Nagamine Yae, Saito Yukiko, Kawamura Goro, Enomoto Ryoko, Watanabe Sayuri, Tachibana Konosuke, Takahashi Tadaaki, Nakano Miori, Kimura Shige—

:: ::

"Good work, everyone," Tsunade told the two lines of shinobi at attention in her office. We're no longer under imminent threat, but the Akatsuki still remain..."

In the back row, Naruto stood with his hands clasped behind his back like the rest of them in the office. He made it home—he should be feeling better about that, shouldn't he? He trained, he fought, there were two less Akatsuki in this world and finally the tides were turning, just a little. Less people seeking out jinchuuriki, less jinchuuriki getting murdered, less—

She says she's sorry.

—less of anything that made any damn sense.

"Naruto," Tsunade called out, and his head snapped up. "Your injuries look more severe than the others'."

The old lady liked to ask her questions in a way that didn't sound like questions because it always got her answers faster. It probably also helped that she was scary as hell and could punch several people through several walls, but he still pulled on the smile that made him look a little dopey even when it stretched the scabs on his cheeks healing from the brief licks of orange he sometimes caught on the edge of his vision.

"Y'mean my badges of honor?" He asked. Beside him, Hinata looked back to her mentor.

"We did some emergency treatment before making our way back," she said. "Both Naruto-kun and Kakashi-sensei received the brunt of the injuries, but were stable enough to report to you before checking into the hospital."

Naruto shook his head. "I don't—"

"You do," Hinata interjected softly. He glanced at her in surprise, and she quickly ducked her head to avoid his eye. "Those Akatsuki are—were—incredibly destructive. Everyone on this mission requires a full-scan and green light from a medic before being put back on the active duty roster; we don't know if there are any lingering effects. Um." She peered up through the curtain of her bangs. "Ri-Right, Shishou?"

Tsunade raised her chin off folded hands and leaned back in her seat. "Anyone who skips out on the post-mission check up is subject to suspension and further consequence if this order is defied." He glare lingered on Kakashi before re-addressing them as a whole. "But after that, take the next few days off. Rest. Recover. And if there's nothing else that can't be added to the reports I expect on my desk by the end of the week," a hard gaze swept the office one last time, "Dismissed."

"Yes, Hokage-sama," came the resounding chorus before the eight-man team sans Shizune filed out of the office. Naruto risked a glance over his shoulder just before the door closed under the guise of trying to squint something out his eye.

Tsunade's face hardened as she tracked Naruto's dominant hand and the strain the new jutsu put on it and Shizune's shoulders drooped, worried, opening her mouth as she started to say—

Click.

"Na-Naruto-kun?"

He rubbed his right eye with the back of his hand as he turned towards his teammate. That bastard Sai disappeared and so had Kakashi, and Team Ten stood a little down the hall muttering amongst themselves in low tones.

"Yeah?"

"When we left to act as back-up against the Akatsuki, I left some lo-loose ends at the hospital." Hinata tucked some hair behind her ear and looped her hands behind her back. "I have some work I need to get back to, and if you won't get your check up right now, will you be sure to check in some time today? Please?"

It was always nice to have someone like Hinata in his corner. He was pretty sure they were friends at this point, after she'd gotten over fainting every other time he popped up next to her—his bad for surprising her like that all the time, and she probably turned red because of how embarrassed she was when he accidentally scared her. But underneath all that she'd always been nice and polite and he couldn't not like someone like that.

But, it's just, they're not really close.

He knew he wasn't that smart. And he got distracted easily, didn't think a lot of things through, was called reckless, loud, he got it, and he couldn't help it.

But even after all that he also wasn't an idiot. Everyone hated him because of a beast he never asked to be born with, and that was a fact for as long as he could remember; as a three year old called freak at the orphanage, as a seven year old left alone in affordable low-rank housing, as a twelve year old who barely graduated the Academy after Mizuki-sensei almost...

He grinned. "No problem! I just wanna head back and take a shower and I'll go to the hospital, 'ttebayo!"

Hinata offered a small, relieved smile back before she hurried down the hall.

Naruto's expression evened out a touch as he turned and started down the other way.

He also met Sakura-chan when they were twelve. The weird kid who never smiled and never showed up to class and when she did, always had her eyes on a book instead of on the board.

The edge of his sandal bumped a pebble across the street.

Sakura-chan was one of the most important people in his life. Is. Will always be even if he never saw her again, but he didn't believe that for a second. Home wasn't home without her, and who said just because she wasn't here, it'd mean she'd never come back? Just because none of his year-mates talked about her or Kiba or Shino anymore didn't mean they didn't exist.

And sometimes he'd still catch a whisper about the Aburame clan scrambling after the loss of their heir apparent to see the Inuzuka Head storming around with a permanent scowl on her face alongside her nin-dog that always looked like he was choking down something sour. Kakashi-sensei used to know Sakura-chan's sensei too, he thought, but he could never really be sure when it came down to actually knowing things about Kakashi.

(She disappeared along with the rest of Eight after they found too much blood in her bathroom within the same time frame of an elite going missing and he could put two and two together: a messy murder that turned up no body. But Sakura-chan couldn't be involved in that.)

But that along with Asuma-sensei meant that six shinobi were gone in less than six months. No one could blame Tsunade-baa-chan for having a hard time smoothing it over.

