[OP: "Grow"--The Oh Hellos]

"There's ants in here," Momo said when they entered the sleeping building.

"Ants are better than roaches, sweetie," Shine said.

"There might be those too," Karin sniffed. "And spiders."

"Stop being such babies," Temari said. "I live with scorpions that crawl in our windows once a week. Just kill it and move on."

"You don't have to be so bossy all the time," Tenten said.

Temari just sniffed and walked to one of the rooms.

"She seems tired," Momo said.

"I suppose she's upset that we took those risks on the way here," Shine said. "But everything has a purpose. Who's to say it wasn't best that we took the hard route? We don't know for sure we wouldn't have run into more going the other way. Let's not dwell on it."

"You never seem to run out of cheer," Karin noted. "But I don't find that a way to deal with mistakes."

"It takes practice, is all," Shine said. "Now, since we have 8 rooms, we girls can split up 2 to a room. Sakura and Hanabi will even us out. Karin, do you still want to share?"

"I'm fine with that." Karin wasn't anxious to associate with anyone else. She didn't think they liked her that much--and she'd have been right about half of them at least.

"I'll stick with Temari if she's fine with it," Momo said.

"That's fine," Temari said from inside the room she'd picked. "There are two bunks in here at least. Room for more--they must have planned this to be multi-person cells."

"We're sleeping in a prison," Camie said. "That is so not glam."

"It's not my first time," Shine said. "And I'm just glad this time is voluntary."

"Voluntary confinement," Camie said. "That's kind of funny sounding."

"We should call this place that," Shine said.

"You really want to stick with the airhead?" Sakura asked Ino in a lower voice. "She could just go with Hanabi or something."

Hanabi and Hinata were already paired up, however.

"I'm fine with it," Ino said. "Camie and I are used to sharing now, and so are you and Tenten, so it shouldn't be a big deal."

Actually Tenten and Sakura were more suited to being roommates because neither of them bothered to annoy the other much, but neither of them particularly liked each other either.

But Tenten didn't really like other girls that much, period.

[Tenten is a Pick Me, change my mind. She always complains about how she's never included by the boys.]

Split up this way, they didn't need all 8 rooms, but no one wanted to be alone in this place--it would have seemed creepy.

Shine decided to tell Wally and Gaara that the boys could have the extra rooms if they wanted to split up more. They weren't going to be crowded still.

Sai accordingly was moved to that building, since he wasn't really one for rooming with one of the other guys anyway. 

But Sasuke also wanted to be there. He didn't want to be any closer to Shoto or Dabi than he had to be, and thought the girls were the safer option, even if they might annoy him.

And since the girls thought Sai and Sasuke were the least likely to have ulterior motives for being near their rooms, they were fine with it.

Jugo also moved there. He didn't care if he was alone or not; he was used to it.

The rest split up mostly the same as they had before.

Then they all took the time to shower.

Somehow Bakugo still had the energy to cook after all that. Maybe he was just being stubborn. Wally helped him at high speed so that they had dinner.

Then 22 very tired people finally tumbled into bed.

* * *

Day 32:

"AGHHH!" Camie woke Ino up by screaming at the top of her lungs the next morning.

Ino jumped up so fast she nearly hit the edge of the cot above her that was folded into the wall currently.

"Oh gosh, what is it?" she cried.

"I freaking saw a bug!" Camie was leaning along the wall over her cot and standing up, like that would help.

"That's it?" Ino said.

"Hello, it was a huge cockroach or something," Camie said.

"Camie, it's not that unusual for roaches to wander in sometimes," Ino said, kind of annoyed. "Did you have to wake me up? Just kill it."

"Ew, I don't do bugs, sis."

Ino finally spotted something at the edge of the room.

It was a cockroach...bigger than the Leaf ones. But that wasn't atypical for species of roaches. 

Ino grabbed one of her slipper and smacked it hard till it stopped moving.

"There...see? It's dead... That one didn't even hiss," she said.

"They hiss?" Camie whined.

"Camie," Ino said, frustrated, "come on. You can't freak out every time you see a bug."

