a note from the desk of ethereal damsel
Okay, renovation part 2...I rewrote the hospital scene and completely kicked Itachi out of the story. If you just started reading Catalyst, the next few chapters won't make much sense because I've compressed a few chapters, so just bear with me here...
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. The only characters I own are Kanzaki Kaya and her relations, Kirei and assorted children and adults from the Village Hidden in the Clouds, and Aoyama Kiyoshi.
That evening, Team 7 walked home together.
"Thank you for the ramen. It was the best I ever tasted," said Kaya gratefully.
"I'm glad you liked it, Kaya," Naruto said, grinning widely. "I told you Ichiraku's was the best."
"So, you will be training with us tomorrow, then?" asked Sakura. "Yes, actually. My parents have gone away on…business, and they are friends of Kakashi-san's. He agreed to take care of my training while they are gone, for their trip will be long-term, they said."
"You sound as if you don't know what this business of your parents is."
"You're right, they didn't tell me. As you can see from my forehead protector, I am of the Village of Cloud. They are Jounins there, and cannot always tell me of their missions. I suspect that this one is an A-rank…"
"You're from the Village of Cloud?" Naruto asked enthusiastically. "That's in the Country of Lightning, isn't it? Do you use Lightning Element ninjutsu?"
"Yes."
"Cool! You'll have to show it to me sometime."
"Sure," said Kaya, laughing. At least one of her temporary team members was nice to her, even if he was a bit brash. "Well, Kakashi-san found me a place to stay. I'm going to head home now."
Being, as Kaya had said, a friend of the Kanzaki family, Kakashi had managed to secure Kaya a little house on the outskirts of the village along with some simple furnishings. That evening, she sat at her desk of cherry wood, writing away the afternoon hours. Her temporary home was small, with only one bedroom. It suited her just fine, though. She thought it felt cozier, less empty that way. There was a little feather bed in one corner, and a desk and chair were in the other, with a tiny crimson paper lantern above.
She thought about the members of Team 7. Naruto was rambunctious, but genial nonetheless. Sakura was a bit too flirtatious for Kaya's liking, but Kaya wasn't one to judge. Sasuke, however, seemed indifferent to nearly everyone's existence.
The next day, the collective members of Team 7 congregated at the village bridge and awaited their ever-tardy Sensei, Kakashi. Kaya looked off into the meadows beyond the river as she waited, a pensive expression on her face.
"What are you thinking of, Kaya?" Sakura asked of her curiously.
"Oh...Konoha is a wonderful village. I am privileged to be here. But I worry about my parents."
Suddenly, Kakashi appeared in a puff of sooty smoke. Naruto and Sakura turned upon him to berate him of his lateness, when they saw that his expression was grim.
"Kaya," he said solemnly, "I need to speak with you. Alone."
He led her to the edge of the wood beyond the bridge, out of earshot of the other Genins. Kaya watched him anxiously, for he was looking at her with an expression that vaguely conveyed pity.
"Kaya," he said again, as though he believed his summons to have fallen on deaf ears.
"What is it, Kakashi-san?"
"Your parents are…dead."
"What?"
"They were slain during an A-rank recon mission in the Sound."
"No…"
Kakashi looked at the young girl remorsefully. A crow cawed mournfully somewhere. But she heard nothing.
Kaya drifted in and out of consciousness, enduring a brief and disconcerting half-life of feverish, muttering voices.
"Kaya?" This one was a boy's voice, a deep one. "Kaya?" Her eyelids were so heavy, and the bed was so warm…should she not sleep a little longer, and be enveloped by it? But no, she was so close to being conscious this time…she opened her eyes.
She was in a hospital ward with tiled floors and blank white walls. There were packets of instant ramen littering her stiff white sheets. And in a chair at the side of her bed was the boy with the tousled raven hair.
"Oh, good, you're awake," he said. "You've been out for almost two days." Kaya stared dazedly at him for a few moments before remembering the grievous tidings Kakashi had brought her.
And then she wept. She wept long and quietly, though she wished to wail aloud, to scream, to writhe and flail at her stiff white sheets, and to continue this cycle of anguish unto the ending of the world.
All this time, Sasuke watched her almost unblinkingly, transfixed.
Soon however, she collapsed back onto her bed, unshed tears still shining in eyes too weak to shed them. She bit her lip so hard that it bled, and suddenly turned her head towards Sasuke.
"Sometimes I feel there is naught that I can do; that I am destined to forever be weak," she said to him hoarsely. "What use is anything but pure brutality in this world?"
Sasuke continued to stare at her.
"But I cannot say such things," she admonished herself. "I cannot even allow myself to think such things. Because in turning upon those you hate in like manner in which they turn upon you, you become no better than they, and perhaps worse. It has always been so."
And with those final words, she silently drifted back into her fitful slumber.