Naruto raked a hand through his knot-filled hair and dragged it down the side of his cheek, finger pads pulling past dirt spots and new scabs. Sunset started to bathe the sky in warm light as he slipped down a rock wall and onto a small ledge covered in weeds beneath one of the bridges around the village. His knees curled to his chest as he settled in its shadow.

He stewed in quiet until familiar voices trailed overhead.

"I guess it's finally over," he heard Ino murmur. No footsteps echoed above him but he glimpsed three new shadows far to his left.

Chouji grunted. "Mm."

They walked a little further up until Shikamaru stopped. Ino and Chouji stopped too, just a little ways ahead of him.

"Sorry." They both turned. "I'm gonna split from you guys here."

Ino pointed in the direction they'd initially been heading. "But your house is this way."

Shikamaru shrugged. "Almost forgot about some things I should be getting up to now that we're back."

Usually this was the part where she'd huff or flip her hair, but her shadow shifted somewhere in the torso like she crossed her arms over her middle. "... Okay. But Shika—the—what Chouji and I heard on the field? The name? Do you think it's..."

"Something worth looking into?" He finished casually. "No, not yet. It's a common name in too many places, so it'd be too troublesome to add to the growing list of things we need to consider." Both his hands stuffed into his pockets. "But I'll keep tabs on it, so don't worry."

She doesn't think she'll make it to Ichiraku's.

Naruto turned back to his reflection and it stared back at him from bronze-tinged river water.

He could still remember what she looked like the night she left. Frozen pale skin, pink hair darkened with rain, stilted moonbeams scattered around his room. His fingers had numbed where he held her and after she disappeared, he'd sat silently in the dark long enough for his shirt to dry and for the stack of envelopes she gave him to bite notches into his palms.

(Down near the bottom of his fridge under a handful of forgotten grocery receipts sat a little slot where he kept his own letter tucked, hidden and whole.)

"I'm almost positive I heard Hinata-san tell you to stop by the hospital."

"An' I will," Naruto grumbled in defense. Someone slid down the rock wall opposite him and slouched against the underside of the bridge. "'m tired. I'll change and head back in a few."

"Will you?"

"Nagging's not a good look on you, ya know."

Shikamaru pulled out the pack he kept in his front pocket and tapped out a single cigarette to set between his lips. The lighter he used was nothing like that old silver one he always carried around; matte black and already scratched, he stuffed it back in his flak vest and blew out a thick cloud from his first drag.

Then the bridge shadow darkened, and it felt like a liquid weight dripped down Naruto's shoulders.

"The longer I hold the jutsu the more suspicious it'll look, so I'll keep it short," Shikamaru said. His eyes fell shut as the back of his head rested against old wood. "The person Ino mentioned. Do you know who she was referring to?"

Naruto's grip tightened where his fingers latched around his upper arms, and he pressed his mouth so tightly his lips grew pale.

Shikamaru blew out another trail of smoke. "I figured you did."

Silence.

"But you didn't mention it, so I thought—why would the one person we could always count on to speak his mind not bring it up just to advocate for her? To defend her? To turn this whole mission around to go out there and try to bring her back because a name for a lead would be enough for you?"

Grating, impossible silence.

"Because it was the Akatsuki," he ended, "and there was nothing you could say to save her from that."

Naruto's stomach flipped and it had nothing to do with the fox behind his navel.

"Please don't go after Sakura-chan," he whispered. "Not right now, not before—we don't even know what happened—"

"She attacked Hagane." The sharp reply cut deep between his fourth and fifth rib. "And her accomplices went after Iruka-sensei, left an Aburame's body dead in the streets, flooded a bathroom floor with blood. They had a psychotic break and we've put together all the pieces, what else is there?" He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I'm sorry, Naruto, but they're guilty. There's next to nothing that can be dug up to change that."

Guilty.

Naruto shook his head. "You're wrong."

Shikamaru heaved a world-weary sigh. "Naruto—"

"The way you talk about them's like—like you're not even giving them a chance," he gritted out. "Everyone's sayin' they went crazy but if you knew them you'd know they're not like that." He glared upward. "If you knew Sakura-chan, you'd know she'd never do this."

"Just like how Sasuke would never do what he did?"

Naruto flinched.

Shikamaru winced as he turned his gaze down, recognizing the low blow for what it was. "... Look, I—"

"Sakura-chan promised me she'd come home," Naruto said. Eyes burning, heart aching, a distinct wobble threaded through every curve of every letter of his words, and he turned back to the water and its gentle rippling. He buried his chin deeper into his knees. "And I'll keep believin' her no matter what anyone else says."

He blinked down at his reflection.

(He missed Sasuke.)

(He missed Sakura-chan.)

((He missed it most when the people he loved didn't leave him.))

He couldn't say how long he stayed under one of the many bridges that no one looked under, but it was long after the heaviness on his shoulders receded and long after the orange sun purpled and blued into another sticky Konoha night. Crickets chirped from grass patches and civilians walked with weighted steps, and even in the swelling life of his home village, he'd never felt more alone.

It was just him, the river, and the silver ring in his pocket embedded with a dark green gemstone with the kanji for North.

:: ::

—Kita Hiroshi, Tanaka Hisao, Sugawara Kishu, Chiba Tomiko, Arai Minako, Sugimoto Kenta, Shimizu Manabu, Onishi Ume, Sano Chiasa, Watanabe Mitsuo, Kojima Takehiko, Kubo Yuraki—

:: ::

Kakuzu died thirty-six days ago, and Sakura still said it didn't bother her that much. It did. He could tell. And she could tell he could tell, so he didn't know who she thought she was fooling.

