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Houka listen to Zanza while walking...

*Rocky start heh? Why...that dosen't surprise me...*

He stood in front of Zanza when he sitted down on the bench.

''Well...a twin sister hmmm wierd news indeed. So your finally learning your family's way, huh? Tell me more about it. What are there use? Is ninjutstu, genjustu or sealing technique? An academy student...geez I didn't know we could do that...and yeah I'm pretty broken myself...we haven't done a mission in a lifetime now. And we didn't get paid the last time heh.''

Houka was leaning on his Boo now, a little tired. Is stomach was crying out loud and he didn't like that.

''Something planned...hmmm first thing would be a nice meal...this stomach won't shut up. Second...you know, I saw that trick ya did back then...on that bandit. What was it called...oh yeah, Doton: Shinju Zanshu no Jutsu...head hunter jutsu. I'v search about it...I need you...could you teach me? It won't take long to learn...I think. Dam, I forgot, you need the right element in order to learn it. I don't even know my own affinity. During the time I spent behing lost, I read about my family's clan history. Yes, I have a clan too it seems. A well hidden one. Know for it's ability to produce strong bodyguard. I haven't manage to read all the scroll yet. My father did most of the work in unlocking the seal...but I need to do this on my own now. The problem...is that I don't know anything about Fuuinjutsu...or anyone that could teach me...I guess my father could but he is a lot busy now...he his working on something...so we could settle for something to eat and talk about it.''

((I'm going to leave you the opportunity to gloss over the following details.))

Katsuko turned, her mouth agape. Nonchalance! There she was, standing there for his perusal, and he came at her with nonchalance! She huffed, setting her position to one of mild annoyance but a willingness to continue on.

She glanced over his physique, appreciating many of the details ingrained in his body...especially a certain piece that she let her eyes linger on. She smiled coyly. "Apparently you aren't happy to be in a locked room, alone, with me. Fair enough." she turned and began making her way to the door, seeing if he'd catch her or let her run.

((Hooray! Time skip! w00t! ^ ^))

Dreams took her, dreams of people, voices, feelings. She felt loved and hated, wanted and needed, alone and abandoned. It was confusing as all hell, trying to sort through so many feelings, an entire sea of them. She was nearly drowning in them, had drowned before, but quickly learned how to keep her head above water- barely.

It always began with the emotions. Sometimes the dreams were only bad enough that she woke up disoriented, confused, scared, almost able to touch the memories that so eluded her. Other times, she woke up fighting Ataru, screaming her lungs out and calling out things that she never remembered and Ataru couldn't recall because he would concentrate so hard on stopping her from hurting herself.

He was a good man, much like so many others she knew. Faces, names, they eluded her better than anything else in the world. But the feelings, the pain, the sorrow, they were always real, always fresh.

There were bodies, massive bodies, pressing around her. She was drowning, she was suffocating, she was being killed by the emotion that kept thickening the air she was breathing. She was being smothered by love and acceptance. She didn't deserve it, it wasn't right. How could someone love so purely, so intensely, and then just disappear?

She began to chase the figure, but they kept running away, leaving her behind, moving too fast for her to do anything but call at them to stop and hope they heard. They never did, but this time, something different happened. The figure stopped, turned, and came straight at her.

She stopped in confusion, watching in horror as one of the figure's arms turned into a massive pincer. It was coming too fast! It would hit her, kill her, stop her from ever saying the things she wanted to say.

It caught up to her quickly, its claw plunging into her mindrift, knocking her from a cliff. How there was a cliff in the black abyss she saw all around her was something she didn't spend time dwelling on. The pain, the pain, it was too much. She was going blind in the abyss, losing her Self, her soul, her being.

She had to say it. She had to say the words, but she couldn't remember. She was falling, losing time, and she couldn't remember what she had to say, what would make everything better, would bring her world back to one of light instead the the black, black, black abyss.

She hit the ground with a sickening crunch. In the hotel, she shot up, screaming and sobbing and shaking worse than ever.

((^ ^ Enjoy.))

Ataru woke when Katsuko started screaming again, and he had her arms wrapped around his tree-trunk of a torso in a second, holding her close, softly caressing her hair. "Shhh, shh... You're alright, it was another dream... I'm here, this is real, you're OK... Shhh..."

This happened a fair bit, and he was used to it. In an odd, selfish way he liked being here for her when this happened, but he felt terrible for being glad that she needed someone like him. If he could, he would trade the world for her dreams to stop, and for her to regain her lost memories.

He held her, keeping her still, trying his best to calm her.
"Shhh, it's ok, I'm here..."

"BATTER UP!!" a cry came from below. Outside the glass of the hotel the cry resounded loud and clear for all to hear. It was the squeel of a child no more than about 12 or 14 years in age. A girl of ample proportions for her age. The area right outside the hotel was a natural rock garden that had been manipulated and slightly altered by time and the war. It was one of the things that had been actually imporved due to the war instead of destroyed.

In the very center of the garden was a small flat feild. The feild was so flat and smoothed out, it almost shimmered like glass. It was marble and other reflective surfaces that had been cut away and brought to the surface do to Earth Ninjutsu being used during the war. When the clean up was over in this area, the feild wa thouht to be so nice that it was left not as a scar but as a symbol of Iwagakures resilliance and beauty.