"Yo, it was right by my foot when I tried to get up," Camie said. "Come on, that wouldn't freak you out?"

"What's going on?" Shine opened the door.

"Roach," they both said, in different tones.

"Oh, ew." Shine made a face. "We get those sometimes at home, but they're so much more common in these climates, huh? Gross...but cheer up, Camie, I got used to it. When you start to think of it as unusual, it's not so bad."

"I don't think I want to," Camie said.

"Don't you guys eat roaches or something?" Shine said.

"Some people eat scorpions, but roaches? That's disgusting," Camie gagged. "Not this chick."

"I killed it anyway. It's not that big a deal," Ino said. "I didn't think Camie was such a baby."

"A baby? Hey!" Camie said. "Not cool."

"Well, you are," Ino grumbled.

"Ino, don't you think that after the incidents on the way here, you shouldn't blame someone else for having a bit of a problem?" Shine asked, poignantly.

Ino reddened. "Uh..."

"I just meant that, with all we do for each other, it's silly to mind the little things. I'm sure Camie will get used to it eventually. But keep in mind she's not used to this. I suppose you wouldn't be bothered at all if you saw a person who could break their body into different parts and mold your body into flesh balls with it?"

"Uh...no, that would be gross," Ino said.

"Well, Camie sees that on a daily basis," Shine shrugged. "So we all have our tolerance. I hate spiders personally, but I did kill one in my room without screaming last night." She winked. "I've come a long way. But I won't say I wouldn't faint if I saw Shelob in real time... Actually I have seen giant spiders, but they were Grimm, so it didn't feel quite the same. Don't ask me why that made it better, it just did. Wally doesn't care about bugs so much, but he really doesn't do mud. We all have something."

"Bakugo hates cats," Camie offered. "I think they're okay, but I'm really more of a gerbil person."

"Isn't Bakugo allergic to cats?" Shine said.

"He says he hates them because they're too quiet and sly," Camie shrugged. "But I really think it's prolly the allergy thing."

"Dang, I love cats too," Shine said. "Dogs are all right but messier. Rodents are cuter, but they bite...well, so do cats, but they're just so precious."

"I like cats okay," Ino said. "Birds are nicer though. I mean, they're easier to keep."

The argument was forgotten as they got into pets and what they'd have if they could have one, and Shine left them to just get ready.

And Ino didn't say any more about Camie's phobia after that. 

* * *

The kitchen room had a small dining room off of it that could fit them all, though at different tables.

The girls and guys mostly grouped together, except the couples--minus Shoto and Momo, who didn't appear to be talking.

Momo also didn't appear to be that hungry.

Shine caught Shoto giving Sasuke dirty looks--and Sasuke returning them with disdainful glances--and guessed most of what happened even with details.

But instead of Shoto, she pulled Sasuke aside after breakfast, while the other argued over who would do clean up until Camie said she would if Bakugo would make her favorite food for dinner, and Hinata and Hanabi offered to help.

(Which was good because Camie's idea of clean up was far less thorough than theirs was.)

"All right, I want the truth." Shine pulled Sasuke into the yard behind the building, which was not fenced in (now), being converted to a housing unit. "What did you and Shoto fight about now?"

"What did he tell you?" Sasuke said at once, walking right into the trap of admitting it upfront.

"Confirming my suspicions." Shine let him know that quickly enough. "He hasn't told me anything, which makes it all the more concerning. So you're going to tell me."

"And why would I do that?" Sasuke started to walk away.

He knew it wouldn't work, but he felt like giving her a hard time this morning more than usual. Perhaps his recent slight softening was disagreeing with him.

Shine stopped him with a sword in the wall in front of him.

"You want me to get his side first?" she asked, sternly.

That worked. Sasuke knew exactly what Shoto would tell her, and it would be, he thought, a gross exaggeration.

"Nothing at all happened." He turned around sullenly. "I heard them talking about me again, so I told him to stop doing it and I would ignore him. He didn't take that very well, as usual, but I didn't do anything."

