"The proof of the existence of a monster

is its victims."

- Zbigniew Herbert

If Kokurai hadn't found Emi, the girl would have been brought back to the lab and punished. In another universe, Emi died in that basement, confined to a tiny cell with barely enough room to stand. She never saw the light of day, one of the many experiments of Orochimaru, found as a baby and used for the secret of her Byakugan - she imagined that her death might've been quiet. Peaceful, even. Well, as peaceful as a lab rat could die.

In this universe, she sat in a brothel or what she thought was a brothel if the sounds were anything to go off of - she passed out somewhere between crawling out of the lab, her first successful escape attempt, and seeing light for the first time. It shone bright enough through the binding she wore that all she saw was white. Not even the faint outline of trees.

Rain pattered against the windows. The sound drowned out by the moans and grunts of clients. She curled her knees to her chest. The other people had told her about places like this, told her she'd be good for one once she was old enough. The room was small. Darker than the bright light she saw the first time. More lavish than anything she'd ever seen. First, there was a window. Second, the bed was warm, covered in a cloth soft to the touch.

She could barely see through the bandage, but there were some details she could gather.

A woman sat in the chair across from her. Her skin as dark as Emi's if not darker. Her hair pulled up in a complicated arrangement of coils and curls atop her head. Emi knew even through the bandage that this was the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen, prettier than the magazine pages she saw, with a nose wide enough to carry a small sun and cheeks that resembled puffs of clouds.

"You're awake."

"Why am I here?"

"I found you." At this, she looked uncertain. "Hopefully, it won't change too much, but I couldn't just leave you there. It was starting to rain and I only had a short time..."

She trailed off. Her lip curled up into a scowl. "They assumed because we look alike that… it's fucking bullshit to be honest. Are you even from Kuni?"

"Kuni?"

"Land of Wind?" When Emi didn't speak, the woman frowned. "It's where they say people like us are from. Look."

Her movements were slow like someone approaching a scared animal. She bent down and unwrapped the cloth from Emi's eyes. The ones she always wore. Orochimaru had a thing about her training with them on - there were, of course, some days where she took them off, but he always found out and the punishment was never worth it. He told her it was to make her better, push her vision to the edge.

The woman's face made her think there was more to his words. She looked shocked for a moment, just a moment, before she held up one hand.

"See?" She grabbed Emi's hand and intertwined their fingers. She paused at the needle marks lining Emi's arm, her eyebrows knit together in confusion. "Are you… ah … does the name Konoha ring any bells?"

Emi shook her head.

"You got parents?"

She shook it again.

"Fuck." When her eyes met Emi's, she swore again as if realizing some mistake she made. She stood and slid open the door, shutting it close with a loud smack of the wood against each other.

She left the room for so long that Emi activated her Byakugan to see. There were so many people running around. Kids like her scurried around, played with eachother in a room far removed, or they sat outside bedrooms. A few men had chakra signatures that were similar to people she trained against, lived amongst. Chakra signatures of people who lived to fight.

The woman returned, slammed the door behind her before anyone could see, and Emi deactivated her sight.

"Who were you with before?" She asked.

"Orochimaru-"

The woman held up one finger and hushed her. Behind her back, she withdrew a see-through bag filled with a blackened powder. She took a deep breath and smiled.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Emori."

"Good. Great." She bent down, held both Emi's hands with her own. "We're gonna call you Emi now. Is that okay?"

Emi nodded.

"My name's Kokurai." She tugged a strand of hair down, it bounded back into a tight spiral. "You like my hair?"

"Yes."

"Good. We're gonna make yours like mine."

Kokurai cut off the knots of Emi's hair. She cut and cut until it was nothing more than a bob framing her face, the strands died black and curled looser than Kokurai's but curls nonetheless. At the end, Kokurai held up a mirror and told Emi they could be cousins, that they were cousins now. She wrapped a darker piece of cloth around Emi's eyes to match the new kimono she got for her. With it on, it was harder to see, but Kokurai told her it was what they had to do.

No one could see her eyes.

Everyone thought her blind - the one time she tried to say otherwise, Kokurai stepped on her foot - and they all were quick to assume she was Kokurai's kin, her kamuro, her assistant. Nevermind the fact that where Kokurai was regal, Emi fumbled, or the fact that Kokurai looked like no one Emi had ever known - their shared skin did little to change that.

She was five, but she learned quickly. Had no choice otherwise. Kokurai instructed her well. Unlike the other kamuro, she wasn't allowed to wander the streets or run to shops. She could only go if Kokurai was there and even then, she had to hold her hand, pretend she couldn't see. She learned to ask, instead of shriek when a body fell to the was that?She would say and Kokurai would hush her or her bodyguard would lift them up and run.

