1. born in mist
Shinju was a superstitious woman. She would admit it with no embarrassment if asked. She had been raised on the outer islands that had long bowed to Kirigakure. In her youth she'd been raised by an elderly fisherman after her mother had died. He'd been a hard man, but with occasional bursts of kindness and an intense pride in his daughter's unexpected good looks.
In Shinju the best of her parents had come together to form a lovely face. That has how she'd gotten her name. Their unexpected beautiful pearl. On that small island she'd been a bit arrogant and vain about such looks in her youth.
Fisherman were some of the most suspicious people Shinju had known in her long life and so when one of wealthy men in town approached her father about buying her an apprenticeship and making her a lady he accepted it at face value. True, Takamori had been a long time business partner, but her father had been working on the assumption that this was the great thing his beautiful daughter had been born for.
Shinju in her youthful vanity had agreed and gladly followed Takamori to the mainland and into Hino no Mizu through the great gates of Kirigakure itself. At the time though it had a reputation for a certain fierceness it had yet to acquire the name Chigiri no Sato and was under the rule of Gengetsu Hozuki. It still had it's darker underbelly though and Shinju found herself, not being trained as a lovely geisha and lady as had been promised, but rather at a brothel.
The first years had been the worst, but Shinju had hardened her heart and grown up. The brothel had taught her much and introduced her to many of Kirigakure's most powerful players, being one of the more high end of flesh houses. Shinju watched and she learned. But aside from the power plays, politics, and sex, she learned something else. Whores were perhaps the only group as superstitious as fishermen. Fortunes were read and wisdom sought and signs discerned all under the watchful eye of the Okaa-san of the household.
Shinju kept her feelings of superstition and if anything, being surrounded by the unnaturalness of shinobi only enhanced it. Old and withered as she was, now far from Kirigakure's main hub and back on a distant island, she trusted her superstitions and her feelings.
So, when she'd awoken, joints sore, and to the chill of the morning mist she hadn't wanted to go on a walk. But something in her was poking at her and telling her to go on her morning walk. Shinju obeyed, grabbing her boots and clothes and heading along the familiar winding paths of the woods that had been her backyard a good fourteen years now. As she'd walked, Shinju pulled her shawl tightly over her shoulders, but felt the way the repetitive daily routine helped soothe something in her. She was at the point in her walk she could enjoy it, fully awake and not too tied when she heard it.
It was a soft crying noise. So muffled and quiet she thought maybe she'd imagined it. But then it happened again a desperate little mewl, like some abandoned kitten. Shinju was normally not the most compassionate of individuals, but she'd always been fond of the independence and confidence of cats. They appealed to her. She turned towards the noise and began her slow descent off the path and down the slight incline.
Pushing through the undergrowth and plants was bothersome and by the time she was at the bottom she was out of breath, but something made Shinju keep following the noise. It wasn't very loud, making her suspect the creature making it was weak. The more she listened though the more it unnerved her and sounded less like an animal and more human.
Getting passed the last tangled bit Shinju found herself panting, clothes mussed and torn, but largely unhurt on what appeared to be an animal path. Mostly overgrown and without much sign of human feet trodding. At least not any sign except the basket in front of her from which the sound was coming in a pitiful litany.
It was a crude basket, like that of the poor clans who made their livings scrounging around the edges of the outer islands and mainland and lived isolated for fear of Kirigakure turning their eyes back on them. Some were simply poor, never having recovered from being conquered, like the long scattered remnants of the Umino Clan. Some though, like the Kagura Clan, were known to be dangerous and violent even amongst the most uneducated of civilians. Those in Hino no Mizu had learned to fear kekkei genkai long ago.
Shinju had heard of the practice of abandoning infants if they were ill-formed, ill-omened, or too many mouths. It had happened once she knew of in her childhood, though the mother always claimed it to be an accident not deliberate murder. She had seen worse in her time among shinobi, but still the pitiful cries pulled at something she'd thought long buried. She approached the basket and bent down on slightly shaky legs to open it.
The first glimpse of blood red made her hesitate and only made her stare when she realized it was the child's hair and not blood spilling from a wound. Without thinking her hand brushed against the startling color, soft and baby fine, and in an instant there was silence. Unnerved, Shinju looked down only to have to fight the urge to flinch back. The baby, small and still damp from birth was looking at her eyes wide and focused unnaturally. They were eyes like a ghost, a clean blue-grey that resembled both ice and the mist that surrounded them. Even worse was the focus in them squinting up at her and unwavering.
Baby's did not act like this. They didn't look up at you with a ghost's eyes and blood colored hair. Shinju shifted her hand away from where it set frozen on the babe's head fingertips barely brushing the skin. The instant contact was broken the child let out a small whimper, the concentration fading from its gaze. All at once it was a newborn again, strangely colored no doubt, but scared and whimpering. Shinju shushed it reaching into the basket to gather it up in the rough blankets it had been left with.
She hadn't held a baby in decades, but her arms settled awkward but secure and her hands cupped the child's head. A quick peek before she wrapped the baby, who squirmed in the chill of the mist, and tucked them into the warmth of her shawl was all she needed.
A girl then. Either abandoned for her unusual coloring or sex one.
The whimpering ceased just as quickly at her touch and Shinju dared another peek at the baby's face hoping not to be cut once more in the unnatural gaze. Instead she found the baby had curled in on herself, closing her eyes and tucking close to Shinju's body heat. Like this she was clearly a child, innocent and harmless in a way things rarely stayed in Shinju's country.
And the hair. The sight of red hair, one that she hadn't seen in years, made her throat tighten with old wounds. Many had been lost when Kirigakure sought to expand its claims. Bright red hair gleaming in the sun, warm brown eyes, and a loud laugh was just one of many things that were slain. Such hair was either a sign of status or dangerous nowadays.
But hair though could be hidden, changed or covered or cut. The eyes would stand out, but girls could be expected to glance away and one startling feature was not enough to keep suspicion. Especially not if one was careful.
Shinju was too old to be a mother. Too bitter and worn by life, left alone in a too large and long empty home. But leaving the girl was not an option.
"Kasumi," she whispered to the child, a quiet promise. Kasumi for the mist, a name she'd chosen years ago and never had a chance to give. It fit the blood haired, mist eyed little thing though. Kasumi she'd be.
Shinju left the basket as she began her ascent back up towards her home. She felt oddly lively, even as she felt a tiredness gripping her muscles. There was much to do for little Kasumi. Suddenly her days seemed a little less like an empty expanse leading to death. This child was a sign of something to come. Shinju just knew it.
Author's Note: Work on one individual story, who does that. I swear this was an accident, but I was reading some of reverse by black. and fell into love with Kirigakure and wanting to explore it. And as I'm trash for OC-inserts this happened. Hope you enjoy, this one, despite the serious tone is strangely easier to write than the other too.