Chapter 59

Gaara* (approximate time: 6:00 PM)

Gaara flared his own chakra as a warning to the foreign chakra creeping up to the hospital windowsill. The person the foreign chakra belonged to flared his chakra back as acknowledgement. Gaara and Shukaku agreed to leave the person the chakra belonged to alone, agreeing the chakra was nonhostile and crush-able in the event it was hostile.

"Gah! Pervy Sage?!" Gaara heard Naruto exclaim a few minutes later from the hospital bed next to theirs.

Gaara supposed it was a good thing he didn't crush the… "Pervy Sage" then.

"Ah, long time no see, Naruto," the… Pervy Sage… replied.

"Don't you give me that 'long time no see' stuff, old man! You were supposed to be supervising my training, teaching me everything you know, making me your protege! What happened to that?!" Naruto belted out quickly, "Where have you been all this time!?!"

Gaara blinked as Naruto and the… Pervy Sage bantered about what the Pervy Sage or "Jiraiya", as Gaara would later learn from Shikamaru, was doing.

"I was gathering as much information as I could on the Akatsuki!" Jiraiya told Naruto after being called out on some potentially questionable research practices.

Of course Naruto would call someone so high-profile a name like "Pervy Sage".

"I estimate we have about three years before we're ready to make their move," the Pervy Sage said, calming. "You ready for some serious training?"

"Heh, I've been ready for months, old man!" Naruto replied. There was a sound of jostling as Naruto hopped out of his hospital bed to change.

Gaara nodded to himself. It had been roughly two months since Naruto had been hospitalized from their joint Uchiha retrieval mission and the name of the Akatsuki was familiar to Gaara as a Jinchuriki-hunting organization. If Naruto still wished to bring Sasuke Uchiha back and survive the next few years, he agreed Naruto was going to need a lot more training.

He knew contact between himself and Naruto would be sparing during the time Naruto would be away but still, silently, Gaara wished for Naruto's training to be fruitful.

Katiya (one week later, approximate time: 2:00 PM)

"… Gaara," Katiya said by way of greeting, her hands clasped together by the front of her waist.

She had stationed herself just within Suna's border walls to make contact with him as he arrived back after Takeo delivered her news of his mission success a few hours prior. Gaara took it to mean that she had something to tell him. Or missed him, anyways.

"Katiya," Gaara said reciprocally. There was a small hesitation as Gaara appeared to check Katiya for any visible damage before he flicked his eyes over to where he sensed her ANBU guards to be.

Katiya swung her arms out to clasp them behind her back.

Gaara narrowed his eyes marginally before swinging his gaze out behind himself to the student he recently rescued. "Katiya, this is my student, Matsuri. Matsuri, this is my friend, Katiya."

"Pleased to meet you, Katiya, sir," the young brunette greeted politely.

Katiya bowed wordlessly. "Pleased to meet you," she intoned.

There was a beat of silence.

"So… how did you and Gaara-sensei meet?" Matsuri asked tentatively.

"He was attempting to kill some of his age-peers when he caught my attention. A few days later, I went to go play with him," Katiya replied plainly.

Matsuri hesitated at that. "Uhh… ?"

She flicked her eyes back to Gaara to see if he'd refute Katiya's account, but he didn't.

"I'm sorry, but why did you—what made you—decide to play with him?" Matsuri asked haltingly.

"He looked lonely… And I didn't want him to have to be alone," Katiya replied quietly with a small look to Gaara himself. "Because he looked lonely, it didn't seem like his attempt to kill his peers was intentional."

Matsuri shifted to look at Gaara as well. But again, Gaara said nothing, only bowing his head in confirmation.

"I… see," Matsuri said before letting the conversation trail off.

There was a lull in conversation as Gaara didn't know how to continue it and Katiya being disinclined to talk.

"We should probably head to the council building, Matsuri," Kankuro told the girl to rescue the conversation. "They'll probably be wanting to hear from us about your kidnapping," he told her.

