ϟ—Interlude Two — Alone in the Void—ϟ

The moment she was born, her parents called her a curse. That was what she was told, at least. It wasn't like she ever met them. As a newborn, Sami had her surname taken and she was thrown into the orphanage.

Alone.

⁑ —ϟ— ⁑

All the little girl Sami remembered… it was cold, always cold in Kumo. The clouds were pretty, but it made it so she couldn't see too well in the shrouding clouds. Night was dark and even colder. What made it all worse was that she was shy, she was quiet… it was hard to make friends.

The other kids played without her.

Sami tried not to mind, it was hard.

Just her and her doll… a girl with black hair, blue eyes, and brown skin.

Forcing a smile, sitting in her bed, she played with the little doll. It wasn't any fun. Not at all.

"Hey! That doll looks like me!"

Sami looked up, seeing a girl. Black hair, blue eyes, brown skin. Just like her doll. "Wow… it does."

She laughed. "Y'know! There are some people that can make dolls out of people and control them with the doll!"

Sami frowned. "That sounds scary…"

"What if that's one of those dolls?! And you can control me using it?!"

Sami blinked. "Uh…" It was weird… this girl just… started talking to her. Out of impulse, Sami raised the arm on the doll.

The girl's hand rose into the air.

They both gasped. "Woah!" the girl yelled with a cheeky smile on her face.

"Wait— what?!" Sami yelled, flabbergasted as she dropped the doll and it sprawled on the bed before.

The girl then dropped to the floor, sprawling… in an entirely different position. Not that Sami had the mind to notice.

"I'm sorry!" Sami squealed, tears welling in her eyes. All she got in response was… giggling?

The girl giggled on the floor, pointing at her. "You fell for it!"

"It was a joke?"

"Yeah!"

"You're so mean!" Sami shouted before crossing her arms and huffing.

The girl jumped up on the bed and gave Sami a hug from behind. "But it was funny right?"

"I… a little bit…" Sami admitted, only because of the physical contact. It was… nice…

The girl hugged her tighter. "Then that means we're friends, right?"

Friends… she wants to be my friend?! Sami gasped, her sour attitude melting into an adorable smile. "Yes! Totally friends!"

"Yay!" the girl hugged Sami even tighter. "What's your name?"

"Sami! Yours?"

"Rika!"

Both little girls laughed and giggled, playing with that doll together for hours.

It was the most fun Sami ever had in her life.

⁑ —ϟ— ⁑

Sami sat with her eyes shut, fists clenched over her thighs. Rika was behind, hands in Sami's hair, doing it into a style, braids. It'd been a couple of months since they first met, and Rika said that she was practicing it in secret.

It was finally time for her secret to be revealed!

"I'm done!" announced Rika.

Sami giggled in anticipation before running to the nearby mirror, with Rika not too far behind. Both of them had an excited grin on their face.

The moment Sami looked into the mirror, she gasped and clapped her hands over her open mouth. Her amber-brown curly hair had four strands of sloppily done yet beautiful braids. A tear welled in the girl's eye. "I love it, Rika!"

"Yay!"

"I almost look as pretty as you do with my hair like this!"

"No way! You're totally prettier than me right now!"

"Nuh uh!"

"Yuh huh!"

Sami and Rika just laughed and giggled together. Emotion overook Sami as she wrapped her arms around Rika and squeezed tight. "You're the bestest friend in the world!" She was so happy that her palm tingled… it felt, weird.

But as Sami hugged Rika… she didn't do anything. No talking, no moving. Her body just slumped, all of Rika's weight leaned into Sami. "Woah, are you okay?"

No response.

Sami blinked. "Rika?" she pulled back from the hug and Rika fell limp on the floor, belly first, not moving an inch. Sami pouted. "You've pulled this joke a hundred times before! It's not funny."

Not like she usually did, she didn't laugh or do… anything. Sami huffed. "Well, you've gotten a lot better at it!"

The complement didn't phase Rika as she remained still. It didn't look like she was breathing. Sami pursed her lips and checked, sticking a finger under her nose. No air came in or out.

Rika wasn't breathing.

"Don't hold your breath for too long, it'll make your head hurt bad when you breathe again."

Rika still refused to respond.

Sami shook her to wake up. "Rika! Stop it!"

Nothing.

Sami shook her harder. "Rika!"

Still nothing.

Sami's heart beat harder and harder. She felt sweat roll down her face. "Rika wake up!"

She didn't wake up.

"Help! Somebody! Rika's not waking up!"

It didn't take long for a caretaker to show up. A dark-skinned woman with hair like sunshine. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Rika's not waking up! She's not breathing either!"

Panic immediately crossed the caretaker's face as she hurried over to Sami. She put two fingers on Rika's neck. Sami saw the horror overtake her face.

"Is she going to be okay?!" Sami asked, tears in her eyes.

Shaking, the caretaker shook her head. "No…" She flipped Rika on her back, putting her hands on her heart and pushing. Rika didn't react. Tears broke from Sami's eyes.

"Please tell me she's going to wake up!"

The caretaker didn't respond, just pushing up and down on Rika's chest.

"Please!"

It took another few minutes of Sami's pleads and sobs for her to finally stop. The caretaker was crying too. "She's… gone…"

"Gone?! What—"

She got off of her knees and walked toward Sami. Both of them were crying, but Sami was sobbing. "She won't be coming back."

"No… but— but she's my only friend! She has to come back!"

"She can't— I'm sorry—"

Sami grabbed the woman's arms. "No—!"

The woman collapsed, all of her weight falling on Sami before the girl could react. Sami screamed out from the sudden fear— the sudden weight that pinned her to the floor. She tried to push her off but couldn't. "Get off of me! Please! Wake up!"

