Katsuko Moto - j8cob

[j8cob]

Hana the Cat
11 Months into Timeskip

SPOILER: Click to show

The darkness that came with midnight wasn't very dark this night. The full moon was large and cast quite a bright light for it. Combined with the reflective surface of the lake at the Moto Estate and it became very easy to see on the grounds of the estate this night. Despite how late the night was, a small woman stood atop the mansion. Her long white hair would occasionally flutter about with the breeze, but she kept her eyes focused. In her hands before her was a sheathed katana that was surprisingly large compared to her small stature. Though it would be difficult to see from the ground, Hana had a new look in her eyes. Something nobody had ever seen before, not even Katsuko. It was something serious. Something deadly.

"You must've been anticipating my return," a voice called from below. A tall man dressed entirely in black stood on the grounds. From his angle, Hana stood perfectly lined up with the moon in the sky. But he couldn't see that. He had no sight. "I have been waiting every night," Hana spoke, her voice also sounding different. Colder. "I had noticed something odd about you before. You aren't human," Moujin called back up, but gained no response for a moment. A breeze picked up again. "That's right." "I still don't know what you plan on doing. I hope you don't think to fight me by yourself. Even with Katsuko the two of you were unable to match me." She was quiet again. "I won't kill you," she said rather bluntly. "Only because Katsuko wants to kill you. I won't take that from him."

The blind man began chuckling with her words. "You talk with attitude. I never noticed that before... You must be his little girlfriend, right?" Moujin spoke up, clearly taunting her with his words. But Hana seemed unfazed. "No. I am his guardian." There was a scoff from down below. "Last time I saw you in action, it seemed more like Katsuko was guarding you. Listen, it'd be a real shame if I killed you now so why don't you go to bed and pretend this never happened. My business isn't with you." He began to walk forward, but stopped when he heard a click. The small woman had popped the katana loose from it's sheathe. "Why do you keep coming back to haunt Katsuko?" she asked, though this was more like a demand.

"Isn't it obvious? Because it's fun. He refuses to die, and that brings me entertainment. It's like playing a sport. You play to win, but sometimes you want to keep playing against the same opponent. Just for the satisfaction of beating them over and over again." He began chuckling to himself again. "So I'm guessing you are going to drive me off regardless. I wouldn't want to kill you, because I don't want to damage my plaything's mind too much. But you seem to be giving me no choice..." "Hana. My name is Hana," she filled in. "I see... If you want to die so badly, then come and fight me."

The young woman held the sword out, letting the sheathe fall off the blade. In the moonlight, at their angles, the moon reflected off the blade toward Moujin. She held the blade with both hands, perfectly vertically, before bringing it to one side with only one hand and jumping into the air. At the apex of her jump, she vanished from sight. A smirk formed on Moujin's face and he too vanished suddenly, kicking up some dust from the ground as he did so. There was total silence over the Moto Estate for a moment. But as soon as the sheathe hit the ground and bounced slightly, the action begun.

The sound of metal striking metal could be heard and sparks appeared out of nothing not too far away from where the sheathe landed. Then again a meter further. The two opponents were moving at high speed and attacking each other with a single strike at a time. But the speed at which this happened was astonishing, as nothing could be seen. But their exchange could be heard and the sparks that would come from their impacts could be seen briefly before appearing somewhere else. This exchange of blows continued for twenty seconds, clasing a total of forty six times. At the forty-seventh clash, both fighters became visible again.

Hana had her blade locked with Moujin's strange kunai, though it's blade was now as long as a katana's. "You are stronger than before," he commented during this deadlock. Hana's eyes still had that deadly stare. "I cannot go all out in front of Katsuko. But he isn't here." This brought a smirk to Moujin's face. "Is that so?" "He wants to be the one to protect me. So I cannot let him know." "Sounds like a foolish endeavor." "I said I wouldn't kill you, but don't test me." They split apart and Moujin made a rapid slash toward her legs.

The cat-woman jumped over the strike with a flip, also trying to kick Moujin in the process. But he ducked to his side and let off another slash. This one was avoided by twirling in a different direction as she spun, causing the sword to pass under her. As Hana landed on her feet, she made a backwards swing, forcing Moujin to step backwards to dodge. In that same fluid motion, she turned around and began another rapid series of strikes. Though most were dodged and the rest were blocked, she was clearly putting Moujin on the defensive now. And the blind man knew it very well. "You are a bit annoying," he grunted, before going for an opening. He rotated his sword around Hana's, getting the tip right by the hilt of her blade. With an expert motion, he swung it upwards. Had Hana not let go of the sword, he would've cut one of her fingers off.

The katana spun through the air, catching the moonlight several times in each rotation. Moujin aimed a stab toward Hana's chest now, which the cat jumped back to dodge. However, the blade grew longer as she jumped back, forcing her to dodge to the side to avoid it. Just as her feet touched the ground, Moujin swung his sword after her again. The blade slammed into the ground from the diagonal angle, kicking up a small cloud of dust. But as the blade was retracting to katana length again, Hana appeared next to him. One of her hands had chakra blades coming out of her fingertips, each one as long as a sword. Her slash toward him missed, but only just. A single shred of cloth was seen falling to the ground as Moujin swung back at Hana. She blocked his blade with her chakra blades and smirked.

"Why do you wish to protect him so badly?" Moujin asked while they were locked in this position. Hana was quiet for a moment, unmoving. "Because he has always been so willing to protect me. Even after I recovered from my amnesia and regained my true power. He was the first person to show me kindness and the only person that accepts me. For this, I shall keep him safe when people like you threaten him." This made the blind man begin to chuckle. "You feel endebted to him. I suppose that makes sense..."

"Why don't we take this somewhere else?" she asked, her voice oddly cool. But the blind man didn't respond. Rather, his blade shortened, letting Hana lose her balance briefly, before extending again in another attempt to stab her. This time Hana jumped back quite far, assuming that the blade wouldn't be able to reach her. "What's the matter? Don't want to wake the family?" "Yes." With that, Hana vanished. The grin on Moujin's face also vanished, before he disappeared as well. Now that it seemed the two were gone, the katana that was flung into the air stabbed itself into the ground just at the edge of the lake.

However, from the lake, the sound of a tree crashing down from outside the walls of the Estate could be heard. The two were in the forest now. Moujin landed on a tree trunk before immediately jumping away. Just as he did so, Hana slashed her chakra claws through the tree, creating four cuts entirely through it, forcing it to fall down. Just as he landed on the next one, Hana was upon him again. "If only I could use my full power right now as well," Moujin taunted, this time blocking her slash with his blade. "Moushin no jutsu." His other hand shot out toward Hana's head at high speed, but the small woman vanished just before it could reach her. This surprised the blind man, who turned around and let out a slash with his blade, cutting through the tree and almost Hana on the other side of it.

"Your speed matches mine, but I know where you are going before you get there. What you are doing before you do it," he taunted again, before letting off a series of rapid slices, absolutely dicing the falling trunk between him and Hana. "I can fix that, if you truly wish. But I said I didn't wish to kill you. Just to get a message across." As the tiny bits of tree rained over the two, Moujin began to chuckle. "Oh really? And what's that? That you're tougher than you look?" he spoke sarcastically. "No. It's that Katsuko isn't your toy to play with."

Chakra blades formed on the fingertips of her other hand now and Hana shot forward. However, she leapt at him, adding a spin to her leap. This made it impossible for Moujin to guess the angle she was going to strike at, so he jumped to the side to let her pass. But the small woman rebounded off another tree trunk before launching directly at him this time. He blocked her first slash, but was forced to dodge the second one. Having chakra blades on both hands presented a new difficulty for him. Because if he blocked one side it would leave the other exposed. And Hana was fast enough to take advantage. Her hyper-offensive strategy was quickly bothering Moujin.

"I've had enough of this," he stated as he blocked another strike. As Hana's opposite hand closed in on him, he moved forward rather than away. This surprised Hana as it left her unable to defend against his incoming headbutt. His head connected with her forehead, causing her pain and making her dizzy for a moment. In her brief daze, Moujin wheeled around and kicked her in the gut, sending her flying back and crashing into a tree. Some cracks formed in the trunk from her impact. As she slid down the tree, holding her gut, her chakra claws disappeared. Upon reaching the ground, she fell over. "You weren't so tough after all." Moujin stated, his voice sounding more dark than a taunt. With that, he pointed his blade at the fallen Hana, poised to make it extend again and impale her.

"This is nothing." Moujin decided not to impale her now as she jumped to her feet. Some blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, but she seemed otherwise unharmed. She must be able to regenerate at great speed, he thought to himself, though he didn't move. He wanted to see what she would do next. "I'm going to end this. Either you are going to die and I will have to apologize to Katsuko, or you will leave and never return." Hana's hair began to float now, as if it had no weight. A faint aura of chakra began to radiate from her and her black eyes began to change to a pink color. Though Moujin was blind and could not see the visual differences, he could certainly sense the other changes. "You are definitely not human..."

A powerful gust picked up, with the source seemingly coming from Hana herself. The leaves in the trees above them were whipped about, creating a symphony of noise. But then it stopped and Hana was still standing there. Her hair was no longer floating about freely, but the aura was still around her. "I can kill you like this." She vanished from sight once again. Moujin jumped to the side, avoiding her mad dash. The tree behind him, however, wasn't so lucky. Without Hana even reappearing, the tree was suddenly diced up into tiny pieces. This surprised Moujin. As he touched down, he jumped to the side again. Once again, a nearby tree met a tragically violent end. "You seem to have increased your power somewhat," Moujin noted, before Hana reappeared right in front of him. She began a rapid series of strikes again, only this time, Moujin couldn't keep up. Every few slashes, the sound of cloth tearing could be heard. Occasionally, blood would reach the ground.

By the end of it, Moujin backed into a tree and Hana slammed both sets of chakra claws into it. However, not a single one impaled Moujin. They surrounded him, keeping him pinned to the tree. For if he moved too much, he would slice himself on them. Now that she had him pinned to the tree, she brought her face in close to his. Though the blind man showed no fear, it was evident that he worked up a sweat keeping her from killing him. "If you ever come back here again... I will kill you." Rather than respond to her, he let out an irritated "Tch." Before she could free him, he brought his knee up to strike the small woman. But her tail worked it's way from under her clothes and blocked the attack. Rather than accept this, Moujin brought his other leg up and put his knee directly into Hana's gut.

She reeled from the blow before Moujin planted a spinning kick across the side of her face. Though this sent her flying, she recovered mid-air and landed on her hands and feet. Like a cat. Now with some breathing room, Moujin stepped away from the tree trunk. "Though your power is impressive, I am still yet to show what I am truly capable of," he began to explain. "I do not wish to reveal the cards up my sleeve, so there is no point in fighting you any longer if all we can do is stalemate." "Leave." "I shall. Let me just tell you something first... Hana..." Moujin turned around, letting his kunai-like weapon return to it's regular length and storing it in his clothes. "I figured out who exactly you are. I can guarantee that I can kill you. I've done it before."

As the blind man began walking away, Hana didn't even bat an eye. She seemed entirely uncaring of his comment. But once he was out of sight and hearing range, the aura around Hana faded and her eyes returned to their normal color. However, the deadly look was still present. She first looked at her right forearm. There was a deep gash across it. She had earned it during her last offensive. Now that the rush of battle was fading fast, she could feel the pain it brought. Instinctively, she wiped some of the blood out of the way and licked her wound several times. Her healing saliva caused it to rapidly heal, leaving no traces of an injury except the blood on her clothes. As well, she wiped the blood from her mouth and began walking back to the Estate.

Once she was back at the Estate, she removed the katana from the ground and carried it over to the sheathe. After wiping the blade against her pants, to clean it of any dirt, she placed it back in the sheathe and stored them in the dojo where they belonged. She knew she would need to change her clothes. They were torn and bloody in some places. The young woman jumped up to the house, before navigating her way around it and through an open window. Now inside Katsuko's room, she could see him still sound asleep in his bed. Upon looking at him, the deadly look in her eyes vanished and the friendly, charming look in her eyes she always had returned. While he was unconscious, she took off all her clothes and put some pajamas on. Rather than hiding the torn clothes effectively, she kicked them under Katsuko's bed to get them later.

There was a poof of smoke and in Hana's place was a white house cat. She jumped onto the bed and gingerly set down next to Katsuko's pillow. After curling up into a ball, the cat let out a silent yawn and closed it's eyes. Though she tried to sleep like nothing had happened, something was bothering her. She couldn't understand it. His words just kept repeating in her mind. I've done it before. The cat seemed to wince, but returned to normal rather quickly, still trying to sleep.

[j8cob]

The Start of Another Journey
11 Months into Timeskip

A collab with Mr. Nim

SPOILER: Click to show

"Wake up." Katsuko felt something land on his chest, forcing him to let out the air in his lungs and bolt upright. After opening his eyes, he noticed Hana was already dressed and had just performed a pile driver on him while he was asleep in bed. "What the hell?" he asked, giving her a light shove to remove her from him. The small woman landed on her feet on the floor and pouted. "It's already past noon. You need to wake up." "You aren't my mother, you know. Why do I need to wake up?" Katsuko got out of the bed now, and Hana turned around to face the wall. "There is company here and Akira will yell at you later if you sleep the whole time." When Hana turned back around, Katsuko was already dressed.

"Company?" he asked, motioning toward the door for Hana to leave first. But she didn't budge. "I don't know. I... kinda woke up a bit ago myself..." She gave a nervous smile, prompting a sigh from Katsuko. "If you weren't in the way of the door..." "Oh, right. Sorry." The two made their way out of the room and down the stairs, bringing them into the hallway to the living room. Katsuko could already hear voices, undoubtedly his mother and the company that was mentioned. He and Hana walked into the living room now, catching Akira's attention. There was someone else there that he never met before. "Oh, about time you woke up Kat," his mother began, looking over her shoulder. "This is Mayumi. Mayumi, this is my son, Katsuko."

"Hello Katsuko." Mayumi said, sounding as polite as she could "He reminds me of his father. I won't be surprised if he also has a similair personality. Shizume used to tell me quite a bit on how much Jinkama used to drive her mad, before she died." She said and let out a small sigh. So much time has passed, yet it seemed like only yesterday to her "Thank you for having me here Akira. I really am glad I got a chance to talk to someone I knew from before." She said and gave her a smile.

The teenager listened carefully, a somewhat confused expression on his face. This girl seemed younger than him, yet she knew his father? And she talked about Shizume, an old friend of Jinkama's that died back in the Shinobi World War. "You knew my father personally?" Katsuko asked, his voice conveying his confusion. Hana, meanwhile, seemed rather quiet and was trying to see if she could recognize Mayumi herself. "And didn't Shizume die during the War? You couldn't have been... sorry, but how old are you?" Before Mayumi would even get a chance to answer that, Akira spoke up. "Don't be rude, Katsuko! I have raised you to be better than to ask questions like that!"

"I was 15 when Shizume died. Shizume died at the second year of the war. That should tell you how old I am." Mayumi said and looked down. She couldn't believe how old she really was, when she wasn't even 18 in her mind. She wondered how can anyone adjust to such a thing. Sighing for a second, she raised her head again and looked at Katsuko "I knew your father, as my brothers and I worked with him a few times during the war. Nakashima and Sakamoto Senju." She said.

"You aged well," Hana spoke up, somewhat out of place. After receiving a glare from Akira, she shrunk behind Katsuko. "I think I get it," Katsuko spoke up, after a brief pause. "Sakamoto... I've heard that name before. But your other brother is a missing-nin isn't he?" Hana gave Katsuko a pinch now, getting his attention. "I don't think she will want you to hunt her brother," she whispered to him, earning a nod. "I mean... That's just how I heard of him," Katsuko added nervously, at Hana's suggestion. "Wait a minute... Doesn't that make you the granddaughter of the First Hokage?" Katsuko added, as if something just came to him. "Nakashima is the grandson, right?"

First smiling to Hana, as if she got a compliment from her about her appearance, she then listened to what Katsuko said. At first she thought about saying something about the fact Nakashima is a missing nin, something Sakamoto infromed her from the first moment she came back. She still had a hard time achknowledging it, but she then heard something else that caught her ear. Grandpa's title was mentioned. Mayumi looked at him and her smile vanished, as well as she raised an eyebrow "What if he is the grandson? Shizume was my aunt and his daughter. Do you have anything in particular that interest you?" She said, and now started to sound dark. After a moment she let out a few laughs and gave him a smile "Excuse me, I am still caught up in these little things. But yes, I am his granddaughter, and I already have a guess as to what you have in mind." She said, and both her hands went into her pockets. Her right hand grabbed something tightly, and she looked at Katsuko, waiting for him to confirm it.

So that was how she knew them. It all made sense. Jinkama had told Katsuko stories about his old team before, so her relation to Shizume and the First Hokage made perfect sense now. "I was just bringing it up in conversation. He was a great man, I heard. I wasn't alive when he was though," Katsuko said, sitting down on the couch now. This left Hana exposed, as she was hiding behind him. As such, she smiled awkwardly and jumped onto the couch between Akira and Katsuko. "He was a great man. I remember him well," Akira chimed in, before standing up. "I'll get us some tea. Don't wait up for me." As she walked away, Katsuko looked at Mayumi's hand. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to whatever it was she was clutching. Hana didn't even notice it before, but now her eyes fell on Mayumi's hand as well.

Seeing Katsuko did not confirm it made Mayumi wonder if Katsuko even knew what she was thinking of. She decided to shake her head a bit before answering "Its something silly. Something I've been holding on to for quite some time." She said before letting go of the thing. She leaned a bit forward and looked at both of them "Tell me, how much do you know about the sword of the First Hokage?" She decided to ask, just out of curiousity.

"Uhm..." Katsuko leaned back in the couch and began thinking back on all the stories his father told him. "Didn't Shizume actually own it?" Katsuko asked, before realizing he was correct. "Yes. Dad told me before that when the First passed away his sword was passed down to Shizume. It had something to do with their Wood Release. But I don't know where it would be now. I imagine it would be buried with her or her son would have it. Was I close?" Katsuko sat upright now, a light grin on his face. "It could cut wood effortlessly, Kat," Hana chimed in, surprising Katsuko. He never knew that she paid attention to what his father said.

Mayumi nodded "You are both correct. The sword has a connection to Wood Release, and people with it..." She stopped speaking for a moment and made a bit of wood appear from her palm for a moment before making it vanish again "Had greater effects. But overall, the sword is quite powerful." She said and then took out the thing that was in her pocket "I was present at Shizume's death along with my uncle and two brothers. We decided that in order to keep the weapon safe, we will hide it. And so we did, somewhere we barely went to. So we needed a way to be able to go back there in any case, and we made a map, and tore it into four pieces. One piece is in my possession, and it what you see here." She explained and opened it, revealing it to be a partial picture with a torn word.

The orange-haired teenager leaned forward a bit as Mayumi began to explain the story. He felt a bit bad for her, hearing she was present when Shizume died. He heard stories about how that went, and figured that would've been gruesome. "So the blade is hidden somewhere and the map is in four pieces..." he repeated, thinking about it. A grin began to form on his face. "My father always was one to admire a good sword. Perhaps that was why he remembered it so well. I believe Shizume drew his blood with it before, even... Why is it... Or rather: how would you feel if I collected the blade?" Katsuko asked, raising an eyebrow. His grin had vanished, indicating he was serious about his question rather than just testing the water.

Mayumi handed the piece of her map to Katsuko's hand "I would be honoured that Jinkama's son would have my aunt's sword. While I know her son is alive, he is not really one for swords, and neither am I or my brothers. So to pass it to the son of her teammate would do it justice, as long as you are a person who enjoys swords as much as your father did." She said and gave him a smile "The sword has always been in good hands, so only if you think you are worthy then you should seek it." She added, sounding slightly serious now.

He looked over the piece of the map silently for a moment. Even Hana leaned closer to get a look at it. Unfortunately, there was nothing particularly special about it, and that piece alone clearly didn't reveal the location of the sword. "I was never as serious about swords as my father was," Katsuko began, looking up from the map back at Mayumi. "But after he died, I found myself respecting them more. It wasn't for me, because I am skilled in other areas as well as the sword if not better, but for him. He would've wanted it, so I can get it, definitely." A small grin formed on his face, before he pointed at himself with his thumb. "I believe I am worthy to retrieve it."

Smiling once more, Mayumi leaned back "Very well then. I'll tell you who has the other three pieces, but I do not know where two of them are. The first one is on Sakamoto, who you can find around Konoha most of the time, but right now he is on a mission. Second piece is at the possession of my other brother, Nakashima. According to Sakamoto, he was in a coma in Konoha's hospital up until a month ago, the same time he brought me back. I have no idea where he is now, but I am aware he has a grudge against the village, so you could try using that. The third piece is at he possession of my uncle, Masaru. I was told he died quite a few months ago and his body was never recovered, but I know Sakamoto knows where his body is. So you should ask him." She said "I wish I had any more knowledge, but I do not. Sorry." She said.

Katsuko leaned back in his seat and began thinking. "Sakamoto is out of town right now, so I guess that means I have to get Nakashima's piece next," Katsuko said. Though Mayumi may have been willing to comment on simply having the patience to wait for Sakamoto to return, Hana already anticipated that. "He's not exactly patient, at times," she whispered to Mayumi, though it was more than loud enough for everyone to hear. "I'm as patient as I need to be. Anyways, I suppose I can start looking for your brother in an hour. If he was at the hospital I can start there. Surely someone started tracking him down and I can just take over from there. I'm guessing..." Katusko sat upright now, giving Mayumi a serious expression. "You don't want me to hurt him, do you?" This surprised Hana, as normally Katsuko didn't think that far ahead, particularly when it came to how other people felt about something.

