Truth: I am useless.
Her first memory was the boy in the dark. She remembered being taken by the hand by one of the men in her clan. He thrust a tray into her arms and pointed her towards a cave opening. Of course, she didn't know what it was. She only remembered staggering as the tray was placed on her skinny arms, her shoulders being wrenched around so that she was pointed in the desired direction, and her back receiving a sharp thump.
"Walk," barked the voice of the man who gave her the tray. "Give him the food, bring back the dishes."
"Who is he?" she'd asked innocently. The Kaguya had no elderly. They killed themselves or were killed by others if they could no longer fight. Even at the age of five she understood this: the fight was everything for a Kaguya.
The problem was, she wasn't entirely sure she was a Kaguya. They just called her Nigate. She didn't know if it was her name or just a title, no one ever told her. She was not much like a traditional Kaguya. She didn't want to fight, and she had never handled a weapon. Granted, she was young, but she'd not so much as picked up a kitchen knife. She was in no way suited for combat, for these and one other main reason.
She raised her hand and placed it on the wall of the cave, trailing her sensitive fingertips along it. Her feet moved slowly on the unfamiliar ground, watching for any divots or lumps in the uneven floor. It wouldn't do to fall down and spill the food. That would mean a beating. That was always the way when she knocked something over or spilled something, despite the fact that she tried her hardest not to. She couldn't always help it.
She was blind. A fighter could not be blind.
Her sharp ears picked up the sound of shifting ahead of her and she pressed her hand more firmly to the wall, orienting herself. She followed along the wall, feeling heat increase and fade as she came close to and passed the torches on the wall. They did nothing for her.
Finally her hand hit wood. She trailed her hand along it and found more wooden beams connecting. With a quick skim of her fingers and the sound of shifting just beyond, she deduced this was some sort of barred door, meant to keep whoever she was feeding inside.
"Who are you?" asked a hoarse voice. She flinched slightly. She hadn't expected him to speak to her. She was never spoken to unless it was to be ordered around or reminded of how useless she was.
"I am called Nigate," she replied. "I am to feed you."
Slowly, she knelt to the ground, her hand sliding on the bars to guide herself down. She found a wide gap at the bottom of the door that she presumed was just for this purpose. She slid the tray inside and heard the clink of chopsticks on a bowl, followed by the sound of chewing. She sat there on the stone, uncomplaining, and waited. She was to bring the dishes back, after all.
"Stop looking at me like that!" snapped the boy in the cell. He sounded young to her, maybe her age. He was defensive and angry.
"I am not looking at you," she said quietly.
"You're staring right at me!" he snapped. "I don't like it, so stop!"
"It does not matter. I did not realize I was doing it. I am blind."
"Blind," he repeated slowly, obviously unfamiliar with the word. "What's that?"
"I cannot see," she explained.
"You can't see?" he echoed, sounding confused. "What happened to you?"
"I was born like this. That is why I am useless," she replied matter-of-factly. The statement meant nothing to her. It was simply a truth of her life, one that had been reinforced in her for so long it was second nature. She felt no hurt when she heard it. She assumed there were other people in the world who were useless, just like there were people who were useful. She was just one of the unfortunate ones.
"You brought me my food though," the boy pointed out.
"I have to do what I am ordered," she explained. "Why else would I exist? You are locked away, so I suppose you are dangerous. That is why I am feeding you. If you kill me, it would not matter."
"I'm not going to kill you!" the boy shouted. He sounded angry. She dipped her head submissively as he raged and waited for the storm to pass. "I'm not dangerous! I'm just… different."
"Why are you locked away?" she asked, tilting her head. She heard him shuffle, and then something was dropped onto the ground in front of her knees. She reached out for it and picked it up, running her fingers across it thoughtfully. The shape was unfamiliar, part of the edges sharp. This was some form of blade, she thought, the first she'd ever held.
She continued her perusal of the object thoughtfully. The material felt strange and new under her fingertips. She shook it by her ear and heard nothing. She brought it to her nose and sniffed it, before licking it hesitantly. The taste was odd as well. She bit on it and tried to bend it, but it was solid.
"What is this?" she asked, slightly frustrated by her failure to identify it.
"It's one of my bones."
"But… bones are inside of you," she scowled in confusion. "And if it is so sharp, does it not hurt you?"
"It's not like that when it's inside me," he explained. "It happens when I force it out, if I want."
"You force the bones from your body?" she said in surprise. "You make them sharp?" She'd never heard of such a thing.
"Yes," the boy said bitterly. "Why do you think they locked me up? They're afraid of me. It's not fair!" he said petulantly. There was a crash and the sound of breaking crockery. Her cheek twitched. She would be punished for that, no doubt.
