The sun rose early, in the summer. Perhaps that's what gave Hi no Kuni its name—for it boasted no great smoking pillars; those wombs of the world, pregnant with boiling, unborn earth. Magma, once it takes its first, shuddering breath, becomes rock and stone, but for all their mastery over the surface, volcanoes are but minor gods.

The Land of Fire answered to an older, primordial power.

There, the sun rose early and set late, and always were its rays felt beating down, on the napes of necks, the slopes of shoulders and the sensitive, smarting tips of the ears. It was by no means the hottest country (that dubious honor belonged to Wind), but the air was ever thick with its warmth, sagging under the deadly potential of the power which sustains all life in the world.

Kazue always found it to be a fitting sentiment. She rose before the sun, when the shadow of dawn still cast Konoha in a still, silent grey. The clinging dew of the night misted the air with the first faint sliver of light in the east, and the air was cool with it. She was reminded of her native Kiri, for that village was, true to its name, obscured always by chilling fog. It was a strange thing to feel nostalgic for, but in one's heart, there is always an inexplicable, wordless ache for the place whence they came, no matter what they may have endured there: a particular sort of weather, a certain smell, and a soul is reminded of what it was to be ignorant of the weight of living.

She'd begun, as she normally did, in the front room, with the shoji opened to overlook the garden. Eventually, she ended up on the largest, flattest stone by the pond, where she tossed shreds of cabbage and daikon, bits of shrimp and salted rice sweetened with honey for the koi that gathered expectantly beneath her perch. Kazue watched them dart to and fro, scales flashing as they fed, and sipped at her customary cup of tea.

The sun rose, the mist dispelled, Kazue finished her tea. Rising, she left the koi to their swimming and passed beneath the shade of the engawa. Inside, she cleaned her hands at the sink and retrieved a bottle from one of the pantry shelves. There was a modest shrine by the doorway to the kitchen—she took the small, shallow dish from the overhead ledge and refilled it, returned it to its place and prostrated herself below.

Before long, there was another presence, hovering silently beside her on the tatami.

"It's rude to enter someone else's home uninvited, Anbu," she murmured, forehead still pressed to the floor.

"Lord Hokage requests your presence, Kurosawa."

Sighing, she rose to sit. The Anbu wore a cat mask, but the purple hair was quite distinctive. "Good morning, Uzuki."

The porcelain cat's face stared at her in impassive silence. "Morning," Uzuki offered, at last.

"I'm curious as to why Lord Hokage would send you in particular." Kazue rose, picked up the sake bottle and returned it to the pantry. She'd seen the signs—she was approaching that age, after all—and had taken the time to observe the upcoming class of recruits at the Academy. She certainly recalled a purple-haired girl among them. "Is there a sister of yours graduating this year?"

Uzuki was slow, again, in answering. "My cousin," she admitted.

"I see."

"Lord Hokage is waiting."

"Oh, give it a rest. We're all going to be waiting on Kakashi anyway." Kazue picked up her headband, faced the Anbu with a raised eyebrow and low lids. "I'm well aware of the way there."

Uzuki gave her a single, stiff bow, and was gone in a cloud of smoke. Kazue heard the rustling of shoes being pulled on, and the sound of the door.

She relaxed, let out a small sigh, and cast a glance down at the etched spiral. It was well-worn by now, the plate nicked and dented by various near-misses and brushes with oblivion, fabric stained with age, sweat and specks of blood that just wouldn't come out, but she clung to it. Sometimes it was better to remember what the alternative was.

Kazue wrapped the leaf around her forehead and reached for her koshirae.


She wasn't the first to arrive, though she was far from the last. "Lord Hokage," she bowed low before the desk. He was smiling at her—always smiling—when she straightened and joined the arc of jonin already waiting at the far side of the room. There were a few faces she recognized: old Shinku Yuhi's daughter—Kurenai was slightly older, and startlingly pretty in that way that made her hard to look away from. Kazue had seen her around, of course, but theirs was the lot of two kunoichi; they would never share the same assignment. The others she didn't know well, but it was a small village; she knew them by face if not by name.

