Sakura truly wasn't much for attention, Konan noted as she watched the teen from the corner of her eye.

She breezed through reports in the days spent at the Tower, gathered information as easily as breathing as she weaved through the streets like she'd never left them, and put forth practical suggestions in answering reports and concerns filed by the citizens.

Everything she did was with pin-point precision and efficacy from information gathering to threat neutralization, yet when it came to the acknowledgment of the things she'd done, she politely deferred credit to 'only completing duties under Tenshi-sama's jurisdiction' and retreated to that spot half a step behind Konan's left shoulder while the people bowed and prayed their thanks.

Little Sakura basked in affection. She had always leaned into her father's embrace, beamed at praise, held on tightly to Konan's own hand out of sight and out of the rain so that he would never see—

"You're upset."

"She could be happier. She could have friends her age, mentors that would gently correct her mistakes, a life outside this endless battle for peace."

—and with no one but a swordsman and an angel to raise her, there was little comfort in life. She read and studied and trained until her legs gave out and she could no longer force herself to smile.

This Sakura barely let any emotion slip by her impassive mask unless it was just her and an Akatsuki, then there were brief flashes of fear or confidence or something darker.

Konan hummed under her breath. They were in her own offices within the Ameonna situated at the north of the Pillar, as opposed to Nagato's spaces along the spine of the Shinigami statue. Here, she sorted through the paperwork that God didn't have the chance to attend to. The other Paths lent their aid every now and again, but it was mostly her with the meetings and the inspections and the problems not just anyone could take care of.

Sakura sat at the main desk, brows drawn and gaze flickering through a twenty page document requesting approval of the updated legal information pertaining to the village's chuunin level shinobi. Konan had already gone over it once and it never hurt to be thorough—and it gave her time to sit here. Observe. Mull over this little girl who was no longer little and who could pull a man out of the street and shove a kunai under his ribs without a single person to notice something amiss.

"She was born to a rogue who's giving his life to this cause. This was never a choice for her to make."

"Then maybe it was a choice we should have given her."

"This job doesn't suit you," she said, and Sakura raised her eyes once in acknowledgment before they were back down at the papers. "Your work is wonderful, but you're stiff and dismissive. Unhappy." Konan took a seat at the corner of the desk, one knee crossed over the other, and folded her hands in her lap. "Though, you could also be unhappy simply because you're here."

Sakura's jaw tightened as she set down her pen. "I made the choice to come here, and both you and Leader-sama have our gratitude for granting us asylum." She still didn't look up. "If this is where you need me, this is where I'll stay. I have no objections."

Konan reached out to brush pink strands behind the teen's right ear where her new piercings glinted in the light, and in that moment, she wished for nothing more than to take out every single metal piece and cast them out into the streets below. Material was important here: Akatsuki members wore their rings as a show of loyalty and as a means of communication, the rain monitored all that it touched, and the piercings directly connected Nagato to his Paths. He'd pulled them from his own body years and years ago, warping them into receptors for high-frequency chakra signals—for his own use, it was a brilliant tool to push chakra into other bodies like the perfect puppeteer Sasori once strove to be.

Placing a receiver into a living body could disrupt chakra and throw off physical movements. At a close distance, she was sure that Nagato could order her to do whatever, pulling her body along like she was just another one of his corpses.

She would follow Nagato to the ends of the earth, but even she could admit that sometimes he went too far.

Silence, and rain.

"You truly love her, don't you?"

"She..." A small, shy smile. "She asked about godparents today. Specifically godmothers, and in her words, even if she didn't know her mother, a godmother would be just as good. But I couldn't be her godmother, of course, because you were already God. So she asked me to be her angel-mother instead." Her expression goes impossibly soft. "There was nothing else I could say but yes."

She caressed Sakura's cheek with a thumb, the girl tensing in her seat.

It made Konan grieve for the love she'd never been able to give.

Because when Kisame had his little pup, he never realized what that meant to the eyes of Akatsuki. He happily listened to Sakura's rambling, picked her up in a hug whenever he saw her, kissed the top of her head when he tucked her in at night. He protected her with all he was, but even still his missions could take him out of the village for weeks—a handful of months at times. In that time, it was Konan who made up for the gaps in her training and lessons; she'd taught her katas, cleaned up her cuts and bruises, raised her to understand Amek dialect and to embody their culture and... that was the problem, wasn't it? That it wasn't just Kisame who raised a little girl under red clouds and rain.

Nagato watches her for a brief moment before turning to face a window, his voice a weak rasp rattling up past the hollow of his throat. "Then this job will be easy for you."

"... Job? This—Sakura isn't a job—"

Konan cupped her cheek. If it'd been her choice, she also would've happily listened to little Sakura's rambling, picked her up in a hug whenever she saw her, kissed the top of her head when she tucked her in at night.

