InsaneJournal

Current mood:

angry

All You Can Take [Ryuichi, Katsuko]
Late at night on April 14th, after Knife's Edge and No Rest For the Wicked.

What it all came down to was that Headquarters wasn't stupid. They'd see something wrong with the report, or the hospital charts, and eventually they'd dig a little deeper into Arai Ryuichi's files. What they'd find there was anybody's guess, but Katsuko knew it would more than enough for them to put two and two together and come up with four.

They'd find out Ryuichi had taken illegal drugs, that he'd overdosed on those drugs to complete the mission.

And then they'd realize that Katsuko had deliberately left it out of her report.

Kami, what had she been thinking, enabling a chronic user? Some skewed notion of honor, protecting a teammate who didn't want her help? The most she'd managed to do was buy both of them some time, and it would only ensure that HQ would come down on their asses all the harder for it.

Ryuichi would be unrepentant.

Three agents dead, one partner looking for death, and her caught in the middle of it all.

It pissed her off.

Normally she wouldn't be so angry, just accept the consequences and move on, but... she was due for her period in a week. Unlike some lucky bitches who just bled and went on with their lives, she'd inherited from her mother the cramps, headaches, and hair-trigger temper that came before the 'woman's gift'. It made her chafe inside her own skin, want to lash out at whoever and whatever crossed her path. It was a restless feeling burning underneath her breastbone, a sort of exhausted energy that wouldn't let her sleep until she'd worked the need to hurt and hit and fight out of her system.

So that was how she found herself slipping out of bed and down to one of the training grounds by the Forest of Death, where she could punch and kick at trees and unseen enemies to her heart's content. The training ground itself was rarely used by anyone except fellow jounin, and even they wouldn't be crazy enough to come around in the dead of night.

Katsuko shrugged out of her jacket and dropped it carelessly on the ground, heading over to one of the training dummies. She'd beat it it until she worked up a sweat or it broke, whichever one came first. Then she'd move on to practicing lightning jutsu on the trees. That was always a stress-relieving exercise in futility.