All save one.

Kazue stopped her eyes widening, but she locked gazes, nonetheless, with the man across from her; the one who'd been gone nearly a decade and, by all reasonable estimations, had no intentions of ever returning.

Though he'd deny it to his grave, Asuma was his father's son, unreadable in the nod of recognition he gave her. He pulled a cigarette out of one of his pockets and flicked open a lighter. The acrid smell of tar cut into the sweet aroma of pipe smoke that clung to the hokage. Kazue channeled her amusement into the twitching of one corner of her mouth. Still the same, I see… Her attention flickered, again, to Kurenai, and found her pretending to be very interested in one of the scrolls hanging on the wall.

Her observation was cut short by the next arrival, who stopped to pay his respects before coming to her side. "Morning, Kazue," he said, cheerfully—Haruki had never been shy about breaking a silence. "I suppose it's finally our turn."

"I suppose so." Haruki's words loosened the tongues of the others present, and they spoke lowly now around the edges of the room. Kazue watched Kurenai and Asuma, half paying attention to Haruki as he reminisced—they were the only two now not involved in some small pocket of conversation; Kurenai resolutely ignoring him, and Asuma pretending not to notice her.

"I just hope I can live up to the old man," Haruki sighed.

"He's hardly old," Kazue said, glancing at the door as if the mention of him would bring him around.

"Older than he used to be," Haruki retorted. "But then, I guess we all are. Kaito teaching at the academy, you and me getting our own genin now. Feels like yesterday we were putting our headbands on."

It may as well have been a hundred years."Shikaku taught us well." On that, we can agree. "It's our turn now to do the same."

"Fsh, there you go again with the old and wise crap; that's why you were always his favorite." Kazue blinked slow—for all his bluster, Haruki was far more cunning than he let on, and he'd never really given up on trying to probe her for answers. "Speaking of, where is the old man?"

As if on cue, their former sensei came through the door, one Kakashi Hatake trudging nonchalantly in on his heels. "I believe that's everyone, Lord Hokage." Shikaku dipped his head and fell in beside the desk.

Kazue raised an eyebrow at Kakashi, who only blinked in response. She rolled her eyes, looked to the hokage when he lowered his pipe.

"I'm sure that you're all aware by now that you've been chosen as jonin-sensei for this year's class one of Academy graduates. Files on your students have been prepared for you—" he gestured; Shikaku picked up the stack and began distributing manila folders. "You are prohibited from contacting them until the designated meeting time. Make whatever preparations you feel are necessary; you're exempt from normal duty for the next seventy-two hours. You'll report to the given room at the time specified in your file. Kakashi, I need a word with you. The rest of you are dismissed."

Murmurs of "Thank you, Lord Hokage," filled the room, as the jonin began to disperse. Haruki had opened his file already. "Hamasaki," he muttered, shuffling absently toward the door. "Aren't they a water release clan?"

"I don't know, Haruki. It's not as if all the water affinity shinobi have a weekly get-together where we frolic on the riverbanks." Asuma hadn't bothered to look at his file, though he could hardly be blamed; its contents would hardly be a surprise. He tucked the folder under his arm and headed out without a second thought. Kurenai watched him go from under her lashes, snapped her folder shut, and followed him. There'll be no talking with him today, then. Kazue peered at Kakashi, but he had already approached the desk, and had his back to her. The one who caught her eyes was Shikaku—for a moment, he held her gaze, before he returned his attention to the hokage.

Kazue and Haruki brought up the rear in exiting the office. "All promising users of ninjutsu," he noted, with no small amount of satisfaction, closing his folder—the better to peer nosily over her shoulder. "What about yours?"

She opened her file nonetheless, thumbed through the papers therein and read the names of her pupils. Haru Ishikawa, Takumi Matsushita, Sachiko Maeda. Surely enough, there was the little purple-haired girl, made distinctive by her dark skin—her mother was given as a Tomoko Uzuki.

