Catharsis
Four years after Orochimaru's attack on Konoha, Akatsuki and Orochimaru remain unstopped, Sasuke has not yet returned to Konoha, and, on top of that, a war has broken out between the shinobi nations, orchestrated by the efforts of the Akatsuki and fueled by the kidnappings of several members of kekkei genkai clans. In the effort to protect all of the kekkei genkai clans in the Fire Country, Team 7 is sent on a mission to bring back to Konoha and protect Fire Country's most vulnerable Bloodline limit. (Might be somewhat AU-ish, since I'm writing this as Kishimoto releases new chapters.)
Rating: R (for violence, language, and some sexuality)
Genre: Action, romance, drama
Pairing(s): Kakashi x OC, some Naruto x Sakura and Shikamaru x Temari
Disclaimer: Naruto and all related characters do not belong to me; they are the property of Kishimoto Masashi, Shueisha, and Studio Pierrot in Japan.
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Chapter 1.Kidnappings and War
While wrapping his cloak as tightly as possible around his body, a young Sand nin racked his brains as to why his home country, in all its desert glory, was so god damn cold at night. He was sure his sensei had explained to him at least once why the scorching day time temperatures dropped so dramatically once the sun set.
His entire being shivered involuntarily from the cold; his cloak was useful for blocking the dry desert winds in the day time, but completely useless against the frigid nighttime temperatures.
Great--not only was he hopelessly lost in the vast deserts of Kaze no Kuni, but he was freezing.
And, as the landscape gradually changed from rocky desert to a sparsely vegetated steppe, he realized he was past the Kaze no Kuni's borders as well--if not, very close to the borders.
Even better.
The Sand nin tried to keep his composure, but recent events ran through his head, making all his efforts to stay calm in vain. Anywhere within ten miles of country borders--any country border--wasn't safe. The twenty-mile buffers that ran between two neighboring countries were no longer "no-man's land" as they had been in times of peace. In the recent months of war, they became the most dangerous areas for solitary shinobi, who could be captured and tortured for questioning or, if they were lucky enough, killed. Additionally, the country borders had also been the sites of a string of kidnappings, targeting those of Bloodline limit clans or clans with exclusive secret techniques.
The more the Sand nin thought about it, the worse the situation seemed to become: he was very cold, he was very lost, he was very near or past Kaze no Kuni's borders... and now, he had a very high chance of being kidnapped for who knew why. He wanted to groan loudly to himself in desperation, but snuffed out his despair before it could escape his lips, in case there was anyone near by that would be able to more easily discover him because of the noise.
No, it didn't matter whether or not he made any noise: if there were enemy shinobi somewhere, they didn't need any kind of noise to find him. His mere presence screamed out his location. There was nowhere to hide--unless you counted the ground, and he didn't know any techniques that would allow him to travel undetected underground. He didn't know any cloaking ninjutsu either. The only thing he could do at this point was turn back and stay on his guard 200, against the unseen enemies who probably had a better knowledge of the landscape and a larger store of ninjutsu to achieve their purposes.
He'd stood contemplating his possible fate for several minutes before he actually forced his legs, now merely petrified extensions of his body, to move and carry him back the way he had come. Despite his attempts to backtrack and to calm himself down, his fear had taken root and continued to grow rapidly. Events in his own life and the stories he heard or read from returning village shinobi or newspapers echoed and flashed through his mind.
"... miracle that I managed to survive... but my..."
"... of Amaagari Forest ends in..."
... smiled awkwardly to the newly promoted chuunin, shaking their...
"... for you. Nagi, Shinichi, let's all go out to celebrate your teammate's..."
... astir with the news that the oldest son and heir of the Genmou clan had been...
"... careful and make sure you stay with..."
... showed them the map of the country, pointing to...
A dry crunch under his foot brought him back to earth, his swimming thoughts running headlong into a wall. The young shinobi gulped; he didn't dare look down to see whatever caused that crunch. At the same time, he wanted to know for awareness's sake. Hesitantly, he looked down. He hoped it was just a dried up bunch of grass or root... His eyes met with bleached white bones, and for a moment, they widened, until he lifted his foot.
The Sand nin let out a heavy sigh of relief. It was only a lizard's skeleton he'd stepped on--it was already dead, completely harmless. The pitiful thing probably stayed out during the day for too long and baked itself in the hot sun. Relieved, he prepared to continue moving on when he realized something.
His footprints, which he'd hoped to use to retrace his steps, were nowhere to be found. How could they have disappeared? There was no wind to blow them away. The shinobi searched wildly around, darting around within thirty feet of the skeleton he'd stepped on. Where were his footprints that would be his path back to safety?
