Suzume hauled out the ashy coal briquette and placed it to the side to replace it with another. She covered up the fireplace and waited unmoving as the heat rose and spread across the house.

She squatted down and pulled her dressed hands out from her pockets, flipping them over and over until she gave up trying to find the abnormality and used them to prop up her chin.

"Chakra..." Suzume's face split into a gleeful smile and she buried her face into her arms. "So this is what it's like to have it."

She could sense Kankuro in the other room hunched over a puppet's elbow joint, Gaara was three floors above shifting through some papers, and Temari was brewing a cup of coffee, the coffee beans clattering into the brewer. The birds were hopping around in the ticklish tree. If she concentrated harder, she could even sense the shinobi diligently working at the headquarters.

The world was vibrant.

_ _ _

After the Genin's frantic footsteps faded away, Suzume's eyes rolled back into her head and fell face first into the concrete like a sack of potatoes.

Moss rolled out from under Suzume, the sand from under it moistening into rich earth and flowering in fast forward along with fungi, which popped out their hatted heads from out of the green carpeted ground.

Saya stirred from her place and sauntered over to the collapsed girl, poking her nose into her face, sniffing curiously, and smothering her with licks.

She whined when Suzume didn't as much as cringe and began to bark at her worriedly.

Laughter from the exit of the alleyway turned Saya around and the dog bounded happily toward the old woman.

"Shizen never disappoint, do they?" Konata chortled. Saya jumped up and down around Konata and the old lady patted the dog's head. "You tried your best, Saya. Good job protecting Suzume-chan."

"My word." The woman slid her eyes over the spectacle and she stepped almost reverently onto the moss. She carefully turned Suzume onto her back and traced over her wounds remorsefully, the light in her eyes dying. "Always the young ones."

After nursing Suzume's hands, Konata piggybacked the girl back to the store, the dog padding loyally by their side.

"Not one hawk," Konata said to the silence of the village with the tone of a mother admonishing her child for failing to keep in contact. "Not even one. I sent out all those letters and nothing."

She watched Saya bound ahead before coming right back, panting happily and bathing in the bliss of ignorance. The fragile cargo on her back felt weightless and Konata could feel the exposed skin scrape along hers, except the little girl's skin was dryer than hers, more wrinkled and sucked of its normal smoothness.

A withered corpse breathed on her back.

Konata couldn't bear looking at the girl and kept the faux placid smile stubbornly on her face.

The woman sighed, stepping into and out of circles of light from the lampposts, shrouded in darkness until she reached the next pace lit up by brightness. "I guess you and I are the only ones left in the world, Suzume-chan."

Konata wouldn't let the Sand Siblings see their little sister, justifying their limited visitation by telling them she was too sick to see them, as if that would deplete their attempts.

It wasn't until Konata caught the three of them in a genjutsu trap which Temari remembered installing herself that the old woman snapped and hollered the shinobi out of her house.

A month past and the shinobi were all introduced to a new chakra signature coming in a beeline to their home. They congregated on the first floor, a cautious lightning running through their bodies as the signature came closer, the unknown preparing them to leap into action.

It wasn't until a strange familiarity hit them and the door flew open that they recognized the unknown they were facing was their own sister.

Suzume's entire demeanor was altered, but it was definitely her. The way she held herself and the way she stood were all business, professional, and somehow trained; the previous Suzume who carried herself like she was a foreigner in her own body was entirely and utterly gone. Now she was comfortably in her own skin, a pair of shoes once too bulky and cumbersome were snug. But the doubt was still housed in her eyes, the uncertainty, the mind couldn't keep up with the body.

And that was how they recognized her despite everything.

The family stood dumbly for a full minute gawking at each other.

"Uuuuuuooooowooooooo!" Kankuro had an outrageously stupid expression on his face. Pride and thrill pulled open his eyelids until his eyes bulged out of his head. His lip was curled like a hanger was shoved into his mouth. "S-Suzume!" he stuttered out. "Suzume...! You...!"

