Chapter 13 - Illusions

Genjutsus were difficult things to manage, and not Katsuro's specialty. But gauging from the pink bloom spreading across the kunoichi's cheeks, he'd pulled this one off well enough.

She kicked her legs gently beside him, blissfully unaware of their dismal surroundings.

Not that the inner-workings of the genjutsu would have held any interest for her anyway. Katsuro seemed to be the only one who found the slight mingling of a victim's fears or desires to the illusion a fascinating subject.

Most times, it was a single aspect that revealed itself through the cottoning fog. A place of tragedy came through in dark, jagged shards, like a reflection in a shattered window. But a happier memory would appear fully-formed behind the veil. More often than not it was the person's childhood home. Katsuro made sure never to look at those.

But this illusion was completely different.

A clean, encompassing glow swept over the dank riverbed campsite, spreading outward from where the pair sat on the fallen tree. The shapes were still there, or at least the memory of land, the log, the dingy fire circle, but the rest was rendered amorphous beneath a shimmery peach haze.

No insight to her life came sailing out of the mist. Instead they were both surrounded by a pleasant feeling. As if that cool green light of her healing chakra had suddenly turned warm.

Perhaps it was because the extent of his interrogation jutsu had been on old men or petty criminals. Perhaps this was the result of working over a genjutsu on a girl who had little experience with the hardships of life. Perhaps she would always be surprising him.

But within the space of the genjutsu, Katsuro knew there was safety. And their conversations ran familiar courses. The outside situation may be terrifying, but inside this illusion it was as comfortable as that tiny fire lit room at the temple.

He blew out a satisfied breath, and the colors wafted and shifted around them, as if a flame had danced through. The echo of that room was his contribution to this unusual, embracing illusion.

Katsuro took his time, revisited their previous conversations and gently guided her to fill in more information. If he worked it right, then she'd have no memory of this at all. It would just blur together with her dreams.

But just as he congratulated himself on his success, her smile sagged and her swinging legs stilled.

"I don't think I should be telling you these things," she mumbled. Slim fingers smoothed over the new frown lines on her forehead, as if trying to remember something she'd forgotten, something dreadfully important.

Katsuro was surprised. It was a testament to her strong will that she could still keep a shred of reason while fully dipped in a genjutsu.

"Don't worry," he said, voice soothing. "You aren't telling me anything I didn't already know."

"Really?" she said with relief.

"Of course," he smiled back, lying.

And with that the content look returned, and she went back to swinging her legs. The radiant smile she shot at him only made him feel worse about having to manipulate her. But it had to be done. This was the only way to appease Itachi and guarantee her safety.

Best not to think too much about it, he told himself before circling back to an earlier conversation to verify some names.

"So one of my favorite stories is when you were at the academy and the big one" — "Choji," the kunoichi corrected — "right, when Choji blew up at the other kid in class who called him fat. You know, the dog boy, what was his name again?"

"Oh, Kiba," she supplied.

"Right, Kiba" Katsuro intoned smoothly.

And so went the interrogation. What she believed was a innocent conversation, no different from the many they'd had in the temple, was really a careful culling of information. He was skimming the surface, attaching names to all the stories she'd told him, and occasionally dipping deeper for specific details about Sasuke, his prime target.

Katsuro was curious about that bastard. His help in the very delicate matter concerning his younger brother was the only mission Itachi had charged him with in exchange for freeing him from Konoha. He had trained for it, bled for it, undergone countless missions and crushing jutsus just to be able to withstand some of the punishing blows that an "Uchiha" could deliver.

But the kunoichi's experiences gave Katsuro a real reason to hate him.

The younger Uchiha was always either ignoring her or insulting her. And then he tried to get her thrown off their team. She related that story in full, even down to the mess she'd made of their kage's office.

Katsuro laughed till his side hurt at that story, and she beamed back at him, obviously pleased at his approval of what everyone else had called a childish temper tantrum. But another recollection turned her pensive.

"Sasuke was a precocious as a child. All the girls in the academy had crushes on him," she muttered, then hurriedly added, "but now I think all the attention might have gone to his head."

