AN: So this arc is mostly up to Takezou's interactions with Asuma and basically getting feedback on his poor state of mind that's so all over the place.

Chapter Title: Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.
Part 4

After the bodies were cleared and we began cleaning up, the large guy that Asuma had charred woke up for a short moment and tried to escape only to be knocked unconscious again when he tried to bite his own tongue off to kill himself. From what I was told after the fact the Shabada-doo confessed to killing to the prior king and his reasons boiled down to the King wanting to share his wealth with the people under his rule, but with the Prince away he decided to enact a plan to take power of the island and all its wealth.

The guard guy that showed up late to the party informed us that the King wasn't dead but he wasn't in a position to be moved so Sakura and Kakashi went with him to where he was currently stowed away, Michiru was rightfully having a hard time coming to terms with everything still.

Kiba was looking after Hikaru and Michiru by letting the boy play with Akamaru to calm him, preferably neither of them would have had to witness any of the killings that happened, but due to how it ended up they did.

I was still sitting around resting from over exertion with Hinata in a similar boat from having used a fair amount of chakra to say the least.

"T-Takezou?" her voice asked looking at me, we were both pretty haggard and I'm not even sure why, maybe it was that poison they mentioned.

"What is it Hime?" my amber eyes met her translucent white.

"What w-was that new move y-you used?" she asked back ignoring my use of Hime, her eyes cast themselves to the blade I had expected to lose, but ended up being fine.

"Its one of the many things I learned from my aunt, I just never saw a reason to use it beforehand." a heavy breath left me feeling tired. "I know a whole load of techniques like that." I repeated mostly for myself as a reminder that killing always seemed to be the easier option rather than keeping someone alive.

"Wh-" Hinata began to speak but I cut her off unintentionally.

"That was actually only one variant of that move; there're a few other ways to do it." realizing I cut her off I motioned for her to continue only for my dark blue tinted haired teammate to dismiss her thought by shaking her head and letting me continue.

"Ah right well, preferably I would have done the technique with a much longer sword because it's made for a blade a similar length to the larger swords I use." shrugging I lent back and realized there was nothing to lean against only to be caught by a hand before I fell backwards.

"Well it was one hell of a move, I couldn't even track it." Sensei said with a level of pride in his voice that made me glad to hear. "When you said that you had something for the shinobi earlier like that I was a little concerned it would be underwhelming, but you sure showed us- speaking of showing us, Hinata I'm proud of what you managed to do for us today so don't forget to take pride in your skills seeing as if we hadn't had that plan baked with your numbers and callouts then this might have ended much worse for us." he put his hands on either of our shoulders giving us a massive smile like a proud father.

"Does this mean we'll be going home after we help the Prince with the King then?" I asked and Asuma seemed to think about it.

"Depends reall-" he was cut off by the sounds of a circus rolling through the gates making their way to us.

[Scene Dismissed]

Eventually Sakura, Kakashi and the guard came back with the King of the island who had half of his body turned to stone. The red haired guy that Sensei was watching over after some coercing helpfully informed us that he did it and that it was reversible we just had to let him do it, Asuma had scoffed at that and voted to take Ishidate's glove that was the supposed source of the petrification. We also found out that Sakura could actually heal it as well so before sensei started trying to get the glove to work she worked her magic.

The Prince managed to have a brief conversation with his father about something I didn't stick around for because the man looked like he was dying and that it would be his farewell to his son, in the meantime we started helping Korega the guard captain that had stayed loyal even after the Coup. he wanted our help informing the residents of the island that the panic was over and that they could resume their normal routines, along with that we got told that we would be sticking around until Michiru was crowned King.

Which meant that yet again Kiba, Sakura, Kakashi and I would be at our second coronation for a ruler of a nation.

Why?

Until then though they interrogated Ishidate and Shabada both of whom were going to spend an eternity in prison, the big guy that was with Ishidate ended up killing himself in his cell a few days after being put there.

The petrification gauntlet got destroyed and tossed into the bottom of the ocean and much to the sadness of Ishidate he found out that his comrades had both died, one by my hand and the other by suicide. He asked to be killed as well once he found out, he expressed that they were the only thing keeping him going, so Kakashi did the job.

I ended up spending a good majority of our time on the island training on my own in the forest, most of it was spent trying to perfect more of the techniques Ume had taught me seeing as they seemed to work far better in combat than I had assumed. The obvious reason I had initially come to that conclusion was because they rarely worked outside of one on ones and seeing as I never did get a chance to do mine in the Chuunin Exam I didn't get a chance to try one of them that I was preparing for Kankuro.

Other than all that though nothing much happened for the rest of the time we were at the island, though at some point I think Michiru must've figured something out because he mentioned going and seeing about talking to his partner. So I hoped that went well for him when he did it, his son seemed rightfully ecstatic about his mother coming to the island to live with them again.

Though speaking about Hikaru he asked if I could show him more about archery and it wasn't like I was doing anything anyway, so I said I would. So I spent two days of my time showing the kid what he wanted to learn about and basically just flexed some more of my apparent teaching skill.

Teaching huh?

Maybe I should ask Sensei more about that.

And that's what led me to where I was now, I had found Sensei walking around near the main beach trying to keep a group of women away from him because they were fawning over him. He looked like he really just wanted to be left alone but really didn't want to say something to make them mad or whatever.

It was nearly our last day now anyway, we were leaving three days from now so getting some more time in with him and Hinata was on top of my priorities at the moment. Walking closer to the crowd that had formed around my teacher I started hearing some of what was being said and I suddenly felt like what I was doing was now a service rather than wanting to make things worse.

