Nora

Nora at age 12.

> *"Why should I tell you, squaroid? You four-sided fuck..."*
>  - Nora, lashing out at Miroku Oki
>
>

**Nora**(野良) is a Jonin of Konohagakure. At age 4, he witnessed the extrajudicial murder of his older sister, causing him to awaken his unique Dojutsu, the Kihengan. Afterwards, he lived on the streets and stole to survive until he was taken in by Mako Matsumoto. A child prodigy the likes of which Konoha has perhaps never seen, he became a genin shortly after turning seven. Even after finding a proper, loving home, things remained turbulent for him. Hoping to mold him into a more stable, cooperative person, he was allowed to graduated early and was placed on an elite team of young Chunin, perhaps to help foster his abilities and cooperative skills.

## Background

Nora is the son of a deadbeat mother and a nobody chunin who died on combat for a father. Left with only his older sister, Mio, to take care of him, he was at least happy for a time, though they were incredibly poor. To make money, Mio, who was 16, prostituted herself. At the time, Konoha's government had become tyrannical in the months after the Konoha Crush, and Mio had slept with a member of the rebellions. Accused of being a spy, she was dragged out of the house by a Kill Squad and murdered. During this, Nora hid in a closet. He exited the house later and awoke the Kihengan after seeing Mio's corpse.

## Personality

Nora is very unlike children his age in the sense that is is very dull, quiet, and apathetic. He has a generally stoic demeanor and speaks in an advanced manner for his age. However, he is like his peers in the sense that he has egocentrism; his capacity for empathy is very low and he displays hints of sadism. The child actively enjoys committing wrongdoings and particularly enjoys broken bones. Nora is also highly selfish. He responds very poorly to not getting his way and does whatever he thinks is necessary with little regard for consequences.

Nora is very unlike children his age in the sense that is is very dull, quiet, and apathetic. He has a generally stoic demeanor and speaks in an advanced manner for his age. Initially, after his traumas, Nora became egocentric, sadistic, and lacking in empathy. However, after snapping at another child over an insult and killing her, the disapproval of one of few people that Nora actually cared for awakened a sense of guilt for the first time in the child. Combined with the grief of losing his adopted brother, Banshee Hashiame, the boy developed a more sullen and docile demeanor.

When angered, Nora's calm demeanor breaks and is replaced with hostility. After developing a sense of guilt, Nora was forced to develop the ability to calm himself down and ignore sources of stress. Nora has issues with trust due to the amount of abuse others have inflicted upon him in his life. Because of this, he is highly cynical and he believes that acts of kindness come out of self-interest or so that they can get close enough to harm him. Few people have ever truly earned Nora's trust, such as Mako and Ban.

Nora is known for his precocious intellect and learning capabilities and is able to quickly adapt to harsh situations. Nora is highly confident in his abilities and somewhat arrogant; he responds very poorly to being looked down upon. Notably, Nora has a very fowl mouth and very fluently curses and uses wordplay to enhance his insults. Due to his poor upbringing, Nora has a strong preference for high-quality food, and fried rice is his favorite. As a young child he had very little in terms of toys and while homeless he had no time to play, so Nora also struggles with boredom at times and can become antsy.

## Appearance

Nora is a pale-skinned boy with dull blue eyes, black hair, and a slender frame. He has tired-looking almond eyes, a thin nose, and a small mouth. He has long, straight eyebrows which exceed his eyes in length.

While living alone on the streets, Nora was a sickly, emaciated child with greasy and unkempt long hair. After being adopted and returned to proper health, the boy developed a healthy build and wore his hair in a well-kept shoulder-length style. After spending some time in Team Shinku and learning to trust them, Nora gets a makeover from the Bosei Uchiha, the mother of his teammate Isa. After the makeover, Nora's hair is cut to chin length, where it becomes noted his hair likes to curve inwards then outwards towards the endsGrowing up poor, all he had were hand-me-downs that were very raggedy after much time spent homeless. After his adoption, he began dressing in a grey t-shirt, white shorts, and plain shinobi sandals. After his makeover, he begins wearing a white shirt with a high collar over a long-sleeved mesh undershirt and black pants (sporting a bandage band and thigh pouch). He also bandaged his calves and wore high shinobi sandals with a white collar. With a more strict workout routine, Nora also develops a stronger, but still slender frame.