If only she'd been that kind. No, she never gave things like praise, only things like expectations. She hammered in perfection that it was the only lifeline in this world and looked away when this small, sad little girl practiced punches against cement pillars until the skin tore on her knuckles.

There were specialized training grounds where Kisame refused to bring his pup. They're too dangerous, he'd said, and I don't want her more hurt than she gets. Too dangerous, maybe, but they taught something the dirt covered, tree-thin grounds in the village couldn't. The constant rain created a constant muddy traction, and the shinobi here seemed to have a knack of more precise chakra control and higher sickness-immunity.

The specialized training grounds, though, were temperature controlled spaces scattered beneath the lake made up of layers of harsh metal and jutsu-induced rock. Platforms and traps and hazards and obstacles were common in these man-made "cages," and access could only be granted by R3s or higher.

Konan took her there to train whenever Kisame was gone.

But she could never tell him why she had to build an asset—why she had to harden that heart as quietly as she could.

His next words would never leave her for the rest of her life.

Because she didn't know if she could live with herself if she didn't.

"You will make her into an exemplary shinobi or she will be nothing at all."

But now that little girl had grown up, tired and scared and weary and everything they wanted her to be—so maybe now things could be different?

Konan leaned in and pressed a soft kiss against damp pink hair. "I will always do what I can for you," she murmured. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you that sooner."

(She doesn't hear the sound of something in Sakura breaking.)

::

"Ichizokugoroshi."

Itachi's eyes narrowed minutely as his steps slowed to a stop. Behind him, the newcomer let a leg dangle down from the railing, their upper body shrouded in shadow.

"The Clan Killer. Nickname's got a better ring to it than Sharingan no Itachi, though, so I 'spose none of them are any polite, are they, Uchiha-san?" The rain poured on either side of the open walkway they occupied, and they were lucky the metal overhang above them was just enough to keep them dry. "But y'know, I've always wondered what type a' person you'd be."

Itachi finally turned around, eyeing the stranger's black outfit and the calloused hand poised atop one bent knee. "Truly?" he inquired softly. "And from whose opinions have you garnered this insight from?"

"Well honestly, I started thinkin' 'bout it after bumpin' into Sasuke in Kusa." Itachi almost flinched, and he inwardly berated himself for the slip. Did the stranger notice? "Still as grumpy as I remember, but I think he's still out for your head. I guess Naruto's tryin' real hard to get him back but eh, there's a lot going on in there."

Unease started an unhealthy creep up his spine. He couldn't remember a time he'd felt so off-kiltered inside Amegakure. If people didn't know him by his face they knew him by his cloak, and no one dared to speak to the Akatsuki unless directly spoken to. His sharingan spun to life, the unease cutting him deeper when he couldn't see the face of his accoster through the dark.

"But I dunno, I don't think you're that bad of a guy," they said. "All those files Konoha's got and man, they really shit on you. It's gotta suck with the way they keep talkin' 'bout the other Uchiha."

Itachi flexed his fingers. Three shuriken appeared in each hand. "What do you want?"

"Like I said, just came here to meet you." There was a smile in their voice, lips appearing in the low light where he could read their next words very, very carefully. "I mean, leavin' Konoha's hard when it's not even your choice to go, right?"

Projectiles pinged off the railings as they glided through the stranger, the image stuttering upon impact and falling to pieces to reveal a paper tag stuck onto the metal. For a moment, there was a rush in his ears that didn't quite fit the sound of the rain, and the ink bled from the seals etched in abnormally thin lines.

Itachi turned.

The stranger stood at the edge of the rain cover with his hands stuck in his pockets and his jacket sleeves pushed up to his elbows. This, Itachi found, was someone the same age as his foolish younger brother; messy brown hair, seals dangling from his ears, prisoner identification on his forearms, and an enormous white canine that slunk in and pressed itself against the back of his legs.

Itachi didn't recognize him.

But after that display, he figured he ought to.

The corner of the stranger's lips quirked up. "My bad, shouldn't've bothered you with my problems." There was something Itachi couldn't quite pick up about the look he was getting—at this point, both by the teen and the ninken—but the strangeness of this encounter dragged memories through his head. He sorted through the information of local clans and prominent Heads and if this person truly was from Konoha, there was only one clan that had ninken for partners. "Didn't mean to be too forward, Uchiha-san. We're new 'round here an' supplementary to an RA designation, but we're still tryna figure out what that means."

He almost frowned. He hadn't heard of any shinobi being granted the use of an existing RA, much less to recent defectors from Konoha.

"Again, my bad," he continued, apologizing with the shrug of a shoulder. "I'd gotten careless." He grinned, sharp and knowing, and Itachi didn't trust it. "My partner here's Akamaru," he patted the head of his ninken, "and I'm—"

"I know you can handle yourself, but can you at least pretend you're not out to cause trouble?"

