Kiku looked up at Kazue with brilliant blue eyes that sparkled like stars, and said, "Are you my new sister?"
"Yes Kiku, I'm your sister, Kazue," she answered, hugging the sister she didn't know she had. She wondered what she should be feeling, because all she was feeling was surprise. Not happiness in meeting Kiku, nor anger that her parents hadn't told her when she first got home, nor relief in seeing her family back together again. It was...weird.
"I heard you made chuunin, Tsukino. Congratulations," she said, pushing her thoughts to the back of her mind. It was something she'd learned from life in the Sound; when something bothered you, it was best to ignore it and concentrate on surviving the day. Not quite healthy, but it kept you alive and (mostly) stable.
"Yeah, I've already gotten two B missions," he said in the casual, cool-guy way that fourteen-year-old boys liked to act.
"Well, we graduated!" interjected the twins at the same time.
"We gotta show you our new jutsus!" exclaimed Hanako, jumping all over her. Just then the doorbell rang, to Kazue's enormous relief. It was her team, come for the free food promised earlier. Koyami greeted them warmly, promising dinner within the hour. Soon the trio dragged Kazue up to her room while Koji-sensei conversed with the adults. Tsukino joined them, insisting that being a fellow chuunin, he was finally "mature enough" to be in on whatever they were discussing.
"How long have you been with the team?" Kazue asked, directing the question at Daichi.
"A little more than three years," he answered. "I got added in about eight months after you... er... went missing."
"So what kind of jutsus do you specialize in?"
"Long range fire-type jutsus, but I'm also pretty good with a katana. Not as good as you're rumored to be, though, if Nana and Hiroshi's boastings are to be believed."
"We'll have to see about that. Maybe we'll spar sometime. What about you two? Are you still using your same attacks?" she asked Nana and Hiroshi.
"Yep, I'm still the genjutsu person," Nana replied cheerfully.
"And I'm still the explosives person," Hiroshi added. Nana's genjutsus were always excellent. She could make you think you were drowning in the middle of the deserts of Suna. Sneaking into guarded places was easy when they could merely stroll in while the guards were bespelled by Nana's jutsu. Hiroshi's explosives were some of the best in Konoha. If he wanted to, he could take out three blocks with barely more than his chakra as fuel.
"What about you, Tsukino?"
"Actually, I've been training to be a medic nin. I use poison for fighting, though. I make all my own poisons, too. I've come up with seventeen of them for everything from stunning an opponent so they can't move, to killing them within seconds. I've got a lab down in the basement. I'll show you in the morning."
He reached into his pouch and took out a pack of long medical needles, each one a different color. He explained that the colors each stood for a different poison. Kazue was proud of her brother. He was a lot stronger now. She stood up and headed downstairs, telling the others she'd be back in a moment, that she was going down to find out how much time until dinner. As she approached the kitchen, she heard her parent's hushed voices whispering back and forth in argument. Curiosity getting the better of her, Kazue crept towards the cracked door.
She realized they were talking about her.
"But Tenichi, you saw the way she reacted to seeing her siblings. She barely even smiled! She used to be such a happy girl, always laughing and joking around! Remember how we used to joke that we should have named her Emi because she could always bring a smile to everyone's face? God, it's like she's not even the same person," Koyami whispered, almost hysterically.
"Yami, it's been four years. Of course she's different. She was raised in God knows what kind of horrible conditions this whole time."
Kazue heard her mother let out a loud sob at this.
"What I mean is, you can't go that long in a place like that without...changing. Hell, it's a miracle she's even alive. The things that went on in that place..." he trailed off, sounding angry.
"What do you mean? How do you-"
"-After six months with no word, I got tired of not knowing what was going on, so I broke into the records room. I read the files on the Sound Village and Orochimaru. Survivor accounts, medical records, autopsy reports. One person who escaped described how they would use the prisoners for target practice. They'd test their new jutsus on them until they're an inch from death, then have their medics stitch 'em back up so they could do it all over again!" he ranted furiously.
