[OP: "Oh Sleeper"]

Finally, Sasuke spoke:

"You talk like everyone is the same, but we're not alike. We've made none of the same choices, and we don't have the same history. The Curse itself is proof."

"It would bother you more to be like everyone else than it does to be cursed," Shine said, candidly. "You at least can feel special this way. If I told you that you're not that unique, you'd be furious. But, if you look back there--" She pointed at Dabi and Shoto. "--you'll see two people who've known that love can become hatred, probably more, if we knew more of the others' backstories...and, of course, there's me."

She shrugged.

Sasuke knew that Dabi had mentioned to him a while ago that Shine had a darker past than he gave her credit for...but he didn't believe it.

"You?" he scoffed. "What could you know about it? You think 'love' is the solution to everything--and sarcasm."

"That was almost funny," Shine said flatly. "And it's true, both those things are very important. Even God is sarcastic, you know. Cuttingly so."

"And you end everything with that thought," Sakura said. "Don't you have an identity apart from God?"

"How could I?" Shine asked. "If you mean do I think God must justify everything I do, I guess that is true, in a way. If it's not of God, or at least okay with God, it would be wrong. Do I think about it every second of the day? No, but we're talking about our view of life, and that's going to come back to God for me. Why is that so odd? And you know nothing about my life or how I got here. And what annoys me about you is how you sure that you're the only one who can know these kinds of temptations. Get over yourself."

She folded her arms and walked faster.

Sasuke thought she might actually be offended for once.

He expected that to make him feel triumphant, but instead he more of felt he'd stepped on a landmine. Shine was scary when she wanted to be...

Quickening his pace after her, he went on.

"So what then? What big pain does your life have?"

"Oh, nothing at all compared to yours." Shine was cutting again. "At least genocide is not a part of it...directly. But my people were killed off by the millions less than 100 years ago and are still hated over most of the world I live in."

Sasuke was surprised to hear this. "What?"

"Didn't think I had anything in common with you or the Uzumaki clan, huh?" Shine said dryly. "Not only the ninja world is full of evils. Some, if I told you, even you would be disgusted at...but I prefer not to burden people with things they don't need to know. Even speaking of evil is shameful if it's not necessary."

Sasuke didn't know what to do with that.

"And you're okay with that happening?"

"What can I do about it? Most of the people responsible for it are dead," Shine said. "Many of them killed themselves. In the end evil hurts the people who do it almost as much as the ones they do it to... I would be angry, I guess, if I met them. It didn't affect me personally that much...but it's not a nice thing to know about. Still, everyone has had bloody history if you go back far enough. I can't say I'm special...but my grandparents...some of that haunted them till they died." She tugged her hair. "But you know what? On the other side of my family is the bloodline of the people who did those things. It didn't matter to my parents, and it doesn't to me. Things are different when you can't blame everyone for what their parents and grandparents and great grandparents did all the time."

Sasuke frowned. "But you admit you didn't suffer personally because of it. You didn't witness it."

"I've seen pictures, what was left behind...but no, not in person. Would you really wish that on someone else?"

Sasuke, even as spiteful as he was, couldn't argue with that.

"Maybe not," he said, without thinking that it might sound like he was softening here. "But it's not the same."

"I wouldn't argue that. It couldn't be the same...but it's not entirely out of the realm, is it?"

"No...but it didn't affect you the same way. So there's a lot you can't understand," Sasuke said.

"I suppose not... Of course, there's more to my life than just history," Shine shrugged. "But you wouldn't care to know about my problems."

Sasuke frowned. "Like what?"

"It would sound petty to complain about it to you." Shine shrugged again. "I have both parents, after all, and some very nice siblings. And I have my extended family... What can my suffering sound like to you? I won't presume to think they seem as serious. Still, they have made my life hard in its way. And I've had my share of hatred and bonds of pain between relatives. Things are really twisted up in my family too...but no, it's not as tragic...unless you consider that people can live with doing that to be the real tragedy...which I think it is."