Now the smile vanished, and Mayumi sighed "I do not wish for my brother to be harmed, but I fear that he will most likely force you to fight him. As long as you do not kill him, it will be fine." She said and looked down at the floor. A smirk formed on Katsuko's face briefly, before his expression returned. "Don't worry about it. While I'm there I'll also see if I can get him to return to the village. Expect no problems on my part," he told her, before folding the piece of the map and placing it in his pocket. "I'll bring the sword back to you first before I claim it, in case you change your mind." With that, he stood up from his seat just as Akira came back in with several cups of tea. "Sorry that took a while. I couldn't remember where I put the kettle yesterday."

Looking at Akira, Maymi shrugged her shoulders "No harm done, I was just telling Katsuko here a little story. One which he should go investigate while I continue to catch with you." She said and motioned with her hand for him and Hana to go away before taking a cup of tea and sipping from it a bit "Thats hot. But tastes good." She said and then gave a smile to Akira "So you were about to tell me about the time Jinkama went away from the village." She said, reminding Akira and hoping to continue to catch up.

"Oh, yes. Well, since the Elders have been dealt with, I suppose I can legally talk about it..." Akira began with a light chuckle before taking a sip from her tea, unflinchingly and seemingly unaware of the temperature. Katsuko simply smirked before motioning for Hana to follow him. "Hey, Mom. I'm heading out to investigate that story. I'll be back tomorrow night." The two began leaving, and Akira let out a sigh. "If you come home at midnight and wake me up I will make sure to wake you up in the morning," she threatened, earning a laugh from her son as he and Hana left the room. "Sorry about that. Sometimes he needs a little reminder on decency and manners. Anyways, Jinkama had been going at it with the Elders at that point, and nobody else knew they were corrupt at the time, so they had him set up..."

[j8cob]

The Second Piece
11 Months into Timeskip

A collab with Mr. Nim

The two stood before the hospital. Mayumi had said that he left a month ago after waking up from a coma, but Katsuko figured that there would still be some hints here as to where he could've gone. "But Katsuko, if he left a month ago, there would be nothing left that the village hasn't already collected," Hana pointed out, making Katsuko let out a pained sigh. "Shit, I didn't think about that," he muttered, before letting his palm hit himself in the face. "Great. How are we going to find him now?" After another sigh, Katsuko reached into one of his pouches and withdrew the Bingo Book.

After flipping through it for a moment, he found the corresponding page to him. "He hates Konoha for some reason and kills Konoha shinobi every now and then," Katsuko mumbled. While he held the book in front of himself, Hana was too short to see it so she climbed onto his back to look over his shoulder. "He obviously doesn't want to be in captivity. But he still wants to be able to do harm. So he'll have to be somewhere he can find a balance of the two." Katsuko handed the short woman the book and she jumped off him to look at the page herself while Katsuko withdrew a map. "He can't be too far at any given time, in that case. He'd have to be in the Fire Country at least to even get to Konoha shinobi..."

He sat down on a nearby bench and continued looking. But after a moment of silence, he looked back up at Hana. "I have no clue where he can be." He chuckled a bit after his confession, before looking back at the map to try again. "Well, if he doesn't want to be found, then he won't be any place obvious, so we can scratch off villages and towns from our list." Without waiting for Katsuko's permission, she began poking holes in the map over the locations of villages. The teenager let out a sigh before grabbing her wrist and stopping her. "You shouldn't do that. This could've been Mayumi's map and that would've damaged it. Be thankful this was only Keiko's. Anyways..."

He continued scanning. "Mountains would always be a good place to hide, but then again that would be the first place to look if we don't check villages. There's tons of forests, so he's probably in one of them. But..." "Which one?" Hana sat down next to Katsuko now and they both stared at the map. Suddenly, Katsuko began folding it back up. "Screw it, let's just start looking." "But Katsuko!" The teenager stood up casually while Hana jumped to her feet. "I realized a simple detail... We just need to look for shinobi murders within the Fire Country where the killer wasn't caught. He'll be near there, and we can use your sense of smell to track him down." "My sense of smell? I'm not a dog." "But cats have good smell too, don't they?" "Not good enough for tracking. It's our hearing and sight." "This might be difficult..."

---

"So he was never caught, right?" "Nobody even saw who did it." Katsuko pondered on this for a moment with a grin. "Can you not smile about this?" The duo had made their way to one of the small villages in the north, where they heard someone was killed at one of the outposts. Katsuko figured it would be Nakashima, and so far the stories made him feel like he was close. "Sorry, but this is a good sign that the man I'm looking for is nearby." "Don't worry sir, we'll find who did this." Katsuko looked down at Hana now. He wanted to tell her that they weren't allowed to kill him, and he doubted the ability to capture him, but kept his mouth shut.

"Anyways, thanks for the information. We'll be leaving now." The teenager and the small woman started walking away, not waiting for any formal goodbyes. On their way to the edge of the village, Katsuko stopped and looked around. "What is it, Katsuko?" He remained silent for a moment longer as he scanned his surroundings. "If I had just killed someone at this exact spot, where would I go to escape...?" While he was pondering, he heard the shinobi he was talking to from earlier be approached by someone else. "Sir, our last patrol was supposed to return five minutes ago. Still no word." "Damn. They were supposed to find the culprit, not become victims." Katsuko wheeled around now.

He didn't approach them, but rather yelled at them from down the street. "Which way did the patrol go!?" he shouted, surprising both of them from his intensity. At first, they didn't answer him as they thought about it, before the second man pointed down the road Katsuko was heading. "I'll thank you later!" With that, he bolted down the dirt road, sending dust flying as he ran. This surprised Hana, and she was still standing where she was before, except now in a cloud of dust. "Ugh, a little restraint or a little warning next time," she grumbled to herself before also running after Katsuko.

At their high speeds, it didn't take long for the duo to make distance down the road. At one point, the road split into two directions. "I take right, you take left," Katsuko commanded, earning a nod from Hana as they split up. While still running, Katsuko noticed that there were no travellers on the road. An ominous sign. But only after a brief moment since splitting up, he saw something up ahead in the middle of the road. He saw two bodies lying in the middle of the road. Skidding to a halt, he stopped and gave them a quick pulse check. Clearly dead. But no blood on the ground at all. This made Katsuko scowl as he looked around. He heard some sounds off into the trees to his left, and upon looking he noticed that there were several holes in the ground alongside the road. As if trees had been pulled out.

The scowl vanished as Katsuko bolted through the treeline, to determine the source of the sounds. He could recognize them anywhere. The sounds of a fight. As he dashed through the trees, he saw a clearing up ahead. Or rather: a section of the forest where enough trees were cut down to almost look like a clearing. In it were two people clashing. Though it seemed that Katsuko had bad timing, as it looked like the fight was about over. One of the men was clearly dominating the other. And just as Katsuko reached the edge of the clearing, he saw the defeated man get destroyed. Literally. He was disintegrated right before Katsuko's eyes, and his scowl returned. "Nakashima Senju."

Slightly breathing, the half blonde and half white haired man turned to look at Katsuko for a moment before shaking his head and then continuing to walk away from the now disintigrated spot. Using his Dust release was hard on his now, so he knew he couldn't use it or make his Sharingan go past the three tomoe state for the time being, to ensure he will not over use the chakra he has and go back to the state he was in before. He did not want to go back to the Konoha hospital and be forced to stare at that celling for so long again.

"Hey," Katsuko called out as he started to walk away. This surprised him more than anything. He figured if Nakashima was going to behave unpredictably, it would result in them fighting. Not him simply walking away like Katsuko was nothing. "You have something I need." He made some handseals and slammed his hand on the ground. A stone dragon erupted next to him and circled around, moving around Nakashima to cut him off from walking away. "If I wanted to bring you back, I would just do it."

Performing a few quick handseals with his back still to Katsuko, and an Earth Dragon would appear and collide with the Stone dragon, making both collapse into nothing "I have nothing that will interest anyone. Unless you consider death to be an interest." He said and continued to walk away from Katsuko, figuring the boy would just go away.

A scowl formed on Katsuko's face. He dared to threaten him? "If you can't even say that to my face, I can't believe you can back it up," he commented, before drawing the sword from his back. "Just sit still for a moment you..." He knew he couldn't kill this man, but he assumed that holding back too much would result in him meeting the fate the recently deceased patrol met. "Just hand it over." Katsuko charged forward, preparing to slash through his midsection.

Doing a few more handseals with his back to Katsuko, an Earth wall would appear between the two, making Nakashima disappear from Katsuko's sight at first "Who ever said I wasn't watching? I have seen you all along." He said before Nakashima would seemingly appear from the Earth wall and attempt to grab Katsuko's neck with one hand and the sword with another. In fact, the real Nakashima was still behind the wall, and simply used an Earth Shadow clone created from the wall, and then resumed his walk towards the forest once more, hoping nothing will interrupt him this time.

The Nakashima that erupted from the wall was too close to dodge and it managed to grab onto Katsuko at the neck and his sword. This made the teenager scowl, but it did little to stop him. He leaned back slightly, before slamming his head forward into the clone's. He didn't even realize this wasn't the real Nakashima until impact, where it shattered into tiny pieces. Crap, that would've killed him if it was the real one, what was I thinking? he lamented, before jumping up and kicking the wall in front of him, to shatter that too. "I don't care if you were looking or not. Our eyes haven't even met yet. Just give me the damn map!"

Nakashima stopped just before entering the forest. He had nearly forgotten about the map, that little thing that kept him connected to his aunt, uncle, brother and sister. He turned around and his Sharingan switched from being 3 tomoes to Mangekyo Sharingan "How did you learn about the map?" He asked, and Katsuko would notice a small black fire has appeared on his leg, while Nakashima's eye would begin to bleed before switching back to the three tomoes. He grabbed his eye for a moment while feeling the massive headache Damnit, that was too much, I must not use Amaterasu either, only in extreme cases. He thought to himself before wiping the blood away. He figured he still have some chakra to fight, but he needed to watch his step.

He felt something burning on his leg and looked down to see a black fire. Instinctively, Katsuko kicked at it with his other leg. But found that rather than getting stomped out, it caught his shoe on fire. That was worrisome. In two quick slashes, he cut the sole of his shoe off and most of his pant leg, letting them burn on the ground. But he could see his skin was red underneath his pant leg, despite the briefness of the fire. Dangerous shit. Glad Keiko can't do that...[/color] Katsuko glared back up at Nakashima, right as he was wiping blood from his face. So it seemed that doing that took a toll on him. "A certain somebody told me about it," Katsuko said, figuring he would get the hint that it was Mayumi. Rather than charge in again, Katsuko remained in his stance several meters from Nakashima. If he didn't have to fight, that would be nice. But since it could go either way at this point, he at least wanted to see what this man would do now that Katsuko had his attention.

Hearing that a 'certain somebody' told him, Nakashima figured Sakamoto got drunk once more and splilled one thing too much. His brother's drinking problem has gotten out of hand, but if that brought this guy to try and get a family treasure, he would need to do a lot more than just ask him for it. Nakashima would begin doing a few seals and quickly enough shoot out of his mouth a Fire dragon at Katsuko, trying to see how he will react to something that can follow him anywhere. He also noticed some movements in the forest, and he knew that he needed to watch his back.

Of course he would fight. Katsuko jumped back, but found the fire dragon kept following him. He let out a noise of irritation before jumping to the side and sheathing his blade. With some handseals, he formed an earth wall to block the flames. So now he knew this guy could use fire effectively as well as earth and that weird technique. Not to mention the black flames from a Sharingan that he was never warned about. "You aren't going to make this easy, are you?" he mumbled, before bringing his fist into his other hand. "I'm not allowed to kill you, but I bet she would be happy if I brought you back. Even if it is unconscious." With that last threat, Katsuko charged forward again, but since he was dodging the fire dragon he had more distance than the first time.

Doing a few handseals, Nakashima would make the ground between him and Katsuko to drop down by quite a lot before doing a few other seals and waited a few moments to see Katsuko fall into the new hole before doing several more seals and creating a vertical earth wall that would block the sky and light from above Katsuko. Afterwards, he would do a few more handseals before a few large earth jaws would begin appearing inside the makeshift tomb, trying to swallow Katsuko whole.

The sudden hole surprised him. This was something that his father would do, but he didn't expect Nakashima to do the same. Katsuko fell into it, but quickly recovered in time to see the hole be sealed. As the earth jaws began to form in the darkness, allowing Katsuko to only hear them rather than see, his scowl became me more intense. He is underestimating me. From aboveground, the ground where Katsuko was sealed became incredibly cracked following a powerful thud that reverbrated from the hole. A second punch finished the job, and the ground was shattered with the pieces of earth spraying toward the sky. With his new freedom, Katsuko jumped out of the hole, his eyes burning red unlike before. "What is the point of keeping that sword hidden away? None of you are ever going to use it and it will just get lost to the ages. I already have one piece of the map, just make this easier and give me yours. I can even give it back later if you really care so much!" His last bit was more sarcasm than anything else, but he was getting irritated. Mayumi simply handed hers over, and Sakamoto will probably do the same. But evidently not Nakashima.

"Who do you think you are that you deserve the sword of the First Hokage? Or of Shizume Senju, the one who brought down most of Iwa's forces on her own?" Nakashima asked, seemingly stopped to try and attack Katsuko, now simply standing and looking at him. There was something a bit familiar about him, but he figured he must've seen him in Konoha in one of the many times he was there before being in the coma
"And you can come out of there. Hiding in the forest won't help you. This eye sees everything with chakra, and I must say, yours is very hard to miss." He said outloud, talking to someone who was hiding in the forest.

Katsuko paused, since it seemed that Nakashima was halting his attacks temporarily. As well, he noticed Hana somehow, and Katsuko didn't even realize she had arrived yet. With that callout, the small woman jumped out of the trees and landed next to Katsuko. Once again, Katsuko noticed her eyes looked like they did when she regained her memories. "I have right by two reasons," Katsuko claimed. He drew the sword on his back again, before pointing it at Nakashima. But at a slight angle, so he could see down the blade. "I'm the son of Shizume's best friend," Katsuko remarked first. Now it was apparent that the sword he was wielding was that of Jinkama Moto. "And the other reason is that your sister already gave me the right. The only condition is that I have to find it myself. So here we are."

Staring at him and Hana for a few moments, Nakashima appeared to freeze. His sister? His sister was buried inside a tree somewhere in a living forest, which last he checked was still very much alive. Could that boy have survived that forest and reached her? Or did Sakamoto trick him? He shook his head for a moment, as if there was a fight going on it in "Show me the piece of the map you were given and I will give you the piece I have. If you are Jinkama's son, then that is enough for me. Jinkama was more than worthy, but he never wanted it. So I assume his son will do it justice. He said before approaching with his hands to his sides, to properly show that he is not doing any seals or taking out any weapons. Once he was a meter away from Katsuko and Hana he stopped "The piece hasn't left my sight for over 10 years, so if I find out you have failed to retrieve the sword or you are abusing it, then you can count on the fact I will come after you. He said and waited to see the piece of the map Katsuko had. Nakashima remembered very well who had which piece, and he wondered how would Katsuko get to Masaru's piece.

The teenager looked down at Hana for a moment. He was skeptical of showing him the map. If Nakashima stole it, that could cause problems. But after a reassuring glance from Hana, he knew that she could intercept any grabs he might make. With a sigh, Katsuko removed the folded piece of paper from his pocked and carefully unfolding it, before holding it up to Naka. "Mayumi gave this to me several days ago. I took care not to damage it." Though his other hand still held the sword, he had it to his side rather than pointed at Nakashima anymore. It seemed that the violence would stop with this, which made life easier for everyone. On the inside, he wanted to beat this man senseless for his crimes. But he knew he needed to control it if he wanted the map. After all, he might even destroy his own piece out of spite if Katsuko tried to attack.

Looking at it, Nakashima's expression would not change a bit, but inside he would go beserk. How did he get Mayumi's piece? He mouthed the word impossible before putting his hand inside his pocket and taking out another map piece, one which would appear to connect to the side of Mayumi's piece. His shock grew even more, but he still wouldn't show a bit of his surprise and confusion "Take the piece, and I will tell you this. I see you again, and you will not have Shizume's sword, then you can be as good as dead." He said in an empty voice, making it hard to hear if it was a threat or not. He would place his own piece above Mayumi's piece in Katsuko's hand before turning away and running, quickly enough vanishing into the forest. There was too much going inside his head. Too much. He needed to go and verify something, but he needed to go somewhere else. Somewhere that haunted him for a long time now.

When Nakashima placed the paper in Katsuko's hand, Hana's fingernails became claws as she prepared to strike. But to her surprise, he didn't attack. As Nakashima began to run away, Katsuko watched him with a surprised expression. "I guess he wasn't going to stick around for my thanks," he mumbled, before looking at the new piece. It did in fact fit with his current piece, and now the map was more clear. But still needed at least one more, possibly both. "Sorry I didn't jump in sooner. I wanted to get him with a surprise attack," Hana said first, prompting a chuckle from Katsuko. "I could tell he was in a weakened state. Nothing I couldn't handle by myself. Perhaps the next time we meet he will be stronger. I might need you then, if the Bingo Book doesn't lie."

The two continued to look at the trees where Nakashima disappeared, before Katsuko placed both pieces of the map in his pocket. "Now... Sakamoto should be back in town by now. So we need to get to Konoha before he leaves again. No need to wait any longer than we have to." Katsuko began walking back toward the road now. But upon reaching it, he found that the shinobi from the village had caught up and found the place where Nakashima was fighting the patrol. In his battle, Katsuko had entirely forgotten that he just murdered three people. "You again? Did you find him?" Katsuko paused a moment as he thought about how he should answer.

"Almost got him, but he escaped. Turns out he's pretty tough," he explained, looking over his shoulder. "He ran that way, but odds are he probably diverged so I wouldn't be able to track him." Taking this hint, several shinobi ran off into the forest, and Katsuko decided to start walking away from those that remained. Once at a safe distance, Hana tugged on his arm. "Why did you lie to them? It's not like you would get in trouble for letting him leave, would you?" she asked. The teenager ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "I probably would though. If they had the whole story, they would see I had an opportunity to catch him. But I guess that serves as my thanks. Until he's repented for his crimes... next time we meet I will have to do something about him."

[j8cob]

The Third Piece
11 Months into Timeskip

A collab with Mr. Nim

SPOILER: Click to show

The sun shone bright over the village, though it wasn't particularly hot at all. Even so, Katsuko wore no shirt, which was almost compensated by the fact Hana was wearing his flak jacket. "I sure hope Sakamoto won't be..." Katsuko began lamenting to Hana as they walked. "Mean?" "I was going to say wasteful. Let's make this quick. If he's more like his sister than his brother, then he should be pleasant." The two kept walking, but Katsuko withdrew the two pieces of the map he already had and looked at them. "I'll just cut to the chase with him. I think part of my problem with Nakashima was miscommunication." "If you're going into his house, you should put on a shirt."

The teenager looked around, realizing that the two of them were getting looks. "But it's warm out. It's fine." "It's disrespectful. What was that about miscommunication?" The teenager gave her a scowl, but still ignored her suggestion. "Fine, then I'll take off my shirt too." "Fine! Damn..." Hana unzipped the flak jacket and handed it to Katsuko, who promptly put it on with a scowl. While Hana wore a victorious smirk. By the time he finished putting it on, he looked up to see the house they were looking for down the street. "Mayumi said that one. So..." The duo stopped before the door, before Katsuko held up the two pieces of the map with one hand and knocked with the other.

"Just a second!" A shout came from the other side of the door. After a few moments the door opened and Sakamoto stood on the other side, holding a baby Mayumi in a burping position. It took him a moment and once he heard Mayumi let out a cute little burp but felt nothing land on his back, he sighed and then gave a small smile to Katsuko "Jinkama's boy, right? Come in. I just got home recently and needed to take care of this little delight. If you could close your door behind you, I'll go put her to sleep and then be right with you." He said and Mayumi let out a cute yawn and a small wave of her hand towards Hana, as if she was telling her hello as Sakamoto moved her to a more comfortable position "The living room is over there. Make yourself at home." He added and then walked away into another room to put Mayumi to sleep.

Katsuko was silent for a moment, surprised that Sakamoto didn't seem to notice the map pieces in his left hand. But after he invited them in, he let out a sigh and lowered his hand, though he kept holding them. Hana gave the small child a smile and waved back, but said nothing. After all, for all she knew, her voice could make the baby cry or something. She wasn't very knowledgable on infants. "Katsuko Moto, yes. This is Hana," he introduced as they walked in. Though Sakamoto was on his way to another room, Hana couldn't resist adding in her own "Hi" to the conversation. Now that they were alone in the living room for a brief moment, Katsuko sat down and rested his elbows on his knees while Hana sat next to him on the couch. "I expected a bigger home..." "Not all houses are like ours. This is bigger than my old home. Anyways..." While they waited for Sakamoto to return, Katsuko held his hand up with the map pieces again. Hoping it would get his attention this time.

After a few more minutes Sakamoto returned, and apparently made a small stop in the kitchen as he brought a tray with 3 glasses and a jug of water and placed on a small coffee table next to the couch before sitting down and motioning to the two to have a cup if they wanted to, and then his eyes got fixed on the map pieces "Don't think I haven't noticed. Its hard to miss my sister and brother's pieces of the map leading to the sword of Shizume. I can understand how you got Mayumi's piece, that girl always said the sword should move to a new owner. I am curious as to how you got Nakashima's piece, because he could've ensured both of you will be gone for good. But thats out of the point now. I can only assume you came to get my map piece." He said and poured himself a glass of water and then drank a bit, wondering if he should've added a piece of lemon to it.