Itachi's gaze flickered behind the stranger as another stranger wandered up to stop by his shoulder. She was another younger one with a shock of pink hair and a height that had him glancing upward. Her demeanor was completely different; colder, blanker, observing him with a stare that didn't betray a single thought. Dark circles bruised the skin under her eyes and she stood tall and unbending, and he knew he would have to worry about her too.

"I was just introducin' myself," the first stranger grinned. "I haven't run inta' any other Akatsuki, y'know." One look at the newcomer and his brows scrunched. "Damn, you need a nap."

"I have a list I need to get through."

"Yeah, that's what you said yesterday."

"I'll be back in time for dinner."

"Shino's makin' bobotie tonight and if you're not back before I go in for seconds, I'm not apologizin'." Itachi pressed a kunai into his palm when the attention shifted back to him, three gazes burning. "And I'm Inuzuka Kiba, by the way. Native Konohan, missing-nin, you know the drill."

Dark Circles crossed her arms over her chest. "Hoshigaki Sakura," she introduced. It almost didn't hit him at first with neither sharp teeth or blue skin or a menacing sword on her back, but when it finally did, he couldn't put the numbers together. "Ex-Konoha citizen, missing-nin." Her expression remained blank. "You know the drill."

Kiba laughed.

Itachi tried to piece together how a Hoshigaki was in Konoha only to end up in Ame, but all he drew were blanks. Kiri politics and census data left a sizeable hole in his Water Country knowledge, but from the bits Kisame had chatted about over the years, the Hoshigaki were a decently sized clan that didn't have a kekkei genkai, but churned out bloodthirsty shinobi after bloodthirsty shinobi for the village's ranks. Their chakra reserves tended to run larger than average and the blue skin was a recessive gene thought to appear in particularly talented generations, but the clan wasn't as tight-knit as, say, the ones in Konoha; there was no shared living compound, no head of family, nothing in common besides blood.

"I'd stay longer, but there are a couple appointments I have to make. It was nice meeting you, Uchiha-san," Sakura said as she politely inclined her head. Itachi simply watched her, tipping his head once, bright red eyes wary for any sudden movement. She turned to the ninken—Akamaru—and tapped his nose. "Save me dinner."

He woofed and licked her hand, and Kiba stuck his tongue out at her before she shunshinned away.

"I'll let you get back to whatever it was you were doin', Uchiha-san." Hands still in his pockets and mouth still stretched into an easy grin, Kiba stepped into the rain. The ink on his earring seals didn't run. "See you around?"

If Itachi was honest, he hoped he didn't.

:: ::

"You never told me 'bout this. I can't believe you never told me 'bout this. You're—You're disowned. A disgrace. Y'know, I was actually gonna give you back your green hoodie but now your green hoodie privileges' revoked 'cause you never told me 'bout this."

"You mean the green hoodie you 'borrowed' a month ago and never gave back?"

"This isn't 'bout the green hoodie! This is 'bout you never tellin' me Ame did bull riding with giant salamanders!"

Shino sighed with all the air in his lungs and bemoaned his future of having to listen to Kiba talk about this for the rest of their lives. On the row of seats directly below him and leaning leisurely against his legs, Sakura quirked a small smile. To her left, Akamaru wagged his tail.

About a kilometer out the village where the Ameonna faced was the old factory half taken over by the swamp. Some years ago it had re-fashioned into a stadium that hosted cricket matches from summer to storm season, ice hockey in the winter, and giant salamander riding in the spring. The closest sport they'd ever come across to it was the yakfighting in Kumo and even then there weren't any huge money prizes or bookies who wore origami paper bills in their headbands.

"Did they choose to gamble here because it's illegal within village limits?" Shino asked. Sakura shook her head, the group's gaze following the man flung into the bottom stands.

"Casinos are legal here because they get taxed high and are one of the country's highest revenues," she replied. "Amegakure is their management, and there's little intervention as long as every venue inside the border is registered." One of the salamanders screeched as it tried to eat one of the riders. "And an old factory is just better for a salamander to destroy."

"Giant salamanders," Kiba repeated. Shino rolled his eye. And it wasn't just the giant salamanders either—the only reason they even knew about the bookies was because Sakura directed Kiba straight to one knowing full well he would do something like putting down a hundred ryo win bet on Rider #14. And just to add on to Shino's future headache, she followed up with her own hundred fifty on Rider #2.

"If I'd known betting makes your forehead wrinkle like that, I would've done it more often," Sakura remarked.

"My forehead doesn't wrinkle."

Kiba slapped the forehead in question, eyes never leaving the arena. "I dunno, feels pretty wrinkly to me."