"Yeah, I thought so," Haruki said, smug. "Look at their kenjutsu scores. They're entrusting you with Konoha's future swordsmen."

"That's hardly new." Kazue scanned Sachiko's biography, given below dry facts like her blood type and family members, paperclipped to her most recent Academy picture. Civilian parents. Father has Kumo blood, may show lightning affinity. Interesting. She turned back to the front and read over the first, Haru, a freckled boy showing all his teeth in a wide, dimpled grin. This one's a civilian too. Two first-generation shinobi on my first squad? She turned, at last, to Takumi, and lingered there. Apparently not.

Haruki whistled long and low. "Matsushita. That's the clan the other Senju grandkid married into, isn't it?"

"His brother was an Anbu." Her eyes followed his marks over the years, all exemplary—then, below them, in the "medical" section, sat a solitary bullet point. Like a debut actor, it seemed to take great pride in delivering its single line: Tests have determined his blindness is total.

"How does he…?" Haruki trailed off, rubbing at the nape of his neck. "I mean, he's not an Aburame, or an Inuzuka, or anything, there's not a family technique—"

Kazue closed the folder. "You said it yourself." They were outside, now, on the overlook beneath the likenesses of the hokage, carved into the looming mountain. Her eyes found the severe visage of the Second, glaring out over the village. "He's a Senju."

Haruki followed her gaze, set his hands on his hips and shook his head. "A Senju chakra sensor on your first squad? I guess you must've impressed somebody. Maybe the old man put in a word in your favor, huh?"

"I highly doubt it." Kazue turned and met Haruki's gaze. "He's still blind."

Haruki shrugged and turned back to the hokage rock…and quickly did a double-take. Kazue stepped up beside him, squinting against the bright sun to see what he was looking at.

Up on the mountain, there was a figure moving along the ridges, spreading paint on the faces of their previous leaders in the shape of a rather distinctive spiral. A few feet away from them, Iruka Umino came dashing up to the railing, shouting reprimands at the orange speck up above.

"Well, one thing's for certain," Haruki murmured, "I don't envy whoever has to deal with that little brat."

Kazue pursed her lips and said nothing.


The sun was high when Kazue passed through the gates of the Nara compound. The shinobi she passed afforded her a brief nod; from the civilians, a smile, perhaps even a hello. She was known here, but Shikaku being clan head enforced grudging respect, at the very least. There was nothing for it but to hold her head high and walk as if she belonged there.

She left her shoes by the edge of the engawa, slid her fingers around the sudare and peered into the shadowed interior, blinking until her eyes adjusted. "Hello?" There was no answer, but she knew where to look. It was an old, familiar path through the center of the house, around the back until she came upon the open sliding door that faced the garden. Every step shed years of her life, and by the time she heard the quiet clacking of wooden tiles on a wooden board, she was a girl again.

She poked her head into the room. "Sensei?"

Shikaku, seated at his usual place, looked up and gave her the slow, fond smile he'd withheld in the hokage's office. "Kazue. I wasn't expecting you."

"You didn't think I'd miss seeing Shikamaru on his graduation day?" She sat beside the boy, seated opposite his father, and leaned over to give him a brief, one-armed hug—it was accepted with only a small grumble. "Let me see." He lifted his arm for her inspection, showing the brand-new headband. He'd tied just under the shoulder; the fabric was still creased, the metal gleamed. Kazue swallowed through the sudden lump in her throat, blinked welling eyes.

"You're not going to cry, are you?" Shikamaru complained, giving her the dubious, fearful look of a young man faced with the daunting prospect of a woman's tears. It allowed her a weak chuckle, at least, and she swiped an arm over her eyes.

"I'm just…wondering how you grew up so fast," she said, and hoped it sounded less like a lie than it felt. Shikamaru retained the Nara pout, and Kazue was reminded so viscerally of him wearing the same look as a little boy, it was all she could do to hug him again.

"Kazue…" he mumbled in protest, stiff as a board in her arms. "You're so—"

"Troublesome?" she guessed, releasing him.

