Kumo's Finest

The red iris of Volt Uchiha’s eye absorbed the photons as they bounced and reflected off of the world surrounding them, allowing Kaito to enjoy the spoils of his deed and the blessings of the bloodline. He had noticed out of the corner of his eye Katsumi’s motions had halted; she sat perfectly still. He rolled his eye quickly towards her, and her stillness left a small sensation of dread creeping about the pit of his stomach… he paid no mind to it and rolled his eye back towards Ichigo. Funny thing is, when the eye is flickering about, it doesn’t capture information as well… and so he was completely blindsided by Katsumi’s pounce.

Perhaps a tackle would’ve been a more accurate description of the action, however her small frame didn’t land itself to such an expression, and yet it did land squarely on Kaito’s lower abdomen, throwing his superior weight off his balance. Her hand clutched his wrist, grasping for the scroll he held away from her; he tried to keep it further away by extending his longer arm away from her, her electrifying touch coursing through every muscle fiber of the limb. As she raged and inched herself closer, Kaito’s left arm got trapped between their two bodies, which he powered away from that trap and tried to grasp at her other arm which surely tried to clutch something deadly to slide between his ribs.

Even with the close interaction between the two, Kaito could only focus on her eyes.

Her eyes.

The hatred expressed in them… and a deep hurt.

Kaito fumbled with her lower back, trying to grab her wrist, but as soon as it had started, it ended. A look of defeat befell Katsumi’s face, and now Kaito realized his heart pumped madly within his chest. His head raced, scroll still tightly clutched in his hand, and Katsumi’s delicate frame resting upon his waist. He tried to reign in his breathing, looking at her with his crimson eye trying to catch her mirroring sight, yet she avoided his sight as she apologized and addressed Ichigo. When she rolled off of him, her sentence struck a chord within him. He… hadn’t given it that much thought. Truthfully he didn’t even consider that she would be that upset at the concept. If not for their contact he wasn’t sure he would be this calm, yet as she rolled off, the anger bubbled within him.

Between gritted teeth, he explained himself. “When I brought this kid to his parents, they wanted nothing to do with him. A traitor would not be buried alongside their ancestors, they said. All I’m doing is keeping the weapons of the Kumogakure within the Kumogakure. We’re ninja. We’re nothing but weapons in service of the village, and of the country. You should keep that in mind, Katsumi. It never leaves mine.” He felt now was not the time to go on his tirades against the born-gifted, even though it was the perfect follow up. She would never know what it was like to be the runt among the gifted.

Ichigo responded kindly, as might’ve been expected if Kaito had bothered to get to know the man more. That was perhaps his fault, for they had gotten along easy, yet didn’t delve into their relationship a whole lot. Comradery and booze held their bond together. Katsumi, on the other hand, retorted violently once again, her tone matching Kaito’s in both held back rage and a poignant sharp point to be addressed. However, it appeared Katsumi’s point had a greater edge; when she spoke, Kaito found himself flabbergasted, taken aback by the implication that the redhead not only thought little of himself, he was willing to treat others badly due to this. Moreover, the underlining that Kaito just allowed himself to be a tool of greater men for their ploys… in what she considered an archaic way of living. The hypocrisy was so strong he almost laughed, yet he couldn’t do so through the tensed muscles in his face, gaze trained straight at Katsumi.

She got up, and got the bottle to her lips. Kaito observed her with the dark eye of her kin as she drank longingly and stoppered the bottle before letting it fall to the grass, then making her way toward him. Still lounging back after their little exercise, he prepared for a possible attack, yet none came. Instead, she ran her fingers through his red hair, and something about it lightened the mood of Kaito, the touch not damning as it had been earlier, but instead comforting and reinvigorating, deconstructing his stressed posture into a relaxed sensation that travelled through a shiver through his body. When the tips of her fingers parted away from him, his head instinctively turned towards her, seeking once again the touch of her fingers, yet nothing was found. He allowed his head to hang for a moment, coursing chakra through to his now out of sight byakugan, and he stalked her exit for a moment.

He would then disable his byakugan and turn towards Ichigo, scroll still in hand. He flicked it towards the man. “Take it”, he said in a dry tone. “The body won’t be of much use without the eye anyway, you can do whatever you want to the rest of it.” He did really think little of others, but whether that was because he thought little of himself was a different story. After all, in his search for power, he had snatched an eye out of his former student’s skull just before killing him. He still burned the body, and ground the bones to dust. No evidence, no problem. The area in which it had happened, Kaito planted a sapling, so his student could look over the village even after death. Willful as his student was though, the tree would one day fall on some villagers just out of spite. He looked at Ichigo. “Don’t let her little speech get to you. She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she has no idea what it is like to be looked at as just fodder.” He sniffled to clear his nose, then pushed air out of his nose. He reached for the bottle, and had a drink out of it. When he lowered it, the notion that Katsumi’s lips had touched the bottle’s mouth. He didn’t know whether to lick his lips or spit, so he did neither, instead wiping his mouth with the bandaging wraps on his wrist. “Power for power’s sake is a fool’s game, but without power, we can’t affect the world around us. I would rather be a great man with my own ploys, yet without power, I’m just a man.” Why was he justifying himself? Why did she have this effect on him? He rose his eyebrows, putting the bottle down. “You can pay me whenever you want. If you want me to accompany you in missions to make payday come sooner, I can do just that. And, if you want to train with your new eye, I can also do that.”

Kaito waved his hand at Ichigo. “Spare me the words of kindness. This was just a business transaction. I’ll be expecting the money.” Harsh as he may sound, especially considering how salty he now was over the Katsumi situation (half angry at himself, half angry at the short round), he did have a soft spot for Ichigo. Both of them were clanless, nobody wanted them for the inherent powers they were born with, and in this world, they were nothing more than fodder, and anything they could accomplish must be out of their own resolve. That was why Kaito had brought up the Sharingan to sell even though Ichigo hadn’t asked. He wanted him to have it. Between the two of them, the redhead kind of saw a part of himself in the black haired kid. He was a perfect recipient for the Sharingan.

The Byakugan, on another hand, was something Kaito had gripes with exchanging inside of the village. Only two people knew of its existence, Gidyne and Maximillian. He would keep it like that. A ninja’s tools are their most prized possessions, and a tool anyone knows about is a tool anyone can counter. No, the Sharingan almost everyone knew, given that Kaito was not able to activate the Uchiha genetics immediately. But the Byakugan was a different story.

The two would stay and drink for a while as the weather soured, the dark clouds allowing for the winds to steal the heat from the grounds and quickly turning the field into a cold slab of heat thievery. Even with cookies and alcohol it was becoming difficult to stay. Eventually both the cookies and alcohol ran out, and the ninjas said their goodbyes and parted ways.