"Have you finished your meal?" she asked, her voice somewhat colder now.
"Take it, I don't want it," the boy snapped. There was a scuffing sound and the edge of the tray slid into her knee. Spilled water and soup sloshed over the slight lip and soaked her too-big pants. Nothing she wore fit well, but she tended to her clothing meticulously, trying to make the most of it that she could. Her fingers were very familiar with the prick of a misaimed needle, but they were sensitive enough that she could stitch relatively well.
She took the tray and rose, placing a hand on the wall to guide herself back into the light. The same man who had sent her in was waiting for her outside of the door. She knelt down and placed the tray in front of him.
"What happened?" he demanded. She assumed he was referring to the damage the tray had taken.
"He became angry," she explained.
"What did you say to him? Oh, never mind," he snapped. "You're going to be doing this for a while, so you'd better get used to it and start doing a better job!" A foot came up and slammed into her face. She went flying and her back hit the ground hard, breath blowing out of her. She lay there and painted, eyes roving sightlessly across the sky above her as she fought to catch her breath and block the pain.
The sky… I hear it's blue… I wonder what blue is?
The next day she was shoved into the tunnel again with a tray of food in her hands. This time she also got a parting comment.
"Chip so much as a single dish and it'll come out of your hide."
Her hand trailed along the wall and her feet were a bit surer. She moved along the tunnel a bit faster now that she was had been here before. The more familiar a place was, the more quickly she could move. She could move around the camp that housed the Kaguya clan as if she could see, unless someone purposefully put something in her path, which happened with irritating frequency.
"I have returned with more food," she said as she knelt beside the barred door. She pushed the tray inside.
"What's wrong with your face?" The boy demanded, ignoring the food and scooting closer. She frowned slightly.
"I was to bring the dishes back. They were broken," she replied calmly. A soft hand pressed against her cheek. She knew he was reaching through the bars to touch her. His hands roved the skin gently and she could feel his eyes on her face. He seemed fascinated by the bruise on her cheek from the man's hit. His fascination interested her.
"Have you never seen a bruise before?" she asked curiously.
"How would I have?" he said bitterly. "I'm locked in here."
"Surely you weren't always," she said reasonably.
"For as long as I can remember," he disagreed, trailing his hand across her face. His fingertips traced her features.
"Who are you?" she asked, her interest now coming upon her full force. She did not know why he was locked away, besides his ability to manipulate his skeleton into a weapon. Perhaps he had hurt someone that way?
"My name is Kimimaro," he said.
"Kimimaro." She repeated the unfamiliar name, rolling it in her mouth and savoring the taste of it. She was not usually allowed to call people by name. She had to call them sir. "What do you look like?"
That seemed to throw him. "What do you mean?" he responded after a moment of hesitation.
"I cannot see you. I do not know what you look like," she shrugged. "May I?" she asked, raising her hands and slipping them through the bars towards his face. She felt his breath on her fingertips and again he hesitated, before leaning forwards. Her fingers were now touching his forehead. She traced along the outline of his face, then his profile, skimming her fingers gently over the soft skin of his eyelids. She ran her fingers through his hair as well as she was able, trying to get a feel for how long it was.
"What color is your hair? Your eyes, your skin, your clothes?" she rattled off.
Kimimaro suddenly found himself involved in a very odd exercise wherein he described himself. He'd never given a thought to his appearance before. He'd never seen how it mattered. Now he was noticing minutia he hadn't before as he described himself to a T. She kept asking for details and he kept answering even as he observed her.
She was a painfully thin little thing, younger than he by about two or three years. Her hair was gray and hung limply around her square face. Her nose turned up slightly and her cheeks already showed signs of prominence despite the chubbiness of face every child possessed. Her mouth was neat and small. She looked like she might one day be tall, but the fact that her clothes were big on her made her look so much more delicate and fragile. She was swimming in a worn pair of pants and a shirt, the fabric of the sleeves pulled back from her hands expertly. Most interesting were her eyes. They just looked ahead sightlessly, the blue-green color glinting in the little light in his tiny hole. The same red dots as he had adorned her face.
"Kimimaro," she repeated, finally withdrawing her hands from his face. "You have a nice face."
Kimimaro cocked his head. He wasn't quite sure how to take that. "What do you mean?"
"The others have hard features." She held her hands in front of her, cupping them in an example. "They have bulky, square angles. You are softer, pointed, yes, and deadly, but in a more refined way. I am confident you look very nice," she said decisively.
