called out over the noise, the chaotic mass of strangers stopping their rowdy games and scurrying over, jostling and shoving as they got into line. The children were loud, much louder than she ever was, and their clothes were colorful: reds and blues and greens like the birds in her book, nothing like the drab black that was all she had to wear.

She glanced down at her clothes, picked at a stray thread morosely, imagining herself as a crow. People didn’t like crows, they thought of them as thieves, nasty creatures to throw rocks at. No one had thrown rocks at her, but the people in veils had threatened to, once or twice. ‘Come back, please,’ she thought to the trees, ‘I don’t want to talk to them- I don’t want to see them look angry at me- I just want to go home.’

No one came.

She swallowed, tightened her fingers around her kunai in her belt, lifted her chin, and marched up to the line, finding a place in the back. The girl in front, her dark hair in two pigtails, turned and smiled, gap-toothed, only to squeak and turn away as the teacher swooped down.

“Izumi! What do you think you’re doing?”

“B-being nice,” Izumi stuttered. Yugito watched the spectacle, wide-eyed, shrinking as the teacher turned his stormy gaze to her.

“Don’t be ‘nice’ to her, any of you. Is that understood?”

Silence and a thousand staring eyes.

“I said, is that understood?!”

Slowly, as water trickling through cracks in stone, the whispers of ‘yes’ began to filter through. Yugito met the teacher’s eyes as his lips curled in a triumphant smile, wishing- how she wished- that she could hurt him, could make him feel like she was feeling.

The other children all turned away, and Yugito was left once again a stranger.