In July, We've Grown Weary

:: ::

He'd come to Konoha a few times over the long stretch of months with his siblings to help with the reparations and show their support as Sunagakure's representatives. But this was the first time he'd come with the official title of Ambassador after a six month high strung politics training, and as Kankuro stood before the tall wooden gates with his hands in his pockets and a new puppet prototype strapped to his back, he figured he would have enough time to try and track down The Worst Tourist Guide He'd Ever Met.

Nara Shikamaru was waiting for him at the gates with a slouch and a tired yawn.

"Oversleep again?" he snorted.

"Maa, more like I didn't get enough," the Konoha-nin sighed. He took the other's outstretched hand and shook before they started a slow walk side by side into the bright village. "I'll be your escort every time you visit, by the way. Since you're the official Sunagakure Ambassador and all."

Sunagakure Ambassador. Temari still made fun of the official robes the council assigned that he always managed to 'lose'.

Kankuro grinned. "You sure you won't fall asleep on the job?"

"I told Tsunade-sama my concerns. All she told me was to 'cut my bullshit and get out her office'."

They talked about some trivial things on their easy amble to the Kage Tower, like the recent shogi tournament held in Fang Country and the odd change of CEOs a string of companies suddenly took up since sometime late last year, like with Hisan I.E., the Cerdo Foundation, or The Povi Co., just to name a few.

At a lull in their conversation, the both of them basking in companionable silence, Kankuro glanced at the buildings and red-tiled roofs so singular to the Konoha landscape. Construction looked like it was going well with scaffolding and workers in only scattered parts of the village instead of the whole half of it.

And while he did feel guilty for letting the Konoha Crush go that far, a part of him was still curious about how much apathy Sakura held in regards to it. She didn't want the citizens hurt or anything like that, but she'd been content to watch the fires blaze as long as no one was there to burn down with it.

Speaking of Sakura, Shikamaru probably knew her, right? They were all in the Chuunin Exams together and were part of those rookies. Rookie Ten? Rookie Six. No, well, Rookie Some Number.

"Hey, so," he started. Shikamaru blinked and turned his head, mildly curious. "Do you know Sakura? Pink hair, was in our Chuunin Exams? I've been meaning to talk to her about something."

Then, Shikamaru did the weirdest thing.

He winced.

"Yeah..." he drew out. "You probably haven't heard." His voice dropped a pitch like he was about to tell a secret that wasn't his, and Kankuro immediately set on edge. "Her and the rest of Team Eight were supposed to be on a long-term mission with no exact end date, but a few months ago they got declared MIA. No one really knows the details, but at this point, everyone's leaning towards KIA."

"You're kidding."

"It's, uh, it's kinda a sore topic for our year. We weren't really friends, but you know."

"But—"

Kankuro clamped his mouth shut. The last time they'd ever spoken was when she admitted that Konoha meant nothing to her.

But dead? Sakura the Tourist Guide was dead? No way. Not a goddamn chance. Not with how she pulled her punches at the preliminaries or how she ignored her village's will by chatting with him in the forest instead of fighting him until one of them couldn't stand anymore.

Shikamaru rubbed the back of his neck. "The whole thing's troublesome, but..." He sighed. "Do me a favor?"

Kankuro tried to push off his oncoming headache. "Yeah, what's up?"

"If you ever see a jounin with black hair and red eyes, don't bring them up to her," he warned. His black eyes were grim with resignation in his pressed lips. "She was their sensei and it hit her pretty hard."

:: ::

"Oi, Kotetsu."

Kotetsu's head slipped out the palm that propped it up as his chin very nearly smacked against the reporting desk at the south entrance of the village. He leaned back to avoid a face full of wood but grabbed the edge of the desk when his chair tipped too far and its legs threatened to give out from right under him. "Huh? Yeah? What's up?"

Izumo handed him a few files and took the empty seat to the side. "You forgot to sign all the reports you wrote up yesterday."

"Oh shi—hand me a pen, I'll get 'em out and delivered real quick."

"It's not due until noon, you've got a couple of hours."

"Yeah, but I shouldn't have—ah fuck, hold on."

Kotetsu hunched over the desk to quickly scribble his name at the bottom of each page, and the moment his eyes were on the sheets, Izumo's smile turned pitying.

Ever since he'd told his partner about the fate of his one and only student, everything had played out just the way he thought. Kotetsu didn't believe him at first, saying it was only a B-ranked mission they couldn't have been killed on. The next morning, he found Kotetsu in the kitchen idly pushing eggs around his plate with red eyes and a rumpled shirt.

A few days after that, Izumo didn't see him at his station and he didn't come home that night.

And after patiently waiting for him to tide out his feelings, Izumo found him curled on the couch with an opened, untouched bag of chips in his lap and the TV turned on to a channel he knew Kotetsu couldn't care less about.

"She was just a kid," Kotetsu murmured when the couch dipped and his partner took a seat to his right. "A pretty weird one. Too damn tall. She was somethin' else, did you know that? Worked hard, was damn smart—something wasn't right. I knew something wasn't right. But I went along with it, didn't I?"

Izumo couldn't say what that meant, but he ran a hand through spiked black hair anyways. Something wasn't right? Did he know something like this was going to happen? "Her mission went wrong. That's not your fault."

"... Yeah. I guess," Kotetsu murmured. He turned his face into a couch pillow and sighed. "Pro'lly gonna sleep on the couch tonight. S'comfy."

"Alright."

"... Stay with me?"

"I always do."

Izumo sighed quietly, but quickly plastered on an easy-going smile when Kotetsu turned back to him, grinning as he brandishes the now-signed files like a trophy. His grin wasn't big or as bright as it could be, but it was something.

These days, Izumo knew his partner would be a little more scatter-brained. A little bit not okay, but just for a little while longer. Maybe it'll be a couple of weeks, a couple of months, but he'd get better with time.

He'd mourn, he'd remember, he'd live.

And Izumo silently promised he'd be there every step of the way.

"You want me to take it up to the Tower?"

"Nah, I got it." Kotetsu stretched as he stood, and heaved a relieved sigh when his back cracked. "I'll be back in a sec. Don't miss me too much."

"Won't miss you at all."

"We'll see 'bout that, asshole."

He slipped out the check-in station and headed down the path towards the Hokage Tower.

About halfway there, he passed a uniformed shinobi with green-rimmed glasses.

:: ::

Aoba took a seat on a bench that overlooked the village as he set a store-bought bento lunch on his lap. It was that time of day when it was clear out and silent; the sun high in the sky and resting birds cooing up in their high branches.

It was calm.

But he wasn't hungry.

He stared down at the bento for what must have been minutes until he closed the top and stuffed it back into its plastic bag. He was alone for his break today, which really wasn't new, but the longer he looked at the empty spot to his left the more he could feel the dull ache in his chest creep to the pit of his stomach.

He remembered when the information on Team Eight had been released in the public record.

The news didn't come as a front page cover story or a scream from the Hokage Monument, no, it came as silent as a knife that slipped up to his throat.

(Just the same way every other shinobi's story ended, one way or another.)

It came like finding a broken lock on your front door, threading a chill up your spine and forcing a tremble in your chest, not knowing what was on the other side and not wanting to find out.

It came when he left work one day when he stepped out the intelligence building as the sun set low, red and orange and pink and purple bleeding out on the horizon. He saw Hagane Kotetsu slouched by the exit, arms crossed tight over his chest and head ducked.