"Three things, actually," Katsuko said, putting the pieces back in his pocket. He smirked, before leaning forward and taking a glass and filling it with water. "First... you underestimate me. Nakashima wasn't even a challenge." Hana gave him a quick jab to his ribs with her elbow, earning a brief grunt from Katsuko. When he glared down at her, she was also getting herself a glass. "But anyways... I was also wondering where I can find Masaru... I'm sorry to bring this up, but he has the last piece after you. This was bound to come up eventually." He took a sip of the water and thought about what he just said. It sounded a bit harsh, considering Masaru was close to Sakamoto. But this wasn't about the Senju family. It was about the sword and the journey to get it. "You're the only one who knows where he is."

The serious look on Sakamoto's face did not change. Nakashima was easy for Katsuko to handle? That only meant that Nakashima was still weak from the coma he was in, which was a good thing on its own, for the sake of the village. He took another sip from the water when Katsuko mentioned Masaru. It didn't come as a surprise to him that his name was brought up, seeing Katsuko was after the map piece, but he still let out a sigh after he put his glass of water down "Since you have no idea what Nakashima is truly capable, I will only advice you to stay away from him if you see him again. As for my piece, I will give it to you and the instructions as to how to find Masaru, but you need to know something first about his location." He said and placed his hand inside a pocket before taking out a lollipop and sticking it in his mouth. He wondered where Lilia was, but he also knew that she was more than capable of taking care of herself.

"Masaru has died nearly a year ago, during the Shoji event, but not due to those. He died due to being tricked by someone who is now imprisoned for good. He tried getting rid of my uncle for his group's evil intentions, but I never bothered to see what the group was called, as I do not wish to get involved with any of it. Dragon Lotus, that other group. They can all just go on with their business as long as the people I care for are not involved." He said and thought a moment if Meisa would tell him if she was a part of the Dragon Lotus or the other group, but decided against finding out "He eventually died due to severe injuries which he refused to let me heal. His body currently lays in an old Senju temple near the north-east part of the Fire country, and the way to enter it is by pressing a small spot on the shortest tree in a forest of near identical trees. Its very easy to miss the tree, which is why you need to pay close attention. I once marked one of its branches with the Senju symbol, but the symbol is currently hidden behind a few leaves, not to mention it could be partial by now. " He spoke with a neutral tone, not revealing his map piece yet, but merely waiting to see what is Katsuko's response for all of this thus far. He was aiming to see something certain.

A frown formed on his face as he listened. "Hmm..." There was a lot to process, and he thought about it for a moment. Hana, on the other hand, didn't seem at all bothered by what he said and was casually drinking her glass of water. Either she had it all down already or wasn't paying attention in the first place. "This will be difficult..." He took another sip of his water as he thought about it. "Shortest tree... I guess that won't be so bad." A grin formed on his face again as he relaxed into the couch. "Is there anything special to this temple? If your uncle was killed there... I can expect traps? But then again, if he set them all off, I should be good. Right?" At this point, Hana felt like speaking up. "He might not have set them all off. He is Senju, after all. For all we know, he might not have set any of them off." "Oh, that is possible..." The teenager let out a sigh and took a sip of his water. "I think I have a plan now."

"He have set some of them up, but there is a bad side to them. Those are the unavoidable traps, ones you must face if you wish to proceed forward. But at the same time, you are correct Hana. Both of us didn't set all of the traps when I went in my attempt to rescue him. Be aware, though, the way in is a one way door. And the way out... You might just lose a limb trying to get out." Sakamoto said, his tone now turning a bit dark along with his look as he remembered how Masaru sacrificed his own arm to let Sakamoto out "But there are many more traps I do not know of. I was lucky to not set them off due to how I was raised, but enough about that." He then added before putting his hand in both his pockets "I have something for both of you. Which one you get depends on you. Take a pick at which pocket you want to choose." He said and let a little smile slip to his face.

While Katsuko was thinking on his words about the traps, he was taken by surprise by Sakamoto's last offer. "What?" Hana, on the other hand, immediately became excited. "Oh! I choose right!" The teenager looked over at her, before remembering that she liked games. And apparently this was a game to her. "I guess I have no choice but to choose left. So what is in the pockets?" Katsuko asked, before finishing his glass of water in one last gulp. Hana still clenched her cup tightly, hoping that whatever it was she chose it would count as some sort of victory.

First taking out his right hand, Sakamoto tossed something to Hana and gave her a wink, as if she won the grand prize, before taking out a key out of his left pocket "This is the key which will open the box which you seek. Now, if you know my old nickname, then you will know where to go to find it, but be careful where to step. The floor can break at every step." He said with a smile, figuring that Hana, who appeared to be liking games, would jump on the opprotunity to have a Treasure Hunt of sorts, even if it lead to a pub which was closed for several years now. He then tossed the key to Katsuko before taking his glass of water again and finishing it "I can only assume that is all you came for?" He asked as he placed his glass back on the tray.

The small woman caught what he tossed, before realizing it was a lollipop. "Huh?" she wondered aloud, trying to examine what it was. Katsuko chuckled a bit with that, before turning toward her. "It's candy." With a face of comprehension, she removed the wrapper and placed it in her mouth, immediately trying to eat it. "A box, huh..." Katsuko stood up after catching the key, surprising Hana and prompting her to do the same. The teenager was silent for a moment, before he looked back at Sakamoto. "Actually, I have one more thing to ask you," Katsuko began, surprising Hana. Normally Katsuko was all business on things like this, and they already got all the business dealt with. "Your sister said that all three of you had worked together with my father long ago... How was that?" The question surprised Hana the most, and she began to worry somewhat. She thought he had recovered from his father's death.

Listening to Katsuko, The white haired Senju closed his eyes and after a moment a smile came to his face, but an actual answer was not heard from him. Sakamoto then stood up and motioned to the two to follow him "You should be quick with finding the piece of the map. I need to get this place cleaned up before Meisa comes back, and I have a feeling that if you will be here then she will have more questions than what I can answer." He said, hoping Katsuko understood what he meant by that. He then proceeded to the door and opened it to them and gave Katsuko a pat on the back before waiting for the two to leave.

"I see..." He placed the key in his pocket as the two began to walk with Sakamoto toward the door. "Before I go, I just want to let you know that I'm not as selfish as I appear," Katsuko said at the door, giving Sakamoto a smirk. "I promised Mayumi that I would let her decide if she wants the sword or not once I have it. You never know if nostalgia will kick in, so if it does I won't be taking it away." He gave Sakamoto a thumbs up with that, before casually exiting the house. Hana was somewhat shocked by this, but she recovered and jogged to catch up. "See ya Saka!" she called out as she left, as if they were casual friends.

Back in the street, they began walking to the next destination. "Where is the box, Katsuko?" she asked right away. "I'm not entirely sure, but he said his nickname was a hint. They call him The Drunken Senju. Kinda surprised that he wasn't drinking when we got there, but he does have a child now. I guess that changes people." "So the box is probably at a bar or liquor store, right?" Katsuko nodded. "It has to be. There aren't too many places like that that he would frequent, so it should be easy to find. We can start with the nearest ones and work our way across the village. We'll have his piece by sundown."

Leaning on a tree which Katsuko and Hana passed by, a man was smoking and seemingly waiting for something while wearing a trench coat. On a closer look it would become apparent that one sleeve was completely empty, and as soon as Katsuko and Hana vanished from sight, the man spat the cigarette out and placed his foot on it You never finished the job, and I never got the chance to let you try and finish it, Jinkama. After nearly a year of fixing myself and going back to who I was, I am finally ready to bring you down. But unfortunatlly for both of us, it would have to be through your son, who is looking for something which you always valued, so I heard. So revenge could not be any sweeter. I would beat your son and take the weapon of your former teammate. And then I will kill the young Moto with the Senju's sword, only to see how sharp it really is. I could probably also cripple his friend and make her watch him die, but I think I have a better use for her. For now, all I need to do is watch and wait for the right moment..." The man thought and then begun walking in the same direction as Katsuko and Hana, after he took several minutes before beginning to follow the two. He knew that he, Katsumi, will get his ultimate revenge on Jinkama not finishing him off, and make the man regret not dealing with him all the way through.

The two walked across the village for a while, stopping at several bars and pubs along the way. The sun now suggested it was early afternoon, and Katsuko and Hana were now on the other side of the village. "It wasn't at a single one, Katsuko..." Hana complained, sitting down on a nearby bench. Katsuko remained standing as he thought about it. "Well... He said something about falling through the floor..." Katsuko began thinking aloud. "So it must be old or derelict. We didn't check any of the bars that have been closed down..." The teenager snapped his fingers now, and Hana let out a sigh. "Do you know where any old bars are at?" As she slowly stood back up, Katsuko grinned. "Just one. The same one my dad used to visit long ago."

The two walked across the town, again. But this time, they stopped in front of a seemingly abandoned building. The windows were boarded up and broken, and the door was missing a handle. "This must be it. It's probably on the second floor or in a basement." Without exactly waiting for any affirmation from Hana, Katsuko stepped forward and kicked the door, sending it flying off it's hinges and breaking the wooden boards that kept it closed. Though it flew across the bar, there were no tables for it to crash into and it reached the counter on the other side. "I don't think you should be doing that!" Hana complained, only earning laughter from Katsuko. "Nobody owns this place anymore. In fact, I bet the only reason it hasn't been leveled is because Sakamoto paid someone to not do it because the map piece is here."

As Katsuko took a step forward, he heard the floorboards creak. "He wasn't kidding. This place could fall apart on its own." With a chuckle, the two began walking into the room. Though it was dark, the light from the front door was enough to illuminate the room. But there was nothing special about it. "No box here. Let's check upstairs." Two steps up the stairs and Katsuko's foot went through the wood, causing him to fall and almost smack his face into the stairs. As a result of him catching himself with his hands, those also broke through the stairs and the entire section crashed down, sending dust flying. Instinctively, Hana backed up and began coughing from the dust. "Katsuko?" "I'm fine..." He pulled himself out of the debris, clearly dirtier than he was when he went in.

The stairs managed to survive the two of them heading the rest of the way, and Katsuko found the upper level was also devoid of furnishing. "I don't see a box here, either," he noted after looking around. "It's got to be in the floor, then. I think we shou- Katsuko! No!" The teenager had raised his leg, prepared to stomp through the floorboards. "It doesn't really matter if I break anything. This place is as good as gone anyways." "You'll bring this whole building down on us!" "And?" "I don't want to get dirty!" With a sigh, Katsuko put his foot down gently and shook his head. "That means we're going to have to carefully pry up and replace each and every bit of the floorboard, which will take us forev-" "Found it."

Katsuko looked over where Hana was standing, and she had one foot stretched out over a very specific spot. "How do you know?" This caused the small woman to giggle. "I'm hundreds of years old, Kat. With age comes wisdom and intuition." "I don't think that is a guarantee...""Anyways, this is the first place the floor hasn't creaked since we got here. Even my weight has made noise wherever I've walked. That means this wood is sturdier. Sturdy enough to keep anything from accidentally falling on whatever is under it..." The teenager walked over and the two high-fived, before crouching down above the floorboard. Katsuko grabbed on to the edge of the wooden board, before rather casually ripping it back and sending the piece of wood across the room.

"Katsuko!" "There it is." When Hana looked down, she saw a small metal box in the crawl space under the floor. Despite the fact she was confident it was there, it still surprised her that she was right. The teenager picked up the box and set it down next to the hole, before withdrawing the key Sakamoto had given them. "Let's hope this isn't some stupid prank..." he joked, before unlocking the box and opening it. Sure enough, there was a single, aged piece of paper. After examining it, Katsuko grinned. "Only one more piece left... Sadly we can't cut corners. Masaru's piece is the one with the final location. But I can tell so far that the sword will be somewhere in the north west. Far north west, like Earth Country or something. But... we need that last piece." He calmly stored the piece with the other two in the same pocket, before standing up.

"Tomorrow, we'll go to that temple and get the last piece." "He said there would be some traps, and some of them would be inescapable." This made Katsuko laugh. "That's nothing. For all I care, I'll just go out of my way to set them all off. While we're there, I might recover Masaru's body if I can. Just to be nice." Hana stood up now, letting out a sigh. "If Sakamoto couldn't bring him back, then maybe you can't either." Once again, Katsuko laughed. "Nonsense. I'm Katsuko Moto. It will take a lot more than some old traps to do anything to me!" Almost perfectly on queue, the floor beneath Katsuko broke loudly and he crashed through to the first floor. "Katsuko!" After a moment of silence, Hana could hear some swearing among the dust cloud that now occupied the first floor. "I warned you about this..."

[j8cob]

The Temple of Doom
12 Months into Timeskip

A collab with Mr. Nim

"The trees really are identical," Katsuko noted. The dynamic duo was standing on the edge of the forest. As far as the eye can see, oak trees stretched out toward the sky. But where Katsuko and Hana were standing, they could see that all the trees were the same height. "It would probably be best to look for that symbol rather than tell the difference in height." Katsuko thought about this for a moment. "The easiest way would be to check the heights of the trees en masse. The shortest tree..."

Katsuko climbed the nearest tree, leaving Hana puzzled on the ground. Once he reached the top, Katsuko ducked down to bring his eye level to the top of the trees. After taking his time to line up all the trees before him, he stopped and began to examine the landscape. "Is it working?" Hana called up to him, standing impatiently on the ground. "Hold on." He continued looking out over the trees for a moment longer, before suddenly jumping down. "It's in that direction." Rather confidently, Katsuko pointed north-east. "We go that way and then narrow down the trees by looking for the Senju symbol."

Not caring to contradict him, Hana shrugged her shoulders and followed along, twitching her tail as they walked. After a few minutes of walking seemingly nowhere in the trees, Katsuko stopped. "It's somewhere around here. Let's start looking." Katsuko climbed a tree, pushing aside the foliage as he climbed as he looked for a symbol. Meanwhile, Hana looked around and let out a sigh. Rather casually, she held her hand out and let her chakra blades form over her claws. With her usual speed, she jumped up and immediately slashed all the branches off a nearby tree. This got Katsuko's attention.

"What are you doing!?" Hana landed on the ground gracefully, using her chakra blades as balance. "The symbol is on the trunk of the tree, not the branches. So we can cut the branches to make it easier to see the symbol." Katsuko thought about it for a moment, before realizing she actually had a good idea there. "You can actually be wise once in a while." "I'm wise all the time, Katsuko. You just don't notice." Katsuko realized he didn't have his sword with him, but came up with an alternate way to eliminate the foliage.

On the next tree, Katsuko jumped up and began using his fists and feet to smash the branches out of his way. The combined effort of Katsuko and Hana made quick work of the trees, and the speed at which they operated gave the impression that they could clear the entire forest in less than a day. But it wouldn't take them that long. After a few minutes of this deforestation, Katsuko stopped. "Hold up!" Halfway through slicing a tree, Hana gave up and dropped down next to Katsuko. On the tree before them, now devoid of branches, it was clearly engraved upon the trunk. The Senju symbol.

"Now we have to press a certain spot." Katsuko began rubbing his chin while Hana walked closer to the tree and began to examine it more closely. A moment of silence fell over them as they tried to understand how to operate it. Before Katsuko could come up with anything, Hana began randomly poking the tree trunk. "The tree isn't too big so I'm bound to find it." This made Katsuko chuckle, before bringing his hands behind his head and letting out a sigh. "This may take a while if you do that though." "Better than stopping and staring."

Suddenly the small spot Hana poked on the tree would be pressed, and when she would remove her finger the spot would go back to its place, and the two would feel a small burst of wind come from between the tree and the tree to its left, making it fairly obvious something just happened there.

After feeling the rush of wind, Hana took a step back from the tree and both she and Katsuko looked in the direction it came from. But they couldn't see anything. "Something happened." Katsuko walked forward, figuring already that this was a similar genjutsu trap like the temple that Hana used to live in. There was something invisible nearby. Cautiously, he began stepping toward the gap in the trees, and very quickly he discovered he was right. His leg vanished from sight as he took one last step forward. "Knew it."

He looked back at Hana with a grin, before stepping in. As he entirely vanished from view, Hana startled upright before quickly following him.

Upon entering the temple, the two would instantly see a very well done, and rather large, symbol of the Senju clan, which was hanging from the wall across from them, right above the beginning of a spiral staircase. They would also see three skeletons which were impaled by several kunai each. The floor was made of amazing looking crystal, which was identical to the one Yumi Hasewaga was known to possess. The celling showed this was actually a cave which was dug up, as it was flawless.

The teenager and the small woman looked around, taking the surroundings in. "Impressive," Hana commented, crouching down to look at the floor. Not particularly caring to admire the place, as Katsuko was more focused on finding Masaru's body, he simply let out a sigh and began to walk forward. As soon as he took a step forward, several scrolls appeared around the room. One in front of the Senju symbol, and then two on each wall parallel to Katsuko and Hana. Immediately recognizing this as a trap, both Hana and Katsuko sprang to action. In a poof of smoke, each scroll began firing kunai toward the intruders. There were several clang sounds, and by the time the dust settled Katsuko and Hana were back-to-back in the middle of the room. Hana's claws had chakra blades extending from them, proving her method of deflecting the kunai. Katsuko, on the other hand, held a massive steel weapon, using that as an effective shield from one angle. But it was clear that not every kunai was blocked, as three were clearly sticking out of Katsuko's left arm and one out of his side.

"That was fast," Katsuko commented, relaxing out of his position. "One step..." Hana turned around and saw Katsuko's injuries and her eyes immediately widened. But without even looking, Katsuko waved her away. "Relax. That's nothing. I don't even need you to heal me," he commented as the massive steel weapon vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving a small scroll in its place. Now with a free hand, he began plucking the kunai out of his skin and tossing them on the floor. Meanwhile, Hana took a look around and even began to cautiously walk around. "I think the room's clear, but the trap reset," she updated Katsuko, only earning a nod in response.

After a moment, the two began walking again. "You sure you don't want me to heal those? It will take just a second," Hana offered. But Katsuko just chuckled. "A second I'd rather spend getting out of this creepy place." Hana looked around. "I don't think it's creepy..." "You used to live in a temple like this. Of course you wouldn't." The two stopped in front of a staircase. "This thing is rigged." The two looked at it for a moment, before Katsuko shrugged and began to take a step forward. "Wait! I'm lighter. I think I'll go first." Katsuko raised an eyebrow at this suggestion, but stepped out of the way to let the smaller woman go first.

Upon taking the first step, Hana paused and waited. Nothing seemed to happen. In this same, slow process, she began to descend the staircase. But her slow pace was beginning to irritate Katsuko. "If you're gonna go this slow I might as well take the lead," Katsuko suggested, earning a glare from Hana. "I'm trying to be careful here. The less traps we set off, the better." Just after she said that, she realized there was a strange smell in the air. Like some kind of smoke, but not that something was burning. Whatever it was, it was irritating her eyes. "I think we activated one. Something is bothering my eyes." Katsuko looked around but saw nothing. However, he felt something start to bother his eyes as well. "Let's hurry up then. Who knows if this stuff will make us go blind or not."

As Hana and Katsuko began to speed up, several stairs collapsed from under Hana. Before she could fall, Katsuko reached out and grabbed her by the collar of her shirt, before yanking her back just as a blast of hot steam shot from the newly created gap. "What the hell is up with the people who made this place?" Katsuko muttered to himself, letting go of Hana since she had her balance again. The steam continued to flow for a few seconds longer, before suddenly stopping. After the steam stopped, the stairs moved back to their original positions, as if they had never fallen from under Hana.

"What can this place even be hiding?" Hana wondered aloud, wiping her eyes as they were watering from the smoke. "The irony is that it's probably nothing. But right now it's hiding Masaru." Katsuko gently moved Hana to the side as he began walking ahead. The two made their way further down the stairs before finding that they abruptly ended. This made him let out an irritated "Tch." The two waited a moment, to see if the stairs would reset like before. But it became evident that wasn't the case. "What do we do now?" Hana asked, wondering how they would get past this obstacle.

Katusko thought about it for a moment. "The walls are probably trapped." He began to rub his chin. "We can just try to outspeed it. Use our speed and just go across the walls until we reach the stairs again. Or just jump all the way down to the bottom for all I care." Katsuko took a step forward and looked down. The stairs were out for nearly the entire way down. It was almost a straight shot to the bottom if they were to use the walls. "Fuck it, I'm jumping," Katsuko announced. Before he jumped, Hana peered over the edge herself, before shrugging her shoulders as a sort of agreement.

The two made a light hop and began to fall down the stairwell. As they descended, a brief rumbling sound was heard. Already wary, Katsuko brought his arms up in preparation just as a wave of water blasted the two from the sides. Instinctively, Katsuko realized what was about to happen and gave Hana a sharp kick to her hip, just enough to kick her out of the water. Just as soon as she was clear, lightning cracked through the air and the entire wave was electrified. Katsuko let out a grunt of pain, before kicking off the wall nearby and getting himself out of the electrified water as well. Hana landed on the ground just before Katsuko, but upon turning around she could see steam drifing off her master. "Katsuko!" "This is starting to piss me o-"

Several scrolls appeared behind the two, creating a small puff of smoke each. His eyesight was already blurry, but he still managed to notice this detail in time to bring his arms up again. From each scroll, three in total, came a dragon ninjutsu. One was water, one was lightning, and the other was made of wood. Hana quickly created her chakra claws again, dodging to the side as the lightning dragon screeched past her. Katsuko, using his bare fist, planted a powerful punch directly on the nose of the wooden dragon, shattering the entire thing and reducing it to woodchips. However, the third water dragon wasn't dealt with and slammed into both Katsuko and Hana, dragging them down the stairs from the power of the water pressure. With a grunt of frustration, Katsuko planted his feet on the stairs and used his chakra control to grip it. At the same time, he reached out and grabbed Hana, unfortunately by the tail. The water continued to blast the two, and they were beginning to run out of air. But in another grunt of irritation, Katsuko lifted his foot and slammed it into the stairs underneath him, shattering them and allowing the two to fall out of the water.

