This takes place sometime between the end of 'operation TP the Hyuga compound' and the Third Exam, because I thought to myself 'we need a Deus Ex Machina, one that will handle some exposition and know why the three have replaced Team Seven. If at all possible, it should be an interesting one'. Here's what I scribbled up in an hour or so.
-----
Kirigishi Yuki, nee Mizuno, mist-nin expatriate and one of the most talented medics currently residing in Konohagakure, had slowly been getting used to her son's odd behavior. Ever since he'd made genin, Katsu had been acting oddly, but it was something she could have blamed on the fact that he was feeling an 'official' Konoha shinobi. In a way, he'd become even more quiet than he'd been before - and he'd never been a loud child by any means - and she'd often caught him at letting his mind wander. Compared to his previous quiet determination, it was a bit of an unsettling change.
As was the fact that he'd apparently learned to cook somewhere, and she'd often wake up to find a plain but by no means unenjoyable breakfast waiting for her.
After a while, things seemed to be getting back to what they'd been previously, though never in their entirety.
Part of her worried. Part of her had always worried. Being a shinobi was dangerous business, after all. She had first-hand experience where that was concerned. That his team had apparently been relegated to accomplish fewer, but higher ranked assignments, had made her both proud and even more concerned.
When he'd come back from one of those C-rank missions, a field-modified Mist-made chain gauntlet riding on one hip ...
What was even more unsettling were the little things she'd noticed here and there. She could have written it off as training from the Academy, but mannerisms that would have looked mildly out of place before now looked to be like second nature to him. Her son had always made it a point to be alert after he'd been accepted into the Academy, and she'd tried to encourage it in subtle ways, but now that she thought back, she could see that whenever she'd spoken with him or seen him lately, he'd never had his back to a window when he could help it, his eyes seemed to naturally take in everything that happened around him without their motion seeming one bit suspect to someone not knowing what was going on ...
Still, as uneasy as this made her, there were other things that let her know that this _was_ still her son ...
And then there was the now.
She'd only just come back home from her shift in the hospital, found him reading some sort of musty looking scroll the outside of which stated it was a gathering of mythological tales and references, and mentioned offhand that she'd heard of a troupe of performers having arrived in town. When she said how one of the apprentice medic nins had been going off about an attractive puppeteer that seemed to be wondrously talented - she had a feeling the young man had meant more than just the way she made her puppets move - he'd paused in his reading.
He'd then asked what other acts she'd heard there were, and when she'd recalled and recited a few he rolled the scroll together, rose, and gave her a quick apology that he'd likely miss dinner.
Then he vaulted through the open window, and out onto the rooftops, as if all the Bijuu were suddenly lighting fires under his heels.
Kirigishi Yuki worried.
***
He was being clumsy, obvious, and entirely not his usual self. Not ever his usual self from before 'graduation'. The amount of chakra he flared out through the soles of his feet with each jump left craters where he pushed off from the roofs and walls ...
... luckily, he'd managed to get that under control by the time he was coming up on one of the Village's many market squares.
When he alighted atop an inn's roof, one which overlooked that particular market, he was back in control of himself. Or as close as he could get.
His heartbeat was still loud enough that it would have given him headaches in other circumstances.
Chasing that away for the moment, he focused on the events below.
The square was teeming, which was not really unusual for whenever a new act arrived in town. Entertainment was worth a lot in a shinobi village, no matter the size. It was a way of getting their minds off things, of briefly forgetting the unpleasant aspects of their work ... and the civilian townsfolk didn't want to miss any new acts either, if only out of sheer curiosity. Live acts were better than transmissions, anyway. Those were still often grainy, despite the seal experts' and technicians' best efforts.
Besides, there was a difference in merely watching and in experiencing an event.
Still, there was a fair number of forehead protectors among the crowd. He snickered, momentarily letting his thoughts get sidetracked. It was amusing how many of the shinobi still couldn't apply what they were to everyday life. After all, the high perches afforded by the rooftops and passageways often offered a premium view of the goings on, acts included ...
For a few minutes, he let his mind wander and his eyes work, and watched the dolls and puppets perform on stage, moving to the motions of invisible strings held by the head to toe black-clad puppeteers.
He didn't know the scent of what he was looking for, be it physical of chakra, so he had to rely on the old fashioned way.
A flutter sounded from beside him, and he studiously avoided leaping to one side and drawing a kunai. He minutely turned his head.