As a Jonin, Nora became torn between wearing the standard Jonin uniform and an everyday outfit similar to the one he'd taken on after his makeover. His body, while still slender, has finally filled out to a proper and healthy weight. Thanks to a proper diet of nutrition, it has been found that Nora is actually taller than average. He has cut his hair somewhat short -- down to his neck in the back -- and parts it from the center. Nora has also begun to wear a blue, headband-styled forehead protector. His eyes are sharp and intense, giving him a look many would describe as intimidating. He has prominent eye bags from sleep deprivation.

## Abilities

As a child, it was very clear that Nora was much stronger than most children. During his time in the Academy, Nora rapidly learned everything he needed to at an enormously accelerated rate due to his innately immense adaptational and learning abilities. This was so much so that Nora also accomplished feats such as learning Fire Release before leaving the academy and compensating for his oversized chakra reserves through greatly refining his control to a point that it is believed he holds a genuine future in medical jutsu.

During his early service in Shinku Squad, Nora showed he was able to briefly pressure Taka member Hikari with his taijutsu and ninjutsu, though she was not giving it her all. Less than a year after his graduation from the Academy, Nora was able to single-handedly clear the Chunin Exams. Without his teammates, the boy effortlessly cleared it and set several records. Initially, Nora was regarded as having poor teamwork skills, but the village's gamble in graduating him and placing him in Shinku Squad paid off well. At only 10 years of age, Nora's cooperative abilities were regarded alongside his combat ability and intelligence to be befitting of a Jonin, and he was able to pass the Jonin Exams.

Four years after the battle on Burial Island, Nora has spent some time as a Jonin and has greatly expanded his arsenal. He has grown adept enough with his Kihengan to make complex machines on the fly whereas it once took painstaking research to make much. His arsenal of Fire Release has achieved several more Jutsu and he has begun to dabble into (placeholder) Release and medical jutsu.

### Jutsu

* Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique
* Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique
* Kihengan: Dragon Gun
* Kihengan: Dragon Roar
* Kihengan: Dragon Talon
* Kihengan: Ironclad Spear
* Kihengan: Spline Dance

## History

### Reign of Terror

After awakening his Kihengan, Nora went homeless at the age of 4. He was forced to live as a street urchin to stole to survive. Even with his dojutsu, the tiny child found it increasingly difficult to fend for himself. At one point, he attacked a disabled Banshee Hashiame, and dismantled the older boy's wheelchair to sell it for scrap. Two years into his life as an orphan, he contracted a stomach virus and found his body unable to retain water. Akechi Hatake found him in an atrocious state of health and hygiene, bordering on death, and encouraged the child to commit suicide.

After Nora attempted to use the Kihengan to lick his blood, Akechi mistook the dojutsu for the Rinnegan and ordered Nora to survive, giving him sake to keep the child afloat. The alcohol swiftly put the child to sleep. Shortly after, he was found by Banshee, who remembered the child but bore no ill-will. Nora awoke in a Matsumoto Medical room; while undergoing care, he was highly afraid and mistrustful of the staff, but was easily convinced to stay by the quality food they fed him. Eventually, he was taken in by Mako. Overtime, Nora grew to trust and eventually like Mako and Ban but struggled to properly express his affection. Somewhere during the time after his recovery, he went and created a makeshift grave for Mio at the outskirts of the Graveyard, burying a toy in place of her body.