Shino smacked the hand away and glared. "When you lose your bet, it will be the most satisfying thing I'll see all day."

Sakura's shoulders eased a little bit more.

They'd been in Ame for a little over two weeks now. Kiba and Akamaru spend a lot of time in the Archives and on the glowing village streets, scouting out all the seals and weapons shops, memorizing dead ends and shadowed walkways. He already stained their living room floors from neon paint practice and started to add his own little pieces between almost-alive brushstroke tigers.

(He thinks he's seeing a lot of orange hair in his periphery. But that can't be right, right?)

Shino worked one of the graveyard shifts at the hospital, a ten-ish at night to six-ish in the morning with Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. He never liked to sit still. Never had. At the Academy, none of the teachers noticed the way his jacket hid the kikai that circled his desk until the day ended. In Kumo, he cut into his skin until there was no more skin to cut and learned he loved being swept away in the bustle on hospital floors. If he wasn't working or training or studying or experimenting, he stayed with pack to keep them close and breathe and make sure they were always warm.

(He dreams of cutting open Kiba's and Torune's throats. He blocks it off and keeps working.)

And Sakura?

Her eyes slid to the side, each metal piercing weighing heavily in her ear.

She didn't know how much longer she could go on like this.

(Would Shino and Kiba be okay without her?)

Movement to the left caught her eye and she glanced towards the front entrance. The chuunin-level security tasked with checking IDs immediately stepped aside for the man who strode past. Cloak-less, long, loose brown hair, and that black mask still covering the bottom half of his face, Kakuzu immediately began to note the current standings and the number of bookies in-house today if his flickering, precise gaze had anything to say about it.

Then that gaze finally met Sakura's. He held it for a moment before turning to speak with someone.

"Which one's that?" Kiba asked. Akamaru whined.

Shino frowned and set a few kikai down into the metal grate flooring. "And what do we need to know?"

"Kakuzu-san. He's native Takine, does some work for the Treasury when he's not out on missions, and he's the one with the skin hardening jutsu." She stared at him for another beat before the arena noise rose and they all watched the angry salamander thrashing around. "He's killed every one of his partners."

He was easier to read than Konan, but that didn't mean it was better. Konan's expression was always distant, but she'd put a nursery in Kurenai's house. Blunt, rough, and exacting were the nicest things about him, but it was his coarseness that built her thick skin that kept her standing.

Without it, she would've never made it this far. She could at least thank him for that.

She heard the beetle by her ear buzzing.

"And this one never shuts up even when I rip his spine out his throat."

:: ::

Kakuzu sat to Sakura's right, one seat away with his arms crossed over his chest and his attention completely on them.

He didn't know what to think when coming across her in the factory one of the game days, but then again it wasn't like he really knew her. Ever since the incident with her ear, Sakura spent her time with Kisame and Konan and every now and again, with their Leader. But with everything that came with his missions and responsibilities, there were the blue moons where Kisame had no choice but to leave her with him. Sasori was out of the question, Orochimaru was never a consideration, and Zetsu was absent so often he was sure he and Sakura had never met.

But the things he did know about her were just the small things he happened to notice.

She was the first Akatsuki kid, and Kisame used to train her until she completely wore herself out. He coddled her too much, never getting too physical and focusing on discipline, forms, and all the other things where the worst injury she could get was a pulled muscle or a sprained ankle.

But when he left on missions, Konan trained her through black and blue skin, bloody noses, cracked bones. She accepted nothing but excellence, and more than once Kakuzu had passed her by while this small waif of a Hoshigaki walked out from the cages under the lake, shaking.

(She always smiled at him when she saw him, though, and greeted him through bloody teeth.)

((Kisame knew. Of course he did. But it wasn't like there was anything he could've done.))

"I heard this one follows a god named Jashin, and he's immortal because of it," Sakura said. Kakuzu scoffed.

"It's a delusion."

"But he's good?"

"Not enough for me to deal with his shitty attitude."

He angled his gaze higher, staring directly at the row behind them. Just another thing he didn't know was anything substantial about her team, and he honestly didn't care outside of their skills and how many brain cells they had, and how the prices on their heads were probably grossly underestimated as well. But he'd listened in to a few rumors about them—new arrivals always brought about new whispers and sometimes eyes liked to trail from behind the thick glass panes, so it hadn't been long until he heard of the Konoha kids.

Until now Itachi had been the only notable shinobi to make his home in Ame, and there was a high level of scrutiny on anyone immigrating from one of the Great Nations. Storm Country's history ran like any other swept away in the Great Wars; they served as battlegrounds, collateral damage, struggling just because they were locked in something out of their control.