"Right," Matsuri replied. "Well, see you later!" Matsuri bowed politely before running off in the direction of the council building to join Kankuro and Temari as they moved ahead.

Gaara, though, lingered a moment behind.

"How was it when I was gone?" Gaara asked. "I had Kankuro send one of his allies to make sure you were alright in case my sand clone collapsed. Was it… alright?" he asked.

"Takeo… yeah," Katiya decided. "He spent some time checking in with the ANBU and I didn't see him much besides when he'd do check-ins but yeah. I was alright with him," Katiya told him.

Gaara nodded wordlessly. "We should… talk. After I report to the Council," he told her.

Katiya nodded, agreeing.

Gaara (approximate time: 6:30 PM)

"So how is she?" Kankuro asked his shishou after checking in with Senior Ebizo for their successful mission. "She" referring to Katiya.

Senior Councilor Takeo—or just Takeo as he preferred to be addressed—shook his head. "I've been watching her the two days before you got back and after I got your message." Takeo shrugged. "I also checked in with the ANBU watching her—nothing."

"So sign of—I dunno—anyone trying anything?" Kankuro asked.

"Nothing," Takeo replied again. "The ANBU members assigned to her are all mostly from Ebizo's own division too. And since Katiya's been cooperating, I don't even think anyone would really have a reason to attack her," Takeo told them.

Kankuro frowned as he thought. "What about to get to Gaara?" he asked.

Takeo didn't immediately reply. "That, I don't know."

"The Four Celestials kidnapped Matsuri because she was my student," Gaara said. "If it was someone in the Council that wanted Katiya dead, they would have sent word that she was the closest relation to me. Instead of allowing the Four Celestials to select Matsuri."

"So what're you saying, Gaara?" Kankuro asked.

Gaara narrowed his eyes as he thought. "Whoever Baki-sensei was warning us about is strategic. They will either attempt to extract all information out of Katiya before killing her or they likely intend to weaponize our relationship with her to use against us."

Takeo shook his head. "It's also possible Baki was mistaken in that there's going to be an attack on Katiya in particular. It's possible that he only meant it as a general warning on your mission—a mission you've since returned successfully on, I might add."

In response, Gaara narrowed his eyes once more.

Katiya (evening time)

Gaara walked beside Katiya as they strolled through Sunagakure, light desserts in hand. They weren't heading to any one particular destination but rather meandered through the different districts, Katiya's ANBU guards in tow. Nowhere in Suna was off-limits, so to speak, except for the border wall or unless she was out in Suna past her curfew. And if they had meandered through one of the seedier Sunagakure districts, Katiya nor Gaara had paid much attention.

"From your sand clone," Katiya started as they walked, "what do you remember?" she asked.

Gaara's brows furrowed. "Everything," he replied.

It was Katiya's turn to furrow her brows as she ducked her head. Living in Yashamaru's old home during the stay of her house arrest, the part she played in his suicide-assassination weighed on her.

"How do you feel about what happened… what I said?" she asked.

Katiya (—huh?)

Katiya's brows wrinkled with uncertainty as Gaara narrowed his eyes at her. And then she let out a gasp as he lunged at her, strangling her in his sand and carting her off to someplace unknown, herself unable to see where, swaddled in sand.

Gaara—! she mentally yelled out as the sand pressed down on her.

When the sand released her, Gaara slammed her against a wall of a darkened room, pressing against her throat. Black shadows poorly disguised the glints of metal tools, blades she recognized as capable of removing limbs, rope suspensions and bloodied chains. She knew at once she was in an interrogation chamber. The taste of the dessert she had been carrying—that had lingered on her lips—became cloying.

Gaara's sand grabbed her by the arms and yanked them up to iron shackles above her head. Katiya widened her eyes, looking into the empty blank ones of Gaara's. And then her shock turned cold.

She should have known.

She let out a laugh.

The back of her mind told her she did.

Gaara (approximate time: 7:00 PM)

They came out from around them and from the street behind them, their assailants. Gaara swung his head around, counting over twenty as they made to engage Katiya. Katiya, decidedly shocked still.

