"Come on!" I yelled, pushing my brown hair out of my eyes. "You promised to give me a work out!" I shook my head at the two Kusabana nin.

"What the hell… pissed you… off today?" Yasuo wheezed out as he struggled to sit up from where I had smashed him in to a nearby tree. Kaemon wasn't fairing any better, though he had chosen to save some energy and just lay where he had collapsed.

I growled out loud. "The Hyuugas are full of idiots," I answered, plopping down between the two boys. "The so-called 'leader' of the clan thought that Rai would actually choose to live by controlling my body instead of learning how to travel blind."

"She wouldn't," Yasuo instantly reacted. He let himself just fall back in to the dirt, giving up on sitting up. "Rai's not that kind of person."

"I know that," I grumbled. "But they don't. They assumed that I was a horrible enough person that Rai would willingly take away my freedom."

"You know I wouldn't do that," Rai spoke through me. My head turned towards the two boys and I could tell she wanted to see their reactions. "Right?"

"We know," Yasuo encouraged. He closed his eyes and just lay there. Rai turned my head towards Kaemon, surprised to the find the older boy asleep.

"Okay, girlie. You can have it back," I said out loud as my vision started to fade out.

I sighed as I ran my hands over my funeral clothes. "You managed to destroy them," I told the woman in the back of my head.

Yeah, but you enjoyed it too.

Yasuo just ran away from you the whole time. Kaemon at least tried to fight back.

Yasuo knows he would never stand a chance against me when I'm pissed off.

I rested my head against the tree behind me only for a second, until I heard footsteps moving towards us through the forest. I sent out a flash of chakra (I still had plenty. Ran-san had used almost none while beating up the other two). I was only slightly surprised when it was Neji-san's chakra that was found. I knew somebody would come after me but I wasn't sure who. "Come out, Neji-san," I called, not bothering to move.

I heard him enter the clearing. "What happened?" he asked, referring to the two sleeping jounins in the clearing.

"You and your uncle made Ran-san very upset. She took it out on them."

"I apologize for how he treated you, and I apologize for the fact that I should have stood up for you and I didn't."

I raised my eye brows. He had never apologized to me before, not in the almost three years since we had become teammates.

What the fuck?

"I know, I'm just as shocked as you are," I answered out loud.

Neji-san moved towards me, sliding down the tree to sit down next to me. "What did she say?"

"She's shocked that you apologized. You've never apologized to either of us." I turned my face away from him and down towards my lap. I remembered that he didn't like to be stared at.

"I apologized for reporting you to the Hokage about your seal and blindness."

I couldn't help the almost desperate chuckle. "No you didn't. You told me that it was for everyone else's protection that you reported me. You wanted to make sure I was safe to be around. I ended up being the one to apologize for my behavior," I retorted.

He fell silent for a few moments before sighing heavily. "I owe you a number of apologies," he said quietly.

Ran started laughing which made me confused.

What are you laughing at?

The absurdity of that comment. Ask him how he's going to make it up to you.

I was confused. "How are you going to make it up to me?" I asked, hoping that he would better understand the meaning behind it than I did.

It's typically what someone would ask when they're looking for make-up sex! She cracked up laughing again.

"Ran-san!" I gasped out loud, blushing vividly.

"What is going on in your head?" he asked.

"You don't want to know. I don't even want to know." I dropped my head in to my hands, curling up my legs in to my body.

I was slightly surprised when I felt a gentle hand brush over the top of my head, almost petting my hair. I turned my head in his direction, pleased when he didn't allow his hand to fall. "Neji-san?" I asked softly.

"I have a lot I need to make up for, don't I?" he answered, just as quietly.

I didn't respond. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feeling of his touch. I opened them again when I felt his hand move to grasp my shoulder, pulling me towards him. He moved me so that I was using his shoulder as a pillow, his arms wrapped around me. I turned my head towards him in silent question.

He shrugged. "Might as well start making up for it now." I felt him settle more in to the tree, relaxing.

"This makes an odd picture, I'm sure: cuddling in the middle of the woods with two unconscious jounin."

He chuckled. "I'm sure."

I couldn't help but sigh heavily as I settled against him, closing my eyes. "So much has happened," I murmured.

"It's been about a year since Ran came. You're becoming part demon. You're a chuunin. We're getting married," he listed off.

