Chapter 32

Temari (two weeks later, approximate time: 7:00 AM)

"I'm trying to find the last known location of the summoning contract for weasels. Stop sitting there and help me out a bit, will you?" Temari asked her brother, who for his part, was indeed attempting to help.

"Sheesh. Relax. If the contract was really lost like that, I don't think someone's going to be finding it anytime soon," Kankuro said, skimming the reports from the last war his sister earmarked with the words meaning "Summoning Jutsu."

"... The Summoning Jutsu's a powerful technique. I don't want to let this opportunity go to waste," she said in a slightly stressed rush. "You find anything yet?"

"Not yet…"

Katiya (approximate time: 10:00 AM)

Katiya walked down into a lab and began to pull supplies and herbs out to mix medications. It being a shinobi facility, pharmacists didn't exist. And it being a public lab, it was for really, someone rather unimportant in the medic's mind.

Temari (approximate time: 10:00 AM)

"I've got it!" Temari exclaimed, brandishing a ratty scroll.

"The Land of Rivers?" Kankuro asked, reading information skeptically. There was little in the Land of Rivers of any shinobi importance.

"Apparently there used to be a shinobi village there that fell. And where the records of a potential summoning scroll for weasels suddenly stop."

Kankuro gave his sister a look. The Land of Rivers, though smaller than the Land of Wind, was still a rather large area to search and "potential" didn't win any favors in Kankuro's mind. "So… what now, we run it by sensei?"

Temari gave her brother a look, hopeful. It was very likely they wouldn't be able to locate the scroll at all. "We'll search the remains of Tanigakure. It's got the highest chance of having the scroll. If we don't find it there… we'll call it off."

Katiya (approximate time: 10:30 AM)

"I noticed you've been avoiding the infirmaries," someone said beside her.

She startled. "Kabuto. You're back."

Kabuto bowed his head in confirmation of the obvious. "You know you can transfer divisions… Lord Orochimaru truly doesn't mind."

The one he was addressing lifted a brow.

"I'd probably recommend a position as a medic in the tokubetsu division—it'd give you more freedom to research your family's hiden than ambulatory care. Not to mention plenty of test subjects too, if you're suddenly in need of those," Kabuto continued, "Assuming you'd be staying with us long enough to make use of the resources..." he said, trailing off his last statement, almost knowingly.

Katiya scowled. She knew getting her to transfer divisions to do research was slowly trying to get her to request access to Curse Mark Jutsu formulae. Another way for Kabuto to more deeply entrench her into Orochimaru's schemes. To get her to stay when now, she was more on the fence about the decision than ever… Still, if she wanted to continue her mother's research… Would it be so bad? All I'd be doing is learning how to extend other peoples' lives… It'd be saving people…

"What makes you so sure I'm starting to hate the infirmaries?" she asked after a moment.

"Well, you're currently only an ambulatory care healer," Kabuto told her, "Being just that, you probably get tired of being barked at by people who'd probably die without you."

The statement had some resonance with the one it was made to. She found herself nodding. Healers were seldom valued when strength was measured by bloodlust. The point that it was something she wouldn't have to deal with working with Torture and Interrogation hung in the air. But a train of thought intruded back by itself "… Philosophies may not be hereditary, but that does not stop others from unknowingly practicing the same ones."

She frowned, mentally batting it, the thought, away. So what if a few more die for another's life? … Criminals, all of them, anyways… Didn't you do the same for your brother's, Itachi? My mother's jutsu could save lives if I learn it… What can your brother do? What makes you so sure you're not falling for your "Curse of Hatred"?

"And what does… a medic-nin in the torture industry do? … Heal?" Katiya asked rhetorically.

Kabuto smiled in a way such that it didn't meet his eyes. "The medical industry and 'torture industry' aren't that different, Katsu. After all, they both profit from others' pain. One just tends to have less regulations and more freedom."

Katiya—"Katsu"—did not respond immediately. An unspoken "unless…" hung in the air. Unless she intended to leave.

"Is the position for that of a healer or a torturer?" she asked eventually.

Kabuto shrugged in response. "Less regulations and more freedom. It could be about anything you want to make of it."

