| [Nov. 21st, 2009|06:43 pm] |
Stick-up-his-ass blond kid. Nori.
The redhead. Beni.
Katsuko stifled a grin at Ryouma's nicknames for her boys teammates and watched the gears start to turn in his head as he struggled to remember Team Miyamoto's last visit to Dainichi Nyorai. That he'd thought she was a boy didn't bother her--she'd preferred it, back then, less hassle that way--but the rest...
But the rest he put together--
She should have just kept her damn fool mouth shut. Katsuko turned away, eyes shuttered as she fought the urge to spring up, start running and never stop.
He remembered. Not just that they'd met before, but that--that there had been an ambush, that Sensei had been killed, that she'd been captured and brought to--
She didn't need to think about the labs right now. Best to save it for tomorrow, when she needed a memory that would propel the force behind her lethal jutsu.
But she'd always wondered how Beni and Nori had gotten away safely. Gotten help. They never talked about the ambush with her, just looked at her sadly when they thought she didn't notice. It was--
It was...good. To have some of the blanks filled in. To know that someone had looked for her.
"I'm sorry we didn't get to you earlier."
"They...there was an underground testing facility. Near the border." Katsuko put her fish down and stared into the dark. "They kept me there for six months. It's the reason why my chakra is so distorted. It was part of the experiment."
The expanse of skin from the inside of her wrist to the crook of her elbow ached at the mere threat of remembering. She rubbed at the throbbing scars, knowing it wouldn't help but needing to do something.
"I was. By the time they came and rescued me, I was the only Leaf ninja left. Everybody else...All my friends..." Finishing that sentence would be bad. Katsuko closed her eyes and forced the memories away, cramming the pain and hurt into a tiny little corner of her mind.
She looked up at Ryouma, slowly. "But thank you. For looking for me." |
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