Preview — Chapter 34

The only thing Katsuro was aware of was the yellow light. It bore steadily into his eyelids, slowly burning through the fog in head. Katsuro struggled to move against the insufferable light, but his body didn’t respond.

Shadows drifted across him, slowing until they blotted out the glare. That small need met, Katsuro’s thoughts slunk back into blessed nothingness—

But the light flickered, pulling him back. Distant voices met his ears. The words were watery and garbled, but they kept swimming to him, demanding his attention….

“You think he’ll be alright? I’ve seen burns before, but never like this….” Katsuro knew this voice. The old Captain. “I can’t believe he even made it out of there. He’s one lucky kid.”

A quiet chuckle echoed back. It pressed through the numbing void, filling Katsuro with unease.

The shadow shifted, deepening and sweeping over him in a dark wave. Itachi, it seemed to whisper.

“It’s not luck. He’s got something special in him. Something that will keep him alive.” Itachi. Katsuro stirred uselessly. Fragments of Itachi’s snaking hair, unyielding eyes and billowing black cloak unfurled out in his mind. “Leave him be. When he’s ready, he’ll wake up.”

The light shifted and there was a whisper of fabric on fabric, almost like a tent flap closing, but it was already growing fainter. The familiar undisturbed dimness was already creeping across him.

With a single ragged breath, Katsuro drifted back into darkness.

———

Katsuro was thirsty. More thirsty than he’d ever been in his life.

He eased up slowly. His body was stiff and everything ached with just the smallest movement. But his mouth felt like it was full of wool. He was so thirsty.

Hooking a cramped hand around the tent flap, Katsuro tugged it back only to be blinded by the glare. He dropped the flap immediately and sat back on the blanket, exhausted and sun-blind.

He didn’t feel right.

It wasn’t just that his mouth was as dry. He couldn’t remember where he’d been or how he’d gotten here. Katsuro peered around at the tent, feeling sure he didn’t remember coming here to sleep. Fetching back in his mind, only shards of a nightmare came to him. A fire. Screaming. And the demon. Of course.

Katsuro shuddered. He’d been seeing those things since he was a child. But this time, it felt like the dream was still with him. Like the demon had crawled to the surface and lodged itself between his bones. And now his skin didn’t quite cover the two of them….

Katsuro quickly splayed his fingers, inspecting the back of his hands, then raked them through his coarse, choppy hair. Nope, all still the same.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling of terror, raw and angry and demanding…. Katsuro rubbed his face, trying to push it away and forget—

The tent flap suddenly pitched open. Katsuro clawed at the light, blocking it out. Though he couldn’t make out the silhouetted shape in the door, he’d know that low, mirthless laugh anywhere….

“About time you woke up….” Itachi threw a full canteen at him. Katsuro forgot the blinding light and drank greedily

Itachi tied back the flap and squatted down, waiting as Katsuro guzzled.

“What the hell happened,” Katsuro croaked between gulps, surprised at how rusty his voice sounded.

Itachi quirked an eyebrow. “Interesting…you don’t remember anything?”

Katsuro frowned. “No,” he said, slowly pulling the canteen away from his mouth. “Just a few things, but none of it makes sense.”

Itachi nodded quietly, observing but not volunteering any information. Katsuro felt the pressure to continue. If he wanted to know anything he’d have to do the talking.

He cleared his throat, lowering the canteen in his lap. “There was a fire,” he said, blinking as the memories replayed themselves. He suddenly cringed. “And— And bodies. The Kyuubi was there. But,” he looked up questioningly, “I was there too? It’s not like the other dreams….”

“That’s because it wasn’t a dream,” Itachi said, lips curving into a small smile.

Katsuro stared back, horrified. “H-How can that be—“

“Do you remember your assignment?”

Katsuro rubbed a trembling hand down his face, thirst forgotten. The memories came crashing back, and he gasped against them.

“The little girl— You made me get her— And—“ He rubbed a hand over his aching stomach. “But why…. Why was the kyuubi there—“

Katsuro looked up, eyes wide and unblinking, tears pooling in the bottom lids. “I— I was the demon?” he whispered. “But…how…?”

Itachi’s smile widened. “So you did retain some memory after all…good. Excellent. You are beginning to harmonize with it. And that will help when—“

Katsuro sputtered, new horrors surfacing. “But then, where is she?” He looked around frantically as if he had misplaced something in the tent. His voice rose in desperation “Where’s the little girl? Did I— Did I—“

Itachi tipped his head and watched him with the bemused smile of a child who’s trapped an insect.

Katsuro fisted his hands into his hair, eyes darting around as he remembered more and more…all broken and out of order. But finally one memory surfaced that drove the color from his face.

The seal at Katsuro’s stomach wrenched suddenly at the image…a single face, coming forward out of the darkness. Adrenaline racing, Katsuro doubled over and grabbed his gut. He felt like as if a hole was being opened in his middle. The pain stole his breath.

Katsuro fought against it to look glare maliciously up at Itachi. “Where is she?” A growl tinged his voice. Threats and desires and fire swirled in his mind….

Itachi’s smug smile slipped. “There were no other bodies found at the site, if that is what you are referring to.” But he added quietly, “save those you killed yourself, of course.”

It was enough of an answer to send the pain and fire slowly receding. The images and urges loosened their hold. Katsuro slowly sat back up, feeling thirsty and aching all over again.

“You need to learn control,” Itachi said firmly, the usual commanding bite returning to his voice.

