Author's Note: 'Nother Team Hebi fic. Nowhere near enough of these yet. And they still amuse me more than they should, thus I keep writing.

This is my first even semi-serious fic (well, as serious as any Hebi fic can be) about the four of them…so definitely let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: Don't own anything…lalala

Title: Just As We Are
Rating: T (because I seem to just use it as my default)
Author: Singe

O0O0O0O

Suigetsu had watched Sasuke from day one, trying to find the words to describe him and just what exactly made the stoic man tick. Granted, it also amused him to no end when he found just the right buttons to push to achieve that slight, continuous twitch of the Uchiha's left eye when he was irritated just short of being murderous, but not quite vindictive. But that was beside the point. In any case, Suigetsu had never quite been able to grasp that thing that made Sasuke Sasuke and not just another shinobi with a grudge and some questionable clothing choices.

But this...this was just odd, even for him.

They were at a temple. Before dawn.

Uchiha Sasuke was making a sacrifice of lotus flowers and burning incense while the rest of his self-assembled squad known as Hebi stood by drowsily.

And Suigetsu was irritated.

Because he had not expected this. Because he had not known there was a temple here, much less that it was possible to even find blooming lotus flowers at this time of year. Because he could not understand why Sasuke was willing to make such sacrifices to the dead, both the one he was making now and the ones that had lead him into the depths of Otogakure.

The dead were the dead and nothing would change that. Once the spirit left the world...that was it, game over. And the past was just as incorporeal as the dead. What did it matter? Why was Sasuke so obsessed with things that had long since ceased to exist?

Suigetsu had never heard of the Uchiha until he had met Sasuke. The glory of the clan was gone, as well as it's power. But he would not tell the almost painfully thin boy such things.

Suigetsu was annoyed at the moment, but the Uchiha, if nothing else, generally kept him mildly entertained. So, he let him cling to his ghosts and foolish hatred. It was still good for a few laughs.

O0O0O0O

The dead didn't care. He had told himself that time and time again. It was what had gotten him to leave Konoha, knowing that it wouldn't matter if he took care of the many, many graves belonging to his family. It was also what nearly made him stay. After all, if the dead were indifferent to the mortal world, what would it matter if they were avenged? If he were to waste time in Konoha, slowly growing stronger instead of advancing quickly as he would in Oto, what would it matter? Vengeance was his and his alone.

But he had left, unable to resist the shortcut, unable to deny what he wanted. Power. Revenge. Peace. To get the hell away from the people who were beginning to mean something, just like his family had meant something before Itachi came along and slaughtered the lot of them while simultaneously tearing to shreds Sasuke's perceptions of his dear Aniki.

But here he was, at some nameless decrepit temple. With a companion who carried on his back a sword pilfered from a grave and two others who owed him nothing but still came along for the ride. And it was the anniversary of the event that had started this whole ridiculous ordeal: when Itachi had suddenly appeared to capture Naruto and had proven just how little things had really changed. Sasuke had still been too weak, too proud, and cared too damn much about people beside himself.

Karin was standing by, watching him curiously and at least pretending to be sneaky about it. She would occasionally turn her head away from the open alter where he stood to take in the surrounding shrine grounds and the nearby forest. Juugo stood leaning heavily on a large stone statue, by all appearances asleep. Suigetsu was observing him blatantly, that obnoxious grin as present now as it always was.

All three had been purposefully chosen, hand-picked for their individual talents as much as they had been for the at least slight loyalty he knew he could expect from them. How different would the present have been had he remained in Konoha? Sakura would have been alternately watching him and taking in their surroundings. Kakashi would be crouching somewhere nearby or sitting in a tree, reading one of his damned orange books. Naruto would be watching him and complaining about the detour. But then again, if Sasuke had remained loyal to Konoha, he would have not felt the sudden need to mark this day at some desolate shrine. And he would have been able to mark the previous anniversaries of the massacre at the temple within the Uchiha campgrounds, not in some nameless shrine in whatever town they had been passing through at the time.

More than anything else, Uchiha Sasuke knew the past was irrevocable. And once a year, he was reminded forcibly of just how true and how cruel such a thing was. It was only natural to wish to return to the place that had been his home. The place that would always be his home, regardless of anything else, because it was where the Uchiha had lived and been laid to rest for time immemorial. Logic had told him that he himself would never be buried with his clan. But a small, nagging voice in the back of his mind made clear he may as well have been the day he awoke in the hospital to learn they were all gone.

O0O0O0O

Juugo knew all too well what it meant to mourn. In his youth, it had seemed all he knew. When he had been too young, too weak to control his murderous rages even with outside intervention, he had known nothing but the cycle of regret and sorrow and sympathy. As he had grown and the fits of rage turned more deadly, the regret had grown exponentially. So he had gone to the one person he though could possibly be capable of stopping the uncontrollable killing intent. He had gone to Orochimaru, had walked right into one of the man's bases, one filled with some of his most notorious men.