Aoba blinked. "Hagane-san?"

"You're... Aburame's Shino's sensei, right?"

"Oh! Yes, how did you know?" Aoba slowed to a stop in front of his comrade, but even then he couldn't see the entirety of his face. "Ah, well, I guess Sakura must have mentioned it at one point or another."

"Uh, yeah. Sa-Sakura—" Kotetsu flinched, and Aoba's brows furrowed— "said something before, and, uh... It's just..." He sighed. "I've never been good at this kinda thing. I'm sorry."

"Sorry? Hagane-san, what—"

"Something went wrong on their mission." The words burst past his lips like a dam breaking in a flood. "There's not a lot of details or anything and the mission got moved from the Archives like a few days ago and I looked and couldn't find anything and I know it said they were supposed to be gone some indeterminate amount of time, but..." Aoba's palms started to sweat and his mouth dried. "But..." Kotetsu's voice cracked. "Team Eight's mission officially ended in February."

Six months.

February was six months ago.

Team Eight had been... for six months...

"What's their official status?" Aoba asked, glasses fogging as his eyes misted. Kotetsu couldn't look at him.

"MIA." The chuunin's voice was no higher than a whisper, and if he spoke any louder it would break. He would break. "But they were given the Presumed Dead designation."

Aoba sighed.

This was a constant of shinobi life; dying on missions, dying brutal deaths, dying young.

(But it never crossed his mind that it was something that could happen to them.)

He stood and walked to lean on the railing, a sudden tiredness hugging him close like an old friend. A small sliver of darkness curled into him as he watched both shinobi and civilian mingling on the streets and enjoying another day in the bright Konoha summer.

But no matter how much the sun shone, he felt cold.

Lunch forgotten at the bench, he turned away and started a path back to the intelligence building just as an Academy teacher stepped into the library.

:: ::

Iruka's here again.

The librarian wasn't surprised to see the kind-faced teacher slip through the doors with the same stack of books under his arms, all six in the same order just like the last time he left. He'd been in at the same time after Academy hours every third Friday and walked up to the check-out desk with the same apologetic smile, a tilt to the right side of his lips as he bowed shortly as he set his books on the wood.

"Renewing again?" the librarian asked. She was already scanning the barcodes on the inner covers without waiting for a response, and Iruka rubbed the back of his head as his smile turned sheepish.

She noticed the bags under his eyes. She pretended she didn't.

"If it isn't too much trouble. Um, I'm not hoarding all these books to myself, am I?"

The librarian glanced at the titles she'd already scanned: The Block Theory, Intermediates of Multi-layer Seals, Fundamentals of Stacked Linkages.

"No, not really," she said, because all the books in front of her had been collecting dust until one day a young teacher had come around in a hurry to snatch all the advanced sealing books they arranged on the designated shelf. He'd been harried, then, with half his hair out of his ponytail, his flak vest missing, and his hitai-ate half-hanging out the pouch on his leg. The librarian was no shinobi, but she was pretty sure they weren't supposed to look like that.

She scanned The Evens Algorithm next, then Through Another Ink Medium, and Applications of the Curved and Pointed End.

"Have you finished reading these?" she asked. It was the same question as all the times before, and she only lifted her gaze when she stacked the last book on top of the pile and slid it across the counter.

"Not quite," Iruka replied. Then came that small, sad smile that complimented his dark circles and made him age almost ten years—weary, beaten, old. "I need to take a lot of notes. They're important."

He lifted the stack and bid a polite goodbye, but something compelled the librarian to break their conversational routine. She didn't watch him leave with her usual contemplative stare and opened her mouth to call out to him instead, her chin propped in her palm and her half-lidded eyes only mildly curious. "You should ask someone to help you get through those, sensei. Maybe a student?"

Iruka's back was to her when he answered. (She can't see the way he held the books closer to himself like a lifeline—an anchor.) "When my student gets back," he said. "I'll ask him."

He slipped out the front door.

It was strange, the librarian thought. He sounded so sad just then.

She spun around in her chair, missing the woman with spiky brown hair and red triangles on her cheeks pacing briskly past the window.

:: ::

Kuromaru was worried. Of course he was, the way his partner had been the last few months.

'Inuzuka Tsume' and 'busy body' never fit into the same sentence unless the word 'wasn't' was sandwiched between them, but they'd just come back from a two-week mission along the rocky mountain line near Earth Country's border with dirt still stuck in her sandals and dust coloring the fur on his underbelly brown and another mission had been slated for them to take up the next afternoon..

They couldn't continue on like this.

"Tsume—"

"I can already hear it comin' outta ya," she interrupted. They passed the busier streets in Konoha's midtown as they headed towards the clan district, and Kuromaru noted how anyone in their way would scoot to let them pass. A glance up showed the downward slant to Tsume's eyes and the thin line of her lips. Nothing like her sharp grins or the bright gaze that always invited mischief.

"Then maybe you should listen to me."

"It's fine."

"Obviously it's not."

"Kuro, I swear—"

"Swear that you'll what?" Kuromaru bit. "Ignore me so that you can sign yourself up for another mission to beat yourself into the ground because focusing on blood and broken bones is better than thinking about the one thing that hurts more than all of that?" Tsume stopped just in the threshold of the Inuzuka House, stiff-shouldered and frozen. "News flash, but after the fifth time it gets old and after the tenth time you'll be dead and what can I say?" He pushed—he had to. "Kiba wouldn't want to see you this way."

And Tsume snapped.

"Kiba wouldn't want to see me this way? Kiba?" She whipped around and flashed her fangs, a little wild around her eyes and her nails digging holes into her palms. "Don't act like you don't remember all those days you'd peek into his room and see a bed that hasn't been slept in for weeks! Don't act like you didn't notice the empty spots at breakfast, lunch, dinner, day after day after day! Because they were there! You saw it didn't you? Hour after hour, every week, maybe I'd see his face, maybe I'd catch him by chance, maybe I'd get to pet Akamaru a split second before he's out of my hands and my sight and down the street with my son who never even looked back when he left..."

A wordless shout ripped from her throat as her hands dug into her hair. "I know he's not coming back!" she roared. "I'll never see him grow up! I'll never see him get his tattoos! I'll never see him and Akamaru master the Garoga like everyone else in our clan!"

Tsume fell forward to brace herself on the stair railing, turning her back towards Kuromaru and shielding her face from the rest of the world.

"I hope it didn't hurt when it happened," she whispered. Her soul bled out by the last word and suddenly, she was tired. Drained. And a headache was slowly starting to tap away at her skull. "And... if it did, I hope it was quick."

She tread up the stairs, and Kuromaru didn't follow.

Instead, he stood unmoved on the worn wood floors of the house with his head held high and his good eye unblinking and unfocused.

"Sometimes," he murmured to the empty space before him, "I wonder if you've forgotten how much they meant to me, too."

Outside, Hana stood on the porch and stared through the open door.

The Haimaru didn't make a sound as she spun on her heel and walked right back down the path she came from. One of the ninken brothers made a motion to follow, but another moved in front of him and shook his head.

Hana's fists clenched at her sides as she tried to draw in deep breaths to calm the erratic beating in her chest. She avoided the main streets and took the narrow, beaten routes to the east training grounds and heaved herself onto the wooden fence that held itself a little lopsided along the way.