It built a healthy bitterness among the minority nations. There was hatred for Konohans and their jutsu that spat fire and fire-red eyes over ravaged lands; hatred for Kirians and their drownings of crops and villages in water and blood; hatred for Iwavians and their bombings and battles that erupted in the lands sandwiched between Fire, Stone, and Wind; hatred for the Sunese and their sands crept past their borders until someone noticed too late that the country that doubled in size in the past fifty years was still growing; hatred for the Kumor and their reputation they built for amassing an incredibly diverse population by stealing and kidnapping and was slowly deepening their foothold in the world. Was this all a generalization? Sure, but it didn't change the fact that no small nation could ever amount to the power of the Greats.

One way or another the rest of them had to survive—Yu dabbled in cults, Taki cultivated chakra-enhancing sources, and Ame welcomed criminals and refugees, just to name a few.

So when a shinobi turned rogue and walked across Heaven's Gate, they needed to prove themselves. How powerful were they? How did they acclimatize to the populace and the culture? Was their level of respect enough?

If they needed to be removed, how much longer would the Angel let them live?

"What the hell's the deal with immortality?" Inuzuka sighed as a few earth-jutsu users repaired the arena before the next rider went out. The boy and his dog spent a lot of their time at the Pillar, specifically on the private library floor, and Kakuzu's been hearing about what an energetic, likeable young man he was. A seal specialty was already rare, but a seals specialty in someone with a family like his meant he was a little more interesting than he let on. The Akatsuki didn't have someone like him, and one couldn't deny Leader's bouts of taking opportunities. "Everyone who believes in it gets cracked one way or 'nother, I mean, look at Orochimaru."

Aburame's lips curled in distaste. An efficient medic who was steadily gaining rank at the hospital, his unusual approaches and level of skill had earned him the staff's respect and the approval of a handful of veteran employees. One of Kakuzu's contacts—a hospital admin who occasionally fronted as a receptionist to gauge persons of interest that came through the hospital—had nothing negative to say.

"You met Orochimaru."

"He recognized me right before the Konoha Crush," Sakura said, and he took a moment to observe her grace in being at ease and how she still managed to exude a certain sureness in herself that was never apparent in the little mouse she used to be.

Sentimentality, he scoffed at himself. He really must be getting older.

Inuzuka reached out to pat the ninken's head. "Don't know why he's suddenly up in our business again after the past couple years of quiet."

"It's most likely because he's at the tail-end of Sasuke's main training and he's moved on to his next project. Why? Because he's never going to forget we owe him for killing the Sandaime." Aburame pushed up his glasses. "Imagine thinking Orochimaru is the lesser of two evils," he drawled, and something like amusement twinged deep in Kakuzu's core, "truly, what kind of people would they be?"

"Ugh, stop remindin' me." Inuzuka half-heartedly kicked at Aburame's legs, in turn jostling Sakura whose face never moved a muscle. A couple salamanders were starting to eye the workers like they were pests, and it wouldn't be long until one of the walls was trampled to pieces and the tournament moved to outdoor viewing.

"Killing a Kage would've gotten our bounties maxed," Sakura said. "But lucky for us, killing a councilman will cap us just the same."

Kakuzu's brow cocked, but only just. "Ambitious."

"Not impossible."

Then, in an action reminiscent of the collection of birds that populated the Makiling forests back in his old country, three teens and a dog glanced to the left in perfect unison.

A figure hopped up the last few bleachers towards them with a shit-eating look he knew irritated his partner to no end. The idiot still never wore a shirt despite the drastic weather change from Yugakure and, like a majority of the Akatsuki, tended to not wear his assigned cloak within the village.

"Hey now, the fuck we got goin' on here? Kakuzu, you didn't tell me you were out here makin' friends," he pouted. Kakuzu could feel his future headache creeping in from a kilometer away.

"Hidan."

"Wait, wait, wait—I know these fuckin' kids from somewhere." He squinted at Inuzuka, a few wet strands flopping over his forehead. Sakura bandaged hand flexed in her lap and Kakuzu caught a few scuttling shadows at the corner of his eye. "Shit, where've I seen you before?"

Inuzuka twirled the few senbon that appeared between the gaps of his fingers. "The hell should we know?"

Hidan completely ignored him, snapping his fingers as he actually managed to wind the gears in his head. It was annoying how there was actually a microscopic sliver of intelligence hiding under his usual nonsense, so when his thoughts made their complete little circuit, a devious spark lit up his gaze. He snapped a final few times and reverted back to his loud fool self.

"You're the Konoha brats in that last update! It was like, clan kid," he pointed at Aburame, "clan kid," he pointed at Inuzuka, "a dog, I guess," he pointed at the ninken, "and the other kid...?"

Kakuzu could have reached over and ruptured his trachea then and there, but the idiot would be too satisfied at the reaction. "Kisame's," he answered gruffly. Hidan blinked.