Shukaku yelled to kill all of the assailants—and to do that would've been oh so easy—but Gaara refrained. The assailants were from Suna and he wasn't about to shed Sunagakure blood if it could have been avoided. Gaara batted aside three of the assailants with a swing of his sand—their ribs cracking upon impact with a building wall. Civilians or genin at most, Gaara realized from the lack of chakra-based attacks. Gaara let out a growl.

It would have been a lot easier for him if the assailants had been jonin—or if Gaara had allowed himself to kill them. But unfortunately, for perhaps once in his life, the "assassination" attempt he was witnessing—or whatever was going on this time—the target wasn't himself.

Katiya

"You knew Yashamaru was going to attack me and yet you did nothing. What else are you attempting to hide from me?"

"What else are you hiding?!?" Gaara interrogated.

It was exactly as she had learned under her lord, she thought in that moment. Under Lord Orochimaru. People—they interacted with each other if they wanted something, her mind repeated to itself. And it seemed even Gaara only wanted information.

"You spent four years away from me while you've told me nothing about what happened while you were gone—what are you hiding?!" he yelled.

Her mind flashed back to everything—her time in Otogakure's fight rooms—Otogakure's infirmaries—her help she provided on Orochimaru's Curse Mark Project—Arashi's—was it his grandpa's?—death. Death. Death—Itachi's—Itachi's—

Katiya narrowed her eyes in silent defiance. And in response, Gaara embedded a knife in her shoulder.

Katiya let out a scream, delivering a vicious kick to Gaara's chest, pushing him off from the blade he had driven into her. She let out a gasp as Gaara let go, realizing that Gaara had neglected to bolt down her legs. And gaining an odd suspicion—that something wasn't right in the scene she was seeing.

Outwardly, Katiya's lip humorlessly curled upward as she basked in the pain of her stabbed shoulder.

"Everything," she said, finally replying to his question of what she was hiding.

Gaara (approximate time: 7:05 PM)

Katiya didn't bother to scream as someone jabbed a knife into her shoulder, instead kicking the assailant away with one vicious kick. Gaara grabbed onto her other assailants with his sand, pulling away the ones that had pinned her arms, knocking them unconscious by whipping them against the floor.

"Katiya!" he yelled.

Katiya's eyes narrowed, silent.

Then she met his eyes—and she lunged to attack.

And from the top of the council building, someone else removed a pair of binoculars from her eyes.

"Now this is how you pit your enemies against each other," that someone said, handing her binoculars to another compatriot.

That compatriot, Senior Joseki, regarded Senior Erusa impassively. He silently pressed the binoculars to his eyes in response.

Katiya

She let out a yell, lunging forwards and yanking the shackles that held her off the wall she had been chained to. They remarkably broke and she made to punch Gaara's cheek.

But Gaara's sand barrier caught that this time, before he used it to cover himself in his sand armor. Katiya followed up with a punch from the other side with her opposite hand—before Gaara's sand armor reached the other side.

She almost landed a hit, but then sand exploded from the site, knocking Katiya to the ground. She let out a breath, fixing her eyes on Gaara as she picked herself up.

Gaara (approximate time: 7:10 PM)

"Katiya—what's wrong?!" Gaara asked as Katiya was knocked back from his sand armor after attempting to punch him.

Katiya did not reply as she picked herself up off the ground waveringly, what could be described as cold hatred in her eyes.

JuSt usE yoUr SANd tO CruSH—hOLD—hEr DoWn! Shukaku told him as if she were any other enemy, taking a break from his recent periods of silence.

But Gaara realized it had to be a genjutsu—it had to be a genjutsu either he or she was under—as it was among some of the only reasons Gaara could come up with for her strange behavior. Crushing Katiya, whether or not it was a genjutsu though, was therefore out of the picture for him.

Shukaku let out a growl before flailing his arms in the sealed chamber Gaara saw in his mind's eye. nO gEnjUtSU CaN WiTHstAnD MY chAKra! I'D haVe PuNCHeD throUGh IT! Shukaku told him.

