Genjutsus were difficult things to manage and not Katsuro’s specialty. But gauging from the pink bloom spreading across the kunoichi’s cheeks, he’d pulled this one off well enough.
She kicked her legs gently beside him, blissfully unaware of their dismal surroundings.
Not that the inner-workings of the genjutsu would have held any interest for her anyway. Katsuro seemed to be the only one who found the swirling of a victim’s fears or desires into the fabric of an illusion to be a fascinating subject.
Most times, it was a single aspect that revealed itself through the cottoning fog. A place of tragedy came through in dark, jagged shards. Like seeing a reflection in a shattered window. But a happier memory would appear fully-formed behind the veil. Most often, it was the person’s childhood home. Katsuro made sure never to look at those.
But this illusion was completely different.
A clean, encompassing glow swept over the damp riverbed campsite, spreading outward from where the pair sat on the fallen tree. The shapes were still there, or at least the memory of land, the log and the grey fire circle, but the rest disappeared beneath a shimmery golden haze.
No insight to her life came sailing out of the mist. Instead they were both surrounded by a pleasant feeling. As if that cool green light of her healing chakra had suddenly turned warm.
Perhaps it was because the extent of his interrogation jutsu had been on old men or petty criminals. Or perhaps this was the result of working over a genjutsu on a girl who had little experience with the hardships of life. But then again, maybe she was destined to always be surprising him.
Within the space of the genjutsu, Katsuro knew there was safety. Outside, the situation may be terrifying, but inside this illusion it was as comfortable as that tiny fire lit room at the temple.
He blew out a satisfied breath. Colors wafted and shifted around them in the golden light, as if it was a dancing flame. He smiled. The echo of that room must be his contribution to this unusual, embracing illusion.
Katusuro began. With a friendly smile, he took his time, revisited their previous conversations and gently guided her to fill in more information. If he worked it right, then she’d have no memory of this at all. It would just blur together with her dreams.
But just as he congratulated himself on his success, her smile sagged and her swinging legs stilled.
“I don’t think I should be telling you these things,” she mumbled. Slim fingers smoothed over the new frown lines on her forehead, as if trying to remember something she’d forgotten, something dreadfully important.
Katsuro was surprised. It was a testament to her strong will that she could still keep a shred of reason while fully dipped in a genjutsu.
“Don’t worry,” he said, voice soothing. “You aren’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.”
She looked up with relief. “Really?”
“Of course,” he smiled back, lying.
And with that content look returned, she went back to swinging her legs. The radiant smile she shot at him only made him feel worse about having to manipulate her. But it had to be done. This was the only way to appease Itachi and guarantee her safety.
Best not to think too much about it, he told himself before circling back to an earlier conversation to verify some names.
“So one of my favorite stories is when you were at the academy and the big one” — “Choji,” she corrected — “right, when Choji blew up at the other kid in class who called him fat. You know, the dog boy, what was his name again?”
“Oh, Kiba,” she supplied.
“Right, Kiba,” Katsuro intoned smoothly.
And so went the interrogation. What she believed was an innocent conversation, no different from the many they’d had in the temple, was really a careful culling of information. He was skimming the surface, attaching names to all the stories she’d told him, and occasionally dipping deeper for specific details about Sasuke, his prime target.
He had to admit he was curious about her teammate. Katsuro’s help in the very delicate matter concerning his younger brother was the only mission Itachi had charged him with in exchange for freeing him from Konoha. Katsuro had trained for it, bled for it, undergone countless missions and crushing jutsus just to be able to withstand some of the punishing blows that an “Uchiha” could deliver.
But the kunoichi’s experiences gave Katsuro a real reason to hate him.
The younger Uchiha was always either ignoring her or insulting her. And then he tried to get her thrown off their team. She related that story in full, even down to the mess she’d made of their kage’s office.
Katsuro laughed till his side hurt at that story, and she beamed back at him, obviously pleased at his approval of what everyone else had called a childish temper tantrum. But another recollection turned her pensive.
“Sasuke was a precocious as a child. All the girls in the academy had crushes on him,” she muttered, then hurriedly added, “but now I think all the attention might have gone to his head.”
She frowned and tapped her chin. “I don’t think many people see how he really is. But as he’s gotten older he’s only grown colder and more arrogant,” she said, then shrugged. “He has no friends, not even Sai.”
Katsuro mulled what she’d said. If he was that blustering to everyone, then the chances were that he actually wasn’t as powerful as Itachi expected.
Though Itachi had called his sibling weak and cowardly, Katsuro just assumed it to be a lie. Probably just a message planted in the girl if, in fact, he did plan on sending her back. If Katsuro had to guess, Itachi’s goal was to make sure his traitorous younger brother knew he would never be strong in his older brother’s eyes, no matter how much training he had.
