This is my extremely poor excuse of an attempt at a Kato fic. Kato does not come naturally to me and I believe instantaneous love is ridiculous, so I always drag romance out- I dislike writing romance because there's far too much of it- but feel free to constructively criticise, praise, and/or flame.

This was inspired by RisaLovesCato and her fic, "Formidable," and its sequel, "Insurgence." They're fantastic. Read them sometime. Meanwhile, I'll be inwardly complaining how I never have any time to write because I'm bombarded with homework and I have other fics to work on. Expect slow updates, inconsistent update rates, and/or multiple hiatuses.

This is only a preface, an introduction, which is why it's short.

Fun fact: I don't own the Hunger Games.

Cynic

Trust is such a fragile thing- hard to build up, easy to break.

He stared at the large number blinking on the screen- the eleven. He was going to kill her.

"Cato."

He imagined blood streaming down the girl's body, pitiful wails for mercy coming from her lips. Katniss Everdeen's death would be brutal, bloody, slow- and by his hand. No one would interfere.

"Cato…"

He didn't hear his mentor calling to him, didn't notice Clove leaping to her feet in boiling rage, her dark eyes smoldering. He didn't see the polished metal blade gleaming in the painfully bright lights of the apartment reserved for District Two. He was visibly trembling, his vision tainted with crimson. He clenched his fists, grinding his teeth together.

He visualized frothy, bright red bubbles of blood dancing around on the mouth of the Girl on Fire. He'd kill her, cut patterns into her body and lop off her limbs one at a time. He began plotting, right then and there, ways to kill that District Twelve scum that would probably frighten any living sixteen-year-old and make someone from an outlying district insist he needed mental help.

"Cato!"

It wasn't the low, contained voice of Enobaria that jolted him out of his morbid train of thought, but rather the loud, solid thwack he heard. He stared at the gaping hole in the TV screen. Showers of broken shards tumbled to the ground. A jagged web of cracks spread everywhere. He barely registered the very familiar throwing knife protruding from it.

"Oh, Cato, is it?" Clove snarled in an almost feral manner. She glared at Enobaria and Brutus (who was red in the face, clearly furious that his tributes getting outscored by a girl from Twelve was practically stripping all his dignity from him), who sat in armchairs.

"It's Cato! Ever think of me?" Clove stalked toward the TV, but Cato knew Clove wasn't angry over Enobaria acknowledging Cato's rage first. Sure enough, she yanked the knife clean out of the wall and began stabbing it again and again.

"I'm taking the Girl on Fire." The words were low and much calmer than before.

Cato shot to his feet, glaring ferociously at Clove. He spat out, "No."

"I'm going to," Clove said, narrowing her eyes. She hurled all her wrath into the threatening glare she sent him. "You can have Bread Boy, but I'm taking Fire Girl."

"I'll take her," Cato growled, stepping toward Clove. His trembling had subsided, distracted by the need to argue with his district counterpart, which didn't quite provide as much reason to be angry (not that he ever needed much reason).

Clove slowly slid the knife out of the wall as naturally as if she'd unsheathed it, but the loud, grinding sound it made didn't match. She narrowed her eyes even more until they looked like cat slits. "I'm. T-"

"Hold up," Enobaria said, gnashing her teeth together. She slapped Brutus' arm, snapping him back into reality. "We have a problem here."

"Oh, yes, we do," Cato snapped. Clove stroked the blade of her knife- it was just a dinner knife- and stared wordlessly at the TV. "That scum from District Twelve-"

"-Has trumped you two," Enobaria growled. She slapped Brutus' arm again. "Exactly. So shut your mouths, stop arguing, and actually listen to me for once. If you had listened to me, then that little Girl on Fire wouldn't have outscored you."

Clove's arm was a blur as she pulled it back and fired her knife at Enobaria. Her mentor dodged to the side just barely, the deadly projectile missing her face by millimeters. Then she stood up and glared at both her trainees.

"You're both idiots," she spat. "Do you have any idea how much more emotional damage someone can do? Physical pain's nothing compared to emotional pain. You've been spending all this time trying to kill her, but that won't extinguish that- that flame she started. It's going to fuel the fire and get everyone all hyped up."

Cato raised an eyebrow, suddenly interested. "What do you mean?"

Enobaria's eyes gleamed. "Get into her mind. Mess with her. Earn her trust- her love, even."

"Then, break her."