"Annoying," he finished.

"Oh, that's a new one." She reached back into her pack. "I have something for you."

That caught his attention—he watched with curious eyes as she withdrew the small cloth bundle and offered it to him. Slowly, he took it from her, unwrapped the corners until he unveiled what was within.

"It's my old shuriken holster. I used this back when I served under your dad. It's still in good shape, already broken in—they tend to fight you on opening and closing, when they're brand new. And…I'd like you to have it. It saw me through my trainee days. I hope it'll do the same for you."

"Thanks," Shikamaru said, simply.

Somewhere along the line, Shikamaru had closed himself off. Kazue remembered a smiling, kindhearted boy; a little precocious, but generous with his love. It would be a lie, of course, to say that she didn't have any idea what had happened, but there was little use in her thinking about it. It was nothing she had the power to change, anyway.

She could only love him. It was all she could offer.

Shikaku shifted in place, eyeing the board. "Well, Shikamaru, this game is about over."

"Huh?" Shikamaru frowned, surveying his pieces.

"If you move here, I'll have you in four turns, but do this one instead and it'll take me six."

"Damn it."

"Don't beat yourself up," Kazue snorted, leaning back on her hands. "I could count the times I've beaten him on one hand."

"And for that, you're more remarkable than most." Shikaku rose with a grunt. "Put away the pieces, Shikamaru, and you can run along."

"Okay." Sighing, Shikamaru set to clearing the board.

Shikaku paused in the threshold. "Kazue, I think I still have half a bottle of sake open."

"I'll be along."

Shikamaru worked in silence until his footsteps receded. "Was he always like that?"

"Your father?" Kazue tilted her head up to the ceiling. "He was quite the joker, believe it or not. He had a laugh that would shake the rafters, if you really got him going." She paused, thoughtfully. "I can't remember if I was there when he got the scar. It might have been new."

Shikamaru huffed out a single, humorless breath. "Dad laughing. All he does is drink and fight with my mother."

The weariness crept into her bones, then, until it felt like she would sink right through the floor with their weight. "Someday you'll understand."

"Ugh. I hope I never do." Shikamaru finished putting up the pieces, looked thoughtfully at the shuriken holster, and stood. "I don't understand why you can't be my sensei. It'd have to be better than this guy I've never met before." Kazue trailed after him as he reentered the house, disappearing briefly into his room to deposit the holster within.

"The Ino-Shika-Cho have always had a Sarutobi sensei," she replied, as he reemerged and passed her on his way to the front of the house. "It's tradition."

"I know. It's just annoying. Bad enough that I'm already going to have to be on the same team as Ino."

Kazue leaned in the threshold and watched him tug on his sandals. "Well, at least you'll have Choji."

"Yeah, I guess." He slid off the edge of the engawa; for the briefest instant, the carefree little boy she'd sung to sleep. His feet hit the ground, and he was a genin, the newest of Konoha's lifeblood. "Bye, Kazue," he waved, slouching off across the courtyard. Kazue stayed in her place until he vanished from her sight, unable to shake the feeling that she was watching him march off to war.

Shikaku was in the kitchen, pouring what was, at least, his second cup of sake. Wordlessly, he held out the bottle, but she shook her head. He tossed back his cup in a single, smooth motion, swallowing it down like water. "You served under me, all right. And over me, and beside…"

Kazue folded her arms, propped her hip against the counter. "Against a tree, at one point, if I'm remembering correctly."

He chuckled against her ear, mouthed at the lobe as he caged her in against the counter. He'd told her, once, that she'd look stunning with a pair of studs. His breath had smelt of sake then, too. "Yoshino's visiting her parents across town. She won't be back for a few hours."

"You know, I really did come here to see Shikamaru."

Shikaku leaned back, slid his hand into the dip of her waist. "You're still here."

"I like you better sober."

"I'm never sober."

"You have shitty stamina when you've been drinking."