"Lee-san will never be a ninja again," I added.

"TenTen has been training every moment of the day since she was beaten by that sand girl."

I smiled. "I think her and Ran-san would get along."

"All of us should get to know Ran. She isn't going away."

Like you could get rid of me. I'd like to see you try!

I chuckled. "She says you couldn't get rid of her if you tried."

"I'm going to have to get used to that, aren't I?" he asked, referring to Ran's voice in my head.

I nodded. "I am getting physically stronger, thanks to her. I have access to all of her memories and she has access to mine. You know that saying, 'two heads are better than one'? I basically have that."

He was quiet for a moment. "That stuff she said about your parents; is it true?"

I opened my eyes and pulled away from him, sitting up straight and facing him. I felt his warm hands take my cool ones as I tried to figure out how to talk about this. "Kusabana is not a kind village to live in. It tends to be horribly misogynistic and rather brutal in its ways. My father was in line to become the next Kohana elder until his youngest brother, more than twenty years younger, was born with darker blue eyes. The Kohana blood shows itself through the color of the eyes: the darker the blue, the thicker the blood. My father was outraged and packed up the family and moved to Konoha shortly after I was born. He hated my mother who was not Kohana, and blamed her for the fact that my brother, Towa's eyes were green. Before I was blinded, my eyes were so dark blue they were almost black. I have been told that I have the thickest Kohana blood in a century. My father hated me for that and treated Towa like he had the Kohana blood and I was born with green eyes. I was about three years old when the beatings started. My mother didn't even bother to try and protect me, but he had been beating her for years.

"He was raising Towa to be like him. He had Towa participate in the beatings of both me and my mother." I took in a deep, shaky breath as I clutched at his hands. "When Towa killed them, he tried to kill me too. He poisoned them in their sleep and tried to do the same to me," I told him in hushed tones as the memories rushed back. "I woke up and struggled, knocking the poison off its aim. It hit my eyes, rendering me completely blind within twenty-four hours. I was eight years old." I stopped talking. It was the first time I had ever told the entire story to anyone and it had shaken me.

I almost cried out when he pulled his hands from mine, but when I felt his fingers gently wiping at my face I realized that I had started crying during my story. I closed my eyes tightly, clenching my hands in to fists as I tried to stop the tears. "I'm sorry," I breathed, trying to pull away from him.

He wouldn't let me. He gathered me up in his arms, my head resting over his heart and he just held me as I cried. Over a decade of pain built up rushed out, breaking the dam that had been holding it back. I clutched at his shirt, glad to have something solid to hold on to.

I don't know how long we sat there but we moved from our curled up position when the two other Kusabana nin started to wake, moving to sit beside each other instead.

Yasuo sat up and looked around, seemingly lost. Once he caught sight of the two of us and the fact that they were still in the clearing, he frowned. "You just left us on the ground?" he asked, seemingly shocked.

I raised an eyebrow at him, glad all traces of my tears were gone. "You're too heavy."

He gasped as if I had said something horribly offensive. "How dare you! Did you even try?"

"No."

He pretended to faint, collapsing back on the ground. "Oh, the humanity!"

Awake but not having gotten up yet, Kaemon resolved to simply throw a nearby rock at his teammate. "You're worse than Sakura," he grumbled before he pushed himself to his feet. "Ran feeling better now?" he asked, remembering the reason he was asleep on the ground in the first place.

I nodded. "She's calm now, especially now that Neji-san has apologized for his actions earlier." I pushed myself to my feet as well, offering a hand to Neji-san to help him up. He refused it and stood on his own, but clasped it as soon as he was standing. "You know I am now strong enough to pull you up, right?"

I felt him shrug and I shook my head.

"You should take us to dinner because your alter ego beat us up," Yasuo suddenly declared, jumping to his feet.

I shook my head but agreed. "Neji-san, will you join us?" I asked, hopeful.

"Of course. I would like to get to know your team better."

I could hear Rai giggling like a loon in the back of my head as I cackled at Yasuo's antics across the table. I elbowed Neji who had been hiding his eyes and shaking his head for the last fifteen minutes. "Rai says you never relax. It's time to!" I gestured towards the bickering idiots across from us. "When do you ever get to hear an argument about such pressing topics?"