"What, the dead one?"

"Yes."

"Seriously? And Kisame's not gonna parade her around—"

"I'm Hoshigaki Sakura."

Hidan finally glanced back at the girl in question. From his seat at her side, Kakuzu couldn't quite parse out the look she was giving him, but whatever it was caught his partner off guard.

"It's nice to meet you." She spoke in an even tone, crisp and cold and firm in their place. "Isn't it more polite to address the person you're talking about when they're right here?"

A few insects crawled along one half of Aburame's face as Inuzuka's excitement bled back through and the ninken watched everything unfold quietly, suddenly un-doglike in its behavior.

Hidan's lips curled into that grin he gets when he finds the 'perfect' sacrifice—the ones that put up more than just a fight.

And Kakuzu, still sorting through all that he learned, started to give in to the curiosity of what sort of bloodbath this would turn out to be.

'So, Sakura.'

She stood up and straightened to her full height. The other attendees had already given them a wide berth on the bleachers and he could already see the whispering and the musing and the bill hand-offs of a new betting pool that was going to have nothing to do with riders or salamanders.

"You got a lot of confidence for a bitch that's supposed to be six feet under."

She tilted her head.

"I think I have the right amount of confidence for a bitch that's not going to have any problems handling you."

'Let's see if you're worth a capped bounty.'

:: ::

Kurenai stepped out of the house and drew in the mingled scent of iron and rain before taking a seat on one of the dark cushioned chairs on the porch. Tenzo was alive, still in a coma, but he was breathing and she hoped she never had to see the day he stopped. She lowered her mug of chai tea onto the low octagonal side table and pulled her sleeves over her fingers. The unit attached to hers was empty, as it typically was when the rain clouds were brighter, and she understood a little better about why Shino and Kiba had problems at home.

Far back just before Team Eight when she received the files of her prospective students, she saw that Shino was a quiet Aburame, that Kiba was a wild Inuzuka, that the team gap was filled in with an average student who was projected to slip by as a career chuunin. Check, check, check. The three of them met the usual expectations, and it was then Kurenai's goal to get them to live long enough for a promotion before picking up another genin team to mentor.

Though from day one, she'd seen this team could be called anything but usual. But her getting to know them and getting used to their strangeness was something that came at about the same rate, so save for a few mistakes, she could now tell anyone in confidence that there was nothing about her kids she couldn't accept. Their ally in Kumo, Konoha's corruption, the lengths they took and would take just to survive—no, she'd seen them go through so much they didn't deserve.

With all they lost, she couldn't bear to see them lose even more.

Shibi and Tsume... She didn't think she'd lose her guilt over them anytime soon. They had to live with their children constantly gone who-knows-where, and the few times they did have them at home or on a break that happened to sync up, they spent time with sons they couldn't recognize. What right did she, a short-term sensei, have in knowing things about Shino and Kiba that their own parents didn't?

And the clan heads were far back in Konoha, choking on their worry while that short-term sensei had bobotie with those same kids last night. How awful was that?

Kurenai sipped her tea and sighed, its warmth seeping into her fingers. Sure, it was a little lonely nowadays with how busy they all kept themselves, but she saw them enough to see that Ame already treated them far better than Konoha ever did. And besides, her kids were on a mission. Revenge was something poisonously precious to shinobi; it wouldn't be fair for her to get in their way.

As she lowered her mug, her eyes darted towards the road and to the figure striding over the painted pangolins. Tall, cloaked, bulky—oh.

Hoshigaki Kisame slowed to a stop in front of the kids' unit, his hood brushing back as he tilted his head up and frowned.

"They keep a lot of odd hours," Kurenai spoke up, clutching the handle of her mug a little tighter when his head turned to her. "Sakura has a lot of late nights, so I can't promise she'll be around if you come looking for her again."

"That so?" Striding the short distance to her and taking the couple steps up to the covered porch, he pulled down the hood of his plain black cloak. White holographic shark jaws glimmered on his shoulders. "I'm a lil' surprised she told you about me."

"Ah, I'll admit that I only found out after we'd been granted asylum."

"And you stayed?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

His mouth quirked and he leaned back against one of the pillars. There was no overwhelming flood of intimidation as he stood a couple meters in front of her, not like a few years in Konoha when he and Uchiha Itachi came to scout for the Kyuubi. He was a lot more at ease—friendly, even—and it almost made him seem like he wasn't one of the deadliest nuke-nin out there.

"Sorry for being rude," he said, and that was pretty polite of him? "You're Yuuhi Kurenai-san, right? Konan filled me in a bit ago, and I've been meanin' to pay you a visit."

If that was meant as a threat or just regular conversation, she didn't know, but she noted the ten separate weapons she had hidden on this porch alone and kept her free hand on her lap, close to the kunai tucked under the cushion.

