A/N: Just a random idea that struck my head. Everyone loves to demonize the kids in the orphanage. But no one ever seems to defend the Orphanage Girl, someone who is morally ambiguous. Personally, I do not believe she is evil. She falls into the same dichotomy as Hitomi Shizuki-someone trying to help someone else who's hurting and instead becomes the scapegoat for someone else's problems.
The reason she appeared as a monster was because Lucy was guilty over killing someone she knew was innocent. And doing such a thing was monstrous.
Summary: We all love to jump to conclusions. And no one is more vilified than the unnamed Orphanage Girl, who supposedly betrayed Lucy's puppy to be killed by bullies. Was she really that evil? Or was she...a mere scapegoat for people unwilling to see her side of the story?
Scapegoat: In defense of the Orphanage Girl, a voice lost.
She is a mere child. She is a young girl, as young as we all once were.
Yet we cast fingers at her, call her awful names like 'bitch,' 'whore', 'slut' and 'traitor girl', without even listening to her side of the story. Do we even really know her? Do we even really understand why she did what she did?
Of course. She intentionally betrayed Lucy and got her dog killed. She got what she deserved. But the truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. Here is her story, in her own words.
Orphanage Girl was no stranger to horror and heartbreak.
She remembered it like it was yesterday.
A time when she had parents, a time when she was happy. She was a happy, loving child. She was given the name of Yukiko, a name meaning "brave child", or a child of snow. In other words, a child of innocence. She loved her mommy and daddy.
So why were they taken from her?
She doesn't know, and neither does the God who supposedly exists.
One day, she went in the car with them to go visit her grandma. When they finished, they were heading back home on the highway. Until a big, big truck came roaring down the road, and then she remembers some scary lights flashing in her eyes, and her mommy screaming her name, someone diving over her, and then blackness.
When she wakes, she finds herself being lifted out of the car by men wearing ambulance uniforms. They are doctors, she tells herself.
"Where are my mommy and daddy?" She asks, weakly.
They tell her that there has been an accident, a terrible accident. Her mommy and daddy were in the car with her, but the other driver was a bad man and he crashed into their car while he was doing something called a "drag race", intentionally moving fast, even though he knew he could hurt people while doing that.
Because of this "drag race", the doctors say, her Father went up to heaven first, but her mommy was still alive, but fast asleep. They call it being in a coma. Yukiko asks if being in a coma is nice. They do not answer.
She waits for Mommy to wake up.
Mommy does not wake up.
Mommy dies in the hospital two days later.
Why couldn't she have gone with them to heaven?
One day, she is taken to a place called an "orphanage."
The nice worker there tells her that an "orphan" is someone like her whose parents have gone up to heaven already. That means she has something in common with the other children here. She hopes they will be nice. She hopes they will be her friends.
She doesn't want her friends to go up to heaven, too.
Don't leave her all alone.
She is left to enter into a room with all these other, strange children. She starts crying for her parents.
A boy with blue hair comes and starts laughing at her, telling her she is weak, she is childish and pathetic.
"Parents are idiots. They don't care about us-they left us here to die!"
This boy's name, she learns, is Tomoo. One day, she asks the staff why Tomoo is mean.
They tell her that Tomoo's parents were not very nice people, that Tomoo's mother took something called "drugs" and because of this, she went up to heaven, while Tomoo's father was mean and would call Tomoo names and hit him and kick him and punch him and bruise him. He would deliberately hurt his own child.
Then one day, Tomoo's father married another mommy and expected Tomoo to get along with her. Tomoo did not like his father and he hated his new mommy even more. He did not want to be replaced.
But the new mommy had another child. The new mommy noticed his evil behavior and she too, smacked him and disciplined him, calling him disgusting. She discussed getting rid of him and sending him away.
The father willingly sent Tomoo away, even while Tomoo was crying for him to come back. The lady says Tomoo was only five and has been here ever since.
"Ever since," She says sadly, "He's been terrorizing others. We try to make him stop, but we can't bring back that same boy he used to be."
The adults aren't perfect.
She knows they can't stop the children like Tomoo from isolating others or silently hurting them. They do give them detention and put them in timeout and take things from them. But that only goes so far.
She is their next victim.
Tomoo destroys her clothing by cutting it up with scissors and laughs and laughs as she cries. He tips her breakfast on over her head. He trips her. He yanks at her hair and calls her stupid. He spreads lies about her, saying that she's a crybaby, that her mommy was a terrible woman who 'slept' with men.
Yukiko doesn't understand what this means. But she sure as hell isn't taking this lightly. She starts fighting with him. She is disciplined.
"She's such a bad girl."
"To think we thought she was a nice girl. She's just like Tomoo."
"Maybe we should give her away."