Katsuro leaned closer to her, as if sharing a secret.
“He’s really not that great is he,” he whispered. “It’s all just an act?”
“Oh no! He was always the best in our class, and I know he’s better than a lot of chunins and maybe even a few jonins.” The kunoichi shook her head slowly. “I think he’s more powerful than he lets on. But he doesn’t get along with anyone. And he trains alone.” She paused before adding quietly, “I don’t think he trusts anyone, which is understandable, I guess.”
Katsuro was going to ask about his skill level, they one thing Itachi cared about most, when the girl continued.
“You know, I always get the feeling he thinks he’s better than everyone else. That the academy was beneath him, being on a team was a waste of his time.” Her face scrunched in momentary anger. “And I know he thinks I shouldn’t be a ninja at all. He’s told me that enough times.” She stopped herself with a laugh. “Like there was this one time—“
She continued speaking, moving on to a more humorous story about her team’s struggles. Her injured feelings were swept away by the buoying genjutsu.
But Katsuro was left behind, unhearing. Her words dredged up long-buried memories. Another voice swirled around him now.
“You? You’ll never be a ninja,” a cruel male voice echoed from his past.
Unbidden, images flashed through Katsuro’s mind of a ruthless shinobi, a sun-baked road, a wide-eyed boy on the steps of an orphanage. The men were walking by, passing so close he could hear their kunai rattling in their pouches. Yellow dust blew off the road in thick clouds. It clung to his clothes and tried to choke the air out of his lungs.
“You’re the demon container. Didn’t you know? They’d never let trash like you be a ninja,” a silver-haired man sneered. He laughed, taunted, then called back over his shoulder before disappearing into the suffocating haze, “Any day now will be your last, demon.” His last words cut the deepest.
Katsuro swallowed reflexively. He hadn’t thought of that awful day in years. It was still there though — the cold laughter, the wretched dust, the realization and heartache — all lingering just below the surface.
But just as suddenly as the memory crashed down on him, it was gone, driven away by the tinkling laugh in his ear, the warm hand pressed on his arm.
The kunoichi laughed again, and Katsuro was brought back to the present. He blinked quietly at the pink haired girl, then roused himself to laugh weakly with her, though he’d not heard a word of her story.
He had survived that hopeless time, he reassured himself. Itachi had seen to that. But the memory was so real, so unsettling, he raked a hand through his unruly hair just to make sure. When her attention shifted, he twisted his finger around a lock on his forehead and nearly crossed his eyes trying to look at it.
‘Still brown,’ he thought with a relieved sigh, and let the now-familiar hair fall back into its disheveled place.
The girl beside him took no notice, content instead to sit in companionable silence.
Katsuro blew out another steadying breath and tried to refocus on his task. If he had never crossed paths with this kunoichi he would have thought that all Konoha ninjas were the same as those men. But she, it seemed, was the exception.
This girl shook his beliefs about that wretched village to the core. And if he discovered that Sasuke was like her, someone totally different than what he’d been led to believe, then it was going to be hard to fulfill his mission.
But thankfully, Sasuke wasn’t like her at all. Sasuke had betrayed Itachi, led to the massacre of his clan, and now was only source of pain to the girl beside him. The younger Uchiha hated her, thwarted her and had abandoned her.
‘No,’ he thought unflinchingly, ‘killing Sasuke Uchiha is going to be a pleasure.’
And that conviction made Katsuro more resolved than ever to carve out a place for her within his group. She never had to go back to that village again. If Itachi could save him, then he could save her.
Katsuro kicked his legs out in front of him comfortably, imagining it. They would make a brilliant team. The encounter with Deidara and Sasori had shown him that. She was an exceptional ninja, reading the situation and working with him to provide a unified front in the face of an unknown opponent. She was a fighter too, just like him, he thought with a low laugh.
Remembering himself, Katsuro straightened and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck self-consciously. The kunoichi tucked a swinging lock of hair back behind her ear and smiled pleasantly at him.
The genjutsu. He’d forgotten. It was his turn to have slightly red cheeks. Her inattentive silence should have been a warning sign their time was running out. But he wasn’t ready to break the spell just quite yet….
Katsuro cleared his throat and let his wandering thoughts lead the next question.
“So, if your teammates are so awful — the jerk and the robot — then why do you want to go back?”
She smirked at his names for them, but tipped her head in question. “It’s my home. Wouldn’t you want to go back to your home too?”
Katsuro fumbled for an answer, realizing belatedly that he should have stuck to fact-gathering.
“No,” he finally managed to say. “The people from my home were very cruel. I left that place behind years ago.” It was the simple line he had told her before, all explanation and no information.
