Beautiful Silence

Chapter 1: And So Her Life Crumbled

"Riko! Don't stay out too long, honey!"

"Ah! Ah!"

"Shizuna, your daughter still can't speak? I wonder what is wrong with that poor girl."

Shizuna, Riko's mother lowered her head at her neighbour's comment. Riko was already five years old and she still couldn't pronounce a single word. All she did to communicate was moving her arms around and making incoherent sounds. Despite that though, she was a brilliant little girl. Brilliant and kind. She would always do her best to take care of her mother, who often got sick. Riko's eyes were an unusual bloody red and her hair was of the darkest black, giving the impression of swallowing every shade of colour around.

Since Riko couldn't communicate like normal kids her age, she didn't have any friends. Some of the adults even thought that she was possessed by some sort of demon that prevented her from being able to speak. As a result, most people avoided her and always kept their distances around her and her mother, omit some minor exceptions. Shizuna was fully aware of that and tried her best to shield her daughter from all the negativity that people directed towards her.

"She might not be able to speak, but she's the most wonderful daughter any mother could ask for."

Shizuna looked at her neighbour and smiled a very gentle smile while thinking of her dear Riko.

Both of them lived together in a small house in Kusagakure, the Village Hidden in the Grass. Every morning, Riko would leave at the same time and come back, without fail, right before the sunset, right when her mother would return from working at the local restaurant. What her mother didn't know, however, was where Riko went during that time. She trusted that her daughter was fully capable of taking care of herself, since she had proven being able to do so several times before.

Riko followed her daily path again that day, making sure not to attract too much attention. She went through alleys, climbed some short buildings, trying to reach her destination with agile and controlled steps. She had always been very quick on her feet. Doing that little parkour of hers every day only increased her natural swiftness. When she reached her destination, she stood there, proud of getting there yet again without any complications along the way. She looked ahead and there stood Kusagakure's Ninja School, the place she went to almost every day. She had always wanted to enrol in that school, but so many things prevented her from applying. First, she didn't want to become a ninja and go on missions that'd force her to leave her mother alone for long periods of time. The other reason why she didn't was because the people of the village treated her like an outsider. She knew better than anyone that the ninja school would use her inability to speak as an excuse to not accept her as a student. She didn't mind, though. As long as her mother loved her, she didn't care what other people thought.

She went around the school, making sure she is unseen by the ninja who worked there. She always thought that it was rather curious how such highly trained ninja couldn't even sense her presence. All she did was hope really hard that they wouldn't spot her. And that was exactly what always happened. She climbed the tree that was located, conveniently, right in front of one of the classrooms' windows. She made sure to position herself in a way that concealed her enough for her to be able to be unseen while spying on the class. That day they were being taught the transformation jutsu. Riko would always followed along the instructions, but, somehow, she always overdid it. The last jutsu she learned from that class was the clone jutsu. Most of the students were able to do one clone or two at the very most. When she tried it back home, she was able to make about ten clones. At first, she felt proud of herself for being so good at it, until her clones started going out of control. They had started running around screaming and making strange noises. She remembered thinking that it was a relief that they were clones with no physical bodies. It was also a good thing that her mother wasn't home at that time. This time, it was the transformation jutsu. She thought to herself that nothing could go bad with that one. She watched how everyone in the class was doing it and decided to call it a day early so that she could go try it out at home before her mom returned.