Confused and paranoid, he squatted down, holding his head in attempt to keep himself together. His fears told him he was trapped in a genjutsu, but he rejected that thought. The desert sand wasn't completely even, it was filled with little indents and grooves, like the sand on a beach. Perhaps in his frenzy, he'd simply mistaken his prints for those dents and grooves. Or maybe he was starting to become delirious: he hadn't eaten all day. It was said that humans started to go crazy when they didn't have food. But didn't that apply to more extended periods of time, like days as opposed to mere hours?
Running his hands through his hair, the shinobi finally stood up again. Surely, this recent war was unscrewing the nuts and bolts that held him together. He had a reason to be afraid because things were no longer as safe as they used to be. But, at the very least, he should have had some sort of composure. He knew he was currently very lacking in the said necessity, reducing his chances of finding his way back to as low as the possibility of the war ending at that very second.
He took a few minutes to calm himself down. Finally, courage replenished a little bit for the second time, he started off again. And then... crunch. It was another lizard skeleton. He rolled his eyes. Was it a new trend for lizards to accidentally commit suicide by cooking themselves in the daytime sun?
He took a few more steps. Crunch. What the hell, had he wandered into the site of a lizard suicide club? He looked down again. This time he froze.
The skeleton underneath his foot looked a lot like the skeleton he'd just stepped on and the one before that, the way they had broken when he stepped on them, how the other bones had scattered about. Slowly, he turned around to look behind him. He tried to take a gulp of cold night air, but it didn't fill his lungs. There were no baked lizard bones anywhere around him, except for the one underneath his foot. The prints of the last steps he had taken were not visible either.
His chest rose up and down erratically as he tried to grasp the situation. He took a few more steps, trying to shake his renewed fear off. Crunch. He looked down--another lizard skeleton that looked like the previous two.
Step, step, step, step, step, crunch. Again the same thing.
His knees began to shake. He hoped he was just going crazy; in this situation, it was the best thing that could happen to him. At least, he'd know that it was just a figment of his overactive imagination, rather than a reality--or an enemy genjutsu.
He tried to take a few more steps. Step, step, step, step, step, crunch. That damned lizard skeleton.
"I'm just going crazy," he muttered to himself shakily. "See, if I go in this direction, that won't happen."
He ran over in the opposite direction. Five foot steps later, and the snap of bones breaking underneath the bottoms of his shoes sounded. He tried it again, and again... the same thing happened each time. Why was it happening? What was going on?
The Sand nin began to run around anywhere, everywhere, if there was an escape from those five steps and the crunch that would follow. Step, step, step, step, step, crunch. Step, step, step, step, step, crunch. Step, step, step, step, step, crunch. Every time, he'd whirl around searching for the mass grave of lizards that he thought surrounded him. But no matter where he went, where he looked, it was always that one lizard skeleton on the ground.
He ran and ran. There was no escape, no lizard graveyard, and no footprints. Just that one sun bleached skeleton. He never felt such a feeling of hopelessness before. He didn't stop running, but there was always that damn skeleton under his foot, every five steps!
The Sand nin began to yell angrily at the ground as he tried to run away, cursing it for playing games with him, denouncing it for hiding his footprints. He yelled until he thought his lungs would burst from the combination of his shouting and running.
Finally, his legs felt like jelly and he stumbled to the ground. His eyes watered as sand flew into them, and he rubbed his eyes furiously as he rolled over on the sand. Tears ran down his eyes, stinging and burning, like miniature waterfalls. It took a few minutes before the sand and dust had most cleared out of his eyes, and he opened them painfully. He had no more energy to move, except for roll his head to the side to search for that lizard skeleton.
Slowly, he managed to open his eyes fully. There was something around him besides sand, but the tears in his eyes blurred his vision. He almost wished they didn't. Surrounding him were piles of broken lizard skeletons, whose heads simultaneously opened their wide, ugly mouths...
Two figures rose at his feet from the ground, sand cascading off of the tops of their heads as they came to the surface. A lanky young man covered in various tattoos and piercings tittered condescendingly at the unconscious form in front of him. He raised his eyebrow in concern at the desert within a thirty foot radius of the body, which was pockmarked with footprints on top of footprints. To the beautiful albino woman who stood next to him, he wondered aloud, "Don't you think you overdid that genjutsu, O-Hime? Judging from how he reacted to it, I'd have pissed my pants if I were the victim."
The woman tossed her silvery mane of hair and bent down to examine the Sand nin. "Hardly," she replied. "It's called capitalizing on a preexisting fear. My original genjutsu wasn't that bad. But his own imagination intensified it--and he made things a lot easier for us by running around so much that he passed out from exhaustion."
"Whatever." The man sucked thoughtfully on one of his snakebite piercings as he pulled out a small book from his supply sack. "This is a... Hayami kid. With the Doukuseichi kekkei genkai. Shall we take him back?"
