Chapter 15 – Returned
Additional background notes for Chapter 15
Chapter notes:
This chapter is about parallels: Sasuke and Katsuro’s inner struggles; Itachi and Kakashi differing styles; Katsuro and Sakura’s interrogation experiences. The fight is drawn from the tone of the Part 1 fights. Lots of punches, desperate moves. Successful blows and painful miscalculations. Not a lot of crazy powerful jutsus yet, but they’ll come. So much of the fight is a push and pull, parallel between the two. Their moves, motives, blows balance each other out. They are both being manipulated by Itachi in this story, so they truly are opposite, inseparable sides of the same struggle.
• Katsuro sized up the kid who was pitted as his target, his rival, his obstacle to overcome. — Echoes Itachi’s words to Sasuke that he existed as his obstacle. Just reinforces the rivalry relationship that will build between the Sasuke and Katsuro/Naruto.
• The elder Uchiha was relentless too, but he was devoid of emotion. Never out of control. Not like this one, Katsuro thought. His movements were fast, but disappointingly predictable. — Katsuro declares this to himself, and his assumptions are immediately overturned. He is powerful, but still immature. Reference to Kakashi saying to Sasuke in the manga that there are ninjas younger than Sasuke that are more powerful than Kakashi (from the Zabuza arc). Basically, never underestimate any opponent. But Katsuro’s smugness comes back to get him.
• About the Kyuubi’s chakra: It wanted what he wanted. To rip, to kill, to destroy. All of it. Their goals were always intertwined, as were their fates. The power was his, and it whispered that he should not stop here. He should kill Sasuke, then continue on…and burn Konoha to the ground. — No chatty Kyuubi here. There is no pet imprisoned in some weird water-logged cell in his stomach. The Kyuubi is simply a malicious power that is locked inside him. Literally, it is the demon’s chakra, not a physical representation of the kyuubi itself. Katsuro/Naruto can manipulate the power, or it can manipulate him. Part of Katsuro/Naruto’s growth will be to adequately control the demon chakra, as well as keep those at bay who would like to control him to get access to that power.
• Her name was a cool spot on the spiraling, malicious chakra. He clung to the moment of clarity. — Echo of the petals on the swirling whirlpool from the painting. Her presence in his life counterbalances that out-of-control moment. Helps him remember he is a separate entity from the demon chakra.
• But Sasuke had launched at him in the same moment, looking as wild and blood-thirsty as he felt. Looking as if he wanted to kill him too. — Sasuke has felt the demon chakra and responded to it, bringing them to the same point. These two are tied together by things that are out of their control, yet they are bound to fight it out. Ultimately, they both have inner demons to fight. And Sasuke had no other motive than to fight him because he was a rogue, but in the end his motivation is from much deeper down. Reinforces rivalry and yin-yang theme.
• Light from the fireball turned the river to molten gold. An enormous black boulder jutted out into the middle, snagging the light, and forcing the water to eddy and swirl loudly around it. — Working in the language used in the first chapter and the ambush chapter about the road being like a ribbon. Katsuro’s looking for a way out, a path. Meant to be subtle, but it is intentional, bringing the language full circle.
• Hands ground into tight fists at his sides, Katsuro glared black challengingly. His eyes were burnished red with the reflected light of the burning forest. Gray streams of smoke rose into the air from the back of his shirt, braiding together and forming menacing, unnatural tips behind him. — An image of the kyuubi in the smoke, the ghost of its tails coming up in the air around him in the smoke. Sasuke will recognized this stance, this furious set of his eyes and fists later on when he returns as Naruto.
• Katsuro pulled back the canvas flap and disappeared into the blinding, white daylight. — White color cue. Opened with the blinding flurry of blossoms in Katsuro’s genjutsu on Sakura, is closed with him disappearing into the white daylight. White is the color cue for an emotional arc between the two main characters. Katsuro is also disappearing back into the world form whence he came.
• She twisted the handle and walked out into the bright, warm sunlight, letting the door swing shut behind her. — Parallel to Katsuro’s exit of Itachi’s tent is Sakura’s exit from her debriefing. Both walk out into the light of a new day. Everything from her on out has changed for them both.
Spoiler notes:
• She caught his look and gave him a quick, nearly imperceptible nod. A silent communication, but of what he was unsure.— Tying in from few chapters ago, reinforces their teammate bond.
• He would tell Itachi the price of the hard-won information about Sasuke’s skills was that she escaped. And he would embellish his tale by telling him that he barely escaped. That the younger brother was stronger than he expected. — In the end, the storyline he tells himself proves true. He did barely escape. Just a few moments more and Kakashi would have arrived. He would have immediately recognized the kyuubi’s chakra. And Sasuke does turn out to be much stronger than he expected.
