Contrary to what one would expect of this sort of story, the Seven Swordsmen did not shower Sute with love and affection. The five-year-old did not grow on them and worm her way into their hearts during the two months between Ameyuri dragging her into their bloodthirsty band of warmongering shinobi, and their return to Kiri. Her presence did not teach them life-altering lessons on love and peace that led to profound changes and cause them to sprout some sort of magical sense of empathy. They did not all develop secret soft spots for the kid and go out of their way to protect her.
This is not said in denial, but instead as a simple, basic fact.
In fact, the main reason that Kushimaru and Jinpachi didn't slaughter her for kicks was because they didn't want to deal with Ameyuri nagging them about killing the brat. The rest of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen did not possess any particular feelings towards the girl, and generally regarded her presence with ambivalence. As long as she didn't get in their way or expected them to feed her, they offered no objections to her presence.
Even Ameyuri, the one who'd dragged her into the mess, didn't go out of her way to care for Sute. The closest thing to concern she showed was when Sute insisted on retrieving that mysterious book she'd been lugging around for literally as long as she could remember. The kunoichi took one look at the tome's cover, and her face... changed. Became sharper somehow, almost grim. Lips pulling back in a frown, she silently took out a scroll and with a puff of smoke the tome disappeared, at which point she shoved the scroll into her pocket.
"Don't tell anyone about that," she growled, and Sute just stared at her before biting her lip and nodding.
As they continued their bloody campaign and she managed to keep up with them though, the Swordsmen admittedly grew a small, tiny degree of respect for the kid. They never went out of their ways to make her life easier or tried to keep her away from battle, but she managed to fend for herself fine. She possessed a survival instinct that rivaled that of most chuunin, able to take care of finding and preparing her own meals, and her childhood on the battlefields seemed to give her a level of comfort with death that Kiri spent years hammering into students' heads in the academy.
Two months passed between when Sute first joined up with the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen and her subsequent arrival to Kirigakure. When the locals saw the dirt-covered girl tagging along with the infamous horde of bloodthirsty killers, they eyed the scrawny little five-year-old with varying degrees of curiosity and wariness. When Ringo Ameyuri then went to the Mizukage to claim legal guardianship of her, they looked at each other with shrugs and decided to just go with it.
Ameyuri held a great deal of respect as the sole kunoichi to join the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen. Anyone who knew her even a little bit knew she wouldn't randomly sprout maternal instincts towards some random orphan she found on a battlefield. No, if she brought a kid back from the front lines and inducted her into her own clan, that meant the kid had some serious potential which would only benefit the village.
Ringo Sute quickly proved this belief to be correct.
Ridiculously smart for her age, the tiny girl quickly absorbed every academic lesson imparted upon her, showing a bright and quick mind for problem solving. Her taijutsu skills became noticeable quite early, her style rough and a bit clumsy due to her small body and inexperience, but she had clear potential and an ability to adapt. They couldn't say anything about her ninjutsu ability since her chakra coils had yet to mature enough to actually use any, but she started practicing her control fairly young.
Most promising though, she showed no signs of the inhibitions about resorting to violence that most of her peers possessed.
Once, shortly after she first arrived in Kiri, a boy shoved her in a puddle of mud and teased her about her hair. "Look at her, she looks like a clump of seaweed!" he snorted, pointing and laughing as his peers erupted into raucous laughter. Chants of "Seaweed-hair, seaweed-hair" rose from the ring of children surrounding her, their faces twisted into cruel sneers and mocking smirks as they laughed at her.
The green-haired girl blinked slowly as she staggered to her feet, wiping mud from her eyes, and watched them a moment longer before she turned and quietly departed.
When Sute returned to her new home and knocked on the door, Ameyuri quickly opened it and took one look at her state before her features twisted in disgust. "Kid, I know you're probably used to getting dirty, but even Kiri's a bit more civilized than that," she declared flatly. Mud and dirt covered Sute heavily to the point that her recently purchased teal yukata appeared to be brown. The small girl just shrugged it off, uncaring of the dirt.
Rather than let the girl track mud into the house, Ameyuri doused Sute with a low-power water jutsu, essentially hosing her off before throwing a fluffy towel at the child to dry herself. "How'd you even get that dirty?"
"A boy pushed me in the mud and said my hair looked like seaweed," Sute replied as she began wiping herself off. "What should I do if he tries it again?"