Kiba rolled a shoulder as he slotted a book back into its place on a high shelf and pulled out a different one with his other hand. She'd been keeping herself busy though, same as the rest of them, and it helped him settle his hunched shoulders. He still wasn't really sure what it was she did for Konan and to that extent for Pein, but she'd taken over the office space in Kakuzu's apartment and whenever they checked in on her, the piles of papers around her desk never got any smaller.

Sensei, between stopping by the hospital a couple times a week and leaving tupperwares of food at their place whenever she had the chance, had actually taken some hours at the International Center close to the Pillar. Active duty had been set on the backburner and with her slowly encroaching maternal leave, the push to find something productive to do within Heaven's Gate had her poking around until she found the non-profit. Ame's very foundation was built on bringing in refugees under the cover of their heavily isolationist policy. Kiba also heard that a good chunk of other countries still thought this one was ravaged by its own civil war—a point that Sakura made when she'd given them a brief history and how the Akatsuki had it overtaken years ago—which only added a better cover.

Shinobi villages especially only cared about their own wars and their own consequences. Civilian ones were always a great big flag to avoid.

But anyway, Ame did its best to provide the basics: homes, job opportunities, an additional income bonus that came with the first three months of full employment. They also funded all the orphanages and youth centers and focused on making sure most, if not all, their shinobi-inclined students had individual specialties going into their careers. With funding stretched that thin, nonprofits sprouted in the midst of heavy rain to help those who needed further help with things like language and culture projects, resettlement and adjustment, and healthcare.

Sensei found her place working with civilian teenagers and young adults. Kiba's glad she was finding some happiness somewhere.

Shino was keeping ever-rotating hours at the hospital like he'd done in every village he'd been in, so as long as he saw him sometime at least once a day Kiba was satisfied. The hospital wasn't fucking him over like Konoha did by keeping him in positions way below his skill level and had actually given him a promotion a week or two ago. Tenzo was now on his list of primary patients, as he should be if he was sending a wave of kikai through his body once every few days to monitor his health.

And Tenzo was alive and properly healing, which was the most important thing. Now if they could only get him to wake up.

As Kiba flipped through the new book in his hands, he grabbed the pencil he held between his teeth and made notes in the margins that he was definitely going to forget to erase later.

"Anythin'?" He asked. White fur swished from behind one of the rows of shelves.

"Not yet, but you know looking through all of this will take weeks, right?"

"It's been weeks."

"Months, then," Akamaru amended dryly. "Reversals aren't common, as we've seen. Or as we haven't. You only get a page or two every ten books at best."

"Don't remind me, it's like lookn' for a moth in a crowd of butterflies."

"... So you're still mad you can't figure out that mural—"

"YEAH I'm mad! It's the only one I haven't gotten in the puzzle alley!"

"Heh. Nerd."

"Shut up, Shino an' Sakura musta' rubbed off on me." He sniffed, turned a page, and skimmed and marked anything he might need later on. "Hey, can you get me that blue Miura text we found last week? I think I can cross-reference this hairpin loop and add another failsafe to my usual cover lock." He waited a few seconds for a reply, but when none came, he glanced up. "Yo, Akamaru?"

Kiba turned, and a Path stood just a few steps away.

This one had two silver rods stuck in either cheek, another two through the chin, and a last one diagonally through the nose bridge. Orange hair the same shade as the rest of them hung down his shoulders and swung around the back of his waist. This wasn't the Path he'd met the first time he stepped foot in the library—Deva, the most present body—and those scant couple minutes in the Leader's presence almost warned him away from the Divine's library for good.

But with so much he had to learn, he'd take the risk even if that meant the chance of running into any of the Six.

Guess this time around, it was Human who came to visit.

"Leader-sama," he greeted with a quick bow.

"You," Leader intoned softly, echoing the exact same voice from when they first met face to face, "single-handedly re-engineered the Genryū Kyūfūjin to help keep a jinchuuriki alive."

Kiba swallowed. "I—" had to do it couldn't not do it couldn't let Yugito die couldn't let that happen to Shino again— "couldn't incorporate a full break to completely bypass vital chakra points and had to settle for a splinter, uh, sir, and Shino had to cut in with a healing chakra stream while Sakura made a circuit of our systems to keep a steady—"

"You succeeded," Leader said. He came closer, and Kiba shoved down the urge to reach for a weapon. "You had mere weeks between Hidan and Kakuzu's assignment and her capture and your crude modification had been enough to disrupt certain death." Those concentric circles that warped the Path's eyes were too clean, and it was almost as if it was enough to spike past flesh and bone. "It's unprecedented."

"I... guess it'd be if no one's really tried before?"

Fuck.

But before he could further berate himself for trying that smart-ass comment he was dragged half a step forward when a hand gripped his face with a force just short of bruising to force open his mouth, pulsing chakra—tainted and murky and cold and wrong—over the bottom half of his face to break the illusion seal over his tongue. Leader cocked his head as he observed one, two, three full seconds before he unclamped his hand and Kiba backed himself against a bookshelf, nails sharp, fangs out, eyes wild as they darted around to look for his suddenly missing partner.

But Leader only observed him with a new gleam in his unnaturally hued eyes. Round and round those circles went, ever bright in the quiet aisle.