She pressed her fists against her forehead.

Stupid obligations, stupid missions, stupid feelings, stupid situation, stupid little brother she'll never see again—

A tear escaped the corner of one eye.

When Kiba was still around, it was already hard to live in that house. They never outright mentioned that once he became a genin he was just never home, and from there on, it just got worse and worse and worse until it was just... It scared her how normal it became. To not see him. To not include him in anything because there was no one to include.

Then Team Eight's report was released.

And for the last six months, the house had only ever been used as a place to sleep or a quick spot to eat.

She was exhausted. The Haimaru were exhausted. Kuromaru was exhausted. Her mother was exhausted.

Because at least back then, they knew Kiba was okay.

Hana sniffed and dropped her hands.

Stupid little brother she'd never get the chance to bury.

:: ::

The Aburame Main House was always quiet.

The Aburame, by definition, were never a loud sort of people. Recluses they were called and recluses they stayed with their kikai that never ceased to buzz and their expressions that rarely changed for anyone. Perhaps they were off-putting as well, but that wasn't news to anyone who'd lent half a mind to any of the rumors that flitted about the village day to day.

And words like that couldn't have described Aburame Shibi any better. He was everything a clan head should be: calm, collected.

Clink.

And it wasn't that he had to be, it's just who he was. A noble clan member, a figure to look up to—

Clink.

—a father.

Cli. nk.

So as Shibi sat all on his own at the dining table with a cup of tea no longer steaming to his left, a bowl of cold rice to his right, and a dish with oil clouding white right in front of him, he tapped his chopsticks against the edge of a plate.

It made a low, ringing noise resonate in the room; a ringing noise that barely broke through the thickening silence that ever so slowly started to suffocate.

It only broke when Shibi grabbed the edge of the table and flung it as he stood, not looking up as it crashed against the wall opposite him. Rice bits and tea stain the walls and pool around shattered ceramic that crumbled into smaller pieces as one of the chairs smashes into the pile.

Another chair follows. Then another. When there weren't anymore chairs, Shibi's hands bled on the vases he crushed into a fist and soaked the sleeve of his shirt as his arm swiped a glass pitcher off the table into another jagged mess on the floor.

The kikaichu in his skin don't buzz. They can't. They won't.

And when his gaze finally trailed up, it was to the ceiling, to one of the beams that colonies had taken to crawling around and were now all deathly quiet and still.

His eyes landed on the cluster of butterflies with clear wings lined with burnt orange.

The Greta Oto.

Shino's butterflies.

He dropped to his knees and fell back to sit on his heels, back slumped as tears finally push past his glasses to drip down his face and mingle in the rivulets of red in his hands, silent sobs wracking every inch of his body.

The Aburame, by definition, were never a loud sort of people.

And through all the cries his heart would scream, not a murmur snuck past his lips.

:: ::

Tenzo opened his eyes.

He didn't need to look at his clock to know it was nowhere near close to six in the morning, the usual time he'd wake if he was in the village and there was no assignment for him to attend to. His body ran like clockwork and, for as long as he could remember, nothing could have changed that.

Letting his eyes fall closed for a split second, he drew in a deep breath, then exhaled.

There used to be nothing that could have changed that.

He rolled out of bed as a dimly lit 3:34 AM stared up at him from his bedside table. Three? He'd woken up around four the last few weeks. He felt the fatigue in the sinews of his muscles and his eyes held the begging burn of a full night's rest, but four hours was his new max. Five, if he was lucky.

But there was no use in worrying about it now. He wouldn't be able to go back to sleep even if he tried, unfortunately, so he pried himself off the bed and headed straight for the coffee machine in the kitchen. He took a seat on a stool once it started to sputter and brew dark drops from coffee beans imported from Grass Country and thought how the beans were made a little stronger there. It might have been because of the higher humidity and milder climate, but either way that coffee was what he needed every morning and it was probably his new favorite brand to pick up from the specialty store by the Jounin Center.

He also thought about a team of dead children and how Danzo was no doubt content about his blood soaked hands.

Tenzo rubbed his face and leaned against the counter. He'd known the trouble they were in with the glaring targets painted on their backs by the Third Hokage and Danzo themselves, and paired with the latter's almost obsessive intent on offing them as quickly as possible, it was more impressive that it took this long to get rid of them. When the cursed seals weren't enough when they proved themselves to be greater than their circumstances and their consequences—

They'd been cut down at the root. Set aflame. Murdered by their own village, he was so painfully sure.

And he should've seen this coming.

Team Eight had been a contradiction full of anger and pain, of hatred and determination, of a chilling like-mindedness simmering with the resilience of a thousand suns. It... hurt to look at them for too long knowing as much as he did, knowing that he'd been to blame for the ink on their tongues that started them down the path that could've only had one bloody end.

The leader they'd been assigned must have been a ROOT member. And if he had to guess, the 'indeterminate time period' to complete the mission had been used to throw off any suspicion so the ROOT could take as long as they needed to slit Eight's throats and reduce each and every one of their bodies to ashes that were collected and buried to never be found again.

Mission ended in February, the public record said. MIA, the public record said.

"They could have been dead longer," Tenzo muttered to himself, an empty echo in his cold apartment. And KIA. KIA was a much better descriptor for their status; scorned for what they believed in, burned by the Will of Fire.

The coffee machine clicked, and he brought the steaming mug into his calloused hands before walking back to his room to sit at the edge of the bed.

He glanced at the clock. 3:41 AM.

And beside the clock were two thin, flat planks of wood tied together in the shape of an 'x' that was about the size of his palm. At the center was a glued tea light candle run out of wax and a used wick crumbled to chunks in the tin holder. The notches on each end of the planks held four wooden bars where lantern paper wrapped around into a prism, water-stained and wrinkled.

He set down his mug of coffee, and cried.

He cried because a team of genin fought to free him from the dark.

He cried because they let him remember his own name.

And he cried because it was his turn to never forget theirs.

:: ::

Kurenai woke in the morning with a smile on her face. She took a shower, made herself a quick breakfast of toast and eggs, and went down to the market to start her weekly grocery trip.

One of the vendors greeted her as she ambled down the street—she was a young owner, definitely late teens or early twenties and must have recently taken over the business from family or a friend—and recognized her as one of the many customers that graced the district this quiet Monday.

"Good morning, Yuuhi-san!" she chirped. "Would you like to buy some salmon today? It's delivered fresh from Port City and I'm sure I can cut a deal just for you!"

Kurenai smiled at the young woman's enthusiasm, so full of wonder and hope and—

"I'll take two fillets, please," she said. When the vendor turned to the cutting board and lifted a firm gray salmon out the nearest ice bucket, Kurenai took a short step back. "Ah, excuse me, is it alright if I use the restroom real quick? I know there's one in the bakery next door."

"Of course, Yuuhi-san! I'll have your salmon sliced and wrapped when you get back!"

"Thank you, I'll only be a moment."

And it really was only a moment. Not two minutes later, she was back with a warm loaf of bread in one arm and happily accepted the small plastic bag of wrapped salmon she was sure to tip the vendor for. She was young, after all, with such a bright future ahead of her.

A bright...

Kurenai thanked the bubbly woman and continued her way down the line of shops and vendors and stalls. One of the many sellers had jerky drying on hooks and filled the immediate area with the promising smell of tough turkey, beef, deer, and to many passersby it pulled them in if not to buy, then to peer at the process.