"Is that exactly what you said?" Shine said.

Sasuke frowned. "Are you saying I'm lying?"

"I don't know," Shine replied, in a tone that was like she was barely holding onto her patience--another tone people rarely used on Sasuke. "While I've not known you to be a liar most of the time, you must lie to yourself if you do the things you do. And you don't like him."

"I have never lied to get anyone else in trouble," Sasuke said, offended.

"That's true," Shine surprisingly agreed. "So you better be telling me the complete truth now. If you broke that record, we'd have all kinds of problems beyond a small fight with Shoto."

"That is what I said," Sasuke said. "Maybe some other things about how insignificant they all are, but nothing that mattered."

In his mind this was the truth, at least in so far as he thought their reactions made sense.

"And it was only to Shoto?" Shine asked. "Because he and Momo aren't talking right now."

She didn't miss much, Sasuke reflected.

"She was there, but she wasn't as angry. Why don't you ask them what they thought was so offensive?" he said sullenly.

"We're not done yet." Shine pulled her sword out of the wall--it left no mark.

"How do you do that?" Sasuke couldn't help but ask, finally.

"Didn't I explain this already? This is not a physical sword."

"But it can be felt and held, so of course it is."

"No, you don't understand the matter. You think of the spiritual and physical as two separate elements." Shine held up her hands. "But they're really like the difference between a cube and a two dimensional square. If you were next to a huge cube, you couldn't see over it, could you? It'd in the same dimension as you, and you couldn't go through it. But if you were on a huge drawing of a square, you could see all over it, no matter how big it was, as long as your vision would go, because it's flat and you're not. In the same way the spiritual can enter the physical the way you can walk on a flat shape, but the physical can only enter the spiritual at one point."

"What point is that?" Sasuke asked, because it was a weird thing to hear.

"Human beings," Shine said, "we're spirit and body...animals are also, but they only entered both realms if we force them to, and that's an ugly thing to do to any hapless creature. Like those nasty things you all summon and control through you blood. It's disgusting."

Sasuke recalled that Shine had never liked those things and that none of the group had been doing summonings in his memory.

Was that another thing that was evil? 

"Do any of our powers not offend you?" he asked aloud.

"All of them operate on shaky turf," Shine said. "But I only get a bad feeling about some of them. I guess some are neutral according to the laws of your worlds, if that answers your question."

It didn't fully answer it, but Shine wasn't going to spend any more time on it, apparently, because she went back to the subject. "Now, more on point, why would you say that to Shoto? Didn't you think provoking him was a bad idea after before?--I mean, I know that's what you do, but didn't we go over this already?"

"Yes, yes," Sasuke said in irritation. "I know. Get back what you give. That's just what I was telling him. I'd like to put him in his place, but that would break your stupid rules, and I know what happens if I do that. But he's asking for it. This shouldn't be that hard to understand."

Shine ignored the clear jab at her intelligence and Shoto's and focused on the first part. "How is that following along with what I said before? It's just pushing his buttons."

"But he's pushing mine, if you want to put it that crassly," Sasuke said. "I simply pointed it out to him. And why does he get off so easily? You should stop treating him like he's above all this."

"Oh, you mean like how people treat you?" Shine shot back.

Sasuke frowned darkly at her.

Shine rubbed her head. "Still, you have a point."

Sasuke never thought she'd say that--at least like this.

"I do?" he said without thinking then shook himself. "I mean, you actually believe that? Or is that a joke?"

"Oh, I don't mean that you're right about him getting special treatment. That's not true," Shine said. "But that he is kind of asking for this... I don't know what to do with the two of you. Neither of you will admit the other had any reason to be angry with you."

"I have not attacked him," Sasuke said. "Much as I'd like to."

"I'd watch what you say there," Shien said. "Speaking it is the first step towards doing it. Do you think I'm going to give you permission to just because you're frustrated? Learn to deal with it another way. All you ninja fellows do is fight each other to solve things. That doesn't solve anything. You're just like Naruto."

"That's not true." Sasuke was more angered by that than the other stuff. "I don't fight anyone to prove I'm right."

