Lost, Found

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Lost, Found is a Kill la Kill fic by Amoridere.

Years ago, a little girl by the name Ryuuko Kiryuuin is kidnapped on a cold winter night and her family is left searching for her. Years later, she, along with another girl, Nui Harime, resurfaces but, unlike the latter, Ryuuko doesn't remember too much of who she was before. Meanwhile, Nui is taken in by the Kiryuuins, who're still looking for their lost daughter.

It can be read here.

Tropes used in Lost, Found include:
  • Adult Fear: Ryuuko is kidnapped as a toddler and, like many other children, was taken to the "orphanage", where they are put through experiments.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Shaping up to have one. Ryuuko is reunited with her family but Nui dies suddenly.
  • But Not Too Foreign: Nui is mentioned to be of "partial European descent"
  • Children Are Innocent: Played with. Ryuuko and Nui, who have very little understanding as to why they were being experimented on and can only speculate, along with knowing the consequences. While they do have some understanding of how wrong their treatment was, they could do very little about. In a later chapter, Nui, when telling of her (and Ryuuko's) experiences at the "orphanage", she describes a vivisection before asking what it was, however, she seems to have a clue as to what "euthanasia" was, as she mentioned, “I got to stay because they were low on kids.”
  • Conveniently an Orphan: Nui. Her not having any guardians or relatives gives the Kiryuuins more reasons to worry about her.
  • Disabled Means Helpless: According to Ryuuko (called "Saskia") said the other kids at the "Orphanage" liked to pick on Nui because she's blind in one eye and, quote, "couldn't see 'em coming".
  • Feral Child: Ryuuko, albeit somewhat, regardless, she is described as one, considering that she was averse to being held (tolerating a hug when wrapped in a blanket), the fact that she doesn't talk and mostly grunted or squealed (earlier, she was mentioned as to be speaking, but Amo changed it), and that she killed a mountain lion with her teeth.
  • Foreshadowing: Nui's dream predictions
  • Happily Adopted: If not exactly "happy", then we could say Nui is content to be staying with the Kiryuuins.
  • Healing Factor: Due to being experimented on, Nui and Ryuuko has this, the former getting better quickly after breaking her wrist and getting a skull fracture. However, while the latter did take and shrug off hits from a mountain lion and a bear, Ryuuko's healing factor mostly saved her from external injuries,not internal ones and those internal injuries complicated her being sick.
  • I've Got an X and I'm Not Afraid to Use It: Barazo uses this sort of threat when he's talking to "Weird Dude" to make him go away. At the time, however, he didn't actually have a shotgun but he did get one later in the chapter.
  • Identity Amnesia: Ryuuko doesn't remember her name and too much of her life before she was kidnapped.
  • Ill Girl: Ryuuko gets sick in one chapter and her illness complicates the plot, as the Mankanshokus aren't sure what to do when she does.
  • Infant Immortality: Played with. Kids have died as the result of the experiments but there are many others including Nui and Ryuuko, who had survived.
  • Let Them Die Happy: In chapter 42 with Nui, who, interestingly, is aware that she's dying but the others try to humor her.
  • Little Miss Badass/Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Chapter 5 has Ryuuko being one considering that she took down a mountain lion with teeth despite being severely injured. Chapter 17 is a bit more egregious as she goes up against a bear and wins, to the astonishment of Mako and her family.
  • Never Learned to Read: Actually, Ryuuko can read, it's just that she wasn't allowed to. and she does read. However, she didn't learn to write,
  • Nothing Is Scarier:
    • In chapters 9 and 10, laced with Fridge Horror, as some time ago, there was the first test subject and, according to Nui, as a result of whatever experiments there were, the girl, "Child 00-000-000-0001", was left as something "not human", saying "animal" could be the closest thing they could call her, which begs the question as to what the experimentation did to that girl and what it could have done to Ryuuko and Nui. What doesn't help that is that a good many of the children experimented on had died.
    • The Experiments themselves. We don't know why they're being performed.
  • Orphan's Ordeal: Some of the story, considering more than few chapters revolve around helping Ryuuko find her family.
  • Orphan's Plot Trinket: The photograph that Ryuuko takes from the Kiryuuin's cabin comes in handy when Mako uses it to find Ryuuko's parents.
  • Orphanage of Fear: Well, the place isn't an "orphanage", but it's called as such and, being that it's a laboratory compound to experiment on kids, it may as well be this trope.
  • Parental Abandonment: As noted, Nui's mother had died some time after she was kidnapped and her father is never mentioned.
  • Parental Substitute: The Kiryuuins for Nui and the Mankanshokus for Ryuuko.
  • Sinister Shades: The "Sunglasses Men".
  • Snow Means Death: The story is rather bleak and takes place, for the most part, in winter.
  • The Unintelligible: Ryuuko mostly speaks in garbled syllables and have very few clear words
  • Vague Age: How old are Nui, Satsuki, Ryuuko, and Mako? We don't really know but the story doesn't provide many clues, however, we could say that Satsuki is most likely eleven or twelve, and that Nui, Ryuuko, and Mako are most likely seven or eight, if not, nine.
  • Virtual Soundtrack:
  • When She Smiles: Ryuuko in chapter 7.
    • "I wondered if she knew how much of a ray of sunshine she looked when she smiled but I would stop wondering when she caught herself in a mirror, in which case, she smiled more."
  • Would Hurt a Child: The workers at the "orphanage" have no apparent qualms with child abuse, let alone experimenting on children.