That was another thing. Kokurai had a bodyguard. A man with a mask, a slash in his hitai-ate, that rarely spoke.

"I'm not supposed to be here." Kokurai said to him once. A test. She always tested people.

Emi was drawing. Kokurai gave her lots of toys.

The man didn't respond.

"Did she tell you that? I'm an oracle. I should be dead." Kokurai placed her hands on her hips, the long sleeves of her kimono slapped to the ground. "Did she tell you when she's coming back?"

Again, the man didn't respond.

Sometimes, she threw things at him - Emi enjoyed those moments, she'd even join. She'd pick up a toy and chuck it or throw a sandal, and Kokurai being Kokurai would stop, titter over herself on how bad of an influence she was.

Emi didn't think she was. She let taught her so many words. Fuck. Shit. Motherfucker. And Emi's favorite, bitch. The owner of the brothel? Bitch. The man at the door? Bastard. The ninjas who came to the brothel? Testy folk. Sons of bitches that took out their testiness on the courtesans in the building. On the nights when they heard screaming, Kokurai and her would make a game out of it. One scream meant Emi would activate her Byakugan, check to make sure the bodyguard was there. Two meant they'd lock the door.

Amegakure was in a civil war, but that wasn't Emi's concern. She grew used to the dead bodies and raids. By the time she was six, she was immune to it. She sat in Kokurai's room, drawing as she loved to do. Kokurai kept her hair tied under a satin scarf, rolled it up or behind her head so, it framed her like a green halo, but she wasn't awake now. She was slumped on the bed. Drool pooling out of her mouth and one hand stretched out where Emi had been laying.

Three knocks on the door meant the bodyguard was going to check on them. Emi stayed where she was, drawing, as he slid the door open. She expected to see his eyes peering him from the crack. She didn't expect another set.

"She's asleep." She heard someone say.

The door opened wider and a man stepped inside. He, like the bodyguard, had a slash in his hitai-ate. His cape was black, dotted with red clouds, and his hair was orange. Bright orange. Bright enough that it shone despite the darkness of her cloth and the room. He looked dead or dying. His skin held the palor of a corpse. She looked down at the paper, not at him, and attempted to continue drawing.

"Kokurai." His voice was deep, vibrating the wood on which he stood.

Kokurai's snores stopped and then resumed.

"Kokurai." The man repeated.

Emi saw one eye of hers pop open and Kokurai slurped up her spit, sat up slowly in her bed. She stared. Slowly, her face split open in a wicked grin.

"You've taken his body then. How does Konan feel about that?"

"Better than she feels about your betrayal." The man's voice was emotionless. "We need you to resume work."

"You drove them away."

"And you will get more." His voice got softer. On anyone else, she might've mistaken it for sadness. "This is for Yahiko."

"Yahiko wanted to build a world where I didn't have to do this."

"And he is dead because of his naivity."

"Unless you would like me to get rid of your bodyguard and allow Hanzo's allies to assassinate you while you bed them, you will do as I say." He spat. "You left the city-"

"That was a year ago."

"-and you came back with a child. A child who I have gone great lengths to keep hidden. Do you know what cage you pulled her from? Can you even begin to understand what forces you have messed with?"

"Do you?"She shouted.

They argued or Emi should say that Kokurai's words grew more bitter, spiteful, as time wore on. Emi waited for him to lash out as she was accustomed to men doing. He didn't. He didn't even breathe.

For a long time, there was silence.

Emi looked up to see Kokurai with her arms folded, looking like Emi when Kokurai had scolded her for eating all their sweets.

"When can I speak to Konan?" She asked quietly.

The man didn't answer. He turned and left.

Few men were allowed to visit Kokurai. Rich men from other lands. Ones who asked Emi what Kokurai thought of them and smiled when Emi lied. Ones who returned her lie and told her she was the spitting image of her big sister. They came and brought Emi gifts: kimonos, hairpins, and shoes. Emi sat with the bodyguards while Kokurai entertained them. Some of them would play games with her. Others would complain about being her babysitter as she sat and drew.

Not all men left the room. On those days, Emi waited outside until the bodyguards dragged the body away.

Emi learned to read by the time she was seven. Learned to write when she was eight. The war ended when she was nine. Hanzo's body was stuck on the highest tower and shortly after, the city was a cacaphony of crying and cheers.

"We can leave the house now, Emi!" Kokurai had shrieked.

"But, where will we go?"

"To grab mochi. Come on."

The screaming started when they were half a block from their home. Emi attempted to turn around, but Kokurai grabbed her shoulder, and subtly shook her head. The screaming only got louder with each step, loud shrieks mixing and blending in with the heavy drumming of rain against concrete and metal. She didn't look back.