“Why? Who could ever do that to you?”
Her eyes were so clear and scanning his face so earnestly that he forgot himself.
He forgot the threats, the warnings, the knowledge that one slip up, revealing any detail about himself, to anyone, ever, would shine like a torch in the night. It would point the way to where he was and lead to certain death at the hands of his captors.
Her kind words had nothing to do with the menacing power trapped inside him, the only thing which he’d ever been measured by. Her concern was for him, and him alone. She saw him as he was.
Well, almost.
She saw him as the kid he was presented to be. And he found that, amazingly, he wanted to be that kid. Just for a little while. He wanted bask in her sympathy and rail against the unfairness of it all. Step away from the burden of power. Just for a moment.
She had nothing to gain from him and was offering only her concern. He knew it was sincere. The pull was too much to resist.
Perhaps he could tell her something. Just a little. The thought of it was like opening a window on a closed room. It was a shaft of light in the darkness….
She waited beside him, sweet concern clear on her face.
He rubbed a hand over his eyes, trying to clear the distracting thoughts. He knew what Itachi had said: Konoha was always looking for him, they would go to any length to get their ultimate weapon back. He should never, ever leave a trace.
But Katsuro also knew he was safe within the genjutsu. She would remember none of this. And if she did, it would be hard to discern it from broken fragments of a dream.
However the genjutsu itself would live in her memory, a lingering signpost that someone else was there. If someone was looking for wisp of information, scanning her thoughts for something specifically related to him and what he contained, then anything he revealed might lead them right to him.
But perhaps he could tell her without giving away any information at all.
“I was special…I mean was able to….” Katsuro stopped, swallowed hard, then started again. “I was to be a tool…like all ninja, I mean…but for battle, you know?
“Oh,” she said, confused.
He knew he wasn’t making much sense. Maybe he could tell her just a little more. He lowered his voice and dropped his face very close to hers, finding it hard to just string the words together. Things he’d not told anyone since that dark night when Itachi had finally found him, abandoned and alone, on the empty playground of the orphanage.
He blew out a breath and willed the words to come.
“I was to be kept alive only as long I was needed,” he said softly. “Then I was to be killed.”
Silence stretched out between them. The kunoichi opened and closed her mouth a few times, beginning to ask something, but rethinking it. She settled into a puzzled frown.
But for Katsuro, doubt slipped in, chipping away at his reasoning. Why did he even want to tell her? This was beyond dangerous. Had he lost his mind?
He laughed wryly at a thought that he would initiate the genjutsu and somehow she would end up asking him uncomfortable questions. ‘Just typical,’ he thought. He should’ve expected as much by now.
“I’m so sorry, I know some places are awful,” she said softly, cutting across his thoughts. “But my village isn’t like that at all. You would like it a lot.”
Katsuro stiffened. Of course she wouldn’t understand, but her small smile just riled him, made him want to yell back at her, tell her everything. Prove her wrong and make her explain her village’s actions.
The golden haze thinned around them, and the dark outlines of the forest began to take shape. Flecks of peeling bark surfaced beside his thigh as the tree they sat on came into clearer view.
He had forgotten about the genjutsu, again! Katsuro ignored the irrational anger bearing down on him and instead focused on reining in the illusion.
He understood what was happening now. They had both been under for too long, and it was clouding his judgement. This would be exhaust them tomorrow. He had to finish swiftly.
Beside him, the girl’s green eyes were wide with worry, the color in her face washing out. She might have caught a sense of the genjutsu, Katsuro thought, but he couldn’t let her out of it yet. If the illusion around them burst like a bubble, then there was a chance she would remember everything. He had to ease her into sleep, then break the jutsu. He just hoped he could do it before either of them passed out.
Scrambling to draw her back in, Katsuro quickly cast around for anything else to talk about. Something they hadn’t covered….
“Hey, you said you have a best friend, right,” he asked, shooting her a bright, false smile. “What team is she on?”
The distraction worked instantly.
“Ino,” she said and rolled her eyes. “She’s on Team 8 with Shikamaru and Choji.”
But Katsuro just blinked at her.
“Remember, the smart one and the big one? Yeah, well I guess she’d be the blonde one then!” She laughed at herself for coming up with a nickname. “I think you would like them a lot. There is also—”
“You’re friend?” Katsuro realized her slip. “Oh, uh…that Ino!”
She had simply given her best friend’s name as her own all those days ago. He had to think fast.
“You know…I always thought she was related to you,” he said with a laugh, but continued watching her closely.
“No!” she said, swatting the air as if he should already know that detail. “Her family runs the Yamanaka flower shop.”
“Oh right. And your name’s not Yamanaka,” Katsuro replied with a scoff.