If I were to leave, where would I go now?

Katiya hummed once in acknowledgement. "And what if I don't know what I want?" she asked. Her mind flicked back to Itachi, the only person she had healed for a long time. The same, only, person for whom she was a healer for.

How do you know what you want, if not by who you are?

Kabuto tilted his head slightly to the side. The question was a rather layered one, but Kabuto only grasped the layer relating to Suna—Gaara. "As long as it doesn't kill you, I don't see why not to try it."

There was silence. Katiya knew Lord Orochimaru relied on changing hosts in order to live as long as he did. And she knew all manner of unethical ways to extend one's life existed, from her time in Oto. If she was successful, all she'd be doing… was saving lives in a counterintuitive but effective methodology. As she had always been, really.

But Katiya did not miss the fact that Kabuto gave no real response to either of her last two questions. Nor the one she had in her mind.

But what did that really matter? In the end, she was a healer to no one but criminals who only took more lives. She was a healer, yes. Yet effectively saving lives, she was not. Not as she was now. A healer to killers. Even to continue healing Itachi, the one person she had actually been attempting to heal, would have been to continue to heal yet another killer. But utilizing the tokubetsu division's resources as a researcher, she'd be able to gain greater power. She'd be able to use that power as she wished, to those who she wished, she rationalized. She'd be able to leave, later, if she did decide otherwise, she told herself.

"… I'll put in a request later today."

The medic-nin who spoke appeared to miss the fact that she herself was falling short of people she wished to use that power for, however.

Gaara (approximate time: 10:30 AM)

Gaara kept his head somewhat bowed (or glowering, depending on your interpretation) as his father delivered the overview of his next mission. A solo one. He was the only genin in the history of Sunagakure to take an official, if classified, B-rank mission.

His apathetic countenance matched near perfectly with the way he felt about the mission to Otogakure as a whole. Near perfectly. If not for the shy… eagerness, one supposes one can say, for the opportunity.

There was a knock on the Kazekage office door.

Kankuro (approximate time: 10:30 AM)

"Father?"

Kankuro swept his gaze around the office and pushed the door open for Temari. Baki-sensei was at attention behind Gaara. Gaara, staring rather intensely at the Lord Kazekage's chest.

"Baki-sensei, we've managed to locate evidence of the Weasel Summoning Contract in the Land of Rivers," Temari said, not addressing their father directly as she entered the room. Her eyes flicked marginally in her father's direction before continuing. "... A personal mission request's been filed. We're just waiting on permission to disembark."

"Sir—" Baki started.

The Lord Kazekage bowed his head in confirmation before Kankuro's sensei could finish his statement, whatever it might have been. Every mission, regardless of rank was being approved with barely a cursory glance and the acquisition of any resource would always be the benefit of Suna. The entire system of mission delegation, just in place to appease the Council in his father's eyes.

Kankuro's sensei swallowed his attempt to speak.

"Gaara. You're dismissed. You have until noon."

Kankuro looked on at the interaction in curiosity. Baki, after a moment, bowed in acceptance stiffly. Gaara had until noon for what?

Katiya (two weeks later, approximate time: 6:00 AM)

The rather speedy shift to the tokubetsu wards apparently came with a promotion. All the resources she could have possibly wanted to research her mother's jutsu suddenly appeared. Seemingly at her doorstep, if not literally. The wards were lined with prison cells, people. Expendables.

What appeared to be a pondering meanderer strolled the cells as its inhabitants groaned in agony.

She had passed out all the medications she had to pass out—marginally healed the wounds that needed to be marginally healed for the next round of whatever the prisoners would be doing—and still, they were crying out in agony. Begging for more. Ungrateful. Except this time, she could have ended it for them without anyone batting an eye.

But there was one cell she found she wouldn't mind making an exception for. She was a healer that healed no one, in the long run. Even the prisoners, she knew, would kill if it meant they'd be saved. She knew she would have done the same.

It was one cell's quiet inhabitants—a dirty lavender haired boy and a withered elder—that caught her attention. Between sixteen or eighteen years old. Probably older than what a "boy" would be. About her age, maybe even. But Lord Orochimaru did not pay that much attention to that when he locked the boy in. It was an odd sensation, but she found herself resonating better with the Otogakure prisoners than she did the Otogakure shinobi despite her newfound promotion. For that moment, at least.

