A/N: Revised April 3, 2018

Chapter VII: Pale Thing, Loyal Thing

After that, they made their way back towards the border of Kusa and Ame: moving with frenetic zeal brought on by the sure promise of death.

Their eyes were wide as they peered through the gloom for any trace of danger, limbs quivering and breathing labored. The creatures were behind them and in front of them too. As they drew near to their previous position the scent of bushfire spiked. The impenetrable trees began to form into a sea of mushrooms, the forest canopy opening up. Sakura could see that the sky was black with smoke. There was a heavy layer of it lingering just above the tops of the white, gangly plants, and the air was so thin that all of them started to cough. Even Sasuke.

"Are those your flames?" Sakura asked in between muffle gasps. Sasuke shook his head, one slim hand holding the collar of his shirt over his nose, the other gripping Juugo around the waist. The large nin was pale and feverish, and as Sasuke dragged him forward the Taka member fell unconscious. Sakura supposed it was a blessing. He was in a tremendous amount of pain and there was something wrong with his wound. She didn't have time to stop and check.

About halfway to their original campsite Aya veered to the right, heading towards the northern part of Kusa's border. Sasuke automatically followed her lead, so the rest of them complied too. They didn't run towards the boundary—they didn't have enough energy for that, and they couldn't waste their chakra—but they did walk quickly, keeping low to the ground so as to not breathe in too much smoke. The entire time Sakura was overwhelmed with a sense of hopelessness.

It had started when they'd found the creature in the woods, and even though she'd tried to forget it she seemed unable to stop. The monster had been massive, and it was everywhere: fast, primeval, and able to nullify all attacks by rendering chakra useless. She'd barely seen more than a couple bony ridges and a gelatinous mass moving along the edge of a log, but everywhere she went Sakura felt trapped by it. She felt trapped by Sasuke, and by the weakness of her own body: by the expectations imposed on her as a medic nin. It was akin to drowning in a puddle of water while someone held her head to the ground. No matter how loud she screamed, no one came to save her.

After their party turned to follow Aya, they made their way through the brambles and gnarled mushrooms until the tubers eventually thinned out and gave way to grass. It wasn't raining yet, but the darkness of the sky contrasted sharply with the vibrant green of the meadow, which was intersected by an occasional mushroom standing like a sentry along the flat, desolate horizon. Between here and there there was no cover, and to the east a bright orange gleam stretched along the sky. The fire was eating its way across the landscape from Takigakure to the southernmost edge of Konoha. Sasuke's hawk Matsuba still hadn't returned. The grass was so deep it came up to Sakura's shoulders, but still she didn't feel safe. The way to Ame was clear for now, but Sakura knew and everyone else knew that just because it was clear it didn't mean that the creature wasn't out there. Given their previous encounters, it was probably lying in wait.

If they traveled farther into Ame they would find the delta system, where there was so much water there was barely any land at all. Sakura didn't want to go there—the hopelessness had become so acute it was downright debilitating—but she didn't admit it out loud. If she died she was going to do it quietly, when the others weren't in immediate danger. Crossing a massive field with zero cover was definitely not one of those times.

"Keep low," Sasuke said just before they attempted the path. "Use the mushrooms until we find cover."

No one said what was on everyone's mind: that they'd been at war with Ame before, but ever since Naruto had become Hokage they were on relatively good terms. No one had come out to greet them, just like in Kusa. Sakura smothered a scream and forced herself to move after the others.

Faster, seemed to be the unspoken mantra as they moved forward, faster, faster, but Sakura didn't want to move faster. She just wanted to curl up into a ball and hide.

Sakura didn't trip like she had in the forest, but by the time they stopped she wished she had, if only to knock herself unconscious. The place where they finally came to rest was going to give her nightmares, she was sure. It was completely exposed and out in the open. The only thing to distinguish it from the rest of the field was the fact that the grass was slightly higher here. If they used chakra to mask themselves it might've been bearable, but they couldn't risk it. Not when the creature seemed drawn to the source. As they quickly unsealed their supplies from various scrolls Sakura peered towards Ame. The sky was so dark with clouds that the daylight had dimmed, and on all sides there was a sea of bright green, broken by the occasional fork of lightning striking somewhere far off. If it rained there was a good chance the area would flood.