"Give them hell," the ruthless kunoichi replied without a second thought.
"But what if I don't really care?" her charge asked with all the innocence of a five-year-old who grew up scavenging battlefields.
"Do it anyway," Ameyuri replied flatly.
The next day, Sute did just that.
Coincidentally, the next day also happened to be the day that Suikazan Fuguki decided to introduce Ameyuri's new ward to his subordinate and the most likely contender to inherit the Samehada after him, Hoshigaki Kisame.
The shark-like teenager had some misgivings about meeting the kid his teacher and his colleagues picked up on the front, since past experiences taught him that young children did not typically favor him. Which was a polite way of saying they screamed like banshees and dove for cover behind the nearest vaguely familiar adult. Yeah, he didn't really want to deal with another kid freaking out at him. He was nothing if not loyal though, so he dutifully went to Ringo Ameyuri's house.
About halfway there, he passed some kids running with panicked looks on their faces, which was... interesting, and roused his curiosity.
When he turned the corner a few seconds later, he stumbled upon a very interesting sight.
A young girl knelt by the feet of a boy shrieking on the ground in fear and agony, a bloody kunai discarded on the ground next to her. Her eyes flickered in Kisame's direction when he approached and her bright green eyes widened, and she quickly leaped to her feet and fled without a word. A little perturbed by the sight but not too much so since Kiri had a penchant for churning out violent children, Kisame continued onwards and paid the scene little mind other than a brief glance at the cowering boy, blood oozing through his fingers as he clutched his left foot with small sobs.
When he arrived at Ringo Ameyuri's house though, he found his teacher's colleague standing in the front yard speaking to the same scrawny little girl with green hair he'd just seen crouched over the other kid mere minutes earlier. "Oh, Kisame, there you are!" Ameyuri called with a sharp-toothed grin. "Great timing, Sute just got back!" The child in question turned to face him and their eyes locked, and Kisame noted her hands still had blood and she seemed to be holding something small and pink.
Blinking, her apple green eyes flickered first to him and then her hand, and then him again before finally she stepped towards him. Almost reverently she extended her hand with her palm facing up and presented the small, pink thing to him like an offering—
Wait, was that a toe?
Yes, the blue-skinned teenager silently confirmed in shock, that was indeed a tiny toe. Being offered to him. By a five-year-old girl.
Bloodthirsty killer in training or not, Kisame couldn't help but feel something horribly wrong about the blank look she had despite just giving him a severed toe. Not "blank" as in dull and lifeless, but "blank" as in childish and innocent, her eyes still just as bright as any other five-year-old. It clashed way too strongly with her bloody hands and if not for the fact he'd seen her hunched over that kid five minutes ago, he'd almost think she just found the toe. Which would still be mildly disturbing but not nearly as much.
She looked at him expectantly, and it occurred to him she might not be presenting it to him like an offering, but she might actually be doing just... that. Presenting it to him, as some kind of weird gift.
"...You shouldn't have," he said lamely, his usual sharky smirk replaced by a blend of befuddlement and mild shock. He had never really gotten a gift before, let alone a severed toe. Still looked warm, too. Which... Kind of gross, actually.
"I didn't," Sute said, her bangs falling into her face as she tilted her head. "He made fun of my hair and Ameyuri said I needed to get payback on him for it. I cut off his little toe because he doesn't really need it, and he can learn to get around without it if he trains enough."
"...Okay then," Kisame muttered awkwardly. There was clearly something very off about this girl, even he could recognize that. Suddenly he understood why she managed to last two months without getting killed by Kushimaru or Jinpachi.
As he reached out and gingerly took the... gift, he supposed, he started to pull back his hand only for her tiny fingers suddenly gripped his wrist. Kisame gave a small start, admittedly caught off guard. Bright green eyes bore into him as he stared at her, her face still blank, and then.
Then the weird kid smiled.
"Blue!" she cheered, rising onto her toes to latch onto his arm with both hands. Startled by the abrupt contact and cheer, Kisame stared at her dumbly as her grin grew bigger.
"Uh, Ameyuri?" he called, feeling a bit uneasy at the weird manic glee that seemed to sparkle in her eyes. "I think your kid's broken." The kunoichi gave a loud snort in reply, not even trying to stifle her snickers.