She sighed. "But both are terrible. Which is worse? To mess with someone up front in horrific ways? Or to do it slowly, inch by inch, but make them small and unable to stop you? Both are terrible. One leaves maybe more of a mark than the other. "

"I don't know what you're talking about, but clearly you don't want revenge, so it couldn't have been that bad."

"Wow," Shine said.

Then she said nothing else.

Finally Sasuke couldn't take the silence anymore. "What?"

"You're really so arrogant that you think just someone wanting revenge shows that? Didn't you used to think Naruto suffered? And Gaara? And he doesn't want revenge."

"The scum who did things to him are dead," Sasuke said. "And so are the ones who did things to me. So of course he doesn't."

"You think that if his father had lived longer, he'd have wanted revenge on him still?"

Sasuke didn't know.

"Maybe," Shine said. "But I think that, in the end, he'd have done the same thing. Gaara knew what he really wanted all along. And so did I. I guess that's the difference. I thought about revenge, and I would have loved to make those in my family suffer, sometimes...but overall, really, I just wanted love. The hatred happened because I thought I couldn't get it, but everything is not perfect now, just I no longer want to hate... I don't know if things ever will be the way I want."

She tugged her hair. "At some point, one has to stop being angry, I think."

"Over a smaller offense," Sasuke asked.

"It's a little easier for you to admit it, when the people who wronged you have died already," Shine said. "But if you had to still be around them, often? Would you reall think it was that much easier?"

Sasuke paused.

"And you're not the only one who has nightmares about your past either," Shine said, "or has been afraid of harm from people you care about. A smaller scale, sure...but why does the scale matter? Isn't all fear terrible? Isn't all pain the worst while you're feeling it? It's not fair to compare us, you know. My point in all this is that you dismiss us because you think we've not had pain. And that's simply not true. Nor is it just. And, to go back to Sakura, you have no idea what her life has been like, and you've never cared to know."

"Why should I?" Darkly.

"I guess you'd have to decide that for yourself," Shine said. "What is expected of a man, or woman, is up to God...but you do not have to meet those expectations. He gives us the freedom to fail them...but don't blame Him, or me, if that is not ending so well for you."

"What does that even mean?" Sasuke frowned. "I think you're trying to get around me, as usual. Are you afraid of explaining yourself?"

"No, I just think you don't deserve the answer," Shine said. "I've told you before, if you can't be kinder to anyone else, why should you expect them to be kind to you? And if being linked to the same category as Sakura bothers you for some reasons, why on earth should I care? Both of you are so inflexible in how you view others, it's no wonder you fail to understand each other... I'm not surprised we clash. People who hold to one opinion always get angry with people who try to view things from multiple angles."

"I think you have one opinion also."

"It's been achieved by more work than yours." Shine shrugged.

"You presume that," Sasuke growled.

"No, I know it because you don't ask people about themselves...except just now...but did you consider what I told you or did you dismiss it immediately? You already insulted my opinion in this very conversation, and yet you can get mad at me for stating the obvious? It's nothing new for you, but I almost wonder how you can be so blind."

Sasuke started to argue and then paused.

Well...he had done that...and why should he care about her life?

But it did seem...well, she knew a lot about his... If she didn't care so much, why did she know all that? Just to get the advantage over him?

She wasn't using it that way, though.

"You know a lot about me," he said aloud. "And it hasn't made you act any different."

Shine laughed, almost wryly.

"Sorry...but that just shows how little you understand," she said. "Isn't it because I know your history that you're allowed to be here at all?"

"What?" Warily.

Shine waved her hand. "I don't like your power, and you know it. But you can't really think that the reasons you have them mostly being outside of your control does not affect our estimation of your character? If you had sought out any of those powers on purpose, frankly, you would never have been allowed to join us. People like that are usually beyond hope, and if even if they aren't, it takes the hand of God alone to save them, nothing any human being could... There's almost something less than human about them. I won't say it's impossible, but it's hard. I knew one case when it worked and I helped, but only because God showed them how weak they were to Him first." [See RWBY: Through Worlds story for context.]