Morbidly, Sakura supposed it was better than burning alive. Burning took longer.

"Keep an eye out for ambush. If it finds you, run. Don't wait," Sasuke told the assembled crowd. Then he fled along with half of the LSF to do what Sakura assumed was a perimeter sweep, taking Aya, the twins, Suigetsu, Ai and Etsuko with him.

The others didn't make a big deal about it, so Sakura didn't either. Instead she chose to make her rounds while she still had some time.

As predicted Juugo was suffering from sepsis, which was well on its way to morphing into septic shock. The travel had been too much, and as Sakura eyed him there on the ground, pale and shivering, she decided she couldn't cope with the despair. Silently trying to stave off the sensation—using Juugo's pack to prop his head up—she fed him a cocktail of drugs in an attempt to reserve her chakra for when things got really bad. Her seal had been drained in the initial encounter, and if she ran out of energy there was no backup. Overhead there was the crack of thunder, then a flash of lightning so bright everything in the area lit up. Sakura used the light to work by, imperfect as it was. As Juugo lay there on the grass she spied a weird jumping movement around his severed joint that she assumed was a muscle spasm, but when she leaned close she could detect the faintest hint of rot.

Dreading the outcome she leaned even closer, lifting away his cloak and the remains of his shirt. She violently jerked away as the odor hit her full force.

Oh no.

"Kushimura," she said quietly. He was the nearest nin next to her. "Can you help me for a moment?"

Without a word the former Iwa nin shuffled over to crouch beside her. He was as gangly and blond as Deidara had been, with his long hair pulled into a ponytail and the bottom half of his face hidden by a mask. Absently Sakura gestured towards Juugo's head, even as another crack split the sky. A rumble went through the ground when the lightning hit. Sakura shivered.

"Can you hold his other shoulder down?" she asked, pointing to where Kushimura should sit. "I need to make sure he doesn't move. It might… it will get painful."

Kushimura obliged, shifting around so he was crouched behind Juugo's head and pressing one hand to his uninjured shoulder. The other went to the larger nin's forehead. Juugo didn't move. Without delay Sakura took a kunai to his shirt, slicing it open along the side. The smell hit her with such strength she gagged. The odor was far worse than anything you would get with septic shock, and if that was what was causing it, it shouldn't have been at this stage. Sakura didn't want to look under the bandages. For once she was terrified of being a medic. Across the horizon there was a flash of sheet lightning.

"Juugo," Sakura said softly, trying to get his attention. When he didn't move Sakura put her hand to his cheek, giving it a light tap. He startled violently, opening his eyes, and Sakura was shocked to see that they were glazed over like a corpse's as if he were already dead.

Oh no. No, no, no. Don't think about it. Don't think about the bodies—

"Juugo, can you hear me?" she repeated, her voice shaking audibly. Juugo made a soft gurgling sound that was full of fluid. "I just have to check your shoulder. But I can't… I can't put you under, understand? I need you awake. It will hurt a bit, but it will be over soon." Juugo let out another wet rasping gurgle. Sakura tried to smile for him, but failed. "Kushimura's here too, okay? He's going to help."

In response the ex-Iwa nin squeeze Juugo's good shoulder. Sakura could feel several pairs of eyes watching them from various points around their makeshift camp, but the rest of the LSF made no move to interfere. Quickly removing a thick roll of gauze from her pack, she wadded it up several times over before handing it to Kushimura. He took it without compunction.

"Make sure he bites down," she said, her words nearly lost to a peal of thunder. The storm was moving closer. Sakura didn't look over as Kushimura took the gauze, nor did she flinch when Juugo made a moaning sound while the other nin shoved the gag between his teeth. She began to remove his bandages, and almost immediately she was hit with a sickly sweet smell. Kushimura coughed.