Koyami burst into tears at this point.
"This is why I didn't tell you back then. I'm telling you now so that you know that Kazue is a different person now. She may never be the same, and we're just going to have to deal with that. She's still our daughter. She's still Kazue."
"I know, I know. It's just, I can't imagine that kind of thing happening to her," Koyami said. "I just can't believe it."
Kazue snuck off back up the stairs to her room.
"You okay?" asked Hiroshi. "You look tense."
"My parents think I'm brain damaged because I don't smile or laugh anymore," she answered matter-of-factly. "They said I changed too much."
"Oh, um...I'm sorry," said Nana. Kazue shrugged. Tsukino stood up angrily.
"Well, I don't blame them! You come back after being gone four years looking like some war refugee. If mom and dad hadn't told me, I wouldn't have recognized you. My own sister!"
Grabbing her shoulder, he spun Kazue around to face her mirror and handed her a picture from her dresser. The picture was taken the day she became a chuunin. She was smiling widely, flashing a victory sign at the camera with her brand-new chuunin vest. She hadn't noticed it before, but looking at herself reflected in the mirror compared to the photograph in her hand, she could see the stark contrast. In the photo, her eyes were bright and sparkling a vibrant green. In her reflection, they were empty and sunken with a world-weary darkness to them. Her face was full and round in the picture, matching her slightly overweight figure, whereas now her clothes hung loosely from her underfed body and her hair fell limply around her hollow face.
"It is true, about you being different, that is," Hiroshi pointed out. "You look like you've been to hell and back a couple times."
"We don't think you're brain-damaged, though," Nana added quickly. "And neither do your parents. They just need to get used to you, that's all."
Tsukino opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by dinner being announced by Koyami.
"I'd like to toast Kazue's safe return," Koji-sensei announced merrily a few minutes later at the table. "To the toughest kunoichi in Konoha."
"Here here!" cheered Hiroshi. Kazue noticed that he had managed to swap his drink with some sake. Same old Hiro for you. Once everyone (especially Kazue) had filled themselves to their heart's content, Koji, Nana, and Hiroshi headed off with the excuse of early morning training. Kazue wished she would be joining them, but at the same time she knew that neither she nor her family was ready for her to be off doing missions again. Thwarting her attempts to sneak upstairs to polish her weapons, Moriko and Hanako pounced on Kazue, begging her to train with them.
"Pleeeease? Tsukino never practices with us," Moriko pleaded. Finally Kazue caved, promising them an hour of training before it got dark. They both cheered and scampered off to find their weapons. Kazue met them outside in the mini training ground they had in the backyard.
"Nice blades, you two," she complimented her sisters. They both had two giant kunai that went up to their shoulders with the tips stuck into the ground. "But are you any good with them?"
"Of course we are!" Hanako protested, shaking the blade at her. Kazue motioned for her to let her see one of them. She tested the edges and swung it a few times. It was surprisingly light, but well balanced. She nodded in approval. They were sharp on both sides, durable and chakra-sensitive. Very good quality. She'd be damned if she was going to let her little sisters run around fighting with a couple oversized butter knives. Kazue unsheathed her katana and took her fighting stance.
"Okay you two, attack me from anywhere."
An hour later, Kazue trudged wearily up the stairs into her room. She was worn out, but pleasantly surprised at how good they were for a couple genin. It was also good to see them continuing the family tradition. The Morikawa clan was known for their skill with blades. While Koyami owned the "Konoha Cafe and Eatery," Tenichi ran Morikawa Blacksmith, famous for its quality blades and swords.
Despite her tiredness, she found herself staring at her ceiling, unable to sleep for a couple reasons. One, It felt weird being the only one in the room at night. In the Sound, she was always surrounded by twenty-some fellow prisoners. Two, it was too quiet. The underground lair was always filled with various sounds. Blades clashing as Sasuke-san trained, guards yelling, and the screams of prisoners. She remembered the nights where the near silence was shattered by bloodcurdling screaming. They struck fear into the hearts of everyone in the prison block. The cries of agony pleading for the reprieve of death were a constant reminder that any one of them could be next. Yet, they were also a relief. They took comfort in the fact that, at least for now, it wasn't their screams of pain reverberating through the stone passages.