Kimimaro flushed, suddenly feeling flustered. He had never in his life received a compliment, and his first was not at all how he'd expected it would be. Or had he been wrong all along? Was that how you complimented someone? Did a compliment made everyone feel out of sorts and befuzzled?
"You look nice too," he returned somewhat hesitantly. Was it right to respond with another compliment?
She raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Do I?" She touched her own face. "Hm, I never thought about it. Thank you, Kimimaro, that makes me oddly happy to hear." Her smile was somewhat proud.
All too soon Kimimaro finished his meal.
He found himself waiting in the dark, longing for the times when Nigate came to him with food. He had to actively remember to eat. She spoke with him as no one else ever had and he forgot she was there for a purpose. She would touch him as they talked, learning his appearance by stroking his hands, arms, and face. He returned the gesture, assuming it was customary.
Her arrival changed his life in a way. His dank little hole suddenly seemed brighter, the flickering of the torches on the wall just around the corner took on a meaning of hope instead of taunting him with the world beyond his bars.
He had no way of knowing that he was as significant to her.
Her life changed both the day she found Kimimaro and the day she found the knife, the two being connected. Found was a rather strong word, as she cut herself with it while cleaning up the cutlery from the men's meal about a week after she began tending to Kimimaro. She had stopped working to simply feel the blade, testing it with her thumb, stroking the smooth side of the blade, gripping the handle of it in different ways.
It reminded her of the bone knife Kimimaro had handed her. It had the same biting edge, the same thicker grip, the same smooth sides. He had told her he was locked away for making these with his bones and it made her wonder if perhaps she could as well. Was it only Kimimaro? If she was a Kaguya, then they were somehow related, and maybe the ability stayed within the family.
It was that tantalizing thought, the idea that she could be powerful despite her infirmity, that made her reach inside herself and try to force the bone from her arm. Something shifted inside of her and she touched her arm, eyes widening in triumph! She had done it! There, protruding from the soft flesh of her arm, was a hard nub of bone.
She felt strangely vindicated, knowing that she truth she had accepted all her life –that she was worthless – was not the truth. There was a difference between acceptance and like. She hadn't liked it, but she'd accepted it. But she was not worthless, she had a power so great the others in her clan feared it!
And it was her clan. No one had ever actually told her. For all she knew she could have been found in the woods as a baby and taken in by the Kaguyas – although they were more likely to murder a found baby than raise it. Part of her sang at knowing that Kimimaro was her family, that they were even closer than she'd originally thought.
Almost immediately after the initial burst of happiness, her face fell. Kimimaro had been locked away for his abilities. The Kaguya feared the gift she shared with Kimimaro. She could never tell them or she would be thrown into the cell with Kimimaro. She couldn't bear the thought of losing the smell of the cook fires, the sounds of the camp, or the feel of the breeze on her face and grass on her ankles. She knew she couldn't even tell Kimimaro, or he would hate her forever because he was locked away and she was not.
It was then that she discovered something very disheartening. It was lovely to have a secret when it was something you could share should the need arise. When you were alone, with no one to discuss it, it weighed on you and twitched in the back of your mind, never letting you quite forget it. She ached to tell Kimimaro that he wasn't alone, but she also trembled at the idea of losing him. He was the only one who showed her any kindness.
This also spawned the realization that she was a very selfish person. She knew Kimimaro had a right to know but she would not, could not, tell him. She would carry the secret to her grave if it meant he stayed by her side and didn't hate her.
This was how she grew up. For three years she bore her secret in silence, and some days it did not bother her. She spoke to Kimimaro and sat with him as he ate, telling him about life outside of his cell. She tried to the best of her ability to describe the sensations of that life that she loved, but it was only ever a hollow imitation.
She blew across his cheek to try and illustrate the breeze. She tickled his ankles with torn-up grass, but it wasn't the same. The only thing she did that he ever seemed truly fascinated by was the carved flowers she brought him with their real counterparts in hand.
She had discovered, after tucking the knife away in her clothes, that she possessed a skill for carving that one wouldn't expect. Sure, her hands were covered in nicks and cuts from when the knife slipped in her clumsy, unwieldy grip, but her sensitive fingertips conveyed to her things that sight alone could not and she was able to reproduce images with startling detail.
Her favorite things to carve were flowers. She would stroke the petals, turn them over, smell them, and learn them as well as she was able before picking up the knife and whatever block of wood she had managed to scrounge and setting to work. She moved the knife skillfully, shaving away bits of wood sliver by sliver as carefully as possible, trying to make it perfect.