“No way! It’s Haruno, of course!”
“Of course,” Katsuro covered smoothly. “And tell me again how to spell your first name?”
But to this request the girl only shook her head confusedly. Katsuro had a moment of panic that the genjutsu had somehow broken but he alone was still in it.
“Who doesn’t know how to spell Sakura?”
“Sakura?” he echoed, face slack.
“My name,” she said, drawling it like a petulant child.
“Cherry blossom?” he said incredulously. “Your name’s cherry blossom?” He was completely thrown and just sat blinking at her.
She frowned in misunderstanding. “Not very befitting of a ninja, huh,” she muttered, tucking a stray lock of hair back behind her ear.
“No,” Katsuro said breathily. He took in her whole face as if he’d never really seen it. “No. It’s perfect.”
And it was. She was. He’d never met anyone like her, never knew someone like her even existed. And here she was. Open and unaffected, kind and protective, funny and fearless, she could kill you in open combat…and she was named after cherry blossoms.
He studied her face again, his mouth set in a satisfied half-smile, eyes soft. The tightness he’d felt across his chest before returned, but this time it wasn’t borne of anger. This was easy and expectant, like he’d been holding his breath. Sakura, he thought, breathing out. A pleasant warmth rushed in, his fingertips tingled.
He’d created this illusion for her, but he was certain it was doing things to him too. Katsuro tipped his head to get a better look at her eyes, memorize them. If this feeling was part of the genjutsu, then he didn’t want to forget.
She couldn’t hold his gaze. She turned away, curling back another lock of hair that was swaying slightly against her neck. The faint glow on her cheeks had turned into a real blush. She involuntarily let out a small yawn.
At this, Katsuro knew their time was up. He would endanger them both to stay under any longer.
“Sakura,” he said her name again, just to have the pleasure of hearing it aloud. “And Ino is your best friend,” he repeated, pleased with himself.
Screw the information about Itachi’s younger brother. Just finding out her name made the whole genjutsu worth it.
Another thought occurred, and he couldn’t resist it. Katsuro drew a little closer to her, eyes twinkling and voice soft.
“Hey Sakura-chan, do you have a boyfriend back home?” Even exhaustion couldn’t dampen his grin.
She laughed at his teasing, shaking her head lightly, but her smile slipped at some unwelcome memory.
“There was someone I used to like,” she said.
Katsuro frowned too, guessing it was the source of all their troubles right now: Sasuke.
A small sigh turned into another yawn, before she drowsily added, “but I don’t have a boyfriend.”
Katsuro’s smile returned.
“Good,” he said softly, and closed the small gap between them. Her eyelids were heavy, and she leaned toward him comfortably.
“Just rest now, ok?”
“M’kay” she slurred, eyes already closed. Her head dropped easily onto Katsuro’s shoulder.
Extending one arm across her abdomen to stop her from falling forward off the log, Katsuro raised his free hand and silently released the jutsu.
The effect for both was like dropping back to Earth. Her weight was fully pressed against his arm, and she was already unconscious. But Katsuro had no such luxury. His limbs were heavy and tired, and his head ached. But he had to get them both into a comfortable position before they collapsed off the old log.
The ground beneath them was more mud than dirt, but it would have to do. He had not planned the genjutsu well, but in the end he’d gotten more than he’d ever thought possible.
The kunoichi’s head slid forward off his shoulder. He was fading fast too. He had to hurry if he wanted to get this done on his own chakra, and he was at the dregs.
Katsuro didn’t want to be forced to borrow from that malevolent energy lurking just below the surface. Sometimes it made him feel good, like he could destroy anything. Then other times it just felt like it was going to burn him alive. Katsuro had a sinking feeling that if he tried to borrow chakra tonight, he’d be torched from the inside out. And he couldn’t risk it. He needed to be fully aware in the morning to make his report — and request — to Itachi. Not writhing from the aftereffects of channeling a demon’s chakra through his veins.
Resolved, Katsuro used his last burst of energy to pivot down onto his knee in front of the kunoichi. Taking advantage of the forward momentum, he let her slump against his shoulder, hooked his arm around her to keep her from sliding off, then leaned down with her until she was flat against the ground.
Katsuro’s thoughts were beginning to muddle. Fighting to keep his eyes open, he dislodged his arm from behind her unmoving back, sat back up on his knees, then pushed himself backwards away from the tree. He didn’t care where he landed, only that he fall clear of Sakura.
Sakura….
The bare threads of thought fell away from him, slipping by like those pale petals her name conjured up. To protect her, to keep her alive, that was enough…if he could just do that….
He was out before his body hit the forest floor.