She frowned and tapped her chin. "I don't think many people see how he really is. But as he's gotten older he's only grown colder and more arrogant," she said, then shrugged. "He has no friends, not even Sai."

Katsuro mulled what she'd said. If he was that blustering to everyone, then the chances were that he actually wasn't as powerful as Itachi expected.

Though the elder brother had called his sibling weak, cowardly, Katsuro had assumed it to be a lie. A message planted in the girl if in fact he did plan on sending her back. That the traitorous younger brother would never be strong in Itachi's eyes, no matter how much training he had.

Katsuro leaned closer to her, as if sharing a secret.

"So, he's really not all that great is he? It's just an act?" he whispered.

"Oh no," she exclaimed. "He was always the best in our class, and I know he's better than most chunins and a few jonins." The kunoichi shook her head slowly. "But I think he's more powerful than he lets on. He doesn't ever speak, trains alone or with our sensei only. I don't think he trusts anyone, which I can understand," she said quietly.

"But I always get the feeling he thinks everyone else is beneath him, a waste of his time. And I know he thinks I shouldn't be a ninja at all," she said, waving her hand exaggeratedly.

She continued speaking, moving on to another humorous story, any injured feelings swept away by the buoying genjutsu.

But Katsuro was left behind, unhearing. Her words dredged up long-buried memories. Another voice swirled around him now.

"You? You'll never be a ninja," a cruel male voice echoed from his past.

Unbidden, images flashed through Katsuro's mind of a ruthless shinobi, a sun-baked road, a wide-eyed boy on the steps of an orphanage. The men were walking by, passing so close he could hear their kunai rattling in their pouches. Yellow dust blew off the road in thick clouds. It clung to his clothes and tried to choke the air out of his lungs.

"You're the demon container. Didn't you know? They'd never let trash like you be a ninja," a silver-haired man sneered. He laughed, taunted, then called back over his shoulder before disappearing into the suffocating haze. His final words cut the deepest. "Any day now will be your last, demon."

Katsuro swallowed reflexively, he hadn't thought of that awful day in years. It was still there though, the cold laughter, the wretched dust, the realization and heartache, all lingering just below the surface.

But as suddenly as the memory crashed down on him, it was gone, driven away by the tinkling laugh in his ear, the warm hand pressed on his arm.

The kunoichi laughed again, and Katsuro was brought back to the present. He blinked quietly at the pink haired girl, then roused himself to laugh weakly with her, though he'd not heard a word of her anecdote.

He had survived that hopeless time, he reassured himself. Itachi had seen to that. But the memory was so real, so unsettling, he raked a hand through his unruly hair just to make sure. When her attention shifted, he twisted his finger around a lock on his forehead and nearly crossed his eyes trying to look at it.

'Still brown,' he thought with a relieved sigh, and let the now-familiar hair fall back into it's disheveled place.

The girl beside him took no notice, instead content to sit in companionable silence.

Katsuro blew out another steadying breath and tried to refocus on his task. If he had never crossed paths with this kunoichi he would have thought that all Konoha ninjas were the same as those men. But she, it seemed, was the exception.

This girl shook his beliefs about that wretched village to the core. And if he discovered that Sasuke was like her, someone totally different than what he'd been led to believe, then it was going to be hard to fulfill his mission.

But thankfully, he wasn't like her at all. Sasuke was a bastard through and through. He had betrayed Itachi, led to the massacre of his clan, and now was only source of pain to the girl beside him. That boy hated her, thwarted her, abandoned her.

'No,' he thought unflinchingly, 'killing Sasuke Uchiha is going to be a pleasure.'

And that conviction made Katsuro more resolved than ever to carve out a place for her within his group. She never had to go back to that damn village again. Itachi had saved him, he could save her.

They would make a brilliant team, he thought, kicking his legs out in front of him comfortably. The encounter with Deidara and Sasori had shown him that. She was an exceptional ninja, reading the situation and working with him to provide a unified front in the face of an unknown opponent. She was a fighter too, just like him, he thought with a low laugh.

Remembering himself, Katsuro straightened and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck self-conciously. The kunoichi tucked a swinging lock of hair back behind her ear and smiled pleasantly at him.