• Mirrored sentence structure: “Glancing past him at the tree line, the rogue realized he had no idea how many more there were from Konoha. But he wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass. He had to do something to keep him engaged.”
“Sasuke did a quick sweep of the trees. There may be more waiting there. It could be a trap, he thought. That strengthened his resolve to end any pursuit of this guy.” —
Mirrored sentences. Both are nervous about the presence of more unknown nins. But Katsuro wants to drag him in while Sasuke beginning to fall back.
• A word about Sasuke: I’m writing him as similar to the manga, but a little more humane. So I’m going for how he would be without Naruto to temper his bad attitude and form a teammate bond with early on. How would he screw himself up, and what kind of nin would he have become had he not left the village. I imagine him as arrogant and isolated, but never giving up his goal of defeating Itachi. But he will evolve too, and come to recognize Sakura as a powerful ninja and feel some teammate bonds to her and Sai. I just imagine it would take him a lot longer to get there without Naruto. As far as Sai being the teammate, it was the easiest fit. That dynamic of Sai on Team 7 is already built in. Adding anyone else would distract from the story (such as pulling another character from another team, weird dynamic, ooc, etc.). Sai works best.
The same rules apply to him: he won’t be all bad, but he won’t be all good. I’m going to do my best to write an honest portrayal of what he would be like without the good influences of a team, as well as being left to grow up in the village without being singled out by Orochimaru.
• Katsuro learns that the strategizing skill that he has seen in action for so long in Itachi is also employed effectively by Sasuke. But in his anger, his need to not recognize Sasuke as a worthy opponent, he leaves quite a few openings.
• ‘You may be relentless,’ Katsuro thought, ‘but that’s not enough.’ — Relentless is a word used by many characters. Most often it is used to describe the characteristic Konoha need to not give up. Katsuro easily recognizes it in Sakura and Sasuke, and even in Itachi. Later Sakura will describe Naruto’s fighting style as relentless, even as she doesn’t believe the story of his background, still sees him as a threat. It’s a subconscious nod to his inherent nature; he still has strong Konoha characteristics even though he’s grown up so far afield.
• Wired kunai were an Uchiha clan specialty. — Yeah, I don’t know if this is true. But I needed a clan specialty for Katsuro to have inside knowledge of. This one fit the tone of the fight. Don’t grill me about it. 🙂
• Intentionally staying behind the katon, the Uchiha raced toward the ground. But this time he was in control. — The tables have turned in the fight.
• This had gone too far. Even as he leapt away from the tree to bodily rip into the Uchiha, he knew he had to get out of there. — The fight is a draw. Katsuro doesn’t win or lose, he just decides to leave. But leaving a fight once it’s in motion is incredibly hard.
• Sasuke has some sense of the demon chakra rolling off Katsuro. He will recognize the powerful, horrific chakra, as well as Katsuro’s challenging glare from the boulder at the end, much later on in Naruto.
• But another figure materialized at the Uchiha’s shoulder. And shouts rang out in the woods behind Kastsuro. The firestorm was drawing a lot of attention. — Fight ends in mirrored sentences. Both are stopped by outside forces bearing down on them.
• “We have to go. Now,” the voice of an older nin carried down. But Sasuke didn’t seem inclined to cooperate. The new arrival spared a glance at the rogue. Katsuro could see a face concealment. — Kakashi, obviously. A few moments sooner and he would have sensed the malevolent chakra and recognized it. But he didn’t. And so the search for his sensei’s son continues.
• I’m writing about the Akatsuki as a little bit open secret, a little bit myth among everyone else but ANBU. Intensely secretive, even from each other. So Sakura’s specifics would prove very valuable. Although we don’t ever see in the manga when it’s revealed that Itachi has joined forces with the baddest group in the land, it must have been pretty surprising for the people who knew him before, when he was an upstanding shinobi. I think it might be like Sakura and Naruto’s shocked reaction to learning that Sasuke was in the group, but a little less emotional. So I decided to write Sakura’s speech as a shocking confirmation for the ANBU.
Sakura, however walks into the warm sunlight. Didn’t feel the need to reiterate the whiteness of it, rather the brightness and warmth. Both leave you with different feelings. She is also shutting the door behind her, after making specific decisions about how she wants to changer her life. She is walking into warmth, and the reader knows everything about what her life in the village is like. So it’s a comfortable to place to think about, easy to envision. Whereas Katsuro’s life is full of unknowns. So it’s appropriate that he “disappears” back into his life.
