A/N: You know, I'm the type of person who likes to plan things. At this point, I've got something like 80-90% of a second large writing project planned out. Super excited to get started on it once WIA is done. I personally think it's going to be a more mature version of WIA, a much better story from a technical standpoint, and I'll likely be more fond of it than I am WIA. Back to this story, I used to have it all planned out. But after growing up a bit and ditching the original plan, I'm in uncharted territory, and things are kinda getting made up as I go along. It's a strange feeling, but I know what ending I'm heading for. Here's another step closer, happy reading!
Chapter 55: Clean Slate
She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, rubbing warmth back into her wrists and ankles. In front of her, Kakashi stood, offering a hand to help her up. She shook her head, using the wall to steady herself as she rose. No rekindling old friendships, she told herself sternly. Kurotsuki followed him slowly to the bright archway of the door. With the chains gone, her strength would return slowly, but she still felt exhausted. She leaned against the doorway, grateful for the support, and nodded to Shikaku. Just a few hours earlier, the Jounin had re-entered her cell after Kakashi had left. He carried a scroll, an inkwell, a brush, and requested her most convincing proof of the information she had memorized. Preferably a closely guarded secret. She had provided the beginning of Orochimaru's Eternal Youth and Immortality Technique, in the Sannin's own handwriting, no less. "Was the little excerpt I wrote you the tipping point for the council?" she asked. They had been set on killing her five years ago, and it would have been no small feat to wrangle them into changing their minds.
"No."
"Inoichi, then?" she asked.
He smiled. "I can see why my son got off his lazy butt to play shogi with you in the hospital." She was smart, more so than most people probably gave her credit for. The man blinked in surprise as she bowed deeply to him.
"Thank you," Kurotsuki said as she straightened. "You were under no obligation to help me, but you did."
"I did it because he trusts you," Shikaku said, indicating Kakashi. "I hope his trust – and mine – are not misplaced."
The woman gave a tired smile. "You can relax. I'll take their classified information to the grave. I told you already, Konoha's stability depends on it. I'm not about to ruin the village where I want to live."
His eyebrows rose. "You're doing what council wants."
"I'm doing what my brother wants," she almost snapped, determined to make the distinction clear. She took a breath to calm herself. "Sorry. Are there any conditions for my pardon?" She looked between the two men.
"If anyone wants to know what you were up to while you were gone, direct them to the scribes. We'll have an official version of events drafted by tomorrow. This whole sharingan transplant business has to stay quiet," Shikaku said.
She nodded.
"Keep the state secret to yourself, give us what you've memorized, and don't cause trouble," Kakashi said. "You're under my protection for what's happened up to now, but I won't be able to prevent you from being persecuted for any more... missteps."
"And try not to be found in Inoichi's company too much. It'll make them nervous," Shikaku added.
"Done deal." She hid a yawn behind her hand. "My effects?"
"This way." The Hokage led the way down the hall and opened the door to a small changeroom, complete with a sink, toilet, shower, and basic toiletries. Her few confiscated items and clothes were laid out neatly on a bench within. "You can wash up, get changed, and we'll go from there." He waited patiently outside, listening to the shower start, run, and stop.
Kurotsuki emerged soon after, dressed in the dark shirt and pants she had worn upon her arrival, hair still damp. She looked slightly refreshed after the shower, though the dark circles remained beneath her eyes. She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to take the lead.
He continued down the hall and she followed in silence. Reaching the exit, he held open the door for her. "After you," he gestured.
Tiredly, Kurotsuki stepped outside. Standing in the weak winter sunlight, she closed her eye and smiled. She had done it. Her deal with Kagami was fulfilled. Her gamble had paid off. She had escaped Root's death sentence. On top of that, Inoichi would never be allowed to read her mind. What she had done to Sasuke would be another deep, dark secret. The normal life she had always wanted lay before her. It would be full of secrets, but devoid of Kagami. The former was familiar. The latter, completely alien. How much would things be different now?
"What do you want to do now?" Kakashi asked softly, interrupting her thoughts.
Kurotsuki turned back to him and yawned hugely. "Get some sleep."
He took a step toward her, and she stepped away. The resolutely cold look on her face made his stomach sink. "Kurotsuki–" he began.
"Don't," she said abruptly, cutting him off. Kabuto's spy handbook devoted multiple chapters to reading people, a skill she had honed during her years away. "I meant what I said. Kagami controlled you. You know what she called you? 'A piece of work.' She said you were so careful that she had to chip away at you. Do you remember when the issue about Asuma's bounty came up?"
He nodded guiltily. Years ago, she had offhandedly given the exact amount of bounty on offer for Sarutobi Asuma's death, before it had been logged by the intelligence division. Suspecting her of being a traitor, he had avoided her for weeks. It was only later that he learned Kagami had starved her host when he wasn't around.