"Extraction seals and cursed seals are completely different areas of study. One takes out and the other is irregularly volatile in locking, as suggested in their names, therefore the mechanisms they employ require different routes of resolution. Heedless of your well-roundedness, a shift to extraction would require months to study, practice, and test before application." Leader laid his palm in the space between Kiba's heart and shoulder. "You succeeded," he repeated. "And you should feel blessed, Inuzuka Kiba. You have the regard of God to carry on your shoulders."

The skin beneath that palm flared and twisted and Kiba swore he saw a faint glow of iridescent-lined white before his vision blurred and he dropped to his knees, though as quick as the feeling choked him it let him breathe, and his vision re-focused as sweat dampened the back of his neck.

He'd almost lost something. He didn't know how, didn't know what, but knew this Path almost tore something from the core of his very being.

He looked up, and the light above them gleamed behind Leader's head like a frozen halo.

"You may only be considered chuunin, but Konoha should have known better. You're dangerous," Leader said, and coming from him it didn't feel as heavy as a sin as his old village made it out to be. "It's clear to see why there are those who want you dead."

"But y'can't use me if I'm jus' a body," Kiba mumbled through his receding haze. "Can't—"

Flare-twist-glow, and the next time was back to himself his shoulder scrunched against the floor and the side of his head dully ached where it rested against the bottom shelf.

"Gods do not use their people." Leader rested a hand against the other side of Kiba's head to tilt it enough to meet eye to eye once more. Ice cold fingers felt too gentle against brown hair that had only been hastily trimmed with a kunai the time he'd been in Ame. "Gods take only what they are offered, and here there is none more resolute than those who offer life, blood, and soul to the rain."

It was only when those fingers left his hair that Kiba felt like he could breathe again.

"I bring news along with my brief visit," he continued like nothing was out of place, like the body at his feet had not been crumpled by his own hand. "Deidara has been killed by Uchiha Sasuke, and there is an intruder in Amegakure. The repercussions of both are currently being dealt with, and you've been informed due to your supplementary status to the RA designation."

Kiba pushed himself up to one of his forearms as he watched Leader head out towards the door and, just as the Path stepped around the doorway, he didn't know what came over him when his godforsaken mouth ran with what he had left, but he had to know—

"What happens to the one who won't offer themselves to the rain?" He asked.

Leader paused, but didn't spare him another glance. "They drown in it."

And he was gone.

Not a minute later, Akamaru skidded back into the library dripping puddles with the heavy scent of rainwater clinging to his fur.

"Kiba!" He barked, poking his nose around his partner's body to check for injuries. "I barely caught a whiff of Leader before I was suddenly standing outside the Pillar and I ran up as fast I could what happened what did he do to you—"

Akamaru helped him up into a sitting position, Kiba wincing as he rubbed the skin above his heart.

"Can't really say, but goddamn, 'm surprised Sakura didn't turn out more fucked up after all a' that."

:: ::

—Ito Hiromi, Mori Hisoka, Ueno Itsuki, Maruyama, Takagi Chie, Yamamoto Eishun, Fujita Otoha, Abe Sutemi, Yokoyama Tomio, Goto Yoichi, Ogawa Hiroe, Sakai Iesada, Ikeda Ikue—

:: ::

"So we're crazy."

"We're not crazy."

"See, that's what I'd like to think but maybe this sort of crazy is contagious and I've infected you. Or you infected me." A pause. "Simultaneous infection?"

Before Iruka could open his mouth and tell Aoba the only crazy thing happening here was the fact that he was spiraling far enough to mention that, the bell above the door rang as it pushed open and Kotetsu ducked through. He was dressed in his standard blues sans vest like the both of them, and as soon as he spotted them tucked in one of the back booths of the cafe, he raised a hand in greeting and walked over to slide into the first available seat.

Which happened to be next to Iruka, who took the opportunity to tap the conversation-melder seal—something that took the sound around them to warp around their own so the specifics of their conversations couldn't be picked up, completely undetectable to the average civilian and unsuspicious shinobi—that he stuck on the underside of a napkin to include the last addition to their little group.

"So what are we talking about?" Kotetsu questioned.

Aoba, as straight-faced and serious as he was one whole minute ago, leaned forward. "How we're crazy."

"Great start, Yamashiro."

Iruka sighed.

He had to admit that their get together had been under more... unique circumstances. Normally it would have been an odd sight to see the three of them together as their jobs typically handled different specialties—intelligence, teaching, and support, respectively—but nowadays their fellow chuunin and jounin couldn't stop looking at the three of them in pity.

"Crazy or not, we all agreed to meet her for a reason." Iruka pushed away his half empty coffee cup. "For... For them."

Quiet blanketed the table for a few moments.

Aoba breaks it first. "So where are we even supposed to start? Each of them might have been accused of something different, but they all left the village at the same time and regardless of their reasons, it must've been related if they went out as a team."

"Well it was always going to end up that way, if you think about it." Kotetsu's lips quirked up in a smile that didn't quite fill his face. "Three peas in a pod, or whatever the saying. If it was only one of their decisions to go then the others would follow." His smile fell. "I've got no idea why Sakura attacked me that night, but right before she came and talked to me, scared like I've never seen her. And no matter who I talk to they just think I'm in denial because she was my student. Because I cared."

Iruka grimaced. He knew the feeling.