"Hey Asuma!" I called out getting his attention. "What would Kurenai say if she saw you now, with all these ladies? 'Cause I know I sure am appalled." The last bit came out more jovial than the rest and it seemed to do the trick as he was suddenly left alone except for me.

I was sure I heard a few of them say something to the effect of sleeping with him even if he already had a woman.

"You really are some kind of impossibility aren't you?" He joked putting his hand on my shoulder for a moment as we began walking along the shore.

"Something like that." Shrugging I dismissed the comment.

"Shouldn't you be with Hinata?" he asked, looking back in the direction of the city where said girl was hanging out with Sakura and one or two other people. I hadn't really taken much interest in what they were going to do.

"Are you implying that my time is better spent chasing after the tail of my teammate then coming to my teacher to ask for help with trying to get this jutsu down?" I joked yet still there was the slightest amount of truth in it after I said it and thought about what I had said.

"Well are you implying that learning a jutsu is more important than spending some well deserved down time on your friend while we're effectively on vacation?" we had stopped walking and he was looking directly at me with his 'I am your Sensei' face on.

"You're right once again Asuma."

"That's just because you knew that before coming to find me Takezou." there was a short pause. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked in a voice full of concern.

My mind was a wasteland of thoughts all disorientated and looking for a way out often leading to things that I might not intend for others to hear, so it was hard to converse with people some times. It's why I loved Kenjutsu and Kyudo so much, because your actions spoke volumes about your person without you having to utter a syllable.

"I'm still trying to figure out if I love her."

"You- what?!" Asuma's reaction was complete bafflement followed by the cigarette, I hadn't even realized that he had started smoking falling from his mouth to the ground.

"Well I asked myself about it back after I found out Sasuke left..." my voice trailed off before I explained myself more. "Or rather I re-evaluated all my relationships with everyone, from my parents and sister right down to someone like the Hokage or the store owners that I oftenly interact with."

"Right."

"So when I finally looked at our relationship it was more like you're my second dad if not my older brother of some kind and for Hinata she's always been my sister if anything." I had sat down on a log and was using it as a chair. "The more I thought about it though I wasn't really sure if I loved her or if I loved her, maybe its just my head being all muddled about all this stuff happening to us."

"Shit, you freaked me out for a moment there." he sounded somewhat relieved about something. "You're just a confused kid going through puberty Takezou, don't think too hard about it all. Just go enjoy the vacation like you should be doing." Asuma patted my back pushing off in the direction of the town.

"I-" I was going to say something but Sensei cut me off.

"Don't look back now, that's a bad habit of yours where you always think about the past and let it choose who you are- you always spent time telling Sasuke about all that stuff, but every time I heard you say it- there was always an underlying hypocrisy to it all. So go now, hang out with Hinata and the others from team seven, stop thinking about all this stuff that's bogging down your mind."

There was a pause while I took in his words before he continued.

"Remember that you're allowed to be a kid, at least until you've got more responsibilities."

[Don't Look Back In Anger]

The day we finally arrived back in the village was nice and bright, though I had given up on wearing the shawl by that point and was just walking around shirtless because I was just headed straight home seeing as we had a bunch of crap to write out in our reports. Though the shawl thing I had given up on a few days before we hopped on the boat and headed back for the land of tea.

I did get a lot of looks from people as we passed them in the street and its not like I didn't know why, I mean I am of Lightning decent, I'm walking through the village dressed in white and black gear that was tailored for much hotter climates all the while having obvious tattoos as well as the sword on my right hip.

Surely I must be someone else then.

Around the time we were coming up on the Hokage Tower I dismissed myself from Sensei and Hinata, leaving to where I caught sight of my Dad walking back towards the direction of our house. Running up to him I found that he was walking with his younger brother, Toyohisa was dressed in his Konoha blues and so was dad.

My Uncle noticed me first. "Y'know those really pop when you aren't wearing a shirt, though I think if Kaede saw you she'd ask what happened to it." Toyo commented nodding in my direction so dad could see me. "Well that and the new look isn't half bad even if you look like you should be living in Wind."

"That's… an interesting new look Takezou, did you decide to move to the Land of the Moon while you were there?" Dad asked.

"No, but we did kill some guy that was trying to overthrow the King and Prince there- or well we didn't kill him he decided to off himself while in a cell." I started explaining what happened on my mission to them and both of them actually didn't know about the Kenjutsu technique I used which was odd seeing as their older sister was the one that taught me it, surely they would know she could do it right?

It was like that technique I used on my aunt that I disarmed her with despite the enormous gap between our power. To be fair to that move I made up though, I said to her at the time that it was useless outside of dueling scenarios and was inefficient against another Shinobi because they probably can at least throw a punch if I disarm them. That and there was a fairly big flaw in it that is pretty easy to see if you've seen the technique before.

Eventually we arrived home and Dad's brother left going in a different direction. I was assaulted by Kaede when I stepped in the door after dad and quickly found myself being berated for not wearing a shirt. So stumbling through the house I fell into my room only to find my sister playing with some kind of toy I didn't recognize, letting her do whatever it was she was doing I dropped all my equipment in the corner, put the sword in place she couldn't reach then grabbed some clothing out of my dresser and went to have a shower seeing as I hadn't had one in days since we came straight back to the village after landing in the port town we left in the Land of Tea.

AN: Another short arc for one of the movies done, though like I mentioned up at the top this was mostly just for a bit of combat and also Take's talks with his teacher. something else I'll mention though is more a question to everyone, is he finally uncaring of killing/jaded? or is his mind just so far gone that he can't see it any longer?