markofthebrave | [ Action, Voice ] .031

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[ Action, Voice ] .031

[If you are passing by the Southmost bridge at just the right time, you will find it hard not to notice the girl in an unusual dress and boots facedown on the ground. One shoulder is strangely disjointed, and there are bruises up and down her arms, particularly violent ones around her wrists. She looks like nothing more than a broken and discarded doll.

As the sun continues to set, the coolness in the ground will cause her to start to stir. When she sits up, she grimaces, moving as if there might be something wrong with her ribs. If you happen to be looking at her as she does, you'll notice the sickening blue and yellow bruise spread across her right collarbone, the lovely shiner on her eye.

The wonderful thing about Luceti? Sometimes there's a journal right where you need it. She barely has enough presence of mind to make sure the picture points away from her face, but her voice is very tired.]

Sokka, Aang - I'm back. [Sorry Suki, Zuko.] I'm okay.

[10 100 (thank you, Shikamaru) percent filter to Chopper, Raine]
Hey guys, if you're there - I could use a little help.

[She doesn't want her brother and Aang to see her like this.]

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[She blinks. That... can't be good. She has no idea what it refers to, but...

...but it's probably why he's contacting her today. She likes Shikamaru, but she knows that they're not really friends yet. And this... could be about anything. So it was important, and probably bad, and for a flicker of a selfish moment, she wants to tell him that she's had enough bad news and could he please come back next month? But then the impulse passes.

One more thing. She can do this.]

Um - okay. I'm not really supposed to do very much today, but I don't think there would be anything wrong with a visitor. You know where my house is, right? It's the one by the barracks that has the big stone in front that looks like Sokka's face.

Well now I do. [If he hadn't already suspected.

But he was serious about letting her get her rest. He doesn't feel the need to burden people if they already have enough on their plate.] I'll keep it brief, promise. Just knock on the door?

[She nods.] That's fine. I'll move into the living room so I can hear.

[...at least whatever this is is enough of a distraction that at the moment her one thought isn't: Aang.] See you soon?

I'll be there.

[In less than an hour, no less. Srs business, yo. He knocks twice, then sticks his hands in his pockets.]

[Katara is on the couch, still in her ridiculous dress but swathed in a blanket. That might make the fact that her arm is in a sling slightly less obvious, and it has the additional benefit of hiding the monstrosity the Malnosso stuffed her into. The fountain Winry made for her is on the table, looking as though it belongs there. Even if she's not supposed to be bending, just feeling it there makes her feel better.

When she hears the knock she gets up to answer the door, sighing a little when she realizes she'll have to abandon the blanket if she wants to be able to open it. Ugh, humiliating. Oh well.] Coming!

[And she opens it, smiling a little. She looks distinctly uncomfortable in that dress, and more than a little wan. It would be easy to chalk that up to her return from the Malnosso, but the distress she can't hide in the corners of her eyes looks fresh.] Hey, Shikamaru. Come on in.

Hey. [He raises an eyebrow at the outfit as he steps in. It's so vastly different from what he's usually seen her wear- ah. Looks like she didn't escape the costumes after all.

She's obviously uncomfortable with it, so he doesn't make a remark on it. He does take a small box out from under his arm though, shaking it once so she can hear the food slide in it.] Onigiri. Chouji made extra, so he sent some along.

Onigiri? [...she hasn't heard of that. Oh wait!] That's the rice things Itachi was talking about, right? Thanks!

[She doesn't reach out to take the box, seeing as how she only has one hand - and it could stop being substantial at any moment. In fact, she steps back and shuts the door behind quickly before something else happens.]

How is Chouji? I wanted to ask before, but... [And that's a 'how are you,' too. She starts to move back towards the couch so that they can sit and she can cover herself in a blanket again.]

[He nods when she gets it, pleased she remembered.] We're all right. Getting back into the swing of things like anyone else. Chouji's... well, he's Chouji. [A grin.] He goes with the flow.

[Shikamaru sets the box on the table. He even opens it a little so she won't have to fiddle around with one hand to do it later.]

Yeah, this place... can really mess with you. I'm glad that you both are adapting to it. The best thing you can do is hold on to who you are and go with the flow.

[She stares down at the box and frowns a little, subconsciously.]

What about Itachi? Was he still a kid when all this happened, or...

[Being a ninja, they're very good at that.]