### After the Second Stone and Leaf

Nora did not see any combat, as he was in the academy, performing exceptionally. Shortly after Banshee Hashiame's murder, Nora stumbled across his murderer, Kaito Uchiha. Unaware of the murder, Nora behaved as usual, and the two got off on the wrong foot. Some time later, Nora also met Miroku Oki, who intervened in Nora's unproportional retribution aimed at a bully. The two argued for a bit, then Miroku offered to train him. Unconvinced of his abilities, Nora took Miroku on and was easily bested by the Chunin. He ran away, hypocritically frustrated.

After a day at the Academy some time later, Nora overheard a group of children making fun of him. Upon hearing himself be called a stray, he lost control of his temper and attacked the children, resulting in the death of an Inuzuka girl. Mako soon found him and took responsibility for dealing with the incident. Afterwards, the relationship between the two became very difficult and distant.

During the Storm, Nora was seen aiding in protecting civilians within the hospital, as it was what he believed Mako would want him to be doing. Mako eventually redirected him elsewhere and had him escort children to an evacuation zone. After completing this task, Nora turned to find the medical-nin mortally wounded by General Dao. After overcoming a brief traumatic shock, Nora passed a Dragon Gun to Miroku, then took Mako off to a doctor. Nora provided a charge of his own chakra to help stabilize him.

In the morning after the attack, Nora went to check on Mio's grave. On his way there, however, he stumbled upon the corpse of Ban, which had been washed out of its shallow grave by the extreme weather as the graveyard had been hit particularly hard. On that day, Nora finally began to understand the value of life and the finality of death.

Months later, Nora graduated from the academy shortly after his seventh birthday and was placed into Team Shinku, led by Kaede Uchiha alongside Kaito and Isa Uchiha. His first mission on the team was to research rumors of a team composed of an Okami-nin and the missing-nin Takumi Uchiha.

## Relationships

### Mako Matsumoto

Mako took Nora in after his protege Ban found Nora dying out on the streets. Though Nora was initially distrusting, he grew to trust Mako as the medical-nin nursed him back to health. Mako is one of the few people Nora trusts or cares for. After Nora lost control and killed another academy student, a major strain was put on their relationship as Mako found he could no longer see the child the same way.

### Akechi Hatake

Shortly before his adoption by Mako Matsumoto, Akechi found Nora in his near-death state and encouraged the child to commit suicide to both end his suffering and free Konoha of such a "completely worthless" existence. However, after witnessing the Kihengan, which he mistook for the Rinnegan, Akechi ordered Nora to survive, perhaps with intent to make use of Nora's power later down the line.

### Isa Uchiha

Isa and Nora have recently been placed on the same squad. At first, they had a strained, difficult relation. Their personalities clashed to deadly effect, and Nora's extreme immaturity and brusque insensitivity caused them to even come to blows periodically. However, as Nora grew over the time skip, they grew to be able to get along and enjoy each other's presence.

### Kaede Uchiha

At first, Nora was strongly opposed to the idea of cooperating with Kaede and her students. After her severe injuries incurred by her fight with Takumi Uchiha, Kaede was met with complete apathy by Nora. In the child's defense, he was struggling to take care of a comatose Mako and it was weighing an immense emotional toll on him. However, later on, Nora matured greatly and grew to be a more compassionate person in his own way, paving the way for a proper relationship between the two.

## Trivia

* Nora is a prefix noun used to refer to a stray animal, hence his nickname 'stray'.
* As a young child, Nora had a deep fixation on geometry, using 'square' and other variations as a favored insult and muttering about shapes to comfort himself. During Part 2, Nora is shown to have largely distanced himself from this hyperfixation.
* He likes dragons a lot and frequently draws them. This is reflected in many of his invention jutsu's names, such as his signature Dragon Gun.
* Nora's favorite food is fried rice. He prefers shades to colors.
* Nora's main theme during Part 1 was Super 17's theme from DBGT.
	+ Nora's former combat theme was "Alien class.A 'SZZU & CKRY / LLWO'" from Black Rock Shooter: The Game.