"Not to prove you're right in theory maybe, but in practice, I would say so," Shine argued.

"Whatever that means. You're trying to turn it around on m,e but I didn't do anything wrong."

"Do you believe that?"

Silence.

"Can you really look me in the eye and say you've done nothing to deserve Shoto's distrust?" Shine said.

Of course that was impossible.

"Well, it was a while ago," he hedged.

"The war was months ago," Shine shrugged.

"There is a difference between doing things your enemies don't like and betraying your friends, which didn't affect him directly. So I really don't see why it's such a big deal."

"It wouldn't be a big deal if you had done that only as an opponent in war," Shine said. "But you do things that all of us find to be objectively wrong. That's why he doesn't like you. Perhaps you have failed to see why exactly that is. Do you know Shoto that well?"

"No, and I don't want to know him any better."

"Perhaps I can't blame you for that, but if you gave it some thought you might see why he finds your actions so hard to forgive." Shine folded her arms. "I've known Shoto for almost a year now. Especially if we count our time here also. There are two things extremely important to him. One I won't tell you just yet, but the other is to protect people who cannot protect themselves or who are close to him. You stand in direct opposition of that desire of his when you threaten us or even our friends here. He may not even be that close to all of them, but that's the point--he considers them still part of his team and responsibility. So not only does your attitude about us all bother him, but the fact that you would betray your friends and your village is something he can't fathom. He would never do that. Even if they weren't loyal to him, he's loyal. I've seen it even with his father--which is complicated enough. I guess you've already heard about that."

"Not that much," Sasuke said saltily. "And why does it matter?"

"To you? Maybe it doesn't," Shine said. "You've never had any family you didn't like after all or that you were worried about emulating."

Silence.

Sasuke felt anger stirring inside him--and something like fear.

Shine seemed to notice it and softened. "It's complicated for you, I know that. But it's complicated for him also. He chose a different solution than you did, and he can't understand yours. The time when he would have done what you did is passed. Shoto is the type of person who thinks that once he's figured something out, everyone else should be able to also. I love him, but he's not always realistic. But all of us have to walk it out, bit by bit. He can't force it, and I can't either. Still, he's not wrong to think his solution was better. And that's the catch. He is right...but he expects too much."

Being told that Shoto expected too much, when it concerned Sasuke not meeting those standards, didn't sit well with someone as proud as him.

"Or I just think you're not as right as you think you are," he said aloud.

"I guess that's your opinion," Shine said. "But that doesn't make you right either. And you have nothing to back up yours, but we have it on good authority that forgiveness is the better option. I guess to you it just had to be what you would do, whether it's a good thing or not."

"Stop doing that."

"What? Guessing what you think?" Shine said. "Isn't that what you said yourself? Darkness is your choice. If you don't like hearing it back, then change your mind already. You can't get mad at me for telling you what you think, can you?"

"Choosing the path of darkness to accomplish something to make the goal itself evil," Sasuke ventured on dangerous territory by saying that.

"No," Shine agreed. "It doesn't."

Pause.

"And?" Sasuke prompted her.

"Oh, did you want to hear it?" Shine said, maddeningly. "Sorry, usually you just want me to stop. The goal itself can be valid or good regardless of the path you take to it, but don't you think that the path you take will taint the results no matter what? Do you think a clean vessel and dirty vessel really achieve the same outcome? Or will straining something through the dirty one make that dirty also? And an evil goal, if taken with the right measures, may be rendered a little less evil. Someone may think it was right and do right things to get there...so they were less wrong than the pure evil. Semantics matter only in one way, Sasuke: telling you the kind of person you're dealing with. Beyond that, they don't matter. Good or evil are hard facts, but people are not cleanly divided between them enough for us to be sure just on first glance. The point I'm making is, your goal didn't matter if you achieved it by doing the wrong things."

"I never said I was good," Sakura said.

"Yes...but you priding yourself about this fact puzzles me," Shine said, bemused. "I can tell you somehow think that makes you special, and in a way, that it makes you better than others. But if you're not good, how can you be better than them? It's a contradiction in terms."