Give her away?
She was just sticking up for her mommy and daddy, that's all.
Is that a bad thing?
Time goes by.
Tomoo forgets about her.
He bullies other children.
Eventually, she becomes apathetic and stops caring.
She doesn't want to be hurt again.
She watches it and hates seeing it happen.
Sometimes, they even make her call the other kids names.
She refuses most of the time, but occasionally she will laugh, as if giving in to her abusers.
One day, everything changed.
A new girl shows up.
One with odd red hair and pink eyes-Yukiko thinks her eyes are pretty. They're like the rubies on the necklace Mommy wore, or the color of the sun when it sets. Or the color of the red in the rainbow, or pink in a heart.
She also has odd cat ears on her head. Yukiko wonders if she made those ears herself. However, apparently Tomoo believes they're real and that she's a freak.
She thinks her ears are insignificant. She's still a person.
Of course, Tomoo bullies her next.
And at first, Yukiko ignores her.
But over time, she notices how stoic the other girl is.
How can she fight back like that?
A part of her is envious, but another part of her is concerned.
So one day, she intervenes.
Much to her surprise.
"Hey, stop it! Tomoo, I'm going to kick your butt!"
"Crap, we've been spotted! I didn't think you'd do this to us, Kataru!"
She flips them off.
Her mommy would have hit her for talking like that.
But this girl needs a friend.
The girl's name is Lucy.
She doesn't know her real name.
She says even the nice teachers are mean to her and call her names in class and Tomoo's buddies pull at her ears and trip her and steal her things.
This makes her angry.
She decides, then, that she's going to protect this girl.
No one deserves to be alone.
One day, she discovers the girl is awesome, she is feeding a helpless puppy, even knowing that she could go hungry.
She is amazing.
She overhears Tomoo bad-mouthing Lucy.
It is a spur of the moment reflex.
She wants to prove them wrong.
"You're wrong about Lucy! She's much better than you!"
"What would horns ever do?" He asks.
"Well, she's nice enough to share her food with a dog she's raising! I don't see you doing that! She's a good person!"
He sneers.
"Oh, really? Show me this dog."
It can't hurt to just show them the dog, right?
It's not like he would do anything to it.
She sees them grab the dog, but not before the puppy bites Tomoo's hand and scratches him.
"Stop that!" She yelps.
She is suddenly hit upside the head.
When she comes to, she hears the dog barking and Lucy screaming as Tomoo laughs.
What on earth can be happening?
She rushes, feels like she has to go help.
She freezes.
They are beating the poor dog to death.
Why would they do such a thing?
Oh, god, it's all her fault.
She has made her only friend hate her.
Everyone hates her.
"Stop it!" She cries.
But it's too late, the dog is dead.
She wants to punch Tomoo as he talks, feeling tears drip out of her face.
"You told us about the dog."
Lucy gasps. "Why...?"
"I'm sorry...I didn't mean to! I...I only wanted to show them that you weren't a bad person. I didn't think they'd go this far and hurt the dog! Please, forgive me, Lucy! I'm sorry! I know what it's like to lose people! I lost my mommy and daddy. Please don't be angry."
She collapses, crying.
For a moment, the world stands still.
But then Tomoo's head falls off.
Arms...arms are coming from Lucy's back.
They behead the other children in the room.
Blood is on Yukiko's face as Lucy looks at her, her eyes red from crying.
Yukiko comes near the dog, whispering how sorry she is.
She sees those hands come near her face.
Lucy pauses.
"I'm so sorry, Lucy...I'm so sorry. Please, make it fast."
"I know you didn't mean it." She says. "But my mind says you didn't."
"Just end it...please. I want to see my mommy and daddy. Just snap my neck. I don't want to suffer. I'll go see your dog in heaven and I'll wait for you up there."
She feels the hands grab her neck and then she goes up to heaven.
A little girl and her daddy join them shortly after.
The little girl sobs that Lucy killed her.
Yukiko holds her, rocking her gently.
"It's all right...she'll be here soon."
She sees her.
Lucy is there, sobbing over Kouta.
"Lucy," She begins, "We've been waiting for you."
Lucy looks like she's seen a ghost as her fully-grown dog rushes to her side, licking her ferociously. She laughs, then freezes upon seeing Yukiko standing there.
"Yukiko?" She says.
"Yes, I'm here. I was your scapegoat."
She cries as the two of them embrace each other.
Yet down below, Kouta tells his children that the "Orphanage Girl" was mean and cruel.
The truth is far sadder. That a girl, innocent, tried to make things right only to make things turn out wrong.
Some people are just scapegoats, some people will never be seen as good.
This was the story of a girl named Yukiko and how she loved a friend enough...enough to die for her.
The End