But as for now, it was being used for anything but that. The girl mentioned before was adorned with a baseball cap and uniform for the Iwagakure Sand Scorpion's, one of the best baseball teams in the lague. Of course, it wasn't an offical outfit but she liked the team none the less. She was playing with/against a rather odd opposing team. A gathering of ANBU each adorned with different masks and various colors disgingushing them from each other. The saddest part was that they were all under this girls control.

The sound of a cracking bat could be heard followed by a sharp scream, "LOOK OUT RED!!" Another distinct sound would quickly follow...that of glass shattering. Namely, the glass for the window of Katsuko and Ataru room. What broke it you ask? Why the body of an ANBU with a baseball burned hard and fast into his mask. The cloaked man was out for the count against the far wall.

Within seconds, the girl would enter the room through the same window, "Aww man...Red...I told you to watch out? Dammit...bet the owners gonna make you pay for the windows again...huh?" Her eyes glanced over to the side to see two lovers in the bed...at first, she had a bit of embarresed shock on her face. A range of eother emotions ran the gambit of her eyes but they eventually settled on devious mischief. Pulling up a chair, she soon plopped down and grinned, "Ooooh don't mind us, you kids keep doing what you doin. You can be as loud as the hell you want you know?" she grinned evillily.

((Aw damn, I'll edit, then kill this post, hold on.))

EDIT: ((just treat my post as though it happened before carlos's, i have to go.))

Ryoko, the girl, simply sat there, "What? No Hentai? Well at least I get some ecchi." she giggle a bit. At that momen, 3 more ANBU entered the room.

"Lady Ryoko...we really shouldn't be in here...." said one of the ANBU. A large man drapped completly in black. He had moved to gather his companion who was still out cold. As a testimate to ANBU mask durability, it was still together even though a huge ball imprint was in it now. The ANBU stopped for a moment and glared at the girl...he had been in the ANBU the longest and thus had been around the block a time or two...something was different about this girl who bloomed with rage...something he couldn't put his finger on. Of course, he wasn't naturally from the village so he probably remmbered ehr from there. With a shrug, he soon began to head out.

"Mom...what the hell are you doing?" A voice chimmed in. Through the small hole still int he window, a boy drapped in a long black drench coat soon came through. He walked over to Ryoko and popped ehr on the head with his bat, "Oy!...what the hells the big idea? Didn't the manager tell you not to hit anymore poeple into these windows?"

He stopped for a moment...his mother...the girl before them, hadn't taken her eyes off the girl nor had she lowered her childish grin. Roy looked over to the direction and soon dropped his eyes upon a figure he knew all too well. So familiar...so surren...so pleasent...and yet...it...it couldn't be...wrapped nude in the arms of another...how? When? Why didn't he feel it? What was going on?

Roy's eyes widdened...he....he gazzed to her for a moment and tear quickly welled up in his eyes. "k...ki...." his throat went dry, his heart raced faster than even during the war...god the war...his mind was exploding with thoughts...and soon, he couldn't take it, "NO! YOUR NOT HER!! GET OUT OF THIS VILLIAGE NOW!!!" he screamed...like a child who's world had just be destroyed...he screamed and pushed past the ANBU and took off into the city.

With a nod from Ryoko, the ANBU quickly gave chase to the boy...she stood there...glancing and mumbled to herself, "well I'll be damned.."

[[exit Roy to platue]]

The room was cleared now except for Ryoko and the two original occupents. She released the form of Haruko...it seemed pointless at this point as the woman befor her would know her real form anyway. Sides, she had more important things racing through her mind. Roy hadn't shown so much emotion ever since that day...the day the news of Kinami's assumed death was passed down the lines. He cried himself to sleep that night...Ryoko remembered that. As a mother, that memory was burnned deeply into her heart and it left a horrible scar.

To think that...for months this woman...the woman that claimed love of her son...she was now in a room with someone...some b*****d...

Ryoko looked her over...then to her face. She rememebered something at that exact moment. The photo in Roy's bag...that photo he took of Kinami. The markings and scars matched up except for the new ones...and Roys reaction...yea that was enough for her...that was enough for any mother.

Her own fist began to tense and tighten as she dropped the bat...she was gonna do this with her own two hands..."You little b***h..." she mumbled under her breath.

Out of no where Ryoko thrust her fist forward right into the girls stomach, right into the scar where a hole should be inher stomach. She would watch the girl fly back into the wall and glare to her with evil intent. Her eyes would gaze towards the man, "Get out if you don't wanna see this b***h die..."

Closer and closer she stalked, her rage was probably the only thing keeping her fist from flying. Strange as that may sound, her rage was focusing her to one target...the girls heart and vital organs. "You leave the village...having all of us thinking your some grand person...you turned over a new leaf....then you vanish...make my boy cry his eyes out for days...then...THEN you come back here ******** some other s**t head? You.....YOU! my dear dead corpse have more balls than ANYONE I've EVER known...hope he was a good ******** thats all your gonna remember when I send your mangled corpse to hell."