Atop the inn roof's spine, looking directly at him, sat a brown and grey hawk. The bird, appearing aware of the scrutiny, took off, making a lazy circle of the market before it dove, between a clothing store and a teahouse.
He didn't hesitate, leaping from rooftop to the top of a wooden power mast, then continuing on to land atop the aforementioned inn, before letting himself drop down into the alley.
"Kirigishi-dono," a figure, tall and long limbed - taller than he'd been back when he'd still been tall - its built an odd compromise between powerful and lanky, separated from the shadows that lingered there even in the day. "It looks like your wits remained intact, even with this change. It is good to see."
He even smelled like shadows, or at least like something hidden. More of a feeling than a smell. With a scent of various people and animals about him, mixing to form something that was both unique and oddly indistinct.
"I'll take that as a compliment," Katsu replied, trying to not show surprise. Not that he hadn't expected ... it was just that, expecting and actually seeing were two different things. "You still travel with your companions?"
"Hai, hai," the figure responded, scratching the back of its head and giving a smile that ... well, it was just plain unsettling, but at the same time didn't appear as threatening as he thought it would have. "As do you, now. Though last time you were alone."
"These days, I'm not even alone when I'm by myself," the Mist-jounin-turned-Leaf-genin said.
"Ah, yes. But, at least you still _are_," the man replied with a shrug.
***
"Ah, good! You've found him, Nagamimi," the small, raggedly clad man said, not looking up from the food on the table before him. "Kirigishi-san, I see our advice was sound, yes?"
In a teahouse that Katsu was suddenly aware he had no recollection of. And while he hardly knew all of the Leaf, he did know that the last time he'd passed this place, it had been little more than a ruin.
Deja vu. Especially since the interior was almost a mirror image of that one time, years ago.
Only last time, he hadn't been a Leaf-nin. And this time, he wasn't quite as willing to accept a wild answer without question.
"I'd ask what you were doing here, but getting a straight answer out of a conman ..." Katsu said.
"Mmmm, is that any way to react to old traveling companions, Katsu-kun? Even if you are right about Mataichi."
The arm smelled of shadows, wood, bone and blood, with a touch of jasmine to wind around all that. Smooth, as it came from behind, fingers trailing along the side of his face as silky strands of dark green touched the other. The voice had been its usual sultry self.
He gulped, cursed his current body's hormones, and tried his hardest to ignore it. Something not being made any easier by the eminently amused presence in the back of his mind, which had apparently chosen that moment to wake up. Or at least make itself more noticeable.
"Now, now, Ogin, don't make the poor boy's mind wander, or are you considering robbing the cradle?" Mataichi smirked.
"Funny," Katsu ground out.
"I thought so, at least," Ogin chuckled as she untangled her arms from around him, moving past. "I wasn't bothering you, was I b-o-y-o?"
Long legs, long dark green hair, slender and moving with the grace of a dancer, and the faint sound of silk on skin.
'Oh, great. Just as visually distracting as last time, too,' the man stuck in a boy's body thought, not noticing the faint growl that he'd released at the same time.
Katsu shook his head, slowly. Mataichi motioned towards the bench, opposite to where he himself sat. The nin moved, more uncomfortable with the indefinite surroundings than he was with the trio, and sat. The self-styled monk slid a mug of steaming green tea towards Katsu, who accepted.
He sipped it in silence, mulling over the questions in his mind, deciding to stick to simple ...
"Why?"
Mataichi chuckled.
"There is always a price, yes, shinobi-dono? Every action has consequence, every decision creates possibilities for other decisions. Every movement sets the stage for another. Last time we met, we gave you something. Words are fleeting, but can affect a great deal of things."
"Oh, this isn't our work, Katsu-kun," Ogin was behind him again, speaking into his ear. "But everything is connected. You'd admitted you would owe us, if the information we provided proved correct. You _are_ still among the living, and still a shinobi, which means there is a matter of debts owed to consider ..."
"Why am I not liking where this is going?" Katsu muttered.
"Because you have a brain?" the woman chuckled in reply.
"But, shinobi-dono, if you blame us for your current predicament, you would also have to blame the one you have since become so deeply connected to," the monk was still grinning that darkly amused grin of his. "Despite everything, he did agree. In fact, he thought it would be greatly amusing."
"Somehow, this doesn't come as a very big surprise," Katsu sighed. Kami save him from the whims of bored Demons ... well, he supposed it was a bit late for him to be asking for that now.