"And even if we have all the facts on the table, none of it can tell us why," Aoba stressed. "Why would Sakura pull an immediate one-eighty on her mentor? Why would Kiba go out of his way to attack his own teacher who wouldn't have been in the way when he decided to leave? Why would Shino murder his own cousin in the street where anyone could see him, and why was that anyone me?" He rubbed his forehead with a couple fingers. "I don't know. It's weird, but I could just be—"

"Crazy," Kotetsu and Iruka finished in unison, and Aoba snorted from under where his hand rested on the top rims of his glasses.

Iruka's thumb tapped the seal-napkin when a waiter drifted by to ask if they needed anything after, and the moment he moved out of hearing range it was tapped back into reactivation.

"Y'know, it's kinda funny," Kotetsu said as he flicked a piece of paper straw wrap across the table. "Everyone's saying that the only reason why they got the jump on us was because we were blindsided that badly, but we all know that's not the case. They've always been good—better than good. They probably could've taken us out even if they went ahead and asked us first."

Aoba nodded consideringly. "Shino's ability as a medic paired with his type of kekkei genkai gives him an invasive skill set."

"Kiba's a genius at seals," Iruka added. "Eccentric. Unconventional. Our Seals Division was missing out with their continued rejection of his applications."

"And I've never been able to beat Sakura in a kenjutsu training match ever since she'd come back from Kumo." Kotetsu sighed. "Shit. This really sucks."

Good kids with wasted potential was what this all boiled down to. Good, hardworking, brilliant kids who suffered misfortune at every turn for them to be branded as rogues by the age of fifteen. Iruka might not have known Shino and Sakura as well as Kiba, but he'd taught all three of them between the latter two's constant absences and the former's near silent vigil in the back row during class—

"Wait." Iruka turned old grades in his head, remembered the late nights grading projects and tests, recalled the physical tests and practice fights on the Academy grounds he had to take careful notes on— "You could never beat Sakura in kenjutsu?"

"Nope," replied Kotetsu without an ounce of shame. "I mean, she's also insanely smart and a genjutsu type, and I'm not surprised she's got a knack for swords."

Iruka blinked. "She's never been more than average when she was at the Academy. She was a consistent B-C student who lost a little more than half her spars and had a range of about 65-70% accuracy in her weapons training."

"Okay, so she's a fast learner."

"In captivity?"

"I... guess that's a little odd?" Aoba's brow crinkled. "But what does that have to do with this?"

He supposed it could be nothing and that Sakura simply flourished under a different teaching style as a genin who actually attended her training sessions under Kurenai, but the sheer deep dive into her skill from nothing-notable to actually-threatening didn't add up in his head.

Sakura's improvement, following a steady upward climb, wouldn't have made it to such a drastic extent. And if she was really as good as Kotetsu said she was...

"For a while," Kotetsu said suddenly. The other two at the table turned their attention back to him.

"What?"

"When Naruto gave me her White Letter, he said he's been her 'person' for a while." He tapped his fingers against his bottom lip. "Why did Sakura have to keep writing White Letters all this time? Months? Years, if we can get him to confirm that far? You said it yourself, she's nothing but an average student who by default should be nothing but your average chuunin. But she's not."

He looked up, eyes burning with a reinvigorated determination.

"So maybe it is crazy, but it sounds like maybe there's something we really missed."

:: ::

—Nakamura Yuudai, Morita Kiku, Okada Katsuhisa, Kondo Miki, Endo Reiko, Hashimoto Eiichiro, Kobayashi Kyoko, Murakami Kotori, Ono Emie, Hasegawa Itaru, Yamashita Juuzo, Yoshida Mahiro, Ishikawa Tsuneharu—

:: ::

A handful of kikai poured out of one of Yugito Nii's ears and reported their findings.

Her chakra coils are now only burned throughout two thirds of her system compared, most of the damage localized from the thoracic nerves to the sacral, though focusing the repair of the cardiac plexus has allowed a steadier rate of healing with the body no longer having its first priority in saving the heart. The rate, however steady, remained slow and sluggish as her body acclimatized to losing an enormous amount of chakra that she had gotten used to carrying the years she spent as a jinchuuriki. It might even take a year or two for her to get used to her body being only hers again.

Shino jotted a few things down on a clipboard before he set it to hang at the foot of her bed.

This now made two coma patients under his care. Perhaps now, he had more of an opportunity to study chakra flow in relation to the spiritual energy around the brain and the cranial nerves to see if the healing process would benefit for stupored or waking patients.

Two knocks on the door, and a nurse poked his head into the private room. "Aburame-sensei?"

Shino looked up. "Yes?"

"You have a patient waiting for you in general examination room six-three-nine." Which didn't make sense because his hospital hours designated him to surgery and shinobi-related cases, not anything to do as a general practitioner— "RA designation, utmost confidentiality."

"Ah." Well, that explained it. "I'll finish this observation, then attend that case. I won't be more than ten minutes."

The nurse tipped his head and shut the door with a quiet click.

He puffed out a soft breath of air as he smoothed back a few stray hairs that slipped out of his messy bun. After Deidara made his first visit, he'd stopped by a few more times after that with a few sprained wrists, pulled muscles, requests to ease and repair his transplanted arms to the point they looked and felt like they'd never been crushed and blown off in the first place.

And in that time Shino supposed he learned a fair bit about him; he was an artist who firmly believed in the perspective of 'fleeting,' his past time was experimenting with his explosives, and he talked so much that at times he could give even Kiba a run for his money. He never spoke much in return, was never asked to, but he didn't mind the change when all he usually heard during healing was the comforting buzz in his ears.