As they were falling to the next level of the stairs, Katsuko saw the head of the water dragon coming back around to hit them again. "Not this time," he said, letting go of Hana. He brought his fist back, before slamming it forward. However, it stopped just before reaching the dragon's head. But the force of the blow displaced the air in front of it, punching a hole through the entirety of the dragon and cracking the stone wall behind it. This caused the water to fall down lifelessly and begin flowing down the stairs like a small creek. Once Katsuko landed, he saw that Hana was rubbing her lower back. "Why'd you grab me by the tail?" she asked, making it clear that the yank the water dragon gave caused pain while he was grabbing her. "You were too far away to reach anywhere else. That might've saved you. But sorry." She shot him a brief glare, before forgiving him with a sigh.

The two continued walking down the stairs, even more wary than before. Hana began wringing out her hair as they walked, but Katsuko didn't seem to care at all about being dripping wet. He was more focused on avoiding more traps. But, much to his surprise, they walked all the way to the bottom with no further complications. "Finally." As soon as Katsuko stepped off the stairs and onto the bottom floor, the whole stairwell began rumbling. The two heard crashing sounds and looked up. Dust began to fall from the stairs above them, and it became apparent the entire staircase was collapsing. "Uh oh." Katsuko dashed toward the door, not even caring to open it properly. His shoulder slammed into it, sending it flying and opening a path to safety. With this way out, Hana and Katsuko jumped through at the same time just as the stairs fell down on top of them. Turning around, the entire doorway was blocked off by the rubble. Going back that way would be a pain, so there was only forward now.

Looking forward, Katsuko saw they were in a large, relatively empty room. Directly ahead there was a large boulder against the wall, assumingly in front of a door. And on each wall there was a scroll. The wall that had the entrance they just came from had the scroll next to the now blocked doorway, and the scroll on the wall of the boulder was just to the side of the boulder. "More traps," Katsuko grumbled, dusting off his shoulders. Hana picked herself up off the ground and began doing the same thing, making sure to dust off her tail as well and pick bits of rubble out of her hair. "So what do we do?"

The teenager looked around, trying to decide how dangerous it would be to walk across the room. After a few seconds, he casually walked across to the large boulder. Nothing happened so far. "Perhaps they had already been set off before and have run out," he suggested, before trying to push the boulder. But despite him being strong enough to move a stone this large normally, it didn't budge. Frustrated, Katsuko tried again. But it still wouldn't move. In one quick move, not particularly caring if this would set off traps, Katsuko brought his fist back and slammed it forward into the rock with tremendous force. Cracks appeared over the entire thing, proving he shattered it to bits. Yet...

The rock retained shape. None of the pieces fell victim to gravity. It was in tiny fragments, but still held together. "C'mon..." Katsuko hit it again, cracking it even more thoroughly. But it still held firm. With a grunt of frustration, Katsuko turned around and leaned against it, now facing Hana. "It ain't budging. If I were to do any more, I'd wreck the place." Hana brought a hand to her chin and began thinking. "The scrolls are probably traps, but I bet they all need to be activated to move the rock." With a sigh, Katsuko nodded. "Probably."

He got up and walked over to the scroll on the same wall as the boulder. He looked at it for a moment, before reaching out to open it. Upon touching it, the scroll opened itself and there was a puff of smoke next to him. He felt the heat and instinctively jumped back. From the smoke came a large moth, easily the size of a human. Made entirely of flames. Katsuko let out a reflexive punch at the air, punching a hole through one of the flame wings of the creature. However, the hole quickly filled itself again with flame. Attacks like that weren't going to work on a creature made purely of fire. "Damnit." The moth flew at Katsuko, forcing him to duck underneath and roll to the side. "We have to defeat it!" Hana suggested, before also jumping out of the way from another charge.

A grimace formed on Katsuko's face. "How am I supposed to hurt that thing? It won't feel pain and the flames just reignite if I put them out. If it was smaller..." Katsuko positioned himself next to the wall as the moth flew at him again. When he dodged, he anticipated it would crash into the stones and destroy itself. However, the moth stopped just before crashing, likely not being as stupid as Katsuko hoped. As Katsuko dodged along the wall, his elbow scraped the scroll that belonged to that side. As there was another poof of smoke, Katsuko began cursing under his breath for not paying attention.

Two large golems of stone appeared, and immediately tried to smash Katsuko. The teenager dodged backwards into the center of the room. But now there were three foes. "Why'd you do that before we finished the first one?" Hana complained, landing next to Katsuko. "That was an accident." Before they could debate it longer, the golems began advancing slowly and the moth charged at them. Hana and Katsuko dodged in separate directions as it passed between them. "Screw it. Let's just see what enemies we have here." Katsuko tapped another scroll, opposite the wall the golems came from. In a puff of smoke, a hawk made of wind, of equal size as the moth, appeared. It was even faster than the bug, and as it shot forward it's wing grazed past Katsuko's face and earned him a small cut.

On the last wall, Hana kicked the scroll before immediately jumping away. From this one came a shark made entirely of water. Though the room was fairly large, Katsuko couldn't help but feel it was now getting a bit cramped. "This was a bad idea!" Hana complained, dodging the hawk by going over it. As a stone fist passed Katsuko and slammed into the wall, he began to think. A grin formed on his face, before he kicked the golem in the leg. The stone was shattered and sent flying, causing it to topple. But as Katsuko jumped up and kicked the head off the second stone golem, the stones from the first one floated back into position and repaired themselves. Just as Katsuko noticed that, the second golem's head started to do the same thing. His grin changed into a grimace, before he was forced to dive between the golems to avoid the moth.

"This is chaos!" Just as he finished complaining, an idea struck him. He jumped to the middle of the room, making sure the moth was still chasing him. As it charged at him again, he rolled out of the way. Behind him, Hana was still being chased by the shark. Though this forced her to dive out of the way of the moth, the fire and the water collided into each other. A loud sizzling sound filled the room and steam began to rise. The moth was destroyed by the shark as it continued chasing Hana. "I'm not liking this fish!" As soon as she stopped yelling, Katsuko heard something small plink onto the floor. Looking back, he saw a small marble fall to the ground, exactly where the shark and moth had collided. This distracted him temporarily and the hawk flew past him again.

Blood sprayed from his side as the wing cut deep. But rather than shout in pain, this made Katsuko angry. He turned around and punched the air between him and the hawk, just as it was looping around for another attack. The blast of wind punched a hole through the hawk, dead in the center. The hole began to repair itself, but Katsuko began throwing more punches and kicks. The continuous blasts of wind pulverized the wind bird. And after a few seconds, it was totally gone. There was a light poof and a marble appeared in it's place, falling to the ground. They turn to marbles when defeated. Katsuko jumped out of the way of the incoming stone fist, letting it smash onto the floor. Now the room felt less crowded. The teenager saw Hana bounce off one of the heads of the golems and the shark crashed into the golem.

The force of the impact splattered the shark into many tiny droplets, but the golem was entirely unaffected. "I got it!" Katsuko gave her a thumbs up, before bringing his attention back to the twin golems before him. The one that swung before tried again, only this time Katsuko caught the fist and stopped it dead in it's tracks. Using his incredible strength, Katsuko lifted the golem off the ground and swung it around. Hana had to duck under it, due to the size, but Katsuko knew she had the reflex. As the other golem began to swing at the vulnerable Katsuko, he had swung the golem in his hands all the way around the room and slammed it against the standing one. Both of them shattered into many pieces and dust flew everywhere. As it began to settle, Katsuko saw the pieces beginning to float back toward each other. "Damn. I thought that would work."

However, they didn't form two seperate golems. Rather, they all came together haphazardly, forming... something resembling a larger golem. In fact, it looked like the pieces didn't go back together right. The new abomination tried to move, but seemed physically incapable. Katsuko looked back at Hana, and she simply shrugged her shoulders. With no better ideas in mind, Katsuko jumped up and planted a powerful kick in the center of the stone mass. This sent it careening backwards into the indestructible boulder, before shattering it into dust. Once again, a small marble fell onto the floor. "Collect the little spheres on the ground. Those have to be important." Katsuko casually walked forward and picked up the one that just fell, before finding the one that came from the hawk had rolled nearby and picked that up too.

Upon standing up again, he found that Hana had already grabbed the other two in that brief moment. "Now what? I don't see a place to put them. I would guess they're some sort of key, but there isn't a keyhole anywhere." The small woman handed them over to Katsuko, and he took all four in his fist. "This leaves me one choice." Confused, Hana watched as Katsuko walked back over to the boulder. He stood in front of it for a moment, before bringing his fist with the marbles back and punching the boulder again. "Open goddamnit!!" This seemed to do nothing at first, but then the rock began shaking. Still retaining it's shape, it rolled to the side, revealing an open doorway. A smirk formed on Katsuko's face as he stepped through. As Hana began to follow behind, the boulder suddenly moved back in the way and separated the two with a loud thud.

A grimace formed on his face. Katsuko swiped some of the blood from his midsection and performed the summoning technique. In a poof of smoke, Hana was at his side again. "I thought I was going to be trapped in there. Phew. Clever thinking there." Though Katsuko didn't answer. As Hana performed the Mystical Palm technique on his wound, Katsuko took a look around. They were in a well-lit garden, a large and flourishing one at that. Glancing around, it was more like a park of some kind. The entire ceiling and walls were mirrors, so it was difficult to gauge exactly how big the place was. But somewhere there was a hole letting in sunlight, as that was the type of light being reflected by the mirrors.

Once Hana moved her hands away, signalling that his wounds were handled, the two began walking toward the center. Very quickly, it was apparent that there was a small shack within a thicket of massive flowers and shrubberies. Figuring this would be the obvious place to look, the two walked over. The door was left open, but upon looking inside they just saw several scrolls scattered across the floor. "More traps?" Hana asked. Katsuko looked on a moment, before shaking his head. "Doesn't matter. He isn't here, and Sakamoto said the map piece would be on his body. His body has to be somewhere around here. I feel like this is the end of the road." Katsuko closed the door to the shack and turned around. With a shrug confirming Hana's understanding, the two continued on their journey across the garden.

Once they passed the thicket, a large statue came into view. Katsuko wasn't an expert, but it appeared to be in semblance to the Sage of Six Paths. And at the foot of the statue was something human sized and unmoving. "There he is." The two made a light jog to get to the body. Hana was immediately repulsed by it, as upon getting closer they found it was rotting. Katsuko had never met Masaru Senju before, but he felt bad that this man would never receive a proper burial. "Well. It's... somewhere on his body. So... I guess we have to search it." "That's gross. I'm not touching it." "Okay. Then I'm searching it."

The orange-haired teenager grabbed the corpse by the shirt with one hand and began patting it down with the other. But he didn't have to search long, as he felt something off in the chest area. Reaching under the shirt, Katsuko withdrew a folded piece of paper. "Over his heart," Katsuko commented, holding the paper in front of his face. "Makes sense. It was his sister, after all..." For a moment, Katsuko continued to stare at the folded map piece in silence. A light breeze passed through the massive garden. "You okay, Kat?" Hana placed a hand on his shoulder, seemingly snapping him out of a daze. "Yeah. I'm good."

With that, Katsuko stood up and released Masaru's body. He unfolded the piece of paper, before getting out the other three. It was difficult to do this with two hands, so Hana assisted. But the two put it all together in a makeshift fashion. The map was complete, there was no doubt. "We did it!" Hana shouted, before retracting her hands and hopping up and down in place. This made Katsuko chuckle as he put the two pieces he still had in his pocket. "Yeah. We did. All's left is to get the sword." Hana stopped bouncing around and handed the other two pieces back to him. "Now how do we get out?"

The two looked back at Masaru's corpse. They had noticed it before, but never really put much thought into it. But it had only one arm. The other arm was nowhere to be found. And on the statue above him, there was a hole at the base that was wide enough to fit an arm through. "Do we have to...?" Hana pointed at the hole nervously. She didn't like the concept of either of them losing an arm to leave the temple. Katsuko shook his head before crouching down. "No, we don't have to." He grabbed the body and hoisted it up, which in turn caused Hana to take a few steps back. "Sorry, Masaru. But we're going to need to borrow your arm."

Katsuko carefully wedged the remaining arm through the hole, making sure he put it all the way to the shoulder. There was a slamming sound and then a crunch. On the nearest wall, one of the mirrors slid to the side, revealing a staircase. "Run for it!" Hana vanished in a blur as Katsuko began to dash for the exit. The two made it safely, and upon turning around found that the door was still open. Evidently whatever timer it had was notably longer than the previous doors they had to pass. Katsuko looked back as he saw Masaru's corpse fall back down. Now missing both arms. It was strange to see such a lack of blood, but it made sense for how degraded the body was. After that final glance, Katsuko and Hana began walking up the stairs, still wary of traps. But as they reached the top, they found one final door.

In his typical, nonchalant fashion, Katsuko kicked the door, letting it swing wide open. They were back in the forest. As the two stepped out, the door closed behind them and then vanished from sight once more. "Glad we don't have to go in there again. Or did we forget something?" Katsuko shook his head, before patting his pocket that contained the now completed map. "We got what we needed. A shame we couldn't have brought Masaru back. If I knew the door would stay open that long, I would've brought his body. But it was too late by the time I realized I originally had the time." Not keen on staying around here, Katsuko began walking, briefly surprising Hana. "We going to head home first or go straight to the sword?" Now a grin formed on Katsuko's face. "We're going straight to the sword. It'd be a shame to accidentally run into Mayumi without the blade in our possession." A grin formed on the small woman's face, before she pumped a fist in the air. "Let's do it!" With new enthusiasm, Katsuko made a fist as well. "Right!"

[j8cob]

Kat versus Kat
12 Months into Timeskip

A collab with Mr. Nim

"This sucks." The two were walking through what appeared to be a dead forest, except it was beginning to thin out into simply some barren wasteland. While Hana appeared somewhat cold, wearing a coat over her stolen flak jacket, Katsuko was too busy studying the map before him to pay any mind to the weather. "We're pretty far from home, but we're almost there. Once we find the sword, we can go home and show it to Mayumi. I'm hoping she doesn't change her mind, but I keep to my word," Katsuko told her, still looking at the map. It was rather ragged, having clearly been in four pieces at one point. Except now all four were unceremoniously taped together.

The small woman let out a shiver as the breeze passed by. "We're in the middle of nowhere and it's freezing. Couldn't we wait a month since we have all the pieces? It's not like anyone will beat us there," she complained, earning an exasperated sigh from Katsuko. "Or we can get it done now." The two continued on silently for several more minutes, before Katsuko stopped. "What is it? Don't tell me we're lost!" "No... we're here..." The two began looking around, but it only took a few seconds to realize it: there was nothing.

It was just a barren field with no grass. Nothing there. Not even a tree or a bush. "I must've read the map wrong..." Katsuko began, before looking over at it again. This time, Hana jumped onto his back to get a look at it. "We went the right way. This map is bogus." "Hold on... Let me think..." Hana jumped off his back and Katsuko sat down on the ground with his legs crossed and the map on his lap. "Something ain't right..." He continued looking at it. "Do we have any idea? Sakamoto didn't tell us a thing. If nothing is here, the map is faulty. Maybe somebody already got the sword." Suddenly, Hana snapped her fingers. "I know! It's buried! We have to dig it up!"

"Hold on. They didn't tell us anything but this has to be right. I don't believe that three people, and a dead guy, were all in on one big lie. It's probably... What are you doing?" Looking over his shoulder, Katsuko could see that Hana was on her knees and both her hands had chakra blades protruding from her fingertips. "I was going to start digging." "Don't touch anything. This is probably a genjutsu trap. If the sword is buried, you might destroy it because we can't see it." This made her stop and the chakra blades vanished. "That's..." "Annoying, I know." "I was going to say clever, but that too."

The small woman sat down next to Katsuko and looked at the taped paper. "It's probably released by saying a codeword. I don't know what it could be though. The only word on this map is 'Iwagakure' but... nothing happened when I just said that." The continued thinking. "I know this place though. This is where that woman died. Shizume Senju. She died here during a battle with Iwagakure..." Hana snatched the map from him and began to scan it. "Iwagakure's... defeat?" "What are you doing?" "It's like charades with words. We have to fill in the blanks." "That's not like charades at all..."

Katsuko grabbed the map back and began looking at it. "Failure?" "Huh?" "I'm just doing what you're doing!" The both grew quiet after that. "Destruction." "You're morbid." "Would you stop that!?" While Hana was giggling, Katsuko gripped the map tightly, frustrated he couldn't figure out how to expel the genjutsu trap. "What else... they lost that battle. If I recall correctly, every single shinobi of their army was killed. It was an annihilation... and that wasn't the code either... ugh..." One of his hands went to his face now, before he handed the map back to Hana. "You crumpled it a little..." "I'm frustrated."

She began to look at the word on it. Iwagakure's. "Wasn't that battle the turning point of the war?" "It was hardly a formal battle. It was just the Senju Clan by themselves. And it was easily their victory with only one casualty. Yeah, it was the turning point I suppose... it certainly made the difference at the time, according to Dad. It led to Iwa's downfall, combined with fighting Kumo and Suna."

Suddenly something would begin forming in front of the duo as any kind of noise, or wind they felt, vanished. They would very soon see a statue standing tall and proud in front of them, being made out of wood. It was a statue honouring Shizume Senju, and had a small plague at the bottom of it, saying 'Shizume Senju, Daughter of the First Hokage, The one who led to Iwagakure's Downfall'. The Statue would appear to be doing a seal which was often related to Wood Release, and out of its back seemingly began appearing a Wood clone which held something that shined in the sun. Shizume's sword was held by the partial created clone.

It was an impressive sight, and both Katsuko and Hana got to their feet when the statue appeared before them. "So that's what Shizume looked like..." Katsuko mutter aloud, looking on at the statue. "Over there." She was pointing at the sword, which was held in the hands of another Shizume coming out the back of the statue. "Mayumi wasted no effort with this..." The two walked around to the back of the statue, before Katsuko jumped up and landed on the head of the wooden clone part. "This took a bit longer than I hoped but hey, we've got it now." He crouched down and began to reach for the shining blade.

Fight!

Suddenly, someone would begin appearing next to Hana before quickly sending a kick at her and then grabbing the back of Katsuko's shirt and throwing him off the statue with brute force. The man then jumped and kicked the blade, making it tip from the hold of the statue and begin to fall down, only for the man to catch it. On first sight, the man would appear to be impressive. Almost too impressive. He was over 2 meters high, very tough looking, had short brown hair and was missing his left arm. He then turned to look at Katsuko "Well then, what do you know. The Moto brat actually did it. He managed to find a legendary sword. Shame that much like his father, he is bound to fail and die." The man said and then moved his sights between Hana and Katsuko, being ready for any kind of attack.

The surprise kick sent Hana flying, but she landed on all fours and skidded to a halt, a deadly glare already in her eyes. As Katsuko heard the attack, he was halfway turned around when he was thrown off the statue. This resulted in him landing on his back first, but he bounced up and landed on his feet like nothing happened. "Who the hell are you!? And who the hell do you think you're talking about!?" His irises were already burning red. Chakra blades formed on Hana's claws, but before she could attack, Katsuko raised his hand. "He's mine!" The teenager drew the katana from his back and shot toward the hulking man like a bullet, aiming to finish him in one clean slice. To cut him in half, that is.

The man would let a laugh slip out of his mouth before he let go of the sword, grabbed Katsuko's sword as he would reach him and spin, flinging him against the statue. The man's hand slightly bled, but he didn't seem to even notice "That is the best you can do? Your dad managed to hit me on his first strike. If that is what I can expect from you, then I might as well just finish you off now." He said before raising his leg and kicking the sword's handle, making it go up and grab it once more. He then begun spinning on the spot with arm stuck out, and soon enough begun coming towards Katsuko and the statue while spinning with high speed.

The teenager shrugged off the impact of smashing into the statue, but the statue didn't seem to fare as well as Katsuko did. The impact splintered it, but it stayed mostly intact. "Finish me off then!" Katsuko shouted, before charging right toward the spinning man. Hana almost dashed forward, concerned for Katsuko's safety. But before he reached the spinning blade, he stopped and slammed his sword forward. With perfect timing, he let the blade clash with the mystery man's, stopping his spin and kicking up a cloud of dust from the force of the impact. "Who do you think you are to dare slander me or my father's names?"

"I am the one man your father fought and never killed." He said before sending a kick which appeared to be sent towards Katsuko's sword hand, only to suddenly move straight at his chest mid air as the man pushed himself towards Katsuko and used Shizume's sword to push Katsuko's sword out the way before letting go of it once more, this time spinning mid air and grabbing the sword with his legs. Katsumi jumped in Katsuko's direction using his arm and twisted the sword so it was aimed at the teenager's arm.

This one armed man dared to make such a claim. "My father was never defeated even once in his life, you filthy liar!" He took the kick gracefully, hardly stumbling back at all. But with his sword pushed to the side, he couldn't block the incoming slash. Rather, Katsuko ducked backwards, adding a slight tilt to his lean. This let the man's strike pass over his head harmlessly. And from this position, Katsuko let out a devastating kick to the man's midsection, since he was upside down. And with his legs occupying the sword and simply having only one arm, Katsuko figured he couldn't block the strike. And breaking his ribs as soon as possible is always a plus. And if he decided to block, a broken arm was even better.