Shikaku leaned back in, smirking the slow, lazy smirk that had rarely failed him in the past. "I thought you liked it when I used my mouth," he said, dotting kisses up her neck, until he was parting her lips with his tongue, as if he was trying to remind her just how good at it he really was. The hand that was on her waist slid up her side, cupped around her breast and squeezed.

Then, he drew back. "Not interested, huh? This why you left me for Asuma?"

"Don't tell me you're jealous of him," she snorted.

"Not in the slightest. You are old enough, now. To like men your own age."

"Fuck you," she said, halfheartedly, slouching further against the countertop. "You're really gonna get pissy with me because I came here to see your son?"

He frowned. "He's your s—"

"Oh, cut the bullshit." She shoved at his chest, stalked a few paces away. "What was I gonna do, show up at his graduation? We both know exactly who I am, Shikaku; let's not start pretending now."

As soon as it had come, the anger abated. She sighed and wrapped her arms around herself. Shikaku came up slowly behind and folded her in the embrace that she'd once dreamed would protect her from the entire world. "I love you," he murmured, against her temple.

Kazue closed her eyes. It had never felt like a blessing.

"I know."


Night fell, and Kazue couldn't sleep. Try as she might, there was a nervous energy that kept her aware, as on her guard as she would be beyond the village gates. She paced the floorboards of her room, sat and bored a hole in the wall with her stare for what might have been hours.

A flicker of light in the distance caught her eye. In a flash, she was up, peering from her window. A small cluster of torches bobbed down the street, moving towards the mountain.

Kazue went for her equipment.

There were already a loose collection of shinobi milling around in front of the Academy building. "What's going on?" she asked the first one she came across.

"I don't know; Lord Hokage already sent off the first wave. I think the commander's going to brief us."

Shikaku stood at the top of the steps, arms folded, wearing his deerskin vest. His eyes flickered her way for a moment. She couldn't be sure if he'd seen her or not; quick as he'd looked, he turned to address them. "You may have heard already. Approximately two hours ago, the Third's residence was broken into. He is unharmed, but the First's Scroll of Seals was taken."

"Do we know who it is?" another ninja spoke, near the other end of the crowd.

Shikaku, more exhausted than anything else, sighed. "As best we can tell, it was Naruto Uzumaki."

Kazue's eyebrows twitched. Uzumaki…? Her gaze drifted up to the carvings in the mountain behind them, now scrubbed clean—you would never know they had been covered in graffiti that morning. The boy was a troublemaker, to be sure, but a harmless prankster, in the end. What would have compelled him to steal the scroll of the First? How would he even have known about it in the first place?

"He should have been killed when we had the chance," someone spat, shattering her reverie. Murmurs of agreement spread amongst the congregation.

"We still have time. If we can reach him before the demon breaks free—"

"Don't make the mistake of thinking of him as one of us." Kazue's fists tightened at her sides. "When we find him, he has to die."

"Will you listen to yourselves?" she snapped, drawing startled eyes from her fellows. "Do you have so little faith in the Fourth's seals? They've held for nearly thirteen years. Why would they break now?"

"The last time the Nine-tails ran loose in Konoha, we lost dozens of our best shinobi." Choza Akimichi stepped forward, a scowling mountain of a man. "Including the Fourth."

Kazue stood her ground. "What makes you think you'll fare so much better? If you really are that concerned about the Nine-tails breaking loose, there's only one man in Konoha who has a hope of controlling it."

"And he's late as usual…"

Kazue breathed a gusty, nasal sigh. "I'll find him. Killing the boy won't be necessary." Hastily, she added, "Unless any of you are so willing to volunteer to be the Nine-tails' next host."

From his place on the stairs, Shikaku locked eyes with her. His head dipped in a near-imperceptible nod.

Kazue took off, leaping along the rooftops to the secluded apartment building, foregoing the door in favor of the windowsill. "Kakashi."

The bedside lamp was on—he reclined in bed, dressed down, but no less awake—and the damned book was in his hand. "Evening."

"Don't tell me you haven't noticed all of this."