Sasuke frowned. He hated that she always got him on these details.

"What does this have to do with Shoto Todoroki?" he asked sullenly.

"A lot," Shine said. "Is he a good person, do you think?"

Sasuke considered it for a second. "By your standards."

"Who cares about mine? Not you certainly. By your standards is he a good person?"

"Well, protecting his own people is what ninja would call good."

"But I asked what you thought?" Shine pressed.

Sasuke both found that question to be annoying and--and also flattering.

Nobody ever asked him that. He wasn't ready for it at all, but at the same time, even if it was just so she could shoot his argument down. At least this was taking it seriously, and that did feel kind of good.

In fact...did he have a clear idea of what was good? He must have once...

"I think...he's doing what he thinks is good," he said finally. "So as far as that goes, I suppose he is. But that doesn't make what he does good if I follow your logic."

"So you agree with my logic then?" Shine said.

"You just said yourself it's not that far from what I said in the past," Sasuke countered. "Doing dark things makes you dark. If you think you're right."

"Well, that seems reasonable," Shine conceded, to his further surprise. "And if you're admitting that the heroes, who are trying to do what they think is right, are good, but not entirely right, I think we have an interesting conundrum. Because clearly not everyone who thinks they are right is right. So it's possible to have good intentions but not be a good person but to think that you are. And that, Sasuke, is the conflict of mankind in a nutshell...of the better part of it, anyway."

"The better part?"

"There are two kinds of people in the world." Shine gestured widely. "Those who don't care about doing right and only want their own interests--and they make up the lesser part of it in some ways, but at heart, far more of it than we like to acknowledge--and those who really want to make the world better but don't all agree on what that means and can be horribly wrong.  Idealists are harder to deal with than selfish brutes, in some ways, but at least they have ideals. Man is not a beast, but some men like to act like they are."

She folded her arms. "I put you in category two, but only just barely. Most of what you do is selfish at heart, but there are times when it is something else. Conversely, I think most of the time Shoto believes he is doing things for noble reasons but sometimes is really just doing it for himself. The thing is that neither of you notice that when you're doing it."

"So you think we're that easy to figure out? And what about you?"

"Both," Shine shrugged. "I am selfish also, when I can afford to be. But more often I'm trying to do what's right and hoping that it's correct. I have blind spots--but less than if I was doing it without any kind of guiding light at all. Did you expect me to say I was perfect?"

Sasuke didn't know what he'd expected, but he hadn't gotten it.

"Well, even if I am selfish, " he said, sullenly again, "the kind of ideals that ninjas have aren't any better than selfishness. Didn't we do the same things? Whatever the reasons were."

"You're making my point that, either way, people can be wrong and evil, but some of them don't like that they are, and others do." Shine shrugged.

"Fine, let's pretend I care about what you're saying," Sasuke said, which obviously he actually did but didn't want her to know it. "What does knowing about our lives have to do with the problem? Other than it shows that, in your mind, we're opposites and we can't possibly resolve this."

"I really think you're quite a bit alike," Shine said. "It's just on this one point that you're different: Shoto would do things his own way, but he wouldn't leave his closest friends and family behind to do it. He would bring them with him, metaphorically speaking, if not literally. And you would do your own thing, but alone. And the first way means there's accountability, people who can keep you grounded--and for you...none at all."

"That doesn't seem like an important difference,. Sasuke was sour. "Either way, he's a pain to deal with. And all of you backing him up is not making it less so. If I was allowed to fight him, I could put a stop to it, but since I'm not allowed, it sounds like it's favoritism."

"Why do you care what I allow you to do anyway?" Shine asked. "It's kind of funny--if you wanted to leave this group as much as you claimed the last few weeks you could have just broken that rule at any time. Or did you think we'd put you through hell if you did?"

"Would you?"

"Well, you would regret it, as I warned you. But you know we would not kill you. You might throw it purposely to make us feel sorry for trusting you...if that's really what you wanted."