"Still, you are here for a reason," Mataichi went on. "Though it's one that's a bit complicated to go into. It is a matter of balance. You see, as much as everything is connected, there are places that are more ... vital ... to those connections. Places where some of those connections could be frayed, if not outright torn."
"Like this place," Katsu stated, looking at the smaller figure of Mataichi inquisitively. "This 'stage', if you will?"
"Ah, you understand!" Mataichi clapped his hands together, grinning an unholy grin.
"Not really."
"I'd be worried if you did, since, to be honest, neither do we, fully," Nagamimi's formerly still form said. "Mataichi just likes to talk like he does."
"Mmm, we are all puppets in one play or another," Ogin added, hand running through Katsu's hair. "To understand who is pulling the strings is to understand the play."
He ignored her, or pretended to. Mataichi was ugly as sin, and quite frankly, safer to look at at the moment.
"So, whoever put me here did so to do what? Protect those connections you speak of?"
"Oh, not just you, Katsu-kun," Ogin kept being distracting. "You know as much, don't you? Yes, you do."
"And you aren't going to need to really try at protecting those connections, anyway," Nagamimi piped in.
"Yes," Mataichi again chuckled. "You see, you three _are_, at the moment, the very representations of those connections. So you must merely ... survive."
Katsu's forehead met the table, staying there for a moment. He lifted it a moment later, glaring at Mataichi.
"And I suppose I'm going to have to explain this to Neshan and Shikanenai without the least bit of proof?"
"Oh, no, that would be silly," Ogin's tone became amused. "Bring them over for the evening's performance, and we'll take care of that for you afterwards, Katsu-kun. After all, we're not heartless."
Silently, the nin wondered if he wouldn't have been better off trying to explain the encounter and relay the information on his own.
***
-----
Because there's far too few Hundred Stories references in fanfic out there.
And besides, Nagamimi could be a distant Nara relation, Mataichi a genjutsu expert, and Ogin ... well, that's obvious, I'd say. Though Kankuro would drool with envy if he ever saw her work her puppets. They're not neccessarily shinobi, and not neccessarily alive (kinda like in the anime ^^) in the usual sense.
Katsu ran across them when he was a chunin on his 'extended leave' back in the TXY-line and they pointed him towards a possible solution to his problem at the time, which he found and used (Fenrir).
Nate? Drake?
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
-----
Kirigishi Yuki, nee Mizuno, mist-nin expatriate and one of the most talented medics currently residing in Konohagakure, had slowly been getting used to her son's odd behavior. Ever since he'd made genin, Katsu had been acting oddly, but it was something she could have blamed on the fact that he was feeling an 'official' Konoha shinobi. In a way, he'd become even more quiet than he'd been before - and he'd never been a loud child by any means - and she'd often caught him at letting his mind wander. Compared to his previous quiet determination, it was a bit of an unsettling change.
As was the fact that he'd apparently learned to cook somewhere, and she'd often wake up to find a plain but by no means unenjoyable breakfast waiting for her.
After a while, things seemed to be getting back to what they'd been previously, though never in their entirety.
Part of her worried. Part of her had always worried. Being a shinobi was dangerous business, after all. She had first-hand experience where that was concerned. That his team had apparently been relegated to accomplish fewer, but higher ranked assignments, had made her both proud and even more concerned.
When he'd come back from one of those C-rank missions, a field-modified Mist-made chain gauntlet riding on one hip ...
What was even more unsettling were the little things she'd noticed here and there. She could have written it off as training from the Academy, but mannerisms that would have looked mildly out of place before now looked to be like second nature to him. Her son had always made it a point to be alert after he'd been accepted into the Academy, and she'd tried to encourage it in subtle ways, but now that she thought back, she could see that whenever she'd spoken with him or seen him lately, he'd never had his back to a window when he could help it, his eyes seemed to naturally take in everything that happened around him without their motion seeming one bit suspect to someone not knowing what was going on ...
Still, as uneasy as this made her, there were other things that let her know that this _was_ still her son ...
And then there was the now.
She'd only just come back home from her shift in the hospital, found him reading some sort of musty looking scroll the outside of which stated it was a gathering of mythological tales and references, and mentioned offhand that she'd heard of a troupe of performers having arrived in town. When she said how one of the apprentice medic nins had been going off about an attractive puppeteer that seemed to be wondrously talented - she had a feeling the young man had meant more than just the way she made her puppets move - he'd paused in his reading.