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06 Jul 2010 No Comments
Chapter 13 – Illusions
Genjutsus were difficult things to manage and not Katsuro’s specialty. But gauging from the pink bloom spreading across the kunoichi’s cheeks, he’d pulled this one off well enough.
She kicked her legs gently beside him, blissfully unaware of their dismal surroundings.
Not that the inner-workings of the genjutsu would have held any interest for her anyway. Katsuro seemed to be the only one who found the swirling of a victim’s fears or desires into the fabric of an illusion to be a fascinating subject.
Most times, it was a single aspect that revealed itself through the cottoning fog. A place of tragedy came through in dark, jagged shards. Like seeing a reflection in a shattered window. But a happier memory would appear fully-formed behind the veil. Most often, it was the person’s childhood home. Katsuro made sure never to look at those.
But this illusion was completely different.
A clean, encompassing glow swept over the damp riverbed campsite, spreading outward from where the pair sat on the fallen tree. The shapes were still there, or at least the memory of land, the log and the grey fire circle, but the rest disappeared beneath a shimmery golden haze.
No insight to her life came sailing out of the mist. Instead they were both surrounded by a pleasant feeling. As if that cool green light of her healing chakra had suddenly turned warm.
Perhaps it was because the extent of his interrogation jutsu had been on old men or petty criminals. Or perhaps this was the result of working over a genjutsu on a girl who had little experience with the hardships of life. But then again, maybe she was destined to always be surprising him.
Within the space of the genjutsu, Katsuro knew there was safety. Outside, the situation may be terrifying, but inside this illusion it was as comfortable as that tiny fire lit room at the temple.
He blew out a satisfied breath. Colors wafted and shifted around them in the golden light, as if it was a dancing flame. He smiled. The echo of that room must be his contribution to this unusual, embracing illusion.
Katusuro began. With a friendly smile, he took his time, revisited their previous conversations and gently guided her to fill in more information. If he worked it right, then she’d have no memory of this at all. It would just blur together with her dreams.
But just as he congratulated himself on his success, her smile sagged and her swinging legs stilled.
“I don’t think I should be telling you these things,” she mumbled. Slim fingers smoothed over the new frown lines on her forehead, as if trying to remember something she’d forgotten, something dreadfully important.
Katsuro was surprised. It was a testament to her strong will that she could still keep a shred of reason while fully dipped in a genjutsu.
“Don’t worry,” he said, voice soothing. “You aren’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.”
She looked up with relief. “Really?”
“Of course,” he smiled back, lying.
And with that content look returned, she went back to swinging her legs. The radiant smile she shot at him only made him feel worse about having to manipulate her. But it had to be done. This was the only way to appease Itachi and guarantee her safety.
Best not to think too much about it, he told himself before circling back to an earlier conversation to verify some names.
“So one of my favorite stories is when you were at the academy and the big one” — “Choji,” she corrected — “right, when Choji blew up at the other kid in class who called him fat. You know, the dog boy, what was his name again?”
“Oh, Kiba,” she supplied.
“Right, Kiba,” Katsuro intoned smoothly.
And so went the interrogation. What she believed was an innocent conversation, no different from the many they’d had in the temple, was really a careful culling of information. He was skimming the surface, attaching names to all the stories she’d told him, and occasionally dipping deeper for specific details about Sasuke, his prime target.
He had to admit he was curious about her teammate. Katsuro’s help in the very delicate matter concerning his younger brother was the only mission Itachi had charged him with in exchange for freeing him from Konoha. Katsuro had trained for it, bled for it, undergone countless missions and crushing jutsus just to be able to withstand some of the punishing blows that an “Uchiha” could deliver.
But the kunoichi’s experiences gave Katsuro a real reason to hate him.
The younger Uchiha was always either ignoring her or insulting her. And then he tried to get her thrown off their team. She related that story in full, even down to the mess she’d made of their kage’s office.
Katsuro laughed till his side hurt at that story, and she beamed back at him, obviously pleased at his approval of what everyone else had called a childish temper tantrum. But another recollection turned her pensive.
“Sasuke was a precocious as a child. All the girls in the academy had crushes on him,” she muttered, then hurriedly added, “but now I think all the attention might have gone to his head.”
She frowned and tapped her chin. “I don’t think many people see how he really is. But as he’s gotten older he’s only grown colder and more arrogant,” she said, then shrugged. “He has no friends, not even Sai.”
Katsuro mulled what she’d said. If he was that blustering to everyone, then the chances were that he actually wasn’t as powerful as Itachi expected.
Though Itachi had called his sibling weak and cowardly, Katsuro just assumed it to be a lie. Probably just a message planted in the girl if, in fact, he did plan on sending her back. If Katsuro had to guess, Itachi’s goal was to make sure his traitorous younger brother knew he would never be strong in his older brother’s eyes, no matter how much training he had.
