Catharsis

Author’s Notes
So... I kind of broke my word. Okay, I did break my word, not just “kind of.” These chapters are weeks overdue—and they’re only half the chapters I originally promised. @_@

Also, for translation and cultural notes, I’ve added “footnotes” at the end of each chapter with corresponding numbers so it’s easier for everyone to refer to them. When I have more time, I’ll do this for the rest of the chapters as well.

Anyway, I wanted to give special thanks to the reviewers who have reviewed; it’s not a lot, so I’ll only be giving review shout-outs every few chapters or so, depending on how many reviews that come along. (Probably won’t be a lot, but that really doesn’t matter.) Plus, I wanted to be able to respond to the reviewers, but sometimes I can’t reach them, so I decided this might be a better way to do that.

N1nj45tyl3: Yes! Thanks for the first review! \m/

Grimpond: Hopefully, I’ll keep writing things that you like! I’ll do my best!

Rune the Rambler: XD I really don’t mind how many reviews I have, but if there are people who can express their like of the story, that’s good enough for me. I’ll be sure to keep you hanging. =P

yanga: I can’t tell you how much I admire your endurance; reading six chapters straight of this! =D Thanks so much for your support!

Nova: I’m continuing with the fic, as you requested. Hopefully I can keep it up—and I hope you still have the same amount of interest in it.

Kilrath: Yay, thanks! Detail is my specialty.

Tsukashi and L.E. Death: I thought it would be weird to put two different responses to both of you since I’d probably be saying the same thing twice. ^^” But then again, I kind of feel bad lumping my reply to you together—in any case, I really appreciate your reviews! I’m really happy that you think that my writing is well-done (so far). I hope to continue to create a good, well-written story, as well as a dynamic OC who doesn’t end up going the wrong way. =D Thanks for your encouragement!

taishorin: I’ll keep pressing on to finish this story and I’ll do my best to keep it up and beyond your standards and my own!

Now, on with the recently commenced new arc of Catharsis! Banzai!

Chapter 8.Their Soap Opera
“Sorry, I’m really sorry.” Shizuka bowed and apologized over and over again to Genma as she backed clumsily out of the restaurant. No matter how many times she said she was sorry, it didn’t do anything to eliminate the enormous weight she felt. “I’m really sorry.”

For several seconds, Genma sat at the sushi bar, flabbergasted, and his hand frozen over his wallet. It didn’t take him a long time to figure out exactly what to say or do before he charged out of the restaurant after Shizuka, who was several buildings away from the restaurant by the time he reached the door.

“Oi! Shizuka! Wait a minute, will you?” Genma panted as he ran after the brunette. To his dismay, she sped up, breaking into a run by the time she reached the end of the block. Genma double over at the corner, clutching a stitch in his side. “Jesus Christ... she’s freaking fast, not to mention a crapload of trouble... Shizuka! Hold on a minute will you?!”

Shizuka didn’t look back, but shouted ahead of her, “Stop running after me will you?”

“I’ll stop running after you if you stop!” Genma yelled back.

“That doesn’t mean anything!”

Their shouted conversation ended there, and, for the next hour, Konoha was graced with the most ridiculous cat-and-mouse chase it had ever witnessed. Anything else that came out of them was Shizuka screaming as she raced down one street after the other, and Genma bellowing back, “Will you just stop running?!”

(“Geez,” Kakashi muttered into his bowl of rice. Even inside a restaurant, he could hear the racket outside. “Who’s making all that noise outside?”

Minami shrugged and prodded Yamato to hand her the platter of spareribs. “Just ignore it, ne? Eat, eat!”)

“Kami-sama, will you just stop running!” Genma bellowed. “Sooner or later, I’ll catch up to you!”

“I’ll stop running if you stop chasing me!” Shizuka gasped. She didn’t want to admit it, but Genma probably was going to catch up to her pretty soon, with her stamina wearing down quickly. She was a sprinter, not a marathon runner.

As far as they knew, they had already covered more than half of Konoha’s roads before Shizuka ran off of the main roads towards the outskirts of the village. She slid on a patch of grass as she turned a corner, throwing her off her pace. Genma burst forward, and just as she recovered from the slip, he grabbed her by her shoulders.

