Chapter 33
Katiya (two weeks later, approximate time: 8:00 PM)
"There is… a particular prisoner I've taken interest in."
Kabuto smiled at her knowingly. It was obvious he knew exactly which one.
"... I know I just recently transferred to working in the division, but I'd like to request a mission in the Land of Waves… with the intention to take a detour… to search the old bases… my mother might have worked in. The soonest one possible, if possible, so I can begin work…. efficiently."
Katiya had her eyes to the ground as she had made the request. Perhaps that was the reason why she missed the seemingly predatory nature of the interaction. And how coincidental it was, that a mission to the Land of Waves was waiting for her.
She left from the main snake-etched entrance of Otogakure.
Gaara (three weeks later, approximate time: 3:00 AM)
Gaara made his way into the Land of Rice Paddies. As instructed, he hadn't killed anyone yet. He was so close.
"If you are found, leave no survivors."
Shukaku—his mother—felt appeased with the eventual bloodshed to come anyways. But every step he took closer to Otogakure, the stronger the residual sensory presence of her was there. But he didn't need her. He didn't need HeR. And in his mind, he didn't need AnYonE. So what purpose did anyone anywhere have other than to be his PReY?
He had spread his sand out far and wide, searching for chakra signatures. Within a crack in the middle of a grassy plateau, he found them. PrEY. And a possible entrance to Otogakure. He felt no need to investigate further to confirm. He moved closer, slowly walking there in plain sight. Irritation danced under his skin. His breath became hurried as he drew closer. None of them really mattered. Shukaku just wanted to kill something.
His sensory jutsu began to spike with energy. The chakra signatures around him that he found as he approached were weak. Pathetic little things that garnered little attention, none of them the one he was after. The one he wanted, the one he needed—WheRe iS iT?!? WheRE IS ShE?!? WhERE!?!
The chakra signature he was after was weak, distant still.
Gaara was at the door of the plateau-base now, desperate for the satiation of his—Shukaku's—their— bloodlust at the lack of a worthwhile kill. Gaara made to satiate what he could with sheer quantity. He brought his hand up, and with it his sand followed. He slammed his hand down with a growl. The plateau crumbled and collapsed.
"GRRRAAAWWW!" he yelled. He scooped the rumble away, as if digging. Something screamed from the inside of the base.
He repeated his smashing action, the rest of that… portion of the underground labyrinth collapsing. Gaara was there for information, by his father's mission requirements. But he was to leave no survivors if he was found. He was to leave no survivors if he found any. Gaara sucked in ragged breaths, listening to the sounds coming from the "hidden village". With a chakra and sand-enhanced jump, Gaara entered the base through the much wider entrance he had just made. Blood lined the rubble.
Temari (approximate time: 7:00 AM)
Temari was finally there. In the Land of Rivers. And quite rapidly, they reached the entrance of the ruins that were once Tanigakure. The ruins of the "Valley-Hidden Village". They entered, heading to the main focal point Temari had marked on her map.
…
"Split up?" Kankuro suggested as they reached what looked like the village's town hall. It wasn't much to look at—the village destroyed by explosion damage and left abandoned.
What was the rubble of earthen-brick buildings dotted the landscape. Among it, Temari eyed the western region that would gain better illumination with the setting sun. After a quiet exchange of nods, she and her sensei bounded off in opposite directions, leaving her brother to survey the area he was at. It was her turn to find out what was hidden there.
Gaara (approximate time: 7:00 AM)
Gaara searched room by room until he came to a large seal on a wall. It was the only portion of the base he did not breach.
In the newfound silence of the base, Gaara reached out with his sand once more, pushing against the seal with it until he heard the sounds of something cracking. He could say with confidence none of the pathetic shinobi he met before then were of any significance. Yet the seal persisted as yet another barrier between himself and what he thought to desire.
More PReY.
The seal yielded further sounds of cracking and breaking, but the seal itself neither cracked nor broke, held together by something stronger than the wall of stone it was impressed upon. After a time, Gaara was forced to abandon the seal to fulfill his father's orders to strip the wreckage of information.
His irritation was not abated, though his bloodlust was. For the moment.
Kankuro (approximate time: 7:10 AM)
Kankuro stayed surveying his surroundings where he was before cracking his knuckles and rolling his hands through the hand signs for a modified Puppet Jutsu. He plunged his hands to the ground. Modified, to use less chakra but have broader sensory reach. A web of chakra threads spread out from his fingers and Kankuro stood up to start walking, the threads detaching and reattaching to new items as he passed.