When she finally did fall asleep, her dreams were filled with nightmares.
"Kukuku."
That laugh, coming from everywhere at once. It surrounded Kazue like a suffocating cloud of dispair.
"You think you've escaped me?"
"Leave me alone!" she screamed, running. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. In fact, there was nothing. Just that laugh, that voice.
"You are mine. You belong to me. No matter where you go, you are marked as mine."
"No! You can't control me! No!" she shouted as she pressed her hands against her ears to drown out his voice, but it was no good. He was in her head as well.
"Oh, but I can," he taunted, and suddenly Kazue's body was racked with pain spreading from her seal like fire. She grabbed the back of her neck as if it would stop the pain. Below the pain was the knowledge that he was right; she was tainted by his touch. Her mark was proof of his ownership of her. Everyone who saw it would know this. Even in death, he was still able to torment her.
He was laughing again. That cruel, uncaring laugh that enjoyed her fear. Her pain doubled and she fell to the ground and screamed.
"Kazue! Kazue!"
Someone was shaking her. She bolted upright in bed, shaking. The light turned on and Kazue saw her mother leaning over her, worry etched on her face.
"Kazue, are you okay? We heard you screaming, and when I came in you were clutching your neck and rolling around the bed," Koyami explained.
"I-I'm fine. Just a nightmare. I'm sorry I woke you up," she apologized shakily. "I just...need some air."
Ignoring her mother's small noise of protest, she strode out the front door into the cool night air. Her neck was still stinging with the ghost of the pain of her dream. Koyami followed her outside and placed a hand on her shoulder. Kazue winced and pulled away.
"Are you sure you're okay? You're still shaking."
"He's dead, but he won't leave me alone," she said simply, then turned around and walked back into the house. "I'm fine, really. I'm going back to bed."
Though Kazue had a surprisingly easy time falling asleep again, the glare of the early morning sun filled her room far too soon for her tastes. But she forced herself up. There were things to be done and places to be. Namely, the doctor's.
"Name?"
"Morikawa Kazue."
"Room 201 B. It's down the hall to the left."
Kazue followed the instructions to the cheerfully painted doctor's office in room 201 B. A stout nurse with peroxide blonde hair named Meiko entered shortly and started asking her routine questions. What was her full name? Her age? Rank? Was she allergic to any medications? Has she suffered any recent injuries?
"Morikawa Kazue. 17. Chuunin. No. Yes, I broke my arm a few weeks ago."
"Alright then, I'm going to check your height, weight, and such until Dr. Kanashi gets here," explained Meiko, leading her over to a scale. Dr. Kanashi entered as Kazue was having her heartbeat checked.
"My goodness! Your heartrate just spiked. A lot," Meiko exclaimed. Kazue shook her head a couple times and apologized.
"Gomen. It's just that he looked like...someone else for a second."
For an instant, her eyes took in Dr. Kanashi's grey hair, pulled back in a low pony, and glasses and thought that Yakushi Kabuto had just walked into the room. Except for the doctor's hair was grey with old age and his glasses were more squarish than round. Now that she got a good look at him, he looked nothing like Kabuto-san.
"Okay, then, moving on. Hokage-sama tells me you spent the past three years in the Hidden Sound, correct?"
"Four years, actually. And you make it sound like I was there by choice. I assure you, I was most definitely not there by choice," she corrected. After two hours of seemingly pointless tests to make sure she wasn't going to keel over and die anytime soon, Kazue found herself in a painfully white, painfully empty room being interrogated by a shinobi, Honto Miki, whose job it was to make sure she wasn't brainwashed by the Sound to assassinate the Hokage or something, and to make sure she wasn't crazy.
"So, are you happy to finally be back in Konoha?"
"I'm relieved to be home, yes."
"How about your life in the Sound? Do you have any regrets now that you've left?"
A dark look crossed Kazue's face that did not go unnoticed by her interrogator. Honto made a note on his paper.
"Honto-san, the only regret I have is that I wasn't the one choking the life out of that bastard instead of Uchiha Sasuke-san," she said plainly.
"Were there any people there who treated you well?"
"No."
"I see. They treated you badly then?" he asked. Kazue gave him an incredulous look. Naw, they gave me candy and room service. She rolled up her sleeves and pointed to a scar on her left upper arm.
"That's where they sewed my arm back on after it got cut off because one of Orochimaru's students needed to practice his swordplay," she spat, then pointed to another one on the other arm. "And this was just because he felt like it. So yeah, they treated me badly, Einstein."
"I see this is a sensitive subject for you, so let's talk about something else. Do you resent Konoha for not rescuing you?"
"No. How are they supposed to rescue me if they don't even know where I am?"
"Do you find it hard readjusting to normal life?"
"Kind of. It's weird having a bed and shoes. I'm still getting used to being home."
"Have you given any thought to your future?" he asked, folding his hands on his desk. Kazue laughed humorlessly.
"Future? Ha! Until a few days ago I had no future. Up until the door to that cell opened, I knew I was going to die there. There was no 'after I escape.' No 'when I get home.' I was destined to die alone in a cold, dark place. That Sasuke-san would manage to kill Orochimaru never once crossed my mind. If you had asked me a year or two ago what I'd be doing right now, I'd tell you I'd be dead."
"You seem to be quite bitter about your whole ordeal."
"You could say that," Kazue said, brushing a stray lock of hair from her face with more vigor than would normally be expected. "When I first realized that I was going to die in the Sound, I shut myself down. I got rid of all my emotions. Pain, both emotional and physical, is more bearable when you numb the wound. Fear, joy, hope, love; what use did I have for them? Fear will get you killed real quick, the rest will kill you slowly."
She realized she was mad. Really mad. Not at Dr. Honto, but at everything. Mad that she had to spend four years in hell while people like Honto got to sit in their nice homes with their families. Mad that she had allowed herself to be captured. Mad that it had to happen to her. Mad at the world.
It had been a long time since she'd let anything slip through her emotional shield like that, especially anger. The last time she'd gotten mad, she'd struck out at a guard for being too rough. That hadn't ended too well. She had nearly broken his nose, so he and two of his buddies had beaten her to a bloody pulp. Not exactly an eye for an eye, but then, the scales were never tipped in the favor of the imprisoned. Kazue felt weak for showing her feelings. She'd learned that anything you let out could be used against you.
"And now? What are you feeling now? You certainly aren't the stoic rock you were when you came in. What are you feeling right now?"
"Anger. I'm feeling very angry right now, and that's kind of weirding me out. Like I have a crack in my armor or something. I feel vulnerable for letting my emotion out. Is there some psychoanalytical word for that?"
"Yeah. It's called being human," Honto told her with a small smile. Kazue returned it with an apologetic twitch of her lips that resembled a smile.
"I'm still getting used to that, too."
A half-hour later, Kazue walked out of the med center with a clean bill of health and an appointment card to see a shrink every week. She wasn't in the best of moods. One unfortunate effect of letting her anger slip, she found, was that anger was the only thing she could feel at the moment. All her "happy feelings" were still locked up and unable to help combat her foul mood. Going straight home, she headed right for the one thing that she knew would make her feel better. Her trunk of weapons.
"Hah!" she cried, striking the training post with one of her tantos. She struck over and over until she had to stop and lean against a nearby tree, panting heavily.
"Feel better?" came a voice from behind her. It was Tsukino, smirking in amusement.
"Yeah, actually," she replied. "Did you need anything?"
