Samuru Mikage - Kirigakure Genin

Samuru, before her "fateful encounter," had been predicted to be a very beautiful individual. She lost both her right arm and left eye during her younger years – both from a katana. Her left eye is permanently "opened" and completely covered with scar tissue and her right arm only goes down a few inches before stopping at where an elbow should be. Because of these "defects," Samuru tries her best to conceal them by letting her bangs cover most of the left side of her face while her make-shift kimono’s right sleeve (tattered and frayed at the end) hides her other missing appendage. On her feet she wears her own variation of the standard ninja boots that she combines with a style similar to waraji footwear. Samuru's left arm has a simple black and red gauntlet that stops a couple of inches below the elbow. Samuru's kimono is black, white, and red and both on the back and lower draping of the garb is a large red circle with four triangles placed outwardly in the cardinal directions – all trimmed in black. On the right side of Samuru's face is a crimson tattoo that goes across the middle of her forehead and ends just below her eye about an inch. Her obi is crimson and has a single, pink sakura blossom on it. She wears her Kirigakure headband around her waist over her makeshift obi. Some still consider Samuru to be quite beautiful…in that broken doll kind of way.

Born in Kirigakure no Sato, Samuru didn’t have much to concern herself with. Her parents, Aine Matsumoto – former ANBU for Kirigakure and Kamui Mikage – a hunter-nin for the Mist Village, both grew up together and eventually fell in love, married, and had Samuru. Back then, she was called Sayo, a beautiful girl with dark pink hair and shocking reddish-gold eyes. Like most with the Onigami bloodline, she inherited the reddish eyes but there was just a tint of gold in them. During her earlier years, Samuru’s hair was mostly black with streaks of pink in it, until eventually it grew to be full on pink but with a rosier shade to it. A few years before she was to attend the Ninja Academy, her parents "retired" from their respective positions so they could focus on raising Sayo.

Her parents knew that training and becoming part a full-fledged Ninja would be no easy task. So little by little they were slowly acclimating Sayo to learning small ninja techniques, especially since she showed such skill at being able to harness her element, Wind. Sayo started training with her mother and father on small, basic forms of taijutsu so she would be able to defend herself with melee weapons. She was too small to wield something like a katana, so they gave her a simple wakizashi and a set of kunai and shuriken each to practice.

Sayo couldn't wait to go to the Ninja Academy and learn the really awesome techniques like various kinds of ninjutsu and combine them with her "spectacular" taijutsu skills. Yes, improvement would be needed. However, things would soon take a fatal turn for the worse the year before Sayo would attend their village’s Ninja Academy.

One day, Sayo decided she wanted to see what the edge of the village looked like. She’d been there a few times with her mother when she was much smaller, but couldn’t really remember what it was like. Sayo knew that she would one day leave Kirigakure no Sato to travel the world and visit the different villages and had aspirations to become a great ninja. Sayo desired to be strong, but she also wanted to be able to help people. Her mother was a medical-nin of sorts.

After having gotten her fill of seeing the edge of the village, Sayo intended to return home. But as she made her way through the forest, she encountered a shinobi who was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. The power she could sense from him was staggering, nearly choking her on sight. His eyes were the darkest shade of green and his hair was pale and flowing, like sheets drying in the summer breeze. But to contrast this was his olive skin, as if he’d been baking in the sun for hours to achieve such an even tone of brown skin.

"You've seen me," he whispered, his voice sending a shock of cold down her spine. "Now…you must die."

Sayo barely had time to register that she was about to be involved in a fight for her life. Quickly she drew her wakizashi and grasped a kunai from her pouch as her defensive weapon. But he was too fast. Disappearing in a flash, she was only barely able to sense that he was attacking her from her right side. Raising up her left hand to block the katana’s attack with her kunai, Sayo lost her footing and stumbled back, leaving herself open to attack. The man made to strike and quickly sliced Sayo's right arm clean off her body. In horror, she watched her own limb fly away from her – the hand still clutching the handle of the wakizashi. But the damage was not complete. How was she, a girl so young and naïve, to know that she should have been keeping her eyes on her enemy even if her own body parts were being cut away from her?

Picking up the shuffle of grass close by, Sayo turned to see the many aiming an upward slash in an attempt to slice off her head. This was it and she knew it was going to be the end for her. He attacked. Sayo's heart skipped a beat.

