Kisame ducked as he stepped through the bounty station's entrance. There had been two whole instances where he actually bonked his head on the cement; the first time he'd cursed the long legs the Hoshigaki blood gave him, and the second time the Bounty Exchange Officer had seen him and he'd been so mortified that he never returned to that particular bounty station ever again.

Pro: he would never have to face his true shame.

Con: it was the closest bounty station off the Water Country islands, so he had to really go out of his way to turn in bodies.

Foolery aside, the ducking came as second nature now and as he waded through the tables and low-hanging ceiling of the fish vendor in front of this particular bounty station along the Steam-Fire border. But it seemed like he wasn't the only one visiting today, and he tuned into a faint conversation towards the back.

"How did you even find this place—"

"Aren't shinobi supposed to find this place?"

"High-ranking shinobi, typically."

"Are you implying I'm not?!"

"Are you?"

"Well, uh, not technically..."

Kisame perked up and slipped past the cowering cashier with nothing more than a nod of acknowledgment and pushed through the cracked Employees Only door. A shock of pink hair and the gray-blond of the Officer's quirked eyebrow greeted his gaze, and they both swung towards him at the same time.

"Hoshigaki-san!" they exclaimed, and he almost laughed. The Officer cleared his throat and straightened just as Sakura visibly brightened in both surprise and... excitement? Aw, what a cute kid.

The children back in Kiri either treated him like a role model or the Big Bad Clan Head who had the purest Hoshigaki blood out of the 10% of the Kiri population that carried it. The nobility status in his village had its benefits, he guessed, but it had already been years since he'd grown tired of the ass-kissing and the not-so-subtle nudging from his relatives and the village assembly asking when he was going to continue the lineage, and who he would chose to continue it with. Marriage offers, clan duties, meetings, everyone always walking on eggshells to try to stay on his good side—

Sakura jogged over, distracting him from the headache that was about to start feeling like hundreds of rubber bands around a watermelon. He didn't think she'd grown any taller than he'd last seen her, and she's in that red shirt and pink apron over black shorts. Well suited for the sticky autumn weather, but not much for anything else.

He told her such.

"When you run through the treeline, you probably get the worst cuts. Have you ever rolled down a grassy hill?"

"They don't itch that bad!"

"The fact that they even itch is already a problem," he said. A little sterner, he added, "Wear pants on missions."

"What, so I can sweat in them? That's gross."

Kisame hefted the corpse over his shoulder and laid it out face-up on the metal table after pat-pat-patting the teen's bicep to scoot to the side. Her nose wrinkled at the dried blood and bloated skin, and he leveled her with an even gaze. "Better to sweat than having unprotected skin. Pants. P-A-N-T-S." He turned back to the bewildered Officer. "Killed in Tea Country, three days ago, cause of death: Synanceia neurotoxin." Then, back to Sakura. "Why're you arguing with Exchange Officers, by the way?"

She planted her hands on her hips and scowled. "He won't let me buy an International Bingo Book!"

The Officer spun around with a stack of files and fresh documents in his arms, his face scrunched like he was in physical pain but trying to hide it because he refused to concede his sanity. And he might be, because Kisame didn't know how long Sakura had been here and despite not knowing all that much about her, he did know she was a stubborn little menace as evidenced by watching her tear apart firewood with her bare hands when there was a perfectly good axe by the stack in the cabin basement.

So, really. The Officer was in a losing battle.

"Tell me how a chuunin got in here," said-miserable-Officer tried.

"No."

"Kunoichi-san."

A pile of bills on one of the side tables caught Kisame's eyes and he took a quiet step towards them. They were wrinkled from heavy use and sort of messy with their random highlights or scribbles or handwritten serial numbers or symbols that—

Oh my god.

"Haruno-san," he started slowly, "where did you get these marked bills?"

The Officer threw out a hand like it was a point he'd since been trying to make. The papers in his arms almost fumbled, but he managed to dump them down next to the corpse's head. "Yes, Haruno-san, tell us about the marked bills you've brought to buy your Ibby."

Kisame squinted. "N-No one calls it the Ibby...?"

Sakura puffed her cheeks and crossed her arms. "I don't know what the issue is. Money is money regardless of where it comes from! If I knew this was going to matter, I would've done the hairspray thing to get the ink off." They blinked down at her, and she blushed. "Don't look at me like that! I earned that money fair and square, and if it used to be part of some corruption scheme or something, it all happened before I got my hands on it, and therefore it's not my problem."

The Officer looked like fifteen different equations were running through his head and he didn't understand a single one.

Kisame hid his grin.

He remembered being young and drawn to things that weren't good for him. A birth in the family was always celebrated, and those born to the main branch always had the loudest parties. He'd grown up with things like expectation and perfection on both his shoulders as he learned to charm the elders and crush skulls in his hands and listened to how he was the poster boy for the clan because he's got everything, even that skin. He hated that; being held to impossible standards he had to meet because he was the epitome of a perfect Hoshigaki.