• A note on the ANBU — I’ve written them more hard-core than they seem to be portrayed in the manga. These guys aren’t from Root, they’re just no-nonsense. I don’t think there are seconds in command as I’ve written it — just a single captain or squad leader in the manga — but I needed someone with a smidge more authority than the rest to defuse the situation.
• Just like the four scooting away from the table, these men also concealed their identities with eerie milk-white masks. —The masks are creepy. But since I’m not identifying any of them, I decided to leave off about the animal qualities of the masks, instead focusing on the intimidation that a bunch of ninjas wearing expressionless animal faces made of porcelain would generate.
• But the four anbu were standing just inside the wall, and waiting just for her. She did not get so much as a look around at her beloved village. — Things have changed. She couldn’t see the destruction when she was returned, and it adds further justification to their rough treatment of her, thinking she might have been a spy. And it helps her understand why her team couldn’t come immediately after her.
• He snapped up the file and flipped over a paper. “A genin who couldn’t even qualify for the chunin exam.” — My oversight from early on, so I’ll touch on it again to save any confusion. Sakura, Sasuke and Sai, are still genin. They didn’t make it to the chunin exam because they couldn’t work together. They’ll get it figured out though.
• “You did fine, Sakura. Just fine. There was a genjutsu a few weeks ago, just as you said. A strong one. There was also a more recent one, but it was very thin. Both by the same person. Whoever he is, he’s not Itachi.” — Cruel twist of fate: Later on it will be revealed to Naruto that Kakashi, Inoichi and many others have always searched for him. They are searching for Itachi to find him. Well Inoichi finds the trace of Naruto left in the genjutsu, but doesn’t know what he’s looking for. So he slips through again.
• “Why would someone like you waste your time here, especially now?” the squad leader said in a low, accusing voice. His eyes narrowed to slits behind the porcelain mask. “What is it you’re looking for?” — Two references. First one is about the state of the village. Inoichi is too powerful to be fooling around with a lost genin, especially now when he is needed elsewhere. Foreshadowing of the changes in the village. Second reference is to the underlying search for Naruto among a tight circle of ninja, Inoichi and Kakashi among them.
• Curling her hair behind her ears, Sakura recollected how it all began and mentally let Katsuro fall from the picture. —Language ties in to a poignant scene later on.
21 Aug 2010 No Comments
Chapter 15 notes
Chapter 15 – Returned
Additional background notes for Chapter 15
Chapter notes:
This chapter is about parallels: Sasuke and Katsuro’s inner struggles; Itachi and Kakashi differing styles; Katsuro and Sakura’s interrogation experiences. The fight is drawn from the tone of the Part 1 fights. Lots of punches, desperate moves. Successful blows and painful miscalculations. Not a lot of crazy powerful jutsus yet, but they’ll come. So much of the fight is a push and pull, parallel between the two. Their moves, motives, blows balance each other out. They are both being manipulated by Itachi in this story, so they truly are opposite, inseparable sides of the same struggle.
• Katsuro sized up the kid who was pitted as his target, his rival, his obstacle to overcome. — Echoes Itachi’s words to Sasuke that he existed as his obstacle. Just reinforces the rivalry relationship that will build between the Sasuke and Katsuro/Naruto.
• The elder Uchiha was relentless too, but he was devoid of emotion. Never out of control. Not like this one, Katsuro thought. His movements were fast, but disappointingly predictable. — Katsuro declares this to himself, and his assumptions are immediately overturned. He is powerful, but still immature. Reference to Kakashi saying to Sasuke in the manga that there are ninjas younger than Sasuke that are more powerful than Kakashi (from the Zabuza arc). Basically, never underestimate any opponent. But Katsuro’s smugness comes back to get him.
• About the Kyuubi’s chakra: It wanted what he wanted. To rip, to kill, to destroy. All of it. Their goals were always intertwined, as were their fates. The power was his, and it whispered that he should not stop here. He should kill Sasuke, then continue on…and burn Konoha to the ground. — No chatty Kyuubi here. There is no pet imprisoned in some weird water-logged cell in his stomach. The Kyuubi is simply a malicious power that is locked inside him. Literally, it is the demon’s chakra, not a physical representation of the kyuubi itself. Katsuro/Naruto can manipulate the power, or it can manipulate him. Part of Katsuro/Naruto’s growth will be to adequately control the demon chakra, as well as keep those at bay who would like to control him to get access to that power.
• Her name was a cool spot on the spiraling, malicious chakra. He clung to the moment of clarity. — Echo of the petals on the swirling whirlpool from the painting. Her presence in his life counterbalances that out-of-control moment. Helps him remember he is a separate entity from the demon chakra.