“Oi, Shizuka! What... what the hell was that all about?” Genma panted, hand clutching his side. “You start something and suddenly you try to run away from it. No one can fucking tell what you’re thinking. That’s why any relationships you’ve ever had never work out in the end.”

“That has nothing to do with it!” Shizuka retorted, hastily brushing Genma’s hand off of her shoulder. “It has nothing to do with any of my past relationships!”

Genma sat down on his haunches, his hand over his face. A moment later, he looked up and asked, “It’s about Kakashi, isn’t it?”

Shizuka opened her mouth to protest, but he interrupted her, “The more you deny it, the more likely it’s true... You’re a terrible person. I didn’t think you’d sink that low.”

More than anything, Shizuka wanted to walk away, leave Genma there without an answer. Her legs wouldn’t move though; for once, her conscience held her in place and didn’t let her compulsiveness take over.

Having managed to catch his breath, Genma pushed himself back up onto his feet and took Shizuka’s hand. “Let’s go back. I’ll buy you a drink. In return, you can give me an explanation.”

For the first time in a while, the night passed by rather quickly as she spent it giving Genma the explanation he wanted.

He listened to her without cutting in. He dealt with her questions, both rhetorical and literal with common-sense answers so simple that Shizuka could not understand why she had not thought of the same thing in the first place. He carefully pointed out all of the irrationalities that she uttered, but otherwise, he didn’t judge her.

Though, frankly, he did become very exasperated by her selfishness, which peppered their conversation.

It seemed that before long, Genma was escorting her home. When they reached the door of her large house, wry as ever, Shizuka joked, “My my, one minute you’re smacking my ass, the next you’re escorting me home. Make up your mind, are you a dog or are you a man?”

Genma thought for a moment. Finally he decided on, “Let’s just say I’m the hottest motherfucker out there.”

Shizuka snorted, “Just when I was starting to think you weren’t such an idiot...” She smiled appreciatively at him. “Well then, good night. Thank you for the escort home.”

“Anytime, taichou,” Genma replied with a two-fingered salute, a hint of teasing in his voice. “Listen, don’t do anything as bad as you did tonight, okay? If you need to talk to someone, then talk—I’m always willing to help out a damsel in distress.” [1]

(“You did not just say that...”)

“See you tomorrow, Shizuka.”

With another little flick-slash-salute, Genma ambled down the path to the front door, shaking his head ever so slightly. The honest, complete truth of the matter was that the entire time they spent together was nothing more than a waste of time, through and through.

So Shizuka had told him her little issues, but it didn’t mean that she actually communicated—she just said words. So Genma had not seen her for seven years—the same amount of time everyone else in Konoha had not seen her—but he knew that people, especially stubborn and selfish people like her, did not change easily, and he had known her for some time before those seven years.

After speaking to her, anyone’s initial impression would have been that she actually listened to the person to whom she spoke. She showed all the signs: she knew what the other person said and could recite it word for word, she noted their gestures and body language, and looked appreciative when people gave her advice or consolation. If Genma had to say so himself, it was a very good acting job.

But it was exactly that: an act.

If Shizuka spoke to anyone about herself, ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, she was only speaking to that person strictly with the (usually futile) intent of relieving herself of whatever pressure was bothering her. “Usually futile” meant that even after talking, Shizuka’s conscience was never cleared. Genma found it mind-boggling that even Minami, Shizuka’s best friend, could not even reach her.

Genma made a sharp clicking noise with his tongue out of irritation. That woman is impossible to figure out, he grumbled to himself. Whether or not you can relate to her, she’s still difficult to understand.

It wasn’t just Genma who found her incomprehensible—Shizuka herself could not completely understand why the acted or did things the way she did.

Steam filled the bathroom as she began what would be her second bath that day. She needed the bath, not because she smelled bad or because she was sore, but because the bathtub was the only place she could simply sit around and not worry about anything.

Or at least... it used to be.

Even while she soaked, one concern after the other plagued her. Was Aoi asleep by now? (He damn well better have been; toddlers needed their rest; she didn’t know—nor did she want to know—how much more toddlers would fret and whine if they didn’t get enough sleep.) Did she lock the door after she went inside the house? (But most people in Konoha had no reason to rob each others’ houses, so why worry?) And supplies, did she have everything she needed already in the house? (Hopefully, she did. She didn’t want to bother anyone in some ungodly hour of the morning to get the things she should have picked up once her return to service was confirmed.)