That's actually what I needed to talk to you about. [Shikamaru takes a seat on the floor - he knew she'd bring him up for him.] Itachi's an adult again; it happened a little over a week ago. [And he didn't handle the experiment well, but that's not the point he needs her to focus on here. If she's asking though, she probably hasn't seen the message Itachi had written to her in the journals. He's glad he got to her before then.] He might try to contact you.

[This is A Bad Thing, and he hopes she's caught onto that.]

[Katara gives him a bit of an odd look when he decides to sit on the floor instead of on one of the sofas, but the look changes to one of concerned listening when Shikamaru starts to talk.

She does, in fact, pick up that this is A Bad Thing... but she is not sure as to why.]

Okay...?

[It was convenient. He likes convenient.]

You need to be careful, if he does. Uchiha Itachi is a very dangerous criminal in my world - one of the worst, even. I don't know how Luceti effects his interests, but he's not a man to be taken lightly.

[Her instinctive reaction is shock, and it's nearly followed by outright denial.] What? But-

[-he was so nice! And you treated him just like--]

Edited 2010-11-05 01:20 (UTC)

[...but some part of her remembers Roku, and by implication: Sozin.]

...what did he do?

[Most of this is public information if you're from his world, so he decides to be honest.]

He's a traitor. And a murderer. He killed all but one of his entire clan off in a single night before abandoning our village. [He substitutes 'massacred' with killed. Honest he will be, gritty he will not. The crime was bad enough as it is.]

[There are no icons appropriate enough to express the depths of horror and revulsion Katara feels at hearing this. Such a crime strikes at the heart of everything she holds dear - you would have to be mad, you would have to be Azula to do something like this. You would have to be worse.] That's horrible! Why would he do something like that? How could he?

[Katara had been around evil before. She knew the feel of it. Itachi... he'd just been a too-serious kid! Had she been so wrong again?]

[That's something Shikamaru's been wondering himself ever since seeing Itachi as a child. 'He lost faith in his clan. Wanted power; was insane' would be the answers he's grown up with. That he went rogue is the official reasoning recorded on his page in the Bingo Book.

It's surprisingly vague. But these are thoughts for another day.]

I don't know. But the fact is he did, and he's done more since then. [And it's best not to get into that mess.] I think he's smart enough not to pull anything here. On top of that, he'd have no reason to. Still, it's better to be safe than sorry. If you can't avoid him, at least don't seek him out.

[As overwhelmed as she is with horror at hearing a story like this...

...it's so terrible that she has a hard time accepting it on face value. As far as she knows, Shikamaru doesn't have any reason to lie to her, but...]

If he - did this, if you knew he was like this - why didn't you say something sooner? There's even a list of people to be careful of, even if they haven't done anything here...

I mentioned it to Diana right before you were sent out to help infiltrate the Malnosso's facility. I was told your brother maintains that list? [If you remember, Sokka was kinda busy with something right before that. And then he had to spend over a week as Itachi's babysitter and then the world went to hell a few days after that-] A lot has happened between now and then, and I'm sure Sokka had as many other things to worry about as I did. Itachi's a threat, yes, but there were things that took priority over him.

[Luceti makes it so much more difficult to organize things, oi.]

[Fail actor that Katara is, her eyes first widen in surprise and then narrow. No one is really supposed to know that Sokka maintains that list. It's dangerous enough for him that he does. She's temporarily put off track by this.]

Who told you that?

The Justice League. [Specifically Diana, but she acted on part of her group.

Though if this is supposed to be a secret, he's known who held the list before that. It's kinda been in unfiltered conversations.]

Oh. [Well, she's not going to outright deny it, but she doesn't like it. She'd seen that conversation with Blackbeard when it happened but hoped that Sokka had managed to put it off... apparently only the somewhat-less-than-brilliant pirate's satisfaction.]

...are you going to put him on the list?

Yup. [And Sasuke, while he's at it.] Next time I see your brother, unless something else comes up.

[She's not comfortable with Shikamaru knowing this about Sokka - and with how public he seems to imply that it is. Before he goes, she'll have to remember to ask him to be quiet about it.

Her hands curl into fists at her sides. She looks down.]

I don't understand - his whole clan? He's just one little kid. Did it happen when he was older?

Itachi hasn't been a kid for a while, Katara. [And he means that in more ways than one. Here he scratches at the back of his neck. He never knew Itachi before the man left the village, but even he figures something big must have changed things.] He wasn't one when he killed them - by that point he was a teenager.

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