The genjutsu. He'd forgotten. It was his turn to have slightly red cheeks. Her inattentive silence should have been a warning sign their time was waning, but he wasn't ready to break the spell just quite yet.

Katsuro cleared his throat and let his wandering thoughts lead the next question.

"So if your teammates are so awful, the bastard and the robot, then why do you want to go back?" The kunoichi smirked at his names for them, but tipped her head in question.

"It's my home. Wouldn't you want to go back to your home too?" she said.

Katsuro fumbled for an answer, realizing belatedly that he should have stuck to fact-gathering.

"No, the people from my home were very cruel. I left that place years ago," he finally managed. It was the simple line he had told her before, all explanation and no information.

"Why? Who could ever do that to you?" she said. Her eyes were so clear and scanning his face so earnestly that he forgot himself.

He forgot the threats, the warnings, the knowledge that one slip would shine like a torch in the night, pointing the way to where he was, and certain death.

Her kind words had nothing to do with the menacing power trapped inside, the only thing which he'd ever been measured by. Her concern was for him, and him alone. She saw him as he was.

Well, almost.

She saw him as the kid he was presented to be. And he found that, amazingly, he wanted to be that kid. Just for a little while. He wanted bask in her sympathy and rail against the unfairness of it all. Step away from the burden of power. Just for a moment.

She had nothing to gain from him, and was offering only her concern. He knew it was sincere. The pull was too much to resist.

Perhaps he could tell her something. Just a little, he thought. It was like a breath of fresh air. Or a shaft of light in the darkness....

She waited beside him, sweet concern clear on her face.

He rubbed a hand over his eyes, trying to clear the distracting thoughts. He knew what Itachi had said. Konoha was always looking for him, they would go to any length to get their ultimate weapon back. He should never, ever leave a trace.

But Katsuro also knew he was safe within the genjutsu. She would remember none of this. And if she did, it would be hard to discern it from broken fragments of a dream. However the genjutsu itself would live in her memory, a signpost that someone else was there. And if someone more skilled than he were looking for wisp of information, scanning her thoughts for something specifically related to him and what he contained, then anything he said could lead those bastards right to him.

Perhaps he could tell her without giving away any information at all. He swallowed hard.

"I was special...I mean was able to...." Katsuro stopped, then started again. "I was to be a tool...like all ninja, I mean...but for battle, you know?

"Oh," she said, confused. He knew he wasn't making much sense. Maybe he could tell her just a little more. He lowered his voice and dropped his face very close to hers, finding it hard to just string the words together. Things he'd not told anyone since that dark night when Itachi had finally found him, abandoned and alone, on the empty playground of the orphanage.

He blew out a breath and willed the words to come.

"I was to be kept alive only as long I was needed," he said softly. "Then I was to be killed."

Silence stretched out between them. The kunoichi opened and closed her mouth a few times, beginning to ask something, but rethinking it. She settled into a puzzled frown.

But for Katsuro, doubt slipped in, chipping away at his reasoning. Why did he even want to tell her? This was beyond dangerous. Had he lost his mind?

He laughed wryly at a thought that he would initiate the genjutsu and somehow she would end up asking him uncomfortable questions. Just typical, he thought. He should've expected as much by now.

"I'm so sorry, I know some places are awful," she said softly, cutting across his thoughts. "But my village isn't like that at all. You would like it a lot."

Katsuro stiffened. Of course she wouldn't understand, but her small smile just riled him, made him want to yell back at her, tell her everything. Prove her wrong and make her explain her village's actions.

The peach haze thinned around them, and the dark outlines of the forest began to take shape. Flecks of peeling bark surfaced beside his thigh as the tree they sat on came into clearer view.

Damn it, he forgot about the genjutsu, again! Katsuro ignored the irrational anger bearing down on him, and instead focused on reining in the illusion.

He knew what was happening now. They had both been under for too long, and it was clouding his judgement. This would be exhaust them tomorrow. He had to finish swiftly.

