| [Dec. 1st, 2011|08:19 am] |
“ANBU,” Katsuko snorted, bitterly aware of the irony of the mask hanging at her hip. “Never on time, never enough.” They’d been in time for her, they’d been in time for Genma — but not for Seijuro, not for Hakuin, not for Ichiba and Asuma and all the others who’d died without getting to see the sun one last time.
Genma was a brittle presence at her side, coiled tight like a spring. Katsuko rubbed a hand over his shoulder and down the first few inches of his spine, humming a tuneless, soothing melody like he was Makoto or Ichiba instead of three years older and her senior in ANBU.
"Yeah. Well…" Genma shrugged, pulling himself together with visible effort. "Almost never on time." He took a deep breath, blowing it out past his senbon. "Do you remember the team that came for you? Were you…" He hesitated, choosing his words with care. "Was there a medic with them at least?"
“A woman,” Katsuko answered quietly. “Tiger mask. Blue eyes. Restarted my heart, then knocked me out with a chakra spike when I asked her why she hadn’t gotten there sooner.”
Genma barked a startled laugh. "You were that close to gone? Fuck." He leaned against her a little harder, as close to a hug as you could get without arms being involved. "Fuck. They really… Yeah. Never on time, never enough."
Katsuko closed her eyes. “There was a monk,” she started, slowly. “An old man, in the cell next to mine. Hakuin — he never told me his last name. He’d been there months longer than I had. He held my hand the second night they brought me down to the cells and sang me to sleep. They tore his temple apart and dragged him down into the dark, and he still had it in him to call me ‘child’ and make sure I ate.”
"He must have been a bodhisattva." Genma coughed, a little self-conscious. "Sorry, I know that sounds weird. I’m one of those freaks who didn't lose his religion even when they tried to beat it out of me."
Katsuko chuckled. “That’s more than I could have managed. Hakuin taught me n’ Ichiba all the sutras while we were down there. He’d whack me over the head when I got ‘em wrong during the first couple months. Near the end, he...” she faltered. “Near the end, he couldn’t move so well. And then a day before the ANBU came, they. They took his eyes.” |
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