It was a bright and beautiful afternoon in Kumo, with a slight cooling breeze coming in from the east. The sun cloaked the hill in its warmth, making it the perfect temperature for a day of exploration despite the high altitude of Kumo. Coming in from the base of the hill was a cheerful little girl’s squeaky voice, giggling as she shouted to her father, “Hehehe, you can’t catch me Oto-san~! I’m too fast!”. Dressed in her standard kunoichi attire, Kita wore her standard oversized long-sleeved red shirt tied at the waist by a purple sash, her long baggy black pants and a pair of tan sandals. She had a day off today and decided to spend it with her father, a former Shinobi with years of experience under his belt. To her, Kita’s father was an endless source of experience, with hundreds of stories to tell and thousands of experiences to share.

At the top of the hill, Kita found herself gazing in awe at the massive tree before her. Though she had heard many stories of it, this was the first time Kita actually made her way to the top and looked at the thing first-hand. It was a spectacle to say the least, bearing strange, spiky red-colored durian fruits. It was a widely known fact that these fruits were delicious, but left a terribly painful after-effect. When her father reached the top, the man grinned, standing by his daughter as he put his hand on her head. Standing side-by-side with her father, the top of Kita’s head would only just reach the bottom of the man’s ribcage. Kita was short – much shorter than most of the children in her village, and it was for this that the girl was always teased while in the Academy. Even the villagers often had something to say about her height, along the lines of “How could a girl that small ever become a kunoichi?” “She’d only be good at hiding, that’s for sure.”

Kita turned towards her father, looking up at him as she spoke. “Oto-san, why are we here? It’s just a tree... and the villagers say the fruits are bad for you or something.” She said, curious as to her father’s intentions. It wasn’t often that Kita went out with her father as Kita would be busy with her studies and her father would be busy at the shop, but every time they did he would take her somewhere new and show her something that she had never seen before. That was how their relationship was.

”The villagers are right, Kita-chan… but not entirely. Here..” The man reached for the closest fruit he could find, plucking it from the tree with extreme caution so as not to cause the other fruits to fall. He then proceeded to break it apart with a small knife he had brought along with him. ”The fruit is actually really delicious. Try some!” The man told her as he held the opened fruit out for her to taste.

Kita looked confused, and it showed on her face. What was he up to? ”Ohhh no! You aren’t tricking me into eating that. Everyone says it’s bad for you… they say it hurts afterwards. I don’t trust you!” Kita said before crossing her arms, scrunching her face up and sticking her tongue out at him. But to her surprise, her father only laughed and picked up a piece of the fruit from the shell and put it in his mouth. ”Heeey! Save some for me!” Kita proceeded to whine as she reached out and took the other piece, immediately stuffing it into her mouth.

The moment the fruit’s sweetness hit her taste buds, Kita’s eyes widened. It was… actually quite good! What were the villagers even talking about? Kita began to chew, but slowly as she took in the complex flavors. She ate around the pit before spitting it back out into her hand, but by then her dad had spit the fruit out and thrown it under the tree. ”Hey! No fair! You tricked me!” Kita shouted with a frown as she softly punched her father in the leg. But even after consuming the fruit, she couldn't feel anything. Not even the slightest bit of unease. When she had calmed down, Kita looked up at her father. ”I don't feel anything... Why was I able to eat the fruit? And why did you spit it out? I’m confused… the villagers –“

”It’s your special bloodline, Kita. I knew you were special when we had to put your chakra into that necklace... you are just like many of the great shinobi of this village who can eat the fruit without suffering from the negative effects.. isn't that great?” The man said with a chuckle. He handed her the rest of the durian. ”I’ll leave you to it, kiddo. Your mother said she wanted me home ASAP to help her with dinner. Don’t be late!” He said before poking the girl on the nose and disappearing in a puff of smoke.

”W..wait!” But before she could ask him for the knife, the man had already disappeared. She hastily finished the rest of the durian before looking aroudn the tree. What was she going to do now? For one, she couldn’t reach a fruit even if she jumped, and on top of that she didn’t have anything to break the thing open with. Pouting, Kita walked to the trunk of the tree and sat on the ground with her back against it. ”Hmm….”, Kita looked around the tree, taking a quick survey before picking up a few of the empty shells.