They found a mochi stand up the street. One paper angel dangled from the door to go inside. Another sat on the counter separating the seller from them.

Kokurai stared at it, caressed the curves of it with one painted finger.

"Protection of the angel," the seller said.

"Protection?" Emi asked.

"From Pein-sama. So, he knows what side we're on." The seller gasped as if realizing some mistake. "I'm sorry. I didn't-"

"It's okay," Kokurai interjected. "She doesn't need to see to know."

They ate their mochi at one of the empty tables. Rain pattered against the glass. Outside, people's laughter mixed in with the sound of droplets smashing against the ground. Plop. Plop. Plop. The mochi was the best thing Emi had ever tasted. She ate one and then, two. Devoured the third. All while, Kokurai laughed.

"I was thinking Emi… do you wanna become a ninja?"

Emi looked up at her. Kokurai was staring out the window at some far off thing like she always did.

"I thought that ninjas were sons of bitches."

"Emi."

"What?"

Kokurai snorted. "Your language is shit, you know that?"

Emi shrugged again.

"I was thinking I could get you a tutor. A skilled one. Better than me." Kokurai rubbed the sleeve of her kimono. "One who can teach you medical ninjutsu. Help you with chakra control. Get you out of here."

Emi grimaced. Kokurai started talking like that when she got sad - a whole lot of 'Emi! You have a family out there whose rich!' and never 'Emi, where do you wanna live?'or 'Emi, who do you wanna stay with?' If it meant staying with Kokurai in this rainy city, sharing their one bedroom together forever, she'd choose that over everything.

"Or we could both leave," Emi offered. She fiddled with the one of the last mochi.

Kokurai grinned wickedly. "If we play our cards right. Sure."

A woman was in their room when they returned. Another ninja. Sitting on Kokurai's bed. In her hands, a little paper flower. On the floor, a thousand little paper flowers, all of varying designs. She was all light where Kokurai was shadow, moon-touched skin and amber eyes, piercings like sharpened bone. One in the eyebrow. Two underneath her lips. Kokurai stared openly at her because she was, and this was what Emi thought, the only person as beautiful as herself. Her expression shifting from rage to sadness before settling into something hollow.

"This is the girl?" The blue-haired woman asked.

Kokurai slammed the door shut behind her. "First time you've seen me in five years and that's all you have to say."

The woman frowned. Emi had never seen someone look so tender like an orange peeled open, the juice spilling out, staining the hands and floor. Her lips twisted as if tasting bitterness.

"Don't make this about you." She said quietly. "Orochimaru is looking for her."

At the name, Emi flinched.

"Did you tell him?"

"No." The blue-haired woman looked at the girl and Emi found herself puffing out her chest, making herself bigger than she was. She thought she saw her lips curl up in the smallest of smiles. "She could be any other Kuni refugee. Pein and I have assured Orochimaru we know nothing about her in exchange for your services."

"A favor for a favor, then." Kokurai scoffed. "We used to be friends, you know."

The woman looked down at the ground, her tongue darting out to fiddle with the piercing in her lip. Emi watched her expression harden, the tenderness disappearing behind a mask, a mask with cracks, one that allowed her lip to tremble slightly, her jaw to clench too tight.

"Friends protect each other," she said coldly, lifting her eyes to meet Kokurai. "Your selfishness and jealousy got Yahiko killed."

"Fuck you." Kokurai laughed, her kimono sleeves flapped against the ground with a loud smack. Her next words were quieter, spat out from some deep buried part of her insides. "Is that what you've told yourself? Did it stop the guilt? Did making me the villain, locking me up in here like fucking Rapunzel make you feel better?"

The woman didn't answer. She stared at Kokurai, her face unreadable, all the cracks of the mask filled in and smoothed over except for one tear edging it's way down her cheek. Slowly, she began to disappear. Paper peeled from her skin layer by layer, floating out of the window, until she was nothing. Gone.

Kokurai stared at the space where the woman had been. Her eyes wide as she stepped, one foot in front of the other, curling like a crumpled ball of paper on the bed. Emi stood awkwardly to the side and wrung her fingers together, debating what to do. She did this until Kokurai lifted her head. Her eyes swollen. Blood shot red.

"That was Konan," Kokurai said simply as if Emi asked. "We used to be friends."

"Oh. She's beautiful."

Kokurai laughed, coughed. "She is." Emi thought she might cry again and she didn't want that to happen. She hated tears. She eventually, reluctantly, walked over, her small arms doing their best to cradle the woman in a hug.

"Koko-chan."

"Hm?"

"Who's Rapunzel?"

Notes: This story will be gay.