The man, much like Katsuko, took the kick, which allowed him to do another spin mid air. The kicked appeared to do nothing, and in fact, the man was able to let go of the sword once more and move it from his legs to his hand before approaching Katsuko with another kick, but this time he brought in his second leg from the side at the last moment, trying to smash Katsuko's side with his leg "You really think that is enough? Then I can only assume your dad never told you of the man he faced on board the Kenjou." The man remarked with a nasty smile.

His words made Katsuko grip his sword tighter. "You should be familiar with this sword," Katsuko mumbled, just loud enough for his opponent to hear. As Katsumi attacked again, trying hit him with a feint, Katsuko swung his blade downwards vertically. He figured it would be blocked, but the force of his swing would send Katsumi to the ground before his kick could connect. And if Katsuko could keep him on the ground, then he would be relatively defenseless. "This sword took your arm." A devilish grin was on Katsuko's face now, which was slightly eerie combined with his red eyes. "And now I'm going to finish you off with it."

As Katsuko would send his blade downwards, Katsumi would not block it with his own sword, but rather use it as a leverage to jump much higher into the air. Landing on the statue's head, Katsumi gave him a devilish smile in return "Your father wasn't strong enough to do this to me. It took a huge metal beast to take away my arm. The Kenjou crashed down with me inside, and I lost my arm. What can you possibly do to me? He said before placing the sword on his shoulder, wondering how well could he play with it.

The teenager scowled, before holding his blade up, pointing it directly at Katsumi. "Don't you worry about that. I have something in common with Kenjou." He placed the sword back in its sheathe, before taking it off and tossing it to Hana, who barely caught it in her surprise. "I'm a beast." The ground beneath Katsuko began to crack as he began to radiate chakra, clenching his fists tightly. Without moving forward, he shot one of his fists toward Katsumi. If he didn't have the perception, he would be blasted by the air that was displaced from the power of the punch. Whether he block or dodged it, the statue he was standing on was doomed.

Keeping the smile on his face as he saw Katsuko charge his chakra, Katsumi made a quick slash against the Wood Clone's head that came out of the statue's back, and kicked it in Katsuko's direction, making it clash with the chakra fist before it reached the statue, allowing him to see its intensity as it went right through the wooden head. He then jumped down from the statue, which soon enough shattered into many pieces. he rolled on the ground and then stood up, and Katsuko would notice Shizume's sword was gone. Instead, Katsumi would be holding nothing and looking directly at the teenager's eyes "Tell me, are you foolish enough to think your special eyes will work on me as well? Your father made that mistake. It earned him a few holes in his body. He said and got ready to whatever Katsuko will send his way.

"They don't need to for me to kill someone as weak as you," Katsuko taunted, before making several handseals. Two Stone Dragons burst out of the ground at his sides, shooting high into the air. As they came down, both aimed at the approximate position Katsumi was at, Katsuko dashed forward, even faster than before. "I can kill you in one punch!" Not to bet let down by his own word, Katsuko had his fist pulled back and tried to time a downward punch to greet Katsumi for when he would dodge the dragons.

Katsumi stayed in his spot as both Katsuko and the two stone dragons were coming his way, but due to the speed Katsuko came at him, The man smiled and raised his hand, which soon enough met Katsuko's punch. The ground below him would become very much cracked from the force Katsuko held in that punch, and Katsumi would then close his own hand around Katsuko's hand with even greater force before throwing him up against his own stone dragons. He then moved a few steps away, letting out a fake yawn "Nice strength, but still not enough." He said and spun around to see where Katsuko would land at.

His eyes widened in surprise when the man caught his punch. The fact his arm wasn't destroyed was what shocked him. And in that temporary daze, he was thrown into the air, crashing into his own Stone Dragons and shattering both from the impact. While he was still airborne, he heard Katsumi mocking him from down below. This frustrated him more. "You think this is anything? Even if I'm not damaging you, you sure as hell aren't damaging me!" Katsuko's irises burned red as he landed ten meters from Katsumi. It was evident that he was frustrated. "You dare talk like you beat my father, but it was more like you survived him. There is a difference! You are lucky he spared you but I won't do the same for the way you talk about him!"

"Then come. Show me what you got. Because so far, I think any little genin would be able to take on you." Katsumi said and watched Katsuko's burning red eyes. That was what he was aiming for. That look. He was making him angrier, and the madder he gets, then the more reckless he will become. That was the way it has been with everyone. The moment you were on their right nerve, like a tick that refused to let go, then they would lose it, and eventually... They would fall. This was no other case.

The teenager let out a primal shout of anger, and the ground beneath him became further fragmented from the chakra he was releasing. Once again, he shot toward Katsumi with a fist pulled back, intending to bash his face to the point he could see the inside of his own skull. "You won't be talking like that when you look up to me from six feet down!" He shouted as he charged, before adding a little hop just before making his swing. All the while, Hana was clutching his sword. She was trying hard to resist getting involved, as it was clear that Katsuko wanted to fight this man alone.

Seeing Katsuko do the same thing before made Katsumi raise his hand once more, and the same as before repeated. The ground cracked even more this time, making it obvious Katsuko was trying his best, but this time Katsumi returned half of the favour by using some of Katsuko's force against him and knee'd Katsuko's chest before releasing him. Katsuko wasn't able to block the incoming knee, taking it full force into his chest and briefly knocking the wind out of him. But before he could retract his leg, Katsuko's free arm wrapped around it. A smirk formed on his face as he leaned back and yanked with his other arm. He was preparing to break Katsumi's leg. "I told you it would take more to hurt me!" he shouted as he brought his elbow down over Katsumi's knee.

Katsuko hitting Katsumi's knee would make a ringing voice, which would than be followed by a full kick with his leg to the teenager's lower part of his upper body before grabbing a much stronger hold of Katsuko's hand and doing a single spin before letting go of Katsuko's hand, aiming to make the Moto go flying away. He then put a couple of fingers on around his knee and pressed them, seemingly doing nothing "I may have lied a bit about my... Condition." He said and let another devilish smile slip to his face.

Katsuko landed on his feet, grabbing his chest where he was kicked before standing upright and bringing his arms to his sides. "Metal plates..." he muttered. The sound of a blade being drawn was heard and Katsuko looked over at Hana. She clicked the sword out of it's sheathe. "I can cut through those," she told him, but Katsuko shook his head. "It's fine. I can defeat this man. He dared to mock me and my father. It is my responsibility to kill him." Before Katsuko could even turn to look at him, or Hana could let another word out, Katsumi reached Katsuko with great speed and his fist aimed at the teenager's face "Never look away from the opponent." He said and then gave Hana a glance, to ensure that she will not try any dirty tricks.

The blow caught him off guard, and the impact made a resounding boom. Katsuko was sent flying from the attack, with a little spin to boot. He bounced off the ground several times, and even began to roll across it, before he jumped up and landed on his feet. At that point, he realized he was quite far away from Katsumi. He had been punched into the distance. Katsuko wiped his chin, taking some blood off his face with it. "Tch, I see..." Katsuko stood up to full height, glaring at Katsumi from across the barren wasteland. He held one hand out to his side, before clenching it into a fist. "If he wants me to go full power, then I have no other choice."

He rotated his wrist and something glinted off the sunlight. His fist had steel knuckles on them. The brief flash from them would be sure to get Katsumi's attention. "Try blocking these!" he shouted from across the clearing before dashing forward again. Considering the distance he had to cover, this took a moment. But with each step he made, dirt and rocks were flung to the air from the impact. With his fist pulled back, he intended to try once again to overpower Katsumi. He was determined to break this man in a single punch. Anyone could see that from the rage in his eyes. While he closed in, the deadly glare in Hana's eyes intensified as she watched Katsumi. But she kept her hands on the blade.

Seeing the flash of light, Katsumi smiled. This was it. The boy was running at him with full power, and even used steel knuckles to try and increase the hit. He might be smarter than he looked. Watching with his hand down for a few moment, as soon as he saw Katsuko from several meters away from him, he raised his arm and caught the punch once more, this time the ground making a small crater in the ground due to the force. Katsumi could also feel something in his arm twitch and let another devilish smile come "Guess what? No more limitations thanks to you. He said and would proceed to take his head back before bringing it at Katsuko's head with quite the force, and at the same time grabbing his fist with more strength than before, and Katsuko would feel a lot more power was put into Katsumi's hand, as if a shackle was taken away.

"No way!" he shouted, before his forehead met Katsumi's. The force behind it was shocking. He hadn't felt an impact like that since he had trained with his father. As he was reeling backwards, though unable to stumble due to the fact Katsumi was squeezing his hand, he steadied himself and came forward again, this time slamming his forehead into Katsumi's with incredible force. "I'm not losing to you!" While keeping his head locked with Katsumi's, he pulled back his other hand, also glinting with steel knuckles, before driving it toward the man's chest. With only one arm, and that being occupied, he figured he could punch a hole through his heart and finish him there. Even if his ribs were made of metal, Katsuko figured they would be too thin to withstand the power.

With Katsuko's forehead back against his own, Katsumi noticed the other fist approaching him, so he quickly let go of Katsuko's hand and grabbed the other one before moving it to be aimed at the ground and also using one of his legs to make the teenager trip and fall "So far, you haven't lost anything but your dignity. But at the same time, your father lost his the moment he left me alive instead of taking the final strike like he should've. All because the Kenjou was falling down. He prefered his own life rather than finish me. And look where it brought me. Now he is dead, and his son is about to die at my hands." He said with a cold tone.

Katsuko lay on the ground for a moment silently, before he began chuckling. Then his chuckling turned to all out laughter. Hana was a bit distant, so she could barely hear Katsumi's words. This left her confused. "You don't know me very well," Katsuko said, his eyes now locking with Katsumi's. "I can't die." With that, he suddenly spun around on his back, bringing his legs underneath Katsumi to trip him up. In the same fluid motion, he was on his feet and jumping away rather than trying for another attack. When he landed, he got into a new fighting stance. It was different than before, with his arms almost crossed in front of each other. "I'm not letting you kill me."

Katsuko's attempt at making Katsumi trip would be met with a couple more ringing sounds before he would jump away and move to his strange new fighting position. Katsumi jumped out of the crater and looked at him "The little Moto wants to keep playing then? Very well. Guess I'll just have to break you piece by piece." He said and remained in his spot, waiting for him to make the first move. Inside Katsumi's head, however, he already thought about a way to make Katsuko so distracted that he will be able to just break him entirely.

The teenager didn't budge at first, while he stared Katsumi down. "You have no chakra. I have you figured out," he said simply, before thrusting his right arm forward while wrapping his left around it backwards. At first, it seemed that this did nothing, unlike when he used his force to blast air. However, Katsuko had expelled chakra and mouled it in that motion, sending an invisible twister of chakra at Katsumi. Thankfully, there was nothing between him and Katsumi to give away the attack while it approached, because anything it touched would be launched into the sky. "I'm not afraid of picking on weaknesses."

"Picking on weakness is useless if you don't know your opponent's history. And in my case, you know nothing of me. Katsumi said and jumped to his side, allowing the invisible punch to pass next to him "Including the fact I have faced a lot more jutsus and shinobi than you think. And I know there are more than enough techniques which cannot be seen. Never seen anything like what you sent towards me, but I do not plan on becoming known with it." He said before beginning to run towards Katsuko with incredible speed. He didn't appear to be preparing a punch or anything, and only had a nasty smile on his face.

Katsuko was unfazed. Disappointed his attack missed, but he did not budge as Katsumi approached. "You've never fought anyone like me before," he claimed, his voice at normal volume rather than shouting it at him. As Katsumi got closer, Katsuko braced himself and his left hand changed position. Rather than staying open palmed, he only had his pointer finger upwards. At the moment that Katsumi got close enough to strike, Katsuko prepared to counter whatever blow he made and strike back with that finger.

Instead of coming at Katsuko, Katsumi passed him, and before either he would notice, he would pull something unidentified from beneath his clothes, and load the thing. By the time Katsuko or Hana would see its one of the guns from Shoji's rule, Katsumi would already be close enough to Hana and then pull the trigger, leaving him with a single shot in his shotgun and then he kept on running, giving him plenty of space from him and Hana, but that he will still be able to see what would be Katsuko's next move.

To his surprise, Katsumi ran right past him. But as Katsuko rotated to keep facing him, still prepared to counter his attack, he pulled something out. By the time he realized what was going on, it was already too late. There was a boom and Katsuko's eyes widened. The red instantly vanished as his eyes drifted over his shoulder to look at Hana. He could see her falling backwards, blood flying from her torso and the sword in her hand falling to the ground. The red that was once in his eyes was now grey. "Hana!" Katsuko entirely ignored Katsumi now, breaking his stance and running to her side, sliding to a halt on his knees once he was beside her.

"I'm fine, Kat," she told him, but her voice was weak. Her hand was over the wound, but there was a lot of blood. "I've got to get you to a medic!" "The fight, Kat." This seemed to confuse him, and then he remembered he was fighting someone. Before he was able to turn and face Katsumi, the man have arrived next to him and Hana and punched Katsuko's arm and then sent a powerful kick at his leg before headbutting Katsuko once again "Like I have told you before." He then move away from Katsuko, the gun now concealed once more "Never look away from your opponent." He said and then looked with a serious face at him.

The surpise attack caught him off guard, and Katsuko found himself lying on the ground again on his back. He tried to pick himself up, but found that his leg was in pain. He couldn't have... Noticably wobbling, Katsuko got back to his feet. His eyes were still grey, but he put his fists up, not in the stance that he was in before this. "I will kill you," Katsuko threatened, before wobbling again. My leg is fucked. This... He looked back over at Hana, who appeared to not be moving. Is bad. He looked back at Katsumi, the red slowly returning to his eyes.

Charging at Katsuko once more, Katsumi moved behind him and then sent another powerful kick at his leg before also punching his back, aiming an immense blow at his spine, before once more moving away, this time stand near Hana once more, and aiming the shotgun at her "What do you think is faster? My finger, or your half broken legs?" He asked and loaded the shotgun, seemingly getting ready to take the shot. The teenager got back to his feet, a look of shock in his eyes as they turned grey once more. He was aiming to finish her off. The teenager scowled as he stood upright. He clenched his right hand into a fist. "I hope you enjoy this..." he muttered, before charging forward. But he was vastly slower than before, as each step he took pained him from the blows he received. But he was still determined. It was in his eyes. He had to get to him first.

As soon as Katsuko would get close enough, Katsumi would switch the shotgun's target and then shoot directly at Katsuko's chest. He would then proceed to wreck the shotgun by smashing it beneath his leg and eventually breaking it completely "That line of weapons is done for. Now to make sure you don't try any more silly moves." He said and approached Katsuko, kicking his chest and then aiming to put his leg on Katsuko's arm and completely crush it, thus preventing him from using it.

As soon as he was shot, he stopped in his tracks. He could feel the pain of the lead entering his body and the blood leaking down his chest. Son of a... Then he was kicked, right where his fresh wound was, and that sent him back a few meters and once again he was looking at the sky. Before he could get up again, Katsumi stomped on his arm and began to crush it. The teenager let out a shout of pain as he heard something snap. "You..." He glared up at Katsumi, the red in his eyes burning hot. Tears began to form in them. "You..."

"Should I also do your other arm, or will completely break your leg will do the trick?" He said as he moved his leg to Katsuko's leg and then procceeded to finish breaking that by crushing it completely. He then begun moving away from the broken Katsuko to the pile of wood chippings and picked up something from within it. It was the sword of Shizume, and he looked at it with a bit of admiration.

The End

"Never look away from your opponent." Behind Katsumi was Katsuko, standing several meters away. He was radiating chakra again, and his eyes were actually glowing red this time. His left arm hung limp, but in his right hand was a massive steel weapon. It was a four meter long steel rod, with half of the length occupied by massive, solid steel spheres. The thing looked ridiculously heavy, and Katsuko was wielding it with one arm. As Katsumi turned around to face Katsuko, there was a blur of motion behind him and five chakra blades passed through his arm, with one of them passing at the shoulder. The pieces of his arm, along with the sword he was holding, fell to the ground in bloody fashion as Hana jumped away. Though she was behind Katsumi and he wouldn't see it, there was an evil grin on her face.

Katsumi looked with a bit of shock as his arm was ripped apart into several pieces, and the sword was suddenly gone. He watched with slight awe as Katsuko stood and held the massive weapon in his hand "How are you still standing? How are you still able to move? I crushed you! I defeated you!" Katsumi begun shouting to him, and appeared to be completely confused as to how the Moto was still able to move at all. He had shot him, crushed his leg and hand, yet here he stood in front of him with a huge weapon. And his arm was gone as well. Not having a single idea as to how all of this suddenly happened, Katsumi fell to his knees "I defeated you, after your father was unable to defeat me, Katsumi..." He then said in a more silent voice.

As his voice trailed off, there was a powerful gust of wind from Katsuko. The burst of chakra picked up dust and small pieces of wood and scattered them about before settling down after a few seconds. "I told you before," he said, his voice eerily calm despite his appearance. Hana dashed by again, this time grabbing the sword from the ground before vanishing from sight. With another display of strength, Katsuko hefted the weapon and held it over his head, using only his one arm. "I said I would kill you. And I don't go back on my word. I am Katsuko Moto, the unbreakable." Using that one arm, Katsuko took a step forward and made a downward swing with the behemoth of a weapon.

The steel weapon met no resistence from Katsumi's body as it descended toward the ground. But upon impacting with the ground, a powerful gust of wind blasted from the impact point, before the very ground they were standing on became devastated. Saihyousen created a massive crater underneath it, and along the perimeter of the crater the earth shattered into many large chunks that were now jagged and facing the sky. Rocks shot into the air and the wood chips were scattered far and wide. As the dust began to settle, Katsuko looked around at the destruction the attack created, before lifting the weapon. Underneath was once Katsumi's body. But now it was an unrecognizable corpse, pulverized entirely by the blow in a bloody fashion. He looked on without emotion, before he suddenly began to sway.

The giant steel weapon crashed down, with the rod pointed up, and Katsuko leaned against the metal spheres. "Katsuko! Are you okay?" Hana was by his side in an instant, already examining his limp arm. "I'm fine enough. It was you I was worried about. What the hell?" Hana lifted her coat and shirt up a bit, revealing her bareskin midsection. Though there was blood all over the clothes, there was no sign of an injury. "I told you I was fine. I was more worried that you would be distracted, and I was right." Katsuko was silent a moment.

The small woman brought her hands up over Katsuko's arm and chakra formed around them as she began to heal him. "Yes, you were right." "If you let me fight him from the start, we wouldn't have been hurt." "You're right." "Why did you want to fight him alone?" Katsuko looked down at her, before looking over at the mess that was now Katsumi. "He talked bad about Dad. I wasn't going to let that slide. I had to keep his honor intact as his only son. It was my duty. So I had to defeat him."

She remained quiet as she continued to heal his arm. "You were crying." "Hmm?" "You were crying. Why? You were clearly able to still fight." Katsuko looked up to the sky before looking back down at Hana. "I was not." "Don't you start lying to me now!" Hana gave him a sharp jab to the chest, right on his wound. This caused Katsuko to let out a brief shout of pain. "What the hell?" "C'mon, Kat. Just tell me. You know you can tell me anything." "Well stop hitting me where it hurts!"

With a sigh, Hana went back to healing his arm. Katsuko also let out a sigh. "Perhaps I was a bit worried that you were dead." Hana giggled a bit. "What's so funny?" "You always say that you are hard to kill. That is something we both have in common." Hana took a step back, having finished using her healing technique. Katsuko found that he was able to move his arm again, but he still winced. "That'll do. Thanks." "I'm not through. I have to fix your leg and dig that bullet out of your chest and heal that too. I should also get your other leg too, just to be safe. Lay down, that makes it easier."

At first, Katsuko hesitated. But he slowly sat down, before entirely laying on his back. Saihyousen remained exactly as he left it, since its weight and shape kept it there. Hana put her hands over his damaged leg now, once again getting the glow of chakra. "You know..." Hana began, though Katsuko kept looking at the sky. "You don't have to protect me. As your summon, it's my job to protect you." "You still look at yourself like that?" The surprised Hana. "We have a summoning contract, but that doesn't make you a tool. You're family. I'll protect you all the same I would protect my mother or Keiko. Even if you can protect me as well. That's the way it works." The cat woman was stunned for a moment, before looking back at Katsuko's leg. "Next time, I'm jumping in the fight. I don't like watching you get hurt." "What, me? This was nothing. I could've walked home just fine."

"Whether you could or not, or whether it was all that bad to your or not, makes no difference to me. If I can help, I will. I don't need to just sit on the sidelines and distract you..." "Shut up about that. If it really caused me problems, I wouldn't bring you with me. You aren't some liability, nor are you some tool. A little extra pain is nothing. But..." Katsuko leaned up now, while Hana was still healing his leg. "I guess I can stop being prideful and let you fight alongside me when I encounter a difficult oppponent." There was a smile on his face, which made Hana smile as well.

"Well, now we have the sword," Katsuko began, leaning back to lay down again. "So I guess our work is done. Hopefully no more crazy people try to kill me before we get home." "What about Mayumi's statue?" Katsuko looked over to the location where it previously was, though there weren't even any woodchips left. "We tell her the truth. If she really wants, she can make it again. But I have a feeling she won't be as bothered as you think." "Why is that?" "Because she knows that what is important is her memories with her aunt, not the things she makes to honor her."