Sasuke would have liked to hear more about that but wouldn't have asked her for anything.

"What do you mean 'didn't seek it out'?" he said. "I did seek it out. That's why I left Leaf."

"Well, you didn't ask for the Sharingan." Shine shrugged. "Or for the curse mark. What happened after that, yes, that was your own fault...but one could say it was never very fair to even have those chances forced on you. Oh, I'm not saying this to let you off the hook by any means, or that I'm pitying you for that, but that's a lot different than seeking them out in the first place would be. It's easier to deal with (for us). That's why you're here. Same with Jugo and Gaara. They are both people who didn't choose what happened to them--and chose to get out of it. You should at least see that you've had the same chance as they have, regardless of how we feel about you."

When she put it that way, it did kind of make sense.

https://youtu.be/BG7xVIRkxAU

["I Didn't Ask For This"--Beth Crowley--Check out her channel.]

"They chose a different path," Sasuke said aloud.

"You're lucky, Sasuke," Shine said, "that you had any choice at all. Did Jugo?"

Sasuke considered that for a second. "He did because of you."

"Because of God...the One who gave us all choice." Shine pointed upwards. "Sometimes the evil one tries to take that choice away...but it always will come back. So you never know. You have your chance now. I guess you'll have to decide whether you want to take it. But it won't help if you're not honest about what happened. They are honest about it, at least."

Sasuke realized that she'd offered this whole thing to give him a choice to begin with--so she said.

"Why would you be so invested in this?" he asked aloud, for once not snidely. "I've had plenty of chances already, and I blew them all according to your team. Shoto Todoroki certainly thinks so."

"Good thing for you I rarely listen to his opinion on this matter."

"But why not? If, as you say, I've never been nice to you, then what's the point?"

"I don't base this off whether you're nice to me. Oh, sure, I have feelings...and if you hurt them, I think you'd be the last one to notice. But that's not the point either. This isn't about me, is it? It's about what's best for all of us. You're still alive because someone out there thinks that's what's best. What will you do with that?"

Sasuke was silent again, then he said, "You're certainly a strange person."

"Thanks," Shine said dryly.

"But I still think that you're not telling me the full truth," Sasuke added.

"No...not all of it," Shine agreed. "Getting closer though. But do you still think I'm trying to screw you over?"

Sasuke frowned. "I think if you were, by now you would have done it."

"I'm glad you know that I would have succeeded if I was trying to do that, very flattering."

"Not what I meant, but whatever your game is, it's more complicated than what you're telling me."

"Keep thinking that if it makes you feel better. Maybe you're right. Someday I'll explain it if I have the chance. But not today. I hope that satisfies you about the 'hard time' thing."

"Just one thing," Sasuke said. "If you expect me to act differently just so that you'll be nicer, it's not going to happen."

"Of course not," Shine said. "I'd hardly expect that from you. And really, I think I'd like you even less if that worked."

Sasuke didn't expect that--and for a second he thought it was almost as if she was praising him...but that couldn't be right.

"What is that supposed to mean?" he said warily instead.

Shine didn't seem embarrassed at all

"I don't like people who are so cheap," she explained. "I mean, it's normal to want to people-please, but it never worked for me anyway. And it disgusts me when other people try to do it to me. They make it too easy. You change because you want to. Always. Trying to change someone else is a bad idea. You'll get back what you give. If you really want this to change, then change them."

"That is the one thing we can agree on," Sasuke said. "Not the last part, but that changing because other people want you to is stupid."

"Yes...that was never why I blamed you for your actions," Shine said. "Between you and me, I would have laugh at Naruto and Sakura also if they talk to me the same way as you. I laugh at them anyway, when I hear it. It doesn't work."  As if this was some secret. "But what does work? Do you even know?"

"Well, since you seem to think you do, why don't you tell me?"

"Why would I give up my advantage?" Shine said. "Are you planning to try to make changes?"

"If it's one of your tricks, then I'd like to know it."