"I'm off duty," he said, as if she hadn't heard. "So are you."

She opened her mouth to argue, and closed it hard enough for her teeth to click. "I need you to come with me. Naruto Uzumaki broke into the Hokage's residence and stole the First's scroll. The others want blood."

Kakashi lowered the book, fixing her with a narrowed eye. "Naruto broke into the Hokage's residence?" A twelve-year-old pre-genin gave Hiruzen Sarutobi the slip? went unspoken between them.

"There's a panic about the Nine-tails getting loose, and if that really does happen, we're going to need you."

"I'm not sure that I would be able to do anything," Kakashi said, rising nonetheless.

"I know." She leaned against the sill. "It's more for their sake than anyone else's."

"I know somebody that could, though." He joined her on the sill, shrugging into his flak jacket and tugging his shoes up.

Kazue looked at him, a dozen questions brimming on her tongue, but she turned away toward the mountain. "We'll get them if we need to. Come on."

They darted along the tops of the buildings until they were before the Academy stairs again. "They're out searching in pairs. I told them to report in if they found him. Hatake, you stand by."

"Sir."

He ascended the steps again, without another word. Kazue held her place by Kakashi's side, turning to face out into the village. "They assigned him to you."

"Hm?"

"It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. Between you and everyone else in the room, there was no way they'd give him to anyone but you." She cast a sidelong glance his way. "Him and the Uchiha boy. Am I wrong?"

Kakashi took his time replying. "And the brightest kunoichi in her class."

Kazue breathed a soft, humorless chuckle. "They want more sharingan, then."

They stood there, silent, until, quick as a whisper, shinobi began darting down to their position. She hadn't seen them with the initial gathering—these must be the first wave. "Any sign of him?"

Izumo Kamizuki, a hair's breath from Kotetsu Hagane, as always, shook his head. "No. We've scoured through town. At this point, he'd have to be hiding in one of the compounds, or in the woods."

"Iruka was going to the woods," another spoke up nearby. "Has he come back?"

Kazue shook her head. "No one's been back here."

"We should back him up; he could've run into trouble."

"Wait a minute, where's Mizuki? Did he go to the woods too?"

Kazue exchanged a brief look with Kakashi.

"What about the kid? He could've gone through the fence. For all we know, the brat could be miles away by now."

The sound of the door had them all turning about. Scattered murmurs of "Lord Hokage," permeated the crowd, as he descended the steps, Shikaku at his back.

"We have nothing to worry about." He gestured with his pipe, and they turned again, just in time to watch the vague shape of a silhouette tear headlong out of the shadows at the end of the street.

Kazue moved first, vanishing in a puff of smoke and reappearing there in an instant. Headlong run cut short in surprise, the boy stumbled into the dirt. "Naruto…?" Kazue mumbled.

He pushed himself up off the ground, wobbled back to his feet, turned a tearstained face spattered with blood and road dust up to her. "You have to help Iruka-sensei," he whimpered, lips trembling. "He's hurt."

Shit. "Show me where." In a flash, he took off the way he'd come. "We need a medic!" Kazue shouted back down to the academy, before she turned to follow.

The moment he led her into the clearing, her heart began to slow. She didn't need to be a medical-nin to know that there was no saving the man lying face-down in the grass. The pool of his blood had nearly swallowed his whole body, and was still seeping slowly out of the hole in his chest, where the oversized shuriken had gone all the way through.

"M-Mizuki-sensei told me I could l-learn a technique to g-graduate, but then he attacked I-Iruka-sensei—" Kazue wrenched the shuriken out with a grunt, set it aside and knelt to turn the body over; limp as a dead fish. If not for the film of foamy pink saliva coating his chin, he might've been peacefully asleep. He'd been unconscious, at least, for the end.

"—is he going to be okay?" Naruto sniffled. Kazue didn't look at him—if she did, she wouldn't be able to lie.

