Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to Naruto or its world. I don't own any media or pop culture referred to or mentioned in the story.
A/N Trigger warning: Bullying and harassment.
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5 Months Later - Konoha Orphanage (August)
Names have power.
Names meant a family. A place of origin. A sense of self and belonging.
Some of the children Konoha's orphanage took in were lucky enough to still have family names.
The children with shinobi, noble, or clan names had eyes on them, people that watched out for them from the outside. Some kids even had sponsors, individuals or entire families, who'd scout them and endorse their enrollment in the academy for future placement in different departments and teams throughout Konoha.
These Named Children more often had newer clothes, personal items, and luxuries like toys, weapons, or even their own rooms with fewer children. It's assumed they'll become shinobi, or serve the state in another significant way.
So Kiori kept an eye out for the power the Named Children brought. If one took you under their wing, you were set!
Kiori thought that was the case with the new girl. When the red haired girl first came in, she seemed special. The signs were there: the Shinobi escort dropping her off (A Hyuuga!), the special meeting with their group's Warden. Even her appearance!
Before the new girl came, Kiori had never seen a combination like hers: hair so red and curly, it looked like someone dunked her in paint then shook it out to dry without brushing it. And eyes, large and silver, that reminded Kiori of bottomless mirrors she'd sink into.
Usually, unique features meant a clan or other specialty. So Kiori treated the new girl as any other potentially Named Child.
To the caretakers, Kiori does no wrong. She was the first child they introduced the new girl to, leaving Kiori to show her around their age group's (the 5 to 9 year old girls) room and common areas.
But when it came time to introduce herself, Kiori realized something: the new girl couldn't speak.
Well, not exactly. When Kiori spoke to her, introducing herself, the new girl muttered something under her breath. It took a few times to get her to talk, but when the new girl did, it didn't make any sense!
As time went on, the new girl kept getting odder. She stuck to the shadows instead of playing with other girls. She always hummed while playing with her hair, staring at nothing. And sometimes… Kiori heard her talking to a ghost.
On top of that, the girl cried in her sleep muttering, "Baabaa," most nights or gasping like she was choking. That scared some of the younger kids. But many of them had nightmares, so that wasn't out of the norm.
The creepiest thing of all was when the new girl disappeared, like the ghosts she talked to. She'll creep around a corner, or go into the trees other kids avoided, then she'd disappear for HOURS!
Kiori tried to follow her once, thinking the new girl was meeting with someone or doing some special form of training, but Kiori only ended up losing her way, so she stopped trying to follow the new girl.
Things took a turn when the caretakers started losing patience, yelling at the new girl after she came inside for dinner several times with twigs, leaves, and other bits of nature twined in her curls.
Yuck.
At a certain point, it was too much for their overworked caretakers. When the redhead snuck into dinner one night smelling of water and leaves and the forest, an insect fell on another child's plate, making a few scream and mess up the table.
The whole mess resulted in one of the more impatient workers that night, an older woman called Miss Misoka, to pull the girl from the table, turning her by the shoulder. "That's it. Come here!" The older woman had wrinkled her nose, wrangling the new child. "You're always making TROUBLE!"
The redhead struggled against the hold, but Miss Misoka wasn't having it. Expertly, from years of dealing with unruly children, the caretaker picked the child up. The girl whined and spoke in her gibberish as she was carried from the room, dinner untouched.
Later that night, right after lights out, the girl was shoved into their group's bedroom. From the hall they heard Miss Misoka tell her, "Let's see you get into a mess now, Tsunami." sounding very satisfied with herself. (So her name was Tsunami… That's not a common name in the Land of Fire.)
When the new girl came to breakfast the next day, everyone saw what the mean caretaker meant: her shoulder length red hair was now sheared short, leaving it in an unruly mane right above her ears. It made her look scrawny and small, making her look younger. She appeared closer to 4 or 5 instead of her actual 6 years.
It was like the life was zapped out of the new girl. You could see her eyes, now looking murky gray instead of silver, reminding Kiori of dirty water. Her rich tan skin wasn't pale, but it seemed to lack color. And her lips were chapped from always being chewed on. Now, she looked like a ghost too.
Nowadays, the (no longer) new girl never looked at anyone, always jumping at the loudest sound. Always keeping to herself. The other girls started avoiding her, calling her Tsumi (like sin) when the other girl came near to eat or bathe. The name stuck. Now, Tsumi has a name.
The final clue that sealed it for Kiori was this: no one ever came for her. Months passed, the seasons changing from the humid, wet spring to the Land of Fire's hot, sweltering summer. In all that time, no one came for 'Tsumi.'
With that, Kiori knew this girl was a Nameless, like so many of them. Things changed for Tsumi when other kids figured it out, too.
For one, Eiji quickly honed in on the fact. He was a nameless boy in Kiori's age group, the 5-7 year olds, who always tested how far he could go, pushing the rules before being disciplined. He was large for his age with a heavy bone structure that made him a shoe-in for the academy when the time came.
One day, when the Wardens gave the children a special frozen treat to beat the summer heat—"Thank the generous donation of the Hidden Leaf Village!" The wardens had cheerfully stated—Eiji wasted no time targeting Tsumi. He pushed her and took her strawberry ice cream before she had a bite. When he saw no serious punishments, this only emboldened him.
From that day on, Eiji and his friend Takuma regularly harassed and teased the girl out of earshot of the caretakers and wardens.
One day, he came into their room, going to Tsumi's bed to swipe her only blanket. Tsumi of course, yanked back, shouting in her gibberish.
The girls in their room only watched, not wanting to help Tsumi, but also not wanting to bring Eiji's attention to them.
When Kiori was interrupted from her book (a gift she won from a game with an older child) because of Tsumi's annoying shouts of anger, Kiori put the book down and cleared her throat. Eventually, Eiji noticed.
"You gotta problem?" Eiji asked, still holding the girl's blanket in his hand. Tsumi was pulling with all her might, glancing at Kiori hopefully.
Did she think Kiori would help?
Kiori only huffed and went back to reading, ignoring the hopeful gaze. "Keep it down. Just take it already."
Eiji grinned meanly, looking at Tsumi. With a quick punch to the stomach, he was able to swipe her blanket and run off laughing.
That night, Kiori had to work a little harder to ignore the sniffles she heard across the room. It was annoying. Tsumi wasn't special. A lot of them had something to cry about.
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A/N Thanks for Reading. See you next time!