| [Jan. 22nd, 2012|12:20 am] |
Actually, Kakashi really wished Ryouma was up here.
He tipped his head back, looking at the scatter of constellations back-lighting the monument, casting the weathered carvings into silhouette. Three dead men and one living leader who probably wished he wasn’t. The moon was a curving silver-blue blade, like a knife in the sky. Behind them, the village was a sprawling web of lights and lives, defended by tall walls, natural cliffs, and Fire Country’s forest. By the forty or so ninja out patrolling the streets, gates, and high places. And the hundred more running missions.
“It’s just a village,” he said at last, quiet treason in the dark. “Someone died for every piece of it.”
Katsuko snorted roughly. “Of course it’s just a village. I fucking hate half the people in this place.” He stared at her, startled; she looked away. “But the rest... there are a few, who make it worth it. Who’ll always be worth it.” Her voice was soft. “The people who died for it... they thought it was worth it, too. For the most part.”
They had.
All of them.
Kakashi drew a breath that hurt, sharp and bright and sudden, and bent forwards, lifting the leg Katsuko wasn’t resting against. He braced his arm, bowed his head, mantled over her like a hawk. Or a man with a gut-injury.
“Who did you lose?”
She didn’t ask him to explain. “My sensei, Miyamoto Hideki. He was trying to defend me from Kaminari’s people. Akimichi Honoka, three months ago. There are more, but those two are my personal failures.” Her eyes flicked up, catching his. “You know what I’m talking about.”
I've been a ninja for fifteen years, he’d told Ryouma once, broken-nosed and bloody-mouthed and trying to warn the stupid new rookie who’d just rescued him from rape that ANBU broke people. A jounin for seven, and an ANBU for five. I've run four-hundred and twenty-seven missions, lost one genin team, sixteen dogs, and eighty-seven genin, chuunin, jounin, and ANBU. One hundred and one teammates. And one sensei.
Sixteen years, now. One hundred and three teammates. He’d stopped counting missions.
Stacked against her number, it sounded like boasting.
“What happened to Honoka?” he asked, instead.
Katsuko rubbed her throat. "Mission went bad. The Intel agent we were sent to retrieve had infiltrated a missing-nin group; their leader ran him through and stabbed Honoka in the throat." She paused, something bitter weaving through her tangled, drunken scent. "Cut off her brother's leg, too. It was the mission where I lost control. S'when my chakra started degrading."
His hand was still in her hair. She was slim and dark-eyed, angular-jawed, cut like a blade herself. The muscles under her ridiculous clothes were hard and trained. The shadows behind her eyes matched his. But he had one living person, and she only had revenge.
And nightmares. And no time.
She still thought the stars were beautiful.
Very carefully, he curved his hand around her head, bracing her a little better.
“If you’d ever had the choice,” he asked, “what else would you have been?” |
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