So of course there were times he snuck away to be everything the Hoshigaki wasn't. He and Mei would swipe the good bottles to drink beneath piers, Zabuza would drag him to train until their reserves neared danger levels and he'd wake up covered in mud and bruises with only minutes until a meeting he should've prepared for, then there'd be the nights he and Ameyuri would go to the cathouses off on the smaller islands.

Don't get him wrong, he was undoubtedly concerned about the kid's questionable means of acquiring questionable money, but he already sat through her explanation of why she chose bone shards to collect and had accepted it as another one of those teen girl things, so he guessed this wasn't that bad. Right? Right.

But the fact that he even knew that about Haruno-san threw him for a bit of a loop. That little over a week they spent in the cabin was... interesting. He was no stranger to get-togethers like when he spent with his old genin teammates or training with the other Seven Swordsmen, or all those festivals and ceremonies—ugh—he needed to attend as a Clan Head, but none of those involved a combination of suspicious canned foods, board games, alcohol, and a bunch of strangers that were as down with it as he was.

It'd been nice, like he was just "Kisame" and not "Hoshigaki-sama." He just wasn't expecting to see any of them ever again.

Samehada rumbled against his back, and Sakura's eyes snapped to it before she reached out towards a cluster of scales that wriggled out of their bandaging. She grabbed one of them between a thumb and a forefinger and shook it up and down as she cooed like she was talking to a purse dog.

"Hi again, Samehada-san! You look so well taken care of! Do you have new bandages?"

The sword purred and moved the rest of its exposed scales like it was waving.

He couldn't quite hide his grin this time and flashed his teeth, all razor sharp and serrated, when the Officer dropped both his arms down onto the table and looked like ten years were shaved off his life. Kisame placed a hand onto one of the girl's shoulders and guided her forward.

"You know, she's got a point. About the money's history not being her problem anymore," he shrugged. Sakura looked up with big green eyes, surprised, as if backing her up was the last thing she thought he'd do. "Besides, how else do you think all the up-and-coming nin get their start at notoriety? Getting your first International Bingo Book is a milestone!"

She swiveled back at the Officer expectantly. The man sunk the bottom half of his face in his hands and stared for a long moment.

"So you want me to give her an Ibby."

"I'm absolutely not going to call it that, but yes."

There was another long period of silence before the longest exhale Kisame's ever heard come out of a living human being came out of clasped hands and the Officer reached over and picked up the offending pile of bills.

Sakura fist pumped the second he turned around.

::

Deidara rolled a small ball of clay between his fingers as he absentmindedly sipped at his pumpkin-spice-protein-powder-smoothie. Tea Country honestly had some of the best drinks hands down, and he had to give it to Old Man Onoki for actually sending him on a demolition spree instead of one of those dry political missions he'd been getting stuffed into the past few years. Kurotsuchi took the brunt of those of course with the title of Fourth looming over her head, but he would rather blow himself up than take the hat despite having just as strong of a claim on it.

It was already bad enough he had to look pretty and meet every expectation of being part of the Tsuchikage lineage, but actually getting jammed into that dark stuffy office and being bombarded by papers and meetings and reports and issuing orders—

He pressed the smoothie cup to his forehead. God, thinking. What a nightmare.

And there went the Old Bastard's nagging again, just at the corner of his mind, telling him to sit up straight, to pay attention to the council and the elders, ordering him to go around the sectors to talk to the citizens and 'keep up the family's image' like someone was actually going to challenge the blood who kept hold of the seat since the founding—

"Boo!"

Deidara's arm jerked on instinct and swung to catch whoever crept up behind him, surprised when his elbow made contact with soft cotton and torso muscle. Before he could shove his clay into one of the assailant's face holes, a hand clamped around his wrist.

"Fucker," the person growled, and Deidara's head filled with static when the recognition clicked. "How in the actual goddamn did you manage to aim your weenus right for the solar plexus? Ow..."

"Are you serious, yeah?" Deidara turned to Hidan who rubbed pitifully at his chest. "Don't scare me like that! If I managed to shove this clay into your mouth—"

"Okay, but you didn't."

"If I managed to shove this clay into your mouth your guts would be on that window and that window and that awning and no one would be having a good time, yeah," he sniffed. He sipped his smoothie. "Hi, by the way. How have you been, nice to see you, did your hair get longer, yeah?"

Hidan puffed out a scoff and leaned against the opposite side of the alley opening, his free hand stuck in his pants pocket as he offered a taunting grin. It had been a couple months since the incident that made number one on the list of things he was never ever going to tell the Old Bastard or Akatsuchi or Kurotsuchi.