After a moment of silence, Hana sat up and removed her hands from his leg. "You should be good to walk. But once we get back, you're going to take a break from training and adventuring. Healing techniques will heal the damage, but you still need to recover. Now sit still." When Katsuko sat up, Hana positioned her hand over the bloody hole in his chest. Her fingernails became sharp like claws and she used the claws on her thumb and forefinger to stab into his chest. The teenager let out a grunt of pain, but was otherwise unflinching. After a moment, she removed her hand and there was a lead ball between her claws. "That was right over your heart. If you were any less tough, that would've killed you." Katsuko began chuckling as he wiped some blood off his wound.

"I'm sure that can be said about a lot of my past injuries," he joked. Hana placed her hands over his chest now, for the finishing touch. "That was almost fun." "You enjoyed this!" "No. If that guy wasn't a prick, he could have been fun to fight against. I would've liked to challenge him later. But he earned his fate." Hana looked at the giant steel weapon next to them. "To be honest, Katsuko, I was impressed you could even use that in that condition. Someone like Zakito probably couldn't even wield it at full power and you were using one arm and barely standing." A smirk formed on his face. "I can do anything if I have to. And I had to defeat that guy."

"He said his name was Katsumi," Hana commented. "But he didn't provide a surname. I never heard of any famous person named Katsumi anyways." "Me neither. But he was tough. A good warm-up." "Don't be acting like that was an easy victory. Anyways, that's funny because that meant that fight right there was Kat versus Kat. Ah?" While she was giggling about her joke, Katsuko gave her a brief glare, before giving up and letting out a sigh. "Yeah yeah. I get it. Anyways, I'm healed up good enough. Let's head out." Katsuko withdrew a tiny scroll and opened it. After putting some chakra into it, the giant steel weapon vanished in a puff of smoke and the scroll now had the kanji for Saihyousen on it. With that put away, he stored the scroll on his belt again.

Since his legs were working fine now, Katsuko stood up unassisted. Once he was on his feet, Hana handed him his father's sword and Shizume Senju's sword. "It is a nice blade, certainly. It is said that gravity alone is more than enough for this blade to cut through an entire tree, and this blade is light." Hana looked at it in awe. "Whoa!" "That means that it will never get dullened by using it on wood." The two began to climb out of the crater now. But once at the lip, Katsuko looked back at the destroyed body at the center. "That was a tough fight. But it just goes to show... "

[j8cob]

The Author
13 Months into Timeskip

The sun was shining bright in the sky. It was actually a fairly hot day. If it wasn't for his mother's complaints, Katsuko would've made the grocery run without a shirt. But like the wise young man he is, he knew better than to go against his mother. The orange-haired teenager was casually walking down one of the busier streets, holding a large grocery bag in each arm. It was basic labor, demeaning at that. But despite the fact his mother's errands for him would often interrupt his training, he never minded much to run to town for her. He would rather interrupt his regimen than force Akira to walk all the way to Konoha. Not that she was old or frail, but as a courtesy to his mother.

Katsuko stopped walking and looked to his side. There was a small bookstore next to him. What caught his attention was a high pitched noise barely escaping through the glass storefront. Inside there was a young man and his toddler son. It appeared that he was trying to find a picture book for the boy, and the child was making a fuss. But his father wasn't getting mad. Instead, he was trying to comfort the boy with more pictures. Katsuko smirked a bit, before looking up at the sky. I miss you, Dad. Just as he was about to continue walking again, he felt someone walk directly into his back.

"Oof." As Katsuko turned around, he saw a young woman, barely older than himself. She had short green hair with a frog trinket toward the left side and wore a white blouse and jeans. As she fell down from the impact of bumping into Katsuko, he noticed something fall into the nearby stormdrain in the gutter, but couldn't quite catch what it was. After she landed on her bottom, she opened her blue-green eyes and immediately looked up to find out what got in her way. "You okay there?" Katsuko asked, thinking about putting the groceries down so he could help her up. But upon her opening her mouth, he rather quickly decided not to.

"What are you doing just standing in the street like that?" A frown formed on his face now, and his blue irises slowly began to change to orange. "I was looking in the bookstore." She scoffed and crossed her arms, turning her face away from him. "Ha. A piece of meat like you caring about books. As if." This woman just going to be a bitch, it would seem. "Nice chatting with you." As Katsuko began to walk away, the woman realized something and began to scan around. "Where's my brush?" Katsuko peered at her over his shoulder. "My paintbrush. I was holding it when you got in my way." "You ran into me. There's a difference. And I thought I saw something fall there."

The green-haired girl looked over at the stormdrain he gestured toward. "You idiot! You made me drop it in the sewers!" It became clear to Katsuko at this point that he wasn't going to be able to simply go on his way. "I didn't do anything." She jumped off her butt and onto her hands and knees, crawling toward the stormdrain. "You don't understand. I need that brush. I can't live without it. And you made me drop it!" It also became clear that everything was going to be his fault. "Are you an artist or something?" As if she was offended, the woman jumped to her feet. When at full height, it seemed that she wasn't all that much shorter than Katsuko. Yet standing next to each other, she was still vastly smaller.

"Do I look like an artist to you? I'm a shinobi." Katsuko raised an eyebrow. "You don't look like a shinobi either." She had no weapon pouches and seemingly no village insignia. On top of the fact he had never seen her before. After pouting, the woman turned to her side and stuck her hip out. The belt that went across her jeans had a metal plate along the side of it with the key symbol. She was a shinobi of the Hidden Lock Village. "You're a long way from home." This irritated her and she stood back in a normal position with her arms crossed over her chest. "I have my reasons. But stop changing the subject. You need to go down there and get my paintbrush back."

There was a silence between the two for a moment. "Why?" "Because you knocked it in there in the first place!" In a fit of rage, the woman pulled her fist back. In the most dramatic fashion possible, she threw a punch aimed directly at Katsuko's solar plexus. However, after impact, Katsuko didn't even budge. She held her fist there for a moment, before falling to her knees and grabbing her wrist with her other hand. "Ow." Katsuko let out a sigh. "Well I'm sorry but you ran into me and dropped it yourself. I can help you find a nearby manhole and open it for you, but I have things to do." Once again, this woman was on her feet in a heartbeat. "No way! I'm not going down there." "And you think I want to?"

She crossed her arms over her chest and began thinking. After a few seconds, an idea came to her. The teenage girl unbuttoned the top few buttons of her blouse, exposing her cleavage. She leaned forward slightly and put on an innocent face. "But you wouldn't just let a girl like me go into the dark, disgusting sewer all by herself?" she asked, using an equally sweet voice. Katsuko glanced down at her chest briefly before looking back up at her eyes. "What are you doing?" Though she tried to keep her sweet expression, it was clear that she was getting irritated. "I was just trying to be polite and nice for a change." Katsuko continued looking into her eyes for a moment. "Do you really think I'm that stupid?" She let out a shout of frustration and stood upright again, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Listen, this has been... interesting, and I wish you good luck, but-" "Wait! You can't leave. You have to help me get Gahitsu back." Katsuko turned away from the woman. "If you don't go and get it for me I'll scream." Katsuko glanced over his shoulder. That was certainly the first time he ever heard that threat. "Go right ahead." As he began walking away, the woman started fuming. But another idea came to her. Rather quickly, she grabbed her blouse and tore it apart, popping all the buttons on it and opening it up. At the same time, she collapsed to her knees and began to clutch at her shirt to keep it mostly closed. "Help! This pervert just grabbed me!" Upon hearing her shouting, Katsuko immediately turned around. "What the hell are you doing!?" "He violated me! Him! That's him!"

The crowd around them had certainly noticed this and many people were looking at Katsuko. Most of them with a threatening glare. Katsuko gave a nervous chuckle. "She's lying, guys. She's just trying to-" He was interrupted as the woman began to cry, moving one of her hands to cover her eyes while using the other one to keep her blouse together. With this new element, the crowd looked like they were about to all attack Katsuko. "Uh... uh..." He didn't know what to do. He didn't want to lose the groceries, bend to her will, or fight civilians. He was effectively cornered. "Fine! I'll help you get it! Now stop making me look like a bad guy!"

Instantly, the woman brought her hand away from her face. There were no tears to be found, but instead an evil, victorious smirk. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" She hopped up onto her feet, before turning to address the crowd. "It was all a joke. But he's still someone you should be careful about." As she began to walk back to Katsuko, a scowl was on his face. His irises were burning red. "I hope that was worth ruining your blouse, you witch." The woman glanced down at the clothing she was holding together, before looking back up at Katsuko and sticking her tongue out. "Less talking and more walking."

The two turned at the intersection and onto a less busy street. There, toward the center of the road, was a steel manhole cover. "Looks like this is your stop." Katsuko set the grocery bags down next to the manhole and glared at the woman. "Funny." With one hand, he lifted the manhole cover, letting it fall dangerously close to the woman's feet. As she prepared to reprimand him for his carelessness, he jumped down into the sewer. With no one to direct her anger at, she crossed her arms over her chest, making sure to add extra pressure so as to keep her blouse together. But as the seconds dragged on, she quickly became impatient and started tapping her foot. By the time the one minute mark was coming around, a sneer was forming on her face.

Just as her patience ran out, Katsuko jumped out of the manhole. This actually surprised her and she took a step back. "Found it." As he turned around, there was a large paintbrush in his hand. Immediately, the woman's eyes lit up. "I avoided most of the filth but I really need a shower. So I hope you-" As Katsuko was handing the brush back, just before it could reach the woman's hand, a hawk flew between them and snatched it. At first, neither of the teenagers moved. They simply stared at each other in shock. Before they both slowly turned their heads to see the departing bird. "You let that bird get it!" "You let the bird take it! I handed it to you!" "It didn't even touch my hand!" "You should've been quicker!" "C'mon! We need to get it!"

The woman grabbed Katsuko by the wrist and attempted to make a charge after the hawk. But much to her surprise, the larger being didn't move an inch and she was just running in place. "I did my job. This is your problem now. Chase the bird yourself." She let go of his wrist and turned around, already fuming. "You agreed to help me get my brush back. Your own words were: I'll help you get it." Katsuko thought about it for a second, before realizing she was right. "You sour little..." "I am not sour! Now let's go!" With a sigh, Katsuko kicked the manhole back into place and grabbed the two bags of groceries before running in the direction of the hawk, which was still visible in the sky. Taken by surprise by how fast Katsuko was moving, the woman took a moment to start sprinting herself. In the process, she had to forfeit holding her blouse together. "Hey! Wait up! Not too fast!"

Katsuko slowed down enough so that she could run just behind him. Not even close to his top speed, but apparently right about at hers. The two made it across the entire length of the village, before running out the main gate and onto the west road. Still in the sky, they could see the hawk descend notably and start heading south. "We're going to lose it in the trees," Katsuko updated her, talking over his shoulder. "No we won't! Keep moving!" At the speed they were moving, Katsuko knew they would lose the bird. He slowed down slightly so the woman would directly behind him. "You move too slow. Get on my back so we can catch up to it." "No way! You just want to feel my breasts!" "I never said anything about that! Fine! Lose your damn brush!" Katsuko began to pull ahead again. But before he could get too far ahead of her, he felt her land on his back and wrap her arms around his neck.

"Now move it!" Despite the fact she was pressing her arms against his neck unneccesarily tight, Katsuko managed to speed up significantly, jumping into the trees on the south side of the road and navigating to the treetops. As he ran across the forest, it became clear this new speed was letting them gain ground. Pretty soon, they were directly underneath it. Without warning, Katsuko leapt in the air. The hawk wasn't exactly flying low, but low enough for Katsuko to reach it in one jump. His head slammed into the fowl, knocking it out of the sky. But since neither of them had a free hand, the paintbrush simply fell to the forest below. "If it breaks there'll be hell to pay!" Katsuko landed on the treetops again and the woman took her opportunity to get off his back.

As they dropped down to the forest floor, they could see the paintbrush sitting in a single patch of sunlight that could penetrate the trees. "Thank goodness it's okay," the woman let out in a relieved tone, wiping imaginary sweat off her brow. "You're welcome..." Without giving him thanks, she walked over to the brush and picked it up. Just as she stood upright again, a smile on her face, the brush brush transformed in a puff of smoke. Clearly this wasn't normal, as the woman looked even more surprised than Katsuko.

Rather, there was now a large, black-haired man standing in front of her. Before she could say anything, his hand shot out and grabbed her by the mouth, keeping it closed. "It took me some time, but now I can finally get my revenge." Katsuko simply, seemingly unsympathetic to the woman. She tried to say something, but it came out muffled. "Oh, were you looking for this?" He brought his other hand across, before removing a paintbrush from his coat that was identical to the one he was disguised as. She once again tried to say something, but the man just chuckled. "Here's the deal. You're going to do exactly what I say or else I break it. First..." He glanced over at Katsuko.

"Tell your boyfriend over there to leave." He let go of the woman and she fell to her knees on the ground. His comment didn't bother him, but now that he had released her he had a clear shot to take this guy out. But, to his surprise, the woman seemed suddenly very submissive. "Leave, asshole." Katsuko had a surprised expression. "Is that brush really that important to you?" She looked back at him, and judging by the expression on her face, she looked like she was about to cry. "Without Gahitsu... I'm worthless..." Katsuko looked on a moment longer, before letting out a sigh and turning around. "Fine." As he was walking away, the man began to chuckle.

He waved the brush around, to get the woman's attention. "Stand up." She did as she was instructed, briefly glancing over her shoulder at the departing Katsuko. In that moment of distraction, his hand that was once holding her off the ground reached out and grabbed her blouse, before ripping it off her. She let out a yelp of surprise, before clutching her arms against her chest. Once again, he began chuckling devilishly. However, he noticed something and looked past the woman. Surprised by his reaction, she glanced over her shoulder to see Katsuko walking back. "I told you to leave!"

Rather than respond to her, Katsuko dropped the bags of groceries and removed his black shirt. "You come any closer and I'll break the paintbrush!" the man threatened, taking a step away from the woman and holding the brush out for Katsuko to see. "I don't care about the stupid paintbrush." This seemed to shock both the green-haired girl and the black-haired man. "You idiot!" "I said one ste-" A fist slammed into the man's chest, sending him spiralling backwards into the trees. Some distance away, he slammed into a tree, from which the impact was enough to smash him entirely through. As the woman looked on, shocked that Katsuko was so fast and so strong, the orange-haired teen stuck his hand out and caught the falling paintbrush.

"You're welcome." She was still shocked and simply stared at the paintbrush in her hand as Katsuko began to walk away. "Not so fast!" The man jumped up to his feet, some blood trickling down his jaw. "You survived that?" "Now I will kill you both!" He pulled his coat to the side, and as he did so, a fleet of hawks began to spew forth, all heading directly toward the two teenagers. "Well then. In that ca-" "I got this one." There was a sudden confidence to her voice. Wielding the paintbrush, the woman made rapid swings through the air. Almost like she was writing something big and invisible. As soon as she finished, kanji appeared in the air directly in front of her.

疾風

As soon as they appeared, a powerful wind burst forth from them. The incoming hawks were all blasted backwards. In fact, the torrent was so strong it hit the man, as distant as he was, and lifted him off his feet. He crashed into another tree, where the continuous gust kept him pinned. A smirk formed on Katsuko's face. He charged forward, making sure to stay just outside the wind tunnel. As he closed in on the trapped man, his foe began to shout. "I'm never going back to prison!" "Wish granted."

Katsuko jumped into the wind tunnel, using it to propel him at the trapped man. He planted both his feet directly into the man's chest. The tree he was against was entirely smashed through and he was sent flying. In fact, his body crashed into several more trees, punching through each one it hit until gravity finally brought him to the ground where he rolled several meters. The kanji in the air disappeared as soon as the man was dispatched, and Katsuko landed on his feet safely. He turned back toward the green-haired girl, who appeared to feel quite victorious. "Got him!" Holding her paintbrush in her fist, she pumped it into the air. This made Katsuko chuckle as he began walking back. "I forgot you were a shinobi. That's an interesting style." She crossed her arms over her chest, nodding her head. "Of course. It's secret style of the Iida clan. Instead of handseals, we use chakra scriptures."

Katsuko nodded his head in comprehension. "So you're a wind user." "Not exactly. That's just one of my techniques. Using this style, I can use many kinds of techniques." As a demonstration, she weaved the paintbrush around in the air again.

鋼

The kanji appeared, just the size she made it, before getting notably larger. Once it was over a meter wide, it suddenly turned into solid steel, still shaped like the kanji. Gravity took affect and it crashed to the ground. "See?" Katsuko began to laugh. "What's so funny?" Katsuko shook his head. "Nothing. I've never seen anything like that before." Katsuko grabbed the giant steel kanji, lifting it off the ground and over his head. The woman watched in awe as he lifted something so heavily and then dared to hold it over himself. "I've always been the more physical type when it comes to style." A smirk formed on his face. After staring at Katsuko for a moment, her face suddenly changed into something of a dreamy look.

"Uh, are you okay?" Upon hearing his voice again, the woman snapped out of it. "Of course I am. I just got Gahitsu back. Thank you, by the way." Katsuko chuckled a bit, before tossing the chunk of steel at a nearby tree, smashing it through it. "My advice: if you want people to help you in the future, you could try being a little nicer to them." As if that reminded her of something, she stood at attention. "I never introduced myself. My name is Naomi Iida." She gave a polite bow and held herself in that bent over position. "Katsuko Moto. And you seem oddly comfortable." "Comfortable about what?" As she stood upright, Katsuko tossed his black shirt over to her. It was only after she caught it did she realize what he was talking about. The only clothes she had on her upper body was her bra.

She let out a scream before quickly putting the shirt on. Once clothed, she realized the shirt he gave her was way too large for her. But it did the trick of covering her up. "You're loud." As Katsuko started chuckling, Naomi began to fume again. "Why didn't you give me your shirt sooner!? You were looking at my boobs, weren't you!? You're such a pervert!" His smile quickly vanished. "Is it in your nature that you can't be nice for more than ten seconds at a time?" This took her aback, and she brough the paintbrush to her chin as she thought about it. "Of course I can. I'm a sweet girl." "Sure fooled me." "I didn't ask you." "You're observant."

Naomi began to fume, clutching her paintbrush tightly. But rather than explode, she just closed her eyes and let out a sigh. "Thanks for the help. Sorry about being... sour, as you said before." A smirk formed on Katsuko's face. "Don't worry about it. Though... I am curious. If you dropped your paintbrush when you ran into me... what were you even doing?" This question was surprising to Naomi, and she nervously chuckled to herself. "Uh, nothing. Don't worry about it." Katsuko looked at her suspciously as she rubbed the back of her head with one hand and stowed her paintbrush against her belt. "Okay... but that is an impressive skill. I'm sure you stand out among the other jounin." Naomi continued to chuckle nervously. "About that..."

"I'm actually just a genin of the Hidden Lock Village..." This shocked Katsuko. Guessing by how old she looked and the skill she just demonstrated, he figured she was at least a specialized jounin. "I've kinda been sick every time the chuunin exams came around." "No way." A frown formed on her face. "Well, the first time I was on my period and had cramps..." "Didn't need to know that." "But the rest of them I always came down with some sickness just a few days before and I was incapable of participating. The rest of my team are jounin now." Katsuko couldn't help it. Assuming her story was true, he just couldn't. He began chuckling to himself as he picked up the grocery bags from the ground.

A sneer formed on Naomi's face. "Don't laugh at me!" In a flash, she withdrew her paintbrush again, before slashing it through the air rapidly and dramatically several times.

疾風

From the kanji burth another powerful torrent of wind. This time, directed at Katsuko. Since her attack was relatively noiseless and he wasn't looking, the gust lifted him off his feet and flung him into the forest. "You biiiiiiitch!" Katsuko called as he was sent flying, his voice trailing off as the distance between them grew greater. The kanji vanished and Naomi put the brush back against her belt, crossing her arms over her chest. "Serves him right."

[j8cob]

Fade Away
13 Months into Timeskip

The shower was refreshing. Though he had taken care not to get dirty in the sewers earlier, Katsuko still felt unclean. But no more. As he stepped out the shower, he took a glance at himself in the mirror. He could detect some stubble on his chin. According to his father, he had never had to shave until he was twenty years old. But Katsuko was seventeen now. Perhaps he was a little less lucky than his father was. "Tch." Wasting no time to change into the new pair of clothes he had brought into the bathroom with him, he was feeling as refreshed as ever. Upon stepping out of the bathroom, there was a loud knock at the front door.

"Could you get that for me, Kat?" his mother called from the kitchen. She was busy preparing tonight's dinner with the groceries Katsuko had brought home earlier. Groceries that had miraculously survived the day. "Got it!" The teenager made a light jog down the stairs and across the hall, to make sure he reached the door before the guest would get impatient enough to knock again. A little pet peeve of his. But as he opened the door, before he could even give his natural greeting, his eyes widened in shock. Standing before him was the same green-haired teenage girl he met earlier that day. They opened their mouths at the same time. "What are you doing here?" "What are you doing here?"

His irises already turned orange in irritation. "I live here." The girl took a step back and crossed her arms. Considering she was now wearing a white blouse again, only different than the last one, it was clear she did a bit of clothes shopping since he last saw her. "My client lives here." This puzzled Katsuko, before he realized that the only person she could possibly be talking about was his mother. He felt a desire to simply close the door and leave her outside, but against his better judgement he stepped out of the way and gestured for her to enter. "In the kitchen..." he updated her through gritted teeth.

Without any further conversation, Naomi walked past Katsuko, making sure to not look at him as she passed. After closing the door, he turned around to find her admiring the mansion. "The kitchen is that way," Katsuko informed her, pointing at the second door along the hallway. The girl gave him a glare before walking that way. "You must be Naomi Iida," Katsuko heard his mother greet. "And you must be Akira Moto. Pleasure to meet you." A scowl formed on his face. How the hell did they know each other? She was from the other side of the world. And was about Katsuko's age. His curiosity got the better of him and he also entered the kitchen. "How do you two know each other?" he asked, leaning against the doorway.

