Aina Kichida

Aina Kichida (吉田愛菜, Kichida Aina) is a farmer, janitor, and kunoichi originally from Konohagakure. Unable to pursue a formal career as a ninja, she trains at home in secrecy. For a time, she is a fairly active member of the community, best known for her talents as a farmer and her care for local orphans. Despite this, she grapples with an intense loneliness that won’t subside no matter how much time she spends with people. The death of her mother and other events would launch her into a downward spiral that would eventually see her defecting from Konoha altogether. She joins Otogakure and tries to make a new home out of it. Upon realizing she would never fully belong in Oto either, however, she defects again to pursue life as a hermit at sea.

Background
Born premature and the only child of an older couple (her father was 70 when she was born; her mother, 35), Aina grew up on a small farm on the outskirts of the fields of Konoha. Both of Aina’s parents, Airi Kichida and Ekta Kocchar, were immigrants. Airi, hailing from Kumogakure, descends from an unknown clan of pacifists that specialized in pheromones and scattered all over the world disguised as ordinary people, always insistent on remaining neutral in conflict and acting only to assist innocents. Other than that, they had no agenda except to be left alone. Airi established her farm with Aya, her mother and Aina’s grandmother. Prior to this, Airi lived for a short while in a small fisherman’s village on the coast.

Ekta, from Iwagakure, came from an equally unknown clan and in his youth was quite enthusiastic about becoming a shinobi, only to become sour towards the idea after a traumatic experience during his first mission as a genin. After that, he deliberately fell behind in his studies and failed his Chūnin Exam so he could drop out, throwing away his once promising reputation. Thereafter, he left his home and became a drifter, learning and practicing techniques along the way. In his old age, he came to Konoha, where he met Airi and settled down with her on the farm, taking her surname as his own although they never formally married.

Aina enjoyed a close relationship with both her parents, although her bond with Airi would become more tumultuous from her preteens onward. Ekta would often act as mediator and comforter for both. While Airi had enough savvy to make a successful living out of their little farm, she had a temper that would get her in trouble with neighbors and occasionally land her in the village jailhouse; this and their grocery delivery service was how the family became acquainted with Fugaku Uchiha and his family. It was Ekta who impressed upon Aina the need and rewards of being involved in the community beyond business. A fraction of the plum trees seen in Konoha were planted by him.

Nearly every summer since she was four, while Ekta stayed behind to tend to the farm, Airi and Aina would travel to the beach of the same fisherman’s village she used to live on the border between Fire Country and Hot Springs Country. There, they would watch the sea turtles come up onto the sand to nest. They would make a second trip to see the hatchlings crawl into the tides. On the very first trip she made with her mother, Aina would meet her future partner, Manami. They would see each other every time Aina came to visit the beach in the following years, though they would not exchange direct words with each other until the aftermath of the Fourth Ninja War.

From a young age, making friends has always been a challenge for Aina, who would repel her peers with her strange behavior and speech. She would learn to socialize by helping her parents sell their wares in the marketplace or by offering help to anyone who needed it. More often than not, she got along better with people either much older or much younger than herself. Otherwise, she turned to animals for companionship, especially upon her discovery that she could speak to them directly at the age of six. Her fondness for stories stems from the ones her papa told her nearly every day, drawing inspiration and comfort from the characters within them.

When she was nearly six years old, Aina decided she wanted to become a shinobi, drawn to the occupation because of how cool and exciting and romantic it seemed, and the sense of belonging it offered. She wanted to go to school to pursue the career, slake her thirst for learning, and maybe make some friends for a change. Her parents rejected her wish because they feared Aina would fare too poorly in school to be worth it, and because they did not wish to see her become a shinobi. This wasn’t enough to deter her. The next day, she got up at the crack of dawn and snuck into a kunoichi class at the Ninja Academy. She was caught in the middle of the lesson after being humiliated in front of the class for her inability to read or write. The fact that no one spotted her until that late in the day was a clue that she did have some potential to be a ninja. Hiruzen Sarutobi, then the Hokage, noted it while he waited with her for her parents.

Airi and Ekta rejected Hiruzen's recommendation to let her apply next year, intent on educating her at home. A few years later, however, they changed their minds about teaching her the ninja arts in earnest when neighbors started going missing (thanks to Orochimaru and Danzo). Realizing they couldn’t always be around to protect her, they decided to teach her for the purposes of self-defense and self-reliance. They did this with the stipulation that she never speak of it or use it in front of others unless it was absolutely necessary.

Truthfully, Ekta had been teaching her some of the more basic techniques prior to that on their camping trips. He loathed to see Aina’s enthusiasm dampened because of something she couldn’t control. He just didn’t agree with molding her into an “attack dog” for the state, his opinions on the matter shaped by harrowing personal experience. Airi had no formal training herself–a trait of many members of her clan–but she was not one to be trifled with, either.

Ekta died when Aina was twelve, after a series of strokes that had left him unable to walk or talk. His last act was watching her pick plums off the tree behind their house. After this, Aina’s relationship with Airi, and the village at large, became more strained as she became more erratic and emotionally labile. At fifteen, she would be arrested for assaulting a customer who was threatening Teuchi. Although she would get off the charges fairly lightly, the night she spent in jail was a nightmare for her and Airi both (plus all the police overseeing the jail). She would calm as she exited her teens and entered her 20s—mainly after becoming involved with Sasuke, Naruto, and the village orphanage—but the peace she’d worked to cultivate would only last so long.