Kurenai didn't even glimpse in their direction.

Her pace quickened.

By the end of her grocery run she had a few more bags of foodstuff before she immersed herself in the materials part of the market. As a shinobi she didn't splurge on much that wasn't fight wear or weapons or first aid kits, but every once in a while it didn't hurt to indulge.

She leaned over thin chain necklaces and studded bracelets until she spied a pair of cute earrings, these ones dark blue, and held them up to an ear as she glanced at her reflection in a small, smudgy mirror propped up behind the baskets of jewelry.

The vendor grinned at her interest, this one an older man with white hair speckled gray. "That suits you very well, miss! Would you like to purchase them?"

"Yes, please." The earrings were small but had gems as blue as the ocean, shined and cut in a way she hadn't quite seen before. "Are these sapphire?"

"Spinel, actually," he smiled as he tucked the earrings in a small box before sliding it into a paper bag. "Mined up on the great Lightning Country mountains, they were, and if I didn't enjoy the gem business so much I wouldn't have bothered climbing around everywhere, you know!"

He handed over the bag, and she handed over her payment.

"We also have a selection of sunglasses, if you're interested," he offered. "Can't be too careful about protecting your eyes from the sun, you see."

"Oh, the earrings are just fine, but thank you," she replied. Her eyes don't flicker over to the dark lenses no matter how much she wants to look at the shades, how they hid so much, how even then, they could only hope to shield the world from an eye that— "Have a good rest of your day."

"You as well, miss!"

Kurenai headed back home after that instead of perusing the rest of the district. A soft hum tickled her throat and drowned out the whispers in her head and she made it back in record time to drop off her new earrings in her room and to stock all the groceries in the kitchen. Her nimble hands, cut and calloused from years of work in the field, opened every cabinet save for the one beside the oven where all her baking trays and mixing bowls had sat collecting dust for months.

She didn't bake. Not anymore.

Red eyes roved over the clock above the oven, and she blinked. Had time always passed so quickly?

Putting away the last bunch of vegetables in the bottom drawer of her fridge, she tapped the door shut with her hip and rushed back out the door again.

The sun hit her face once she was back on the street and she took the time to pause and breathe in. The sounds of the village washed over her as she allowed her thoughts to pool to a still for the first time that day. She listened to murmurs up and down the street, she heard children laugh and it nearly made her smile—

—then a dog barked, and she was back to numbing awareness. Her mind ran rampant. Her hair stood on end.

She started her walk down the road, and she hummed all the way to the apartment on the other side of the village.

When Tenzo opened the door, he greeted her the same way he always did; a gaze that always brightened when she met it and a smile that lit up her day.

She sighed in relief and followed him into his kitchen.

"Sorry I'm late," she apologized. "I was in the market district earlier and wasn't paying attention to the time."

"Don't worry about it." He handed her a mug of her favorite tea while he had a cup of coffee for himself. It was all he could drink nowadays, it seemed. "How have you been?"

They hadn't seen each other in a couple of weeks because of schedules and responsibilities, especially since Kurenai had relegated herself back to an active duty jounin and Tenzo still worked in ANBU under the iron-fisted Senju Tsunade.

It was nice to catch up with old friends. Old memories.

"I've been doing well," she says, peering into her mug.

"Are you?" Her eyes snapped up and Tenzo's smile had wilted a little. "I don't want to be too forward, but I'm still worried."

"It's been better than before," she argued, but even that sounded weak to her ears. "I've been getting out of bed in the mornings, I've been going out, I-I've been buying groceries—"

"You had a pink shirt you used to wear," he said. Not accusingly, never accusingly from him. Kurenai shut her eyes and breathed in. "When was the last time you wore it?"

"... Not since then," she admitted quietly. The shirt he spoke of she knew all too well, and the memory of her shoving it to the very back of her closet so she could only begin to forget about it was clear in her mind. "Pink... still makes me nauseous. But it's been better. Really. I..." The scent of tea filled her nose, but it was growing stale. "I only had one breakdown today. In the bathroom. At the bakery."

A breakdown and the fact that the mere sight of jerky reminded her of the snack Kiba would sneak when his friends weren't looking to distract him from his anger, to distract him from his pain—behind every pair of sunglasses was Shino and the eye he lost and the bags he couldn't scrub away that made his father sick with worry—whisks and bowls and batter used to make treats for a team that used to fill her apartment with banter and laughter and secrets never meant to be shared—every bark was Akamaru's when he lolled his tongue out and drooled when he slept through nightmares of blood and scars and screams—pink, the color of a girl that was too cold too smart too sharp too brave—

"Have you been to your old training grounds?"

She shook her head, and Tenzo set his mug aside to hold one of her hands, his own still warm from his drink.

"Kurenai, you're getting better. Like you said, you're getting out of bed in the mornings—"

Only to stand in her shower for an hour until the water ran cold.

"—you've been going out—"

So the neighbors don't get suspicious. So the neighbors don't find out she's been dying from the inside out.

"—you've been buying groceries—"

For them to rot until the stench was unbearable and she would throw them all away, untouched.

She placed her tea on the nearest countertop, dizzy.

"Kurenai," he said again. He was quieter, he was softer, and she takes solace in his voice even when she heard the barest break in his tone. "It's going to take a long time and it might not ever be the same but... you'll get through, okay? We'll get through. We'll be okay."

"But you weren't there," she whispered. She pressed her other hand to her face, black hair falling past her fingers as her shoulders began to shake. "I yelled at them the last I saw them. I yelled, I fought, I... I was so scared. They were going to die, Tenzo, they were going to die if they kept going. If they kept fighting. And I..." She sniffed. "I thought that if they stopped then, it would be okay. They could rest."

Tears sprung past the gaps between her fingers.

"They left."

Her vision blurred and her throat clogged up.

"They're not coming back."

There was a warmth at her side and Tenzo was right beside her, one arm around her shoulders and the other cradling her head to his chest. Kurenai let go of her face and wrapped her hands around his forearms as she held him close, because he was the only one she could hold onto now as she felt the top of her head grow damp with the weight of his own fearless tears.

He was the only other one that knew. That understood.

"I abandoned them. I was the first one to leave, and I did it when they needed me most," she cried. Her forehead fell against his shoulder and the sobs come stronger, fiercer, fast enough to strangle her lungs and the only thing she could think of was how much it was well deserved.

Stars shadowed the curtain covered windows, and silencing seals glowed faintly around the room.

Anguish bound her heart as Kurenai spoke the only thing she could say with absolute certainty, that she didn't have to lie about, that she didn't have to pretend for.

"I let Konoha kill my kids."

:: ::

(Konohagakure was a village that learned to overcome. They were strong, dependent, tight-knit, and ready for whatever the world could ever throw at them.

Then, there was March.)

:: ::

Choking on Shallow August Air

:: ::

The scars on his neck were straight, pale, healed. But they were still there.

As were the ones on his torso and his arms and his legs and the one he managed to carve into his back—every single one was straight, pale, healed no matter how deep they'd been when he cut through skin, vein, muscle, bone.

Sakura wondered what it was like for him in his cell all those months. All of them must have been bored, and while she drowned herself in physical training he looked to have done the same with healing.

She was glad he'd gotten work in, but she still wished it hadn't gone so far.