His mother was by the stove, maintaining two steaming pots. Naomi was standing a respectable distance from her. "We don't, yet. I read her book and really liked the art style of the illustrations and it said she also did her own artwork. So I sent her a letter and hired her to do some paintings for me." Katsuko gave her a glare. "You said you weren't an artist before." "I'm an author. I write novels. Painting is also just a bit of a hobby of mine." "You two, on the other hand, seem to know each other." This created a tension in the room briefly. "She was the reason I was late." His mother began chuckling at her son's words while Naomi simply stood there, uncertain how to react. "That's good, I suppose. Since she'll be staying for dinner."

A frown formed on Katsuko's face and he narrowed his eyes at her. "You don't say?" "She travelled this far. I know I'm paying her but the least I can do is feed her as well." Since her back was turned the entire time, Naomi took her opportunity and stuck her tongue out at Katsuko. "Fantastic. I'm going to be upstairs." "Dinner will be ready in half an hour." Not waiting to give a temporary farewell to Naomi, Katsuko turned around and found his way to the staircase. Once safely inside his room, he found his cat was asleep on the pillow of his bed. He let out a sigh, before falling down on his sheets. The sudden shift in weight woke Hana up and she briefly looked over at Katsuko. "Ugh."

Hana let herself fall asleep again, figuring it wouldn't be worth turning back into a human to converse with him at the moment. He let out a sigh, staring up at the ceiling. That bitch. She's almost as bad as Keiko. No, worse, because she isn't family. He sat up now, looking across his room at an old picture. It was of his family, six years ago. His mother and father where in the background, with a younger version of him and Keiko standing in front of them. It was the only time they had ever hired a professional to take a photograph of them. Katsuko grimaced, before reaching out to start petting Hana. Even though she didn't budge, as she was trying to sleep, she started purring. "I think I'm going to spend more time training."

Just as he finished speaking, he heard his bedroom door opening. To his surprise, it was Naomi walking in, with a smirk on her face. "What do you want?" Katsuko asked, already irritated by her presence. "Oh, nothing. Just getting acquainted with the building. I'm going to be painting it, after all." "Not my room." "Speaking of rooms, I'm going to be staying in the guest room. Can you point that out for me?" Katsuko gave her a glare, which she only returned with an innocent smile. "You're staying the night here?" "No, you idiot. I'm staying here for a week." Katsuko retracted his hand from Hana, who continued purring even after he stopped petting her. "It takes you that long to paint something?"

Naomi shook her head. "It takes me that long to paint as many pictures as Akira wants me to paint." Katsuko frowned. How many damn paintings did his mother want made? "Take a right out of my door and the first door on the left." Naomi leaned out of his door, just to make sure he wasn't lying to him. But since the door to the room he suggested was closed she had no idea if he was right or not. "Thanks, friend." She chuckled at her own sarcasm as she started to leave the room. "I'm not your friend. Speaking of, don't you have someone else you can be bothering besides my family?"

This created a silence between the two as Naomi froze in the doorway. She stood there quietly a moment longer, still looking away from Katsuko. As the tension began to rise, she simply took her leave. Without another word. "That was easier than I expected." The orange-haired teenager relaxed back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling. After a few seconds, he started to feel a pang of guilt. It was obvious that what he said struck a nerve. Likely something to do with her family. And considering her earlier comment about how valuable her paintbrush was to her... Katsuko let out a sigh. "Fine. I'll apologize to her later."

---

All three of them sat down at the dinner table. The table was long, designed to seat ten people, so the three that were there only occupied a small portion. Akira sat at the end of the table, while Katsuko and Naomi sat across from each other. They each had a bowl of stew in front of them, still steaming from how fresh it is. "So Naomi," Akira began. "I noticed you didn't bring any bags in with you." The girl chuckled nervously. "About that... When I was crossing the ocean, all my stuff went overboard. I don't even have my painting tools or clothes now. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I found an art store earlier and will buy new supplies there tomorrow morning so we can get started right away." Akira just finished taking a spoonful. "I'm sorry to hear that. I guess the journey was a long one. You must've been out at sea for weeks." "Sixteen days, to be precise. And it was horrible." The older woman began chuckling, but Katsuko only sighed.

"I've never seen any of your work before," Katsuko spoke up, surprising Naomi. "I have a copy of her book upstairs. I can let you borrow it." The teenager nodded, before returning his attention back to his meal. His sudden interest confused Naomi, but she quickly cleared her thoughts and brought it back to business. "On the way back, I'm just going to travel by wagon. It will take longer, but I can't handle being out at sea." "It might be cheaper, too." "Yeah, and that." Just as she finished talking, Katsuko set his spoon down in his now empty bowl and stood up, carrying it with him. "I'm going to head to bed early. I'm getting up early tomorrow." "You're always up early, Kat."

After hearing his pet name, Naomi began to giggle to herself. But Katsuko ignored it. "Earlier than usual. I'm going to start doing that from now on. It's getting hot so I have to train earlier." "Fine, fine." The teenager departed from the dining room, heading toward the kitchen where he could drop off his dishes. As soon as he left, he could hear his mother and Naomi start talking again. But he didn't care to listen to what it was they were talking about. He figured it would be either him or art. And neither particularly caught his interest.

---

It was the middle of the night. Katsuko's bedroom window, let in plenty of moonlight, so it wasn't particularly dark. But presently, Katsuko was laying asleep under the covers of his bed. Like usual, he was sprawled out across it, taking up much of the bed. Unlike usual, there was no cat laying next to his pillow. Despite how silly he looked in his sleep, Katsuko was never the snoring type. So there was a relative silence across the room. In his slumber, he wasn't particularly attentive. Thus, he didn't wake up when his bedroom door opened. However, what did wake him up was something hitting him in the midsection. Lazily opening his eyes, he let out a groan. "What the hell?" he let out, his voice sounding tired and lazy.

Standing over him was Naomi, now dressed in a purple nightgown that was slightly too long for her. Evidently she borrowed it from Akira. "Wake up." With that command, Katsuko just closed his eyes and rolled over onto his side. "Quit walking into my room like you know me." A sneer formed on her face. "I want to talk to you." Katsuko moved his pillow to cover his head. At this point, he noticed a lack of Hana's presence. "Can it not wait until morning?" Irritated, Naomi brought her leg up and kicked Katsuko on the back with her bare foot. But he only rocked slightly from the blow. "And stop hitting me. I'm trying to sleep. Some people get up early in the morning, you know."

"Quit being a jerk and just listen." Katsuko let out a sigh, before rolling onto his back again and propping himself up with his elbows. "What could possibly be on your mind so as to wake me up in the middle of the night?" The sarcasm of his voice irritated her, but she still sat down on his bed. "I couldn't sleep and I wanted to explain something to you. So you're staying up with me to hear it." Katsuko let out another groan of disdain and began contemplating trying to fall asleep again. "I talked with Akira a bit. She explained a few things." "Fantastic." "Including your father."

Her last comment instantly made Katsuko silent. He just watched her, waiting for her to elaborate. "You have my condolences. But... The reason I'm talking to you about it is because you asked earlier if I have anyone to be with." Katsuko very quickly realized where this was going. "I know you'd understand what it's like. To watch as someone you love fade away before your very eyes." Naomi looked down at her feet now. "I live with my grandfather. Twelve years ago, a disease began to spread across the Hidden Lock Village. It attacked the capillaries in your body, specifically. It killed twenty-two people by the time it was over. My parents were in that count." Katsuko watched the back of her head as she let out a sigh.

"I had also contracted it. But I survived it. It still gave me scars. On my legs, because that's where the blood slows down the most as it travels through your body. I recovered and my legs work fine, but it took me a long time to recover from losing my parents." Katsuko sat up now. "I'm sorry." "I know the way you've been behaving is an act." This created another silence. "An act?" She nodded. "You haven't recovered from losing your father yet." "I've gotten past it. I've come to terms." "No, you haven't."

Naomi looked back up at him. Her face had a surprising amount of sympathy in it. "You're just lying to yourself. It took me many years to truly come to terms with my parents. Even then, I still doubted myself. I'm at peace now, but for the longest time I wasn't. You can try to act tough, but I know that deep down inside, you're still crying." Katsuko frowned at her words. He wasn't weak. He had come to terms and got over it. He still loves and misses his father, but it isn't holding him back any more. Is it? "Maybe I'm just heartless." That seemed to irritate Naomi. "Oh really?"

"What about when you saved me?" There was a silence in the room. "What about it?" "I told you to just leave. I made it clear that I didn't care what happened to me." Katsuko gave a stern look into her eyes. "I made it clear I didn't care what you said." Naomi glared back at Katsuko. "You didn't want me to get hurt. Even after how I had been treating you, you still had enough heart to stop that. Even though you were risking Gahitsu." "I said I didn't care about the paintbrush." "I know you didn't."

Naomi stared at him a moment. "But it proves you aren't heartless like you just tried to lie." A scowl formed on his face. "I get that we can relate a bit here, but are you really just here to bother me because you can't sleep?" Naomi looked away for a moment. "That scar is hideous, by the way." This confused Katsuko, before he realized she was talking about him. He was wearing no shirt, and the large scar that ran from his heart over his shoulder was clearly visible. "No it's not." "It is. You'd be model-worthy without it. But no artist would paint a picture of you because of it." "And now you're insulting me." "Well. It's just another thing we have in common."

Naomi rotated so that she put her legs up on Katsuko's bed while still facing him. She pulled back the gown slightly, revealing her legs from the knees down. From the skin of her feet up, it was all wrinkled by scar tissue. "My grandfather used to say that I had the face of my mother, but the legs of my grandmother," Naomi said, chuckling a bit at her joke. Katsuko looked back up at her face. "I'm sorry." She brought the gown back down to cover her legs. "No matter the weather, I always wear something to cover them. Like I said, my legs work just fine. But they're an ugly reminder. Probably like that scar for you." A grin formed on Katsuko's face. "Not hardly. It's just a scar. I got it from the first time I participated in the Chuunin Exams."

"Wait! You had to take it multiple times?" Naomi began chuckling to herself, bringing her right hand over her mouth. This earned a glare from Katsuko. "At least I've taken it." "I said I was sick every time." "For like seven years in a row?" "Yes..." She crossed her arms over her chest. "But you should consider yourself lucky. Judging by the position of that scar, it looks like it went in the tiny space between your heart and your lung. You probably would've died if it was an inch in either direction." "But I didn't. I don't even think about it. I forget it exists sometimes."

The green-haired girl seemed surprised. "Still. It's there. A visual reminder of a painful experience. It might not bother you, but it lets everyone else know about you." Katsuko closed his eyes and shook his head. "Not hardly. Besides, I don't care what people think of me. I have other things to waste my time on." Once again, Naomi seemed surprised. "Well. How people think of you is important, ya know? You could be a great person but if nobody likes you then it doesn't matter." Katsuko opened his eyes and glanced at Naomi. Something seemed to be bothering her. "You never answered my question." "Hm?" "If you're just trying to bother me because you can't sleep. You didn't answer. You changed the subject."

Naomi looked away, toward the window. "Sorry. I'm just curious to see how much we relate." "And why is that?" She continued to look out the window for a moment longer. "I said I live with my grandfather. He's the only family I have left. But... I also don't have friends." This created a silence. "Of course you do. Everyone has friends. The people that think they don't just aren't opening their eyes." Naomi looked back at him. "Do you have any friends?" "Of course I do." "That's a surprise." Katsuko let out a groan of disdain. "I'm not even going to ask why."

This made the girl giggle a bit. "Fine. You wouldn't understand anyways." His frown vanished and he let out a sigh. "Whatever. But still..." He brought his gaze back up to Naomi. "You haven't answered my question." She looked away a moment, before looking back at him. "Well... in all honesty... you're the first person to do anything nice for me in a very long time. Even if you were being an asshole." "I wasn't being an asshole..." "So... you're like the closest thing I have to a friend. Which is sad." Katsuko squinted his eyes at her with that last comment. "For as lonely as you make yourself out to be, you're just full of piss and vinegar."

"I'm not sour!" "I didn't call you that. If anything I said you were bitter." There was a pause. "That's what the other kids used to call me. A sour apple. Because of my green hair. They also used to make fun of my legs." Katsuko let out a sigh as Naomi looked down at the bed. "Jeez, are you always like this?" This startled Naomi. "What?" Katsuko chuckled a bit. "Acting like a bitch on the outside but wallowing in self-pity on the inside." She took offense to this and crossed her arms over chest. "You're one to talk. You act tough but I bet you're just a big baby." This made Katsuko start laughing. Naomi resisted the urge to ask why. For about two seconds. "What's so funny?"

"I can admit I'm a softie." Naomi glared at him. "You couldn't earlier." "You've already seen through it. I see no point in lying." She continued to glare at him. "Whatever." She looked away again, still crossing her arms. The two were quiet a moment, before Katsuko let out a yawn. "I'm going back to sleep." "Hey. That's not fair. I can't sleep." "Neither can I while you're still here." "You suffer with me." "Ugh. You still have stuff to talk about?" Naomi leaned back a bit, bringing her finger to her lips as she thought. "Well, not really."

Katsuko gave her a glare, before laying down and placing his head on the pillow. "Hey!" Naomi gave him a shove, but he didn't react. "I know you're not asleep yet. Hey. Hey." Naomi jumped off the bed onto her feet. Katsuko was still ignoring her. She jumped up, before slamming down on his side with a pile-driver, hitting him in the ribs with her elbow. Katsuko let out a grunt of pain, before rolling over. Since she was briefly laying over him, his motion sent her onto the floor. "Maybe you could sleep if you actually tried." After picking herself up, she made a pouting face. "Of course I tried." "It isn't my job to rock you to sleep or anything. Just... go to bed..."

"Quit being a jerk. It's not that hard to stay up." "Also not that hard to let me sleep..." Naomi jumped onto his bed, placing her feet on each side of Katsuko and standing directly over his mid-section. "Get up." Without waiting for him to snark back at him, she brought her knees in and let herself fall. This made her land directly on his solar plexus. From a lack of preparation, the blow knocked the wind out of Katsuko. "What... the... hell?!" he wheezed out while Naomi was now sitting on him. A devilish smirk formed on her face. "I'll keep doing this until you stay up with me." Katsuko let out a groan of disdain, before relaxing his head onto his pillow again. "How come I don't know any normal people..."

[j8cob]

Sunset
13 Months into Timeskip

The two stared at each other. "It's three in the morning now." "Yeah." "You still aren't going to sleep, are you?" "Wide awake." "Ugh." Katsuko looked up at his ceiling, laying his head back down on his pillow. "Quit trying to fall asleep on me!" Naomi was sitting on the other side of his bed with her legs crossed. "I'm not. Though I wish I could..." There was a silence for a moment. "Katsuko?" "Unfotunately, I'm still awake." This made Naomi giggle a bit, before she adjusted herself.

"Why do you even want to get up so early in the morning?" Naomi decided to ask, in an effort to maintain conversation. "To train before it gets too hot." "Do you really need to train this morning? I'm sure you can skip a day just fine. I mean, look at you. I'm pretty sure you'll live." Katsuko sat back up again. Though his lower half was under the sheets still, he also had his legs crossed. So as Naomi would have room on the bed. "It's about principle. It proves that I'm dedicated." "Dedicated to what?" "Improving myself." The green-haired girl crossed her arms. "You need to work on improving your attitude more than your skills." "I don't think you're exactly one to talk..."

"And don't you have things to do in the morning too? You said something about buying art stuff." Naomi pondered on it. "I don't need to wake up at the crack of dawn for that." "You're a shinobi too. Don't you train yourself as well?" This surprised Naomi. "Of course. Not every day..." Katsuko chuckled a bit. "That's a no. You should." "Why? Are you saying I'm fat?" "No no no! I'm not saying you're fat. But as shinobi we're expected to stay in good enough condition to protect our villages." "As you saw before, I am in perfect condition."

Katsuko gave her an annoyed glare. "To be honest, though your style is impressive and unique, just having it will never be enough. You have to keep honing it so you stay sharp. If you hardly ever train, you can't claim to be in perfect condition." The girl glared right back at him. "I do keep honing it. I stay sharp. You've hardly seen what I can do. A musclehead like you probably can't understand the depth and versatility of my style, as well as how efficient it is at dominating a fight." Katsuko let out a sigh. "I wouldn't understand because I've hardly seen what you can do. You said it yourself." Realizing that she just got outsmarted, Naomi's face grew red and she crossed her arms. "Whatever. I bet all you do is punch things so it's not like I'm missing any intel on you."

The orange-haired teen started chuckling. "Sure thing. Let's pretend that's all I do." Katsuko stretched his arms, before putting his hands behind his head. Naomi looked away for a moment, but curiosity got the better of her. "Fine. What can you do?" A grin formed on Katsuko's face. "Punch things." "Tell me you asshole!" "Alright, alright. I am a master at taijutsu and proficiently use kenjutsu and earth-style ninjutsu." Naomi looked at him for a moment, before giggling to herself. "I totally could've guessed that." The frown on Katsuko's face seemed to amuse her even more. "Of course you would be like that."

Katsuko squinted his eyes at her now. He was half tempted to use his dojutsu on her to just knock her out, but figured that wouldn't go smoothly once she regained consciousness. "I also have my dojutsu." This seemed to interest Naomi. "Dojutsu?" Katsuko nodded his head. "Passed through my family. The Chikaroatoshi. Using just my eyes, I can tap into the chakra system of another person through their eyes and steal their chakra." The look on her face was clearly one of shock. "Also our eyes change color, depending on mood." "Really? I never noticed." He wanted to say that was because he's been irritated since he met her, but bit his tongue.

Without warning, Naomi got onto her hands and knees and crawled closer to Katsuko, bringing her face near his. "Make them change color." "It doesn't work that way. It depends on my mood, and I can't even tell what color my eyes are right now." "They look orange. What's that mean?" He chuckled a bit. "Irritation." Naomi scowled at him, before backing up slightly. "I want to see them change color. I graced you with letting you see the secret techniques of the Iida. So it's only fair if I see the Moto dojutsu." "I can just drain you of chakra if that's what you want." "No! Not that." Katsuko shrugged his shoulders, before crossing his arms over his chest. "Sorry. Can't really help ya there. Guess you have to wait and see if my mood changes."

Naomi thought about it for a second, before getting an idea. She sat up on her knees, before giving Katsuko a sharp jab to the throat. His hand reached across, grabbing his neck out of reflex as he coughed. "The fuck..." he managed to get out. But as he was trying to recover, Naomi closed in again and tried to watch his eyes. "Oh, they did change. Red means mad, right?" Katsuko glared at her. "It does. Now would you kindly get out of my face and refrain from hitting me?" Naomi chuckled nervously as she retreated back to her original seat. "Sorry." "I bet you are."

The teenage girl frowned at his words. "I just wanted to see the color change." Katsuko stopped coughing and brought his arms across his chest again. "The better idea would've been to improve my mood, not worsen it." Naomi glanced away from his stern gaze toward the window. "Still aren't tired?" Naomi looked back at him, with an angry look. "Do you really want me gone that bad?" The two were silent for a moment as they stared at each other. Katsuko let out a sigh and closed his eyes. "No. Sorry." He didn't realize how mean he sounded by pestering her like that. Not that he felt she was exactly nice, he still didn't want to be the worse of the two.

"So you admit you want me here?" Katsuko opened his eyes in surprise. He fell into a trap. Mentally cursing himself, he closed his eyes again as he tried to think of a way out. "I admit that I don't hate you." Naomi looked disappointed, before frowning. "Gee. Lucky me." "I figured you would be more surprised. It seems that everything you do is to annoy me." This created a silence, before Naomi looked away from Katsuko and down at the floor. She even brought one of her arms across and placed it against her other arm while it hung down. "Sorry. I don't know how friends interact. I've seen others kid each other with mean jokes and thought that's how it worked." Katsuko felt some sympathy for her and let out a sigh.

"It's different for everyone. People have their own unique way of interacting. Not all friends joke around with each other and not all friends get chummy with each other. Depends on the people." Naomi looked back up at Katsuko. "How do you interact with your friends?" Katsuko brought a hand to his chin. He had never put thought into that before. "Uh... I guess I joke around a bit. Not really mean jokes, I don't think. But I do everything I can to help them with anything they ever need help with." Naomi found that to be an interesting concept. "That sounds surprisingly nice of you. But something tells me that you don't do that very often." Katsuko chuckled. "My friends are mostly as tough as me. They never ask for help and rarely ever need it. But when the need arises, they know they can count on me. Dependability, you could say."

Naomi thought on his words for a moment. "I get it. But just so you know, you look like a mean person. Like some overly tough guy that doesn't like anyone for no good reason." She chuckled to herself after that, but Katsuko couldn't resist grinning a bit. "I am an overly tough guy. But I just reserve myself a bit. It's not that I don't like people." "Doesn't change the fact that's the impression you give off. When I first ran into you, you looked like some regular jerk that spends too much time lifting weights." Katsuko frowned at her words as she chuckled again. But then a devilish grin formed on his face. "Are you admitting that you ran into me?"

"What? Wait. No. No I'm not. You got in my way. I meant 'ran into' like that we met." Katsuko began chuckling, finding her defensive tone amusing. "Sure thing, Naomi." She crossed her arms and looked away for a moment, before letting out a sigh and forgiving him. "Your jokes aren't mean, but you are a smartass." "At least one part of me is smart." They both began laughing after that. After the two took a moment to recover, Naomi wiped a tear from her eye. "I'll admit, that was clever of you." Katsuko shrugged. "I'll admit that wasn't my line. My father used to say that whenever someone called him a smartass." This created a silence again as Naomi felt guilty for accidentally bringing that up.