Besides, what were the chances he was going to run into any of them again outside of some politically related business?

Well those chances were pretty fucking ridiculous, apparently.

"Don't act like you don't miss me, Baby Tsuchikage."

Deidara hid his faint wince by sticking the straw back into his mouth. Hidan either didn't notice, didn't care, or did have enough courtesy to ignore it as he peered at the streets and at the people who walked them. Like sure, Hidan was supposed to be some elite Jounin Commander, but after wrestling the man over fake money, he figured that if there was a threshold between how and how not to interact with a field-acquaintance, he'd overshot the line and could now shamelessly admit to thinking that Hidan was probably a decent dude.

"What's your name again, hm?"

Not that he needed to know that.

"Frigid."

"Someone's gotta be in this nasty weather, yeah." He offered his smoothie, then pulled it back when it was rejected with a short wave. "I'm kind of bumming around, honestly. Stretching the mission as long as I can. You?"

"I've got a fat-ass stack of new Jounin considerations waiting for me. Hard fucking pass."

Hidan gave his chest one last rub before he walked out onto the street. Deidara fell into step beside him; they didn't look like the most conspicuous shinobi, he thought, because he didn't bring his Iwa flak jacket on this mission and he took extra care to shield half his face with his hair to keep from being recognized too quickly. And even with Hidan's high standing, it was far easier for small nations to fly under the radar.

He hummed as he sipped. "Isn't that something that's supposed to get your rocks off? Seems like the one thing higher-ups would get excited about, hm."

"Ugh, please don't compare me to those stuffy dickheads. They're old and grimy and as a dude in his early 20s who fucks, I want nothing to do with them."

"But you're still on the board with them?"

"Not by choice," Hidan mentioned off-handedly, but before Deidara had the chance to latch onto that, his gaze swept down to their feet and he tensed. His fight or flight response shot up to full blast and his free hand flew to his chest to check if his heart was still beating.

"What. The hell. Are those?"

Hidan looked down at his feet. Then raised his head with the most genuine, self-serving look he'd ever seen. "These are my crocs."

"... I can't fucking stand you, yeah."

"Just because you're jealous—"

"Why the fuck would I be jealous of your stupid fucking—they're purple—"

"Sounds exactly like something a jealous bitch would say."

Deidara popped the top off his smoothie and threw it back like he had a full glass of wine. He could almost hear the Old Bastard now, loud and angry as he started a lecture from around the corner. He dropped the cup in the nearest trash can—a headache was what he had now. A big, chunky headache from purple barely-footwear that should've been banned the moment that guy from Sea Country thought he should make rubber clogs—

He grimaced and glanced at some of the stores they passed. Flowers, books, wood crafts, then, oh, hello.

He snagged the back of Hidan's shirt to stop in front of a window displaying metal goods. Small weapons, trinkets, tools, some funky stuff he couldn't say he'd seen before but might make for something cool to use on his clay. Which he should buy more of, now that he thought about it. His brand new dojo looked sad when it was empty.

"We're going in."

"What? Why?"

"'Cause they've got those stupid little pins you can put in your croc holes," Deidara drawled sarcastically as dragged them both inside. "Come on!"

::

Sakura itched to crack open the binder-like book in her hands, but she just managed to channel her excitement into the way she bounced from foot to foot as she waited for Kisame to finish up his business with Officer Stick-in-the-Mud. The fish vendor front was pretty out of the way from the passing town she'd been sticking around in for the next couple of days, and on the first day of her arrival to this part of the Steam-Fire border she already picked every fungus Tsunade-shishou expected her to gather on this particular mission.

Pro: getting the mission done early meant that she could spend more time doing her own thing, like harassing bounty exchange officers with money she scrounged up the night before.

Con: well, this. She was lucky Kisame showed and backed her up on getting her very first Bingo Book, or else her butt would've been as bruised as her ego with the force that Officer Loser would've used in kicking her out.

Sakura bopped a pebble with her sandal. She'd been getting a little restless lately, and she was lucky Shishou's been sending her on mission after mission whether it be herb-picking or lesson-giving or technique-learning from allies. It was work, work, work with her, and despite her friends getting worried, she needed this. It was already hard taking a stand when Naruto was off with Jiraiya while Sasuke-kun and Kakashi sensei were away at their "boys only super secret training club"; her own training regime was slow and grueling, and she's been trying so hard.

Shishou was busy being Hokage. Her friends were busy with their own training. Her team was gone.

She learned, sitting in that cabin in a room of people who could've killed her without much of a struggle, that if no one was going to push her until she passed out then she was going to do it her damn self.

Just, you know... not without a few bumps along the way.

She perked up when Kisame finally stepped out the door with a bag slung over one shoulder and a grin that showed off all his pointy teeth.