Shino leaned against one of her legs as he sat on the floor with his eyes closed and his hair tangled in her fingers from her spot on the couch. An open binder of medical publications laid on his lap right next to Akamaru's head as the rumbling of a running shower filled the otherwise quiet room. For the past half hour she'd been trying to figure out how to tie up his hair one-handed and hasn't had much luck, but she was nothing if not persistent and Shino hadn't minded the soothing motions since she started.

(Sakura remembered how fast it used to take her to twirl her hair into an immaculate bun atop her head. Every morning she would try to tie it faster than the last until it became a motion done in a blink.

Now she could feel those same strands above her neck. At least it would be easier, now.)

She let the tresses fall against his shoulders and rested her forearm atop his head to pillow her own as she stared at one of the walls.

"What's wrong?" Shino asked. He turned a page of his text, and Sakura tapped her fingers against his scalp a few times before she reclined against the couch. He half turned towards her and spied the stormy seas of her eyes, not quite as cold as they normally ran but calculating all the same.

"Are we doing the right thing for the right reasons?"

He blinked. "What do you mean?"

"The weak are meat, the strong eat." The phrase rolled off Sakura's tongue like liquid metal. This was their mantra, their lifeline, their scream at all who tried to end them. "Or alternatively, might is right; the strong get to do whatever they want because they're the strong ones, whether or not it's right or wrong." She glanced down at where the rest of her arm would've been. "Did I bring it up because I believed in it, that we should be strong so we could be right?" She smiled a little, self deprecating smile. "Or did I bring it up because it was my father's favorite saying?"

(She never could be her own person apart from him, could she?)

Shino looked back at his papers, then up to the pair of dark glasses surrounded by scrolls and books and brushes cluttered on the low table.

Being strong so they could be right. He'd never thought about it like that, and he didn't think he'd ever fall into that category.

Because weren't Danzo and Orochimaru and Hiruzen the same way?

He sighed and rubbed his face as Akamaru lifted his head and whined softly.

"This was not a conversation I believed we would have today. Why? It was not something I thought to consider," said Shino. He sagged against Sakura's legs, hands still pressed against his face. "Why bring it up now?"

"I've had eleven months to think about it," she replied. Her words were a stark reminder that they were currently in a cell in the middle of what they behold as enemy territory. "Better to bring it up now before we never get the chance again, right?"

"Might as well call ourselves out for bein' self-righteous hypocrites 'fore we're dead." The bathroom door swung open and Kiba stepped out in a pair of black pants and a gray towel he was using to dry his hair. He threw the towel over the metal from on one of the beds and plopped onto the couch as he kicked his legs up over Sakura's thighs. "So what were you sayin'? That we're wrong 'bout what happened?"

"Not that we're wrong, but that we're going about it the wrong way," she clarified.

One way to describe Killer Bee was kind. A lot of people didn't appreciate that from what she'd seen when they walked the streets, but the animals on Genbu never shied away from him. Once when waiting for Motoi to finish his duties before they started their genjutsu training, she'd sat in the shade of a tree as Bee fed a moose with six antlers sprouting from its head.

"You know when you fight, you got a fire in your eyes and a blaze in your style," Bee said as the moose took another bite of the carrot offered up. Sakura tilted her head fractionally. "Not an ordinary one, not really, but there's that kick that ain't juvenile. Got a goal in mind, somethin' that makes your gaze red and blind?"

She thought about the Third and Danzo, of kidnapped children and small dead bodies and families who never learned what happened to their babies, of their own burned tongues and brands and the only arm she had left tattooed with the mark of a prisoner. "Maybe."

He hummed and patted the moose's head with one hand, motioning her over with the other. When she reached the great brown beast with its moss covered antlers and bright orange eyes, she only hesitated a second before bringing up her own hand to pat its snout.

It exhaled a warm huff.

"It's good to pick your battles," Bee murmured. In the vast quiet of Genbu, it would've been hard to miss his words. "Revenge is sweet, but it's poison. Careful which ones you pick to drink 'cause you'll never know which one will kill you."

"I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it," she said just as Kiba opened his mouth. "We just need to think about our decisions. What we choose, what we do." Sakura ran her tongue over her teeth. "Who we'll kill."

"... I guess I've thought 'bout it. Had eleven months ta' think 'bout it too." Kiba yawned, stretching his arms out and sagging even more into the couch. But as his eyes opened, they held no warmth, but a frigid passion. "Honestly? Maybe we did go too far. Maybe we shouldn't have done some of the things we did, like using the Konoha Crush to our advantage and not feelin' guilty."

Silence pulsed around the room.

(What did it say about them that they couldn't refute that statement?)

"I still want him dead," Shino said after a moment. "No matter the level of morality to examine and regardless of a title, of 'good' or 'bad, his decades of terror to them, to the village, to us is something I will not stand for. Why? Because this is not due to a choice of rightness or deserving, it's due to our circumstance of becoming victims of his power and him using that to rot the village from the inside out." His lips curl into an ugly sneer and the kikaichu beneath his skin trembled in a deep-seated fury that embedded itself into every cell of his being, fostered by time and hatred. "All because we found out a truth."

"A lot of truths," Sakura agreed. "But making a list and crossing out every name on it will do nothing. We kill him before he does any more damage, and we'll decide after that if all of this was worth it."

Because they had no right to be the judge, the jury, and the executioner. They had no right to decide who got to live and who got to die. they had no right to play God in this world.

But the world of shinobi was never fair.

It was unfortunate they had to learn that the hard way.

Akamaru nestled his head back into Shino's lap, a tired wave brushing through his fur.

"I really hope it was," Kiba sighed. "You know, all this trouble." He crossed his arms over his chest and dug his head into the couch cushions. "Or we really drove sensei away for nothin'."

The silence hit again, this time harsher and colder than the last, and it took a few minutes before Shino went back to reading his texts, before Sakura's hand was back in the thick of his hair, before Kiba drifted off.

No one spoke for a long time but one thing was made startlingly clear.

From now on, they would never throw down the gauntlet. They would never start a fight. They would never act on whatever wasn't their business.

(They'd learned of the Kyuubi, of Uchiha Itachi. The world won't learn about either from them.)

Danzo threw the first punch when he burned their tongues.

So one day, the world would learn of Danzo and Orochimaru and Hiruzen and the children who died by their hands.

((And that was the poison they chose to drink.))

:: ::

Outside the cell door, Bee and Yugito exchanged glances.

:: ::

September Leaves Burnt Our Tongues

:: ::

"This is the worst idea."

"Aw, what, you backin' out? Always knew you were a drought."

"I'm not backing out, but you know Raikage-sama will be upset when he finds out that you—"

"Eh, what's new, I'm always making my bro pull out his hair, And what's with that 'you' swear, 'cause last time I checked this was one of those 'we' affairs."

Sakura, Kiba, Shino, and Akamaru watched the banter between Killer Bee and Nii Yugito like a ping-pong match from their places sandwiched between them. It was almost midnight when the two jinchuuriki appeared and snuck the team out of Catatumbo. They never said what it was for or what they were going to do, but Yugito had looked mildly exasperated yet enthused and Bee was practically vibrating with excitement.

Kiba jabbed a finger at the eldest shinobi. "So, like, he talks like that all the time?"

Sakura shrugged. "He wants to be a world-famous rapper, so he practices as much as he can."