"What do you think?" The albino woman picked up the limp form gingerly by the shoulders of his vest. "I'm glad we didn't have to retrieve the ones who can resist genjutsu, but we still get the ones who will poison you if you so much as touch them. How are we supposed to carry this boy back?"
"O-Hime, I'll take care of that troublesome task for you. But you'll have to lend me that fancy top layer of your robes if you want me to carry him back," offered the man full of piercings.
She pouted, holding her robes to her as if they'd fall off at any moment. "But this was a present," she protested, "a really expensive one, too."
"Then you can carry him yourself," the man shrugged. "You'll be more or less protected against contact with his skin thanks to that kimono you love."
For several moments, the albino woman considered her options. Finally, she grudgingly undid the sash around her waist and took off the top robe of her kimono, throwing it somewhat contemptuously to the tattooed man. He smiled at her. "There's a good girl."
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Naruto really wanted to throw up as he squatted against the trench wall with his head between his knees. Today's battle had been the most brutal of all the ones he'd participated in. The stench of blood and bodies had crossed the gap between "just deal with it" and "simply unbearable."
He looked up momentarily to see what else was going on. The first thing that caught his eye was Sakura, who was attending to the more severely injured shinobi. He couldn't help but admire how well she tolerated the gore that surrounded her, while he was sitting there ready to heave up his lunch, breakfast, his dinner from the night before, and maybe some of his organs, too. Not even all the ramen in the world could make him feel better after this battle. He'd probably throw those up, too.
"You alright there, Naruto?" asked Kakashi, who had stopped by next to him holding out a canteen of water. "Drink some water, kid. It'll make you feel better."
The blond Chuunin snatched the canteen as if he hadn't even touched a drop of water in centuries, and gulped it all down, causing Kakashi to raise his eyebrows in surprise. His former teacher wondered how badly the battle and its aftermath had affected his student--he'd never seen the goofy young man look so tense--or green--following a fight.
"So... anything new?" Naruto forced out, trying to make conversation. He needed anything to distract him from the smells, the sounds, and the sights.
Kakashi, despite knowing what Naruto didn't want to hear, informed him anyway: "We won the battle, but, given the casualties we might as well have lost it. Of the fifty we started out with, twenty-four men are dead or missing so far, and seventeen are injured." He took a deep breath through clenched teeth. "Unfortunately, Shikamaru's leading another mission; otherwise we'd have been able to minimize the casualties when the Oto-nin came to back up the Tsuchi-nin."
Naruto looked up at the sky morosely. "Things really got out of control, didn't they?"
Kakashi could only sigh. "This shouldn't have happened, but it did. Still, there's no use dwelling on the past. We'll just have to prepare ourselves better next time." The jounin dug through his pockets for a moment, then produced a folded up piece of paper, giving it to Naruto to read. "Get ready for another mission. Yamato, Sakura, you, and I will be heading to the south for a retrieval mission. Sakura already knows; we'll be leaving once she finishes taking care of the critically injured."
Without saying another word, Kakashi walked off. A little surprised by his former teacher's rather abrupt leave, Naruto almost forgot the small message Kakashi had given him, and it fell to the ground out of his hands. Yamato, who had just come by unknown to the blond, noticed the familiar slip of paper and picked it up. He held it in front of Naruto's nose and, breaking the boy's thoughts, alerted, "Naruto, you dropped the mission details."
"Huh?"
"The mission details, kid," repeated Yamato, a little impatiently. The ANBU agent had yet to figure out how the hell a teenager like him managed to learn the Rasengan, integrate wind chakra into the Rasengan--in short, how he managed to get so far as a ninja, when he had a tendency to lose track of important things.
"Oh, thanks, Yamato-taichou!" Naruto took the slip of paper from the older man's hands. Yamato still standing in front of him, Naruto read through the message.
TEAM: Hatake Kakashi (leader), Yamato, Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto
MISSION OBJECTIVE: Escort Hibashira Aoi to Konohagakure no Sato
MISSION RANK: A
MISSION INSTRUCTIONS: Your team is to report to the Hibashira residence in the Hi no Kuni's capital. Present this message to the head of the family (Hibashira Keisuke) as proof of your mission. Hibashira Aoi will then be placed under your care and responsibility until your return to Konohagakure no Sato, where he will become a ward of the village government.
OTHER: New leader designated for return journey from Azami Plain to Konohagakure will be Matsumoto Akira. Please take care of critically wounded prior to departure for this mission; afterwards, arrive in national capital as soon as possible.
"Yamato-taichou," Naruto asked, looking up from the slip of paper. "This is just an escort mission within the country borders. Why's the mission ranking so high?"