"Hoshigaki-san, I'm so sorry for the trouble back there," she grimaced as he walked closer. "I—I thought it would be a good idea to finally get my hands on a Bingo Book and study the profiles." She glanced up to meet his amused gaze and stammered to defend herself. Was she rambling? No, he probably wanted the explanation, so she just, "And I was thinking, maybe, I could see if any of those bounties were really low ranking so I could fight them; test out for myself what I learned and what I can improve on. Um." She rubbed the back of her head. "That probably wasn't the best plan, was it?"

"Mm, probably not." He reached out to roughly tousle her hair and strolled down the path.

"Ow! Hey! Hoshigaki-san!!" Sakura ran her fingers through her hair to detangle the strands, stumbling to catch up to him.

"Why measure skill by bounty hunting? I know your anger levels in comparison to how tall you are's at a dangerous percentage—" She pulled a face— "but I thought Konoha was more of the type to use mentors for guidance. You're the Hokage's Apprentice, doesn't she teach you anything?"

"She does!" Sakura protested. Sunlight dappled through the oak forests, bright green and lush in the summer. "She does, but it's like you said. She's the Hokage. She trains me as much as she can, but I'm learning most of my medical knowledge at the library or on hospital shifts and the training..." She shrugged. "Shishou does her best."

"So you're picking out low-ends to make up for the fighting experience you're lacking," Kisame clarified. He mulled it over for a moment before nodding decisively. "No, no, I see what you're doing. This is good! You're taking initiative and getting more money in the process, an important skill a lot of shinobi need to learn."

She beamed. He didn't think she was crazy!

"But," he continued, and she deflated only slightly, "it would've helped if you ran this by a Jounin, or at least let someone know what you were doing if something went south."

She figured. But the longer she thought about who she could've told or who she could've brought on this mission with her, the more blanks popped up. Shishou was out, being a literal Kage and all that, and the only times she could take a step away from the desk for extended periods of time was for training or the hospital. Shizune went on missions, sure, but between the paperwork and schedules and all those classified things she needed to juggle as the Hokage's assistant, those missions had to be worth her time.

She wryly quirked her lips. Collection missions with a chuunin was hardly in the same ballpark.

And there was Kakashi-sensei, but it wasn't like he was around for her to ask anyway, so.

"Even if I had someone to ask, they would never be as cool as you, Hoshigaki-san," she sighed, completely missing how the lines around Kisame's eyes softened. He slowed his stride so she didn't have to keep up with double her usual speed. "But sulking's not going to get me anywhere." She braced two fists in front of her as they kept walking. "I have to keep studying and training, then I'll make it to the top!"

"A good place to start is by ironing out your strengths and the strengths that you don't think are your strengths.

"Does... that make sense?"

Kisame reached over to tap his knuckles against her forehead, ignoring her indignant squawk. "My nose is the same as anyone else's, right? Except all my life I've been a little more keen on the scent of blood than everyone else; other Hoshigaki typically use it to check for their own or their teammates' injuries."

"Wait," Sakura interrupted. She'd gone through the files on the Hoshigaki Clan once or twice during the times she was allowed to poke around Shishou's private archives and maybe she memorized everything on them and the Tsuchikage Clan and Yugakure's Jounin Commander history but she wasn't a stalker, she was just curious. "Do you actually have shark blood in your lineage or something?"

"Or something," he waved off. "All I know is that whatever started the Hoshigaki out isn't around anymore, but we can do lots of shark-related things like having functional gills, growing naturally serrated teeth, and being more sensitive to blood. But I've honed that sense of smell over the years and now I can pick up a trace about half a kilometer out." He slowed his step and extended an arm out to stop the teen as he cocked his head. Sakura stayed as still as she could, eyes flickering from his face to the dark wood trees around them. He glanced back at her. "Like now." His voice lowered a few notches. "There's a blood trail somewhere East."

"Cool," she whispered. "Your nose can tell us where not to go and—ack!"

Kisame was already up in the higher branches, Sakura tucked underneath one arm as he silently darted to wherever the bloodbath was. Oh gods, she hoped it wasn't a bloodbath. The last time she'd gotten queasy over gore was when she was forced to stand in an operating room for ten hours straight elbow-deep in a torso to keep guts from falling on the floor, but battlefields were different from hospitals. It wasn't under her notice that the majority of missions she was sent on weren't exactly combat-related, but it was—she already knew how to channel chakra into her fists to crumble mountains and no one was giving her the chance to prove it. But this—

"Have you not seen a single horror movie in your life?" she hissed. She would flail and demand to be let down, but as depressing as it was she could only reach down to about his knees and the ground below them was a far-off blur. "You're not even trying to be the final girl!"

"I'm not even going to pretend I know what that means. Now shh."