"Huh. Wildin'."

"I don't think I've been in this part of Kumo before," Shino noted as he peered down from the roof they were all crouched on, Bee and Yugito's back and forth a constant noise over their heads. Soft yellow lights brightened the streets and tens of stalls still steamed with grilling foodstuffs. "Part of downtown, perhaps?"

"Got it right, kid, but we ain't gonna sit here like a volt of griffon vultures." Bee bent over them and pointed father down the street where it ended in a sort of huge cul-de-sac with maybe ten to fifteen buildings with signs of all kinds hung around each door. "We're headin' down to Parhelic Circle to experience some of that Kumor culture."

"Parhelic Circle?" Sakura repeated. As the six of them leapt down to the street, Kiba muttering about Kumo and its fake words, Bee threw an arm around her shoulders and grinned.

"Probably one of the most important places here," he said. "We've all been getting kinida ansty lately, so Yugi and I thought it was about time to bring y'all by." He lowered his voice a tad."And between you and me, Gyuu's been askin' about it too."

'Shut up,' Gyuuki grumped.

"Okay, but what is it?" Kiba stressed. A quick assessment of the direction they walked towards filled with the scent of metal and a fair amount of blood coupled with an incessant humming noise. "Oh my god. You're actually gonna kill us this time. Guys, they're gonna cut off our heads in front of everyone and put them on spikes and—"

Bee burst out laughing as Shino leveled his friend with one of the blankest stares he could manage. "Kiba."

"Wait," Sakura interrupted. "Let him finish."

Yugito snorted and mussed Shino's hair over his disgruntled expression, Akamaru happily trotting alongside them.

Even at this late hour, groups of people were clumped around vendors or had their feet dangling from the overhangs or lazed about the suspended bridges overhead. Most looked like shinobi but some exuded that civilian charm, but talked and laughed like old friends and family though none of Team Eight could say any one person looked similar to the next.

They'd be lying if they said they weren't charmed. And they'd be lying if they said the sight wasn't a reminder of one of the holes in their hearts.

They hadn't really made friends like those in Konoha, had they?

Sakura was the first to tear her eyes away from the scene that had the others so enchanted and saw they'd entered Parhelic Circle. Even more people hung around the doorways and steps and used the scattered boulders in the center as perches and make-shift dining tables.

But the buildings, though, were what really caught her attention.

They were all tattoo parlors.

"I guess you could say Parhelic Circle is a right of passage." Yugito grinned at their confused faces. She pushed up her left sleeve to reveal the stunning black work of half a face of a regal, flaming cat with the word n i b i inked down beside it. "Everyone in Kumo has at least one of their own to show off—new genin especially." She laughed. "You get a lot of shitty tattoo stories from those ones."

"We brought you by to meet ol' Mdumo and Siphepho," Bee beamed as he pointed to the second floor on one of the middle brick and mortars. "Mdumo's done all my work—"

"—and Siphepho's done mine." Yugito's smile turned fond as she ushered the team up the wood steps, nodding at the greetings from some of the younger shinobi that dangled off the railings as the one that cluttered along the stairs shimmied to the side to give some walk space. "Craggly old ladies, the both of them. Been together for twenty years and been tattooing twice as long, and they get cranky if we don't pop by to say hello every now and again. You want good work done, you get it from them—but that's just my bias talking. You go to one artist in Parhelic, you don't go to another."

"Wait, wait, wait—hold on, just hold up a sec." Kiba spun around the two Kumo shinobi as they all stood in front of the door with a chipped Thunder and Storm painted in dark red onto the wood. He threw his hands up. "Lemme get this straight; it's like, one in the morning and you brought us out here ta'—ta' get tattoos?!" He sputters. "I'm kinda losing my mind here can you please tell me what's going on."

Bee jerked his head at Yugito. "She's already said it's a right of passage, didn't ya here? All the Kumor get it, everyone far and near."

"We're not Kumor," Shino quietly reminded them. His hand swept up to a forearm and tugged the ends of the bandages that hid their status, their imposed shame. But before his breathing could quicken and his vision could start to blur, Sakura's arm slipped around his neck to tug him close, to tether him. To remind him that they were safe. He breathed in deep and exhaled, missing the brief glint that passed over Yugito's eyes. "There is no need to integrate us further into your community. Why? We're aware of who we are and where we stand, but we appreciate the experience."

Matatabi hummed as her tails swished.

Gyuuki maintained his contemplative silence.

Shino, Kiba, Sakura, and Akamaru looked up at Bee, the latter's face blank and his elbows propped on the railing behind him. Lantern lights bounced off the dark lenses of his glasses and the bare skin of his arms.

"You in Kumo?" he questioned, staring right at Shino. The boy narrowed his gaze.

"Yes...?"

"You've done work in Kumo?"

"Yes."

"You're friends with Kumor?"

"... Yes."

"Those same Kumor respect you?"

"I... would like to think so, yes."

"Then that's all there is to it," Bee shrugged. He clapped Shino on the back and nudged the bewildered team through the thin doorway and into the cramped parlor.

It was fashioned into two sections: a waiting area that was maybe four seats wide and three seats long, and a tattooing area with two beaten leather chairs and a long metal table covered in half-done drawings, ink, and boxes of gloves. A pair of crimson batwing doors attached to a torso-high wall separated one side from the other as designs covered every available space the eye could land on.

Akamaru glanced up. And that included the ceilings and beams too, he guessed.

Two older women sat by the long table, one with blonde-white hair in a loose bun with wisps that fell out stark against her dark brown eyes and the tattoos that ran from her neck to her chest and all the way down to her wrists. The woman next to her appeared just as stern with her black-gray hair shaved and her scalp covered in red ink.

The blonde one huffed as she stood and strode towards them with a scowl almost fixed to her face. She stopped in front of Bee, the half wall separating them and her height only managing to reach just below his chest.

"Hmph," she sniffed. "Six months, Bee?"

At least Bee had the decency to look sheepish as he rubbed the back of his head. "I meant to come by sooner, Mdumo, I've just been a little busy—"

"Busy, he says!" Mdumo harrumphed. "Hear that, Isi, Bee here's been so busy he couldn't stop by to say hello to the ol' grannies on this side of the mountain!"

"Heard 'im loud and clear!" the other called back. Yugito chuckled, but then the other woman appeared too with a disapproving frown on her face, a caricature of a snarling buffalo faded with age atop her head.

"Don't think you're off the hook!"

"S-Siphepho-san—"

"He might not have visited in six months, but you haven't in seven!"

Shino could safely say that standing in the waiting area of a mahogany-bricked building that was as wide as the span of one finger tip to the other if he held his arms out on either side of him and watching two of the most powerful shinobi in the five nations get berated by a couple of old ladies wrapped head to toe in tattoos was one of the strangest instances he'd come to witness.

He exchanged a glance with Sakura, then with Kiba, and when his eye moved back forward the arguments had hushed and four pairs of eyes descended upon them.

"And what do we have here, hm?" Mdumo hummed. She propped her forearms on the low wall and leaned forward. "Genin?" She eyed Shino's bandaged arms, the slips of paper that swung from Kiba's ears, Sakura's missing arm, and how Akamaru sat wary and guarded. "No, not genin. Something else, I can tell just as much." She stood back straight with a slight roll of her shoulders. "They must be something special if you two are bringing them in for ink."