"You need to learn to take a compliment," she called, and Kisame whipped his head to stare at her in disbelief.
"Compliment?" he sputtered. "All she said was blue!"
"Ah, but she said it in a happy voice, right?" The shark-teen blinked before turning to the kid again and found Sute still grinning up at him, the weird manic glee in her eyes shining even brighter.
"Blue," she repeated in a delighted hiss, and before he could conjure a response the child leapt up and started climbing him. The teenager gave a startled yelp and tried to shake her off, having more than exceeded his normal quota of daily physical contact. Apparently the brat had monkey genetics though because she managed to cling onto him despite his best efforts, and she managed to scale his body before settling on his shoulders.
Strands of wavy muddy brown-green hair (which definitely did resemble strands of seaweed) dangled into his face as she leaned over him, and he reflexively tilted his head back to meet her gaze. Her face had that same blank innocence it had earlier, her features slightly somber as she reached out a tiny hand and patted his hair.
"Shark-nii-san," she declared solemnly.
Kisame's brain shut down for about five seconds as he processed the latest insanity to leave her mouth.
"...Ameyuri?" he called, his voice cracking as just a hint of panic seeped through. "Uh... help?"
Her only response was raucous laughter.
Kisame's skin grew two shades paler as he stared at the innocently smiling Sute, his brain struggling to process his current predicament. What the hell. What the actual freaking hell. Children should not smile so cute and innocently, especially kids picked up from freaking battlefields.
"Onward, Shark-nii-san!" Sute declared eagerly, her legs kicking outwards in excitement as she wrapped her arms around the top of his head in a tight hug.
That day, Hoshigaki Kisame learned that young children who didn't fear his shark-like appearance did exist, and he sincerely wished that she didn't.
Later that night, Sute sat in her bedroom with a small notebook, scribbling in a familiar childish scrawl that would look like gibberish to anyone else. No one could read English in this world after all, as far as she could tell the language didn't exist.
Hoshigaki Kisame. Current Age: 12? 13? (Very tall, hard to tell)
Status: Genin? Already connected to Seven Swordsmen, but no Samehada yet.
Surprisingly kind and a bit nervous. Disembodied toes make him very uncomfortable. Further observation needed.
She doodled cat heads and flowers in the corner of the page, drawing looping arrows to connect them to random words. Running into Kisame had been outside her expectations and plans, not that she really had any plans yet. But she at least knew the man was future Akatsuki, which meant he'd be incredibly strong. Her notes on the man were bare-bones at best, it had been years since she'd read the Naruto series in her last life, but seeing him had jarred some memories and facts. Blue shark-like men tended to be pretty distinct after all. Humming in thought, she jotted down one more sentence:
May be able to befriend before his defection.
She underlined it and then capped her pen and dropped the notebook onto her bedside table, before reaching to turn off the lamp. As darkness fell over the room she laid her head on her pillow, her mouth curving into a grim smile. She knew this world was harsh, and she already knew that she in particular would be a prime target for many forces. She had spent five years doing basically nothing before the memories trickled in, and she couldn't afford to sit by idly and let her knowledge of the world fade.
Sute snorted in faint amusement as her eyes slid shut, a certain person's words echoing in the back of her head:
"This world has a lot of bad people in it who would want to hurt you. You're a little girl, so they'll go after you more. I want you to be able to defend yourself, no matter what."
Funny how those words would apply to both this life and the last.
Remember when I said this story would have crack-ish moments? This chapter is what I meant. This is not the last time Kisame will be mildly traumatized by Sute.
Sorry for the late update. In my defense, I had my wisdom teeth taken out on Thursday, and spent most of the weekend just recovering. Then yesterday (Sunday) was my birthday and got a Nintendo Switch! Mostly out of pity for the recent surgery. So, yeah. Been a weird few days.
Once again, thanks for all the wonderful feedback! Specifically, Tyr Krustak (Thanks! I try my best and plan to update at least once a week), .tatiana (I think you'll find Sute has many unique circumstances compared to normal SI's), Lity (Ya veremos...), KadeBear (I think it might be because there is no logical timeline for Mist asdfghjkl stupid retcons and rewrites), May525 (No genius babies here! Those are kinda annoying to be honest), The Absolutely Mad Mage, Artificer of the Void, Northchild and Guest!
This chapter's pretty short, so I'll probably see you guys soon with the next one!