It was the stench of rotting fruit left out in the sun: the kind that attracted mold and flies. Absently Sakura felt a presence come to stand behind her, and realized it was Susumu. She ignored him.

"Hold him steady," Sakura reiterated. Kushimura nodded as she got back to work. She'd barely gotten past the first layer of bandages before they began turning dark red, and by the third layer in they were sticky with a gelatinous kind of goo that made a squelching sound as she peeled them off. Juugo whimpered but did nothing else, and Sakura could feel her own heart rate increase as a result. The goo wasn't blood, nor was it anything she was used to seeing. Then she was peeling back the final layer of bandages, and when she did Sakura gagged and tried not to scream.

Beneath the wrap Juugo's wound had completely reopened. From the open, rotting hole dripped a clear, reddish liquid, mixed with the puss of infection and dozens of squirming things that looked like maggots. They were eating away at his flesh. Around his wound his skin was covered with boils.

Sakura thought of Naruto at the ramen bar, his noodles turning to worms and the way his teeth had crunched through bits of bone. Before she could stop herself she was turning around and gagging hard enough to vomit, but her stomach was so empty that nothing came out.

There was the brief patter of sandals rustling through the long grass. Sakura felt a hand on her shoulder, making sure she didn't fall all the way over. Susumu.

"Sakura," he said softly, full of concern. She didn't answer.

"What the fuck?" spat Kushimura. It was the first time Sakura had heard him speak. There was a fog in her ears, and when the lightning flashed it lit up Juugo's glistening wound like a cross section of piebald ham; all bone and muscle and the ever-present larva, circling around each other in rings.

"Bowl," Sakura said through her teeth. Her hand gripping Susumu's to get his attention. "Get me a bowl. The metal one. Should… should be in my pack."

Without a word the tattooed nin moved away and crouched beside her satchel, ripping it open as he began to rifle through the contents. His expression was very much like the one he had sported in the bamboo grove before the creature had found them: calm, and eerily blank. Kushimura stayed where he was, one hand pressed to Juugo's shoulder and the other held against his nose. Juugo just lay there, dead-eyed and gurgling, his reopened wound giving off a hideous scent like rotting oranges. Sakura tried her best to get a hold of herself. There would be time for her own horror later.

"It's okay," she said through her teeth, trying to ignore the stench; the way that Juugo stayed still as she peeled away the rest of the bandages. "It's okay, Juugo. I'll fix it."

One of the boils near his wound popped and began oozing. Sakura choked back another dry heave. She didn't know how to fix this. She did, technically, but she didn't know what was causing it or if she could stop it. Septic shock she understood, but rot to the point where he was being eaten by maggots, and boils like the plague? He shouldn't have had anything that bad so soon, especially with medical treatment. Oh gods, what if it was contagious? What if everyone else who had been injured by the creature came down with other symptoms, too?

Sasuke, Sakura though, Sasuke, Suigetsu, and Aya. They were ripped open. They haven't come back.

"The metal one?" Susumu asked from somewhere over her shoulder. Sakura nodded, sticking out her hand in anticipation.

"Yeah, the metal one."

He handed it to her. Sasuke and Suigetsu would want to say goodbye before Juugo died, Sakura thought, then amended if as she began to desperately draw the insects out of his skin with chakra. The maggots made a plop-plip-plap sound as she deposited them into the metal container.

"Does rot usually set in this quickly?" Kushimura asked. Sakura shook her head, her lips pressed together in a line. Overhead the thunder got worse. Every now and then a gust of wind would make its way across the field, causing the reeds to rustle and the grass to flatten in waves. Sakura worked on Juugo until the rain began to come down in spitting bursts, dampening her head and the tops of her arms. When it did she handed over the bowl and told Susumu to burn the squirming maggots to a crisp with a weak fire jutsu, before shoving the remains aside.

"Bandages," she said, holding her shaking hand out to the nin. He gave them to her. Sakura re-bandaged Juugo's wound, trying to avoid what boils she could, but the marks were spreading and she had a terrible feeling that the insects would be back within hours. Briefly, Sakura considered using one of her summons to transport Juugo back to Konoha in the hopes of better care, but she didn't know how he'd react to it or if what was happening to him was contagious. The strange boils spoke of some sort of disease—a rapid one—and she couldn't risk an outbreak in the village. He might even lead the creature back to Konoha.

