a note from the desk of ethereal damsel
Renovation Part 3: I've gotten rid of the whole mission to find Konohamaru's cat thing; that was really just filler and served no real purpose. At the time I started this fic, I had just started watching Naruto and still hadn't understood the nuances of all the characters' personalities, so I wasn't sure what to write. Therefore, I bided my time with filler. Crappy filler. I've also redone the whole target practice thing, so Sasuke seems a lot more in-character now.
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.
When Kaya opened her eyes again, the entirety of Team 7 stood before her. She smiled feebly at them.
"Kakashi-sensei told us of your…loss," said Sakura. "We are sorry."
"Th—thank you," Kaya stammered, her voice trembling. "Kakashi-san…is there any chance that you might know…how it happened?"
"They had informed me that they were going on an A-ranked mission in the Sound Country," replied Kakashi. "It was supposed to be a simple reconnaissance mission for your mother and the conclusion to a long and tiring search for your father. Unfortunately, some of Orochimaru's spies discovered their operation, and they were ambushed, along with their companions. Everyone was killed."
Kaya's lip trembled, but she held back her tears. "I see," she said levelly. This is the way of the ninja. To face tragedy with stoicism.
"All that was recovered was this," said Kakashi, handing Kaya a trench coat with large brown stains on it. "It was cleaned, but not all the stains could be removed."
"I see," Kaya said flatly again, taking it in her hands. She noticed with a pang of grief that Kakashi had purposefully neglected to say that the large brown stains were the dried blood of her parents. This was her mother's jacket.
"Kaya," began Kakashi again, "Some time before you were born, the Cloud and the Leaf were allies. When I was in the ANBU, your mother and I went on many missions together and became good friends. When she married your father and you were born, they entrusted me with your life should anything happen to them, as I was the family's greatest friend. There were none to take their place, for they were the last of the Kanzaki clan."
"Yes…I too was informed of this."
"Well, due to the circumstances upon us, I'll be taking you under my wing. You'll be a Konoha ninja and a member of Team 7." He handed Kaya a Konoha hitai-ate.
"Very well." She took down her long hair and tied her new hitai-ate in the place of the old one, as a barrette. The old one she tied snugly around her left arm, and slipped her mother's jacket on over top of it.
"I'll be expecting you at the village bridge tomorrow."
"Goodbye…Sensei."
The next few weeks passed swiftly, as ripples in a rapidly moving stream. Everything seemed to fleet by to Kaya; the good times and the bad seemed to run off of her as water does a rock. She tried to be happy, to smile now and again. And she was happy, and she did smile, now and again. But she always carried with her the ponderous stone that was her grief, and wore her mother's coat. And no matter the task, her thoughts were always drawn back to her parents.
They had been more precious to her than her own life. Her mother had been a member of the reconnaissance unit of the Cloud and her father had been a hunter-nin. Her mother had taught her all she knew of information gathering and scouting tactics and Kaya had admired her in the highest regard. Due to his prodigious skill, her father became one of the highest ranking hunter-nin in the history of Lightning Country, and thus could never show his face, even in the village. She'd never seen his face, only the amber eyes that stared intensely from the slits of his mask. When she was very small, she would laugh at it; it made him look like some sort of harlequin! A sad clown with no face, only a façade of pale wood striped with crimson. Despite this, she and her parents had been a close-knit trio. But no more.
This is the way of the ninja. To face tragedy with stoicism. She ever repeated this proverb of the first Raikage to herself, and strove to uphold it, but she could not stem the flow of the tears that streamed down her cheeks into the small hours of the morning. She tried writing her emotions away, but stories would not flow from her trembling hands. She tried tiring her eyes and forgetting the world by reading, but the noblest heroes of her favorite yarns could not deliver her. Finally tired by a sluggish despair, she fell into a fitful slumber each night, praying for the dawn.
One day, Kaya arrived at the village bridge to find that Sakura and Naruto were not there.
"Sensei," she asked curiously, "where are Naruto-kun and Sakura?"
"Well, Sakura's sick and I asked Naruto to run a quick errand for me. You and Sasuke can go and train on your own for a while."
"Should I set up the targets in that clearing in the pines not far from here so that we can have a target practice?"
"Excellent idea, Kaya. I'll just wait here for Naruto's return…"
So the two of them set off and began the day's training. Kaya pulled both kunai and shuriken from her pouch and holster, attempting all the different methods of attack she had read in the textbook Kakashi had lent her. There really were endless possibilities, what with all the different twitches of arm and shoulder muscles that determined whether the weapon hit the target directly, at a curve, or whether it hit it at all. Kaya knew that she was partaking in the most basic skills training. These were the fundamentals that the academy had pounded into them from day one, but there was always room for improvement. Weapons such as these were not only utilized as a single unit; they oftentimes became part of a much larger, elaborate plan, a plan of such a nature that she and her teammates' lives depended on it.
She tried to drown her thoughts in the myriad attack formations and stratagems she had learnt from Kakashi's book, but memories of the practices she had undergone with her mother continually surfaced. She found that her hands were shaking, and she could not master herself. So she sat upon the ground, head in hands.
"Kaya?" said Sasuke, putting away his weapons and approaching her. But she could not answer him, for she knew her voice would tremble and she would not show such weakness…This is the way of the ninja. To face tragedy with stoicism…but her tears were already welling at an alarming rate.
"Kaya?" he repeated, with a slight note of concern in his voice this time, for she had not yet lifted her head. Kaya then realized that she must say something to him. She lifted her head, her eyes shining with tears.
"I'm sorry you have to see me like this…if there is one way of the ninja I have not even begun to master, it is that of stoicism," she said finally, her voice trembling as she knew it would.
"There's no need to apologize," replied Sasuke flatly.
"Sorry. Er, I mean...never mind. You see, I used to undergo practices like this one with my mother, and just the thought of her…well, everything reminds me of my parents, really. Dawn, dusk, moonrise…" she trailed off, blushing. "I tend to lapse into poetry like that sometimes, I apologize."
"It really doesn't matter," said Sasuke.
"Have you ever lost someone you loved?"
Sasuke was silent. "Yes," he finally replied.
"These feelings of anguish and despair...they come to an end, do they not?"
"In time…I felt my heart harden. I found myself becoming something I never thought I'd be. As for your question, I cannot answer it. Only you know when you will finally be at peace. I know when I will be."
Kaya slowly stood up and brushed herself off.
"Thank you," she said, more firmly now. "You speak a truth that I could not see in the gloom of my bereavement."
"You're welcome."
And so the weeks passed. Kaya came to know Team 7 and each of the subtle nuances that graced their personalities. And they likewise came to know her. She began to understand the geography of Konoha and Fire Country. Although she ever carried with her the grief she had come to know so well, she rested easier at night.
And another feeling had developed within her. She could not explain how it had come into being; it had blossomed in secret, like a seed one sows absentmindedly within a plot of weeds and does not notice until it comes into flower. She thought of it incessantly, attempting in vain to analyze its origins.
Ever since the day she had spoken to Sasuke of her grief, she had felt strange around him. She caught herself gazing at him for abnormally long periods of time. She thought of him constantly. And if he so much as called her name, she could feel her face flush and her pulse quicken. She tried to dismiss it as her usual shyness, but she knew deep down that it was entirely different. Being but twelve years of age, she did not see it for what it was. Love.