AN: Hey guys. I wrote this months ago, in my birthday actually (I'm sixteen now. Yay!), and I thought I would give you something nice (well, not really. I personally found it very sad to read this). This one-shot happens after Kurai wakes up but before she is summoned to the new Yondaime's office.

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Memoirs of the Heart

A Tide of Change (DW)

Summary: In which Yagura wants to get drunk, but can't, and Ao, as always, makes a nuisance out of himself. Ah, and someone stole the wine bottle. That person is dead.

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It was funny, Yagura sometimes thought, how people lied so easily every day in their lives.

A child will lie to their parents or their teachers to escape from doing their duties. A boy will lie to make himself seem more important than he actually is to the girl he likes. A person will lie to their spouse about being busy when in reality they will be going to spend the night in their lover's bed.

And a man will lie to a child, just so that when he finally revealed the truth, he would see it shatter the boy who thought he was loved.

Yagura had no problems with lies, truly. He was a shinobi after all. Falsehood and deception were essential tools of the trade if one wanted to live a longer life than most. He himself was an accomplished liar, maybe not as good as Fuguki (and certainly not nearly as good as a certain Uchiha spy he could name), but a decent one nonetheless. He had had to be, if he planned to kill the bastard who held the title of the most powerful shinobi in Kiri, while having to see and talk with said degenerate every other day.

No, Yagura didn't have a problem with lies or the people who used them daily. What angered him were people who lied to themselves.

If there is one person in the entire world one should be honest to, it was to themselves. If only to keep their sanity intact in this dark, merciless place.

Maybe that's why Yagura, sitting inside the Sandaime's office (his office now, and isn't that just splendid?) is currently drinking himself under the table, a month after being made Yondaime Mizukage of Kirigakure. Because if he can't be honest with himself, than it was better not to say or think anything, and the best way he knew of accomplishing that was to get dead drunk.

His mind was finally beginning to get fuzzy, but since the walls were still not moving nor the ceiling spinning above his head, he mournfully concluded that he wasn't there yet.

He was just reaching for the third and last wine bottle (he had found Hiyasu's secret stash. Say anything about the man, but he had had good taste when it came to drinking), when the door to the Sandaime's office (really, he should stop referring to it as Hiyasu's. It was his now) opened.

"I don't know what the hell's wrong with you, but you can't spend your first month on the job totally wasted," that was the first thing Ao growled as he strode forward, wrenching the bottle away from Yagura's grasp before the latter could so much as offer a token resistance.

Slowly, the new Yondaime Mizukage looked from his empty hand to the wine bottle resting tauntingly in Ao's hand, beckoning him to go get it.

He very much wanted to go get it.

"That's mine," he said in way of greeting. A part of him distantly noted that if he still could talk eloquently, he wasn't doing a good enough job at getting drunk.

The hunter-nin scowled at the Mizukage before giving a despairing cry when he realized exactly what kind of treasure he was holding in his hand.

"Is this...?" he seemed lost for words.

Understanding the man's shock (it was a very good wine), Yagura nodded.

"Made in...?"

Again, a nod.

"And you were just using it to get drunk?!"

Another nod, this one accompanied by a shrug.

"You're not serious," a horrified Ao said disbelievingly. "You can't just... just... just chug it all down! You have to let it breathe, and only after that start sipping from a small glass. Sipping, Yagura, not drinking straight from the bottle like it's goddamned water, for heaven's sake! You have to savor these things, take it slowly for maximum enjoyment-"

"Are you really trying to teach me how to drink my wine?" Yagura deadpanned. It seemed too ridiculous a topic.

Ao shut his mouth with a click. Yagura raised an eyebrow.

The blue haired jounin sighed, "What are you doing Yagura? Really?"

All of a sudden, Yagura felt anger cloud his mind, running hot in his veins and making his hands tremble with the need to do something. Maybe punch a brick wall until the skin over his knuckles ripped and bled. Maybe smash Ao's face on said brick wall until he had lost too many of his teeth to say one more word.

Yagura looked up at the blue eyes of his comrade. "What do you want me to say Ao?" he asked, voice tight while he attempted to curb any emotion away. He wasn't doing a good job, seeing how tipsy he had begun to feel. "What do you want me to say? That I'm drinking to celebrate my promotion to Mizukage? That I'm drinking in honor of all the people who should have been here to see it, but aren't? Or that I'm drinking because I'm too goddamned weak to face the truth?"

"And the truth being...?" Ao asked warily.

"That me being the Yondaime changes absolutely nothing." Yagura said harshly. "That Hiyasu was right," the words burned on his tongue, making him want to retch, especially when he realized how truthful they were.

"Now I know that you're really drunk," Ao said lightly, wine bottle swinging in his hand. Yagura almost hissed at him to be careful with it. "Paying attention to a dead madman? What has gotten into you, Yagura?"

"Look around you Ao. What has changed? The council is still ruled by Kaguya men, the Graduation Exam is still in effect, our village's economy is barely surviving by a thread, if we don't get some allies right now, Kirigakure may not be standing when this war is over… How am I supposed to fix all of that when half of Kiri wants me dead?"