Then he'd been killed by Uchiha Sasuke.

He wondered how he'd feel if they'd actually been friends.

He nodded to every staff member he passed on the way to the general floor and accepted a cookie with a quick thank you to the beaming intern walking around with a basket of treats in her hands. But besides Deidara, no other Akatsuki member had ever requested healing—from him or anyone else, for that matter. Occasionally there was—had been—Kakuzu, and he swore the glimpses of orange and blue he spotted around the hospital weren't made up from an exhausted brain.

Outside six-three-nine, he straightened the collar of his white coat and made sure there were no stains on his dark green scrubs before he knocked three times, paused for a count of two, and stepped into the room.

And he frowned.

"Uchiha-san," he greeted as he shut the door behind him and felt the privacy seals ripple back into place. The buzzing in his ears grew louder.

Uchiha Itachi sat at the edge of the examination table with his hands crossed neatly in his lap. His Akatsuki cloak lay folded in one of the guest chairs, his silver necklace and scratched hitai-ate set on top.

"Aburame-sensei," he returned politely. Tomoe swirled slowly in the blood-red background of his irises, and Shino's gaze immediately flicked down to make eye-contact with the stress-lines on his face instead.

"What is it I can do for you today?"

"My eyes." Shino was forced to look back up into them when the sharingan faded into black. A milky black, not yet completely set in blindness but on a distinct path towards it. The right appeared whiter, their cloudiness extending further from the center of the pupil and no doubt reducing his vision to nothing but blurs. "I had been attending regular healing sessions with a specialist elsewhere in the village, but they had recently told me that there was nothing more in their power they could do."

Shino washed his hands before pulling out a pair of nitrile gloves from the boxes stacked on the wall.

"How many hours a day do you keep them activated?"

"Sixteen, at most."

"And at the least?"

"Twelve."

Not great. "And how often do you feel pain during activation?"

"Most of the time."

"Sharp, dull?"

"Dull. Sharp directly after using sharingan-derived jutsu."

Shino nodded and flipped to a fresh notepad sheet to make his first few notes. "There's a chart on the wall in front of you. Can you read out the very first line to me?"

"No."

Ah. Even worse.

He twirled a small flashlight in his hands and tucked a dense plastic card in the pocket of his coat when he finally approached the examination table. The line in Itachi's shoulders drew tense the closer he got, and Shino pointedly focused on adjusting his gloves. He remembered Kiba telling him about meeting Uchiha Itachi face to face when they first arrived at the village, all grins and taunts until Sakura pulled him away by the ear with a small smirk of her own.

With the bingo book now fully updated, he would've learned their names and their basics by now. But between that and what else he could've learned about them from the rest of the Akatsuki, he understood the need for caution.

But perhaps Itachi should have been wary before coming to him for help.

"Do I have your consent to utilize both healing chakra and kikai for this healing session?" Shino asked. A few beetles surfaced along his throat, Itachi's eyes flashing almost-red at the sight of them.

"Healing chakra, yes. But what purpose do the kikai serve?"

"Physical anchor points for healing chakra. While they may seem invasive at first, they're able to make the healing process run more smoothly without relying solely on the degree of chakra control of the medic. Keep your eyes straight, and don't stare directly into the light." Shino shone the flashlight into each clouded eye as he pressed two fingers to the side of Itachi's temple and gently prodded around the area of interest. "I recommend it, actually. Why? The abducens, trochlear, and oculomotor nerves are strained, the ophthalmic nerve is inflamed which most likely have led to fluctuations in your sensation on the upper half of your face, and with the damage your optic nerve has sustained, you'll need an extensive and detailed healing procedure where my kikai can sustain the healing process. The nerves are delicate; they'll need as much specialized attention as possible."

A couple more handfuls of beetles spiral down his arms and onto his gloved hands, crawling along his palms and winding his fingers.

"And they're chakra-sterilized, of course," he added. "If that was another concern of yours."

The corner of Itachi's mouth turned down in the slightest, but regardless he laid down against the angled back of the examination table and folded his hands across his abdomen.

"Do what you must."

And Shino... tipped his head. Wondering if he heard the rasp in his voice correctly.

"Close your eyes." He stepped around to stand behind the table to hold both hands on either side of his head. Kikai took their places under Itachi's eyes and forehead on the surface. "You will feel a slight discomfort once my insects enter your ear canal, but there won't be pain. Please hold on for the next five seconds." And the stream started to enter his internal system to flood the nerves above the neck save for the one that snuck down past the cervical rib—

Shino applied a more soothing pressure to Itachi's head as he started on the more pressing damage on the optical nerve.

"So Uchiha-san," he began conversationally. "How long have you allowed this respiratory disease to slowly kill you?"

:: ::

—Nishimura Asuza, Fujii Masae, Aoki Hiroji, Yamada Honami, Nakano Motozane, Nakajima Isao, Sasaki Sumiko, Maeda Tokuko, Yamaguchi Okimoto—

:: ::

"You saw," Nagato said, watching the light drip drops of rain from behind the Shinigami's gaping maw. Beside him—beside the Deva Path— Sakura stood with her hands clasped behind her as her shoulders pulled back straightened and poised.

"Yes," she answered quietly.

"You stayed."

"You expected it of me."