He let her go when they reached the edges of a clearing half a minute later. The branch they perched on was a good enough vantage point to grant them a view of some sort of... what, a meeting? Gathering? Where a bunch of pre-teens were chained and dressed in white with blood running down their arms, their Yu hitai-ates visible on their foreheads and all of them forced onto their knees. Twenty-three, no, thirty-six other individuals formed a semi-circle around them, and one of those thirty-six stood on a raised platform above them all.

"Are cloaks really a cult thing? Sakura murmured. "I mean, I thought the movies did that to be more dramatic."

"These guys are carrying torches for a ritual in the middle of nowhere. They don't need to be more dramatic." Without tearing his gaze away from the presumed leader, Kisame asked, "Quick, what's one of your strengths you don't think is a strength?"

"Wh—Right now?"

"Anything," he whispered. "Weird things you pay attention to, small talents you use to make your friends laugh, rules you know you should follow but don't—"

"Rules!" she exclaimed quietly. "Um, one thing I'm trying to change is how emotional I get. I know I get angry a lot and tend to lash out, but a good shinobi stays calm in every circumstance and logically works out their situation."

She nodded to herself. That was something no one had been able to train out of her yet, and she'd been bugging Shino and Shikamaru with questions about how to keep a cool head. They hadn't been able to help much. Once, back when Team Seven first started out, Itachi-san had visited their training ground to bring the lunch Sasuke-kun forgot and told them all that he was happy to help them if they needed it.

(Sasuke-kun chased him off before anyone could get a word in and grumbled about annoying older brothers for the rest of the day.)

But no way would she ever ask someone like Uchiha-san for help. Uchiha Itachi? Captain to ANBU Team One? Yeah, she wasn't even going to try.

It was plain and simple: shinobi don't cry. She should've had it figured out by now.

But then Kisame frowned. "That's stupid."

Sakura blinked.

"Listen, I don't know what they teach you in Konoha, but you don't just push down your emotions like that. You get into it, let it become you, ride it out. You have to channel it into something powerful." He jerked his chin at the leader when they raised their hands to pray or whatever it was wack-job cult leaders did. "Let me put it this way: adrenaline kicks up when you're experiencing strong emotions. If that can make you stronger in situations where subtlety is off the table, like ambushes, use your emotions. First step: focus on all that anger you've got bottled up."

"O-Oh, uh..." She looked down at her hands before curling them into fists. "Okay. What's next?"

"I recognize the cult leader's face from the Bingo Book, and you wanted to use listings as practice."

Her cheeks darkened. "Ye-Yeah I know, but I need time to plan and-and figure out—"

Kisame tossed her down to the cult.

A shout caught in her throat and fear spiked her vision as she tucked and rolled upon impact, springing to her feet in front of the leader as she jolted her head up. This leader had clusters of rings along their ears, tattoos on the underside of their chin, and their furious blue eyes glaring down at the interruption.

Sakura froze. "Um."

Move.

A second passed.

Move!

She couldn't just stand there.

Move!

She surged forward and decked the cult leader through several trees before she could finish one blink, prompting all the other cloaks into action.

"I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I'M PANICKING!" Sakura screamed as she ripped a tree from the ground and readied herself to swing.

"PANIC'S A GOOD START!" Kisame landed in the clearing with Samehada in one hand and threw a thumbs up with the other. "WE'LL WORK ON CHANNELING ANGER NEXT TIME!"

::

Deidara glared viciously at the shiny new pin on Hidan's left croc.

They'd meandered around the store for a bit, almost getting kicked out once during an impromptu game of how-many-senbon-can-we-stick-in-that-weird-stain-on-the-wall-before-someone-noticed (which Hidan won by a single senbon and wouldn't shut up about it for the next ten minutes, just enough time for Deidara to swear his vengeance), and he walked out with a bag full of sharp hand rake thingies he was going to try out. And while he did make a joke about pins and croc holes, he didn't actually expect for there to be an actual cork board full of metal pins that Hidan swarmed the second he spotted it.

Now there was a ketchup bottle pin on a purple croc, and Deidara wanted to scream.

"You fucking wish you were me."

"What I'm actually wishing for is for you to own normal footwear, but sometimes we just don't get what we want, yeah."

Hidan snerked and tucked his hands in his pockets as they ambled down the road. It was a little later in the afternoon, but the sun still sat high and he took a moment to bask in the rays. Summers in Steam ran hot and dry along the coast but he rarely had the chance to laze around any of the beaches or hot springs—being Jounin Commander wasn't all fun and games, shocker, and he spent most of his days on missions too high-ranking for anyone else or in his office in the far west wing of the old monarchal palace the Yugakure government transformed into the country's main shinobi headquarters.