"How?" Temari no longer understood anything. "I mean... how?"

Gaara's jaw slackened slightly.

"You have chakra, jan!" Kankuro proclaimed. "An average, run-of-the-mill amount of chakra!"

"I do, don't I?" The evidence slowly dawned on Suzume's face. "I... have chakra."

"Is it puberty?" Temari did the only thing she could rely on in a situation like this: analyze the enigma. "Did you hit puberty? Can puberty even do something like this?"

"Raging hormones aren't something to underestimate," Gaara decided solemnly.

"Who cares!" Kankuro was drunk on glee, roaring with obnoxious laughter. "Suzume has chakra!"

An unexpected thought crossed Suzume's mind and her happiness abruptly transitioned into intense concern. "I don't want to be a samurai!"

This silenced Kankuro's bout of ha-ha-ha's. All three shinobi's looked absolutely lost. "Wha?"

"This is an awakening, isn't it? Isn't it?" Suzume pressed urgently.

"I'm not following," said Temari.

"There are these samurai and the main character is this good for nothing who can't fight or do anything." Suzume ran over words as she led them to her room. "But, one day he had this awakening which granted him enormous power," she searched hysterically through her drawers and shelves, making a mess as she laid waste, "and afterward he'd encounter all of these trials and he watched most of his friends die."

She found what she was looking for and placed the pile of books on her desk. "There's a whole series, laying out different timelines and dimensions and no matter what the case something would always go wrong."

Kankuro picked up a book tentatively from the stack. "Nice to know you have a hobby other than training, studying, cleaning and cooking."

"An 'awakening', huh?" Temari flipped through another book. "Interesting."

"I don't want these types of things to happen." Suzume stared at the heap like she was all of a sudden seeing her whole life spread out in front of her. "I don't need a huge amount of power. I just want to be enough."

Gaara could imagine how Suzume came about the series, getting to the end of the first book and going to the next and the next, searching desperately for an ending that didn't exist and wishing the protagonist some sort of peace.

"Suzu," Kankuro placed the book back where he found it, "these are fictional stories written by a loony author. Your life isn't going to be like this."

"Though your sudden acquirement of chakra is questionable, I doubt it's as dramatic as an 'awakening'," Gaara consoled. "And the amount you have now isn't anything remarkable as to attract something like," he squinted at something in one of the books, "a man-eating chamber pot."

"Just forget about these books," Kankuro said while Gaara slowly lowered the book to reveal his face scrunched up in disgust. "This kind of stuff doesn't happen to people like you. Leave it to the charismatic idiots who invite attention, jan."

"Is this fanfiction?" Temari said, sounding scandalized in the background while scowling in distaste at one of the books. "This is fanfiction!"

"Oh, no," Kankuro groaned and grimaced. "You've certainly awakened something, Suzume."

"What?" Suzume asked fearfully.

"This is rubbish writing." Temari jabbed a finger at one of the pages. "I'll introduce you to the source material."

Temari— a closet samurai otaku.

Their little sister was being escorted out of her room by Temari, undoubtedly to the older girl's hidden stash. "Does it have a happy ending?"

_ _ _

Temari found Suzume dozing off in front of the stove with the rentan already in place.

She hesitated between the doorjamb. She never thought she'd be in this room again.

A chill prickled her insides as a ghost passed through her, holding a young girl's hand and leading her along.

The girl had a well fed and taken care of air about her. Blonde hair groomed neatly into two pigtails and wearing a crisp, ironed dress, her face was bright and curious, and due to her mother's protection not yet struck by the heavy responsibility she'd carry in the near future onward.

"Temari," the woman said tenderly, bending her legs underneath her so she was at the girl's height. "See this here? This is what heats up the house and gives us warm water."

"How?"

"Hm? Because this is where your father, your brother, and your mother's love is stored," the woman replied. "Even yours is here. That's why it's so warm at night."

