Name: Utsumi Nanamiya
Bloodline: Nara (by blood, estranged)
Age: 11
Physical Description: Utsumi Nanamiya sports long, pitch-dark hair to frame a smiling face like the light remaining in an inky darkness. Her eyes - a startling red - peer like a hunter from this underbrush, piercing until a relaxed hand would brush these tresses aside and level that gentle gaze on whomever spoke to her. At first glance, even with her soft skin and quiet disposition, the silent way she carries herself could be construed as threatening or intimidating. Crimson eyes were intense regardless of the warmth they offered - fire, after all, was still fire, and anyone singes when under the lamp for too long. Mere moments of interaction would belay the presumption that she was anything but a normal, if somewhat lackadaisical, girl. She would still carry the quality that earning her disappointment would be more crushing than being curled into a fist - but she's the type to smile through it, daring.
She favors summery colors for her clothing - light reds, bright oranges, flowing yellows. She prefers ruffles on her camisoles and flowers in decoration as accessory across any adornment. Her hands are always, and very intently, uncovered, and she seems to prefer bare skin along her arms in any scenario - it's also easier to move in lighter clothing, which is important for someone more suited to hand-to-hand combat.
Boxes and sleeves of cards clip to her shorts or a utility belt beneath a dress; hiding various scrawled notecards, hanafuda cards, and custom creations she stenciled for the card game she tries to push on her friends.
Mental Description: Utsumi is a very quiet girl: not from any intent but a muteness she was born with. The quick, even way she moves - her lack of flowing clothes - and her lack of voice hides her presence in even the most innocuous of social situations, causing her to somewhat act up whenever she needs attention. She'll pull on sleeves, jump up and down and wave her hands, or even clap to a piercing beat until she demands that attention. She was not, in truth, a quiet girl at heart - she was playful, quick-witted and a little bit silly, if overall perfectly nice. She just has hyperactive tendencies she was trained - by societal expectation - to not display to just any peer she came across, but those close to her know her as a bit of a firebrand.
Ultimately, she is expected to be a soft-spoken girl due to her lack of ability to speak at all, but that is not the kind of person she wants to be. She is polite, and caring, and very gentle with the elderly and younger children: but she is not sheltered or fragile, and wants more than anything to be treated as anything but. She's furious when she's coddled and eager to take the lead any chance she's given.
She also has something of a hyperfixation with card games, busting out Koi Koi or custom creations at any time she's able to entrap someone in the interaction. She's very creative and desperately wants to express that, from art to poetry to game design. She'll bend your ears for hours with excited taps or scrawls; and if not your ear, she'll go for the arm.
History: The world feels a lot quieter when you can't contribute to its cacophony. It's almost suffocating. It's absolutely stifling.
Utsumi Nanamiya was born to a multiple-removed, small clan of originally Nara castoffs, now the Nanamiya family. They tended to religious rituals in rural Konohagakure with frequent trips to more marketable shrines in the city proper. They weren't so much forgotten or exiled, but a clan of rite priests that lost the teachings of their main clan over many, many years. Utsumi's birth marked the first time in that many years that a child was born with a natural aptitude for the main branch's Shadow style, coupled with a keen mind and a creative view of the world.
The only problem, of course, being that she was born mute. This rendered her - despite everything - none too useful to the heads of the Nanamiya, placing her squarely on its lower social rung of aides. Growing up she learned respect and decency, humbleness and appreciation, and how to assist at rites she herself was unable to perform. She always fervently disagreed with this idea - that being unable to speak the prayers meant you were unable to cast them - but there were few at the cloister who would entertain her, let alone converse in her unique way. She learned to write very early on, in elegant and gentle script, that (and this is for lack of a better, or more appropriate term) her situation here was "dumb" and "stupid" and "bunk", and she had so much more to offer! She wasn't weak, even when her manageable disability was treated as such, and she carried powerful blood that could give way to incredible abilities if they'd so much as help teach her. They didn't. They also scolded her for being such a pretty, sweet, quiet young girl but using such coarse language: she tore her notecards that night in a fit.
She learned to express herself through playing cards and child's games, beguiling the odd adult into activities they'd dismiss when she won - or cheat, pretending not to understand her scribbled explanations or agitated signing. She would then instead entertain the kids her age or younger, but the strict - if ultimately benevolent - lifestyle of the Nanamiyas would eventually indoctrinate them to the same lack of interest in her games. It was heart-breaking and frustrating for a young girl to find something so exciting and wonderful to herself and be unable to share it, all because she couldn't be louder than the people who told her it wasn't worth their time.
So she'd be louder.
She left.
Not in a risque, damning "in the night" way, but in a "okay, no one will really notice, and I'll come back when I've proven myself" manner. Truthfully, they didn't put much stock into it - a childish lark - and the monastery's heads would keep an eye on her for her safety and their own image but not stop her venture out. She wasn't an important figure, nor was she family to money or status, so she was left to her devices as long as she didn't bring any shame back on them. This worked just well for her - after all, she was far more suited to being a Shinobi than a priestess.