He was a seasoned shinobi, more jagged around the edges by profession with more blood on his hands than she could ever carry. He was someone who rose past the stories told about him and had a Flee on Sight tacked onto his name.

"I just wanted to say thank you," he said, his voice soft and heavy, "for takin' care of Sakura."

She blinked.

"From the looks of it, you're important to her. I'm happy she's got an adult in her life she can trust." He seemed to chew on the inside of his cheek, taking a moment to mull over his thoughts. Which was fine, because she needed a minute to process that he'd come to thank her. Thank her.

"If I wanted my freedom, I should have stayed dead!"

Kurenai looked down at her mug and at the steam swirling up from it. "You could wait for her here, if you'd like."

The first few pages of Sakura's file was the mission report that detailed her transfer-of-care into their forces from her hostage status, taken from one of Kiri's most dangerous. Orphans had the highest rate of getting shuttled into the Academy and it padded their forces, as much as it left a terrible taste in her mouth to admit it, it made sense to bring her back with them under the guise of doing "the right thing."

But they took Hoshigaki Kisame's own daughter.

And a small voice at the back of her head whispered, did he let them?

"No need to be so hospitable, Yuuhi-san. I know she doesn't want to see me." It didn't matter how leisurely he stood; no matter what happened here, he could kill her at any moment, for any reason, in a village where he didn't need to worry about the law. "'Sides, aren't I bad company?"

He grinned, but it couldn't quite hide his melancholy. She bit the inside of her cheek.

Whenever Hoshigaki Kisame crossed her mind, it was always in the realm of remembering to check the updated Bingo Books to avoid all areas with his recent sightings so she wouldn't die, or trying to find a way to counter or avoid his attacks so she wouldn't suffer before she died. Two unprompted meetings with him were already bad enough for her heart, even if that second meeting wasn't necessarily him, but... here in her chair with her cooling mug, she wondered if maybe he wouldn't have just let Sakura go.

Kurenai's eyes shot out back towards the streets and darted there, there, and there, a sharp uptick of chakra rattled her spine before there was another figure on her porch. Just as her finger threaded the loop of the closest kunai, Kisame lifted his brow.

"Somethin' you need?"

"Not from you." The newcomer glanced over at her for a moment, unnaturally bright green irises on unnaturally dark sclera, and she was struck with the same uneasy feeling she had meeting Tenshi-sama for the first time.

Akatsuki, then.

"Good afternoon," she greeted, her hand slowly curling back around her mug.

"Yuuhi Kurenai." His voice rumbled lower than Kisame's, blunt and sharp like an old knife that wouldn't stop grating in. "Konoha jounin, genin-sensei, genjutsu specialty."

"... Yes?"

His stare weighed heavy for a few more breath-holding beats before his attention turned back to his associate. "Here."

He held out the hand that had been carrying, the deep gray color poking familiarity like an itch under her skin.

This is Kakuzu-san, by the way," Kisame informed her drily as he took the bundle. It unfurled in the exchange and it was a cloak Kurenai wasn't hoping to see in the hands of a stranger, longer than the average cut and moose antlers prominent on the shoulder stitching. She didn't see the other cloaks there—one with an eclipse of green moths on one shoulder and another with a dip of raindrops along the upper back interspersed with simple seals. He reached into one of the pockets in the lining and pulled out the yellow envelope that was tucked in. "And I'm not his hanger."

"Sakura left it when she fought Hidan."

Kurenai's fingers twitched as a chill crept onto the porch. One of Kisame's thumbs ran across the rainbow patches. It was either he wasn't the best at masking his expressions or he didn't care who saw, but his mouth twisted like he just chewed a wad of tamarind.

The envelope crinkled.

"Why the hell was she fighting Hidan? Did Leader-sama sanction it? What happened? Is she alright? Did—"

"She was at the factory, I was checking the bookings, and Hidan followed me to whine." Kakuzu brushed off the worried ramblings like he'd heard them before, an unconcerned response towards a more-than-concerned father. But the concerned father part was what got Kurenai most—there was no reason to play it up if he didn't mean it. There was no point in playing 'a good guy' or 'an ally' or plain 'nice' when everyone here knew who he was, what he'd done, who he stood for.

Or at least she thought he was a pillar for the Akatsuki, and the Akatsuki alone.

"That doesn't explain why they even fought."

"If you want an explanation, ask Sakura yourself."

Kisame's jaw clacked shut, and Kakuzu tracked the movement the exact same way Sakura would've done.

Which is odd, because if Sakura never explained her past and put Konan, Kisame, and Kakuzu in a line and asked which one of those people raised her, Kisame wouldn't have been the first choice. And Kisame, who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here just to see if his daughter's okay, stretched the cloak to get a clearer look at the antlers.