Upon learning Orochimaru wasn't there, he had painted the walls red with the blood of those notorious men. A few days later, the snake shinobi and his gray haired companion arrived at the base to find him sitting in a corner in a lower level of the base. His crouched form had been completely surrounded by the bodies of skilled rogue shinobi. The smile that had appeared on the serpentine face had let Juugo know that the other man would only use him. But it didn't matter as long as the urges went away.

It had been the only thing Juugo had been entirely certain of in his life.

And maybe, he sometimes wondered, that was what it was like for the young Uchiha he now followed. Maybe the boy was just so sure in his conviction that the rest of the world didn't mean anything.

But Juugo knew well enough that the dead always meant something. It didn't matter if they were strangers or family or friends, they all stood for something greater once they had left this world. A debt was owed for every life you took or had taken from you, and he himself was attempting to fulfill such a debt by following the younger man on his quest for revenge.

He knew that he could very easily die while trying to prolong the life of the boy who was all that remained of Kimimaro.

He knew them coming here, to this shrine, was just a way for the Uchiha to pay the interest he owed.

And in the end, Juugo knew that although the dead were important, so were the living. And that sometimes, when all you knew was death, when it was all that surrounded you, when only rage and pain drove you on, when you abandoned everything just to maybe, maybe find a way to stop that burn of remorse deep in your soul, that was when you began to forget just how important it was that you were still alive. The rumors he had heard (even contained as he had been in Oto) about Sasuke's departure from Konoha had made him wonder if the boy even knew it was possible to simply exist outside of the bloodlust. But traveling together as the four of them had been these last few weeks had begun to give Juugo some slight hope.

Granted, all that they did was for the greater goal of killing Uchiha Itachi. But sometimes, when he thought no one was watching or would notice, Sasuke would look around him with just the vaguest hint of contentment seeming to radiate from him, as if he were considering the possibility that there was something for him beyond the assassination of his brother. And sometimes he would watch Sasuke interact with the others, noting how he would not hesitate to mock or needle either of them, though he still would allow no one into his personal space, despite Karin's best efforts. And at times like these, he couldn't help but wonder about how things had been in Konoha between Sasuke and his teammates.

Maybe he would find out someday.

They were all still alive, after all.

O0O0O0O

What the hell were they doing? There were certainly more important things that they should be taking care of, Karin though huffily. Her complaints were kept silent however, since this had been a detour ordered by Sasuke, and for once not that annoying water-nin. Really, could the bastard go even ten minutes without demanding a break or complaining that he was running out of water?

It was odd, though, for Sasuke to have been the one to make them stop, seeing as how usually he was the one demanding they move faster, quicker, farther. Karin had long ago accepted that there were things about their leader she would never understand, and that most of his decisions seemed to be made with little forethought. But this detour had seemed all too premeditated for her to just brush the incident away.

Especially since the pace they had taken to get here had been relatively slow in comparison to how quickly the four of them usually traveled.

So she kept silent, and waited. Karin also took the opportunity to watch the young Uchiha while he seemed to be distracted by this filthy, rundown shrine they had arrived at almost an hour ago. The boy had been gorgeous as long as she had known him, but now that beauty seemed far more tragic from both the dour settings and the somewhat empty gaze he kept focused on the alter in front of him.

And something intangible, something she could not name made certain that she did not try to break this calm, though more than anything else, it felt threatening to her. Because it made her realize just how far away Sasuke was from her, from any of them. It would make her realize that Sasuke really was with them only in his physical presence, even before they had come here. And to admit the existence of such a distance, to acknowledge the separation could break her, cold break them.

Hebi was Sasuke's creation, his unit. But coming to this place made one thing clear to Karin: it may have been his team, but the dark-eyed boy was part of something far larger.

Something she was not so sure if she wanted to be apart of, even if she could be.

And then as Sasuke turned from the shrine and surveyed his surroundings, Karin became certain that the option had never been open to any of them besides Sasuke in the first place.

O0O0O0O

Ending note: So this was originally going to just have Sasuke and Suigetsu in it, but somehow exploded to include the other group members. It's probably a good thing since I finally managed to work in some more Juugo than in my other Hebi fic. Hell, he's even in here more than Sui, who has quickly become one of my more favorite characters in the series.

And I fail at writing serious Karin. Probably has something to do with my not being able to ever take her seriously…either way, her section of this is the only one that I'm not at least content with, so it may be revised at some point…

In any case, please let me know what you think about this or any of my other Hebi fics.