[center][b]Kato Daiki – You Again![/b][/center]

It’s been nearly two years since Shoji’s attack on jutsu and those who performed it. During the year and a half from then Kato hadn’t been doing much in the way of working on his jutsu. Typically you would think he’d at least be a chunnin by now but that wasn’t that case. Kumo needed to rebuild which meant some things took precedence over others. Kato was out every day working as hard as he could around the village trying to fix up the damage that resulted nearly two years ago. This obviously not leaving him a lot of time to work on becoming a chunnin, not to mention most of the paper work for a lot of people was destroyed or tampered with the point of all documents potentially being useless which made being assigned to a squad extremely difficult and time consuming. 

Finally though Kato was assigned to a squad with some sensei named Satoshi. He had never heard that name before, not even in the march towards Shoji, hopefully this sensei wouldn’t be a coward like Kato’s previous instructors who all seemed to have left when Kumo was overtaken by Shoji. It was early in the day and Kato had just woken up only a few minutes ago just to get ready and strap his shield on. 

The minute he stepped out the door he took a deep breath and enjoyed the sights that Kumo provided. It was hard work but everyone seemed better for it. The anger built up inside Kato during the battle against Shoji had died down significantly over the following months and he was finally [i]nearly[/i] like himself again before It all happened. Sadly he can only use the word [i]nearly[/i] because he is continuously reminded of Genkei at least once a month. He can’t explain it but occasionally he sees Genkei’s image around town as if he was a regular person walking down the streets. Every time he sees the images he always hears the same damn voice. It’s always Genkei saying [b]”Obey. You must obey. Kill the Shinobi.”[/b] over and over again. 

Generally when this happens Kato is able to stop himself from doing anything stupid but there are still some moments where he can’t help himself and he ends up charging at someone or starts shouting or something else stupid. Kato has tried to keep this whole fact hidden from everyone, hoping that they wouldn’t think he was crazy and allow him to just be a normal ninja like the old-days. Usually if he does have a bad outburst or does something stupid he tries to save himself from suspicion by saying that he was just calling out to a friend or that he thought he saw a rouge ninja in the shadows. Kato wasn’t sure but he began thinking that people were starting to get suspicious.

The young shinobi reached into his inside cloak pocket and pulled out a crumbled piece of paper which basically stated where and when to meet Satoshi. Without a second glance at his house Kato was gone and on his way to meet his sensei at a ramen shop. Within a few moments the shop was in site and Kato could clearly see a group sitting in there and talking. He wasn’t sure what his sensei or teammates looked like but he was sure a group of people gathered together at a ramen shop was a good place to start. Looking. 

Apparently Kato was slightly late because the group seemed to already be exiting the shop. One by one they seemed to leave, the two younger ninja leaving first. After the second genin exited the shop Kato’s head began to throb with great intensity. [b]”Ah”[/b] Kato said through clenched teeth as he placed his left hand firmed on his forehead in hopes that it would stop the pain. It didn’t. His eyes were closed in pain. Kato knew exactly what was happening, Genkei was making another one of his famous appearances. Why? Why now!? Today was supposed to be difference!

Kato looked up, his hand still pressed firmly against his head. He opened his eyes to once again look at the ramen shop. However this time he didn’t see genin exiting. He saw the third person exit, and it wasn’t a typical Kumo shinobi. It was of course, Genkei; face, body, and all. [b]”Come on...snap out of it…it’s not him…it’s not him…it’s not him.”[/b] Kato tried to keep himself calm and continuously reminded himself that whoever was leaving the ramen shop wasn’t Genkei. Then the voices followed. They echoed in his mind, he couldn’t escape them. They told him to kill, they told him to obey. Kato tried to shake the voices out of his head but nothing worked.

Then it happened. Kato went into a state of mind very similar to a year and a half ago. He believed that the individual in front of him truly was Genkei. Even though the voices told him to obey the young shinobi still had some fight in him. Sadly he lost the first fight which kept him grounded to the here-and-now even though he was able to win the second fight which told him to obey. The throbbing pain stopped. Kato once again wasn’t himself. His eyes opened wide once again giving him the face of a psychotic killer once more. 

[b]”Goddamn it Genkei! I’ll kill you!!!”[/b] this was the first time Kato’s outburst audibly spoke Genkei’s name. This was one of the extremely rare cases where Kato was left fighting an internal war and was having a hard time pushing back. The last case similar to this thankfully took place in the safety of his own house which obviously helped prevent any public suspicious as to Kato being crazy. As fast as possible Kato reached for a kunai and charged, his outburst continuing as he ran forward. He didn’t mean to, he truly didn’t but Kato ended up finding himself charging right towards Satoshi. 

((Kato is still seeing Genkei’s body over Satoshi so he is unable to recognize Satoshi as the stranger from the march towards Shoji.))