As Sami kept touching her, the more the woman's face next to her started to lose. Lose color, lose fullness, lose life. She looked more and more like a skeleton and Sami couldn't stop screaming.

Three other caretakers burst into the room.

The woman's limp, dead body was pulled off of Sami. Before any of the other's could get to her, Sami screamed and ran to the corner. "Stay away!" she wailed. "Leave me alone!" she cried.

They stepped forward and Sami put her hands out to try and block them.

Just like Rika, just like the woman with sunshine hair, they collapsed.

Sami's palm glowed. The diamond mark on her palm glowed a sinister purple. She forced a fist and held her hand in her chest, crouching over it.

Her sobs were screams and her cries were wails.

Sami couldn't stop.

Stop crying…

She refused to look up at the dead people in front of her.

They were dead because of her— she didn't know how she didn't know why it was all so…

All the girl could do was cry.

⁑ —ϟ— ⁑

It was the next day. The room they put her in was so dark. She couldn't remember how they got there. First, it was a Shinobi in a mask. Next, it was black.

Still, it was black. Except the torches on the rock walls allowed her to see at least a little bit. In front of her, the bars of a cage were visible. Metal… was she in jail? Did she go to jail for… for…

Sami cried again. "I'm sorry…" she pleaded, nobody hearing her in the darkness. "I didn't mean it!" She tried to wipe away her tears, but one of her arms was chained. Her hand was forced in a glove, she couldn't move her fingers or her wrist.

"Please let me go! It was an accident!" Sami was surprised that she still had so many tears left to cry. "I just… I don't know! I don't know what happened!"

Fear seeped into her horrified grief as nobody answered. "PLEASE! I'M SORRY!"

Another minute passed with Sami screaming into the void… all alone.

Eventually, Sami gave up and cried in silence, closing her eyes as she hung her head.

She made people die.

She killed people.

She killed Rika. Her best friend…

Sami didn't deserve to be forgiven. It was a good thing that she was in jail now. That way, she'd never hurt anyone else again.

What if they didn't feed her? Would that mean she'd die too? Was that her punishment for killing people?

It made sense…

Too much sense.

Sami cried even harder at the crippling realization. "PLEASE! I'm really really sorry! I don't wanna die please!"

"You're not going to die," someone finally responded.

Sami gasped, opening her eyes to look up. It was another masked Shinobi. Was it the same one that brought her here? Probably. He had blonde hair, like sunshine. His mask had the sun on it too.

"A-am I going to stay here forever?"

"No! Of course not!" he responded, his voice taking on a more friendly tone. He made a symbol with his hands and the cage opened.

He walked toward her—Sami panicked. "Don't get close to me! You'll die!"

Surprisingly, he laughed, shaking his head. He crouched down in front of her, pretty close. "No, no, I won't. The power you used, it came from your hand." He pointed to her chained and gloved hand. "And look at it! I don't think you'll be hurting anyone like that."

"Oh…" Sami blinked. "But… what about… when I leave! I don't want—"

"Shh," he soothed. Somehow, Sami could tell he was smiling behind the mask. "You're going to be okay. If everything goes to plan, then nothing else bad is ever going to happen again."

Sami nodded slowly, losing the tears in her eyes. "Do you know what happened?"

The feeling of his smile faded. "What happened was… that the mark on your palm, it absorbs chakra. When you hugged your friend, or your caretaker, you sucked all of the chakra out of them. When someone has no chakra, then… they die."

"I really did kill them?" Sami asked, shaking, the lump in her throat felt spiky.

He nodded, answering her question. Before Sami could start crying again, he continued. "It's not your fault. Some people have extraordinary power. You're one of them. But, when people have extraordinary power, it's hard to control, really hard to control.

"Since you're young, you can't control it. What happened was a tragedy, like an earthquake, or a tsunami, just a bad thing that's nobody's fault, y'know?"

Sami slowly nodded. "So, I'm just a disaster?"

"No, that's not what I'm getting at. You're just a girl, a girl that has amazing power on the inside. But, that power's hard to control. Think about Lord Killer Bee! He has a Bijuu, one of the nine strongest things in the world. He's a master of it! Do you think he could use his power perfectly the moment he got it?"

Sami shook her head.

"Exactly! He had to train and practice real hard. And look what he is now… The Strongest Man Alive."

"You want me to control this… and become strong?"

"Pretty much! And if you can control your power, you'll never hurt anyone you don't want to again!" His smile behind the mask had a really strong feeling this time. He must've been grinning, teeth and all.

Sami went silent, pursing her lips, tasting the salt from her dried tears on them. It took her a while to think… but she came to an answer. "I don't want to use this power ever again… it's evil. But, I don't want to hurt anyone ever again, either. Is it okay if you can just teach me how to control it so I don't hurt people?"

He looked a tad disappointed. "Yeah, I can make that happen. But only under one condition, though."

"What is it?"

"You have to become a Shinobi! When you're eight, you go to the Academy. By then, you'll be able to make friends again since you won't accidentally take all of their chakra again."

Sami frowned. "Well… what if I don't wanna be a Shinobi?"

"Then get comfortable right here in this cell, because this'll be where you stay forever."

Sami's eyes widened with panic. "Okay! I'll be a ninja!"

"Good, good." He stood and took a step back. Making another sign with his hands, the chain holding down her arm released. Sami was scared to move it, but she had to in order to stand again.

He clapped. "Well, we can't waste any time when it comes to your training, right? We gotta control your power!"

"Yeah…" Sami sniffled with another nod, holding her heavily gloved hand. "My uh… power… does it have a name?"

"It does!" With a breath, he steadied himself, his black eyes glowed in the torches' fire a bit.

"It's called…

"Void Style."

ϟ—Interlude End—ϟ