And not to toot his own self-deprecating horn, but it wasn't like there was anyone back home who'd want to hang out with him anyw—

"Now is that Hideo-kun and Daigo-kun I see?" a sweet, gravelly voice called out. There was a pull of an accent that didn't quite fit this side of River Country, and Hidan's brow wrinkled. That voice sounded awfully close and there was no way that was directed at them, right? But still he turned and so did Deidara, and they were met with an old woman.

Her gray-white hair was pulled up atop her head, not a single strand out of place and a small golden hair piece fashioned into a snarling bear pinned against her bun. Her wrinkles were worn with aging grace, her face full of smile lines and laugh lines and crow's feet that came with the happy crinkle of her eyes as she beamed. She dressed in a simple kimono of deep, saturated hues of purple, and Hidan peeked down at his crocs. They complimented her outfit perfectly.

"Hideo-kun, pumpkin, what are you doing out here?" she asked, turning to Deidara. Hidan pressed the back of his hand against his mouth and snorted.

"I, um, think you've got the wrong people, ma'am," Deidara tried. The old woman chuckled good-naturedly before reaching out to pat his hand. Her gold bracelets were studded with gems that shone either green or purple depending on the angle.

"I may be getting on in my years, but I think I can recognize my own grandchildren." Her smile dimpled her cheeks as she turned to Hidan. "Daigo-kun, dearie, you have cut your hair!"

Hidan swallowed down his surprised cough as the attention swiveled to him, the old woman pleased and Deidara both so confused and so unbearably smug that the second he was back in Yugakure, he was going to personalize a pair of bright blue crocs to send to Iwa. But for now, he straightened his slouch, eased his shoulders, and donned the neutral smile he saved for the few elderly who greeted him whenever he passed the assisted living communities on his way to the office.

"Sorry, ma'am, but we really do think that you have the wrong people. Though we could help you find your grandchildren if you would like?"

He ignored the surprised blue eyes that burned against the side of his head. As divided as Steam Country was nowadays, the one thing that remained widespread was the respect and loyalty to the old. And as new-age as Yugakure shinobi were, it was one of the traditions they hadn't completely upended.

"Nonsense! Why look for two of my grandsons when they are right here before me?"

... So this was going to be a whole fucking thing, huh.

She took hold of both of their upper arms and, in some unified act of young man manners, Hidan and Deidara instinctively bent their arms as they were guided down the street. Over her head, Deidara's confusion half-morphed into panic as they let themselves be led in a different direction.

Everyone's gonna laugh when she murders us, he mouthed.

What flowers do you want to pre-order for our funerals? Hidan mouthed back.

I'm serious, yeah!

Red tulips would look fucking kick-ass.

I'm gonna kick YOUR ass if you keep talking about our funeral flowers, sweetie.

Hidan grinned. I'd like to see you try your fucking best, pumpkin.

Deidara forced his silent, half-serious curses of vengeance behind a polite mask when the old woman spoke up again, tugging them aside to a quaint little tea shop whose windows boasted their selection of green teas.

"I have been wanting to try the good tea here in River," she said as she ushered them towards the front. Hidan opened the door while Deidara held her hand and helped her up the stone steps, the former bumping into the latter's shoulder as he brought up the rear. He got a well-aimed weenus to the solar plexus for the second time that day, and fucking ow. How the hell were elbows that pointy not illegal? "Now that I am here with moj mal'chiki, it can be treated as a special occasion!"

So she's from Iron, Hidan noted as he rubbed his chest and definitely didn't pout. Rich. Probably powerful. Maybe an authority. But even if she was some head of some big-shot family, Iron's entire military force was strictly samurai and the whole country practically told every and all shinobi to kindly fuck off.

"Sit, sit!" The old woman insisted after they helped her into a chair. "My, you are so very polite!" A waitress came by to set some menus on the table as Deidara and Hidan settled into the booth seats opposite this grandmother. Not one of theirs, mind you. "Go on, order whatever you please."

Deidara cracked a winning smile and propped an open menu between the two of them like one of those dividers that kept kids from cheating and ducked low enough that only his ponytail poked out. Hidan cocked a crow.

"Get down here, yeah," Deidara hissed.

"What if I don't want to?"

"Bitch, don't start with me."

Hidan smiled the whole time he erected—heh—his menu and lowered his head behind photos of picture perfect teas and fancy cursive font. "Fucking relax. We've got nothin' else to do and I'm thirsty."

"I'm glad you're having such a wonderful time with this stranger who thinks we're related to her, hm!" He moved his face back, turned a page, and stuck his face back into the menus. "Us!"

"I know, right?" Hidan whispered back. "As if we could ever be related. Obviously, I'm prettier than you."

"My ass cheeks are prettier than whatever you've got going on."

"As an ass cheek connoisseur—"

Deidara whacked his knee and popped back up over the menu with that same smile he'd been smiling the whole time. "There's so many choices here, ma'am. Why don't you order for all of us? Daigo and I won't mind, hm."

