The Red Maelstrom

[53] Unraveling

A/N: Kind of a general warning. Considering Kohana's condition and the utter lack of mental health education in this era of the Narutoverse + the culture in Konoha, you might come across problematic descriptors for some mental conditions. I'm not gonna be delving into the topic of ableist language (simply because none of the characters are particularly equipped to have such conversations [or else Naruto would have been a lot shorter lmao]), but do let me know if any parts bother you guys. If you want specific content warnings, don't hesitate to ask.

By the way, on the subject of Kohana's auditory hallucinations, I think it needs to be mentioned that not all people who experience the same thing hear full or coherent sentences. In my case I've only ever heard scary laughter. Some only hear unintelligible whispers. You can think of Kohana's hallucinations as something similar to broken sentences where her compromised cognitive processing might automatically fill in the blanks. Read it however you want to, I guess. Not your boss. Just know I'm not trying too hard to shoot for realism here.

Kohana slept like the dead. And when she woke up the following morning to her lonely, dusty apartment, she operated just the same. She washed and dressed mechanically and re-heated leftovers from the other day. Thirty minutes later, she was out the door and on the way to the training grounds to meet Osamu. The guest kind enough to accompany her en-route this morning was, unfortunately, Orochimaru. It was a bit easier to tune out his voice; teasing Kohana about abandonment and liars wasn't going to work if she was already in the process of dealing with them in the first place.

Few things could bother her now, and the short list did not include phantom voices in her head. For instance, trying to recall what happened last night at the hospital was an exercise in withstanding humiliation. It wasn't only because Kohana had looked like she was going to unsheathe a blade (in a hospital!) and use it (on her sensei!), it was rather that, since then, she couldn't stop recalling all the years Naruto spent asking himself what he'd done to deserve the life he got.

He and Kohana had long come to terms with being forced to live and survive on their own. It still saddened her on Naruto's and Sasuke's behalf, but they had had no other choice. Many children in Konoha grew up in a similar way: forced to fend for themselves in their developing years. There was no shortage of orphans who lived alone in the village (Kohana would know; she'd come after quite a few of those orphans for giving Naruto a hard time, as if their lot hadn't resembled his). It was the alienation from his peers, the bullying and the harassment from adults that Kohana couldn't get past. And all of that happened while the truth of Naruto's circumstances was common knowledge to high-ranked shinobi who had the power and influence to protect Naruto. No matter how many ways she framed the past, she always returned to this one truth.

Maybe Kohana wouldn't be this angry if she'd been told everything on the day of their graduation. But that never happened. Now she was stuck imagining Kakashi playing the role of the reliable sensei, who'd been all the while disingenuous. Hypocrite. Kohana itched to hit something. Hard.