"Father, too?" The girl looked skeptical. "Father would be cold water."

The woman laughed fondly at the girl's words. "What's so bad about that? It keeps us cool, doesn't it?"

Temari tore the ghosts' afterimages away and what was left was the tangible ones. Suzume's breathing was even, rhythmic and short, it was nothing like the air sucking breaths the girl originally had. It was the perfect example of a shinobi's light sleep, not deep enough to render them defenseless but just enough to shut down the body for it to rest.

Their initial reaction to Suzume's metamorphosis wasn't joy or even confusion. It was fear.

Whoever heard of a dormant chakra system awakening fully developed this abruptly? As far as they know, this was the first record of it, and therefore, unpredictable.

"Why?" It was Gaara's unanticipated question and his pale face was set in defense. "There's nothing to be scared of. We'll just need to be cautious."

"Gaara." Kankuro was ashen. "Remember during the training? Suzume and that bloodlust—"

"You're scared of Suzume?"

Her brother aged a decade. "Maybe you were right. Maybe we do need to be suspicious of her."

"No, I wasn't. You were right," Gaara insisted. "You're not thinking straight."

"But, Gaara," Kankuro looked imploringly at his brother, "everybody's gone."

Almost like he realized he said too much he immediately rose to leave and just as he passed his sister Temari clung unto Kankuro's arm and anchored him to the spot. She, as an empathizer to his cluttered mentality, tried to give him a rope to climb. "Don't forget who we owe this to."

What's happened to us?

Temari saw the way Gaara was looking at his brother's back, a childish vulnerability returning to the already grown and matured boy, the need to have his brother trust him, the need for his brother to support him.

For Gaara and Suzume, Temari knew, had a bond neither she nor Kankuro could hope to have with either of their youngest. Both shunned, both feared, both dehumanized, both robbed of comfort and security, Temari could see them communicating and understanding each other without words.

But Gaara, he once doubted Suzume, and that was his worst shame. In a way, he betrayed himself, and seeing now, his brother and elder sister do the same, it was a pain on him as well as Suzume.

And for the eldest... Temari squeezed Kankuro's arm. They've had enough of making mistakes, and the actions they're taking to avoid any more might be their worst mistake yet.

She released him and, with a new determination, rose to her feet. "One problem at a time then."

Temari was now sidled up beside her sister and was reaching to shake her out of sleep. "Suzume." Like a nerve reaction, Suzume's hand lifted up like it was led on a string and clasped Temari's wrist as soon as her hand was above her sister's shoulder. Suzume opened her eyes and looked up at her, still half awake.

"Temari..."

Temari recollected herself, forcing her body to mask the urge to rip her arm away from her sister's touch. "Sleep in your room."

"I fell asleep...?" Suzume finally let go of her and stood. "Again..."

"How many times have I told you to leave the rentan changing to me?" Temari chided. "It's only until they fix the gas."

"You're busy enough, Temari," Suzume argued, heading out of the stove room. "And Kankuro and Gaara-sama don't know how to do it."

"How do you know how anyway?" the older demanded, sticking close to her.

"Konata baa-sama has one in her house." Suzume yawned. "She's very old styled, she told me she wouldn't convert to the gas burners if her life depended on it."

"Well, it just might." Temari curled her lip disapprovingly. "At her old age, she would slip into death the next time a CO2 leak happened."

"I won't let that happen."

"You need to come back home. Stop inconveniencing the woman."

Suzume stiffened and Temari arched an eyebrow.

"You can't be serious. You still don't think you can live with us? Even after this?" she scoffed. "When are you going to be satisfied, silly girl?"

Suzume couldn't meet her eyes.

"If you're not living here, don't come by to switch the damn briquettes."

Suzume smiled sheepishly. "Sorry."

Look.

Temari wrapped an arm around Suzume's shoulders and went into a rant about the horrible characterization of the two main protagonists in book eleven.

Look how easily we can fall into conversation.