Hidan jabbed his side.

"Hideo-kun," the old woman crooned. She reached over the table and pinched the side of Deidara's face that wasn't curtained by his hair, and Hidan has to laugh. But he doesn't because nothing will amount to witnessing the absolute mortification dawning in his eyes. Damn, he knew he should've bought that overpriced disposable camera. "Even though you have grown to be such a gentleman, you know you can still call me Baba Yura."

The waitress swept back over to the table and the old—Yura—gave Deidara's face one last squeeze before turning away. Hidan snuck a hand over his mouth and tried to cover his laughter with coughs but who the hell was he kidding, this was way too fucking funny—

A foot slammed into his ankle and he ended up spitting into his hand, but it was fine because he wiped it down the Iwa-nin's arm and relished in the look of utter offense he got in return.

By the time the waitress headed off with their orders and Yura turned back towards them, they smiled the smiles that came so handily in situations as weird as this. She indulged in their nonsense for a few beats before she reached over once more and instead of the grandmotherly affection they expected, she slapped the backs of their hands.

"Oh, remove those fake smiles from your faces. I know you are confused to see me," Yura scolded. She waggled a finger and—had she been fucking with them this whole time? What a crafty old— "I did not live so long of a life being so ignorant."

Deidra slowly leaned forward. "So you actually know that...?"

"Of course you do not remember me. Your parents moved away from home so long ago that there was no possibility they allowed you to know me."

"... Mhm."

Yura sighed and smiled at the waitress when she made the trip to deliver a glass pot of steeping tea and a set of three cups, each polished to a glimmer and painted delicately with bright scenery. Her smile widened when Hidan took the pot to pour for her first, then Deidara next, and himself last. Her expression loses some of that jovial roundness and she pressed her palms against her tea's warmth.

"I do not know what your parents, moi deti, have told you, and perhaps it is not in my place to correct them, but this family... Perhaps I have not been making the right choices in my years. All I want is for just one of this family to inherit what has been passed down for generations, but I have pushed too much. It is far too late, but now I know." Her bracelets caught in the light again, glittering dark hues along the window ledge. "My children never see me. My grandchildren will never know me. You... When I saw you two on the street I have never been so filled with joy at the sight. I may have never had the chance of properly meeting you before this moment, but my heart would recognize you anywhere."

... Hidan was going to go to fucking hell.

There had to be a special section for this—for lying to sweet old ladies who only want to see literally anyone in her family and never met her fucking grandkids and now he was pretending to be one of them. He was pretending to be someone's grandkid and now they couldn't stop because this would just break her heart and they'd be known as the dicks that made an old lady cry in a tea shop.

"And it has been so hard ever since your Baba Riko passed. But... I suppose I can be nothing but thankful. That disease held on for so long that my only wish was that she could die peacefully so she would no longer suffer such pain." She drew in a long sip of her tea and set the cup back down. "I held her hand when it finally let her go, and I was so privileged to be able to tell her that I would never love another, just like I promised on our wedding day."

Hidan blinked, something sticking to his lashes. Were his eyes wet? No fucking way his eyes were wet—seriously? He chanced a look to the side and Deidara looked back, face suspended in disbelief and pity before it transformed into that pompous glee that he was gonna annoy him for fucking DAYS.

"To wade through my grief, I began to travel. I wanted to see the world, for both me and your Baba Riko, before I followed after her. Right here, in River Country, the sun has finally decided to shine upon me. It brought me to you!"

They both moved their attention back to Yura.

There was not a high enough SPF in existence for how deep in hell they were going to be in.

Yura dipped a hand behind her obi and pulled out a sleek black flask. She unscrewed the cap, took a long sip, and poured the clear liquid into her tea cup until it was near filled.

She offered it across the table.

Hidan considered it briefly before taking it from her. That same snarling bear from her hair pin was engraved in the metal and he brought it close to his nose to sniff.

And the scent of alcohol hit him so hard it was like he was back to getting blackout on cabin liquor.

Yura laughed as he shoved the flask to the side, his liver already screaming in protest. It was good to know that he wasn't a pussy either with the way Deidara took one whiff and tried to get the woman to take it back as quickly and gently as possible.

"See, one other thing you lose by leaving home is building up a stomach of iron!" She patted her stomach a couple times. "Ah, my darlings. I did not mean to tell you so much; the longer I sit, the longer I see those looks about you. You have no need to shoulder my burden when you both are so obviously already dealing with your own."

... Uh.

"Uh." Deidara narrowed his eyes. "Is... What does that mean?"