Creatures, she amended shakily as she tucked in the end of Juugo's bandages. There's more than one.

Along the horizon deep into Ame a large clap of thunder sounded. Making sure his head was still propped on his pack, Sakura covered Juugo with his cloak and bent one of his legs, rolling him carefully onto his side so he could rest without choking on his own spit and vomit. Then she beckoned Kushimura over.

"Here," she said, trying to keep her eyes from focusing on anything in particular. If she didn't focus, she couldn't see the worms. "H-here, you too."

"Why?" he said suspiciously. Sakura still ushered him closer.

"I have to check," she choked out. "Make sure it's not spreading."

"I thought he just lost an arm." Kushimura's default reaction to panic seemed to be one of anger. Sakura could hear it in his voice.

"It might spread through contact," she admitted, even though she didn't know what it was, then added, "I don't know. Did you touch it?" Kushimura violently shook his head, but he'd been on the front line with the others. Sakura was undeterred. "Let me check anyways," she insisted. "We… we have to be safe."

Kushimura gave in quickly; frantically stripping himself of his shirt and mask and anything else he still had on him until he was sitting in nothing but his underwear. Sakura had to forcibly tell him to stop. When he did he sat there, tense and compulsively scratching at his arms as he waited for inspection. Gods, did Sakura know that feeling.

"Me too?" Susumu asked. Although his eerie calm was still present, Sakura detected a note of fear. She shook her head.

"No," she mumbled. "You weren't near it. Watch Juugo." He did.

Sakura examined Kushimura under the deepening twilight, quickly running her hands over his limbs and checking his back and under his armpits for any sign of boils. She then used her chakra to do a deeper examination. The ex-Iwa nin was skinny as a beanpole and covered in bruising, but Sakura saw nothing to indicate that he was getting sick like Juugo. Most of the LSF who'd been injured were on patrol with Sasuke, and just thinking about it made Sakura's insides tie themselves into knots. She needed to check them now while there was still a bit of light.

"Any idea when the others will get back?" she asked over the increasingly loud patter of the rain. Kushimura shook his head as he shrugged his shirt back on. He hastily pulled his mask over his nose.

"No," he said, his voice muffled. Sakura nodded and didn't say anything more on the subject, but before Kushimura could dart away she motioned him forward again. "I need you to watch Juugo," she said. "At least until the others get back. Make sure he doesn't start choking, and doesn't get too wet from the rain. If he starts looking worse, call me. I'm going to finish my rounds."

Kushimura nodded. Sakura immediately got up and left. She didn't look at Susumu, stopping only briefly to grab her pack from his proffered hands. The hopelessness was so deep she was all but drowning in it. She could barely find it in her to keep moving.

Quickly Sakura went to see to the others. Because they were so closely spaced within the camp it didn't take her long. Yamamori was fine, although the way his pale face reflected the light like a porcelain mask reminded her too much of Haku. Jin was good, and so was Michi, albeit highly adverse to physical contact and downright skittish of her hands.

Sakura knew that Hanabi had never come into direct contact with the creature, and as such she planned to leave her alone. Only when she passed by the other kunoichi she found her sitting with her knees bent, her arms braced atop them and crying so hard her cheeks were turning red. She'd been crying all day, really, ever since Hotaka, and Sakura didn't know when she'd stop. She crouched beside the Hyuga. Above them the thunder boomed and the rain came down in torrents, water dampening their exposed heads to drip off their noses. Sakura began shivering. It would be a miserable night.

"Want a pill?" she asked Hanabi, the words for the anxiety lingering between them. Sakura didn't ask if things were all right because she knew they weren't, and useless platitudes were sort of insulting.