• But Sasuke had launched at him in the same moment, looking as wild and blood-thirsty as he felt. Looking as if he wanted to kill him too. — Sasuke has felt the demon chakra and responded to it, bringing them to the same point. These two are tied together by things that are out of their control, yet they are bound to fight it out. Ultimately, they both have inner demons to fight. And Sasuke had no other motive than to fight him because he was a rogue, but in the end his motivation is from much deeper down. Reinforces rivalry and yin-yang theme.
• Light from the fireball turned the river to molten gold. An enormous black boulder jutted out into the middle, snagging the light, and forcing the water to eddy and swirl loudly around it. — Working in the language used in the first chapter and the ambush chapter about the road being like a ribbon. Katsuro’s looking for a way out, a path. Meant to be subtle, but it is intentional, bringing the language full circle.
• Hands ground into tight fists at his sides, Katsuro glared black challengingly. His eyes were burnished red with the reflected light of the burning forest. Gray streams of smoke rose into the air from the back of his shirt, braiding together and forming menacing, unnatural tips behind him. — An image of the kyuubi in the smoke, the ghost of its tails coming up in the air around him in the smoke. Sasuke will recognized this stance, this furious set of his eyes and fists later on when he returns as Naruto.
• Katsuro pulled back the canvas flap and disappeared into the blinding, white daylight. — White color cue. Opened with the blinding flurry of blossoms in Katsuro’s genjutsu on Sakura, is closed with him disappearing into the white daylight. White is the color cue for an emotional arc between the two main characters. Katsuro is also disappearing back into the world form whence he came.
• She twisted the handle and walked out into the bright, warm sunlight, letting the door swing shut behind her. — Parallel to Katsuro’s exit of Itachi’s tent is Sakura’s exit from her debriefing. Both walk out into the light of a new day. Everything from her on out has changed for them both.
Spoiler notes:
• She caught his look and gave him a quick, nearly imperceptible nod. A silent communication, but of what he was unsure.— Tying in from few chapters ago, reinforces their teammate bond.
• He would tell Itachi the price of the hard-won information about Sasuke’s skills was that she escaped. And he would embellish his tale by telling him that he barely escaped. That the younger brother was stronger than he expected. — In the end, the storyline he tells himself proves true. He did barely escape. Just a few moments more and Kakashi would have arrived. He would have immediately recognized the kyuubi’s chakra. And Sasuke does turn out to be much stronger than he expected.
• Mirrored sentence structure: “Glancing past him at the tree line, the rogue realized he had no idea how many more there were from Konoha. But he wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass. He had to do something to keep him engaged.”
“Sasuke did a quick sweep of the trees. There may be more waiting there. It could be a trap, he thought. That strengthened his resolve to end any pursuit of this guy.” —
Mirrored sentences. Both are nervous about the presence of more unknown nins. But Katsuro wants to drag him in while Sasuke beginning to fall back.
• A word about Sasuke: I’m writing him as similar to the manga, but a little more humane. So I’m going for how he would be without Naruto to temper his bad attitude and form a teammate bond with early on. How would he screw himself up, and what kind of nin would he have become had he not left the village. I imagine him as arrogant and isolated, but never giving up his goal of defeating Itachi. But he will evolve too, and come to recognize Sakura as a powerful ninja and feel some teammate bonds to her and Sai. I just imagine it would take him a lot longer to get there without Naruto. As far as Sai being the teammate, it was the easiest fit. That dynamic of Sai on Team 7 is already built in. Adding anyone else would distract from the story (such as pulling another character from another team, weird dynamic, ooc, etc.). Sai works best.
The same rules apply to him: he won’t be all bad, but he won’t be all good. I’m going to do my best to write an honest portrayal of what he would be like without the good influences of a team, as well as being left to grow up in the village without being singled out by Orochimaru.
• Katsuro learns that the strategizing skill that he has seen in action for so long in Itachi is also employed effectively by Sasuke. But in his anger, his need to not recognize Sasuke as a worthy opponent, he leaves quite a few openings.
• ‘You may be relentless,’ Katsuro thought, ‘but that’s not enough.’ — Relentless is a word used by many characters. Most often it is used to describe the characteristic Konoha need to not give up. Katsuro easily recognizes it in Sakura and Sasuke, and even in Itachi. Later Sakura will describe Naruto’s fighting style as relentless, even as she doesn’t believe the story of his background, still sees him as a threat. It’s a subconscious nod to his inherent nature; he still has strong Konoha characteristics even though he’s grown up so far afield.