Katsuro leaned closer to her, as if sharing a secret.
“He’s really not that great is he,” he whispered. “It’s all just an act?”
“Oh no! He was always the best in our class, and I know he’s better than a lot of chunins and maybe even a few jonins.” The kunoichi shook her head slowly. “I think he’s more powerful than he lets on. But he doesn’t get along with anyone. And he trains alone.” She paused before adding quietly, “I don’t think he trusts anyone, which is understandable, I guess.”
Katsuro was going to ask about his skill level, they one thing Itachi cared about most, when the girl continued.
“You know, I always get the feeling he thinks he’s better than everyone else. That the academy was beneath him, being on a team was a waste of his time.” Her face scrunched in momentary anger. “And I know he thinks I shouldn’t be a ninja at all. He’s told me that enough times.” She stopped herself with a laugh. “Like there was this one time—“
She continued speaking, moving on to a more humorous story about her team’s struggles. Her injured feelings were swept away by the buoying genjutsu.
But Katsuro was left behind, unhearing. Her words dredged up long-buried memories. Another voice swirled around him now.
“You? You’ll never be a ninja,” a cruel male voice echoed from his past.
Unbidden, images flashed through Katsuro’s mind of a ruthless shinobi, a sun-baked road, a wide-eyed boy on the steps of an orphanage. The men were walking by, passing so close he could hear their kunai rattling in their pouches. Yellow dust blew off the road in thick clouds. It clung to his clothes and tried to choke the air out of his lungs.
“You’re the demon container. Didn’t you know? They’d never let trash like you be a ninja,” a silver-haired man sneered. He laughed, taunted, then called back over his shoulder before disappearing into the suffocating haze, “Any day now will be your last, demon.” His last words cut the deepest.
Katsuro swallowed reflexively. He hadn’t thought of that awful day in years. It was still there though — the cold laughter, the wretched dust, the realization and heartache — all lingering just below the surface.
But just as suddenly as the memory crashed down on him, it was gone, driven away by the tinkling laugh in his ear, the warm hand pressed on his arm.
The kunoichi laughed again, and Katsuro was brought back to the present. He blinked quietly at the pink haired girl, then roused himself to laugh weakly with her, though he’d not heard a word of her story.
He had survived that hopeless time, he reassured himself. Itachi had seen to that. But the memory was so real, so unsettling, he raked a hand through his unruly hair just to make sure. When her attention shifted, he twisted his finger around a lock on his forehead and nearly crossed his eyes trying to look at it.
‘Still brown,’ he thought with a relieved sigh, and let the now-familiar hair fall back into its disheveled place.
The girl beside him took no notice, content instead to sit in companionable silence.
Katsuro blew out another steadying breath and tried to refocus on his task. If he had never crossed paths with this kunoichi he would have thought that all Konoha ninjas were the same as those men. But she, it seemed, was the exception.
This girl shook his beliefs about that wretched village to the core. And if he discovered that Sasuke was like her, someone totally different than what he’d been led to believe, then it was going to be hard to fulfill his mission.
But thankfully, Sasuke wasn’t like her at all. Sasuke had betrayed Itachi, led to the massacre of his clan, and now was only source of pain to the girl beside him. The younger Uchiha hated her, thwarted her and had abandoned her.
‘No,’ he thought unflinchingly, ‘killing Sasuke Uchiha is going to be a pleasure.’
And that conviction made Katsuro more resolved than ever to carve out a place for her within his group. She never had to go back to that village again. If Itachi could save him, then he could save her.
Katsuro kicked his legs out in front of him comfortably, imagining it. They would make a brilliant team. The encounter with Deidara and Sasori had shown him that. She was an exceptional ninja, reading the situation and working with him to provide a unified front in the face of an unknown opponent. She was a fighter too, just like him, he thought with a low laugh.
Remembering himself, Katsuro straightened and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck self-consciously. The kunoichi tucked a swinging lock of hair back behind her ear and smiled pleasantly at him.
The genjutsu. He’d forgotten. It was his turn to have slightly red cheeks. Her inattentive silence should have been a warning sign their time was running out. But he wasn’t ready to break the spell just quite yet….
Katsuro cleared his throat and let his wandering thoughts lead the next question.
“So, if your teammates are so awful — the jerk and the robot — then why do you want to go back?”
She smirked at his names for them, but tipped her head in question. “It’s my home. Wouldn’t you want to go back to your home too?”
Katsuro fumbled for an answer, realizing belatedly that he should have stuck to fact-gathering.
“No,” he finally managed to say. “The people from my home were very cruel. I left that place behind years ago.” It was the simple line he had told her before, all explanation and no information.