He glanced to the side. She immediately ducked her head.

What a miscalculation he'd made back then. Years ago he'd deemed her a simple variable; an asset if used who'd give no loss if she wasn't. Benign, in a sense, especially when all he'd ever known of her were chubby cheeks and too-bright eyes (and how could he think that a child who reeked of honest hope could ever survive under his onslaught of rain?)

But now.

"And what did you think," he turned his head, "about the way Jiraiya of the Sannin was dealt with?"

Jiraiya, despite all his ignorance, had infiltrated the village looking for answers. He'd come through Heaven's Gate to try and slip under a cover of water and dark, but the moment his head breached the surface and that first drop of rain touched his head, Nagato had known. Not that it was him, but that someone dared believe they could catch God unawares.

"He came into the village on reconnaissance. It didn't matter if it was for Konoha or his personal gain, he was handled as all high-profile spies should be."

"A politically neutral answer," he noted (curiously, wonderingly, halfway to amusement.) "I was required to summon all six Paths to the battlefield to handle this one intruder, but in the end he faced his retribution." He walked out onto the Shinigami's cardinal red tongue pierced with dark gray pipelines, straying to the left side of the walkway so that Sakura could tread on the right. "Has the body been disposed of? The battle areas cleared?"

"Yes, sir." The rainfall wasn't enough to soak her hair, leaving droplets to bubble along the individual strands of her hair. "Once the body was searched and autopsied, he was incinerated along with any other articles belonging to him under Shino's purview at the hospital. Kiba and Akamaru ensured all blood spots were collected and cleaned, and I have turned in all documentation for the places in the village that need to be repaired." She raised her head as the rain slowed further. "Konan approved them personally and is overseeing the rest of the process."

Nagato tipped his head as he gazed out across the neon splotches throughout the village skyline. The task completed without his direct order, carried out with utmost speed and discretion. She was the perfect soldier in his ranks from her obedience to her proactive decision-making to inherited skill from Konan, Sasori, Kakuzu, and Kisame.

But it wouldn't be enough for her to just follow.

He lifted one palm upward and caught the last raindrop that trickled from the sky as the burden of his sensing jutsu eased from the back of his mind. His thumb dragged the water across his skin—water he couldn't feel, not in this body, and held both hands in front of his chest, parallel, facing one another.

Sakura eyed them warily.

"You will learn," was all he said.

"What... will I—?"

"Watch my hands; I will only show you once."

First he formed Bird, thumbs pointing inward, index fingers curled and crossed, the rest of his finger pads pressed against their complimentary fingers. Rat, the first two fingers of the left hand clasped in the right with the left thumb on the outside. Ox, right hand horizontal, left hand vertical, the middle and ring fingers on the left hand bent to rest on knuckles. Monkey, hands pressed, fingers brushing against the wrists, thumbs lying flat on the pinkies. Rat, the first two fingers of the right hand clasped in the left with the right thumb on the outside. Snake, hands held, fingers linked, fingertips on the backs of both hands, left thumb on the outside.

His eyes glowed. "Do you understand?"

She nodded once, though her brow furrowed minutely. "Yes, Leader-sama. But was the second Rat seal meant to be reversed?"

"The Ukojizai needs to be performed in a marked perimeter lest you want your chakra flow to leak rather than be carefully siphoned. This jutsu only reaches to the outer edges of Heaven's Gate as it's lined with the same material as the black receivers I utilize, though the rainfall can extend for up to a kilometer as chakra-created storm clouds have the tendency to draw in naturally occurring ones. Typically, you would need to create your own perimeter, especially with an area as large as this." He allowed his arms to fall back to his sides. "But this perimeter will already work for you."

Sakura touched her pierced ear, then straightened her spine of steel.

"How long would you like me to hold the jutsu, Leader-sama?" She asked.

"As long as you can."

Another nod before she held both hands in front of her chest, parallel, facing one another.

Bird, Rat, Ox, Monkey, reversed Rat, Snake.

A new set of dark clouds started their slow roll in, like thick smoke tumbling out of factory chimneys. Tinted bluer than his usual summonings and embedded with scattered streaks of the darkest grays, thunder growled, perhaps a hiss of lightning in the corner of his vision before none other came, and the rain that broke through the uneven patchwork of the sky—

Nagato closed his eyes for a heartbeat. It was warmer than all the other rain storms he ever wove.

Then he looked down when Sakura fell to her knees with a throat-tearing scream.

Her fingers clawed through pink tresses, digging into her scalp until it bled as her entire body buckled and coiled into itself. Trembling arms blocked sight of her face and of the tears that were no doubt running down it, and just barely, she'd caught herself on the tip of the metal tongue before she would've fallen and not been able to save herself.

How sharp of her in her hesitation to employ the reverse Rat seal. Though he could not blame her for not knowing the second Rat seal was paramount in erecting the barriers required to combat the jutsu's recoil effect.

"Do you feel it?" He questioned as he crouched down beside her. "The lives that need to be watched, the souls that need to be protected? The shinobi? The civilians? The children?" He cupped her forehead and lifted her head so her unfocused eyes gazed back over the village. "Do you feel it?" He repeated. "Do you feel the lives of all your rain touches? Their chakra floods you, their presence drowns your own out, you are all of them all at once, burdened with knowing, at one with pain."

A second clap of thunder echoed around them, and the scream that ripped out of her barely escaped the frayed edges of her throat.

