{"id":990,"date":"2013-07-25T01:36:04","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T05:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/?p=990"},"modified":"2013-07-25T01:36:04","modified_gmt":"2013-07-25T05:36:04","slug":"chapter-34-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/?p=990","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 34 – Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter 34 Notes<\/b><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2022 So, this chapter deals with Katsuro’s changing ideas. He sees the world around him in a certain way. And he is very satisfied that he knows everything that’s going on. Even in his relationship with Sakura, something he cherishes above everything else, he’s always had the upper hand, because he knew about his disguise when she didn’t. This chapter is about his beliefs, and how those are being chipped away. Some are exposed in this chapter, while some beliefs will be shattered in next ones.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Washed Away – The title comes from the colors being washed away at the jewelry stand. But it’s not so bleak as all that. It’s more about some things being washed away by the trials he faces and will face, and other things having staying power in his life.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Captain and Katsuro drinking sake \u2014 a sign of hospitality is to fill it to overflowing. But it’s never meant to be drunk like a shot, as they do in this story. They’re getting drunk. So the captain downing it in one gulp is a representation of that.<\/p>\n

\u2022 “The Big Boss wants it.\u201d Katsuro smiled at the funny Rain habit of making nicknames.<\/i> \u2014 So, in the manga, they call Yahiko ‘Pain’ and Konan ‘The Angel.’ Weird, distancing terms for their leaders. So I decided that maybe it was a cultural thing for Rain, that a sign of respect is to have a nickname.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0The Rain country is modeled off a land I once read about, a high mountain town in Japan that had only four or five passes in and out. So it was very safe from outsiders. And very treacherous for attackers. And this works with Jiraiya’s description of Rain being very hard to sneak into.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Had to give a brief history of Rain, to justify why the soldiers would want to fight so hard to restore it. And give some backstory to Pain. Also based the old Rain village on some of the Chinese water towns like Hongcun or Huangyao. Gorgeous canal-based towns. The history with the Salamander is loosely based on the manga \u2014 tweaked some details to fit better with this story.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0 But Katsuro didn\u2019t think anyone could wield so much power they could move mountains or stop rivers.<\/i> \u2014 yeah, just a play on Katsuro’s own hidden power<\/p>\n

\u2022 A sprinkling rain fell like a curtain from the thin cloud-cover overhead. Yet the full, steel-grey clouds still loomed in the distance.<\/i> \u2014 The rain is part of the Rain country\u2019s defense mechanism, as in the manga. So, yeah, Katsuro is right to feel weird about it, like someone is watching him.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Taichi, Joro and Koro \u2014 Katsuro needs a team, because he needs grounded work to parallel Sakura’s. (Just like Sakura investing her time with Sasuke, Katsuro is investing his time with his group and in being a better leader. This will help is character in the future.)<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u201cTaichi knows the lands beyond the Earth and Wind countries better than anyone else.\u201d<\/i> \u2014 The Naruto world map is very vague. But apparently there are lots of territories out there. So that’s what I’m going with.<\/p>\n

\u2022 As Taichi told it, he\u2019d gotten a tip on a big spender, a legendary sucker, who was going to be his favorite gambling house the next night.<\/i> \u2014 Tsunade of course!<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cItachi has been bragging about you.\u201d Deidara smiled conspiratorially. \u201cSays you are quite brave. Powerful. You might even one day join our organization.\u201d<\/i> \u2014 this is all a lie, because Deidara and Itachi hate each other. But Deidara is pointing out the obvious, why would Itachi keep Katsuro around if there was nothing in it for him. And it plants the idea in Katsuro’s head for later discussions.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Katsuro with the necklace \u2014 bet you thought it was going to end up with Sakura, didn’t you? \ud83d\ude42 Nope, it will belong to Katsuro.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Sakura’s part is particularly graphic (though not gratuitously so), because I wanted it to be a big contrast to the world Katsuro is imagining her in. Sakura is dealing with the nasty real-world stuff of shinobi life.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0But Sakura didn\u2019t drop to heal him. Not right away. Instead she watched him, while his life slipped away with each exhale, as if she was deciding his fate.<\/i> \u2014 She’s not being cruel. She’s being more realistic than she is in the manga. She doesn’t jump right down to give up her chakra and potentially expose her own group to harm. She realizes that she will gain info from keeping him alive. And then when he begins to cry about being dying far from home, Sakura feels sorry for him. Which she wishes she didn’t feel, because she’d like to be an emotionless shinobi. But she’s not! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cYour other teammates\u2026.they\u2019re not coming. You\u2019re on your own now. But you\u2019ll live.\u201d \u2014 This reflects her feelings after surviving the apparent abandonment of her own team, then surviving Katsuro’s apparent betrayal. She knows this kid can survive too, if he wants to.<\/p>\n