Instead, she faced the arriving ninja with a minute shake of her head. The urgency faded from their movements, and they began to fan out over the clearing. The scroll was recovered from where it had been propped, forgotten, against a tree. Kazue moved back from the body, placing a hand on Naruto's shoulder to pull him back so the medical-nin could move in.

She tracked over to the other gathering of jonin, found them clustered around a second body, one she'd failed to notice at first. This one was nearly unrecognizable, bearing only a bloody, swollen mess where a face had once been. Kotetsu knelt and reached within the man's flak jacket, withdrew his dog tags from within his shirt. "It's Mizuki."

Naruto said he attacked Iruka. If that's true, the only one who could've done this…

A heart-rending cry erupted from behind them. Kazue turned to see one of the medical-nin scribbling into a notebook. They'd called it, then. Before anyone else could, Kazue went to Naruto's side, held him away from the body.

"—time of death?"

"At best estimation, 2137."

"All right. Bag him and tag him."

Naruto wailed and fought her restraining hold. The medical-nin lifted Iruka's body into the bag, tore the page out of their notepad, and slid it into the attached sleeve. Each lifted one end, and they began the slow trek back to the hospital. All at once, Naruto's strength abandoned him, and he slumped against her arms, wracked with heaving sobs. Kazue bent to pick him up, and made to follow until Choza Akimichi blocked her path.

"I'm getting Inoichi. Lord Hokage will want a full report."

Kazue returned his narrow-eyed glare. "What are you waiting for, my permission?" She stepped around him and bore the weeping boy back to the Academy.

Inoichi Yamanaka arrived at the same time as she did. He directed her to deposit Naruto in a chair and conferred with Shikaku and the hokage on the other side of the room, while she wiped at the boy's purple, bloody knuckles. Each dab of the antiseptic brought only a weak snivel from him. Be mindful of the demon fox, she caught.

"What are they going to do?" Naruto asked her, in a small voice.

"Yamanaka is going to use a technique to look into your mind. He needs to see what happened to you and Iruka-sensei. There's no need for you to be afraid; it doesn't hurt at all, and it'll be over before you know it."

"Kurosawa." Kazue turned at the sound of Inoichi's voice—he merely tilted his head at the door, and she exited obligingly.

None of them had said anything about moving further than just outside the hokage's office, and she hadn't been officially dismissed, besides. So she waited, leaning on the wall, arms folded, and fought her heavy eyelids. It was hardly late, but she was exhausted.

After what couldn't have been more than a few minutes, the door opened. Inoichi exited, casting a glance at Kazue before he departed. "Kazue," the hokage called her, and she came to the threshold.

"Lord Hokage?"

"Thank you for your assistance. You're dismissed."

Naruto was dead asleep in his chair. The old man must have sensed her reluctance—he gave her a reassuring smile. "No need to worry. I'll ensure the boy is looked after."

Kazue offered a short bow. "Thank you, Lord Hokage."

"You too, Shikaku. Go home to your family."

"Yes, Lord Hokage." Kazue stepped aside to let him pass, cast one last glance into the room, and followed him.

"What happened?" she asked, once they were outside.

"The kid figured out the shadow clone technique. After Mizuki got Iruka, he just lost it. Made himself into a one-man army and beat him to death."

"Shit," she breathed.

"Yeah. The way he's been the past decade, people have forgotten whose son he is."

Kazue resisted the urge to peer over her shoulder at the visages in the cliff face. "Any idea what they're going to do with him?"

"Lord Hokage is graduating him. He'll report to his team leader day after next, along with the rest of his class." Shikaku chuckled wryly, the way he did when he wanted a drink. "You know, that's how this whole thing started; because Mizuki gave him a way around failing again."

Mizuki told him he could learn a technique to graduate. But why…?

"You should get some sleep, Kazue. Once you have genin, you won't be able to get enough."

She gave him a long, searching look, but the face he wore was that of her sensei; loose and easy with long familiarity, dispensing sage advice.

"All right." As they approached the Nara compound, Kazue turned aside, hanging left a block before the gate. She crossed the remaining distance to her house, and wondered if the sun would rise red in the morning.

15