The Puppeteer Corp had been founded to continuously use and refine the innocuous art of puppetry into a weapon of war. The Puppeteer Corp, an organization that worked with the subtle to make their shows showy. To that effect, what Kankuro was doing was openly training without anyone needing to know it was training. To the casual observer, Kankuro simply had twitchy hands and was out for a stroll. His chakra threads were now thin enough to be invisible to the typical genin's untrained eye.
He did tell his sister not to worry about him.
Temari (approximate time: 8:00 AM)
When Temari came to a stop, the first thing she did was pull out her map. It was years old, drawn back before the village had been destroyed yet the first thing she did when she began searching was divide the mapped regions up into sectors for a systematic search.
In the span of an hour, she was two sectors done. She found nothing notable in terms of the scroll she was after, but all she could think about was how slow she was. About 200 kilometers squared, the village was in total. Sixty kilometers squared, the total area of the sectors she scouted out for herself to search. Ten kilometers squared, each sector. Through rubble and the rickety remains of a few multi-story buildings.
She ran her arm over her forehead. All she could think about was what might happen if the invasion failed because of her own weakness.
Katiya (approximate time: 2:00 PM)
A bridge greeted her from the distance, at a coast edge where she had expected nothing but boats. Quite a distance off from where Gaara was on a rampage. She was no sensory type. She had pushed herself with chakra and ran the entire way, eager to escape the pits of Oto as quickly as possible. The apprehension she felt leaving the base was no different than the one she felt near daily, in all things she did from helping Itachi to researching for Orochimaru.
Her home called to her.
Her original plan was to pay a ferryman to cross to Land of Waves island, but the bridge meant she was able to get to her destination one less fee to pay and one less person whose services and resources she had to rely on. One less person who could possibly extort her.
She crossed it without hesitation. The distance between her and Gaara grew once more.
Gaara (approximate time: 2:00 PM)
Gaara made his way back from the Land of Rice Paddies. He was satisfied. Satiated for the moment though his skin continued to itch with a desire for what we know to be Uchiha blood. The overall bloodlust was at a relative lull, at least. Passersby who dared near the boy close enough to see his bloodshot eyes as he made his way back from the Otogakure side-base were spared by that thin luck of fate.
Katiya (approximate time: 5:30 PM)
Who am I to you, Itachi? she asked herself as she neared the cliff edge that had been her home.
Surprisingly, there was little change to the path leading to the house besides the wild growth of squat salt-adapted plantlife. The house itself, a mix of a wooden and earthen cottage outside of any of the land's governmental sectors, still stood rather inconspicuously resolute. Some old stains here and there, some rot in a few locations, salt-borne corrosion. But no signs of having been entered. It was just like how she had left it. Katiya pushed open the door. And the house was empty.
Katiya walked past the leftover bits of furniture she hadn't taken. Old wooden knick-knacks, the toys she stopped playing with as she had grown, gathered dust where they last were. The house was bare otherwise. Bare of the memories it had borne.
Everything her parents had taught was important, the lab documents, the sets of clothes and food, already packed the day she vacated the premises. Her parents' actual instruction was to burn the house to ensure no one would find it, but Katiya hadn't at the time. A part of her wanted to make sure the house could be found again. She wanted to be able to come back.
She pushed the stone trap door open and descended the steps to the underground laboratory.
To her parents, she was their child; a smiling pure creature brought into the world, a blank slate. But the world, an ancient being, carried the dirt of others' ugly pasts. Passing it on, passing imprints of grime to everyone in every interaction. Some, more than others. She was no longer merely a pure blank slate, even, the moment her parents picked her up and lifted her with their love. It was ironic that only a few years ago, she wouldn't have minded being young forever. In her parents arms. And now she found she couldn't age fast enough.
Who am I, if not the product of my past?
Kankuro (approximate time: 5:30 PM)
Kankuro met up with his sensei and sister where they had begun their search, in front of the dilapidated former town hall.
"Maybe one more day? How far did we search?" Temari asked, procuring her now triply annotated map. The search had thus far been unsuccessful.
Baki-sensei did the same, indicating the eastern quarter as devoid of their prize. Temari laid the two maps out side-by side on the floor, kneeling over them.
Kankuro squatted and leaned over Temari's map. "Uhh… maybe around there?" he asked, vaguely circling the region north of the town hall with his finger. Temari marked the paper map.
"The Lord Kazekage will doubtlessly want us back as soon as possible in order to fulfill other mission assignments," Baki replied to Temari.
"Just one more day, sensei—I know it's here—I can feel it."
Kankuro gave his sister a glance. The scroll meant a lot to her and he knew it. He let out a breath. "We've still got the south and south-west evacuation caves—and then the border here—" Kankuro gestured at Temari's map. "Doubt Father's going to notice us missing for one extra day."