The Hyuga didn't look up, staring at the ground as it turned to mud between her toes, her long chestnut hair coming loose from its ponytail. She hadn't brushed it in awhile and it was beginning to look somewhat matted. "I don't know what to tell otousan," she mumbled in a deadened monotone. "He's good friends with Hotaka's family. It's going to kill them."

Sakura ran a hand over her face to clear it of water, trying not to think of how badly her hands were shaking even as a flash of lightning rippled overhead. She was barely holding together herself, and she didn't know if she could handle this sort of conversation. "It's not the first time someone from your clan's been lost," she reasoned. It was a cruel way to go about the conversation, but she didn't know how else to end it. Sakura was too tired to beat around the bush. Sasuke made her feel like she was drowning, but she'd rather drown in something familiar, and right now she wished he was back with the rest of his squad.

Hanabi shook her head, running her hands over her own face as her tears intermingled with the rain.

"No," she said. Even in the depths of her abject misery there was something very regal about her features. She looked more like Neji than her sister, Sakura decided, and the resemblance hurt. "It's not the same. He was murdered."

Murder was a very apt way to describe it. It was inherently brutal, the way the LSF were going down, and in truth Sakura found it infinitely more horrifying than the war. She wanted to tell Hanabi that there was a chance that Hotaka was still alive, but she knew Hanabi wouldn't believe her and she didn't really believe herself. They had abandoned him, she and Sasuke. And she'd promised not to.

You're a coward. Sakura almost strangled herself on her own ineptitude. Think of the others, but there were so few others left. Sakura put a shaky hand on Hanabi's arm, squeezing slightly as she looked away. The rainwater was a constant irritant as it dripped off the tip of her nose. She hated Ame. She hated the rain and she hated the birds.

"You'll be fine," she said. "You will." It took everything she had to keep her voice from cracking, but Hanabi was so far into the depths of her own misery that she didn't pick up on Sakura's. Sakura left her, but she didn't get far.

She'd been meaning to go back to Juugo, but she was barely fifteen feet away before she was forced to sink back to the ground. Sakura clutched at her head as she sat where she fell, curling in on herself as she fought the vertigo that was threatening to overwhelm her. She felt so sick. She was soaked through, her pale hair plastered to her forehead and sticking to her neck in tendrils. Once again she wished for her coat, but it had been lost in the bamboo grove along with their comrades.

Breathe, she reminded herself, just breathe, but fuck did she feel dizzy, and remembering the way that Juugo's wound had squirmed with maggots was making her want to hurl.

For a second there was a break in the rain. Sakura felt a blanket being draped over her back, then she saw a pair of nin sandals and bright red toenails as Susumu crouched in front of her. Sakura pulled the blanket tighter around herself, trying to take warmth from it, but it was hard. She was so cold.

"Is Juugo okay?" Sakura mumbled, rubbing a hand over her face. Susumu nodded. Sakura sighed and kept her palm pressed to her forehead, cracking her eyes open a bit to watch as the Anbu continued rooting around in his satchel. His usually fluffy hair was plastered to his head with rainwater, his white haori sticking to his shoulders and the contours of his chest like a second skin. Susumu was shivering visibly, and Sakura realized that the blanket he'd draped over her shoulders was his own. She began to remove it to try and give it back.

"Here," she said, trying to still the audible chattering of her teeth, but she was unsuccessful. Susumu shook his head and stopped rooting through his satchel long enough to push the blanket back into her hands.

"You need it more," he said simply.

Sakura wasn't willing to argue the point, so she didn't. She tried not to think of the parallels between this conversation and the last one they'd had, before the creature had found them and everything had gone to hell. Be constructive, she told herself, huddling back into the fabric for warmth. Sakura gestured to her own pack, lying discarded and just out of arms' reach. She still had to help Juugo.

"Can you reach into my pack and grab the other blanket for me?" she said. Susumu stopped rummaging around and reached over to her satchel, his slender fingers sifting through the medical supplies. When he found the fabric he pulled it out and leaned forward to give it to her, his eyes wide and expectant, but Sakura shook her head.