She brought Kimimaro these carvings with their real-life counterparts to ask how well they were rendered. He would always tell her absently they were indeed perfect, too entranced by the scent of the flower he had buried his nose into the moment she handed it to him. She left her carved flowers with him and Kimimaro adored them. The flowers withered and died, but the carvings stayed perfect forever. He lined the wall of his little cell with them, and soon he had a veritable bower with which to amuse himself until she came back with a new one in her hand.
She remembered vividly the day her family vanished. They left on raids often. Killing and conquering was the lifeblood of the Kaguyas, the thing they looked forwards to like nothing else. But never had they taken on an entire village, and never had they felt the need to take Kimimaro.
When she realized he'd been let out of his cell, she'd tried to run to him. She'd wanted more than anything to share his first few moments as a free man with him, to feel his reactions to all the things she'd described play out under her fingertips.
"Kimimaro!" she'd cried upon seeing him, only to be backhanded by a nearby Kaguya man.
"Shut up and get out of here. We're not taking you," he sneered at her. She had clutched her cheek. She could feel Kimimaro a short distance away in the same way she could feel everyone, sensing some sort of energy that every living thing possessed. Kimimaro was the easiest to identify, as she knew it well. She'd turned her eyes in his direction and given him an encouraging smile before running off to her duties.
They always came back, often with a few less people than they'd left with. The Kaguya didn't escape battle unscathed despite their lust for it, and she knew the concept of death well, even if it was something she'd never personally experienced beyond the dead animals she cooked for them.
This time, though, they didn't come back. She'd stayed for days, drifting through the camp, wraithlike. She'd make huge meals, expecting every moment for the men to return to the camp in high spirits, the heat of battle still hanging around them. Time after time though, there was nothing, and she was forced to throw away huge amounts of food.
It was a week before she finally allowed herself to face reality. They were dead, all dead, even Kimimaro, which tore her heart to ribbons. They'd faced a shinobi village and come out on the losing end. The only people she'd ever known were gone. The man who first told her to take food to Kimimaro, the one that always stuck out his foot and tripped her when she went by, even the clan leader. They meant little to her beside her job, her duty to serve them.
She truly grieved for Kimimaro though. She'd tucked herself away in his cell and cried against the face he'd carved into the stone. He was her only friend, the only person she could claim to love. At least, she thought it was love, as she'd never felt the emotion before. She would walk across hot coals before seeing him hurt, and yet she was gone.
With reality came the realization that she couldn't stay here forever, wandering the camp aimlessly. She now had a chance for a life, a life beyond serving the Kaguya. One that was hers to live how she saw fit. The concept was both terrifying, exhilarating, and sorrowful. She wasn't sure she could handle being on her own, as she'd never had to be, but the prospect thrilled her. She just wished she could have shared this experience with Kimimaro.
Her nerves were strong though, and she didn't leave the camp immediately. She spent days preparing, packing a single bag. She found old clothes of the men, and for the first time, was able to alter them to fit her, which she spent an entire day doing, making two shirts and a pair of pants that actually fit her and didn't have to be held in place with lengths of rope.
In the end, her bag was fairly heavy. She tucked her spare shirt into the bottom, wearing the other clothes. Her knife and a whetstone to keep it sharp were tucked inside. Bundles of food and a canteen were essential, as well as the length of rope she wrapped around the outside. She found a flint and steel for starting fires and added it to her supplies. She searched everywhere and gathered as much money as she could find.
Last, wrapped tenderly in lengths of the finest material she could find, were all the carved flowers she had ever made for Kimimaro, the only things she had left of them. She couldn't bear to leave them in the hole Kimimaro had so hated. It seemed disrespectful, when he had treasured them so much, to allow them to sit and rot in the dark as he had for so long.
She left the camp, pack on her shoulders, without a backward glance. It wasn't home to her, and she felt no sorrow to leave it, only a vague nostalgia. Home implied an emotional connection, and she felt one to the cleared section of the forest. It was simply a place she had once lived.
Yeah, I know, let's break out the tissues for poor Nigate. *snorts* The truth is, she's not going to be doing this whole pitiful me thing for long. With the Kaguya's gone she's gonna be a lot less submissive. I'd like to get about five reviews before I post the next chapter. I've got it ready, but I want any critique I can get on what I messed up and I'll take any suggestions of things you'd like to see happen. There will be a couple of side plots from the main overarching Naruto storyline purely for Nigate. No, she's not going to be essentially stalking Naruto's team. Yes, they will interact some, but not a lot. Yes, Kimimaro will be back, but not for a while. This is mostly about Nigate, although there will be a lot about her teammates later on when she reaches Konoha.