markofthebrave | [ Action ] .061

[ Action ] .061

[Days 1-2]
[The experiment catches up with Katara slowly - first through teleportation, then through the advent of (thought bubbles)]

[Day 3]
Meet the bitty:

[She's been in Luceti for two years now, along with her much older brother Sokka. She's totally adapted and probably playing hide-and-seek. Warning: She's also still teleporting.]

[Days 4-6]
[More thought bubbles. More transportation. Katara is starting to get very tired and frustrated at this point due to lack of sleep and various emotional issues. She keeps popping up in the most inconvenient places! Sorry about that...]

[Days 7-8]
[Today, Katara woke up a bit different: she has been AU'd to another world, that of the Konoha ninja (complete with forehead protector!). She chalks waking up in a strange bedroom to the experiment that's been going on the past couple of days and ninja!vanishes into the dawn - she'll apologize later. She'll do her best to move back in to her regular apartment and keep to her regular schedule - a few classes at school (despite having told Raine she would not be in attendance that week - and depending on if school is in session) - practice in the forest, climbing on some trees; and making dinner on Floor 8 of Community Building 1, where she has claimed the sole empty apartment.

The next day, she decides to take a break from her regular training to practice an art more specific to kunoichi: Ikebana. At around six in the evening, Katara heads down to the flower shop. After gathering her materials, and dressing for the occasion, Katara heads out behind her apartment complex to make the best use of the natural light to form her arrangements.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She closes her eyes, tilts her face to the sun, and listens.

She's Katara of the hidden village of the Leaf. And she can hear a bug crawling on a blade of grass a few inches away, she can feel the beating of her heart, hear her breathing...

She's Katara of the hidden village of the leaf, and to her left approximately two and a half feet away, she can hear a comrade breathing, and the sound of a comrade's breath is as precious as one's own - it's the sound of life.

And she listens.]

Did you ever play Ninja, back in the Academy?

[A silly game, that naturally all the little boys loved. Like tag, with cardboard shuriken.]

[Heh.

She keeps her eyes shut as she speaks.]

I started playing with Teo when he began his first year. He would get annoyed, because two years is a big difference in terms of dexterity, but I insisted and going and playing anyway.

[Ha, it would figure.]

Bet all the other boys were thrilled.

[But if she wasn't in the same class, as he suspects, maybe she wasn't an annoying fangirl. Every year had them, but none quite as bad as his.]

[Her tone turns wry.]

They tried to lose me in the woods - it was terrible.

[...speaking of terrible.]

So one day I hid.

[He shifts his hand behind his head, arching his neck to look backwards at her.]

It was incredibly boring, but before long they all started looking for me. I could hear them, but I stayed hidden, so they eventually had to go back and tell our mom who freaked out. I was found by some chunin...

[She didn't really remember who.]

We got the beatings of our lives. But afterwards, everyone wanted me on their team because they learned I would be good for sneak attacks.

[So it was all worth it, clearly.]

Tch. I see kids were as dumb about as they were when Chouji and I used to play.

[Chouji's name causes her eyes to open.]

Kids are like that.

[He lays flat again, nodding. Acknowledging the statement as truth.]

We stopped playing before our second year because it was dumb. But before that, my favorite part of the game was when you got captured.

[Opposite point of the game, but whatever.]

[Heh.]

So you'd get to stop running?

That's half of it. [And can't help grinning.] The bigger half of it, yeah.

[She laughs, open and friendly.]

Well, once they gave us real kunai, it kind of lost its appeal.

[For him, it was long before that. When they wouldn't let Chouji play.]

That part always bored me. I liked it when you were captured, and given the option of dying [which entailed falling over dramatically and lying still for the rest of the game] or being taken as prisoners of war at the base camp.

[Heh.]

And you chose "death?"

Usually. [Because it wasn't real dying.]

Some of the other boys would give speeches about how they wanted to be remembered by their villages, but I just did it for the excuse to nap.

I'm shocked.

[She said, her tone anything but shocked.

There's a question niggling in the corner of her mind, but right now he's directing the conversation and she's willing to let that continue.]

[Actually, that was all he had there. That seed.

But he shrugs.] I am me.

[And so am I.

She's quiet for a moment.]

Shikamaru?

Yeah?

[It'd take a lobotomy for me to forget you, Katara.

How to phrase this.]

You need that lobotomy because the other me drives you crazy?

[...

Okay, sorry, he has to laugh.]

[Good, that was what she was going for.

She knew that they were, at the least, friendly enough to spar together.

She knew that said a good deal.

But that... didn't tell her all she needed to know.

So she waits for him to stop laughing.]

[It won't take long, but it was a good chuckle.]

Facts of life: all my friends drive me nuts, at some point.

[Heh.]

No big surprise there.

[She's still waiting.]

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