"That was the only time She lost Her hold on you. The only time you were really yourself." Kurotsuki paused. "Didn't you ever wonder why you trusted me so much?"
Kakashi gnawed the inside of his cheek in silence. He remembered trying to justify his inordinate amount of trust in her while standing in line for some take-out. He had tallied everything he knew about her at the time, and realized that it came to embarrassingly little. The other memory that stood out to him was how conflicted he had felt. Half of him wanted desperately to check on her while the other half was adamant that she was a traitor to the village.
She could see the cogs in his mind turning, recalling. "Think about it a little. You'll see." It wouldn't be long until he began to see how little he behaved like himself around her. Maybe then, he would finally leave her alone. "You were right, in a way. I wasn't going to harm Konoha with anything I knew, but I didn't guess the bounty. Itachi had told me." The woman yawned again behind her hand. "That's all in the past now. For the present, I'd appreciate if you would keep one thing in mind."
The Hokage turned to face her squarely, his way of telling her that she had his full attention.
"Kagami tainted every interaction I ever had with a human being. I intend on starting again. Clean slate. I'm not keeping any relationships I had before. There won't be any rekindling of old friendships. Even what I said earlier..." the pained affection returning to her lone eye, "it's a one-way street. Forget what you felt for me. None of it's real anyway. It ends here between us. No romance, not even friends." Kurotsuki ducked her head and wiped away a tear as it started to form. "I'll report to your office tomorrow. Strictly business. I can start writing what I've memorized," she finished thickly. She quickly turned and walked away.
Kakashi watched her retreating back, rooted to the spot, heart aching.
Upstairs at The Devil's Company, Tenzou and Kakashi were seated in a private room. The Hokage had requested it, preferring to ensure that he stayed out of the public eye tonight. He had just finished his story of Fuyuuno Kurotsuki's return from the dead.
"Well. That's some news," Tenzou said pensively. He, for one, found himself rather cross with the woman. She had done a number of things which displeased him, the least of which was pretending to be dead for four years. There was the matter of using his best friend's eye as life insurance, and then the main reason they were here – her confession of love and subsequent refusal to associate with Kakashi in anything more than a professional capacity.
A waitress had just delivered a bottle of warm sake, from which Kakashi poured himself a cup in silence.
Tenzou did the same, composing his thoughts. "The way I see it, there's two options now. You can chase her, or you can forget her." He paused a moment, but Kakashi just sipped his liquor quietly. "You've never struck me as a chaser. I've never seen you chase a woman who wasn't interested."
"But she is interested. She's in love with me."
"Love for someone doesn't necessarily mean you're interested in pursuing a relationship with them," Tenzou said carefully. Once upon a time, he had tried to win Kurenai's heart. However, once she had chosen Asuma, his desire to strike up a relationship had waned drastically, even though his affection for her had not. It seemed Kurotsuki now found herself in a similar place. She felt a moral obligation to refuse Kakashi's advances, which she claimed were based on false feelings. He took a deep breath. "Honestly, I don't think she's worth the trouble."
Kakashi turned to look at him. "What?"
"When she first came here, he was nothing but secrets for months. We only found out about Kagami when her seals were failing and she was essentially an exploding tag waiting to go off. Seems pretty dangerous to me." He took a sip of his sake.
"Kagami's gone now," he said softly.
"There's no guarantee She won't come back," Tenzou reasoned. "And, the first thing Kurotsuki did when she got back was cut out your eye. Being gone for five years hasn't stopped her from causing trouble."
"She didn't do it for no reason."
The ANBU rolled his eyes. "No, she did it to use you as life insurance," he deadpanned. "Even if you have a working sharingan now, it doesn't change the fact that you came to have it because she was being selfish."
Kakashi sighed. His friend knew him too well. The working sharingan was the next thing he was going to bring up. It seemed like he was losing the argument. His heart wanted to chase her, but Tenzou's caution was making an awful lot of sense. Was this one of the situations where he was better off following his friend's advice?
"If Kurotsuki is going to act like a moody teenager, then let her," he cut in. "One moment she loves you, the next she doesn't want to be friends. If she doesn't want anything to do with you, then don't bother chasing her, Kakashi. She's nothing but mysteries and trouble. Forget her. You thought she was dead anyway."
The Hokage stared silently into his drink. Finding no answer to his predicament in the clear liquid that remained, he downed it.
Tenzou patted his friend on the back. "You just need some time. Forget her. It'll be for the better, you'll see. She's reporting to you tomorrow to start writing down the information that she knows, right?"
Kakashi nodded.
"I'll take her to the scribes. Take some time and think about what I said." The brown-haired man finished his drink and poured himself and Kakashi another cup, then steered the conversation towards lighter topics.
Kurotsuki entered the building, glancing briefly at the secretary before proceeding upstairs to the double doors of the Hokage's office. As she reached the top stair, a masked ANBU operative stepped in front of her.
He handed her a green-bordered scroll. "You should read this, and keep it for future reference."
She peeled open the edge to see the words Official Record of Events inked in neat writing. Opening it further, she skimmed the text which summarized her time away. It began with her persuading the demon to leave her alive, apparently for no reason at all. The scroll proclaimed that she had only worked with Kabuto to spy for Konoha. Her left eye had been given to him to study, to prove her loyalty. She had noted every discovery he made about the sharingan to bring back to Konoha, and ultimately destroyed it during her escape from his employ. It also declared that despite her history with Uchiha Itachi, she had never betrayed the village. With his death, the association was no longer considered criminal. Conveniently, the official record mentioned nothing about the death of a supposed sharingan user who wore an orange swirling mask. She rolled up the scroll and pocketed it.
"Follow," he said simply.
As she fell into step behind him, it took her a few minutes to place the brown hair and vaguely familiar voice as Yamato. They had talked only once before she left Konoha, but it had been a very personal conversation that she wasn't likely to ever forget. She stowed away her fond memories of their talk as they stopped in front of a door.
Tenzou opened it to reveal a dozen scribes, each writing busily at a desk. Every inch of wall space was occupied with shelves. One wall was divided in two, half dedicated to finished works, half to works in progress. The next two walls were devoted to writing materials. Scrolls of every dimension and material imaginable were arranged neatly on the sturdy shelving. There were inks of every colour of the rainbow and brushes made of fine goat hair. A small section was set aside for pencils and pens, writing utensils that were not a scribe's first choice, but still served a purpose for replicating certain documents they received. The last wall had no shelves, but four doors instead. The man opened one of the doors and gestured for her to enter. Inside was another scribe's desk and chair, with a second chair facing the desk. "These are usually used as dictation rooms, but you'll be using one for confidentiality. You should be able to find anything you need on the shelves. I'll leave a clone outside your door. When you're done writing for today, let the clone know. It will dispel and I'll come collect your work."
The woman nodded. Closing her eye briefly, she called forth her sharingan. Stepping back into the main room, she examined the shelves for a scroll and brush that would allow her to duplicate the one she saw in her mind's eye. A few of the scribes stared at her crimson eye for a moment, but then turned back to their work. Selecting her materials, she returned to the dictation room, and closed the door with a snap in Yamato's face. "Clean slate," she murmured to herself. Settling down at the desk, she began to write.
That evening, Tenzou's clone dispelled, indicating Kurotsuki had finished writing for the day. He made his way to the scribes' office, the clone's memories flashing through his mind. The woman had left the dictation room a number of times during the day to gather more writing supplies. She had made a sizable dent in the piles of scrolls on the shelves, and even used up two full inkwells. Every time she left the room, she had ignored Tenzou's clone completely. He did notice, however, that she moved remarkably precisely for having just lost an eye. He smiled, remembering how Kakashi had bumped into things for a solid week after he had first started using his hitai-ate as an eyepatch. The sudden loss of depth perception had affected his regular and shinobi life, but he had adjusted eventually. Opening the door of the dictation room, Tenzou saw that Kurotsuki had dozed off, her head on her arms, an astonishingly large pile of completed scrolls at her feet. He cleared his throat loudly.
She lifted her head, rubbing the sleep from her only eye, and turned to looked at him. She said nothing, expression unreadable.
Tenzou took a blank scroll from his hip pouch and scrawled a simple storage jutsu on it. Even with the two of them, it would be impractical to carry all the scrolls to the Intelligence Division. As he packed up the pile at her feet, he remarked, "I think all our scribes would be envious of your writing speed."
She shrugged.
"Did you write a lot with Kabuto?" he asked.
"No."
"What makes you such a fast writer then?" he prompted.
"Sharingan," she offered vaguely.
"I see." It seemed that Kurotsuki no longer cared for small talk. She was quiet as he finished putting away the scrolls, then indicated that she should follow him again. He led her to the Intelligence building, where she filled in some forms and signed a statement that all the information she had given was true, to the best of her knowledge. "Will you be writing again tomorrow?"
"Yes." And for a good many days after that, she added silently.
"Same thing as today then. Probably won't be me escorting you though. It'll get delegated to some rookie ANBU." The paperwork done, they headed back outside. "Where did you sleep last night?" Kakashi had asked him to make sure she had some sort of lodging arrangement, since she had shown up with no money on her person and her old apartment had been seized and resold.
"In a tree," she replied plainly. The very same tree where she had decided on her name and Kakashi had decided on her birthday. The memory seemed so distant now.