Forget about the little things, what about Genma? Did he really believe her and was he honestly forgiving her for dragging him into her spiteful little schemes? (She wouldn’t have blamed him if he resented her for it; she would have too, if she were in his place.)

But, what was more important than what Genma thought of her was what Shizuka thought of herself: did she really believe everything that came out of her own mouth?

Yes. Everything. Down to the last cross of a “t” and dot of an “I.”

And it was frightening.

Shizuka believed in everything—including all of the faults that she had implicitly listed to Genma. It was the fact that she knew them so well that it was terrifying.

Even more so was that she knew them all... but she had no idea or courage to fix them all.

It was like living in a nightmare.

Her worries kept her up all night. By morning, she looked well-rested and would have felt it... if she didn’t have a pounding headache from the fatigue.

Half-asleep, she groped around the travel pack she had prepared for the mission in search of her clothes. Where were they? Did she really not put them by her bags?

Outside, someone picked the lock of her window, and swung it open with a loud bang. “O-ha-you, Shizuka-chan!”

“... Really, Shizuka, you’re quite sexy, even when you can’t concentrate properly. Watch out, now.” A perky woman with strawberry blonde hair pulled Shizuka back onto the road, preventing her from walking into a ditch. “But sexiness doesn’t really help if you’re completely—” Once again, she steered Shizuka away from a road obstacle, this time a deep puddle. “—completely out of it. Get a grip, hon. You’re a squad captain and you have an entire mission ahead of you.”

Even though the woman was holding onto Shizuka’s wrist, the brunette still teetered off to the side of the road, and barely missed a mound of dog poo in the road.

“Shizuka,” groaned her companion, maneuvering the brunette this way and that. “Come on. Wake up, Shizuka. Dog crap all over your shoes isn’t hot at all, even if it’s you. It most certainly would never complement that outfit of yours.”

The person who had entered Shizuka’s room earlier had been Reina, who helped her find the clothes that Shizuka could not find, and helped dress her. Otherwise, Shizuka would have put her shirt on backwards and accidentally choked herself on the halter that helped hold it up by her shoulders. She wore a form-fitting, ballet-necked top with a halter to keep it from slipping off of her shoulders; it was a deep pinkish-red shade. Her long legs were highlighted with a pair of skinny black pants, and knee-high flat leather boots with buckles on the side.

“Reina,” Shizuka moaned, holding her head. “What... what time is it...? The sun hasn’t even started to rise.”

Reina let out a short, bitter laugh. “You can blame Bakashi, for that.” [2]

“Bakashi?” Shizuka repeated. Was Reina talking about Kakashi?

“Yeah,” Reina muttered, hooking her elbow around Shizuka’s to keep the sleepy brunette within arm’s reach. “He called a team captains’ meeting at the very last minute. He actually came over forty-five ago to tell me, and he asked me to tell you and the others to get your things together, since you’re not a morning person. But neither am I...”

“Why did he call a meeting so friggin’ early?” complained the brunette. “He’s only going to be more than thirty minutes late to his own meeting.”

“Surprise surprise,” Reina shrugged. “Ah!”

The strawberry-blonde woman paused before a closed shop before pulling Shizuka back with her to the unusually lively looking café behind them. “My mother and father offered to make all of the captains breakfast at their café. Everyone else is there already there it seems.”

The bells on the double doors rung as the two women entered, and were greeted by three other sleepy yawns. Shizuka dropped her bags on the floor, and tottered over to the countertop to plop down on the stool next to Yamato.

“Why...?” she complained. “Why did that moron call a meeting at the last minute...? If he wanted to have a captains’ meeting he could have called one once we got into Kaze no Kuni, as opposed to this ungodly hour. That selfish, inconsiderate moron...”

As all the captains had predicted, Kakashi sauntered in more than half an hour late—forty-two minutes, to be exact—with a casual “Yo!” The tired group had been betting on who could guess how long it would take for Kakashi (or, Bakashi, as Reina affectionately called him) to arrive over the breakfast Reina’s parents prepared for them. Shizuka won the bet, guessing exactly forty-two minutes, and three captains each grudgingly handed over fifty-ryou notes to the brunette (Yamato had passed the offer to join the betting).

