The Mysterious Girl
'Sensei, what do we do with her?' Sakura asked worriedly as a girl appeared before them out of the blue.
She was skin and bones, wearing clearly boys' clothes too big for her and filthy, had still-healing bruises, and unusual laced shoes that were also too big for her. Her skin was an unhealthy pallor, and her black hair wiry and dry. She was carrying a tattered bag.
'We bring her back with us since she must be from a Kekkei Genkai clan yet mistreated.' Kakashi frowned as he picked the girl up carefully. 'This girl is clearly abused.'
'A-abused?!' Naruto and Sakura squeaked as Sasuke looked horrified.
'Yeah. We also have no idea how old she really is...because malnourished children tend to have stunted growth.' said Kakashi. 'So her appearance is pretty deceptive. She could be your age or older, or truly a younger child...who knows? Let's pick up the pace...'
Both shoes fell when he picked her up, showing bony, small feet before her loose pants covered it.
'...somebody carry her shoes.' said Kakashi. 'And when we get to the village, somebody bring her to the hospital. I need to talk to the Hokage.'
'I'll do it.' said Sasuke. 'Who'll carry the bag?'
'I will...though its full of books.' said Naruto, taking the bag. 'Sakura-chan carries the shoes then!' Sakura looked grossed out as who'd want to hold somebody else's shoes?
'Ehi...let me have the bag, you carry the shoes!'
Unknown to them, as they run for home, the girl opened her eyes a little, seeing just a green jacket and blue shirt before losing consciousness.
xxx
Konoha, hours later...
'H-hey?!' the Kotetsu and Izumo gawked as Team Kakashi came back on a rush, carrying a little girl and Kakashi gave the girl to Sasuke.
'We have an emergency patient, gotta rush to both report and take her to the hospital!' said Kakashi as he disappeared by shunshin while his team continued running.
'They have a C-Rank, right?' Izumo asked Kotetsu.
'Yeah, so?'
'Isn't C-Ranks usually jinxed?'
'...'
xxx
The Hokage's Office...
'So after a mission-gone-wrong, a girl appeared in a blink before you, and an abuse victim?' Sandaime twitched before pinching his nose.
'My team rushed her to the hospital.' said Kakashi. 'She has a tattered bag with her full of books according to Naruto so why don't we see what's in it?'
xxx
Hospital...
'Well?!' Naruto asked the doctors impatiently after the man came out of the ward.
'She's the worst case of malnutrition we've ever seen in all our years as doctors.' he said with a cringe. 'By all rights, she should be dead long ago. How is she still alive in her state is nothing but a miracle and sheer tenacity to live but how long can she keep this up without help is anyone's guess. And she just turned ten years old as of seven months ago according to diagnostic jutsu.'
'T-ten...?' Sakura squeaked, pale-faced. 'She's too tiny to be ten!' she exclaimed.
'Malnourishment stunts growth.' the doctor shook his head. 'She also has multiple untreated fractures that healed by themselves, some bruises and scrapes...and what's in her bag?' Naruto took out a book. But a book in a make they've never seen before...and in a language they don't understand. 'Uh...what country is this?' the front cover read, 'PRIMARY ENGLISH: Learn, Practice and Revise Year 5'. Of course, they don't understand it!
'You're asking us?' they sweatdropped.
'...we need to call the T&I Division once she recovers.' the doctor sighed. 'I better make that schedule in a week's time. You kids can go, leave the girl to us.'
Team 7 exchanged looks before leaving.
Nothing else they can do anyway. They went back in just to leave the bag and left.
When Kakashi and the Hokage came, they took the bag with them after talking to the doctors who hooked her up to many nutritional IVs and using Healing Jutsus to speed up recovery to get her to ideal child development physique because the mere sight of her is a nightmare to haunt many dreams.
'...at least I'd recognize math anywhere.' said Kakashi as in the T&I HQ, they tried to glean anything from the books, but Math is the only thing they understood. He looked at her worksheet on quadrilaterals and she got 18 out of 20. 'She appears to be a good student as her worksheets are excellent but...why the abuse? If ever, families should be happy their kids do well in school.'
'Beats me. Or maybe its not her parents but others.' said Ibiki, holding a Science Book. 'There are cases of kids going to foster care. These foster kids might be better than the kids of the fostering family and they didn't like that or in her case, took offense to it on behalf of their own kids. That does happen you know.'
'That's sicko.' Anko scowled in disgust. 'Blaming others if kids don't do well in school.'
'We'll wait for a month before talking to her.' said the Hokage. 'Hopefully by then, she's in a decent-enough condition to be mentally-probed about her background so we'd know where she came from.'
That month-long wait was too long for them in their opinion.
xxx
'Sensei, what did jiji say about her?' Naruto asked Kakashi.