Nagato bent down close to her head. "May the rain give you peace," he murmured over her shaking form. "And may this blessing I bestow upon you, Hoshigaki Sakura, lead you far off the path of your sorrows."

:: ::

—Matsumoto Zenzo, Suzuki Daichi—

:: ::

What was the first thing that came to mind when he thought of conch shells?

Iruka hunched over the locked scroll on his dining table surrounded by brushes and inkwells and tens of scroll paper scraps, half of them crumpled and the other half covered in nonsensical notes. Ever since Team Eight had... left... and since Sato-san entrusted him with Kiba's scroll, he'd dedicated all his free nights trying to crack it to no avail. The stack of sealing books by his left foot were all about locking mechanisms and the ones by his right could've held the entire seal community's understanding of failsafe recognition, but nothing.

And after his enlightening conversation with Aoba-san and Kotetsu-san, he'd rather break open this scroll sooner than later.

Now here he was, six hours and seven cups of coffee deep into an unsuccessful scroll jailbreak and he'd hit his thirty-first dead-end of the night.

"Lucky number thirty-two, I guess," he mumbled, peering down at the offending scroll. "But where am I supposed to even start with you?"

The lock solely relied on the single white conch shell that carefully painted it shut, that part he was sure of now. There was nothing off about the width or length of the scroll itself, the two red tassels on the ends he'd inspected and tested and nothing came out of it, and having been in Sato-san's possession where even she couldn't even get it to fracture, Kiba was definitely pulling one over all their heads.

But Kiba's genius aside, he was going to have to look at this from a different angle.

Conch shells. What was the first thing that came to mind when he thought of conch shells?

Water, maybe. Beaches, maybe better. Bigger conch shells were the most sought after on the shoreline where kids and adults alike would pick them up to hold them to their ears so they could hear the ocean. And—didn't conch shells have some symbolic connotations in other cultures? He taught the World Geography unit a couple months ago so most of the finer details would be lost to him until the next time he taught the topic, but he remembered mentioning countries like Steam, Storm, Lightning—

He stopped. Lightning. Kumogakure. Why wouldn't Kiba draw ideas from the place he'd been kept in for over a year?

Iruka shot up to his bookshelf that had all the reading material he used at the Academy and pulled out the purple-cover culture book that glossed over the basic overview of religious practices prevalent across the Great Nations. He flipped past Earth, Fire, and there—Lightning—and skimmed the chapters until a subheading in the middle-end caught his eye.

The Eight Auspicious Signs

And its subsections:

The Wheel of Law

A Conch Shell

A Victory Banner

An Umbrella

A Lotus Flower

A Vase

A Pair of Fish

An Endless Knot

He plopped bonelessly into his seat. Unlucky Eight playing on the Eight Auspicious Signs.

Of course. Kiba never would've passed up on the opportunity.

He immediately flipped to the conch shell subsection.

Left-spiraling conches have often been used as prayer articles and holders of holy water.

Iruka looked at the painted shell again, then skipped down to the information on right-spiraling conches.

Right-spiraling conches are most notably sacred as it signifies sovereignty, enlightenment, and truth, and is said to mirror the motion of astral bodies. It can be commonly depicted as a battle horn and hailed in banishing evil spirits, averting natural disasters, and fending off dangerous creatures. The sound it makes when it is blown is said to "awaken beings from ignorance." In old rituals, conch shells are made into a sort of trumpet by cutting off the end and replacing it with a mouthpiece and placing the entire shell in an ornamental metal casing.

There was a lot of emphasis on sound, but how did that translate to sealing?

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. One of the things he loved about Kiba's sealing prowess was his ingenuity, how he thought traditional methods were boring and decided to find out other ways of doing things just because it was one of the things he started doing for fun. Sound was not a thing used in sealing, but trust his eccentric student to make it this scroll's new baseline.

Sound. Enlightenment. A trumpet.

His eyes drew back to the painting as a new idea pushed tentatively against the front of his mind. Hours upon hours upon hours he'd been at this, but now he knew he wasn't going to get even half a centimeter if he kept going at this any conventional way.

He raised the scroll level with his face and set his middle and pointer finger to rest against the main body of the painted conch shell. Slowly, he pulled a kunai from a hidden pocket under his table and pressed the tip against the end of the shell and found that he could nick the paper around where a mouthpiece would fit.

As he channeled a stream of chakra into the tips of his fingers, he pulled the scroll closer and blew into the pinprick hole.

He swore a distant horn bounced between his ears as the conch popped with a gust of air that hit him directly in the face, the seam along the scroll falling open. Iruka wiped a hand over his face once before unrolling as much as he could—which wasn't as much as he expected—and finally, finally got to read what Kiba had tried so hard in hiding this entire time. A reason why they left? What was really going on behind the scenes? Some sort of answer to why he ended up Kiba's favorite weapon embedded over and over in his chest?

But as Iruka read the scroll, his adrenaline faded. His confusion mounted. His heart dropped.

It was just a list of names.

It started with Nagamine Yae and ended with—

He scrubbed his eyes, blinked, and peered closer.

The sixtieth name ended with—

—Sato Aki.

:: ::

Hey everyone, it's been a while! Thank you for being patient in these long stretches between updates, I hope the long chapters can tide you over!

And here we end with fantastic fanart by

Miao_Jin

akya346

unconfirmeddemon21 on tumblr

fifo_fum on instagram

and delicatementalitydonut on tumblr!