"Juugo," she mumbled. "Juugo needs it. He can't get a fever." Then she added somewhat sheepishly, "sorry, m'sorry, I would do it, but I'm—"

"It's okay," Susumu said quickly. Sakura nodded numbly, fighting to keep back the drowning sensation and the buzzing in her ears. She was having a hard time concentrating from one minute to the next, and she couldn't tell if she was actually sick or if it was just her anxiety rising up to kill her. Gods, wouldn't that have been fucking ironic. The timing couldn't have been worse.

She didn't hear Susumu get up, but Sakura knew he had. The thunder crackled, and then the rain was coming down in a deluge, whistling against the tall green grass as it fell in undulating waves. Rain. Nothing but the rain, and exposure. Sakura didn't know what made her more miserable: sitting out in the open under a torrent or hiding in the suffocating old growth of Kusa. She remained where she was for a few more minutes, huddled beneath the blanket. Sakura didn't realize that Susumu had returned until she felt his hand on her shoulder, and then she knew there was something wrong, because he was crouched barely a foot away and she hadn't even heard him.

"I think m'sick," she admitted as the rain dripped down her forehead. Her hands shook against the fabric. She still had to do a thorough chakra check, but was pretty certain even without it. Sakura wasn't looking forward to the fallout with Sasuke. He'd never let her forget the error because he'd warned her.

"Want to eat something?" Susumu asked. "Maybe you'll feel better, then." He held a nutrition bar in his other hand, his upturned palm collecting rainwater as he waited for her to take it. Sakura's mind flew to Juugo: to the maggots squirming inside his shoulder and the worms wriggling in Naruto's bowl. Before she could help herself her stomach was lurching and Sakura was gagging, slapping a hand over her mouth as she quickly turned away. Her back arched, her limbs in agony, and the sudden jerking motion of her head had her feeling so dizzy she nearly fell over. Before she could Susumu moved his hand down to clutch her upper arm.

"Sakura," he urged, shuffling closer. Sakura shook her head and wouldn't look at it. "Sakura-san, please—"

"Not right now," she all but begged from behind her hand. There was water beading in her eyelashes, making it hard to see. Susumu's face was a white and red blur before her. "Juugo's arm, I can't—I feel sick."

"You'll feel better if you eat," Susumu insisted, far too quickly. "You will, I promise." He looked like a cat that had been doused in bathwater, twice as skinny with his clothes sticking to his skin. "Sakura."

"I can't."

"I won't tell Uchiha-san what happened," he said, moving closer until their foreheads were almost touching, the nutrition bar held between them. "I promise. You just… you just have to eat. Just a bit. Until we get to Ame." Sakura tried to move away, but he wouldn't let her. The others were too close for her to run without causing a scene.

"Let go," she insisted. Susumu shook his head and bit his bottom lip, pushing the food towards her.

"If you don't take it, Uchiha-san will make you do it," he blurted out. "He won't wait any longer. Please, just this once. I know you're nervous around him, I saw—"

Sakura's heart dropped. "What does Sasuke have to do with any of this?" she demanded. "Why are you watching me all the time?"

"Because Uchiha-san told me to," Susumu said without compunction, his eyes wide and almost innocent in their lack of guile. "I gave him my word." Before Sakura could recover from the confession the pale nin scooted forward to protect their hands from the rain, slicing off the top of the packaging with his nails. He held the now-opened nutrition bar in her direction.

"Please, Sakura," he begged. "Uchiha-san will force you, otherwise."

Sakura understood none of what was being said except that she knew that Sasuke would. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she ripped the bar out of Susumu's hand and wolfed it down before her brain could process that she was actually eating. Susumu remained crouched beside her, so close they were almost touching. When she finished the nutrition bar Sakura sat there beneath the blanket, slicking her hair away from her forehead with a weak hand as she let her tears mingle with the rain. She didn't care if Susumu saw. He'd seen worse, anyways.

"So you like Sasuke," she said. She'd come to the realization that Susumu really liked Sasuke, somewhere in between the first bite of torture and the next. The tone of his words were too specific for her not to pick up on it. The pale nin rested his head on his knees, nodding dumbly as he stared in the general direction of her lap. Gods, he looked so small in the rain. So thin, and miserable.