Katsuro wasn’t interested in the demon inside him at the moment. “But she’s still alive?” It was a risk to expose himself, but he was too desperate to care.

Itachi sat in stony silence for a long time, holding Katsuro’s firm stare with one of his own. “You failed your mission, started an enormous blaze and racked up a body count that required me to alter the minds of dozen farmhands. And then I had to clear the site of your very distinctive chakra.” Katsuro’s eyes slid away. “I would be more concerned about your own life. Because if I were 15 minutes later you would be sitting in a Konoha jail cell right now.”

Itachi’s continued without sympathy. “You need more training. And although this episode has been an interesting demonstration of your power, you need more control.”

He stood at the opening of the tent. “Get dressed. We’ll leave as soon as your up and catch up with the rest of the men. If you can walk, then you can walk through your pain.” Itachi sized him up. “If you want to use that power,” he swirled a hand at Katsuro’s gut, “then you can’t expect to lie on your back for three weeks afterwards.”

Katsuro looked down at the faint traces of healed blisters on his hands as he processed the new information. But he didn’t care about the pain or the demon. He still didn’t have the answer he needed.

“Is she…. Is she still alive?”

Itachi lunged back into the door of the tent, fisting Katsuro’s shirt and hoisting him up onto his knees, startling him with a rare display of temper.

“I don’t care about the girl! Do you understand? You are what is valuable here. Not her!” Itachi’s voice dropped to a malicious growl that rivaled the demon’s. “And not some damn kunoichi from Konoha!”

Itachi was evading the answer. Relief splashed across Katsuro’s face. He hadn’t killed her.

But Katsuro’s expression only fueled Itachi’s anger. Red swirled into his black-eyed glare.

“They were not among the wreckage. And I do not care what has become of them.” The air in the tent became thick and stifled. The light from the door smeared into the canvas walls as Itachi’s anger flared into a thin genjutsu, a demonstration his own power. “You have an obligation to me for saving your life, and you will uphold it. Otherwise I will go to Konoha, and I will bring you her body myself!”

The words echoed around Katsuro in the swirling vortex of shadows that had replaced the tent. Images flashed in front of him of a feminine form, the same one, lifeless as a rag doll and draped over doorstep, slain in a kitchen door, fallen just ahead of him on a darkened village road. He moved mechanically toward that the closest one.

At first, the hair hanging over the face was black. Fear and desperation tugged him look closer, and as he did the light shifted. The image became real. The night air turned his skin cold, and the smell of blood coated his tongue with a metallic tang. He knew this. It was the smell of death. He ran toward the body, telling himself it could not be her. Her hair is pink—

At the same moment, the light shifted again. The black hair melted to blood red, then faded to pink. Fear gripped him. He couldn’t cover the ground fast enough. He was hoping, wishing, telling himself that it couldn’t be her. She was in Konoha. She was protected—

A pool of blood blossomed from beneath her body. As he got closer he could see it seeping upwards, drenching the black shirt a blood-red as it moved up. He ran harder repeating that a red shirt meant nothing. Hers was different—

And almost as the thought entered his mind, a faint white circle pushed forward on her back. The crimson bled around it and crept over the rest of her shirt.

A sob lodged in Katsuro’s throat. His seal ached, the demon threatening to overtake him at any moment. But he ran to her with everything he had, still not covering the ground fast enough.

Katsuro was so fully focused on the body that he did not see the black figure leaning against a wall a short distance away, where the road stretched down into a complex of tidy houses, and where more lifeless bodies dotted the ground. The figure laughed mirthlessly, then stood, revealing a clan symbol — a fan — deeply carved in the wall behind him.

Katsuro pounded toward her, gulping the cold air. The pain behind his navel swelled as if held back behind a dam. He was close enough to see her boots materializing out of the darkness, her hip-pack morphing out of a shadow at her waist.

He was almost upon her body, and he meant to throw himself on her when an apparition appeared suddenly in front of him, blocking him.

Black mist sprung from the ground, coalescing and solidifying into a body. Itachi’s face loomed in front of Katsuro, capturing his full attention with those swirling red eyes, and rooting him to the ground, frozen. The mist swept out from Itachi, turning grey and erasing everything.

“I told you before I have forgiven you for your dalliance,” Itachi said in a voice that seemed to echo in two worlds. “Don’t make me regret that choice.”

And in a snap, Katsuro was back in his own body. The tent walls were mist grey. A dark blanket pooled on the ground at his knees. Only Itachi’s was still in front of him. Katsuro gasped for air reflexively.

“No. I won’t.” Katsuro panted. “I’ll do what you ask. I’ll do it all.”

“I knew we’d come to some agreement,” Itachi said as he stood. “Get ready. We’re leaving.”

Katsuro doubled over and dropped his forehead into the cool blankets just to feel that they were real.

But the pain behind his navel still swelled there, just as it did in the genjutsu. It held back somehow, like a lid forced down on a boiling pot. He panted, realizing Itachi must have done something to him to keep the kyuubi in check.

He crushed his eyes shut, certain that Itachi knew more about his powers than he let on. And that he clearly knew so very little.

But it was okay, he reassured himself. It was only a genjutsu. She was still alive. Both of them were. Telling himself this, the roiling, pent-up feeling began to subside. With slow, deliberate movements, he crawled out of the tent. Only the canteen was left behind, the remaining water slowly leaking out of the open vessel.