The sibling pair exchanged glances as they waited for their sensei's subtle nod of approval.
"If we search into the night, we might be able to start making it back by tomorrow morning," Temari said.
Temari—no, Kankuro thought. "Sis—"
"We are in foreign land and the darkness would yield an incomplete search. I recommend we break camp now and search tomorrow instead," Baki-sensei replied evenly.
Yeah—Kankuro frowned, remembering something. "Hey, any of you guys realize we haven't seen any people 'round these parts?"
Temari frowned now. "The town's abandoned—look at this place—why would—"
Kankuro gave his sensei a look. Baki, understanding what his student was getting at. "But if you were some thrifty shinobi—or civilian—seeing a bunch of previously settled vacant land, what's the first thing you'd do?" Kankuro asked rhetorically.
Temari's mouth hung open forming a wide "O".
Raid for resources, that's what.
But the fact that no one had resettled the land afterwards—or was even on the land meant that something was keeping them out—and putting that together with the widespread abandonment throughout the entire village radius could only mean one thing: organized raiders. And more importantly, one central location for organizational gathering and resource funneling.
And the fact that the entire day, they hadn't encountered anyone meant either their boss was away or that they were very, very cocky.
Katiya (approximate time: 9:00 PM)
She found herself knelt among old specimen containers, odd labels on each one of them, some empty by intention, some seemingly empty but sealed so tightly it was doubtful they were; some of them smashed open perhaps by a land tremor or a bad storm, and a few of them grown out of the containers they were in. But like she expected, all the lab notebooks available were verifiably missing from the shelves and on her person—as they must've been. She had checked everything before she left.
The people who were there—the ones who made them leave—who kicked out—killed—Katiya's mother—they weren't after the research. No, they had been after the maker of it that day. Cursed, she apparently was, having worked with Orochimaru as the rumors told. Or cursed, for having worked behind Orochimaru's back, as the rumors also told. Ostracized by both, they never knew and never thought to ask. They never knew of the secret laboratory beneath the earthen home.
She had all the time to pack up carefully when she left. She knew the attackers weren't coming back.
But now, herself being back, Katiya simply packed the specimen containers she thought meant little back then. She ran her hand along the wall in thought. Underground, underground. How all of her miseries led underground.
I know why. I know why you stayed with Orochimaru for as long as you did. My blood—it's healthier than Itachi's but I see it—it's held together by chakra alone. My body's diseased, but the damage of it just doesn't progress.
So where did you put the data? Did you not want me to use it?
Katiya punched a wall, the crater formed by it tumbling bits of rubble down to the floor. There was nothing new in the laboratory. Nothing. And so it meant everything pertaining to the jutsu that saved her life was with Orochimaru or gone.
With Orochimaru.
It was clear that if she wanted to find her mother's legacy by researching the jutsu, it would have to be with Lord Orochimaru. If she wanted to use her mother's jutsu to heal, it would have to be with Lord Orochimaru.
With Lord Orochimaru.
Katiya pocketed the remnants of what she needed and set the old husk of a house aflame.
Author's Note
So my writing style's starting to irritate me. It makes it a pain to write linearly (which isn't that painful), but it also means I work in half-chapters and completing each one is a bit of a struggle. If you read my work, it's all… character development, really, but somehow some of you people happen to like it. But. That being said, I write for myself so…
From the mouth I borrowed from Mark Twain, "persons attempting to find a plot in this will be [metaphorically] shot."
Technobabble.
Fastest 10 kilometer run by a human: about 30 minutes… speed: approximately 20 kmph
Average 10 kilometer run by a human: about 1 hour… speed: approximately 10 kmph
Speed of sound: approximately 1,240 kmph
Speed of lightning: approximately 430,000 kmph
Temari: assuming she's searching meter-by-meter, 10 kilometer sectors (x2) plus terrain difficulties and stops to check for points of interest in one hour, Temari's speed: approximately 200 kmph (or more)
Some other notes about speeds since I'm here. Running speed is different from "reaction speed" or "reaction time". One thing depends on how fast you process a movement, judge what an applicable reaction to that movement would be, and your ability to execute that reaction with your entire body, as needed. The other just depends on your endurance and ability to make your legs move. Rock Lee will be about 500 kmph (or more) running, with weights. Everything else… I'll get back to you if I get back to you. But if you'll notice… those numbers aren't human. Physics-wise, we might have some issues down the line. If anyone wants to offer any insight on my math or speed scales before I get into the Chunin Exams, be my guest.