{"id":1067,"date":"2014-05-20T12:22:54","date_gmt":"2014-05-20T16:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/?p=1067"},"modified":"2014-06-02T09:29:09","modified_gmt":"2014-06-02T13:29:09","slug":"chapter-38-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/?p=1067","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 38 preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometime before dawn the rain stopped. Katsuro thought he might even be able to sleep, though he was soaked through and water pooled around him. But he was sorely mistaken.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Every time he manage to nod off, flashes of what he\u2019d lived through came violently back. Koro\u2019s strangled scream through the woods. Joro\u2019s fear-rimmed eyes and then Taichi\u2019s lifeless ones, staring back at Katsuro while a dagger jutted from his throat.<\/p>\n

Each time Katsuro jerked awake with his heart pounding in his ears, until he could no longer take it.<\/p>\n

He stood, wiped the cold sweat from his face and got his bearings. It was a relief to see the dark sky finally giving way to steel-grey mist.<\/p>\n

Katsuro plucked the wet fabric away from his skin in hopes the light breeze would dry it quicker, then he listened. Bird song carried faintly through the air. No one had disturbed the forest following him. He was still safe.<\/p>\n

But what next? There was no camp to return to\u2014<\/p>\n

An image of his teammates lying dead in the leaves flashed in his mind. Regret ached in him like a wound. There was no going back. It was too dangerous. No, he had to go on. Find Itachi or one of the camps.<\/p>\n

He suddenly remembered his meeting with Pain. Of course Itachi would expect him to keep the meeting, in spite of the slaughter of his team.<\/p>\n

But there was no way that was happening. He didn\u2019t even know where he was.<\/p>\n

Katsuro brushed the wet leaves off his pants and slipped down through the mist to the ground. He slowly picked his way back through the forest, moving in what he hoped was east in the diffuse light, back toward the territories he was more familiar with and hopefully their last main camp. It was slated to go into hiding as well, in another uninhabited area in the lands west of the Wind and Earth countries, but he was hoping that by sheer luck he might be able to catch up with them.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the mist burned off he ran, stopping only to check his bearings. He didn\u2019t know which spurred him on faster, staying away from would-be assailants or keeping his mind off his team, but after hours of running he was surprised to find himself within range of their last main camp sooner than he expected.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was early evening but it was still light enough to see. Katsuro approached the gully he knew the camp to be in. He moved cautiously from tree to tree. Maybe it was instinct or maybe it was the demon\u2019s animalistic sense bleeding through, but something told him they\u2019d already gone. He\u2019d missed them\u2014 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Katsuro stopped mid-step. Beyond the last tree at the edge of the gully, the ground was littered with broken branches. Gashes marred the trees. Overlapping footprints were squashed into the moist earth, and half-buried in the mud beside one track was a strange tapering leather strap that had been torn off on one end\u2026.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Katsuro froze. <\/span>Another ambush.<\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For a few long seconds the only sound was the rush of blood in his ears. Everything else was deathly silent. He was certain, without even approaching, there was no one was there. None living, anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n

He eased back on his foot and slowly backed away, taking great care not to make a sound. If there was anyone left there, then they\u2019d probably received the same treatment as his team.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He veered off from the path he\u2019d taken to get there, changing his course to another remembered campsite. When he was clear he broke into a run. The pounding of his feet blew up leaves in his wake, revealing, for the barest of moments, a fresh set of tracks next to his. Then the leaves drifted back down, resettling themselves over both prints. Katsuro ran on in the dying light, never stopping and never looking back.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was pitch black when he finally stopped. He could no longer see the forest floor. Katsuro scrambled up a tree, but the branches were too thin and small to sleep on. He dropped back to the trunk of the tree and tucked up his knees, but between flashbacks and paranoia that normal woodland noises might be nins, sleep proved to be elusive.<\/p>\n

He continued the next day, trekking through areas he hadn\u2019t been in for years. He traversed flowing rivers and crept through wide forests. All of them hid places they\u2019d stopped before. And all of them were empty.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having always traveled from destination to destination, he never realized how hard it would be to find the rest of his group if they were in hiding. He felt like a leaf blowing in the wind, drifting from one abandoned site to the next.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though he had barely rested, he wasn\u2019t tired. He didn\u2019t notice it until he realized he wasn\u2019t hungry either, even though his last meal was hours before the ambush. He should have been ravenous. But he wasn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, it seemed like there was a deep internal fire keeping him moving. It was blocking out his need for sleep, staving off his hunger and giving him energy when he should have had none. He was weary but not exhausted, and his stomach wasn\u2019t growling at him constantly to find food.<\/span><\/p>\n

He tried to ignore it, but the longer he went without a dip in his stamina, the more certain he was the energy source wasn\u2019t coming from him<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Itachi\u2019s words haunted him. <\/span>He was only a vessel.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Then the demon was just sharing its strength to keep its vessel alive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Katsuro swore softly. He didn\u2019t want to <\/span>need<\/i> the kyuubi\u2019s power. But he knew it was the only thing keeping him going. From what he knew of the demon, it didn\u2019t seem like he\u2019d lend it for free, and the more Katsuro thought about it, the more suspicious he became that there must be a cost.<\/span><\/p>\n

Without realizing where he was, Katsuro crested a hill and came to a complete standstill. All around him were ancient woodlands. But ahead of him lay a sight he hadn\u2019t seen in years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He laid a hand on a tree to steady himself and breathed deeply….<\/p>\n

\n\n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometime before dawn the rain stopped. Katsuro thought he might even be able to sleep, though he was soaked through and water pooled around him. But he was sorely mistaken.\u00a0 Every time he manage to nod off, flashes of what he\u2019d lived through came violently back. Koro\u2019s strangled scream through the woods. Joro\u2019s fear-rimmed eyes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-preview","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5hctF-hd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}