Beside him, the kunoichi's eyes were wide with worry, the color in her face washing out. She might have caught a sense of the genjutsu, Katsuro thought, but he couldn't let her out of it yet. If the illusion around them burst like a bubble, then there was a chance she would remember everything. He had to ease her into sleep, then break the jutsu. He just hoped he could do it before either of them passed out.

Scrambling to draw her back in, Katsuro quickly cast around for anything else to talk about. Something they hadn't covered....

"Hey, you have a best friend, right?" he said, shooting her a bright, false smile. "What team is she on?"

The distraction worked instantly.

"Ino," the kunoichi said and rolled her eyes. "She's on Team 8 with Shikamaru and Choji."

But Katsuro just blinked at her.

"Remember, the smart one and the big one? Yeah, well I guess she'd be the blond one then!" she said, laughing at herself for coming up with a nickname.

"I think you would like them a lot. There is also—"

"You're friend, Ino? Katsuro said, realizing her slip. "Oh."

She had simply given her best friend's name as her own all those days ago. He had to think fast.

"You know...I always thought she was related to you," he said with a laugh, but continued watching her closely.

"No!" she said, swatting the air as if he should already know that detail. "Her family runs the Yamanaka flower shop."

"Oh right. And your name's not Yamanaka," Katsuro replied with a scoff.

"No way! It's Haruno, of course," was her firm response.

"Of course," Katsuro covered smoothly. "And tell me how you spell your first name again?"

But to this request the kunoichi only shook her head confusedly. Katsuro had a moment of panic that the genjutsu had somehow broken but he alone was still in it.

"Who doesn't know how to spell Sakura?" she said.

"Sakura?" he echoed, face slack.

"My name?" she said, clarifying like a petulant child.

"Cherry blossom?" he said, then repeated incredulously, "Your name's cherry blossom?" He was completely thrown and just sat blinking at her.

She frowned in misunderstanding. "Not very befitting of a ninja, huh," she muttered, tucking a stray lock of hair back behind her ear.

"No," Katsuro said breathily. He took in her whole face as if he'd never really seen it. "No. It's perfect."

And it was. She was. He'd never met anyone like her, never knew someone like her even existed. And here she was. Open and unaffected, kind and protective, funny and fearless, she could kill you in open combat...and she was named after cherry blossoms.

He studied her face again, his mouth set in a satisfied half-smile, eyes soft. The tightness he'd felt across his chest before returned, but this time it wasn't borne of anger. This was easy and expectant, like he'd been holding his breath. Sakura, he thought, breathing out. A pleasant warmth rushed in, his fingertips tingled.

He created this illusion, but damn if it wasn't doing things to him too. Katsuro tipped his head to get a better look at her eyes, memorize them. If this feeling was part of the genjutsu, then he didn't want to forget.

She couldn't hold his gaze, instead turned away, curling back another lock of hair that was swaying slightly against her neck. The faint glow on her cheeks had turned into a real blush. She involuntarily let out a small yawn.

At this, Katsuro knew their time was up. He would endanger them both to stay under any longer.

"Sakura," he said her name again, just to have the pleasure of hearing it aloud.

"And Ino is your best friend," he said, pleased with himself. Screw the information about Sasuke. Just finding out her name made the whole genjutsu worth it.

Another thought occurred, and he couldn't resist it. Katsuro drew a little closer to her, eyes twinkling and voice soft.

"Hey Sakura-chan, do you have a boyfriend back home?" he asked. Even exhaustion couldn't dampen his grin.

She laughed at his teasing, shaking her head lightly, but her smile slipped at some unwelcome memory.

"There was someone I used to like," she said. Katsuro frowned too, guessing it was the source of all their troubles right now, Sasuke.

A small sigh turned into another yawn, before she drowsily added, "but I don't have a boyfriend."

Katsuro's smile returned.

"Good," he said softly, and closed the small gap between them. Her eyelids were heavy, and she leaned toward him comfortably.

"Just rest now, ok?" he said.

"Kay" she slurred, eyes already closed. Her head dropped easily onto Katsuro's shoulder.

Extending one arm across her abdomen to stop her from falling forward off the log, Katsuro unobtrusively raised his free hand and silently released the jutsu.

