Relentless (Book 2)

Responsibility- Katsu

Katsu blindly followed the member of the Anbu Black Ops along with Kakashi. Her limbs were numb, everything reaching her ears as if through molasses.

When they had finally reached the large doors, Katsu had to blink her eyes several times to avoid running into them. Upon entering, Katsu observed that Tsunade was seated at her desk, her fingers interlocked as they often were when the woman was anxious but wouldn't allow herself to show it through facial expressions.

The Anbu member nodded to the Hokage before silently leaving the room.

"Katsu, Kakashi," the woman said before gesturing to the chairs in front of her desk. "Have a seat."

They did as she said, Katsu's mind buzzing with confusion. Erika couldn't really be gone, could she? She would never just leave the Leaf.

"I trust you know what this is about?" Tsunade asked expectantly.

"Taruma just informed us that the chamber of important documents was broken into," Kakashi answered. "What was stolen?"

"Only one thing," Tsunade said grimly. "The scroll Katsu brought back several months ago when you both returned from your capture. It's nowhere to be found."

With unsteady hands, Katsu reached forward to drop the parchment she held onto the woman's desk.

"What's this?" the woman asked, picking up the parchment.

"A farewell note from Erika Raidon," Kakashi answered for Katsu. "The child is gone."

After reading, Tsunade looked at them both grimly. "This explains much," she said solemnly.

"What do you mean?" Katsu asked, finally finding her voice, though her words were thick.

"The footprints found entering the chamber were small, like those of a child's, the handprints discovered on the glass of the scroll's confinement, though too smudged to detect exact fingerprints, were also small."

"You're suggesting that Erika stole the scroll," Kakashi said, not as a question but a statement.

"Yes," Tsunade said with a confirming nod.

"But how?" Katsu asked, baffled.

Tsunade turned to her. "Do you doubt that your student is capable of doing this?" she asked, eyebrows raised.

Katsu didn't answer for a moment. She believed she knew Erika but one word she knew could always be used to describe the girl was 'mysterious'. Her abilities had surprised Katsu more than once before. Who was to say that she hadn't simply done it again? "I suppose I just never thought she would..." Katsu murmured, staring at her hands.

"Do you have any idea where she would have gone?" Kakashi asked then.

"To her father of course," Katsu answered first.

"I beg your pardon?" Tsunade asked for an explanation.

"She wishes to 'free her mother' as she has put it. Someone who she believed to have previously been dead. And suddenly, in the hours of the night, she disappears along with a scroll I managed to steal from none other than Orochimaru himself? It doesn't add up any other way."

"What would suddenly give her the idea that her mother is alive?" Tsunade asked.

"Message by dream?" Kakashi proposed.

"You don't really believe in such things?" Katsu asked skeptically.

"Orochimaru's capable of much more than that," Tsunade whispered more to herself than to either of them.