"Don't give me so much credit. Didn't I say already that I can't make anyone do anything they don't really want to do deep down," Shine reminded him. "Sakura just doesn't see it that way."

"You're still not fully direct with her."

"Neither are you," Shine said. She tossed her hair. "I'll keep my own counsel, thanks."

"One last question then." Sasuke got tired of her dodging this topic. "If people shouldn't want to change because of other people asking them to, then why should they want to change?"

"It would be nice if we could change for the sake of people if it was truly a good change," Shine mused. "And maybe it's possible, if we want to for the right reasons...but there is really only one reason people want to change. They want to be good more than evil. Even when people change for the worse, they just think that they are becoming a stronger, shrewder person, and they think that's the best thing. Evil is twisted goodness, after all. In your case, I'd say that's the same reason you went down that dark path."

She gestured wildly. "Anyway, when you want goodness as much as someone who is drowning wants air, then you've finally started to change. If that answers your question."

"I suppose for now." Sasuke was starting to feel overwhelmed from all this information--a common problem for Shine's students. "Where did you learn all this?"

"Experience and study and...often it's a gift." Shine shrugged. "I find it amusing. If they knew how little it really depended on me... Now are you tired of this conversation? You seem tired."

Sasuke was surprised how fast she picked up on that.

"Whatever." He walked away from her...really just fell behind on purpose.

Shine noted to herself and to Wally later, when he asked her what they talked about, that Sasuke had been a lot less rude to her than usual. He did seem a little different.

Wally said that her charm was starting to work on him, like it always did eventually.

But Shine thought it might be more than that... Was he starting to see things more clearly finally?

[Who knows, right?]

* * *

Day 30:

The following day they passed through the mountain and down the other side. This one had a trail that led around it instead of over the top.

Temari said whoever had made the last trail on the previous mountain had been a moron and she'd like to take her fan to their backside.

Dabi got to skip some of the walking, since he had to check in at home again, but he returned the next morning about when they were reaching the bottom of it.

"We're synced up more closely?" Shine asked him.

"It's nighttime there still, so I just made sure my blankets were lined up and came back," Dabi said.

Now that he knew their secret, Sasuke wondered why Dabi had to check in so often.

He thought he remembered something about house arrest, but since he never listened to them if he could help it, he'd not caught the details.

So he asked.

"Suddenly interested?" Dabi said, flatly. "I don't see how it's any of your business what I have to do. One ex-con to another, you shouldn't judge."

"It was just idle curiosity," Sasuke said coldly. "If you plan to miss more large battles at convenient moments, I'd like to know why."

"Big talk from the guy who missed every large battle for his village's safety up till the war when it suited his purpose," Dabi fired back.

Sasuke tensed. They always came back with something like that--and he never could think of a response.

"Hey, eureka!" Wally called. "Lookee down there."

He pointed, and when they got to his vantage point they saw the start of the hoodoo-like rock spires.

It would go on for miles and miles before they found the village, according to the map--they thought.

"Well, do you see the village yet?" Temari asked the Hyugas.

Hinata strained. "I see some people very far away, but I really can't tell if it's a village. Could be travelers."

"Same," Hanabi said. "Ow...doing this all day is really hard." She massaged her temples.

"Yeah, it's a little hard on your eyeballs," Dabi said. "How are you not blind?"

"I heard that one Hyuga went cross-eyed once doing that too much," Shikamaru said.

"I'm sure that's a rumor," Hinata said, flushing.

"That would be funny if it was true," Suigetsu said.

"Couldn't we just walk on top of those things?" Ino asked, tiredly. "Not around them?"

"On top of them?" Shine said. "How far apart are they?"

"Maybe 5 meters," Temari said, holding her fan to measure. "Some are closer." [15 feet for Americans.]

"I can't jump that far," Wally said.

"We can," Shikamaru said. "But it sounds like a real drag. What's wrong with walking?"

"It will take twice as long if not more," Temari said.