'We have to wait for a month where she's well enough to undergo Mental-Walking from Yamanaka-san.' Kakashi told his team. 'Her condition is just that bad. She's a civilian since her schoolbooks are for civilian school only and she's a good student...she has high scores in her worksheets, but she's given hell for it for some sick reason.' he told them. 'Its a month-long wait.'
'A month...?' Sakura croaked out. 'What a long month.' she deadpanned.
'That's how it is.' Kakashi shook his head. 'Now back to D-Ranks we go chibis.'
He can see that they clearly weren't up for it though. Their efforts were clearly half-assed.
xxx
When the girl regained consciousness, she saw herself hooked to many IV Drips to her forearms and felt something inside her down there that gave sheer discomfort that scared her into panicking and the nurses had to calm her down and began babbling in a language they don't understand, but clearly terrified.
So they had to mime like idiots to get their point across and they were successful since she calmed down.
Next was pointing at themselves, and saying their names, so the girl pointed at herself, and told her name too.
'Rosanna.' she said. 'Rosanna Potter.'
Then they gave her food. Chicken Gruel with bread, and a bowl of fruit. Shock and wonder was clearly on her face.
She pointed at the food with a shaky hand, then at herself, looking at them hopefully. They nodded.
Her face broke into a wide smile before pinching herself hard, sniffed the food, before eating hungrily, not even noticing she was shaved bald.
Well, her room now has an actual nameplate, written in katakana.
When a month went by, she now has some meat on her bones, but still 1/4 done from standards. She was now visited by the authorities.
'She speaks in an unknown language so we had to mime to communicate.' said the doctor. 'She can't communicate back due to all the needles on her arms from multiple dextrose. All we know is her name is Potta Rosanna.'
'At least we got something.' said Yamanaka Inoichi. 'How is her condition?'
'Well, she's 1/4 well. 3/4 more to go before we can release her.' said the doctor. 'Hey, she's literally skin and bones in there its shocking she's still alive when anyone in her shoes should be dead long ago but she's going to school in such a state.' he said. 'And she can only eat soft foods as she's not accustomed to things like solids such as meats so we're taking it easy on food. She just pukes them back up but she still eats if only to taste them. She's very happy even with veggies kids don't like as long as she gets to eat, she's not picky.'
'Well, given where she came from, she'll gladly take what most kids would take for granted since she clearly didn't even have the basics of childcare. No immunizations either.'
'I see...' and when they entered the room, the ninja had to use genjutsu on the girl to point across what would happen.
She just looked at them in disbelief, saying, 'Are you serious?' well, that's how they interpreted it...
So Inoichi did it, using a couple handseals to get into her head while another touched his back with his left hand, and the right hand in a one-hand seal to project what the man sees.
'There's some suppressed memories since they're clearly forgotten.' Inoichi frowned.
'Bring it out.' Sandaime instructed.
The forgotten memories turned out to be of her babyhood.
She has two loving parents that played with her, and doted on her as well as two men who could be uncles, one of whom can even turn into a dog and did antics to make her baby-self laugh. There were also others with special abilities they could use with those sticks they have. There were also days that her parents carry her around, while talking to people while looking stressed and troubled...until one night, a man in black robes that definitely didn't look human came to their home. A flash of green light killed the father instantly and they clearly did NOT expect his appearance in horror.
The mother grabbed her child and ran upstairs to pack, but the killer was there. She defied him and was killed for her defiance, dropping dead from the green light too.
Next was Rosanna. Thing was, the green light bounced back to him, and something from the man latched onto the child as his body disintegrated. She survived the green light her parents didn't.
'That's one thing to look into later.' the Hokage frowned. 'What latched onto her?'
The next few memories, were a terrible childhood of sheer neglect as a baby inside a cupboard under the stairs and mistreatment beginning as a young child as she now lives in a neighborhood of what Anko called 'disgustingly cookie-cutter houses'. People moved around in metal wheeled boxes or two wheeled things, or just walked.
Her foster family were a bunch of terrible people it was no wonder she was the way she is along with being mentally, emotionally and psychologically-scarred. They also saw how her school works...and what awaits her if she did better in school, but she felt that they can deny her anything but her own school brilliance as she dreams of getting a good job as an adult far away from the hellhole that was her foster family while Dudley gets a lowly-job or some other demeaning job due to his grades. It was what kept her strong to endure. Her hellish life made her forget memories that actually mattered.
They eventually came to a memory of her praying hard...and then she appeared in front of Team 7, looking utterly exhausted and fell to unconsciousness.
'That's a wrap.' said Inoichi, looking ill. 'My god, I can't believe such people exist I'm gonna barf.'
'Well, the only good side in this is that she'll be a kunoichi with one hell of an endurance but what do we do about her mental issues?' Anko piped up. 'She's a basket case.'
'We'll teach her our language before we can safely chuck her to the Academy.' said the Hokage. 'She'll be on Orphan Support Programme starting today.' he decided. 'The nurses will have to start tutoring her so time is not wasted while she's stuck in bed.'
xxx
'Well kids, you've all been doom and gloom these past few weeks.' said Kakashi as he greeted his team. 'We now got news on Rosanna-chan.'