"What's your name?" Katiya asked in a monotone whisper, bending down to where he was squatting beside a barely alive elder, as if attempting to care for the elder.

"I-I—" the boy tried before he involuntarily quivered.

After perhaps a second of the twitching, the boy returned to a rather defensive position beside the elder. The pair—the boy and elder—reminded her of a grandmother that had accepted her once before, seemingly in another life a long time ago. Katiya breathed the memory away.

"I won't hurt you. I'm a healer… Let me take a look." Katiya held her hands up placatingly as she watched him with weary eyes. Weariness from the entire situation, that was.

The boy was silent as he sucked in a breath and crawled back, his eyes watching her. Katiya pushed chakra into her hands. The Mystic Palm Jutsu.

Kankuro (approximate time: 6:00 AM)

Baki-sensei walked side by side with Temari, who for her part, seemed to have the route to the Land of Rivers memorized. Kankuro followed loosely behind his sensei. No one missed that Gaara was coincidentally no longer one of their number, but no one spoke a word about it.

Baki threw a look over his shoulder, an equal amount to when he had when Gaara himself would trail behind them. "Thinking about Gaara, sensei?" Kankuro asked neutrally.

Temari disrupted her gait by half a second to exchange glances with her brother. The look appeared to ask what Kankuro thought he was going on about. Kankuro didn't verbally or visually reply, waiting for his sensei. Temari turned to look at her sensei more carefully as well.

"Sens—?"

"—Gaara has been sent on his first solo mission, a B-rank recon mission to Otogakure."

B-rank?

"So… you're worried about him?" Kankuro asked.

The sensei gave his student a look. Kankuro gave him what could have been interpreted as a sheepish smile in return.

"... The threat to us at this time is minimal… but I worry for his mental stability… after his last interaction with Otogakure," the sensei responded.

Ah, Kankuro mentally grumbled with a downward twitch of his lip. "You're worried about what'd happen if he comes back?"

"... When... he comes back, I'm not sure how he'll take the next mission."

Ah, Kankuro mentally repeated. The Chunin Exams one. That's just great...

Katiya (approximate time: 6:05 AM)

It was the southeast Land of Waterfalls where she had met that aging grandmother after taking a shortcut to the region through the Land of Fire. After she had left the Land of Waves. "Reiki" the elderly woman was called—after the dubiously effective civilian attempt to replicate the healing Mystic Palm Jutsu.

Katiya had only stayed the night, at the grandmother's welcome. But the grandmother became the reason why Katiya had stayed in the Land of Waterfalls at all.

Temari (approximate time: 6:05 AM)

"Getting that summoning contract is going to be important for both of us…" Temari said as they walked on, the both of them now trailing their sensei.

Kankuro looked at his sister blankly.

"Don't you get it? The Chunin Exams—Baki-sensei won't be there for us. We have to start planning… now."

Kankuro outwardly grimaced. The detail further explained their sensei's worry. "That explains the extra training the Puppeteer Corp's been loading off on me. But what about the other teams going to the exams, sensei? The other teams—shouldn't Father be…" Kankuro trailed off. The word Kankuro was thinking about hardly seemed like a fair description of any emotion his father would feel about most of his shinobi.

"The Lord Kazekage has instructed the other sensei to prepare their teams as well. However, in the unlikely event any of them make it to the final round, they have also been instructed to forfeit to conserve energy for the invasion… or if… they are required to face Gaara as part of the exams." Baki paused before continuing. "It is also a recommendation I would extend to you two, but as you are the Lord Kazekage's children, I will allow you your own discretion."

Temari's brother nodded, accepting that if the mission was the invasion rather than the Exams, it'd be in his best interest to keep his puppetry out of the eyes of onlooking shinobi analytics. He interpreted their father's push for further training a precaution against Gaara but not much else.

"If we forfeit the Exams, what happens?" Temari herself asked.