"I thought we weren't hurrying," Momo said, looking a little daunted at the idea of the ninja jumping from spire to spire.

"I could do it," Bakugo said. "But it would be loud. Don't you want to go quiet?"

"And I could," Shoto said. "But the girls can't."

"Bruh, not cool." Camie folded her arms. "Not like it's our fault we have different quirks. Maybe Momo could make a big pogo stick."

"That would be so unsafe!" Momo somehow took that suggestion as a serious one. "Camie, please, don't even think of doing something like that. I could never."

"Duh, I was jk," Camie said.

"That's a new one," Sai said.

"It can't be. I'm sure I've said it before," Camie said. [Not in this story.]  "Jk=just kidding."

"How though?" Tenten said.

"Right, right," Camie said. "Language barrier, that part made no sense to you."

"What?" Tenten still didn't understand.

"The point is," Gaara said, "it hardly seems fair for some of us to go ahead while the others can't. Let's just walk."

"Great, they're holding us back yet again," Karin griped as they started to head down to that piece of land.

"Maybe we can find a straighter pathway through," Hinata offered hopefully. "Once we get farther in."

"I don't know why you're in such a hurry to get to Stone Village anyway, Hot Pocket," Dabi said to Karin. "Aren't you worried about your reception there?"

"No," Karin lied. But she didn't want to give Dabi material.

"Sure." He didn't buy it.

"We didn't do anything to them specifically," Suigetsu said. "I think anyway."

"All you villages sure pick weird places to build," Wally said. "I would have built somewhere with plants."

"That's the point of it being hidden," Kankuro said.

"But it's boring," Wally said.

"You think that's boring?" Temari pointed at the forest of hoodoos.

"Well, it looks painful anyway," Wally said.

"Exalty. It's like you don't even get the point--it's supposed to be scary," Temari said.

"Why does everything have to be scary?" Wally said. "Would it kill you guys to be more inviting?"

"It just might," Kankuro insisted.

That argument seemed likely to go on for a while without any real resolution, and the others tuned it out.

As they reached the spires themselves, Shine said it was like the Grimm Lands when they had found the Fastus.

No one knew what she meant but Wally, who said it was true and that it creeped him out. [See RWBY Through Worlds End]

"I can just see one of those creepy venus fly trap things sitting on a shelf here somewhere," he said.

"Oh, don't make me imagine it," Shine said. "I had nightmares about those things for weeks after we got home. I still cut through them in the nightmares, but they said nasty things while I did it."

"I had nightmares about that giant fish-Avarice thing swallowed us whole," Wally said. "Which wasn't that far from the truth, granted."

"What about those demon mosquitos? The Deimos."

"Those sucked, but that giant King Kong Irasci was something else too, like Gorilla Grodd on steroids."

"What are they talking about?" Ino asked Momo and Shoto.

"I believe one of their last missions," Momo answered. "They described this place called the Grimm Lands to us. A place where temptations became living creatures, I think. It sounds absolutely terrible to me."

"Shine also said they were the 7 deadly sins personified," Shoto said. "I don't remember all of those sins... There's pride, anger, covetousness [envy], greed, and something else."

"Lust," Dabi said helpfully. "And Gluttony, you forgot that one. "

"Oh, gluttony, that was the plant thing," Wally said. "The other one, with the weird fruit."

"That's only 6," Sai counted.

"Sloth is the last one," Momo said. "Laziness, that's what we call it now."

"Is that one's name Shikamaru?" Ino said.

"That's not funny," Momo said. "They were monsters, weren't they?"

"Oh yeah," Shine said. "They invaded our minds, or tried to. It was the worst part of the trip for us. Though it was also the shortest part. But we killed them so they wouldn't bother anyone else...though I have it on authority that they didn't all die out, but all the really big ones did. All part of freeing Remnant." She shrugged.

"So caszh," Camie mimicked her. "'We just freed Remnant, it was no big deal. Everyday stuff, fahm.'"

"It was a lot of fun," Wally said. "Not bad for a first mission, was it, Honey? Admit it, I impressed you with how fast I caught on."