"By trusting in the men and women who helped and believed in you," Ao said, sharp blue eyes watching him. "You are not alone Yagura. You don't have to do everything on your own."

Pink eyes fixed themselves on the hardwood table, too tired to meet Ao's gaze. "But don't you see Ao?" Yagura said, tone almost imploring. "That's the problem. How can I trust any of them… after all the horrible things that they've done? After all the horrible things I've done?"

Immediately, Ao was on his feet. "What we did was for the good of Kirigakure. Every death, every wrong deed, was in the name of the greater good. Every sacrifice was accepted and honored. We all agreed that they were necessary."

Yagura snorted. "Accepted? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Takagi-san accepted his brother's 'honorable sacrifice' when we sent him on his way to be killed by Hiori. Especially when we refused to let him have his revenge. But the boy wouldn't be stopped, would he? No, he had to go and try to kill Hiori even we made it clear that he couldn't. And what did we do?"

Ao shook his head, blue eyes flashing. "We warned him. Again and again, we warned him."

"What did we do?" the new Mizukage repeated, pink eye boring in the jounin.

"You know well what we had to do Yagura! We couldn't let him do that! Hiori would have killed him but not before extracting every bit of information he possessed! He had put our whole operation and everyone's safety at risk-"

"What did we do, Ao?"

"… We killed him." Ao finally bit out, a scowl marring his face as he fell back on his seat.

Yagura nodded, slow and measured. "We killed him. An innocent. Worse, a person dedicated to our cause, one of our own. And we didn't even have to stop to consider the morals behind that decision, did we? He was a security risk that we took care of; it was as simple as that. We did it without hesitation, without even a blink. We murdered one of our own in cold blood when all he wanted was justice for his beloved brother."

"We warned him what would happen," Ao repeated, but the words seemed feeble even to his own ears.

"And we couldn't have thought of another way? We could have put him in a cell until he either gave up on his revenge or we won and could set him free. But that would have taken too much effort, wouldn't it? Someone would have to stand guard over him day and night to make sure he couldn't escape, we would have to invent some excuse to his disappearance, and whatnot. We couldn't waste resources like that when we needed every single person out there, doing their job and to not arouse any more suspicion. No, it was better to just dispose of him. Who would notice one more body on the ground? There were already so many there, no one would ask bothersome questions. It was simply easier to just… kill him."

Ao looked down, a familiar heavy weight settling in his chest. Yagura continued.

"We did what we've been taught to do since we were children and didn't even stop to think about doing it differently. We didn't even try. With that kind of mentality so deeply ingrained in our minds… how can we expect to change anything?"

The room fell into a somber silence as both men reflected on the words spoken.

"You're right," Ao said suddenly, startling Yagura from his thoughts. The Yondaime looked at him questioningly.

"You're right," Ao repeated. "We can't suddenly change our way of thinking, not after so many decades. But we all knew that the road to a better future would be a long and hard one. It may be too late for you and me, and all the people who worked with us… but it's not too late for Gyo's boys, Mangetsu and Suigetsu. It's not too late to Kisame and Akihiro. It's not too late for Kurai."

At the mention of his daughter, Yagura tensed, guilt once more plaguing his heart when he thought about how he hadn't talked or seen her since she was discharged from the hospital.

"They have a chance, Yagura. They still have a chance to be free from our past, from this village's bloody history. They can still surpass this, us. If you won't fight for us, then fight for them. For the next generation. Fight for the changes that they will bring, and hope that they will be wiser and stronger than we were."

"Hope? You want me to hope?" Yagura asked, a little amusement showing in his voice.

But there was nothing funny in Ao's face as he nodded back seriously. "Yes. I want you to have hope in your daughter and her friends, because despite what you think Yagura, she does have them. She managed to create bonds of friendship with other children; strong ties that I doubt will be cut anytime soon, if at all. She has already gone against the teachings of the Graduation Exam, proven that they mean nothing to her. If you can't believe in your supporters, believe in your child."

"They are children, Ao. Who would believe in them?" the Mizukage said, a sneer pulling at his mouth.

"I do. And you do too, deep down."

Yagura's shoulders dropped. "I don't know what I believe in anymore."

Ao sighed, standing up. "Then I will let you think about it a little more, alright? When you reach a decision, warn me. I would like to know which one it is."

"By your leave, Yondaime-sama," he bowed, and left the room, his departure as sudden as his arrival.

Yagura waited a few minutes, making sure that the man had really left. After that talk he would need all the alcohol he could get his hands on. So he returned his attention to his desk.

His empty desk. As in, devoid of any alcoholic beverages. As in, cleared of any bottle of wine.

His wine... was gone.

"That damned Ao," Yagura breathed out in a harsh breath.

Silent, he stood from his chair, calmly walked around the table and then broke into a mad dash after the wine-stealing bastard who still didn't know he was a dead man walking.

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AN: Can you believe that I had this thing gathering dust in my computer since February? Anyway, this thing is supposed to be a collection of one-shots pertained to the world of Dark Waters, scenes that never made it into the story. I am also accepting requests, so if you want to see another one of those (like, a one-shot about Kisame and Kurai's childhood, more of Yagura and Ao and so on), just tell me. And as always, don't forget to review.