“Why? Who could ever do that to you?”
Her eyes were so clear and scanning his face so earnestly that he forgot himself.
He forgot the threats, the warnings, the knowledge that one slip up, revealing any detail about himself, to anyone, ever, would shine like a torch in the night. It would point the way to where he was and lead to certain death at the hands of his captors.
Her kind words had nothing to do with the menacing power trapped inside him, the only thing which he’d ever been measured by. Her concern was for him, and him alone. She saw him as he was.
Well, almost.
She saw him as the kid he was presented to be. And he found that, amazingly, he wanted to be that kid. Just for a little while. He wanted bask in her sympathy and rail against the unfairness of it all. Step away from the burden of power. Just for a moment.
She had nothing to gain from him and was offering only her concern. He knew it was sincere. The pull was too much to resist.
Perhaps he could tell her something. Just a little. The thought of it was like opening a window on a closed room. It was a shaft of light in the darkness….
She waited beside him, sweet concern clear on her face.
He rubbed a hand over his eyes, trying to clear the distracting thoughts. He knew what Itachi had said: Konoha was always looking for him, they would go to any length to get their ultimate weapon back. He should never, ever leave a trace.
But Katsuro also knew he was safe within the genjutsu. She would remember none of this. And if she did, it would be hard to discern it from broken fragments of a dream.
However the genjutsu itself would live in her memory, a lingering signpost that someone else was there. If someone was looking for wisp of information, scanning her thoughts for something specifically related to him and what he contained, then anything he revealed might lead them right to him.
But perhaps he could tell her without giving away any information at all.
“I was special…I mean was able to….” Katsuro stopped, swallowed hard, then started again. “I was to be a tool…like all ninja, I mean…but for battle, you know?
“Oh,” she said, confused.
He knew he wasn’t making much sense. Maybe he could tell her just a little more. He lowered his voice and dropped his face very close to hers, finding it hard to just string the words together. Things he’d not told anyone since that dark night when Itachi had finally found him, abandoned and alone, on the empty playground of the orphanage.
He blew out a breath and willed the words to come.
“I was to be kept alive only as long I was needed,” he said softly. “Then I was to be killed.”
Silence stretched out between them. The kunoichi opened and closed her mouth a few times, beginning to ask something, but rethinking it. She settled into a puzzled frown.
But for Katsuro, doubt slipped in, chipping away at his reasoning. Why did he even want to tell her? This was beyond dangerous. Had he lost his mind?
He laughed wryly at a thought that he would initiate the genjutsu and somehow she would end up asking him uncomfortable questions. ‘Just typical,’ he thought. He should’ve expected as much by now.
“I’m so sorry, I know some places are awful,” she said softly, cutting across his thoughts. “But my village isn’t like that at all. You would like it a lot.”
Katsuro stiffened. Of course she wouldn’t understand, but her small smile just riled him, made him want to yell back at her, tell her everything. Prove her wrong and make her explain her village’s actions.
The golden haze thinned around them, and the dark outlines of the forest began to take shape. Flecks of peeling bark surfaced beside his thigh as the tree they sat on came into clearer view.
He had forgotten about the genjutsu, again! Katsuro ignored the irrational anger bearing down on him and instead focused on reining in the illusion.
He understood what was happening now. They had both been under for too long, and it was clouding his judgement. This would be exhaust them tomorrow. He had to finish swiftly.
Beside him, the girl’s green eyes were wide with worry, the color in her face washing out. She might have caught a sense of the genjutsu, Katsuro thought, but he couldn’t let her out of it yet. If the illusion around them burst like a bubble, then there was a chance she would remember everything. He had to ease her into sleep, then break the jutsu. He just hoped he could do it before either of them passed out.
Scrambling to draw her back in, Katsuro quickly cast around for anything else to talk about. Something they hadn’t covered….
“Hey, you said you have a best friend, right,” he asked, shooting her a bright, false smile. “What team is she on?”
The distraction worked instantly.
“Ino,” she said and rolled her eyes. “She’s on Team 8 with Shikamaru and Choji.”
But Katsuro just blinked at her.
“Remember, the smart one and the big one? Yeah, well I guess she’d be the blonde one then!” She laughed at herself for coming up with a nickname. “I think you would like them a lot. There is also—”
“You’re friend?” Katsuro realized her slip. “Oh, uh…that Ino!”
She had simply given her best friend’s name as her own all those days ago. He had to think fast.
“You know…I always thought she was related to you,” he said with a laugh, but continued watching her closely.
“No!” she said, swatting the air as if he should already know that detail. “Her family runs the Yamanaka flower shop.”
“Oh right. And your name’s not Yamanaka,” Katsuro replied with a scoff.
