"We're going to have to set up a home somewhere eventually," Kakashi said beside Katsu. The vast forested area had finally thinned to a grassy plain with few trees and a small black lake. "Somewhere to return to."
It was some time in the evening, the sky changing from a light blue to a pale shade of pink.
"Won't it be dangerous though?" Katsu asked. "Stopping and returning to the same area? Won't that make us easier to track?"
Kakashi considered this and shook his head. "Not if we're careful. If we have a set place to return to, then it will make our jobs easier if we are to split up while looking for the scrolls. I think it best for us to stick together, however. At least, the two of us."
Out of the corner of her eye, Katsu noticed Sasuke's back straighten.
"And for the matter of being tracked, we can set up protections that would lure passersby away. Just like those that I'm sure are placed around Orochimaru's hideouts. They're never easy to find."
Sasuke stopped walking and turned around to face them, his arms crossed.
"And you can create those?" Katsu asked Kakashi.
The man considered this skeptically. "I've never attempted it," he admitted. "They are quite complex, however. It would take practice..."
Katsu slowly turned to Sasuke. "Do you know how to create protections like that?" she asked him carefully.
He only stared at her, annoyed, in response.
"Oh, you can speak now," she remembered.
"I'm not an idiot," he said immediately. "Of course I can create basic protections. You two are jokes for shinobi."
"I'm getting tired of your voice again already," Katsu muttered.
"Then might I make a suggestion before you silence me again?" Sasuke asked.
"Sure," Katsu said skeptically.
Sasuke looked over the two of them boredly. "Set up your 'home' here," he said with a shrug.
"Here?" Katsu asked suspiciously, glancing around. "This is a nearly open plain."
"True," he said. "Which is not where one would ever be expected to hide. "And I recognize this area. There's a city not too far from here. We can obtain food and other necessities without drawing attention to ourselves."
"Your face is on every wanted poster from here to the Leaf Village," Kakashi snapped.
"I don't have to be the one to go," Sasuke growled. "I'm actually attempting to help a bit here, old man."
"Again," Kakashi said with a long sigh, "I'm twenty-four. And frankly, I don't like you talking at all. Are we just supposed to trust your judgement on a safe location? How much of a fool do you take me for?"
"How much time do you have?" Sasuke asked after a moment of consideration.
"Like we'd ever really listen to what you have to say," Kakashi continued, his tone calm though his gaze was somehow barely managing to not set Sasuke on fire. "Even this attempt of yours to trick us is pathetic."
"It wasn't an attempt to trick you," Sasuke said with a shrug before chuckling. "But that does sound like something I would do."
"Kakashi," Katsu said quietly, tugging on his arm.
"Yes? he asked, moving to the side to talk with her privately.
"I...I don't think that what he's saying is such a crazy idea."
"What?" Kakashi asked impatiently. "But he's-"
"I know," Katsu said gently. "But it's not a terrible plan. Hiding in an open plain like this is not what anyone would expect us to do."
Kakashi used his thumb and index fingers to stroke his chin. "Even so," he said, unconvinced, "Giving him any ounce of trust could be an immense mistake."
"Then don't think about it like that," she said, touching his forearm. "Think about it like you're trusting my judgement."
Kakashi narrowed his eyes and sighed. "I would still rather hide in a dense forest," he grumbled. His eyes were on her hand, his expression curious.
She quickly pulled it away and he glanced at her face with a raised eyebrow.
"But I do, unfortunately for me, trust your judgement," he murmured.
Katsu smiled.
"So when do we start building?" Sasuke asked, having rudely listened to everything they'd said.
"We were trying to have a private conversation!" Katsu snapped.
"Aw, well isn't that adorable?" Sasuke asked. "I don't know what to tell you, Princess. I can't help the fact that I have ears."
"Imedieately," Kakashi said, answering his previous question. "If there really is a city nearby, we can get supplies there."
* * *
"Are you sure you've got all that?" Kakashi asked as they were taking what had to be their hundredth trip from the town hardware store.
"Yes!" Katsu snapped angrily, stumbling with the heavy boards. "I can do anything a man can do!"
Kakashi chuckled. "Well I think this will be out last trip. We've got tons of supplies."
When the location of their future home came into view, Katsu suddenly dropped everything she had been carrying. It wasn't that it was too heavy and she had not tripped. Sasuke's back was to them as he was working on a structure that was already almost a fourth of the way built.
Sasuke didn't hear them, he was too busy hammering nails in.
"What do you think you're doing, Uchiha?" Kakashi asked, raising his voice to be heard above the racket.
"What does it look like I'm doing, old man?"
"You know how to build?" Katsu asked.
"Well if that's what this is, then yes. Now, are you going to help or command me to do it all on my own which would actually be the more efficient option. I'd hate to have to fix all of your mistakes."
Kakashi glanced at Katsu, eyebrows raised.
"Oh come on," she said, grabbing a hammer. "We can at least help." Katsu had almost no background in construction but how hard could it be, right?
"You're doing it wrong," Sasuke said after a mere five minutes.
Katsu rolled her eyes. "I'm doing fine, I don't need your help." She continued to beat the poor nail with the hammer she was using.