The effect for both was like dropping back to Earth. Her weight was fully pressed against his arm, and she was already unconscious. But Katsuro had no such luxury. His limbs were heavy and tired, and his head ached. But he had to get them both into a comfortable position, not perched on an old log.

The ground beneath them was more mud than dirt, but it would have to do. He had not planned the genjutsu well, but in the end he'd gotten more than he'd ever thought possible.

The kunoichi's head nodded forward off his shoulder. He was fading fast too. He had to hurry if he wanted to get this done on his own chakra, and he was at the dregs.

Katsuro didn't want to be forced to borrow from that malevolent energy that was always lurking just below the surface. Sometimes it made him feel good, like he could destroy anything. Then other times it just felt like it was going to burn him alive. Katsuro had a sinking feeling that if he tried to borrow chakra tonight, he'd be torched from the inside out. And he couldn't risk it. He needed to be fully aware in the morning to make his report — and request — to Itachi, not writhing from the aftereffects of channeling a demon's chakra through his veins.

Resolved, he used his last burst of energy to pivot down onto his knee in front of the kunoichi. Taking advantage of the forward momentum, he let her slump against his shoulder, hooked his arm around her to keep her from sliding off, then leaned down with her until she was flat against the ground.

Katsuro's thoughts were beginning to muddle. Fighting to keep his eyes open, he dislodged his arm from behind her unmoving back, sat back up on his knees, then pushed himself backwards away from the tree. He didn't care where he landed, only that he fall clear of Sakura.

Sakura....

The bare threads of thought fell away from him, slipping by like those pale petals her name conjured up. To protect her, to keep her alive, that was enough...if he could just do that....

He was out before his body hit the forest floor.

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Chapter Notes:

• The shape of an illusion — I envisioned there being different types of illusions: happier, feel-good kinds and terrifying, destructive kinds. Interrogating vs. intimidating, respectively. Katsuro's not as good as Itachi, who prefers intimidation because it is quick and he doesn't spare time for anyone, but what Katsuro lacks in jutsu he makes up for in personality. I've tried to add in some of Naruto's characteristics here too: he's learning to read the people around him, but with an inherent kindness; he's interested in the intricacies of what makes the genjutsu work; and when he's safe, like in the genjutsu with Sakura, he's naturally happy. Small, I know, but I'm intentionally writing these aspects in to try to preserve some of his nice characteristics in an environment where none of them show. The illusion itself is a hazy meeting area in the middle for the two, like the cherry tree in the paneled room, it's a safe place for both of them.

• It was a testament to her strong will that she could still keep a shred of reason while fully dipped in a genjutsu. — oblique reference to 'Inner Sakura' from the manga. That it! The only appearance she'll have! Don't blink or you'll miss it!

• They'd never let trash like you be a ninja," a silver-haired man sneered. — Not Kakashi! I repeat, not Kakashi! There is a whole flashback chapter to come later that will tie all these little scenes together. The name's not important, only the impact he made on young Naruto's life. (Hint, hint, it's the same impact he made in the manga.)

• Sakura.... The bare threads of thought fell away from him, slipping by like those pale petals her name conjured up. — reference to the cherry tree, her name and the genjutsu he applied to Sakura in the beginning. Now it has come back to him in a very different way. Appropriate finish to an illusion chapter where more has been revealed about him than her.

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Spoiler Notes:

• This girl shook his beliefs about that wretched village to the core. And if he discovered that Sasuke was like her, someone totally different than what he'd been led to believe, then it was going to be hard to fulfill his mission. — Foreshadowing his future discoveries about Sasuke, that Itachi had woven stories for him to believe that weren't true to give him a good reason to fulfill the mission. One of Naruto's breaks with Itachi comes by not following through with his plan.

• They'd never let trash like you be a ninja," a silver-haired man sneered. — Mizuki. He treats Naruto the same way in the manga and let's the secret of the nine-tailed fox out of the bag. But hopefully you figured that out already.

• And if someone more skilled than he were looking for wisp of information, scanning her thoughts for something specifically related to him and what he contained, then anything he said could lead those bastards right to him. — Foreshadowing two chapters ahead, when Sakura is returned home, and there are people in her village looking for information specifically about Naruto.