"Dad wanted to know if you could deliver an order of blades for him. He's been swamped with work the past few weeks, what with the chuunin exams coming up, so he doesn't have time to go all the way across town. I'd go, but I have mission room duty. They get pretty pissed if I show up late," Tsukino informed her, not sounding particularly excited about mission room duty. She didn't blame him. The place was steaming hot in the summer, frigid in the winter, dull as an academy lecture, and always seemed to have the ability to slow time to a dead stop. New chuunins always seemed to get stuck with mission room duty, while the veterans got the good tasks. Speaking of tasks, I should go deliver that order now.
"Just bring this down to the Hyuuga compound. They already paid and everything, so all you have to do is bring the thing there. Oh, and your mother wants you to pick up some leeks on your way back," Tenichi instructed, handing her a finely crafted katana. What a Hyuuga needed with a sword was beyond her, but hey, who was she to question the customer?
Making it to her destination in good time, considering she lived on the outskirts of town and the Hyuugas were on the opposite side of Konoha. She rang the doorbell and was ushered politely inside and taken to Hyuuga Hiashi, head of the Hyuuga clan.
"Here's the katana you ordered, Hyuuga-san," she said, bowing politely.
"Ah, thank you. Very nice, give your father my compliments. He glanced over Kazue's shoulder as someone entered the room behind her.
"Am I interrupting?"
"Not at all, Neji. In fact, would you please escort miss Morikawa out?" he asked. Neji gave an almost undetectable look of irritation at being ordered to do something by Hiashi before silently walking alongside Kazue.
"Hey, stranger. Remember me?" she said to her old friend. Neji stopped and looked at her in puzzlement. "Um, sorry, but do I know you? You look kind of familiar, but..."
"Morikawa Kazue, back from the dead," she said, spreading her hands in front of her in a "ta-da" sort of way. Neji gaped at her.
"But...you're dead. I went to your funeral three years ago."
Kazue looked down at herself, poked her arm a few times, and put two fingers to her wrist.
"Yep, definitely alive," she nodded. Neji rolled his pupil-less eyes. "Where have you been? When'd you get back?"
She explained where she had been the past four years and that she'd just gotten back yesterday. He didn't burst into tears and glomp her or slap her on the back and tell her how great it was to see her again; he wasn't the touchy-feely kind of guy. All he said was, "I am glad you aren't dead, to say the least."
"Me too."
Neji's lips twitched in a near smile that said he was happier than he was letting on. He asked her what her plans were, now that she was a free woman.
"Hm, that seems to be the question of the day," she commented, then shrugged. "I'm going to take a week or two to just relax and do absolutely nothing and not worry about a thing. Then, who knows. Maybe I'll go back to doing missions. I hear the chuunin selection exams are coming up. Maybe I'll help out with that or something. You said you went to my funeral. I wasn't aware that I had a funeral."
"Hai, you have your name on the monument to those killed in the line of duty, in fact," he told her with faint amusement. Kazue glanced at the clock and apologized, saying that she had to be going. They said their goodbyes, promising to train together sometime. Just like old times. As Kazue disappeared down the path, she called back, "Good seeing you again, Neji-kun!"
Hiashi came up behind Neji as he waved casually to his retreating friend.
"You two seem to know each other. Who is she?"
"A dead girl I used to train with," he replied cryptically, walking away to leave Hiashi to his puzzlement.
Shiori's blurbs:
Sorry this chapter took so damn long. I started drivers ed a week ago (about time seeing as I'm almost seventeen) and it is literally sucking the will to write out of me. Three-and-a-half hours straight in an unconditioned library reading little manuals and watching painfully bad movies on how to drive a frickin car. I don't even want a license! So there's my little rant and/or excuse why I haven't been writing. But the good news is, I won four blue ribbons in the county fair for some artwork I entered (squee!). Thanks to destiny-penguin and NeferNeferi for reviewing!
By the way, after reading through what I've written so far, I've decided to change the category from General/Romance to Angst/Romance. I never intended it to be this angsty, but this story seems to have a mind of its own.