"Only if they want to," said Yugito. She looked to the silent, blank-faced children who were nothing but prisoners in the eyes of Kumogakure law, but who had become so much more in the twelve months they'd lived in a prison that was never made for kids like them.

They were lost, just like every other Kumor that climbed the steps from the shrine looking for a life better lived or another chance to try again. And maybe they didn't make that choice, and that they'd only come after getting picked up from bloody forest floors by a dying fire, but she liked to think things were different now—that if Shino could save her life when he could have let the parasites take her instead, then his teammates must be just as good as him if the way his voice melted to a particular fondness whenever he spoke of them had anything to say about it.

"So what do you say?" Yugito smiled. "Would you like to get inked, or do you want to head back out to try some of the food stalls we passed?"

(She wouldn't know that their decision had come collectively for them, not because of the beautiful art that wove around the shop, not because the old ladies pulled their lips up with their chiding, not because they felt an obligation to her and Bee who'd brought them here.

But because they were given a choice.

And only god knew how long it had been since they'd been allowed to make their own choice about what happened to them.)

Kiba perked up first, his lips split enough for his fangs to show. "I head seal tattoos aren't popular 'cause of how risky they can get, but like is that on the table for you guys?"

"Depends." Mdumo narrowed her eyes at the boy, short with pointed teeth and hair wilder than the bison that roamed this side of the country. "You got a design in mind?"

"I could prob'ly make somethin' up in a few minutes." He pointed to his ears. "Uh, I made these, if that helps."

The woman scrutinized him for some moments longer, the crow's feet pulling at the corners of her eyes, before she jabbed a finger towards the back where her and Siphepho had been sitting when the group first came in. "Pop on back here, kid. I think we can churn out something worth our time."

Kiba flashed a quick, mischievous grin at his friends as he and Akamaru pushed through the batwing doors. Shino stared after him for a few moments before he slid his gaze over to the sheets on the half wall. His face never morphed expression as per usual, but Sakura spotted the microscopic change in his stance.

She placed a hand on his shoulder. "You should go with your idea."

"I might," he said. He tilted his head at her. "Will you get one as well?"

"I'll look around." She glanced at the few sheets closest to them. "I haven't thought about it before, but..." She smiled slightly and squeezed his shoulder. "Do what makes you happy. If I find anything, I'll let you know."

He grasped her hand for a beat before he approached Siphepho and her curious, glimmering eyes. "Do you happen to have any insect designs, Siphepho-san?"

"Got a whole binder for that back here if you want to shimmy on over."

And as he and Yugito pored over the old binders Siphepho dug up, Sakura's smile falls just as she turned to scan the walls behind her.

A tattoo, huh?

Some Amek had them, but definitely not at the capacity the Kumor had shown. Amegakure was industrial, dark, neon, and piercing had been more of the norm if anything. Metal in buildings, metal in bodies, metal in the syringes they used when they mixed chemicals in five-story labs to manipulate elements into the next biggest man-made poison.

And for native Kirians, like her father—

Sakura's brow scrunched. Her gaze landed on a great white shark on one of the sheets, blue with its body in the middle of thrashing and its teeth bared to the world, beady little eyes shining as red coated the corners of its mouth.

She didn't know a lot about Kirians. Or Kiri at all, for that matter.

'Did I never ask?'

But even if she didn't,

'Why didn't he tell my anything?'

She looked away, focusing on a stick and poke of rain drops instead of the burning in her chest.

"Anythin' catch your eye?"

Bee stepped up to her side—her right side, because she never trusted someone standing on her left—and peered at the designs with her. "A magpie? Maybe a firefly?"

Sakura snorted. "I don't think those are really my style." She glanced over her shoulder. Kiba gestured wildly to an amused yet intrigued Mdumo and Shino settled in one of the seats while Siphepho pressed an outline onto his sternum as Yugito chatted with them off to the side. Akamaru took his time bobbing from Kiba to Shino, tail wagging enthusiastically and his tongue lolled out his mouth. "But I don't know," she admitted, turning back around. She raised her eyes to his. "I don't know what to look for."

Those words struck a chord in Bee, and he didn't really know why.

"There's another part of our culture I don't think anyone's told you yet," he started. "About apprentices and mentors, about their bonds of blood, tears, sweat. Every time a hill gets crossed and a path gets through, they make a decision and they make somethin' new. They'll match tattoos 'cause it's what everyone'll do, and that sets the bond in stone just between you two."

Sakura spotted a cherry blossom tree far to her right. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Just lettin' you know that's one of your options," he said. He laid a hand on her pink strands of hair, and she blinked as her eyes darted back and forth between the pieces on the wall as she processed what she just heard. "What's with the look? I didn't teach you to wield a pair of wakizashi with one hand just for fun." Her head snapped up, eyes cold and shuttered. Bee's face eased up. "You're my student, Ibunzi. Ever since we first fought in the rain."

Sakura pushed the bark of laughter that shot up to her throat at the nickname. He'd given it to her one day when she was so concentrated in molding her chakra into one-handed seals that he only managed to catch her attention by poking her forehead.

But the laughter left her as quick as it came, a tiredness settling within her in its stead.

"Bee-sama, I'm not—" She shut her mouth and drew in a deep breath through her nose. "Every morning, you bring me out from Catatumbo," she whispered just loud enough for him to hear. "I'm not Kumor. I was never from Imvula. I'm from a village you hate, and if you know what I am, why do you try?"

The buzz of a tattoo needle hummed in the background and Kiba exclaimed something like the butt-end of a joke, Mdumo's cackles filling the air.

"What you are?" Gyuuki repeated just as quietly. "You're someone Motoi and my idiot host know is worth far more than you think you are." Bee's voice spilled back from his throat as the beast pulled back his control. "I don't know where you'll end up next week or next month, but I know that when someone asks about my students, I'll talk about a Sakura who's better than the village that left her to die." He tossled her hair for good measure. "You're an exemplary shinobi now, and you'll be better than that later. You know that, right?"

Sakura opened her mouth, but not a sound came out.

She thought about Konan's cool satisfaction whenever she landed a kunai in the middle of a target or Kakuzu's silent acceptance whenever she'd filled out an accounting page correctly or when she'd balanced all the checks set in front of her. She thought about how her father grinned when she perfected a kata before hoisting her high and gathering her up in a hug.

"Just like your papa!" he'd exclaimed.

But all those things were expected of her. If she didn't land the target, she would have to hear Konan's monotonous "again." If she didn't triple check her math, she would have to hear Kakuzu's scathing "again." If she didn't plant her foot right where it needed to be at the end of her kata, she'd have to hear her father's encouraging "again."

Again, again, again, again.

No one one had once asked her if she wanted to do any of that again.

Not until Kurenai. Kotetsu. Motoi. Bee.

"Ibunzi?"

Sakura blinked, realizing she'd been staring straight at him the whole time and moved her head back towards the sheets as the whispers she could never forget raised their voices.

"Remember what you witnessed here. This is what happens to fools who think they can change the world."

"Did you understand that, girl? You're Akatsuki's homegrown advantage. How does it feel to be used?"

"Because I'm not a good man."

"You will be an exemplary shinobi or you will be nothing at all."

"I... think I have an idea of what tattoo I want," she said. Bee leaned over in interest. "If you and Hachibi-san don't mind."

:: ::

"Situation's weird, huh?"

