From birth Shiori’s mother Biyako Spiga watched her daughter closely for the signs of weakness, or greatness, that would determine her and her family’s future. A male had been born first, which was a blemish against their bloodline. Shiori would have to be stronger.
Unfortunately, Shiori was a sickly infant. Her mother hid her from the world for the first year, using her son to feed Shiori with fresh blood. Gossip abounded about Biyako’s second child, some suspecting that she’d given birth to a stillborn girl, or was hiding a secret second son. Some of this gossip ended in confrontation, brawls, and the bodies of certain gossipers brought home for Biyako and her family to eat together.
Nourished and protected, Shiori grew to be a healthy child. At 6 years old she was told to prove herself her mother’s daughter by hunting her own meal. Biyako pointed out that one of the Spiga who had taunted her over her bloodline now had a toddler of her own, and expected Shiori to make a meal of her. Shiori dashed the child’s head in with a rock and carried it back to her mother’s lair. Her mother praised her for her successful hunt, then turned sour once she heard how it had happened.
“Only a monkey would kill their opponent with a rock,” said Biyako. “If you cannot kill like a spider, you will die like a monkey.”
Shiori’s mother hurled her into a dark pit in the Spiga caves recesses, and bade her not come out until she could kill like a Spiga. Shiori’s wrist was sprained in the fall. She laid in the dark, sobbing in fear and pain, for what felt like a long time until she heard the sound of larger creatures scuttling nearby. Something was approaching. Something bigger than a rat, big enough to be another spiga. For the first time, Shiori feared the consequences of killing another child. Her mother was out there, still. Searching.
Shiori bolted. After all that useless weeping, anything with an empty belly or an axe to grind would have no problem finding her now, and as it gave chase she realized soon that she wouldn’t be able to outrun it. All she could do was hide and hope the hunting creature would pass her by. She was in too much pain to fight, and when, or if, she climbed out of this hellhole, the horrible thing that wanted her would probably come after her. She could feel it.
But it wasn’t a hungry creature who found her hiding in the dark, but her useless and inferior older brother.
“What do you want.” Shiori hissed at him through the pain of her burning muscles and sprained wrist.
“Give me your arm.”
She obliged. Her brother grasped it, bound it with some wood and spider silk. When she pulled her arm back, it was splinted. She could put weight on it now.
“Take it off before you get back to mom.” Her brother said.
It seemed he’d been watching her in the dark. Shiori’s cheeks burned with shame. Her mother had thrown her down here, and her useless, idiot older brother had followed along thinking she needed his help. With a wild snarl, she leapt upon her brother’s neck in the dark, sinking her teeth in and throwing him to the ground. He laid there, bleeding out from her deep bite, silent as she kicked and punched him furiously. Finally Shiori tossed the splint off her arm back at him and went back into the caves to hunt, leaving her brother alone.
In the end, all that mattered was that you weren’t the one in the cave when the monster came.
Shiori returned to her mother sometime later with a sticky sack of webbing full of large rats. Her mother praised her, though noted that it had taken her an awfully long time to get just a few rats. Next time there would have to be more. She bound up her daughter’s wrist gently with an elegant lattice of web, and sent her to a warm bed.
Her brother returned later that night, without much notice. He was bruised and battered, with a gaping neck wound bound up with webbing and grass. It would eventually heal into a white scar, which he generally kept covered.
Shiori grew into a beautiful young woman, much like her mother had been. The softer skills of friendship and social combat became useful at the Konoha ninja academy, which her mother was just as determined to see her daughter excel at as more directly violent ninja skills. Shiori made friends among high-ranked clans children, and for a spiga, became quite a popular girl at school.