I finally got him to look at me and it was more exasperated than anything. "I don't believe I ever needed to hear a debate about the pros and cons of using ninjutsus during sex."

"That's because you have no idea what you're missing!" Yasuo interrupted. He pushed his blonde hair out of his eyes. The yellow-gold seemed to almost be burning with how much energy he was expending on such a conversation that had caused several patrons to ask to be seated away from us. "You've never had sex before, so how the hell would you know the wonder of being able to use a vine jutsu to tie up your partner while doing the nasty!"

The poor genin dropped his head in to his hands again, groaning. "I don't know how Rai puts up with all of you," he grumbled.

"Rai loves us!" I answered, really wishing we had managed to score some sake from the waitress, but she had called us out on being underage. "You should hear her right now. She's giggling like crazy. But that could be that she's just laughing at your reaction to the conversation. If she was out, she'd be doing the same thing you are just as red as a tomato."

"Konoha doesn't even teach its ninjas vine jutsu. We don't have any families that specialize in earth energy."

"Kusabana is mostly earth energy," Kaemon cut in (probably relieved to change the subject), smiling slightly despite having contributed very little to the conversation. "My family has some fire techniques, but nowhere near where the Uchiha family was before their demise. Hopefully with your marriage as alliance, more techniques can be traded back and forth. The Elders were hoping to discuss it as soon as the new Hokage is put in place." The eighteen-year old looked thoughtful as he turned his gaze around the restaurant. "I heard that they've already sent someone to go find the new Hokage."

I scoffed. "You somehow manage to hear everything. I think it's because you like getting lost in the shadows and spying on everyone. Yasuo agrees."

The blonde nodded vigorously. "You're like the epitome of super-spy ninja!" he stage-whispered.

Red eyes narrowed on his partner. "Do you even know what 'epitome' means?"

"No, I've heard Rai use it." Yasuo grinned.

"You're lucky it actually means what you're trying to say. Kaemon would kick your ass otherwise." I chugged back my drink, again wishing it was something stronger than a soda.

Would it be safer if I stopped talking to him? Rai asked.

"Probably," I answered out loud. For some reason, she and I had been answering each other more and more out loud than through thoughts. If people didn't know any better, we would have been locked in the loony bin with a diagnosis of psychosis faster than you can say 'I have another person living in my head'.

"If she's saying that she needs to stop talking to me, ignore her," Yasuo insisted, moving so his face was centimeters from mine. "I need our conversations!" he whined, making his eyes wide and trying to look innocent.

I couldn't help it. I grinned then licked his nose, pleased with the disgusted reaction it gave me from him. "She needs to talk to you like she needs another hole in her head," I told him, pleased with watching him rubbing at his nose with a napkin and repeating 'ew, ew, ew' over and over. "Oh, you're fine, you big baby!" I said with a grin.

"Are you sure you are older than me?" Neji asked the three of us.

I grinned. "Technically, I was asleep for thirteen years. I was seventeen when they sealed me up. Then I've been back out for about a year. That would make me thirty-one, so yeah, I'm quite a bit older than you. But I don't want to count the years I was sleeping so I'll say that I'm Kaemon's age: eighteen."

"It's boring to act grown up all of the time," Yasuo whined, dropping his head down on to the table.

"It gets you more respect," Neji counted.

"And no friends," I added, smiling when he glared at me. "Seriously! Everyone just wanted to beat you up because you were a total ass. Now that Naruto put the smack down on you, you've been a nicer person. I know Rai's excited about it." I grinned at the sound of her protests in the back of my head but she did nothing else to stop me. "She likes you ten times more now that you aren't insulting her anymore. I mean, I don't understand how she liked you in the first place. From her memories, you were a total ass to her. But, on the other side, you reminded her of someone that she had always tried to garner respect from, so she probably, unconsciously, replaced him with you and substituted those emotions." I could feel her practically face palm.

"And why didn't you go in to counseling, Ran?" Kaemon mused, slightly impressed with the psychological profile of the younger female.

I shrugged. "Only crazy can judge crazy," I stated. "How do you think I knew the stupid sound kid, the one who acted like a spider, was crazy?"

So you're saying I'm crazy?

"We all are, girlie. Haven't you noticed?"

Kaemon rolled his eyes and Yasuo grinned as Neji just grumbled in to his hands.

She didn't even bother responding.