Sasuke didn't like where this was going. "Whatever it is you're saying, it's ridiculous. It just doesn't matter enough to me to do anything about it."

"Unless you tried to stop it by telling him to mind his own business."

Pause again.

"I'm just tired of hearing the same thing," Sasuke said, defensively. "It's annoying."

"I'm sure it is," Shine said. "Everyone has a breaking point. I'm really amazed it took you this long."

"Stop mocking me."

"I'm not entirely mocking you. I would have snapped a long time ago," Shine said. "I think it must truly matter less to you than me if you ignored this for weeks. Or you just think it's beneath you to actually be bothered by things that bother other people."

That was far closer to the truth.

"Still, I don't want you to feel mistreated," Shine said. "I could talk to Shoto and tell him that you just want to stop hearing about how awful you are all the time. He doesn't think you care about his opinion. That's why he's so free with it. He's not truly so cruel as to keep this up if he thought it was doing real damage. But it's his way--to try to make someone feel anything. You act like you don't care, and he hates that. Apathy is disgusting to people who care about justice so deeply. That is the problem here. If you had integrity about what you did, he would disagree with you but respect it still. You broke your own standards that you allegedly had, and that is what he cannot understand. Crossing lines you would not cross before is what Shoto loathes." She tugged her hair in what Sasuke began to think was a nervous gesture... So she wasn't entirely calm at all times.

"You don't think I would use this information against him," he noted aloud.

"I know you could try, but I don't think you'd really succeed," Shine replied dryly. "You're not that good at playing people... In fact you're terrible at it. Even if you told him this, he'd only say I was correct. What does that do for you?"

Sasuke frowned at her.

"But he won't explain himself," Shine went on. "He wouldn't deign to do it when you're so arrogant all the time. So I'm doing it for him. This is how we take care of each other. Again, I can explain this to him if you want."

"I don't want your help," Sasuke said. "And even if I thought you were offering out of kindness, it wouldn't matter. I don't like other people interfering in my problems. I'd rather do it myself or ignore it. "

"Because you think you look weak if I do it?" Shine asked. "I suppose you would, kind of...but you are weaker in this area. You know nothing about making peace with people. Is that so hard to admit?"

"Shut up!" Sasuke lost his cool.

But saying that to Shine was a bad idea, and he regretted it immediately.

Shine's expression looked hard for a moment, but then she seemed to let it go. "If that's the way you want it." She glanced upward. "I can talk to Shoto myself--but leave out the part where you want this to stop. If you want. It's getting to you, huh?"

"It's none of your business," Sasuke said, instead of admitting it.

"I have to make it my business when you're under my care," Shine said. "Whether you like it or not, that's how this works. I am partially responsible for what you two do. If you trusted me more, this would be easy to fix, but because you don't, it's complicated. Well, it must be difficult for you in one way." She turned to head back inside.

"What does that mean?" Sasuke pressed. "What's difficult?"

Shine glanced back at him. "No matter what you do, people fight over how to handle you. Must be exhausting to be the center of their focus. I know something about that. But sooner or later it stops. I have to warn you, to become insignificant to people is worse than to be given too much attention. There's some consolation in getting attention, even when you don't like it, but there's none at all in being insignificant. I don't think you'll like that trade, when it happens...which it will, if you never try to repair things. And if you think that your life would be easier if everyone cared less what you did with it, then you're right--and easy usually leads to the biggest mistakes that cost people their lives. Easy is the lazy and foolish way to live. If I had as many enemies as you, and as many friends who didn't want to give up on me, I would wonder why I was inspiring that kind of interest... It would be an informative question, would it?" She opened the door and went inside.

Sasuke stood out there a long while, wondering what that last part had meant...and why it was almost what he'd wondered himself, deep down. Why did everyone want to be in his business so much anyway?

Was Shine saying that in a way? The people who hated him were just as much a part of that as the ones who cared? Either way, they were involved. Maybe that was true, hatred being a bond as well as love...

So was that why he was stuck? Was that her point? It just didn't seem fair.

[Life isn't fair, kid...]