"Because of the wartime situation and the kidnappings that have occurred in other countries recently," replied Yamato. "The kidnappings of members of kekkei genkai clans or clans with secret techniques--a Sand nin of the Doukuseichi clan was actually reported missing recently, actually. If we're escorting this person to Konohagakure and this person will become a ward of the village government, I think we can safely assume that that's one of the pretexts for this mission."
Naruto nodded in acknowledgement, but one thing had bothered him: "What do you mean by 'one of the pretexts'? Are there any other reasons?"
Suddenly, Yamato rather unconvincingly exclaimed, "Oh, I hear my name being called. Excuse me, Naruto, but someone needs my assistance."
And, as unanticipated as Kakashi's exit, Yamato darted off. Obviously, there was something "secret" about this mission that only Kakashi and Yamato knew of. It bothered Naruto like an itch that he could not scratch. Did they know something about an obstacle to the mission that was even more dangerous than Naruto could imagine? (No, then the mission would be S-ranked.) Did the mission entail something inhumane happening to the to-be ward of the state? (No, then Tsunade baa-chan would have refused to let the mission through.)
A deep frown formed on Naruto's face. Grown-ups were always hiding things from him; it really irritated him. He thought he was old enough to understand the matters that they considered "adult" or "mature." Maybe if he was a naive farm boy, it would have been understandable. But he was a shinobi--he'd seen and experienced most of the things the average man had seen and experienced, and then some.
The blond did not have any time to dwell anymore on this "injustice," however, somewhere beyond the trench, Kakashi was calling him to help collect extra weapons scattered around the battlefield.
Naruto groaned at this new task. He thought that Konoha's expenses were being paid for by some private corporation outside of the village. Did they have to be as stingy as they were, scavenging through battlefields for used kunai, shuriken, senbon, and what not?
Kakashi heard Naruto's complaints (which he had accidentally voiced out loud) and explained, "Just because the Niikura family is funding Konohagakure's part in the war doesn't mean we ought to waste material, Naruto. Weapons are reusable, so it's stupid to let them rust and go to waste on old battlefields."
"I know, but didn't that Niikura woman say that she'd spend as much money needed on Konoha's defense and offense?" grumbled Naruto, glumly picking through the blood-stained grass.
Wiping blood off of a tanto that had been embedded in an Oto-nin's chest on a clean patched of grass, Kakashi replied, "There's still a lot you need to understand. Just because the Niikura family is one of the richest in the world doesn't mean their pockets are bottomless. They have to spend a lot of money on maintaining their company as well, even more than before, now that the shinobi nations are at war. Even so, they still decided to take on Konoha as a beneficiary. Every cost--no matter how big or little--counts."
Well, maybe trying to recycle used weapons wasn't so bad anymore. Naruto had neglected to consider the needs of the family that funded the village he called home up until then. But maintaining a corporation and its security, and lending its support to a shinobi village as well? It took up more money than Naruto knew he could make in a lifetime. Even Jiraiya, with all his sales from the Icha Icha series, couldn't afford such an expense. (Or maybe he could--he'd just have to stop spending so much on women and alcohol.)
Now that he'd resolved that issue with himself, the other question reemerged: What was the "big secret" about their upcoming mission?
Unfortunately for Naruto, Kakashi seemed to sense that he was going to ask a question he didn't really want to answer, and he ordered, "Less talk and more work. Sakura's working hard over there, we should too!"
As if to strengthen the fact that he would not divulge anything that Naruto didn't know to him, Kakashi continued his weapons scavenging as far away from his former student as possible. Defeated, Naruto gave up on the spot. Maybe some secrets just weren't worth finding out.
Oh... who really cared anyway? If it wasn't outlined in the mission information, then maybe whatever "secret" that Kakashi and Yamato knew was not vital to the completion of the mission. And, the blond decided, it wasn't really his place to be digging around for whatever thing was unknown to him anyway.
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Author's Notes: Wow, it's nice to be back writing fan fiction again! I have nothing to do aside from college apps--mine really aren't that bad, I've noticed--so I've been able to go back to writing Catharsis again. This Catharsis is the same as the one I originally wrote... kind of.
Looking back, I really didn't like the old story, which was becoming a long-winded, shallow romance fic. It was becoming far from what I wanted and originally intended, so I altered the plot so it'd become more action and main plot-oriented (keywords, "main plot"). However, since I am a hopeless romantic at heart, I am keeping the elements of romance in the story. This time I hope to try to have the romance weave itself into the "main plot," as opposed to go on a tangent with it, like I did before.
There are two versions of Catharsis: censored and uncensored. Natch, the censored version is for sites that don't really allow hard lemons, and the uncensored version is for sites that... do. This is the "uncensored" version that you're reading right now. However, don't expect lemons right away, not until I've elaborated on characters. =P You might have to wait a while, but hopefully the wait will be worth it. =D