The girl then located the lowest hanging fruit on the tree and proceeded to throw the shells at it, hoping to knock it down.

"Ow! That hurt!" Sanosuke bellowed as he was awaken to have himself pelted with shells. He had been sleeping here because he thought he might have encounter Pathik here if he just waited near the tree. Sanosuke wanted to know more about these spirit gates of chakra Pathik talked about while he was helping Sanosuke go through psychotherapy. Considering that Pathik had an unnatural taste for the durian fruits from the tree of knowledge. Around Sanosuke's body was some durian fruit and some bottles of honey suckle sake, he got bored waiting and drank for a bit and passed out.

When he got up, he saw a girl trying to throw shells to knock the fruits off the tree. The girl looked pretty young with brown chestnut hair and sparkling blue eyes like his own, but not as fierce; they were more kind that piercing. Rubbing his head, Sanosuke growled. "You're getting the fruits all wrong. Using shells like that won't help you at all kid. Sanosuke told the girl. He slowly drew out his sword that was on his back and made two swift slashes in the air before sheathing his sword back into place. The second his sword was sheathed, 2 durians fell down from the tree and landed into Sanosuke's already opened hands. Tossing one to the girl, Sanosuke took out a kunai to break open the skin of the fruit. Taking in a deep breath to avoid the aroma, Sanosuke took a bite out of it.

"Oh yeah, that's the stuff"

The moment she heard someone shout from the tree, Kita jumped, her natural instinct being to run and hide, though it seemed like every muscle in her body tensed up and prevented her from doing so. Where did that voice come from? Was the tree talking? Was her father lying about the negative effects, and Kita was just in a state of hallucinations? No, that was impossible, she must have hit someone with the shell. ”Sorry! I.. I didn’t mean to, I was just..” She started trailing off when she finally caught a glimpse at the man behind the voice, but her thoughts were clouded when she watched the man draw his sword. But he didn’t seem too angry with her. In fact, he simply chided her for her way of collecting the fruit and proceeded to cut two of the durian fruits down, throwing one to her. Kita was careful to catch it without injuring herself.

”Umm… yeah, my father didn’t give me a knife or anything so I had to think of another way of getting the fruit down. Thank you, mister stranger!” Kita said as she ran closer to the man and bowed politely. Instead of breaking the fruit open she simply stared at the man, in awe as he took a bite of the fruit. ”H-Hey! You can eat the fruit!” Kita asked. Now that she was closer, Kita could get a better look at his face. His features were quite similar to hers – tanned skin, blue eyes. Sanosuke looked much older than Kita, both from his physical appearance and his height in general, but none of that seemed to intimidate the girl. ”My father said that people like me can eat the fruit without getting hurt… but I don’t know why a fruit would want to hurt anyone anyways…”

Sanosuke cocked his head to the side at that one. The little girl who looked as though she was barely 15 told him something he didn't really think was possible. It was kind of a Kumo folktale that the tree of knowledge held the evil spirits of demon and just eating a fruit from its branches will result in a demon's evil presence to cause your body to go ill. It's because of that nobody will even think of eating the fruit, some people think that just being the tree will cause the stomach pains. The fact that this girl didn't throw the fruit right back at him in fear was odd and intriguing at the same time. So much that he was cackling like a mad man, as he laughed widly he was cursing the fact that his lessons with the guru has made that wily ole coot's personality rub off on him to the point where he was acting senile.

Once he calmed down, Sanosuke ran his fingers through his hair as he looked at the girl to keep his hands busy. With his free hand, Sanosuke took another bite of the fruit. "Huh, I'll be damned you can eat this thing as well. Last time I checked, the only person who could eat this thing without puking was me, the former Raikage, and some troublesome Guru I know of" Sanosuke said to the girl who was looking at Sanosuke with much interest. "I know of an old friend of mine who tried to eat the fruit and because of it, he was puking for days"

The memory of Hiromasa, his former teammate, puking from the evil effects of the fruit was fresh in his mind to the very day. They were both genin then, damn time flew so fast. His friend and teammate was retired and Sanosuke himself was a jounin of Kumo. Looking at this girl carefully, she did bear a strong resemblance to himself that Sanosuke found oddly creepy. Due to his family's certain situation, lets just say that having children will be impossible to do. But still Sanosuke had to wonder what connected him to this girl....