Cursed Saint

4 - Will to Protect

Trees flew passed as the Anbu ran through the forest, searching for the two escapees and their captives. They had to be somewhere, right? One of the Anbu, Kohaku, glanced around, the dog mask on his face doing nothing to obscure his sight. The Hokage had given them strict orders to stay alert. The Yamanaka was said to be kept at a distance and the other was said to be great at genjutsu. As long as they were prepared for unexpected things, he'd been told, they should be mostly fine. They just had to stay alert like the Anbu had always been trained to do.

Everything around them were mere blurs they were moving so fast. The thuds of their feet on the branches blocked out any sounds of life in the forest. There was only the occasional noise, mostly of a bird. It was because Kohaku was in the lead he saw her first.

She was a woman with long, flowing brown hair the same chocolate color as his, her kind, gentle green eyes staring at him. She wore a white and pink kimono that was loose on her frail figure.

He came to a halt, the others slightly behind him doing the same. Kohaku stared at the woman, his heart clenching. The last time he'd seen her, he'd said, "You won't see me again until I've become a great ninja!", before running out the door. He'd only been fourteen at the time, planning on going to live with his grandpa so he could train undisturbed. Young and stupid, oblivious to the luxury he had. Not even realizing how important it was until it was yanked out from underneath him.

"Mom," he choked out. He'd been mad at her then. Angry because he'd failed the chunin exams, too tired to finish the first test after his mom kept him up all night to clean up the house. He hadn't heard another word from her after, "Please, Kohaku, let me explain. Please." It wasn't until after she died four months later he realized why she'd done it.

In a note left to him from his mother, knowing she was about to die and needing to tell him, she wrote that she'd done it on purpose. She'd done it because she didn't want her child to be a chunin off on missions when she could sense she was so close to dying. So, unwilling to tell her son something that would torture him, she'd tried to make it so he'd be able to stay home with her. Then the last thing she'd know before she died was that her son loved her. He was all she had left. His grandpa was his dead father's father. Both his mom's parents were dead. And because of his own selfish desires, she'd died alone, having nobody with her when her time came. Despite all this, the end of the note claimed that she loved him more than anything in the world and that she wanted him to become the strongest ninja ever known.

"Kohaku," she said, her voice gentle and loving. She spread her arms out, an invitation that the masked Anbu instantly understood.

"I've become a strong ninja now, Mom." Anbu were trained to keep their emotions down and focus on the mission, but he let them hit him like a train, too happy to think of the fact his mother was dead. He stepped forward, jumping toward her. He was a branch away when someone grabbed his arm.

Chakra shot through him at the same time someone said, "Snap out of it, Kohaku. It's not whoever you see!" Other Anbu members were shouting similar things to him. The chakra broke the genjutsu he'd unknowingly been under. He jerked, trying to step back as he looked forward again. A man in ragged blue clothes stood before him, an evil gleam in his dark eyes. His scarlet hair flew back as he jumped forward, a kunai that had been in one of his hands flashing when the light hit it. It shot forward, Kohaku having no time to dodge.

Pain exploded within him. He felt like the pain lasted for hours when he knew it had only been a second or two before a crushing darkness swallowed him.

****

"You're going to have to give in sometime," Shiro said, resting against the rock wall outside Ryu's cell. Sakura was fast asleep beside of him, snoring softly. All the sleeping medicine she'd taken in was the culprit behind her heavy sleeping, as oblivious of the conversation taking place between the two males as she was of the sleeping drug.