Darui, Mabui, and C sat atop the roof of Thunder and Storm, the air crisp and cool on their tongues and the sounds of faint chatter and needles filling their ears from beneath their feet.

Darui laid back against the tiling with one hand over his torso and the other pillowed behind his head as he closed his eyes. "We already agreed Bee-sama and Yugito-san would bring them to Parhelic, but we stopped by anyways."

"I'm curious about what they'll choose," Mabui spoke honestly. "It's an important moment in every Kumor's life, and I still want to be here for that."

C crossed his arms. "So they're Kumor now?"

"Do you think they're not?"

Blond hair brushed against his ears as he turned his head to look out over the circle. It still bustled far into the early, early morning, just like it always did every single night. Kumo never slept and neither did its people and here he was, batting away that same curiosity Mabui herself held.

He wondered—what image would Shino choose to bear?

Mabui shrugged off her companion's silence as the door below them opened and that muffled chatter turned clear and the occupants of the parlor poured out onto the walkway. She quickly moved to peer over the edge, C appearing on her right and Darui to her left.

Kiba slipped into their vision first, eyes bright and grin wide with his jacket thrown over a shoulder and his sleeveless fishnet allowing the kanji for eight be seen tattooed on his right shoulder. It was wrapped in plastic and dotted with blood, but they could clearly see the intricate lines and dots and swirls within the simple outline and both Mabui and Darui were met with the same realization.

The kanji was a seal, and the boy had fashioned even more seals into that kanji.

Darui shook his head, awe and disbelief in his voice as he muttered, "Ridiculous."

And Mabui let a small smile creep onto her face when it clicked that his tattoo was the color of pure Kumo red.

Shino walked out next, his shirt tucked under his bandaged arms. The criss-cross of his pale scars shone on the expanse of his skin, and they came numerous enough for C to hold back a wince. He'd seen his arms when he hid the bands that marked him a prisoner and his feet in the beginning when the boy walked around his cell barefoot, but he didn't think the scars were... everywhere.

When Shino turned to answer someone behind him, he held a glowing green hand just below his chest for a few moments before he pulled away to reveal the beautiful black work of a death's head hawk moth on his sternum that spread its wings just a bit farther than a hand's length long. The skull on it was most prominent, colored in a chilling bone white instead of being left to skin tone like any one else would have.

C huffed, but couldn't hide his amusement. What a design for a medic to have.

Yugito followed and Akamaru bounded out with her. They were surprised to see that there were bandages wrapped around the canine's floppy ears. None of the fur was sheared and no ink could be seen, so there must be a design or two marked on the inside of his ears. What it could be, they couldn't fathom.

And last, Sakura strode out alongside Killer Bee.

No arm tattoo, nor leg. Nothing on her torso either.

But then she paused, briefly, and lifted her eyes to their place on the roof.

Twin horns curled along her cheekbone just below her left eye, both a deep cerulean that contrasted against her green eyes and pink hair. But that was not the fact that caught them; what drew the three of them back so thoroughly was that is was the exact same shade and placement as the tattoo that marred Bee's face, and that only meant one thing.

Sakura nodded minutely in their direction before the group descended down the stairs.

Darui sat back first, his half-lidded eyes following them to one of the food stalls in Parhelic Circle. "Like I said—situation's weird, huh?"

"A little weird isn't so bad," Mabui smiled. She covered her mouth to smother a laugh when Kiba pointed at Sakura's face and shouted something that made her wind her arm around his neck and hold him down.

C watched Shino thread his fingers through Akamaru's fur as his mouth moved, sending the trapped Kiba into a frenzy and making Yugito and Bee throw their heads back in howling laughter. "No," he murmured. A few rays broke out on the horizon that shattered the sky into a haze of purple-pink hues and Parhelic positively lit up like a halo in the heavens. "It isn't too bad at all."

:: ::

But October Clouds Cried and Cared

:: ::

"Shino-san the patients are in room thirty-four to forty-two—!"

"Checked them and noted any applicable symptoms or diagnosis in their files," Shino replied as he handed nine folders over to the harried nurse. "There was nothing of immediate danger, but the patients in rooms thirty-seven and thirty-nine should be attended to first."

"The patient in room three in the Recovery Ward—"

"Has been given their required medication dosage and had their IV drip changed five minutes ago."

"And the low stock of pain relievers on the fifth floor—"

"Have been restocked. I've just submitted the form to order more," he answered patiently, gesturing to the small stack of papers on one of the resource desks. The nurse sagged forward with a heavy groan, his braided brown hair frazzled over his rumpled scrubs.

"Shino-san, you're the best thing that's happened to this hospital in years," he sighed. He slowly straightened to crack his back as he watched the young medic fill out his time card. "Shift's over?"

"Yes. I'll be at the northern training grounds if you need me."

Northern training grounds? The ones Yugito-sama, Bee-sama, and Raikage-sama frequented? "For sparring?"

Shino set his pen down and tucked his time card back into its spot on the wall rack. "Maybe a few rounds, but I will keep myself available in case things go awry. Why? My friends will be sparring too and they tend to have little regard for their well being."

The nurse chuckled. "You never really clock out, do you?"

"It keeps me on my toes." He glanced out the window. "I'll be taking my leave. Will your shift end soon, R-san?"

R groaned again, and Shino's lips tugged up only slightly. "Just got here a couple hours ago, but I'll hold the fort down 'til you get back tomorrow, I swear."

"Ah, what a shame it would be to return to a hospital half burned down because you couldn't find a pen to fill out your paperwork."

"Please, I always keep at least three pens on me." R patted the breast pocket of his llama-print scrubs. Then his front pockets. Then his back pockets. "... most of the time."

Shino held in a snort and bid his coworker one last goodbye before he was down the stairs and out the building where C waited for him, hands in his pockets and his face angled high. A gray scarf wrapped loosely around his neck, and Shino adjusted his own jacket he'd swung on just as he stepped out into the light chill.

The green of this jacket was different than his old one. It was darker, earthier, with a hood bundled at the back of his neck. If he could still wear his old one the scars and brand would be much easier to see, and it dampened him a bit that this new one allowed him to hide a bit more.

C glanced his way, his blank face much kinder than it had been months and months ago. "Ready?"

Shino nodded. "We should hurry, though," he said. "Sakura learned a new technique and Kiba was too excited to test it out."

"Let's not keep everyone waiting, then."

The view in Kumo was just like any other, bright with long clouds that curled like a caress in the sky. It was nothing like Konoha or the Coliseum—there was no tang of barbecue from Yakiniku Q or the wafting scent of ramen from Ichiraku's, there was no dust in the air to choke on and no blood to taste like the aftermath of battle.

Kumo wasn't quite home.

But when Shino climbed up to the top of one of the plateaus to the sight of Killer Bee, Nii Yugito, Darui, and Mabui sat amidst a cluster of boulders, Sakura with a sword and Kiba with a handful of senbon and genuine grins on both their faces as they leapt and dodged each other's blows with no chains to shackle them down, he warmed and a smile pulled relentlessly at his mouth.

Kumo wasn't quite home.

But it would always be better than there.

:: ::

And here we end with a beautiful fanart by inori1345 on tumblr!

And a very accurate depiction of Kiba under the crippling knowledge that he'll never be taller than his teammates by  AwesomeDragonTamer (caleb-crow on tumblr)!