"Well only if your aim is to create those circular indentations in the wood. Good lord, woman," he said, looking more closely at her work. "How many times did you miss the nail?"
"Fine!" she snapped, blocking his view of the board with her hands. "What am I doing wrong?"
He shrugged, arms crossed. "Everything."
She grit her teeth but before she could reply, he was suddenly standing behind her, his hand covering hers which gripped the hammer. "First off, your grip is too far from the mallet. It makes your aim less precise. Which would explain these," he said, gesturing the indentations she had made in the wood upon missing the nail. "Second, your swing begins from much too far away. You don't need that much distance to obtain a sufficient force. And lastly," he murmured quite closely to her ear, "Keep your eye on the nail. I know that I'm distracting, but if you keep staring at me like that, this house will never be finished."
Katsu gasped. "I wasn't staring at-"
"Shush," he said definitively, squeezing her hand to silence her. He guided her hand in the proper way of using the hammer several times. It took only three hits to fully embed the nail. She did the next on her own.
"Better," he commented lowly.
Katsu nodded. "Thanks," she mumbled reluctantly, without looking at him. Glancing elsewhere, she realized Kakashi had been watching them, shooting a glare in Sasuke's direction as he returned to his own work.
They worked tirelessly until somehow the structure was finished. It was not too small but definitely not large either. Perfect for 3 inhabitants.
The outline of the house was constructed of wooden boards, the walls thin shoje in order to allow light to pass through. The roof was a traditional pagoda style, one corner sagging slightly more than the others. Katsu had been in charge of that one...
The three of them stood there admiring the recently built home. It was dark out now.
Silently Sasuke moved to hang a circular glowing lantern on each corner of the home.
"Where did you get those?" Katsu wondered.
Sasuke peered at her, the bright, yellow-golden light of a lantern illuminating half of his face. "Summoning supplies has never been complex for me."
"We just made dozens of trips to get construction materials," Kakashi fumed. "Why didn't you just summon those?"
Sasuke shrugged with a smirk. "I was never asked," he replied sweetly. "And I enjoyed watching you two break a sweat."
Katsu shook her head furiously.
Sasuke grinned, leaning closer to her so that they were eye-level. "What?" he asked, rudely amused. "Where did you think I got the equipment from those nights I spent taking you to Orochimaru's hideout? How do you think I obtained that sleeping bag we shared? Did you think I was a wizard?" His dark eyes passed to Kakashi whose expression had turned hard, his grey eyes looking as though he were considering various ways to murder Sasuke.
"Oh?" he asked, sneering. "Did you not know about that? Hm." He chuckled, moving to hang the other lanterns.
Not wanting to be left alone with the angry Kakashi, Katsu quickly ran inside.
Peering around the empty home, Katsu wondered what she would do first to make it more like a home.
Kakashi entered as well, wandering around the different rooms.
When Sasuke didn't enter, Katsu curiously peered outside. He was walking slowly around the structure, forming handsigns and murmuring protective jutsus. With a second glance at the lanterns he had set up, Katsu realized that each bore a word of protection.
"He's actually being pretty helpful," Katsu acknowledged quietly to herself with suspicion.
"Don't let him fool you," Kakashi advised gravely. "He's a monster and he always will be."
Katsu nodded. "You don't need to remind me of that," she replied. "He won't fool me."
The two of them then turned to face the rest of the home's interior. "It's so barren," Katsu commented wistfully.
"Yes," Kakashi said in agreement. He snorted then. "Perhaps our third party member can summon us up some paint and furniture tomorrow."
"I'm sure I could," Sasuke said, finally entering the house and sliding the door shut behind him. "With the proper command, that is." He looked around the house. "I'll be taking the basement," he said, gesturing to a trapdoor in the floor. Sasuke pointed down two separate hallways. "That leaves one of you down there and the other down there."
Katsu glanced at Kakashi. "What will each of us sleep on?" she asked.
"While you two were finishing the roof," Sasuke answered, "I added a flat bed to each room as well as a small dresser with several pairs of clothes each. I have used a great amount of chakra, however. I doubt I will be able to do much more summoning for a long while," he added reluctantly.
Katsu cleared her throat, surprised. "That...that will do for today," she decided to say, keeping her tone orderly.
Sasuke shrugged. "Before I pass out from it all, I'm calling it a night. Later losers," he said before disappearing beneath the trapdoor.
"I hate him," Kakashi said casually.
Katsu nodded. "I'm no fan." She turned to him then. "Goodnight."
He nodded once. "Goodnight." He suddenly took her hand in his and kissed it without breaking eye-contact with her. And then he disappeared into his room.
Blushing slightly, Katsu headed to her own assigned room. Sliding open the shoje screen door, Katsu peered into the room, wishing it was her apartment in the Leaf. But unfortunately, she could not return there for a very long time. They would paint the rooms, she decided. If they were to truly use the place as a home, they might as well make it look like one. The bed and dresser were present, just as Sasuke had said, but Katsu was too tired to even change her clothes. Instead, she flopped onto her mattress face-first and almost instantly fell asleep.