He'd then asked what other acts she'd heard there were, and when she'd recalled and recited a few he rolled the scroll together, rose, and gave her a quick apology that he'd likely miss dinner.
Then he vaulted through the open window, and out onto the rooftops, as if all the Bijuu were suddenly lighting fires under his heels.
Kirigishi Yuki worried.
***
He was being clumsy, obvious, and entirely not his usual self. Not ever his usual self from before 'graduation'. The amount of chakra he flared out through the soles of his feet with each jump left craters where he pushed off from the roofs and walls ...
... luckily, he'd managed to get that under control by the time he was coming up on one of the Village's many market squares.
When he alighted atop an inn's roof, one which overlooked that particular market, he was back in control of himself. Or as close as he could get.
His heartbeat was still loud enough that it would have given him headaches in other circumstances.
Chasing that away for the moment, he focused on the events below.
The square was teeming, which was not really unusual for whenever a new act arrived in town. Entertainment was worth a lot in a shinobi village, no matter the size. It was a way of getting their minds off things, of briefly forgetting the unpleasant aspects of their work ... and the civilian townsfolk didn't want to miss any new acts either, if only out of sheer curiosity. Live acts were better than transmissions, anyway. Those were still often grainy, despite the seal experts' and technicians' best efforts.
Besides, there was a difference in merely watching and in experiencing an event.
Still, there was a fair number of forehead protectors among the crowd. He snickered, momentarily letting his thoughts get sidetracked. It was amusing how many of the shinobi still couldn't apply what they were to everyday life. After all, the high perches afforded by the rooftops and passageways often offered a premium view of the goings on, acts included ...
For a few minutes, he let his mind wander and his eyes work, and watched the dolls and puppets perform on stage, moving to the motions of invisible strings held by the head to toe black-clad puppeteers.
He didn't know the scent of what he was looking for, be it physical of chakra, so he had to rely on the old fashioned way.
A flutter sounded from beside him, and he studiously avoided leaping to one side and drawing a kunai. He minutely turned his head.
Atop the inn roof's spine, looking directly at him, sat a brown and grey hawk. The bird, appearing aware of the scrutiny, took off, making a lazy circle of the market before it dove, between a clothing store and a teahouse.
He didn't hesitate, leaping from rooftop to the top of a wooden power mast, then continuing on to land atop the aforementioned inn, before letting himself drop down into the alley.
"Kirigishi-dono," a figure, tall and long limbed - taller than he'd been back when he'd still been tall - its built an odd compromise between powerful and lanky, separated from the shadows that lingered there even in the day. "It looks like your wits remained intact, even with this change. It is good to see."
He even smelled like shadows, or at least like something hidden. More of a feeling than a smell. With a scent of various people and animals about him, mixing to form something that was both unique and oddly indistinct.
"I'll take that as a compliment," Katsu replied, trying to not show surprise. Not that he hadn't expected ... it was just that, expecting and actually seeing were two different things. "You still travel with your companions?"
"Hai, hai," the figure responded, scratching the back of its head and giving a smile that ... well, it was just plain unsettling, but at the same time didn't appear as threatening as he thought it would have. "As do you, now. Though last time you were alone."
"These days, I'm not even alone when I'm by myself," the Mist-jounin-turned-Leaf-genin said.
"Ah, yes. But, at least you still _are_," the man replied with a shrug.
***
"Ah, good! You've found him, Nagamimi," the small, raggedly clad man said, not looking up from the food on the table before him. "Kirigishi-san, I see our advice was sound, yes?"
In a teahouse that Katsu was suddenly aware he had no recollection of. And while he hardly knew all of the Leaf, he did know that the last time he'd passed this place, it had been little more than a ruin.
Deja vu. Especially since the interior was almost a mirror image of that one time, years ago.
Only last time, he hadn't been a Leaf-nin. And this time, he wasn't quite as willing to accept a wild answer without question.
"I'd ask what you were doing here, but getting a straight answer out of a conman ..." Katsu said.
"Mmmm, is that any way to react to old traveling companions, Katsu-kun? Even if you are right about Mataichi."
The arm smelled of shadows, wood, bone and blood, with a touch of jasmine to wind around all that. Smooth, as it came from behind, fingers trailing along the side of his face as silky strands of dark green touched the other. The voice had been its usual sultry self.
