[Ao3 Link.]
This is all the introduction they get: Bee-sensei, swinging in with a girl clutched bridal style in his arms. He drops her firmly on her feet. “Karui, Omoi, here’s your third teammate! Now I gotta scram - don’t wanna be late!” And then he’s gone.
The three of them blink at each other, owlishly, thirteen-years-old and terribly confused. The girl is a little taller than both of them, cause she’s taller than Karui and Karui is taller than Omoi, and she’s wearing... a Kusagakure headband?
They two of them squint at her, and then swing around to consult each other in hushed whispers while the girl fidgets. “What if she’s a spy?” Omoi asks, and unlike normally, that’s like, an actually reasonable question.
“Are you a spy?” Karui asks, and the girl jolts.
“Um. No?” she says. She doesn’t sound very confident. It’s not very convincing.
“Are you sure?” asks Omoi.
The girl frowns at them. “I’m sure,” she says. “Who would I be spying for?”
Karui looks at her like she’s stupid and gestures towards the other girl’s forehead. “Uh, Kusa?”
“Oh!” She reaches up her hand, eyes wide behind her glasses, as if she had forgotten it was there. A likely story. “No, I’m not with Kusa anymore.”
“Why not?” asks Omoi.
The girl scuffs her sandal on the ground, looking pained, but they’re not gonna fall for any TRICKS. “Well, I didn’t live in the main village... and mine kinda got attacked? And destroyed? And Killer Bee rescued me?”
...Okay, that was actually a super plausible story. Neither of them even question why Bee-sensei was in Kusa. He just. Goes where he wants to and nobody’s ever been able to stop him. Karui can even totally believe that she wants to be here in Kumo because who WOULDN’T want to be in Kumo if the other option was Kusa? Easy choice.
“Who attacked?” Omoi rolling in with the fair questions again - he’s on a roll. Nothing crazy so far.
“Uh, Orochimaru of the Sannin,” says the girl, and oh my god WHAT?
Karui’s eyes light up because hello, that’s ridiculously interesting (does that mean??? Bee-sensei fought Orochimaru??? AND SHE MISSED IT???), and leans in. “What happened? Can you tell us?”
The girl looks from pair of shining eyes to pair of shining eyes, and a smile starts to quirk at her mouth. “Okay,” she says, and she leans in a little bit too. “So I live on the east side of town, and I guess that’s pretty lucky, because when the screams started they were all coming from the west...”