"I'm sorry..." "Don't be." She looked back up at Katsuko. Rather than either of them saying anything, Katsuko let out a yawn. For some reason, Naomi found it funny and began to giggle. "You are tired, aren't you?" Katsuko shook his head. "Nah. Not at all." "Smartass." "What's more impressive is how the hell you aren't tired." Naomi thought about it, before shrugging. "I don't know why. I just have too much energy or something. I'm not tired at all." Katsuko glared at her for a moment. "Not in the least?" "Nope." "At all?" "Is it really so hard to believe?"

Katsuko brought his hand to his chin again as he eyed Naomi up and down. "Yeah. You have to be a little tired by now." Naomi scoffed at his words. "Nah. This is nothing. I've spent countless nights staying up til dawn. I don't hardly need sleep." "What would you stay up so late for?" "For writing, of course." Katsuko looked toward the window for a moment. "Every time?" There was a silence. "Not every time..." As Katsuko looked back at Naomi, he found she was looking out the window herself. "Your family, huh." "Yeah." "Gotcha." Naomi brought her attention back to Katsuko to find him already looking at her. The two were silent for a moment.

"What are you looking at?" Katsuko let out an irritated sigh, before shaking his head. "You, obviously." "I know that, bu-" "Then why did you ask if you already knew?" This seemed to upset Naomi. "First of all, don't interrupt me. And secondly, it's a bit creepy when you just stare at me like that. You should've given me warning or at least said something instead of sitting there all quiet. You may have friends and know how to be social but you still aren't very bright and that isn't helping your appearance at all." As Naomi was beginning to drone on in her lecture, Katsuko let out another sigh before rather naturally grabbing his pillow and throwing it at her face. "You shou- oof."

After hitting her in the face, the pillow fell to her lap. She seemed shocked at first. But then she began chuckling. "You talk a lot." Naomi began to laugh now. "You're such an ass," she managed to get out in her fit of laughing. As Katsuko began to chuckle himself, she picked up his pillow and tossed it back at him. Unlike her, Katsuko was prepared for it and caught it. A devilish grin formed on his face. "You're gonna have to try harder than that." "No fair. You have the only pillow." Katsuko held it up, as if he was brandishing a sword. As Naomi began to giggle, he threw it back at her. She caught it this time, since she was also paying attention. "Ha!" Rather than trying to throw it back at Katsuko, she got onto her knees and moved in closer, taking a swing at him.

The orange-haired teen put his arms up and blocked the pillow. With that failure, Naomi tried again from the other side, but this time Katsuko decided to catch it. With a smirk on his face, he gave a sharp yank backwards to remove it from her grip. He didn't anticipate her being able to hold onto the pillow so well, and his strength easily dragged her along with the fluffy weapon. This sent her crashing into Katsuko, who was not expecting Naomi to go along with the pillow. Thus he was also knocked onto his back with Naomi landing on top of him. The two were both startled at first and didn't know how to react. Then they looked at each other as Naomi started to lift herself off Katsuko's chest. After locking eyes, the two began laughing. "Jeez, you didn't need to take me along with it." "Didn't plan to. You have a death grip. Speaking of..."

The two were still holding the pillow, just to the side. He tried another yank, with much less power this time, to find that Naomi still wouldn't let go. "No way." She was still sitting on top of him as they began to struggle for control of the pillow. "Just give it up already." "Never." A grin formed on Katsuko's face as he let go. From her own force, Naomi went toppling backwards, almost falling off the bed. She clutched the pillow against her chest in a reflex, as if it would save her from falling. But as she realized what happened, a grin formed on her lips. "Aha!" She sat upright and scooted off Katsuko so he could sit up again as well. "You were supposed to fall off the bed."

"As if." Katsuko sat up now, chuckling already. "Now I control the pillow. You're at my mercy." The two began laughing for a moment, before Naomi let out a sigh. "This is what sleepovers must be like, huh." It was evident that the mood of the room quickly changed. "Yeah. Something like this." Naomi clutched the pillow tightly for a moment, before the smile returned to her face. "But we're not little kids. We're young adults. So this is different." They both began chuckling. "Clearly we're not little kids. We're only fighting over a pillow." "Right." As they were chuckling, Naomi took the opportunity to land a sneak attack. She brought the pillow across and hit Katsuko across the side of his head.

This had caught him off guard, but since it was only a pillow he hardly felt a thing. Instead, it just made him laugh harder. "That was a cheap shot." Naomi stuck her tongue out at him, before holding the pillow close again. It was clear that this was her strategy of keeping him from stealing the pillow back. "This is fun." Katsuko thought about her statement. Despite how annoying and rude she had been before, she was actually pleasant company now. Perhaps he had warmed up to her after forced proximity? Or perhaps she actually changed a bit herself? "I agree. This is fun." "Better than sleeping?" "Eh, I don't know if I would go that far." The green-haired girl pouted. "But-"

"Hey." With that as her warning, Naomi moved in close to Katsuko's face again. "Your eyes are... green, now. What's that mean?" Katsuko chuckled a bit, leaning a bit back so as to get back to a comfortable distance from her. "Means I'm having fun. A good mood." A smirk formed on Naomi's face, before she shoved the pillow into Katsuko's chest and forced him onto his back again. Positioning herself over his chest and putting her knees on his arms to hold them there, she brought the pillow up and began smacking him in the face with it. "Take this! And this! And this!" Katsuko was laughing as she rained fluffy hell on his face. He could easily get out of this predicament, but found it hilarious how serious she was taking this.

"I... can easily... get out of this..." Katsuko taunted between pillow strikes. "Do it then." She very quickly realized the mistake of her counter-taunt, but there was little she could've done about it. With very little effort, Katsuko simply sat upright, despite the fact Naomi was weighing down on his chest. This made her fall into his lap with her legs past his sides and the pillow above her own head. Katsuko began chuckling as Naomi had to struggle a moment to get her bearings and find a way to sit upright again. "That's not fair. You're like a brick wall. Of course you could do something like that." Katsuko continued chuckling as she scooted away to the edge of the bed again. She had determined that was the safe distance. "I'm proud of that. I spent most my life to get my body to this condition. I'd hope I could get something as light as you off my chest."

Naomi began to chuckle a bit herself. "You know, this really is the most fun I've had in such a long time." Katsuko raised an eyebrow. "You don't find writing or painting fun?" Naomi chuckled a bit with his confusion. "No, they're fun. But..." She looked back up at Katsuko. Though her eyes were closed, he could see tears forming in them. But what surprised him most was the smile. "I always wished I could have this kind of fun." Katsuko gave her a weak smile in return. As she began wiping the tears out of her eyes, Katsuko looked up at the ceiling for a moment. Almost as if he was giving her a privacy of sorts. Once she was done, he looked back down into her blue-green eyes. "Once you go back, why don't you try to make some more friends then?"

She looked toward the window now. "I don't think that will work. They all know me there. They all already have their opinions of me, and me of them." "You won't make any friends thinking like that." As Katsuko began to chuckle, Naomi looked back at him. "Are you always this optimistic?" Katsuko shook his head. "That wasn't optimism. That was a fact. You could make new friends if you tried, I know it." "Really?" "Of course. At first you were a tough pill to swallow, but now that I see what you're really like..." Katsuko trailed off as they locked eyes. "What?" "Well. You're actually just a sweet girl." Katsuko offered her a smile.

To his surprise, tears began to form in her eyes again. Feeling that he did something to upset her, his smile began to fade. But instead, Naomi dropped the pillow and lunged forward, catching Katsuko in a tight hug. "Nobody's ever said that," she let out between sobs. Evidently, these were tears of joy, not sadness. Feeling relieved that he didn't upset her, yet awkward at the same time for the hug, Katsuko let out a sigh. "Only because nobody's ever seen this side of you, right?" Naomi released him and backed up a bit, sitting down directly in front of him with the pillow at her side. "Yeah. But nobody ever really wanted to get to know me. As a kid, they saw me as a depressed loner. And as a shinobi, nobody ever cares to know who you are. Just what you can do for them. I never had any real way to express myself. I think that's why I took up art and writing."

"Don't worry about that." Naomi looked into his eyes. "The past is in the past. We live in the here and now. You've got nothing holding you down but yourself." With that, Katsuko offered another smile. "Just gotta keep your eyes forward and open." Naomi continued to look into Katsuko's eyes for a moment. "What does purple mean?" This surprised him, and he rubbed the back of his head. "My eyes? It's kinda hard to explain. Passionate, I guess. It means I care." A smile formed on Naomi's face. "Thanks."

"No need to thank me." Katsuko grinned with that, before grabbing the pillow again. Naomi had stopped paying attention to it, and mentally cursed herself for letting go of it. But just seeing him take it made her start chuckling. "Crap." "You lost your focus. Eyes on the prize," he joked. As he held the pillow up, in a mock threatening manner, Naomi giggled a bit. "I have my eyes on the prize." The two locked their gazes on each other in a sort of showdown. Using only one arm, Katsuko swung the pillow toward Naomi's head. But she brought her arm up and not only blocked the pillow but grabbed onto it in the same motion. With a quick pull backwards, she held her arm stiff in an attempt to keep Katsuko from pulling away. As she did this, she leaned forward and put the fingertips of her other hand on Katsuko's chest, before closing her eyes and bringing her lips to his.

This both shocked and confused Katsuko. After a few seconds, Naomi opened her eyes and saw Katsuko's expression. She quickly retreated to an upright position, letting go of the pillow and retracting her hand from him. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm doing. I've never kissed a boy or anything before and I don't know the proper etiquette or what I'm allowed to do and I'm not even sure how I feel because we hardly know each other but you're the nicest person I know that's still a jerk and-" Katsuko began chuckling, interrupting Naomi from talking even faster. "You talk a lot." At first this surprised her, but a smile formed on her face and she began to giggle. "Yeah, I guess I do."

The two teenagers stared into each other's eyes a moment longer, before Naomi leaned forward again. This time, she wrapped both her arms around Katsuko's neck and pressed herself against him. They locked eyes a moment longer, without exhanging a word, before she closed in again with another kiss. As they locked lips, Katsuko's hands moved to her hips and this time he returned the effort. A surprising silence took the room as they continued, with Naomi pressing her weight against Katsuko and forcing him onto his back while she was on top of him. Another moment passed and Naomi pulled back a bit, looking into Katsuko's eyes. A smile formed on her face and she giggled. "I'm tired." This made Katsuko chuckle as well, but neither let go of the other. "About time."

---

The sunlight poured through the open window. It was clearly late morning, but both Katsuko and Naomi were asleep. Though Naomi wasn't under the covers, she was pressed against Katsuko from his right side, resting her head and right arm on his chest. And despite the fact he was also asleep, Katsuko's right arm was still wrapped around Naomi. The scene was surprisingly peaceful. The bedroom door opened and Akira began to walk inside. "Hey Kat, I'm gonna need you to-... Oh." She silenced herself as she noticed the two asleep on the bed. Akira was first surprised, but then she giggled a bit to herself. "Nevermind then. I'll ask later." Neither awoke from her presence and Akira took care to close the door on her way out gently.

[j8cob]

Mightier than the Sword
13 Months into Timeskip

The late morning sun was already hot. Katsuko could feel the heat as he finished his push-ups. If only I wasn't kept up all night, he thought with a grin, before looking up at the blue sky. But he didn't get to admire the view long, as he heard the backdoor to the house close somewhere in the distance behind him. Turning around, he saw his mother and Naomi step outside. Though it seemed his mother was heading toward the gate and Naomi toward him. Slightly curious as to what they were doing, Katsuko faced the approaching girl. "You're still going to train?" she asked as she finished her quick walk with a light skip. It was obvious she was in a good mood. "Wouldn't hurt. And what are you planning?"

Naomi shrugged her shoulders. "Akira offered to buy me the art supplies so I could spend a bit more time with you." There it was. Katsuko glanced past Naomi to glare at his mother. Even at their distance, he could detect the sly grin on her face as she left through the main gate. "I see," he began with a sigh, prompting a light giggle from Naomi. "Your mom is great. I can't believe she's your mother." "People say that a lot. Sorry, but I don't think you'll be very entertained watching me train. I'm not a very interesting guy." Naomi put a hand on her hip and pouted. "That's a way to butter yourself up," she said with clear sarcasm. "And I wasn't going to just watch. I was going to train a bit myself."

"Oh? This will be more interesting," Katsuko noted with a chuckle. Naomi withdrew the paintbrush. The paintbrush that instigated their meeting. "I know it will be. You'll never see a style like mine from anyone else." "Except the others in your family, right?" "Well yeah. But you know what I meant." A devilish grin formed on her face. "You're a jounin, right?" Katsuko detected a change in her tone. "Yeah. Why?" He crossed his arms as Naomi gripped her paintbrush more tightly. "I may still be a genin, but I bet I can prove to be on your level." She looked back up to Katsuko, still grinning. "How about it, muscles? We shall see if the pen is mightier than the sword."

She was challenging him? Katsuko was confused for a second, before a grin formed on his face. It was a bit strange to be challenged by her, of all people. But it only took a moment for his natural fighting spirit to rise. "You wanna spar?" Naomi put her free hand forward and gave Katsuko a very light shove. "Only if you aren't afraid of the power I possess. The fact I can control the very ground you stand on with a few strokes of my hand." Katsuko uncrossed his arms now. "What's the wager?" Naomi brought the brush to her lips, pretending like she was thinking about it. "If I win, you have to call me senpai. If you win... we can cuddle later." Katsuko raised an eyebrow, but her sly grin never faltered. Perhaps the wager didn't really matter so much. This just sounded fun. "You're on."

Katsuko started to walk away, rather casually. Naomi stayed where she was, figuring he could do all the work to create a respectable starting distance. As he walked, he threw off his black shirt and let it fall to the ground. Once he reached the small lake, he turned around to face Naomi and stood in a fighting stance. "I don't think we have anyone to call it," Katsuko noted, just loud enough for Naomi to hear him. She just laughed. "I didn't realize you were so formal." To her surprise, Katsuko brought one of his hands forward in the Seal of Confrontation. With a sigh, she brought her free hand forward and mirrored it. They held it for not even a full second before Naomi's hand shot out to her side. "Let's go!"

As Katsuko brought his hand back down to his side and began to dash forward, Naomi's brush was already at work. Before Katsuko could even cover half the distance, she had finished her first kanji.

疾風

The powerful gust stopped Katsuko in his tracks for a moment. "Ha!" But before Naomi could truly feel that she stopped him, she saw Katsuko start moving forward again. Albeit slowly, he was gaining ground against the torrent of wind blasting backwards. With a playful scowl, Naomi weaved another kanji in the air behind that one.

疾風

Now there were two layers of this cyclone pressing down on Katsuko. Once again, he stopped. He was clearly struggling to continue. Even with the Climbing Trees technique, he was having difficulty remaining grounded. "Wow. I'm impressed. I've never encountered someone that could stay standing on one, let alone two." Katsuko grinned as he took another step forward. "You've never encountered someone like me before." With a playful smirk, Naomi began making another kanji. "Oh well. Time to make you look less manly."

疾風

Three layers was just too much. The very ground underneath Katsuko was being ripped apart and he was sent flying backwards. All the way to the Moto Estate wall, where his impact cracked the wall. The continuous gust kept him pinned there. "And now for my next trick!" It was clear that Naomi was having fun with this. "Let me guess..." he managed to get out. But Naomi couldn't hear him over the sound of the gale she created. Instead, she began laughing as she made another kanji, just above the three stacked ones already floating before her.

炎

The kanji turned into a large blaze of fire, before gravity pulled it into the horizontal vortex that trapped Katsuko. Naturally, the powerful winds made the fire expand and consume the entire gale, essentially becoming a massive beam of fire. As the flames rapidly approached the pinned Katsuko, he mustered enough strength to lift his upper half from the wall, before using his legs to kick himself free and to the side. The fire slammed into the wall, smashing through it and continuing off the property. Naomi appeared surprised that Katsuko could manage to get out of that with strenght alone, but was also glad that her attack didn't hit him. She waved her brush and the three kanji she had made vanished, eliminating the torrent.

"You're good, but now it's my-" "I ain't finished yet!" Katsuko let out a sigh, before charging forward. Naomi grinned and made a new kanji in the air.

洪水

The kanji began to grow in size. In fact, it kept growing and growing. This puzzled Katsuko and as he began to slow down to assess the wisdom of rushing toward this, the kanji stopped growing. But the moment it stopped growing, already at a massive size that was well over five times as big as its maker, it turned into water. The sheer amount of water was overwhelming and as it crashed down and began to sweep across the property, Katsuko jumped up to remain on top of it. But even as he landed and used his chakra to stand on the water, it was so uneven from the rapid flow that a wave slammed into him and forced him under. With a victorious smirk, Naomi began weaving another kanji.

稲妻

After she made it, the kanji began to ascend toward the sky. But Katsuko hardly noticed it as he made his way to the top of the lake of water Naomi had practically created. "Kinda annoying," he noted, just loud enough for Naomi. This made her grin turn into a frown, and suddenly she was even more fired up. "Let's see if you find this annoying! Take this!" She pointed her brush threateningly at Katsuko. Just as she did so, the kanji that floated into the sky suddenly converted into natural lightning. Despite the lack of stormclouds, a bolt of lightning struck down, hitting the water Katsuko stood upon.

Water splashed everywhere as it lost it's form and the electricity coursed through it. It was almost like an explosion of water and lightning. As Naomi shielded her eyes from the water, she pulled her arm back to see Katsuko flying through the air, seemingly unconscious. "Ha! I knew you'd survive but there was no way you could beat me!" Just as she finished, Katsuko's body rotated around to face her. There was a grin on his face as his steaming body came directly at her. Realizing her attack failed to incapacitate him, Naomi began to panic and weaved a quick kanji to defend herself.

鋼

A steel wall, shaped like the kanji she created, appeared between her and Katsuko. But while she thought she was safe and began weaving another kanji, Katsuko spun around and put the top of his foot against the side of the block of steel. This kick sent it flying to the side, smashing through the wall in the distance. The gust kicked up by the force of that kick alone blew Naomi's hair around. And as Katsuko spun from the momentum of his kick and came around with his fist, Naomi let out a yelp and put her arms up in a natural defense habit. However, nothing happened. Naomi paused a moment, holding her defensive pose with her eyes shut, before opening them and realizing this. As soon as she put her arms down and faced Katsuko, she saw the grin on his face. Before he moved his finger in and gave her a light poke on the forehead.

"I win." She seemed shocked. Not so much that he won, but the manner in which he did. Sure, she didn't want to get hit, but she was defenseless there at the end. "B-b-but I... I hit you with the lightning and..." Naomi was trying to piece together how she failed, even making gestures with her fingers as she was trying to recount the story properly. Her reaction to losing brought a chuckle from Katsuko. "You did. And it smarted." She looked back up at him from her hands, before letting out a sigh. "I was certain I could win. Damn." Katsuko crossed his arms before once again chuckling. "You aren't a pushover, that's for sure. I think you failed by underestimating me." Naomi had a pout on her face, before letting out a sigh.

"Fine, fine. I guess I underestimated you. But you have to admit..." Naomi spun the brush around in her hand, before catching it again. "I'm pretty badass, aren't I?" Katsuko smiled with those words. That was the kind of thing he would say. It seemed that Naomi was more competetive than he previously thought, and she certainly had plenty of confidence. At least in some areas. Before he could come up with a response, Naomi got closer to Katsuko. "I have to admit that you're pretty strong, for an idiot," she said, now pressing up against him. This prompted a nervous chuckle from Katsuko. "If I wasn't strong, I would only have my good looks to live off of." This made Naomi giggle, before wrapping her arms around Katsuko's neck and moving in.

"Katsukoooooo!"

Upon hearing the unfamiliar voice, Naomi backed her face from Katsuko's. Hana had appeared, now in human form, carrying two fishing poles and a jar. "About time you got up! You promised we would go fishing today!" Katsuko brought his hand around and gave himself a light smack in the forehead. "I did." Naomi released Katsuko and took a step back. "Wait a minute. Who is she?" Naomi asked Katsuko, pointing at Hana. Upon seeing that Naomi was pointing at her, Hana gave a polite wave. "That's Hana. You already met her."

This puzzled Naomi, before she remembered that was the name of Katsuko's cat. "What!?" The orange-haired teenager let out a sigh. He expected a reaction like this. Most people reacted like that, after all. "Yep. She can turn into a human and does so freely." Naomi took another step back as she looked at Hana, then back at Katsuko. "Is this a joke?" Katsuko shrugged, before holding a hand out to Hana. "Show her." The small cat-woman's tail flicked and she tossed the fishing poles and jar to Katsuko. As he caught them, she disappeared in a poof of smoke. And in her place was the white housecat that Naomi had already met.

"Uh... aha... ha..." Naomi found this a bit weird now, and began rubbing the back of her head. "Yeah, I know this is strange. Believe me... I know... But you get used to it after some point. Anyways, I'll see you later. I did promise her to go fishing and I don't break my promises." With the demonstration complete, Hana poofed back into her human form and took one of the fishing poles. After taking a pause, using the moment to collect herself, Naomi called out to the departing duo. "What time will you get back!?" Katsuko stopped briefly and turned to face her as Hana kept walking. "I dunno." Though this answer irritated Naomi, Katsuko had a wide grin as he continued toward the main gate. As Hana and Katsuko walked away, Naomi turned her back toward them and looked down. She briefly grabbed her breasts, before coming to the conclusion that she was still adequete. With that in mind, she turned and gave a glare in their direction, before letting out a sigh.