Personality
By all outer appearances, Aina is a soft woman of simple pleasures: friendly, cheerful, generous, and generally dependable, if eccentric, nosy, chatty, and overly familiar. Her nickname, “Kame,” comes from her lifelong love of turtles, as well as her odd disposition and slow and steady pace. There is almost no job she will not do, jumping on every opportunity she can see to be helpful and possibly learn something new and useful for the future. She calls nearly everyone in their village by their first name without honorifics and stops to acknowledge their birthdays. She enjoys small garden parties, prefers to pacify rather than get into arguments, and goes above and beyond to keep every promise she makes (typically on her pinkie finger).

She carries an entrepreneurial streak, offering her goods and services at competitive and carefully considered rates, having learned most of these skills from her parents. On the other hand, while Aina can and has acted on her own, she prefers to work in a group or follow someone else. She values harmony and is averse to conflict of any kind. She possesses a literal interpretation of the Will of Fire, treating everyone she meets like family to the best of her ability, sensitive to the emotions of others but not always sure of how to respond to them.

For the most part, her intentions are good, even if at times they only make sense to her. However, a closer look reveals a far more intense, complicated and difficult personality that falls short of her own ideals. Aina has one foot in civilian life and the other in shinobi life. She has perspectives on both yet doesn’t entirely fit in either one. Although she insists that every neighbor of hers is her friend, she doesn’t feel truly close to any of them, and not from a lack of desire thereof. Her longtime struggles with fitting in and earning respect have caused her to set out to conceal and compensate for any and all negative things about her, including her inadequacies, neuroses, clinginess, stubbornness, temper, bad habits (e.g., theft, property destruction), and struggles with anxiety and depression. While she does not enjoy lying and takes great pains to avoid it, she withholds information and gives off an illusion of openness to mask her secrecy, only spending enough time with people to keep up appearances and slake her thirst for company, however shallow and unsatisfying it ultimately is. In her experience, honesty about her real thoughts and feelings has seldom turned out well for her.

Her biggest flaw and fear is loneliness, which is caused by a deficit in self-love and self-confidence. Craving affection and validation from others, she is prone to quick and unhealthy attachments. When people fail to give her these or fail to keep up with the effort she gives them, she comes to resent them, despite repeated claims that everything is fine. Despite this, she is disinclined to leave a bad relationship short of extreme circumstances. Indeed, she can become passive-aggressive and go behind her group to complete things her own way when she feels ignored, or lash out physically and/or verbally at the most unexpected times when her distress becomes too much to keep bottled—if she doesn’t disappear completely for hours or days at a time. Meanwhile, she is prone to let people take advantage of her and extend sympathy even when it may not be deserved. It is hard to say if her standards for people are too high or too low, whether her vision of them is clouded by naivety or willful ignorance.

Over the course of her arc, she does become tougher and more outspoken, letting go of her desire for approval. Unfortunately, her experiences also burn her out and cause her to distrust people, especially those with power. Paired with the shame and guilt for all her actions up to that point, and her belief that no one has been any better off for having known her, it compels her to run away to the seas, where she spends the following ten and some years avoiding contact with anyone. In that time, all meaningful communication is reserved for animals, particularly the sea turtles.

Even when she does eventually decide to revisit society, she is quiet and guarded, in need of relearning every social skill she had once worked painstakingly to master. Nevertheless, she retains her fondness for children and a certain protective instinct towards the defenseless.

Relationships
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Appearance
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Abilities
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Kekkei Genkai
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Status


Part I
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Part II
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Blank Period and New Era
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Trivia

 * Aina's name is made up of two kanji: 愛 (ai) meaning "love, affection" and 菜 (na) meaning "vegetables, greens." Her maternal surname, Kichida, is written most commonly with the kanji 吉 (kichi/yoshi) meaning "joy, lucky, good" and 田 (da/ta) meaning "rice field." Kichida is the less common variant of the surname Yoshida. Her nickname, "Kame" (カメ), means "turtle." She earned this nickname from both her lifelong love for turtles and her slow, steady and odd disposition.
 * Her father's surname, Kocchar, is Indian for "armor."
 * Aina's hobbies include gardening and farming, volunteer and charity work, and watching sea turtle nests. She can also play the gottan, which she later replaces with a kankara she makes from a can.
 * Aina's favorite foods include plums, root vegetables, miso soup, onion soup, taiyaki, chocolate, jalebi, lotus tea, umeshu, and lotus stems and roots. As a pescatarian, she dislikes meat and poultry.
 * Aina's favorite words include "Rock" (岩, Iwa), "Home" (家, Ie), "Garden" (庭園, Teien), "Turtle" (カメ, Kame), "Sea" (海, Umi), and "Love" (愛, Ai; 恋, Koi; 慈愛, Jiai).
 * Aina's nindō is "Tend to your gardens" (あなたの庭に向かいます. Anata no niwa ni mukaimasu).
 * Aina has no interest in fighting anyone in particular.
 * Since Aina has never been registered as a shinobi, it is unknown exactly how many missions she has completed, although it's unlikely she's completed any missions beyond a B-rank.
 * Aina's height, 165.1 cm, does not include her hair.
 * Her bust-waist-hip measurements are 106 cm-97 cm-127 cm.
 * She is left-handed.
 * Aina displays many of the signs and symptoms of autism spectrum disorder: sensitivity to sounds, metals and fabrics; repetitive behaviors and speech; stimming behaviors (e.g., playing with crystals), difficulties with communication and socializing; having special interests (e.g., turtles); difficulties adjusting to change; excessive affective empathy; occasional hyperactivity; learning disabilities; being prone to meltdowns that involve self-harm, etc.
 * Aina is panromantic and pansexual--that is, she is attracted to all genders.

Quotes

 * "Ev'rybody's my neighbor, an' ev'ry neighbor's my friend."
 * (To Orochimaru): "You...you like a peacock! No matter how lovely his feathers or how sharp th’ thorns on his legs, a peacock only as worthy’s th’ plain peahens think he is."