A loud clang seemed to crash in her ears and Sayo looked down in just enough time to see that a kunai had struck the man’s blade. But his attack was too strong and he continued to move. All the kunai did was successfully deter his aim.

Sayo's vision immediately lost its depth perception. Her sight cut straight to her right eye in enough time to see the man's flowing white hair disappear into the thicket of trees nearby. She saw her father give chase and she could distinctly hear her mother’s voice somewhere not too far off. Her back fell to the ground and Sayo could predict the feeling leaving her body soon. Her vision quickly began to tunnel, but instead of black it was red – the color of her blood.

She awoke and found that she had returned home. Had it all been a dream? Everything was so hazy to her now. But looking at all her bandaging proved that it wasn’t a dream. The pain that hit her was anything but false. Her parents were nowhere to be found. They had stepped out to retrieve some herbs for her eye to aid in the healing process. Sayo saw her face in the mirror and was horrified by what had happened to her.

Sayo didn't attend the Ninja Academy that year or the next. She refused to leave the house and had pretty much given up on becoming a ninja. What use was a ninja who didn't have an arm or an eye? There were so many handicaps she would have to overcome and at such a young age, when her chakra wasn't even fully matured yet. Who was to say that the other children would not just laugh her right out the door? Sayo had just about given up everything and stated, on many an occasion, that the man who'd done this to her should have just killed her outright to begin with (she later discovered that he was a missing-nin who'd been taking refuge out on the outskirts of Kirikagure no Sato to replenish the chakra he'd lost in a more recent encounter).

However, time passed slowly for Sayo. She spent most of her days aimlessly wandering the woods just behind her home – her steps holding no real purpose for her other than to hopefully walk into some other kind of danger and end her existence. One day while she’d been walking around in the woods, Sayo spotted a fox who'd gotten caught in a trap that was about ready to completely sever its leg off. When Sayo made a move to free the fox, the animal's demeanor immediately went from vulnerable and weak to aggressive and menacing. Her eyes widened slightly. Didn’t this fox understand what kind of situation it was in? Obviously she had the upper hand and could end his life this second or free it. He was the one that was wounded. He was the one trapped.

But the fox did not let down its guard. In fact, with each step she took, the fox became even more vicious and even tried to snap at her with its fangs. It was at this moment (and a couple of fox bites later) that she realized that her situation wasn't totally lost after all. Even with being unable to use one of its limbs and in a very impossible situation, the fox still attacked her and got some very decent bites in enough to draw blood each time.

Sayo went home and told her parents that she wanted to go to the Ninja Academy and learn as much as she could. She would become a ninja. Sayo did, in fact, die that day she encountered the white-haired ninja with the olive skin. Samuru stood in her place.

Though the students did look at her oddly and wondered why she even attempted trying to walk the path of the shinobi at all did not effect her. In fact, their doubt further fueled her need to succeed. Samuru practiced day and night to learn to perform hand seals successfully with just one hand. It could be done. It wasn’t impossible. But boy, was it ever hard as hell. Where most people had to only try ten or fifteen times to perform a basic jutsu, Samuru had to attempt the skill twenty to thirty times. Many a night was spent learning to fight with one hand as well as learning to hand seal and perform basic jutsu with one hand as well. She practiced with her parents regularly, demanding that both attack her from both sides. Not being able to see out of her right eye would not become a hindrance any longer. She wouldn’t allow it. Samuru needed to train her ears and feel the vibrations of the air around her with her wind element to sense where an enemy would approach.

It was hard for Samuru no matter what way anyone looked at it. She was already two years behind the time she had originally intended to attend the Ninja Academy. Though not completely necessary – and nor was it recommended – Samuru stayed an extra year longer at the Ninja Academy so the transition of learning various jutsus with her "handicaps" would not hinder her once she’d graduated and became a full on Genin. Once Samuru graduated – finally – she was able to obtain her rank of Genin and was officially declared a Shinobi of Kirigakure.

Unfortunately, because of being so behind every one else in her studies and having to make up for her lack of both arm and eye, her Jounin instructor insisted that she skip that year's round of Chuunin exams and wait for the next one to come around. There would be more opportunities for her to get stronger and to hone her skills. For once, Samuru was content with this. Time was the one thing she had plenty of…and plenty to give.

Nothing could make her forget that man who'd done this to her…or the little fox that showed her she could still survive.