"Yes," he said absently. His voice sounded very, very far away. "Very much."

"Why?"

"When I came to Konoha he treated me better than the others," he said, still staring towards her lap. "He was nice." Susumu paused delicately, then added almost as an afterthought "but he makes you sad, so I get worried."

Sasuke's creature, Sakura thought, and she was so torn by it, because Susumu was sweet and kind and ridiculously gentle, but an uncomfortable picture was beginning to form inside her head. Susumu watched from beneath white-blond eyelashes. He said nothing.

"So you watch me because Sasuke told you to." Susumu nodded and Sakura felt sicker. She'd almost trusted him. How could she not? He was so nice and he was nothing like Sasuke, but he seemed to feel no shame about the action. "Why?" A slim hand extended, pale fingers reaching for hers. Sakura drew her hand away and wouldn't let him hold it. Susumu quickly withdrew and hid his arms between his knees and his chest. He didn't try again.

"Why?" Sakura insisted. A flash of lightning blanketed the sky, and in the glare of it Susumu's tattooed face was skull-like.

"You should ask Uchiha-san when he gets back," he said. Then he added, "You shouldn't hit him. He didn't mean it. He's just bad with words."

"He was insulting you," Sakura said over the fall of the rain. Susumu shook his head, his fingers curling into fists against his chest.

"He wasn't," he insisted. There was befuddled apprehension in his eyes, as if he were having a hard time understanding why she was so confused in the first place. "He's just stressed. Please, Sakura-san. He worries about you and the Hokage all the time."

Sakura didn't understand it. It hurt her head just to try and wrap her mind around the concept. She had no idea what was going on between Sasuke and the rest of the LSF. "Why are you so forgiving?" she asked. She wanted to say why are you so loyal, but it felt less like loyalty and more like something else, only she didn't really have the words for it.

"Because we're the same," Susumu said. Sakura couldn't make heads or tails of the statement in turn. She didn't want to. Above them, the lightning flickered.

Author's Note

Once again, a huge thank you to everyone who reviewed/favorited/followed. I'm thrilled you like the story so much, and that the OCs are being so well received.

To those I couldn't PM:

Mara M: I'm not sure I can promise a happy ending, but I will do my best to give you a satisfying one. Fangirl: I like the twins too! But I'm totally biased towards my OCs, so you probably shouldn't take my word for it. Papernoted: For now, yes, updates will be every second Friday, but I'll let you guys know if anything changes. ALSO. I'm going to post the update schedule in my profile, so everyone can see any changes there. Re character relations: whatever happens between Sakura and Sasuke (or Susumu), I can say that it will respect all the characters' autonomy without having to abandon them for their trauma. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

Mayerdice: Oh wow, I just checked out the grievers from Maze Runner. So cool! But not like the things in Monomoth. Kallano: I really like your username. And yes, I've heard this story is making the rounds on tumblr. I've been trying to make a better effort at checking my tags. Anii: Everyone's finding this through tumblr, it seems! I'm very thankful to the tumblr folks for spreading the word. Guest (who teared up): My evil plan is working, then.

Yura: I've never seen SNK, to be honest. My lil' brother calls me a heretic. Amea: I would love to be amazing, but unfortunately I don't think I'm there yet. Guest (asking if this is all a dream): Aww man, you really think I'd pull a dream-within-a-dream sequence on you? That's some heavy conspiracy talk right there. But I assure you, I'm not that evil. Guest (wondering at the greater purpose): Fair enough critique. 50k words isn't that long for me, but I usually go back over my stories at a later date and tighten things up here and there, to make it flow faster. So there will be tweaks. Regarding the origin of Sakura's instability: it's coming, and as for mysteries I usually answer most of them (just never all at once). But I'm well aware this story isn't everyone's cup of tea. If your mind wanders, it's totally understandable.

Guest (who hates Susumu): That's a shame that you think he's a gary stu. Unless you tell me exactly why you think he's one, however, your review doesn't help me much in terms of improving the story.