He gulped, cursed his current body's hormones, and tried his hardest to ignore it. Something not being made any easier by the eminently amused presence in the back of his mind, which had apparently chosen that moment to wake up. Or at least make itself more noticeable.
"Now, now, Ogin, don't make the poor boy's mind wander, or are you considering robbing the cradle?" Mataichi smirked.
"Funny," Katsu ground out.
"I thought so, at least," Ogin chuckled as she untangled her arms from around him, moving past. "I wasn't bothering you, was I b-o-y-o?"
Long legs, long dark green hair, slender and moving with the grace of a dancer, and the faint sound of silk on skin.
'Oh, great. Just as visually distracting as last time, too,' the man stuck in a boy's body thought, not noticing the faint growl that he'd released at the same time.
Katsu shook his head, slowly. Mataichi motioned towards the bench, opposite to where he himself sat. The nin moved, more uncomfortable with the indefinite surroundings than he was with the trio, and sat. The self-styled monk slid a mug of steaming green tea towards Katsu, who accepted.
He sipped it in silence, mulling over the questions in his mind, deciding to stick to simple ...
"Why?"
Mataichi chuckled.
"There is always a price, yes, shinobi-dono? Every action has consequence, every decision creates possibilities for other decisions. Every movement sets the stage for another. Last time we met, we gave you something. Words are fleeting, but can affect a great deal of things."
"Oh, this isn't our work, Katsu-kun," Ogin was behind him again, speaking into his ear. "But everything is connected. You'd admitted you would owe us, if the information we provided proved correct. You _are_ still among the living, and still a shinobi, which means there is a matter of debts owed to consider ..."
"Why am I not liking where this is going?" Katsu muttered.
"Because you have a brain?" the woman chuckled in reply.
"But, shinobi-dono, if you blame us for your current predicament, you would also have to blame the one you have since become so deeply connected to," the monk was still grinning that darkly amused grin of his. "Despite everything, he did agree. In fact, he thought it would be greatly amusing."
"Somehow, this doesn't come as a very big surprise," Katsu sighed. Kami save him from the whims of bored Demons ... well, he supposed it was a bit late for him to be asking for that now.
"Still, you are here for a reason," Mataichi went on. "Though it's one that's a bit complicated to go into. It is a matter of balance. You see, as much as everything is connected, there are places that are more ... vital ... to those connections. Places where some of those connections could be frayed, if not outright torn."
"Like this place," Katsu stated, looking at the smaller figure of Mataichi inquisitively. "This 'stage', if you will?"
"Ah, you understand!" Mataichi clapped his hands together, grinning an unholy grin.
"Not really."
"I'd be worried if you did, since, to be honest, neither do we, fully," Nagamimi's formerly still form said. "Mataichi just likes to talk like he does."
"Mmm, we are all puppets in one play or another," Ogin added, hand running through Katsu's hair. "To understand who is pulling the strings is to understand the play."
He ignored her, or pretended to. Mataichi was ugly as sin, and quite frankly, safer to look at at the moment.
"So, whoever put me here did so to do what? Protect those connections you speak of?"
"Oh, not just you, Katsu-kun," Ogin kept being distracting. "You know as much, don't you? Yes, you do."
"And you aren't going to need to really try at protecting those connections, anyway," Nagamimi piped in.
"Yes," Mataichi again chuckled. "You see, you three _are_, at the moment, the very representations of those connections. So you must merely ... survive."
Katsu's forehead met the table, staying there for a moment. He lifted it a moment later, glaring at Mataichi.
"And I suppose I'm going to have to explain this to Neshan and Shikanenai without the least bit of proof?"
"Oh, no, that would be silly," Ogin's tone became amused. "Bring them over for the evening's performance, and we'll take care of that for you afterwards, Katsu-kun. After all, we're not heartless."
Silently, the nin wondered if he wouldn't have been better off trying to explain the encounter and relay the information on his own.
***
-----
Because there's far too few Hundred Stories references in fanfic out there.
And besides, Nagamimi could be a distant Nara relation, Mataichi a genjutsu expert, and Ogin ... well, that's obvious, I'd say. Though Kankuro would drool with envy if he ever saw her work her puppets. They're not neccessarily shinobi, and not neccessarily alive (kinda like in the anime ^^) in the usual sense.
Katsu ran across them when he was a chunin on his 'extended leave' back in the TXY-line and they pointed him towards a possible solution to his problem at the time, which he found and used (Fenrir).
Nate? Drake?
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm