Part IV | Chapter 9

A tender breeze ruffled small strands of hair that tingled her forehead. Gohama watched as a few leaves swirled around the empty street. It was a quiet day in the small town in which they were staying and, if it weren't for her mind rioting against her head and imminent mission, it could have been a peaceful lunch on that shadowed restaurant terrace. The ideal place for hanging out with her team and Kakashi, the ideal place for a sluggish lunch as Nikato chatted their ears off and Hansuke talked a few words in between the ginger's constant babbling. Gohama had lost sense of the conversation a long time ago, Nikato's eager voice only serving as white noise, comforting in its normality, as her thoughts fired and burst in a current that she couldn't order.

Even that stupid mission from two years ago had joined the bundled mess. All thanks to Kakashi's words last night. Gohama had come to terms with what had happened. Dazai had fucked her up but she had won in the end. The certainty that she had won served as a balm against all the hurt he had caused her, but now Kakashi had almost spilled that word, full in vulnerability, violation and defeat, she didn't want to hear. Her edified two year work, so stout before, had almost crumbled down just from a single syllable, "ra—". At least, she hadn't let him finish. Hearing it would make it real and as long as it wasn't real she would always be the victor on that mission.

Now, hers and Hansuke's mess of a relationship had also come to make chaos in her mind. They were at an impasse where she would have to either jump over the abyss or turn back around and run away. Ending things would make a mess of their team to the point where she would have to leave it. Becoming public would force her to leave them too. Either way she would lose, not only Hansuke, but Nikato and Kisamaru too. Gohama wasn't ready for neither step, but somehow the jump seemed the worst one. No matter how much she tried, Gohama would ever be full in their relationship. Her heart had no more space.

They could also pretend, as they had done since the beginning. Pretending well enough was safe and uncomplicated, but it was a lie, a stale, coward lie. It wasn't fair for Hansuke. Nothing about their relationship was fair for Hansuke.

The final step of the mission was two hours away and her entire mind was prisoner of stupid, careless, dangerous worries that didn't belong on a S-rank.

What was wrong with her?

It was the disquiet. The disquiet that had always dwelt deep inside of her, hidden and buried and almost non-existent as she had made it so. But Gohama could no longer stop it from leaking in between her crevasses, from crawling, poisonous and chilling, from her core into her veins, nerves and lungs, as it reached her skin. It had been so discreet, so treacherously gradual, she hadn't sensed it until it was freezing all her flesh.

What had made it stir? Her coming to Konoha four years ago? The constant cold face of death? The raw fear of losing her new precious people? A new misplaced piece that Kakashi's guilt had always screamed was there, but she hadn't listened. Now it screamed again, but she couldn't pin point which one it was, or even if it existed. Her life wasn't built into an ordered shape, but every chaotic or missing arrangement had their rightful and explained place. But not that piece.

Gohama had already decided to leave it quiet until after the mission. Still, it loomed and fought for dominance against all her other worries.

Her spirit was marked with the eerie feeling of the whistle of a firework bound to explode with no warning, or a storm hoarding in the sky ready to burst over the earth at any moment. The anxious anticipation for an unknown and violent release that would either wipe out or clean all. She felt like a caged bird sensing an earthquake and nowhere to escape.

A soft voice brought her back to the table. "You should eat something, Gohama. We have a mission." Hansuke said pushing the plate closer to her and careful enough so the others wouldn't notice their exchange.

She gave a flimsy glance at the others and her eyes caught Kakashi's aloof eye on her. He had stared so often into her that Gohama's senses had become used to the weight. Hadn't their conversations satisfied whatever he was searching for? With a slight narrowing of her eyes that made him look away, she turned down to her plate. Hansuke was right and, to ease his concern, she forced the probably tasty food down her throat. Her stomach didn't seem pleased, but her body would be thankful for it later.

Gohama was dressed in a tight-fitting elastic t-shirt and tight black pants. The fitted fabric would make less noise. On her ankle was hidden her tanto and her back held the empty sheath for her tachi. She pulled and secured the leather glove, with uncovered fingers, that almost reached her elbow. She ceremoniously tapped its metal protector with her knuckles. It replaced the lighter forearm guard she always wore as a means to hide her jinchuriki seal. This time, she took her Buki hitai-ate from her waist and wrapped it around her bicep.

"I love you in assault clothes." Hansuke commented. Gohama looked over her shoulder to find him leaning against the bathroom doorframe and admiring her as she secured her straps.

She turned fully towards him with a smirk. "You don't look so bad yourself, Suke."

Gohama walked towards him, her arms extended to wrap around his neck, but a firm hold around her waist kept her from breaking their distance. "You weren't up last night because of what I said?"

Her arms dropped away from him. She really didn't want to have a conversation about her sleepless night now. "No."

"Just talk to me, Gohama…" Frustration was dripping from his tone. He already knew she was going to shut him away. "Is it the mission? Is it Kakashi? Akatsuki? Us?"

"It's nothing."

"Nothing, Gohama? Nothing? You've been acting weird all this mission. First I thought it was because of Hatake, but things seem better now and you're still weird. It's not nothing."

Gohama pulled away from his hold and moved to leave the room. "Can we not do this right before the crucial part of our S-rank mission."

His hand pushed the door back closed over her head. "If not now when? When we go back to Konoha and you've already managed to bury whatever is bothering you? You're such a hypocrite sometimes. You always ask me to talk to you, to be honest and open and even after four years you can never come to me."

Her closed fist stretched the leather of her glove and Gohama spun around on her feet to face him. "Maybe I don't come to you because you never listen, Hansuke."

His eyebrows shot up in outrage. "I never listen? All I do is listen!"

"No. You listen to what you want to listen to. I've told you this so many times but you never fucking listen. You're doing it right now, Hansuke, forcing this discussion on us when I'm asking you not to, when it won't do us any good now."

"I'm only doing this because it's the best for you."

Gohama let out a dry chuckle. "No, you think it's the best for me, but it isn't. See what I'm talking about? You always do whatever you think it's best for us and for me, but you never listen to what I think. Now can you just quit it, so we can focus on assaulting and blowing up an enemy compound and assassinating a fucking S-rank nin?"

"So it's the mission, isn't it? You're scared. Gohama, you don't have to worr—"

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Hansuke, don't start with the unfounded, foolish reassurance."

"Don't be mean when I'm just trying to help."

"But it doesn't help! At all! Where's your listening, Hansuke? I'm tired of you always pushing, always nagging me."

"It's called worrying about you, Gohama."

"Why can't you just give me space?"

"Space?!" His fist hit the wall and she jolted away. "Really, Gohama? Do I not give you enough space? You won't even let me touch you in public, isn't that space!?"

"I can't believe you're bringing this up right now…" She mumbled as her fingers rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I never deceived you, Hansuke. From the start I told you what you were in for. Every time I give you a way out and every time you keep staying. You chose this, it makes you a fool, but it's always your choice."

"Yes, I chose and I keep choosing, but all I'm asking is that I'm not the only one compromising in this relationship."

"I also compromise. I need my team leader right now, I need my teammate and you can only be my lover, Hansuke. And it's amazing when we're alone and left in peace, but that's not our life, that's just little breaks. My life is this, the field, the survival, the duty, and I need my teammate above all, but since we're together all you can be is my lover. I had to compromise my teammate for us."

"You're so unfair, Gohama! We work well together as a team, I never stopped being your teammate."

"Last mission, when we were almost dying, who did you run to, Hansuke? I made you promise you'd put them before me, but you—And don't tell me it was because I needed assistance more than them. We both know that wasn't the reason. Fuck, even they know!" Her arm extended to point to the bedroom wall they shared with the boys. "They also need their teammate, Hansuke, their sensei."

"Gohama, where are you going with this…"

"I'm not going anywhere. I still want to be with you, I never stopped wanting that, but you… I'll never resent you, if you leave and find a woman that deserves you, Hansuke, that's on the same page as you, that wants to build a future with you and… loves you. But I also don't have it in me to leave…"

"We have a future together, Gohama." She rolled her eyes. Marriage wasn't a future together if he was the only one wishing for it. "Our dream of going back home, being on our bed, together." Her eyes shot up to his, as he gazed down at her, tenderly and lovingly, not a drop of anger or resentment in his hazel; it ached. She did want that. "That's all the future I want, Gohama, because it's with you. It's simple."

Hansuke was a fool and Gohama was too selfish and that was what kept them together.

"We were both such fools in the beginning. It's not simple. You know it's not simple, Hansuke. It never was." She turned on her heel and reaching for the doorknob, before he could say anything else. "We have a mission, Taicho."

"Give me your stomach."

Kakashi frowned and tilted his head, as he took a step closer to her. "That sounds very weird." She didn't answer, only reaching her hand to press it over his chakra core and manipulating his vital energy into hiding. "You know… I understand that it's a clan technique but… are you open to teaching it to me? No pressure. Just a request, I suppose."

Gohama slid down the closet's wall and rested her head against it. They would have to wait at least two hours for her team to lay the explosives in that tiny closet, just because they didn't want to risk two squads breaching the compound at different times.

"Only if you ask properly." Kakashi's answer was to frown confusedly at her. "The magic words, Kakashi."

"Maa, what are these magic words that can break even Kyura Gohama's stubbornness?"

She narrowed her eyes on him. "Didn't your mother teach them to you?"

Her joke fell heavily in the quiet, packed closet. He looked away from her, to some lost point above her head, and she looked down and away, so that her hair fell over her face. But she was wearing a braid this time and the blush from her misstep was clear to him if he decided to look.

Gohama knew very little about Kakashi, she couldn't have known his mother had died that soon in his life, but still… what a stupid thing to say to a shinobi. It was always safer to assume everyone was dead until proven otherwise. And considering there was no other Hatake besides the man sitting in front of her, it was obvious he had no family left.

"My father did." There was clear surprise in her eyes when she met his creased one, the mask at the corners of his mouth creasing too. His words were subtle and open, they made her smile back. "But I was too much of a brat to actually learn."

Gohama chuckled. Of course, Kakashi had been a brat as a kid. "You can start now."

"You're actually making me say it." She offered him a cheeky nod. "Can you teach me how to hide my chakra…" He cleared his throat and chocked out almost silently, "please."

Her smile spread into a full, satisfied grin. "It could be better but I won't torture you anymore. I'll teach you, with one condition."

When she didn't specify, he asked, "What do you want, woman?"

Her finger pointed to his hitai-ate. "Use that freaky eye on me."

"Usually people want to stay as far away from the freaky eye as possible."

"I've always been curious about the sharingan."

"Curiosity killed the cat."

"I doubt you'll try to kill me with it, killing a comrade is usually very frowned upon in Konoha. So, will you do it?"

"The sharingan is a weapon not a toy."

"Then I should be prepared for when I fight against the most powerful weapon, don't you think so, Copy-nin?"

"Ah, more powerful than the Kyura chakra, then?" He teased.

"My pride doesn't affect my sense of reality."

Something about his expression made her certain he disagreed, but before Gohama could defend herself, he spoke, "Okay."

"It's not a clan technique, by the way. Shinobi with great chakra control can learn it by themselves; it's just easier when there's someone to teach you when you're young."

The minutes passed by as they waited, while playing twenty-one questions. With the first hour came the buzzing of their radio earpiece and it made Gohama's heart jump. Hansuke's voice spoke distorted with static. The first two sets of exploding tags had been laid, two more to go.

"Is it behind me?"

"Yes."

Her head rolled against the cold wall. "Surface?"

"No."

"Obstacle?"

"No."

Her eyes skimmed through the wall again and her fingers pressed against it, taking in every little detail. It was a banal wall. "Irregularity."

"Only three left."

"Fissure."

"Nope."

"Fuck."

"Also no."

"Shut up, Hatake. Corner."

"No. One more."

"Texture!"

Kakashi chuckled and his eye crinkled in a smile, as he spoke his firm and slow, "No. You lose. Again."

Her foot kicked his boot. "Shut up. What was it?"

Cockiness exuded out of him and he took his time relishing in his victory. She kicked him on the shin. "Wall."

"Are you serious, Hatake? You go from harmony, to fuchi, which shouldn't count because I didn't even know that thing had a name, to density and then wall." She chuckled and shook her head in dismay. "Fucking wall."

"I know how to play the game."

"I know too. Go ahead, I've thought of a thing."

"Maa," Kakashi started as he pulled his book out of his back pouch. "we've played enough."

Gohama's jaw tightened. She couldn't bear an entire hour of silence and emptiness ready to be filled with worrying thoughts. Her fight with Hansuke was still fresh in her mind, supplanting most of her lunchtime worries, except for the constant twitch of her muscles to every little sound, as her mind invented the shrill of an alarm.

"One more." He continued to look down at his Icha Icha, changing a page with mocking nonchalance. "Then let me read." Another turned page and one of those creepy giggles. "Read it out loud." He continued to ignore her with that trained easiness he used on everyone, including herself for two years. "Kakashi. Please." The word left her throat with the same spat choke as before with him.

This time his grey eye looked up from the page, almost as piercing as Kisamaru's byakugan. It was clear now, he had heard her fight with Hansuke. Gohama knew Kisa knew, but now also did Nikato. They knew of their failure of a relationship. "I'm bored."

"This is an S-rank. Stop whining and keep your senses sharp. You're our sensor."

Gohama kept the indignation down. She knew he was right. This was a mission, light games to pass time where one thing, actively searching a distraction from another distraction was another thing.

And so they stayed silent. The excruciating whisper of a firework tearing through the air, never ending, as she waited for the explosion to come as the sound of an alarm. The radio crackled in her ear and she jerked. "One more set to go. No problems so far. You can start moving." Hansuke's voice said.

"Copy that. Over."

Her finger moved on its own as it pressed the small button on her neck. "Be careful, Suke."

"You too, Gohama." That softness he always had with her reaching deep into her chest. "Over."

Her head rolled back on the wall as she shut her eyes to rub them. When had things become so fucked? After a long heavy sigh, Gohama stood up, ready to leave that cramped up, stuffy closet. Her chakra sense had already told her there was no one near a 200 meters radius.

Before she could twist the knob, Kakashi said behind her. "You're not a half, Gohama. I've seen you with your team and your friends. And you're definitely not half Buki."

But she was half Konoha. Her fingers twitched to the vial of antidote on her thigh pouch, right next to the poisoned senbon. Once they were outside Furuta's office, a path of perfected stealth behind them, her team at a safe distance of the compound and the explosives ready to blow out the building, her fingers twitched again, ready to reach for the vial, as her other hand tightened around the poisoned senbon. Furuta was hers and she needed him alive. Kakashi was right in one thing, Gohama wasn't half Buki.

Kakashi rested his hand on the doorknob and looked straight at her and she looked back. When the lock in the door clicked, they were already inside the office, senbon tearing through the air. With dry thuds and the ringing of metal, they fell on the table. Kakashi didn't let the block of their surprise attack stop his momentum, as he flickered behind Furuta, who met the deadly swings of his kunai with one of their senbon. Gohama was ready to assist her teammate, when he was thrown against the wall.

A gush of air made her dark strands tickle against her cheeks, as an icy brutal chakra thrust through the nerves of her front. Before she could avoid Furuta, he already had a tight grip on her hair and a senbon pressed to her throat. His two clear blue eyes, almost milky, almost blind, shone with crazed amusement, curiosity. They sent shivers crawling down her spine, but she didn't take her defiant ones way from the madness lurking in, jumping out of the light blue to catch her.

"You won't kill me."

The corner of his thin lip twisted. "No. But I will do other things." The point of the senbon bit her skin. With a fluid twirl of his fingers, he laid the metal on the flat of his tongue, swiping it through her drop of blood. Furuta neared her ear, his high timber shrieking inside her head as he whispered, "Better things."

Why did the completely deranged ones always have a thing for tormenting her? With a renewed need of being far away from him, she summoned a kunai onto her hand and tried to stab him before the senbon could near her throat again. In response, he moved away, freeing her from his hold. Kakashi was attacking him again immediately. Gohama joined him, matching their skill with his speed.

Her senses trembled with the feel of several signatures. "There are others approaching."

Without hesitation, Kakashi pressed the button on his radio-set. "Blow it." he ordered.

Gohama snapped her eyes to his. It was obvious Furuta unsettled Kakashi just as much as he did to her, but this would ruin her chances of interrogating him.

"Copy." Came Hansuke's steady voice before she could intervene.

In a second, the echo of a loud blast reached them. The building shook, but she didn't ease her blows on Furuta. Kakashi grabbed her arm, just as another explosion rocketed through the walls, this one closer. Uproar broke outside the office and the chakra signatures kept on moving towards them, but their chaos was clear. Gohama spread chakra through the surface of her bicep just as Kakashi started manhandling her, and with a hiss he pulled away.

Another explosion, violent and close and terrifying. She formed a chakra field around her teammate and threw him out the window. Her arms imprisoned Furuta against her chest with a chakra-powered grip, her senses making sure it was his full chakra on her flesh. It was. She circled them both with another blue shield of energy and jumped out the window, just as the last explosion hit the foundations of the building. The blast shoved them in the air and, even with her chakra cover, they fell hard on the ground, the entire weight of the nin, crushing her torso.

Her ears hurt with the constant ring inside her head and she couldn't stop the automatic motion of bringing her hands to them. Her chest ached too, but she pushed through the pain and disorientation. Kakashi was fast at reaching them. The sound of crumbling concrete, shouts and stabbing ring wouldn't let her distinguish his words.

"What?" she yelled.

"Orders. Fuck. Why. Him. Die." The small fragments of his voice sounded like a quiet echo, as the tendons in his neck jumped out with his words.

Gohama glanced down at her hands and realised there was no S-rank missing nin in them. Her head spun around, her eyes gliding indifferently over the destroyed compound. In the mess, she could pinpoint Furuta's chakra signature, almost drowned by the other enemies. Her heels pushed against the ground and she was up, one step forward and her hands met the grass again. Her balance hadn't gone back to normal, but she pushed through, even if she had to chase him down on her knees.

"Come back! Gohama!" His voice was still muffled, but she could hear him better now and it urged her on.

Moving through the mass of missing-nin, using her chakra to carelessly push them away from her path, Gohama ran behind that eerie chakra signature. The sound of metal clashing and angry shouts started behind her, but she didn't care. She didn't care about the mission, she didn't care about Kakashi. The answer to the misplaced piece was escaping through her fingers and she wouldn't let it run away. She screamed internally, searching for strength to keep on pushing the ground under her. Somehow, she was catching up on Furuta's superior speed.

"Furuta! You fucking coward! Fight me!"

The sinister nin started laughing hysterically, excitedly. His sharp blue eyes glanced over his shoulder towards her, the madness seeping in waves. "I killed Kyura Aiko!" he cheered, as he kept running from her. Her heart sank and her will ignited. Another heart to crush, all her being shouted, as her muscles gained strength and speed. Another heart to crush. "I killed Kyura Haruto! And Ryo and Kuro and Umeke…"

The faces of her clansmen flashed through her eyes, each spoken name stabbed through her chest. She knew them all. She had let them all die. Because of her, because of her. Fury and pain circled through her body, boiling her racing blood, enraging her fervent chakra.

Gohama knew he was alluring her, she knew he wanted her to follow him. She didn't care. She welcomed it, because it would make things easier for her, because it would present his heart in a bone platter for her to wrap her fingers around the still beating flesh and squeeze, squeeze until he stopped laughing that maniac, satisfied laugh and started begging, a little more strength in her hold and squishing and another begging shout, the madness giving place to despair, and, when his voice was raw from screaming, she would close her fist and blood and flesh would splutter through the gaps between her fingers, his body falling limp and a hole in his chest from where she could peek to the trees on the other side.

Her expression contorted as the lust for blood trembled through her skin. In a frantic spur of chakra, waves of summoned kunai and shuriken flew towards the back running away from her fervent hand. Her fingers shook in anticipation and now she was throwing chakra as he evaded it, as his repulsive throat, his crazed tongue kept rolling the names of her clansmen.

Another chakra entered her sensorial camp. Kakashi. She didn't want him there. How had he caught up with them? Was the team fighting the survivors from the explosions? She didn't care. Her being was only on the fleeting back, on the maniac litany of names. Kakashi had been right. Gohama wasn't half Buki. Gohama was a full Kyura, Gohama was a full Arms shinobi, Gohama was a full weapon. Finally, she was full in something and her chest shouted and shuddered in hate, lust and life and so many things she thought she would burst.

"Gohama! Don't be stupid, he wants you to follow him." Kakashi yelled from afar. "Wait for reinforcements. Gohama!"

They were approaching the cliffs that separated Fire from Hot Water. What was waiting for them there? Where did Furuta want her? It didn't matter. Her Kyura chakra was burning inside her pathways, begging to be let free, she would devastate anything that came her way.

"Aiko and Haruto! I killed Ryo! I killed Kuro and Umeke! I killed Aiko and Haruto! I ki—" the litany finally seized when a blow hit him.

In an instant, Gohama was behind him as he fell over the edge of the valley separating the two countries. Furuta didn't try to run. He lay on the ground, a triumphant leer spreading his mouth, showing off his white straight teeth, as icy as his eyes.

"I didn't just kill them. I also killed their—"

"Shut up!" she growled.

"…families, their kids and siblings and lovers."

"I said shut up!" she yelled.

"And with all of them I took my time."

"Get up and fight me." The blood from his side was starting to soak through his clothes. "Up!"

With a hand supporting his stomach, Furuta obeyed. He had that creepy smile still plastered on his face and it only spurred her rage into action. Her fist connected with his cheek and she felt both their bones shatter, the pain riding up her arm and making her shiver, blood spurting from his face. Gohama smiled, as she pulled her fist back once more, before she could swing it with double the force, a hand grabbed her wrist.

"Our mission is to assassinate him." Kakashi spoke behind her and she shook his hold off.

"We can interrogate him. He's not even fighting back." Gohama turned back to face that excuse of a shinobi. "How are you even considered S-rank? I've met genin with more fight in them."

"There's more about being a shinobi than fighting, but I guess you Kyura could never see pass that."

Another punch, so hard it made her stumble with the momentum and grunt from the pain. There was something incredibly satisfying about not using chakra. "Don't you dare speak my clan's name again."

Still, Furuta straightened back up with his disconcerting leer. "You're going to have to punch harder if you want me to suffer what the Kyura I touched suffered."

This time, she summoned her tachi and pointed the tip of the blade to his chest. His confidence didn't waver. She was ready to cut through his skin, to see the blood ooze off his gash, to hear the sound it made when it dripped on the soil. His words stopped her wrist's motion.

"It's a pity I didn't get to kill your father, though." He was glaring at Kakashi with his mad eyes. "Quite a pity, don't you think, Hatake?" Kakashi stayed quiet but his chakra swayed and Furuta let out a shrill, high pitch giggle. "I was so happy when I saw the daughter of Kyura Inaku and the Copy-nin working together. And how well you fight together, what a moving, amusing sight. But it will be a much more lovely sight to watch you fight against each other." The comments confused her, but she didn't dwell on it. He seemed to fish for anything that could torment her. "I bet you'll pierce her heart with your raikiri." His smirk was set only on Kakashi now. "For old times' sake."

Before Gohama could register the change in the air, Furuta was already rolling through the ground, leaving a trail of dust behind him, and Kakashi was straightening from his punch. He hadn't dismissed chakra enhanced strength, the remains of the electric spike still crackling in her skin.

"He's mine." Gohama shoved him, as she ran to reach Furuta. "I'll kill you if you get in my way."

"Gohama, he's stalling us for something. We need to finish him soon."

"Get up and fight me, you fucking coward."

Another smirk. "None of them fought me. Aiko didn't fight me when I cut her boy into tiny pie—"

She kicked his face and his stomach, she kicked every centimetre of his body and he laughed in between grunts of pain. With each rumble of his throat, Gohama kicked more and more. Her foot feeling every detail of the flesh and bone giving away under her force, her own grunts of effort and hate joining his.

She didn't even sense when her team arrived, her perception cut off by the overwhelming rage of her chakra bursting through the ends of her pathways, even if she didn't put it behind her blows. Her ears were drowning in the roar inside her head, her eyes stinging and blurred with the images of her clansmen, her uncles, aunts and cousins. Dead and defeated and tattered and here she was alive and too late. She was too late.

"Gohama…" Hansuke called, but she didn't stop her merciless beating. She still had so much more to do to him before she could finally feel the sweet squish of his heart in her hand.

Her ribs moved with her heavy breathing as she finally stopped and his was ragged and wet, the blood gurgling in his throat. She unsheathed her tachi in a sly movement. "If you won't fight, I can start my interrogation right away." she said pointing the tip of the blade onto his throat. "Are you Akatsuki?"

He giggled again. "I shouldn't be the one being interrogated."

With a twirl of the handle in her fingers, her blade stabbed through his knee and this time he let out a small scream that made her lips twist in a smile.

"You fund Akatsuki. Are you one of them?"

He laughed again and she pressed her foot onto his wound, sliding it from side to side, making sure the ligaments cracked under the motion. "You have to do better than that." She stabbed his other knee, his right shoulder and then his left one. "More."

Her hands moved through several seals. Gohama had a set of torturing genjutsu saved for this same situation. Furuta started writhing on the ground, his shrieking as piercing as his creepy giggle, and she watched him thrash.

"Gohama, that's enough, you're acting crazy." Nikato said as he took a step towards her.

"This is not nearly enough." She upped the potency of the genjutsu for a few more minutes. Her ears relishing in the sharp, pained noises coming from the filth at her feet. "Dazai Fukosu said Akatsuki told them not to kill any Kyura. You killed Kyura that night. I repeat, are you Akatsuki?"

His pale blue eyes opened to stab through her own, that infuriating leer still stuck to his mouth. She would cut it out of his face if she had to. "Oh, poor thing. Not only Akatsuki killed Kyura that night. You should ask your tea—"

"Gohama, this is going nowhere." Hansuke interrupted and he had the boldness of actually walking towards her. "He isn't Akatsuki, he works for them, but the Akatsuki wear black cloaks with red clouds. And they don't just give up on fighting."

Another giggle bubbled up his throat, rough from the screaming. "I haven't given up. I'm waiting for the real battle."

"Gohama, don't listen to him. He's messing with you." Hansuke pleaded, as he tried to rest a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off before it touched her. "Just complete the mission."

"I'm not the one messing with you, Kyura. It's them." he started laughing again. "When I saw you and Hatake, it made me so pleased."

There it was again, that comment, and it made dread freeze through her veins.

"The mission…"

"Shut up, Giranai!" Gohama growled and something in her voice must have worked, because he stepped back from her. "Tell me the names of the ninja that slaughtered the Arms."

Furuta's lips stretched in a victorious, mischievous smile as his blue eyes shone, the madness behind them turning into cunning. The dread was spreading, but the burning eagerness to know the truth ruled higher. "I'll tell you because you asked nicely, Kyura. Better. I'll tell you who killed your father."

Gohama's heart jumped in her chest. This had to be the great eerie explosion she had been anticipating, the missing piece falling into place. Her pulse throbbed in her mouth, her stomach twisted in desire for the information she had been craving for eleven years. Eleven years and it was laying at her feet, powerless, defeated and willing. Nothing would take that away from her.

Hansuke lunged himself into a quick attack and Gohama blocked him with a chakra wall. "Get back!" she ordered.

"Don't listen to him, Gohama."

"Why not? He clearly has information I want."

"I'm ordering you as team leader to retreat from the target." Hansuke said with his strict, unyielding tone.

She looked over her shoulder, her voice as firm as his. "I follow the Arms before the Leaf."

She had never deceived anyone on that and yet she could feel the dismay and outrage oozing off her teammates. Nikato had his dark eyes round and wide, just as his owls. Kisamaru looked straight through her with an activated byakugan, no surprise there, just disappointment. Hansuke had his face tilted down, but she could see his closed fist shaking at his side. Only Kakashi stood unchanged, resignation drooping his eyes even more.

When she turned back to her target, his swollen face could still pull off the eerie smirk, with amusement, even victory reaching out to her in a grasp that made her dread freeze colder. "Such edginess." Furuta commented while giving a dramatic shake of his head. "But I understand. After all... Konoha was behind..."

"Gohama!" Hansuke shouted, a cutting desperation she had never heard ripping his throat.

"…the massacre too."

A blade sharpened, a flower withered and her heart cracked.

I am a bit of a cruel sadist with Gohama, but I wanted to write about some themes related to the ninja world (mental health problems, PTSD, indoctrination, torture, memory interrogation, seduction missions, etc...) on top of the angsty base storyline I already had before. So, it all ended up falling onto her.

I have a path laid out for the rest of the story, but I'm also tempted to diverge from that and go really dark. Either way, get ready for angst and all that jazz.

Thanks for reading, please review, and stay safe!