Reina stormed over to Kakashi and smacked him across the back of his head with a rolled up newspaper. “Bakashi!” she yelled, much more active than she had been in the last few minutes. “You wake me up an hour too early for this, and then you come almost forty-five minutes to your own fucking meeting! Moreover, I’ve lost fifty ryou because of you!”

“Is that the way you talk to your captain?” asked Kakashi nonchalantly. “I got lost on the road—”

“Road to what?” demanded Reina, bouncing slightly on her toes so she could look at him eye-to-eye. “You’d come to my parents’ place every morning when you were a kid. There’s no way you can get lost.”

Meanwhile, the other two captains that had participated in the bet—Shirota Abe and Tanaka Hiroyuki—booted Yamato out of his seat so they could talk to Shizuka and complain over their losses to her. “It’s not fair, Shizuka-chan,” whined Hiroyuki, pounding the countertop and causing the dishes on it to jump up. “You know Kakashi-sempai down to his very last cell because you two dated for so long.”

Shizuka rapped the top of Hiroyuki’s head sharply with the ends of her chopsticks, and said pointedly, “We’re not dating anymore. That ridiculous soap opera ended seven years ago.”

Reina stopped bickering with Kakashi, and she and Yamato both looked at him, concerned. The copy-nin had no reaction to it; he shrugged and dropped his bags to join the rest of them at the counter—even asking Abe to go back to his original seat so he could sit next to Shizuka.

Even with his mask, the five other captains saw that he was positively beaming when he asked Shizuka with unusual exuberance, “You look very good today, Shizuka. Are you excited for the mission?”

From the look on the others’ faces, they could all agree that the mission would be... well, it would either be a very interesting or very frightening drama.

An hour later—and more than half an hour after the planned starting time—Kakashi had explained the preliminary plans, and the teams had assembled together at Konoha’s gates, ready to leave. Tsunade fumed angrily over their tardiness, while Kakashi brushed them off as if they were bits of dirt on his shoulder.

“Alright, alright, everyone is set, for the tenth time!” Tsunade snapped. “Just go already! Time’s a-ticking; keep it up, and you won’t leave for another week!”

“Hai, hai, Hokage-sama.” Kakashi looked up lazily, rubbing the back of his head as he pretended to think. “Eto… it’s probably about time that we got going... Then, we’ll leave as planned. Tanaka, you can start us off.”

“Roger, taichou.”

One team after the other, four shinobi each, set off after each other like synchronized swimmers in the air. Some distance away, a pair of binoculars followed each group avidly, stopping when the lenses finally met with the fourth group, led by pretty brunette.

“Kyaaaa, so Kyouhei was right! She’s here, she’s here!” squealed Ayanokouji, excitedly. If it had not been for Makoto, who sat next to her on the tall tree branch that they were situated in, the little girl would have tumbled more than seventy-five feet below to the forest floor because of her bouncing on the branch.

“Look, Matoko,” Ayanokouji gushed, handing her partner the binoculars. “She’s absolutely perfect. Do you think the Lord will let me have her once he’s finished with his project?”

Makoto coughed, slightly surprised. Even though he had worked with Ayanokouji for a long time and knew of her circumstances, it was still strange to hear her, a woman stuck in the body of a young girl, say that she wanted the brunette that he was looking at through the lenses.

But, he could see why. Hibashira Shizuka had a dancer’s body: long, lean, and graceful, curves and steel. Even though she was a shinobi, her skin looked unmarred by combat; creamy and smooth, like porcelain.

Her beauty was useless to them from a distance. If either of them hoped to accomplish anything, they had to capture her.

“Ayanokouji, we’re going to follow them.”

--------------------------------------------------

Translation/Cultural Notes
1. taichou: Captain—it is also used as one of the many honorific suffixes, like “Kakashi-taichou.”
2. Bakashi: I couldn’t help but do a play on words for Kakashi’s name. XD Baka is “idiot” and if you replace the first “ka” in Kakashi’s name with “ba” it becomes “Bakashi.”