Baki thought for a moment before responding. "As the shinobi rankings are determined by the Kage and the Suna Council, very likely nothing. I believe the current motion among them is to officially promote whichever members make it to the final round, regardless of participation… or Exam occurrences. Temari, already being unofficially promoted, your participation in the Exam itself will likely have very little effect on you."

Temari nodded. But let me guess. It'd make a better case for official promotion if we participated, wouldn't it. She gave her brother a look. She forgot what unofficial rank he had in Suna, but even so, she felt that a large number of Suna-nin still treated him like a genin. The promotion would have meant more for him than her… but she knew he also didn't tie as much value on the official rankings as she did. An official promotion meant little in application, yet with them both being children of the Kazekage and thus heirs to the Suna-hereditary position as village head, it could have meant everything in the future.

How a Kage was received depended on the presented strength of their shadow—their reputation.

If just one of them participated, the Council would have been much more inclined to simply promote the both of them. The Council, perhaps the hidden shadow behind the face of the Kage and the unified front of a hidden village.

Temari gazed upon the path to their destination determinedly. "I did some reading on my own… The Summoning Jutsu's not as simple as just signing the contract," Temari said to her brother. "The spirits themselves have to be sent—summoned—willingly. And some summoning spirits are known to reject their contract signers... The whole spirit affinity thing's just to decrease the possibility of that happening… I'm not sure how the weasels will be… but for the Exams, make sure you bring everything up your sleeves, Kankuro."

"Don't worry, sis. Karasu comes already primed. And I've been working on getting my second puppet ever since I spoke to Lady Chiyo," Kankuro replied dismissively.

Temari nodded at his easy confidence in himself. If not for the possibility of Kankuro being rejected by a spirit summon or killed by one, she wouldn't have minded having him sign the contract as well. It was good to know the relaxed front her brother wore even into battle was only that. A front.

Katiya (the next day, approximate time: 4:00 AM)

"Arashi", the boy was called, the elder: some old radical of the clan. Willing prisoners, if it meant they would acquire the strength to bring their clan back to its former glory. Training by combat and pushed by cortisol. Was it worth it? After she left, a quick search through Oto's shinobi files yielded notes of a powerful kekkei genkai and another separate but equally deadly hiden to boot. The hiden, a murder-suicide jutsu, explained it. The willingness.

Some more digging on the boy and his clan, the Fuma, yielded something called the Casualty Puppet Jutsu. In development by none other than Lord Orochimaru himself. Something about the boy made him a prime candidate for experimentation on it. A separate search into the matter brought her to a forbidden jutsu library that she now had access to; she hadn't intended on entering it originally, not so soon. The jutsu in turn yielded a base in her own mother's work. Of course Arashi was put into the tokubetsu ward she happened to be responsible for. Of course. Just as it was such a coincidence her scans of the boy's chakra network indicated that she couldn't possibly hope to help the boy without digging deeper into her mother's research.

If she wanted to help anyone in the tokubetsu wards, she'd need her mother's research. And if she wanted to learn anything from the wards, the people be damned, she'd need her mother's research.

"How do you know who you are?"

She was a healer, relative to this boy now… But digging into the research…

So what?

It only may happen indirectly from your own actions… Who cares if Lord Orochimaru uses it to destroy everything in his path? All you did was heal.

...

So what about Itachi then?

Author's Note

The Fuma clan in Konoha and the Fuma Clan in Oto IN THIS FICTION WILL BE THE SAME CLAN. The "Arashi" you just met, being an actual NARUTO anime character from a Fuma clan… The Holy Google's Naruto Fandom Wikia has found the two being the same clan as unlikely… but… the way I'll be writing it, they are distant relatives to each other. Because. Fuma and Fuma. Why not.

Other notes: my attempts to base this here fiction on bits of reality is slowly backfiring… because I'm seeing a few plot holes developing… don't stare too closely at my work. The technobabble falls apart where it's not supposed to. I'm also realizing my plot stuff's starting to look a bit… fuzzy… allow me to pray for eventual coherency… and hope I know how to write coherently too…

Also… apologies for all delays in writing. I will not quit on this fiction, but I think I will have no choice but to have a stunted writing schedule until summer or holidays… assuming I even have time then…