'How is she?' Sasuke asked him.
'Her life is...utterly appalling to say the least.' Kakashi stated grimly. 'She endured a horrible life of abuse and beatings if she did better than her foster brother in school. But she endured the beatings in hopes of scoring a high-paying job and get the hell away from them as an adult. Its what keeps her strong.' he said. 'If she becomes a kunoichi, she'd do well since she's very used to pain she could withstand and endure it all if she ever gets into fights so the decision was made for her but for now, she's learning our language in the hospital and no visitations until her release, got that.'
'Horrible...' Naruto shuddered.
xxx
Rosanna spent her months learning the language. Due to her clear intelligence, she picked up real fast in the alphabet and kanji, and how to read and write them. Grammar will have to wait a bit as that was the harder part.
When it was July, she could now speak a bit of the language and released from Hospital with a clean bill of health and free from what latched onto her as well, and would live in the orphanage where she would be tutored by the matrons. The smallest size clothes were bought for her but even a size small was still a bit big for her.
But come august, giant snakes attacked the village and injured were brought in...and Rosanna helped heal the injured since all she does, was wish for it, much to the astonishment of the matrons and shinobi brought in.
'Hey, who's that kid?'
'A horribly-abused kid a team brought in. She was put in our care for recovery and language-tutoring until she can go to the Academy.' said the matron. 'I don't think they know she could heal either.'
'...'
With that, the shinobi gave her the critical cases, and they miraculously healed too, but she got tired from the second batch and fell asleep. But healing over thirty ninjas made a difference.
Sadly, she can't save the Hokage as by the time they got to him, he was dead. Dead by a sacrificial kinjutsu.
'Where are we going?' Rosanna asked the matrons who made them all wear black. She wore a black dress and slippers. Her hair grew fast too. It was in a shortest bob cut.
'To a funeral Rosa-chan.' said the matron with a sad smile. 'To go see our heroes off before they're all buried.'
'Buried? Is it because of the war?'
'Yes. Because of the war.'
'...why were we attacked?' Rosanna wondered. 'We didn't do anything wrong...'
'Yes, but people still find a reason to attack other people even if they didn't do anything. That's the sad part.'
'Ah...' she was given a flower so when the time to offer flowers came, she put hers when her turn came and it was a dark, cloudy day too and it began to rain, but nobody seems to care that it rained.
They all went home after another period of solemn silence.
xxx
Reports from surviving shinobi came in the form of paperwork.
Some reports say they've been critically-injured, but no space in the hospital so they all went to the orphanage as the Emergency Shelter. They were all healed by a little girl who made short work of them by just praying hard!
She was also the abuse victim brought in and is undergoing rehabilitation, and tutoring as she was from a foreign country who could barely talk their language.
This raised a lot of eyebrows in the eyes of the Jonin Commander, Nara Shikaku. While he can cover for the little unknown, word will spread thru the grapevine and get the poor kid unwanted attention. And she has no legal guardian to boot as the Hokage's dead as he had been her legal guardian! ALL orphans have him as their legal guardian!
He has to do something fast.
xxx
Rosanna finally mastered grammar, and at least, Grade 1 kanji that she could go to the Academy come January. However, due to her language issues, she would attend language and geography classes in years 2 to 6 and kunoichi classes in years 4-6. Until then, she could go to the library to read any books she wants with a library card as long as she goes home in time for dinner. She could not eat solid foods beyond rice gruel, soft fruits and leafy greens just yet.
Her hobby became planting things.
Her mother's name was Lily from the letters she's found in the attic, so she wanted to plant Lily flowers.
Aunt Petunia's a big fat liar when the letters in the attic are far more truthful. The only question was, why does her aunt hate her mother when her mother's nice?
She purchased seeds and compost with her weekly allowance money, and began planting in clusters where its sunny. Double-Orientals, Regale Trumpets, Stargazers, Silk Road Orienpets, and Casa Blanca. With good organizing and merging the compost in well-watered soil, she made them all fully-grown in an instant, in full blooming flowers. But she kept the soil compost-rich to maintain its beauty as not even her powers can make it forever.
'Oh my! You planted so many lilies, Rosa-chan!' the Head Matron gasped, amazed. 'Are they your favorite flowers?'
'...its mama's name.'
'Yuri huh? To remember her by?'
'Un.' the Head Matron patted her head kindly.
The name Lily in this place, was 'Yuri'.
'That's a pretty good ability.' the two turned to see Nara Shikaku. 'But Rosanna-chan, we need to talk.'
'Talk? What about, sir?' the Head Matron spoke.
'Her new guardianship as we don't have a Hokage now.' said Shikaku. 'She's in danger if word of her abilities goes out and she has no protection whatsoever.'