\n

Spoiler Notes:<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2022 But even from the beginning, it seemed like his destiny was leading him to this strange sodden land.<\/i> \u2014 foreshadowing – Katsuro’s destiny is tied to the Rain. They have big plans for him, bigger than he could ever imagine. Katsuro thinks this is a place where he’ll never be a tool. But he’s been picked to be Rain’s tool from the very beginning. Itachi’s flashback loosely outlines this. (Also, Itachi tells Katsuro what he wants to hear, and what will make sense to a 9yo boy. Not the truth.)<\/p>\n

\u2022 A sprinkling rain fell like a curtain from the thin cloud-cover overhead. Yet the full, steel-grey clouds still loomed in the distance.<\/i> \u2014 Katsuro doesn’t know it but the rain is chakra-enhanced. Konan knows everything and everyone coming and going in their territory. Thus it’s falling like a curtain. Once you step in, she knows your movements. Also, the rain clouds are slowly growing beyond their borders.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Mercifully, the rain had slowed to a fine drizzle<\/i>. \u2014 Rain as a defense mechanism \u2014 The rain on the mountains is heavy and pounding, to deter incoming spies and to identify them. But when you get nearer the bowl and the hidden village, it turns to a fine mist. It’s always there, but not soaking so people can live and work. Also, the implication is there that by the time you’ve gotten closer in, Konan already has identified you.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Suddenly he swatted a hand in the direction of the old shacks. Katsuro followed his line of sight in time to see a silhouette moved at the window of the closest hut.<\/i> \u2014 another area in which Katsuro is wrong. Katsuro believes there to be fishermen there. But it’s really an outpost for the soldiers. The Rain soldiers are more suspicious that he realizes. This is important for later on, when Katsuro realizes his views on the Rain country are not what Itachi painted them to be.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Taichi, Joro and Koro \u2014 Katsuro needs a team, because he needs grounded work to parallel Sakura’s. And when things go bad, he needs something that’s a tangible loss. Not just Sakura. (Just like Sakura investing her time with Sasuke, Katsuro is investing his time with his group and in being a better leader. This will help his character in the future.)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Katsuro felt safe enough to take a shaky breath when Deidara called out. \u201cYou tell your \u2019Itachi-sama\u2019\u201d he sneered, shaking the scroll, \u201cI\u2019ll beat him in this as well!\u201d<\/i> \u2014 foreshadow of events to come. Specifically, getting orders to collect Gaara’s bijuu. The Akatsuki members are all in competition.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Sakura in the forest \u2014 So, in this fic, Sakura turns away from her true calling as a medic for a while. She wants to be a shinobi. She wants to fight. I don’t think it’s a hard leap to make, as she could have easily chosen that path in the manga as well. Anyway, this scene shows that Katsuro is still imagining her as the happy little medic, when she is out doing what she’s equally as talented at doing, kicking ass. I think in a Naruto-led team like in the manga, Naruto would have encouraged her to be a medic. But I think in a Sasuke-led team, he would have encouraged Sakura to a) do and learn everything she could to make her more formidable, of course, and b) do what would keep them together more. Again, I think that once he’d truly bonded to a team, he’d want them to stay together, like a family, and would be fiercely protective. If Sakura wanted to be out on missions with him instead of healing at Konoha, Sasuke would be very much in favor of it.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u201cSakura,\u201d Sasuke said warningly, \u201cYou can\u2019t. We\u2019re not here to\u2014\u201c<\/i> \u2014 The little interaction between Sasuke and Sakura \u2014 At first Sasuke is reminding her that she’s not her to be a medic. Sakura basically flips him off. Then when she comes back with info and having saved the injured nin, she proves to Sasuke that she wasn’t functioning as a soft-hearted medic. She was using her skills to get something for them as well. Basically, she’s showing off. She can kill two birds with one stone. And Sasuke recognizes that she was right and he was wrong. So, just want to be clear that Sasuke’s in no way putting her down. In fact, by the end, she’s just gone higher in his view.<\/p>\n

\n

Omitted Scene:<\/b><\/p>\n

The old man peered out from under his hat. Standing in the rain, clutching that cold stone, the kid sure did paint a different picture than last time. Well, life was hard, and if he was any judge of things, that kid’s life was sure to get harder. He had seen him coming, remembered him from before. He wasn’t going to give him the necklace; he could see the end of that story when he had walked up the road with that bunch of thugs. But the kid surprised him. He had done him a good turn, and so he returned it in kind. They were even. Eh, he wasn’t sentimental either, but it made him feel good that the little trinket had moved him so. Setting it aside had been the right thing to do after all. Maybe instead of love it would bring him luck. He pushed over his chair and went inside to dry off.<\/p>\n

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Chapter 34 Notes \u2022 So, this chapter deals with Katsuro’s changing ideas. He sees the world around him in a certain way. And he is very satisfied that he knows everything that’s going on. Even in his relationship with Sakura, something he cherishes above everything else, he’s always had the upper hand, because he knew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-notes","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-fY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990","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=990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swirlingpetals.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}