• Wired kunai were an Uchiha clan specialty. — Yeah, I don’t know if this is true. But I needed a clan specialty for Katsuro to have inside knowledge of. This one fit the tone of the fight. Don’t grill me about it. 🙂
• Intentionally staying behind the katon, the Uchiha raced toward the ground. But this time he was in control. — The tables have turned in the fight.
• This had gone too far. Even as he leapt away from the tree to bodily rip into the Uchiha, he knew he had to get out of there. — The fight is a draw. Katsuro doesn’t win or lose, he just decides to leave. But leaving a fight once it’s in motion is incredibly hard.
• Sasuke has some sense of the demon chakra rolling off Katsuro. He will recognize the powerful, horrific chakra, as well as Katsuro’s challenging glare from the boulder at the end, much later on in Naruto.
• But another figure materialized at the Uchiha’s shoulder. And shouts rang out in the woods behind Kastsuro. The firestorm was drawing a lot of attention. — Fight ends in mirrored sentences. Both are stopped by outside forces bearing down on them.
• “We have to go. Now,” the voice of an older nin carried down. But Sasuke didn’t seem inclined to cooperate. The new arrival spared a glance at the rogue. Katsuro could see a face concealment. — Kakashi, obviously. A few moments sooner and he would have sensed the malevolent chakra and recognized it. But he didn’t. And so the search for his sensei’s son continues.
• I’m writing about the Akatsuki as a little bit open secret, a little bit myth among everyone else but ANBU. Intensely secretive, even from each other. So Sakura’s specifics would prove very valuable. Although we don’t ever see in the manga when it’s revealed that Itachi has joined forces with the baddest group in the land, it must have been pretty surprising for the people who knew him before, when he was an upstanding shinobi. I think it might be like Sakura and Naruto’s shocked reaction to learning that Sasuke was in the group, but a little less emotional. So I decided to write Sakura’s speech as a shocking confirmation for the ANBU.
Sakura, however walks into the warm sunlight. Didn’t feel the need to reiterate the whiteness of it, rather the brightness and warmth. Both leave you with different feelings. She is also shutting the door behind her, after making specific decisions about how she wants to changer her life. She is walking into warmth, and the reader knows everything about what her life in the village is like. So it’s a comfortable to place to think about, easy to envision. Whereas Katsuro’s life is full of unknowns. So it’s appropriate that he “disappears” back into his life.
• A note on the ANBU — I’ve written them more hard-core than they seem to be portrayed in the manga. These guys aren’t from Root, they’re just no-nonsense. I don’t think there are seconds in command as I’ve written it — just a single captain or squad leader in the manga — but I needed someone with a smidge more authority than the rest to defuse the situation.
• Just like the four scooting away from the table, these men also concealed their identities with eerie milk-white masks. —The masks are creepy. But since I’m not identifying any of them, I decided to leave off about the animal qualities of the masks, instead focusing on the intimidation that a bunch of ninjas wearing expressionless animal faces made of porcelain would generate.
• But the four anbu were standing just inside the wall, and waiting just for her. She did not get so much as a look around at her beloved village. — Things have changed. She couldn’t see the destruction when she was returned, and it adds further justification to their rough treatment of her, thinking she might have been a spy. And it helps her understand why her team couldn’t come immediately after her.
• He snapped up the file and flipped over a paper. “A genin who couldn’t even qualify for the chunin exam.” — My oversight from early on, so I’ll touch on it again to save any confusion. Sakura, Sasuke and Sai, are still genin. They didn’t make it to the chunin exam because they couldn’t work together. They’ll get it figured out though.
• “You did fine, Sakura. Just fine. There was a genjutsu a few weeks ago, just as you said. A strong one. There was also a more recent one, but it was very thin. Both by the same person. Whoever he is, he’s not Itachi.” — Cruel twist of fate: Later on it will be revealed to Naruto that Kakashi, Inoichi and many others have always searched for him. They are searching for Itachi to find him. Well Inoichi finds the trace of Naruto left in the genjutsu, but doesn’t know what he’s looking for. So he slips through again.
• “Why would someone like you waste your time here, especially now?” the squad leader said in a low, accusing voice. His eyes narrowed to slits behind the porcelain mask. “What is it you’re looking for?” — Two references. First one is about the state of the village. Inoichi is too powerful to be fooling around with a lost genin, especially now when he is needed elsewhere. Foreshadowing of the changes in the village. Second reference is to the underlying search for Naruto among a tight circle of ninja, Inoichi and Kakashi among them.
• Curling her hair behind her ears, Sakura recollected how it all began and mentally let Katsuro fall from the picture. —Language ties in to a poignant scene later on.
by tricksie in Chapter Notes