Name: Onishi Kou
Age: 8
Physical Description: This young girl is a small and frail child that couldn't stand any more than four feet tall and definitely weighs under sixty pounds. Kou may seem younger at first glance, but she looks to be about eight years old. Her skin appears naturally inclined to paler tones, but it has been touched by a gentle honey glow from the suns rays warming her flesh. Her hair is a dull and listless shade of brown and weighs down on top of her head heavily in its dirty unwashed state. The split ends splay and frizz just past her shoulders, but it is often that Kou is seen with it tied back in a simple knot made with a dusty used bandage wrap. Her face is still gentle at rest, serene in the way that time has yet to test and wear down on her childish features. While she does have vibrant pale green eyes, very few get to witness them, as bandage wrappings are normally tied around her head hiding them from view. Her nose is small and comes to a point, while her thin lips are chapped and drained of color, blending in with the tones of her skin at their outer edges. She wears a baggy, over-sized tunic that's been fashioned from leftover canvas, with a pair of loose black pants held up by a thin frayed cord of rope acting as her belt. The tunic's sleeves drape over her twiggy arms and hide her hands until she draws them out of her way. Covering her feet are a pair of wooden sandals kept secure with coarse twine that's been carefully tied to be threaded in between her toes. Usually, she carries a tall and thin stick of wood, misshapen and warped to odd twisting whorling shapes that weigh down the top of it. Swaying the bottom of the stick in front of her, she walks with calm confidence, unworried of whether or not she's going to collide with something before her.
Mental Description: Kou could be considered a strange child, and many that first enter a room with her would wonder whether they were seeing a child or not. She is quiet and calm to the point where she is often compared to a statue, preferring to keep her thoughts to herself while she processes the world and situations around her. Used to the teasing and hushed whispers that have surrounded her in the past, it has reached a point where Kou is difficult to anger, and to solve the problem she simply chooses to either ignore them or prove them wrong through action and walk away without a word. Despite this apparently cold and calculating wall she keeps, Kou happens to have a very creative soul. She would often ask her adoptive grandfather to describe paintings and sculptures of traveling artists whenever he would bring her to the market and she could hear the sounds of their hawking of wares. No matter how poor of a description he could muster for her, it still sparked her imagination to conjure up thoughts and feelings that would delight her for days at a time. Painting a landscape or portrait might escape her, but she often passes the time trying to perfect her writing and practices her singing out in the moonlight after her training is finished.
History: Born to Hashigaki Airi and Eishun on a cold winter's night on the outer edges of the Land of Wind's borders, Kou never did know a true home in her first moments. Airi and Eishun were used to the life of traveling mercenaries and sellswords that dealt in Yen in exchange for blood and information. They never planned on falling in love, but there was something about her mother that caught her father's attention from the moment they met. She saw him as an easy blind mark that she could make some coin off of, and did not expect him to retaliate against her roving hand so swiftly. They attempted to fight hand to hand until they grew exhausted and reluctantly introduced themselves. He asked if she ever wanted to be more than a mere thief and invited her to walk with him and help with any jobs he was hired on. He added that he could simply offer her to the nearest law-keeper in exchange for a small sum for getting one more thief off of the road. This burned her, but she was growing bored of leaving off of the scraps of life and decided that she could serve with him.
As time marched on, they warmed to each other's company, their relationship gradually blossoming until the time came that they became aware that they were with child. Eishun protected and took care of Airi even when she began to slow, but they both knew and feared that they would never be fitting parents. From the beginning, they made their plans to travel to Sunagakure and scouted out potential villagers and merchants returning home from trade or trips out of the village. By the time that Kou was in their arms, they had reached a sun-dried inn on a small outpost. One of the first stops when coming out of the city and the few places of retreat on the last legs of the returning journeys. Eishun went in ahead of Airi and Kou to see if there was anyone that matched what they were looking for and managed to find an elderly man by the name of Goro. He had left the village to stop by his late wife's grave once more, telling the tender about how she always wanted to be buried in the shadow of her favorite tree at the Oasis where they first met. Eishun did not stay to hear the entire somewhat sappy story and left to find the man's camel. He and Airi worked quickly to create a safe perch for Kou in the creature's saddle and bid her a final farewell before they disappeared.
When Goro returned with his belly warmed by food and spirits, he was shocked to hear the tiny wails of an infant and a writhing mass on top of the saddle. He called and shouted trying to see where the parents left off to and even circled around the inn for hours. His search empty, he could not bear to leave the child abandoned. Even though there was a risk that the Council would punish him for bringing a strange babe into the village, he knew that he had to plead for their mercy. Traveling back to the village, he first stopped to request an audience with the Council, where he explained how he found Kou. He allowed the Council to inspect her for any strange marks on her blanket or body, but they found no affiliation or oddities aside from the fact that she seemed to be blind. She did not often react until she was touched or noises reached her ear, no matter how many hands were waved in front of her face. Goro made the promise that if they allowed her refuge, that he would be her guardian and take care of her until she could take care of herself. He confessed that his love's passing had left him lonely and he would be grateful for the company. There was much discussion but given the infant's age, they allowed Goro to take her in and decided that she would be a citizen of Suna. In time, Kou grew older and had to learn how to live with her blindness under Goro's aid and guidance.
To his surprise though, he found that she was taking to it faster than he could imagine. He figured that this must have been because it was the only thing that she had ever known, but this did not answer his question for very long. The first thing that started to bother him were her eyes, and in time when she would sing the songs she had heard at the festival in the day, the words carried much weight on the man's heart and caught him in a pleasant sadness that he had not experienced. He decided to confide in one of the academy's teachers asking if he should be worried. It intrigued them and they suggested to Goro that he should allow Kou the opportunity to train at the academy. She had already learned to walk around the village on her own without Goro, and with the right training. they would be able to overcome any disadvantage that the other students would have over her.
That night Goro asked Kou how she felt about the idea, and she told him that he would love to grow up and be among the ranks of the brave shinobi that protected the village day and night. He warned her that it would be a road paved with pain and discipline, and she earnestly reassured him that she was prepared to do whatever it took if she could apply. To this day, she holds herself to the highest of standards and strives to constantly learn something new and improve herself in any way she possibly can.