Then it's a genjutsu she's under, Gaara decided.

Katiya swung for Gaara's face, Gaara ducking and dodging. He tried not to use his sand to attack back, afraid of harming her in her current state but with her speed and intent to harm him, it was difficult. Worse, for a Genjutsu Release, he needed to make physical contact with Katiya. And he couldn't negotiate with her as he did the last time they faced each other in battle.

Gaara caught an elbow that was meant for his upper chest with his sand—but Katiya allowed her momentum to pivot her—and she used it to drive a side kick into the same chest Gaara had attempted to protect.

Gaara flew back, hitting the ground, sand armor and all. Then some of the assailants Gaara thought were out cold hopped up—jumping Katiya while screaming profanities.

Katiya

She beat off Gaara's sand-forms, each one oddly humanoid.

She punched the solar plexus of one of them, following up with a blow to the chin with the heel of her opposite hand. To another humanoid sand-form, she slammed a fist into its face. Another, her knee. Then she jabbed the space between the sand-form's ribs with a straight-fingered thrust.

The sand-form collapsed from the impact.

Katiya's brows creased. The sand-form she stabbed was the last one that came up—but—Katiya stared at her hand. It felt—wet as in—

—blood?!

She looked up at Gaara—who hadn't moved. Her mind flashed back to Gaara stabbing her. She took a defensive stance, her legs shoulder width apart, her left leg behind her right at an angle.

She began to circle him with both of her hands ready for attack—trying to find the exit in the interrogation room they were in while keeping herself ready for attack—and keeping Gaara in her view.

Gaara (approximate time: 7:15 AM)

Gaara let out an exhale as Katiya shifted into a defensive stance, one hand over her centerline, the other hand—bloodied by an earlier attack—ready to punch or block. Gaara shifted his own body shiftily, trying to mirror Katiya. When Katiya began to circle him, Gaara moved with her, keeping his arms up and her in his sight. Taijutsu was never his specialty.

He thought back to Rock Lee, his old Chunin Exams opponent from the preliminaries. Gaara had difficulties locking him in a Sand Coffin due to his speed—and Gaara suspected he would be in a similar predicament with Katiya. Moreover, while he could use his sand to defend himself like he usually would, the difficulty would be making the necessary physical contact with her for a Genjutsu Release.

He narrowed his eyes. Whoever plotted out the attack on Katiya—and on him—indeed plotted well.

Katiya

There wasn't a door nor windows in the interrogation room she was in. Her mind flashed back to when she was attempting to escape Suna—again—no escape.

Katiya shook her head out as she dodged a blow from Gaara. It didn't make sense—to be in a room with no door with no escape except for the one of death. Katiya's eyes began to prickle.

She should've spent more time trying to activate the full powers of her Sharingan, her mind said before it flashed back to her last fight with Gaara. She knew killing him would have likely allowed her to activate the final stage of a three-tomoe Sharingan—though she didn't dare say it at the time. Her eyes prickled again. Jinchuriki filth.

Her fingers scraped the edges of Gaara's sand armor, delivering a glancing blow to the side of his neck.

"Friends should not be fighting friends!" a green-clad shinobi she once faced echoed in her memory.

She blocked with her right hand—a sand-strengthened attack of Gaara's meant for her ribs.

"'Should' is only reflective of ideal circumstances," another memory snippet of someone's words replayed in Katiya's mind.

"His name was 'Gaara' just a few months ago," Itachi told her.

Gaara. Gaara's words. Her previous thought of attempting to kill Gaara then brought a sharp pain to her eyes.

And we could remember, though an activated Sharingan could see through genjutsu by seeing through how it worked, the pain of her eyes being all it took to break through one of Itachi's.

Genjutsu.

"Sharingan wielders have a slight resistance to Sharingan-induced genjutsu," Itachi once said.

