Kitsune and Neko

Chapter 20

-Flashback (Land of Lightning)

In the quiet forests of the Land of Lightning, a little girl was foraging for food. She couldn't remember the last time she had a decent meal. She was about ten years old, it had been three years since she had left the orphanage and was living like that. The clothes she was wearing were too big for her and her hair was cut so that she would look like a boy. Aiko knew what certain people would do if they found out that she was a girl, she was far mature than most of the kids her age. She had seen things that no child should have ever seen.

She was hoping to find some fruits to fill her stomach with; it had almost been a day since her last meal. Finally after finding an apple tree, her warm brown eyes that always made you feel safe lit up with joy. She started filling up the bag that she had found at a deserted ninja tent with the apples. Now she didn't have to worry for a few days about what to eat.

In her whole life, she had never had a proper meal. When she was in the orphanage, she had Oyaku (rice porridge) which was not even properly cooked and after running away she ate whatever she could find. Her life had not been an easy one but she wasn't one to cry about it.

She knew about the lives of the privileged people though. She had often been in villages to see people dressed in wonderful silk kimonos and eat the delicious dangos on a stick. She had always wanted to have one but she could never afford it. She had tried a roll of sushi that a kind woman had offered her and it tasted like heaven to her. A child like her could never earn money unless she offered herself as a slave. Aiko valued her freedom more than anything so she couldn't even consider that.

The thought that she didn't have money for it or she was poor didn't affect her in a bad way though. It only fuelled her determination to buy a whole plate of sushi with her own hard earned money. She had heard that in the farms of Nishigō, people employed children for small tasks such as shifting hay or harvesting the rice so she was heading that way in hope of earning enough something. Little did she know that she would find a much better job there.

3 and a half years later

A group of merchants was travelling from The Land of Frost, which was located in between the Land of Lightning and The Land of Hot Water, to The Land of Birds, which was located between the Land of Wind and the Land of Earth. They had been travelling for around seven days led by Aiko.

The thirteen year old had found the perfect job for her in Nishigō when she heard the people complaining about bandits stealing their stuff. She already knew a lot of jutsus that she had learnt to protect herself so protecting the farmers and merchants while getting paid was a good deal to her. At first, no one wanted to employ her but a desperate man who had to get his goods quickly or he might go bankrupt. After that journey was successful, more and more people began coming to her for protection. They didn't have to pay as much as they would pay for a D-rank mission to a shinobi village but still got a shinobi to protect them. The money Aiko demanded was a tenth of the cost of a D-rank mission because she didn't need that much of money anyway.

She had grown into a beautiful girl with her ruby-red hair which she had let grow for the past three years and her once malnourished looking body was now an athletic one as she earned enough to feed herself and buy books on jutsus. She was currently lying on the back of her horse, Ichika with a hat covering her face. She trusted the horse as Ichika already knew the route and plus this would make the bandits confident enough to attack them, thinking that her guard was down which would lead to her bagging a few extra criminals on the way.