“No way! It’s Haruno, of course!”
“Of course,” Katsuro covered smoothly. “And tell me again how to spell your first name?”
But to this request the girl only shook her head confusedly. Katsuro had a moment of panic that the genjutsu had somehow broken but he alone was still in it.
“Who doesn’t know how to spell Sakura?”
“Sakura?” he echoed, face slack.
“My name,” she said, drawling it like a petulant child.
“Cherry blossom?” he said incredulously. “Your name’s cherry blossom?” He was completely thrown and just sat blinking at her.
She frowned in misunderstanding. “Not very befitting of a ninja, huh,” she muttered, tucking a stray lock of hair back behind her ear.
“No,” Katsuro said breathily. He took in her whole face as if he’d never really seen it. “No. It’s perfect.”
And it was. She was. He’d never met anyone like her, never knew someone like her even existed. And here she was. Open and unaffected, kind and protective, funny and fearless, she could kill you in open combat…and she was named after cherry blossoms.
He studied her face again, his mouth set in a satisfied half-smile, eyes soft. The tightness he’d felt across his chest before returned, but this time it wasn’t borne of anger. This was easy and expectant, like he’d been holding his breath. Sakura, he thought, breathing out. A pleasant warmth rushed in, his fingertips tingled.
He’d created this illusion for her, but he was certain it was doing things to him too. Katsuro tipped his head to get a better look at her eyes, memorize them. If this feeling was part of the genjutsu, then he didn’t want to forget.
She couldn’t hold his gaze. She turned away, curling back another lock of hair that was swaying slightly against her neck. The faint glow on her cheeks had turned into a real blush. She involuntarily let out a small yawn.
At this, Katsuro knew their time was up. He would endanger them both to stay under any longer.
“Sakura,” he said her name again, just to have the pleasure of hearing it aloud. “And Ino is your best friend,” he repeated, pleased with himself.
Screw the information about Itachi’s younger brother. Just finding out her name made the whole genjutsu worth it.
Another thought occurred, and he couldn’t resist it. Katsuro drew a little closer to her, eyes twinkling and voice soft.
“Hey Sakura-chan, do you have a boyfriend back home?” Even exhaustion couldn’t dampen his grin.
She laughed at his teasing, shaking her head lightly, but her smile slipped at some unwelcome memory.
“There was someone I used to like,” she said.
Katsuro frowned too, guessing it was the source of all their troubles right now: Sasuke.
A small sigh turned into another yawn, before she drowsily added, “but I don’t have a boyfriend.”
Katsuro’s smile returned.
“Good,” he said softly, and closed the small gap between them. Her eyelids were heavy, and she leaned toward him comfortably.
“Just rest now, ok?”
“M’kay” she slurred, eyes already closed. Her head dropped easily onto Katsuro’s shoulder.
Extending one arm across her abdomen to stop her from falling forward off the log, Katsuro raised his free hand and silently released the jutsu.
The effect for both was like dropping back to Earth. Her weight was fully pressed against his arm, and she was already unconscious. But Katsuro had no such luxury. His limbs were heavy and tired, and his head ached. But he had to get them both into a comfortable position before they collapsed off the old log.
The ground beneath them was more mud than dirt, but it would have to do. He had not planned the genjutsu well, but in the end he’d gotten more than he’d ever thought possible.
The kunoichi’s head slid forward off his shoulder. He was fading fast too. He had to hurry if he wanted to get this done on his own chakra, and he was at the dregs.
Katsuro didn’t want to be forced to borrow from that malevolent energy lurking just below the surface. Sometimes it made him feel good, like he could destroy anything. Then other times it just felt like it was going to burn him alive. Katsuro had a sinking feeling that if he tried to borrow chakra tonight, he’d be torched from the inside out. And he couldn’t risk it. He needed to be fully aware in the morning to make his report — and request — to Itachi. Not writhing from the aftereffects of channeling a demon’s chakra through his veins.
Resolved, Katsuro used his last burst of energy to pivot down onto his knee in front of the kunoichi. Taking advantage of the forward momentum, he let her slump against his shoulder, hooked his arm around her to keep her from sliding off, then leaned down with her until she was flat against the ground.
Katsuro’s thoughts were beginning to muddle. Fighting to keep his eyes open, he dislodged his arm from behind her unmoving back, sat back up on his knees, then pushed himself backwards away from the tree. He didn’t care where he landed, only that he fall clear of Sakura.
Sakura….
The bare threads of thought fell away from him, slipping by like those pale petals her name conjured up. To protect her, to keep her alive, that was enough…if he could just do that….
He was out before his body hit the forest floor.
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by tricksie in A Voice in the Wind