It was no wonder she had dozed off waiting for him to come collect her work. She must have spent a fair amount chakra to keep from getting frostbite during the cold winter night. Considering that she had just been released from prison, she wouldn't have had much chakra to begin with anyway. "We'll put you up in one of the ANBU barracks," he told her. "Kakashi will arrange for it until you're done writing or two months have passed. Whichever comes first."
"No thank you. I can make my own arrangements. And you can tell Kakashi that I don't merit special treatment just because we have history. I doubt you offer to put up every ex-criminal in the ANBU barracks." Kurotsuki started down the snow-dusted road.
Tenzou watched her until she rounded a corner, disappearing from view. There was no way to force her to accept the offer if she didn't want to. Personally, he thought it slightly absurd that she had turned it down. He made his way to Kakashi's office, to report on the day's events as he had promised. Arriving outside the double doors, he saw no one waiting in line and heard no talking within when he paused to listen. The man rapped on the door and entered when Kakashi gave his permission.
"Tenzou. How did it go?" he asked setting down his pen and looking anxious.
He shrugged. "Fine, really. She just wrote all day. Didn't bump into a single thing, remarkably. She seems... colder than I remember her though. I guess she was serious about cutting off old friendships."
"Where did she sleep yesterday?"
"'In a tree' is what she told me." He saw his friend frown at this. "I offered her the barracks, but she turned it down. Said she would make her own arrangements and told me to tell you she doesn't deserve special treatment just because you two have history."
Kakashi's frown deepened. "So where is she now?"
"I don't know. She went somewhere in the village. I saw no point in pursuing her," he said honestly.
He sighed, wishing he knew what Kurotsuki had planned. "She's capable enough not to freeze to death out there." He looked out the window, where the snow had begun to fall again. "I hope."
"You've really spruced up this place," Kurotsuki said, leaning on the door frame. "Five years ago, this smithy was abandoned."
The hunched form of the blacksmith in front of the forge didn't turn around. "I'm closed," a gravelly voice growled. "You can find my wares at the market on Saturday."
She stepped into the building, out of the snow. "I'm not looking to buy," she said, crossing the room.
Hearing her approach, he rolled his eyes. Young upstarts. Won't respect their elders. Won't take no for an answer. Checking the colour of the metal he was heating, he saw that he had some time to tell off this girl before he had to shape the kunai. He turned around. "Listen, girl. If you're not looking to buy, then you're looking to sell. I make my own wares, I don't resell. I'm not interested. So look sharp and–" As he was talking, his dark brown eyes had been scrutinizing his late night visitor. Her long silver ponytail and single blue eye were striking, her missing eye perhaps more so. But what had caught his attention was the two sword hilts sticking up past her shoulders. The black hilt wraps showed frequent use, but the metal beneath was sturdy, not showing too much damage. Something's different about those...
The woman smiled. "It seems you're interested in my swords at the very least." She drew one smoothly and held it out to him, hilt first. "The form is unorthodox, but I think the material is what matters to you."
The blacksmith took the weapon in his hands, hardly believing his eyes. The double-edged katana was made of black alloy, nearly uniform like he had once seen in a kunai. "Who made this?" he asked sharply, looking back up at her.
"I did," she replied haughtily. "I wouldn't have the nerve to parade them around otherwise."
"You make anything else?" the man asked gruffly.
"Normal katanas, but I like double-edged for myself. Kunai and shuriken too. I made a few alloy sets, but I gave them away as a gift."
"To a boy who can't even throw straight," he snorted.
"Kenji? He'll learn."
The blacksmith returned the sword. "What do you want?"
"Work. Hire me, give me a place to sleep, and I'll make you the only source of black alloy weapons in the village."
He stood and offered his hand. "Takumi."
She shook it and was met with the iron grip she had been expecting from the wizened old man. "Kurotsuki."
Takumi gestured to the glowing bar of metal in the forge. "Your interview starts now. Make me a kunai."
A/N: Remember how I said we were in uncharted territory? Things keep changing. I swear, every couple of weeks I come up with a new scene, or a different way to address loose ends, or decide to take something out. Honestly, sometimes I have to go back and read what I've already published just to make sure I'm consistent. Take note future self: this is what happens when you don't start with a good plan. I've recently grown to have a much better appreciation of world building, because it helps so much with consistency. I'm going to try to make sure my future works have some solid world building behind them, some rules and regulations that make everything make sense. The rules themselves don't usually make it into the prose, but they do lay down the law of what's allowed and what isn't. Which means I'm not searching through 50 chapters of material to figure out whether the existence of electricity means writing utensils have progressed past inks and brushes and the pen has been invented. (Unrelated note, if you're familiar with Bleach, one must arrive at the conclusion that every single soul must be reincarnated. I'll probably get more into this in the author's notes of next Bleach fic that I'll be posting.) There will be lots of conversations to come, and soon enough this tale will be at its end. Until the next chapter, all my lovely readers :)