She flicked her eyes over the scene around her. And realization brought reality into focus. Pain, if external to the scene of a genjutsu maker's, allowed one to snap back into reality due to its origins: cold hard reality. Katiya looked down to her hands, her right one that had stabbed a sand-form. It felt wet. As in. By blood. The dissolved sand mass—the mass of a person—sand-forms had no blood, she knew. So she must have stabbed something else—something living.

But that—hadn't been—her intention—this time.

Her eyes prickled again. Did she kill someone?

Gaara (approximate time: 7:20 PM)

Gaara blocked with his sand and Katiya skirted around his blocks, grateful that she hadn't been able to gather her usual amounts of water to attack. She had circled him as she attacked but once she made a full circle—he saw her break off and pause.

Katiya

A small thought in her mind had contemplated walking down the seedier districts of Suna, picking a fight and winning. And killing the people she won against.

"I warned you I'm a monster."

Gaara (approximate time: 7:25 PM)

It was then Gaara saw his opening.

"Genjutsu Release!" Gaara yelled, tapping the fingers of his left hand to her forehead, his other hand in the kai hand sign.

Katiya's eyes snapped to Gaara's, automatically smacking off the hand that had tapped her on the forehead and jumping back. But blinking and seeing no attack movement as she surveyed Gaara, Katiya let out a breath, relaxing slightly and taking in the full scene around her.

"Are you alright?" Gaara asked.

She didn't answer verbally, instead shaking her head, staring at her bloodied hand and then the assailants on the ground. They were still breathing.

"Didn't hear anything—so it wasn't a sound-borne genjutsu—didn't see anything that could trigger it so it wasn't a sight-borne genjutsu," Katiya muttered to herself as she thought aloud, in response. "Sound, sight… touch?" she rubbed her forehead with her clean hand distressingly, "No…"

Gaara swung his eyes around, trying to think with her. Her eyes landed on the desserts they were carrying—splat on on the floor now.

"Taste!?" Katiya hissed, picking up her dessert. She had only taken one bite out of hers. She sniffed it experimentally. "Taste," she declared out loud, finally looking to Gaara.

Genjutsu on a human could be initiated through any of the senses possessed by a human—chakra modifying what is perceived through that sense. Though, a genjutsu activated by taste and the ingestion of another person's chakra-laced food was a new one for the pair. While there were jutsu that could detect poisons making a taste-borne genjutsu liable to failure, the genjutsu caster must have known Katiya wasn't able to use that jutsu because of her chakra collar.

Gaara took the dessert from her, trying to sense the residual chakra from the dessert. The attack was too well-planned to be set up by a group of low-rank shinobi and civilians. And genjutsu castings tended to be short to mid-range so if he could just—

—Gaara punched the air, his sand shooting forwards, turning a corner and snatching up a hidden assailant. Gaara dragged the assailant out with his sand.

"I'll tell you nothing," the assailant spat while being dragged, "Nothing! You Jinchuriki filth!"

Gaara tightened his sand's grip and the assailant was forced silent as Gaara attempted not to crush the assailant's ribs too extremely.

Author's Note

Taste-borne genjutsu isn't canon. Thought sight and sound-borne genjutsu are. But considering my decision to make chakra cuffs a thing for imprisoned shinobi, taste-borne genjutsu sounds like a perfectly viable way to extract information from someone who A) can't dispel a genjutsu with suppressed chakra and B) can't detect whether there's chakra-laced foods with a suppressed chakra.

Now, "genjutsu" just means "illusionary techniques" but the thing that's always nagged at me was how a caster knew what their victims are seeing unless they (the caster) saw it in their own mind's eye themselves… So, in this fiction, a genjutsu caster does see the gist of what their victim is seeing—and can use that to gain information within the genjutsu—hence the utility, of say, Ibiki attempting to use a genjutsu on a clone of Pein (in the anime) for interrogation purposes. The only drawback would be a more obvious genjutsu illusion to the person experiencing it due to the subversive nature of the jutsu.

* cough.

Now, possible information spillage aside, some parts of this chapter are not going to matter until way, way later in the future. If I remember to make it matter. (Totally not me realizing I wrote myself into a hole…)