"You did very well," Shine said with a smile. "But I think I did better."

"I wouldn't argue that," Wally said.

"I was kidding!"

"Yeah, but you were all, like, crafty, with Watts and Salem, so I can't downplay," Wally said. "I just ran for stuff."

"We'd never have made it out of that place alive if not for you," Shine said.

"But we'd never have gotten there in the first place if not for you," Wally said.

"Can you stop doing this?" Dabi said. "Just go make out on the side of the trail if you want to that badly."

"Well, excuse us," Shine said. "It's not like we're engaged or anything and we're spending our engagement time with you guys instead of at home doing wedding preparations. Talk about ungrateful."

"No, no, I couldn't be more grateful that you'd do that," Momo said. "But it seems wrong that you have to."

"Oh, what's a good engagement period without a ninja land to navigate through?" Wally said. "It's good practice for the rest of our lives, probably."

"Oh my gosh, you're getting married soon and you're here?" Ino was shocked. "That's not right. I forgot you were engaged."

"I forget that sometimes too," Wally said. "Mostly because I think I could redo that proposal. She thought I was going to break up with her."

"Hey! Don't tell them that embarrassing story," Shine said. "My mind went blank. I must have just stopped thinking and jumped to the wrong conclusion because of that. I had a reverse Legally Blonde moment."

"And you're not even blonde," Camie said.

"Shut up!" Shine said, but not truly angry.

"I find it hard to believe someone as intelligent as you would mistake something like that," Shikamaru said to Shine. "What did Wally say?"

"I didn't say anything bad," Wally said. "I just had this speech in my head--see, I should have just gotten to the point. Lesson learned, fellows, just get right to the point. Don't try to explain why you're doing it first, because she'll think you're making excuses."

"Good to know," Kankuro said dryly. "I mean, we'll never use that information, but whatever."

"We might," Temari said. "Personally I'd like it if someone just got right to the point and didn't drag their feet."

"Well, why don't you ask them out?" Camie suggested.

"I thought we were talking about proposals, and that's just not how it works," Temari said, chafing at that.

"Why not?" Camie said. "Let me tell you, sis, I confessed to Bakugo first. I had no shame."

"Yes, but you and Bakugo are the most crazy people I know," Temari said.

"Thanks a ton," Camie said. "Just toughen up and do it, I say. Look, if I waited for him to ask me out, he never would have."

"Maybe he just didn't like you that much then?" Suigetsu suggested, getting a glare from Bakugo.

"Nah, it wasn't that. He was just scared because he thought no girl would ever go out with him, like, because he's angry all the time," Camie said.

"Okay, real question," Suigetsu said. "Why doesn't that bother you more? I know your mind just works in a million different ways than ours, but I thought everyone hated being yelled at."

"Bro, you of all people should get it," Camie said. "Anyways, I don't mind Bakugo yelling. At least I can hear him just fine in a crowd. And I never really did go for those guys who just mumble when they talk to a girl. Like it's only cute till you want to have a real conversation with them. And I think him being angry is fun. Like a little chihuahua or maybe a Pomeranian."

"Shut up!" Bakugo said.

"I for real thought he'd never date me because I'm such a space cadet." Camie ignored him. "That's what everyone in my class told me--who cared, anyway--and that nasty Moto chick who disappeared later. But she was dead wrong. Turns out he was super into me the whole time."

"I never said that," Bakugo said.

"But you never not said it," Camie said. "Which is the same thing."

"Actually, it's not," Sakura said. 

And she knew from personal experience.

Ino didn't think she'd say that out loud though.

Sakura didn't realize what she'd done until now and looked embarrassed, but Camie never showed any change of emotion.

"It is for Bakugo," she insisted.

"That is it!" Bakugo exploded and ran at Camie who shrieked in delight and took off into the rocks.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Shine called after them. "Don't get lost in there!"

But they'd already run out of sight.

"I'm sure they'll come back," Wally said optimistically.