Bloodline: Nara (by blood, estranged)
Age: 11
Physical Description: Utsumi Nanamiya sports long, pitch-dark hair to frame a smiling face like the light remaining in an inky darkness. Her eyes - a startling red - peer like a hunter from this underbrush, piercing until a relaxed hand would brush these tresses aside and level that gentle gaze on whomever spoke to her. At first glance, even with her soft skin and quiet disposition, the silent way she carries herself could be construed as threatening or intimidating. Crimson eyes were intense regardless of the warmth they offered - fire, after all, was still fire, and anyone singes when under the lamp for too long. Mere moments of interaction would belay the presumption that she was anything but a normal, if somewhat lackadaisical, girl. She would still carry the quality that earning her disappointment would be more crushing than being curled into a fist - but she's the type to smile through it, daring.
She favors summery colors for her clothing - light reds, bright oranges, flowing yellows. She prefers ruffles on her camisoles and flowers in decoration as accessory across any adornment. Her hands are always, and very intently, uncovered, and she seems to prefer bare skin along her arms in any scenario - it's also easier to move in lighter clothing, which is important for someone more suited to hand-to-hand combat.
Boxes and sleeves of cards clip to her shorts or a utility belt beneath a dress; hiding various scrawled notecards, hanafuda cards, and custom creations she stenciled for the card game she tries to push on her friends.
Mental Description: Utsumi is a very quiet girl: not from any intent but a muteness she was born with. The quick, even way she moves - her lack of flowing clothes - and her lack of voice hides her presence in even the most innocuous of social situations, causing her to somewhat act up whenever she needs attention. She'll pull on sleeves, jump up and down and wave her hands, or even clap to a piercing beat until she demands that attention. She was not, in truth, a quiet girl at heart - she was playful, quick-witted and a little bit silly, if overall perfectly nice. She just has hyperactive tendencies she was trained - by societal expectation - to not display to just any peer she came across, but those close to her know her as a bit of a firebrand.
Ultimately, she is expected to be a soft-spoken girl due to her lack of ability to speak at all, but that is not the kind of person she wants to be. She is polite, and caring, and very gentle with the elderly and younger children: but she is not sheltered or fragile, and wants more than anything to be treated as anything but. She's furious when she's coddled and eager to take the lead any chance she's given.
She also has something of a hyperfixation with card games, busting out Koi Koi or custom creations at any time she's able to entrap someone in the interaction. She's very creative and desperately wants to express that, from art to poetry to game design. She'll bend your ears for hours with excited taps or scrawls; and if not your ear, she'll go for the arm.
History: The world feels a lot quieter when you can't contribute to its cacophony. It's almost suffocating. It's absolutely stifling.
Utsumi Nanamiya was born to a multiple-removed, small clan of originally Nara castoffs, now the Nanamiya family. They tended to religious rituals in rural Konohagakure with frequent trips to more marketable shrines in the city proper. They weren't so much forgotten or exiled, but a clan of rite priests that lost the teachings of their main clan over many, many years. Utsumi's birth marked the first time in that many years that a child was born with a natural aptitude for the main branch's Shadow style, coupled with a keen mind and a creative view of the world.
The only problem, of course, being that she was born mute. This rendered her - despite everything - none too useful to the heads of the Nanamiya, placing her squarely on its lower social rung of aides. Growing up she learned respect and decency, humbleness and appreciation, and how to assist at rites she herself was unable to perform. She always fervently disagreed with this idea - that being unable to speak the prayers meant you were unable to cast them - but there were few at the cloister who would entertain her, let alone converse in her unique way. She learned to write very early on, in elegant and gentle script, that (and this is for lack of a better, or more appropriate term) her situation here was "dumb" and "stupid" and "bunk", and she had so much more to offer! She wasn't weak, even when her manageable disability was treated as such, and she carried powerful blood that could give way to incredible abilities if they'd so much as help teach her. They didn't. They also scolded her for being such a pretty, sweet, quiet young girl but using such coarse language: she tore her notecards that night in a fit.
She learned to express herself through playing cards and child's games, beguiling the odd adult into activities they'd dismiss when she won - or cheat, pretending not to understand her scribbled explanations or agitated signing. She would then instead entertain the kids her age or younger, but the strict - if ultimately benevolent - lifestyle of the Nanamiyas would eventually indoctrinate them to the same lack of interest in her games. It was heart-breaking and frustrating for a young girl to find something so exciting and wonderful to herself and be unable to share it, all because she couldn't be louder than the people who told her it wasn't worth their time.
So she'd be louder.
She left.
Not in a risque, damning "in the night" way, but in a "okay, no one will really notice, and I'll come back when I've proven myself" manner. Truthfully, they didn't put much stock into it - a childish lark - and the monastery's heads would keep an eye on her for her safety and their own image but not stop her venture out. She wasn't an important figure, nor was she family to money or status, so she was left to her devices as long as she didn't bring any shame back on them. This worked just well for her - after all, she was far more suited to being a Shinobi than a priestess.
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