"... You don't make deliveries for anyone, and you've never bothered with her when she was little."

"No," Kakuzu agreed. "We made our own stakes. If she lost, she would comb through the west end of Storm for the group of B-ranks encroaching the territory, but only after she picked up her guts Hidan would scatter all over the swamps."

A raging bloodlust gripped the air so tightly that the taste of iron swelled over Kurenai's tongue.

"And if she won?" she asked after wetting her dry mouth.

Kakuzu's gaze flitted to her, then down to her mug, and up to her face again. "Then I would collect Inuzuka's bet winnings and drop them off, because none of them expected to come home tonight."

Their eyes trailed down to the envelope.

Her shoulders eased almost immediately and she pressed the mug to her lips to try and drink away the last of her tea's warmth. At least they were alive somewhere with another story she wanted to hear, oh, she hoped that when they stopped by tomorrow it'd be around when she finished trying to bake samosas.

(But Kisame feels like the envelope is burning his fingers.)

((And maybe his heart hurt a bit too.))

:: ::

"ARGGGH!"

Yoriko stabbed the patchy training grounds behind the Secondary School. She flew through the three years of Shinobi Primary and she was on top of the world—but then the first month at Secondary was already shaping up to be the start of the worst four years of her life. She was eleven years old, darn it! When she finally graduated at the end of this, she was going to be one of the best kunoichi Ame's ever seen!

The kunai glinted mockingly at her.

"I know!" she shouted at it. "Kunoichi should be able to throw kunai at easy targets—and—I—AGH!!"

She grabbed the handle, twisted, and flung it as hard as she could towards the neon-red targets on the other side of the field. But in her frustration she pivoted too far and the weapon veered towards the path and at the shadow—shadow? Oh no—

"Watch ou—!"

She blinked and nothing was there.

"Huh?"

She... Where did it go? It was right there in her hands, then in the air, then—

"Be careful."

And suddenly she was there.

She knelt in front of Yoriko's crouched form and was still a whole head and more taller. Bruises mottled the skin along her arms and deep scars warped parts of her shoulders, neck, face, and man, Yoriko's never seen pink hair in the village before. Even redheads were kind of rare, and the one time she swore she saw someone with red hair wearing Clouds. But pink? Paired with dark eyes, a stony face, and the stray kunai between two fingers—

"I-I'm so... so sorry," she squeaked. She was dead. So, so dead. "I wasn't aiming—I didn't mean—I promise I won't—I'm so sorry!"

The stranger stared at her for a moment before standing, wow, she was really tall and really scary looking.

"Thank you?" Tall and Scary said, a quirk to her split lip. The girl flushed, but kept her eyes up. As much as she wanted to dig herself a hole to hide for the rest of her life, she couldn't let herself look any worse!

"Clear your head. If you let your anger make your decisions for you, the more you'll be prone to mistakes." Tall and Scary flipped the kunai and held the blade as she handed it back to the shaky hand that reached up. "Show me how you normally stand to throw."

Yoriko's fear slowly ebbed into confusion as she did as told, and that confusion only multiplied as Tall and Scary stood to the side, telling her all these adjustments to her form. By the end of it her arms were straining a bit keeping up her position, but there was no way she'd say no. And besides, she was a lot nicer about the corrections than the nasally Aya-sensei. But why was she even taking the time correcting...?

"You already knew a lot of what you should be doing, so this is about refinement. Breathe, and remember what you practiced." She tipped her head at the target. "Try throwing now."

Yoriko flung it.

It hit the second circle from the center.

"I... hit it?" She blinked. "I hit the target. I hit the target! Hey, Tall and—er, I mean, uh, what's your...?"

Dark green eyes stared at the target, unblinking, piercing through the light rain, and Yoriko gulped. Was the second ring not good enough? She thought it was because she'd barely been able to scratch the very outer ring, but—

"Good job." Tall and Scary finally looked at her, and that coldness that made her pretty scary was gone. There still wasn't much to her expression, but it made Yoriko brighten up immediately.

"Thank you so much!" She grinned. "I'm Yoriko, no surname!"

"I'm—"

"SAKURA!" Someone barked in the distance. "LET 'IM FINISH HEALIN' YOU, DAMMIT!"

A pause.

"Keep practicing," Sakura said. "You're right on track to being a great shinobi."

And then Yoriko was left staring at just another empty space on the training grounds. That kunai was still stuck in that glowing second ring, proof that she'd finally done what it'd taken her a month to do, and a really cool kunoichi told her she was doing good!

"Alright, Sakura-sensei!" She cheered. "Just you wait! I'll get that bullseye in no time!"

:: ::

Thank you guys for your patience in waiting for this update! Here we end with some great fanart by omegaverse-musings on tumblr!