"Well, you have both grown into wonderful young men. There is no doubt of your strengths and your smarts, but that does not mean you are not facing the trials and tribulations we all meet in life." She gestured to Deidara first. "Hideo-kun, your facade is so carefree, but your eyes are so tired, and your shoulders are so low like you carry the burden of the world on them. You have so much responsibility and you charm people just enough to never think anything amiss, except you feel like you are suffocating, drowning, but you will never tell anyone because you do not think they should be bothered by your problems. You think so little of yourself, sweetie. You should not have to."

Her eyes met Hidan's next.

"And Daigo-kun. You look healthy and certainly handsome, but are you happy?" She stirred her tea, and he broke out in a cold sweat. "You are so closed off to the world... It feels like time passes so much slower when we truly believe we are alone. Lonely. But how can we fix that loneliness when letting others in is the one thing that truly scares us? You are a mirror, pumpkin, and do not think I cannot so accurately detail a clear reflection."

Yura took another sip of her tea and smiled before standing up. "Excuse me, I need to attend the ladies' room. It will not be a moment."

Hidan barely heard her walk away as he leaned his elbows against the table, his stare fixed straight ahead and his untouched tea wafting up steam beneath his chin. "What the fuck was that."

"She read me, yeah."

"What's that thing kids say now? She—My wig got snatched." Hidan had never felt this much stress in his life, and he almost murdered his neighbors once. "She's like a hundred years old and probably has arthritis, and I parked my ass into this seat just so she could snatch my fucking wig."

"She read me like a goddamn children's book." Deidara covered his face with his hands and sunk down until he was eye-level with the table. "It's story time at the day care and I'm written in comic sans."

He didn't know how long he sat there staring at nothing, but Baba Yura eased herself back in her seat and took the cup back in her hands. The scent of orchids wafted up, intermingling with the soothing burn of her 80 proof.

She smiled and sipped her tea.

::

Goro did nothing to deserve this.

Here he was, sorting through marked bills covered in questionable sigils and codes and bodily fluids—blech, he couldn't believe he was going to spend money to sterilize money—from a pint-sized chuunin. A chuunin! A Konoha chuunin who was all green around the nose and still had her head in the clouds and he was more than ready to chase her out of the bounty station with a goddamn broom.

He set down the current stack of bills and doused his hands in aloe-infused hand sanitizer.

He'd spent nearly twenty minutes trying to get that Haruno to budge, but the second the Hoshigaki Kisame rolled in she went starry-eyed and talked to the goddamn Tail-less Tailed Beast like they legitimately knew each other, and wasn't that already balls to the walls crazy? Kiri-nin were built big and bad, but this one apparently had staggering amounts of DILF energy that Goro was trying extremely hard not to think about.

But he digressed.

If those two didn't show up again for at least an entire month it'd be a bles—

"Hi, Officer!"

"Oh my god," Goro muttered under his breath as he turned around. He jumped when Haruno dropped a corpse onto the examination table before she sighed and rolled her shoulder. Dried blood splattered diagonally across her face and a bunch of twigs stuck in her hair, but her grin was wide and the blood from her split lip smeared her teeth. "It hasn't even been two hours."

Hoshigaki ducked in after her, maybe a little more ruffled than earlier but otherwise unscathed. "We ran into some cult a few minutes past Steam's border. I've heard about groups like that on the rise ever since the Yugakure shinobi branch embraced their success rates on seduction missions, but I didn't think they did their thing out in the open like that."

"I panicked and punched the leader in the face," Haruno said.

"It was awesome," Hoshigaki added sagely.

Goro looked down at the corpse and at the bruised cheek only a mean right hook could give. The cheekbone was shattered and the whole rib cage caved in, suggesting blue high-force impact, but yeah. This was undoubtedly the leader of the Blessed Under the Tormented Truth Society. He cleared his throat. "I'll... get you your payment, then."

He turned to dig through the clean bills he kept at the station because he wasn't a brute with a side-hustle in illegal gambling.

"This is your first hit, you should celebrate!" Hoshigaki grinned down at her. "Any idea what you want to do now that you've got a bounty under your belt?"

Haruno locked her fingers behind her head, her own grin never once wavering. "I'm going to buy some new pants."

Hoshigaki looked like a proud dad watching his kid graduate.

Goro just wanted to go home.

::

Hidan and Deidara stared down at the hard caramels they each had, just small ovals wrapped in clear crinkly plastic. Baba Yura had long since taken her leave and they were back outside the metal goods store, sunset against their sides the distinct feeling of getting dunked on rattling loudly in their heads.

"Hey."

Hidan looked over.

"Wanna get ice cream, hm?"

"... Rocky road?"

"My man," Deidara acknowledged, dragging himself to his feet. When Hidan didn't follow, he rolled his eyes and pulled the other up by his shirt. "You think she poisoned the candies?"

"After all that?" Hidan twisted the wrapper and lobbed the caramel into his mouth. "She just exposed us like a toddler who hates wearing diapers—what the fuck makes you think she'd kill us now?"