"They're here! Did you get everything, sweetie?"
"Wait, wait, one more minute!" I yelled, running back upstairs.
I opened the door to my room, where I grabbed both Utako and Komai. I placed them in my backpack, their heads peeking out. I frantically looked around to see if there was anything else I might have forgotten.
I noticed my desk drawer was slightly open. My important papers weren't inside. My dad must have taken them.
My summoning scroll rolled out. After a pause, I decided to take it with me, fastening it to my belt.
As I was about to go, I saw one last thing on my desk.
My All-Gift Box.
Before I could reach for it, my dad called again.
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" I said, throwing on my backpack.
I thought of the things inside my All-Gift Box. I decided I was being silly. I was right to leave it in my room, where I would never lose it.
"Here!" I said, saluting.
The guards at the Konoha main gate looked amused. They flipped through more of my papers, and Otoha's too. With no more place in Konoha, Otoha decided she was going to the capital too.
"Well, everything seems to be in order, Miss Uchiha. Your leave has been granted for ten years," he said, stamping my papers.
"Ten years!" I exclaimed. "I'm not going away that long!"
The guard chuckled. "That's the maximum," he said. "Of course you can come back before then. But not a day longer, not without coming back for renewal, is that understood?"
"Oh." I nodded, smiling.
The Dropouts pulled me into a big group hug. Tamaki showed her extra wristband. Grinning, she promised to hold down the fort while I was gone.
Michio squeezed me blue, almost lifting me up off my feet. Hana lightly punched my arm.
"Hey, what's with that face?" Gin asked when I reached him. "You're going to the capital, not the moon. I can run to the capital in like an hour."
"Can not!"
"Can too," he bragged.
Despite myself, I did feel better.
My dad gave me the hundredth hug for that day. In his hands was Doku, who gave me a nose tap.
Ms. Hyuuga patted my dad before he could cry again. She remembered something, taking out a beaded bracelet from her pocket.
"Ah, if you may do me the favor, Ayae… Mr. Ekkusu left this behind at the studio. Do you mind returning it to him?"
Curious, I took the bracelet. It was wood and looked odd enough to belong to Mr. Ekkusu. To Ms. Hyuuga, I nodded.
She smiled.
Aunt Mikoto sadly couldn't make it, but Sasuke was there. He gave me something wrapped in cloth. I knew immediately from the smell what it was. Her cookies!
Finally, Shisui. He stared at me seriously. "Okay, squirt, one last time. Fungus, let's go."
I cleared my throat.
"A girl must protect herself at all times.
"A girl must respect herself at all times.
"A girl must make herself comfy.
"A girl must trust her senses.
"A girl must feed herself.
"A girl must find herself.
"A girl must go have fun.
"A girl must follow her heart.
"A girl must make lots of friends.
"A girl must tell Shisui all about it, her super-duper fantastically awesome adventure!"
I grinned madly as he patted my head. "You're ready," he said, proud.
Otoha was waiting for me at the back of the wagon. But I couldn't go yet. Time ticked by but I still couldn't go, waiting.
Shisui knew who I was waiting for. I knew I was being silly, waiting. I already knew that he couldn't come today, no more than Aunt Mikoto could come.
Yet, my feet wouldn't move.
Before Shisui could say something, there came a lift in the wind.
"Sorry I'm late."
My head whipped around, just as the person took off their ANBU mask.
"Wait. You? He sent you?" Shisui demanded.
Mr. Hatake shrugged.
I learned that Mr. Hatake would be my escort to the capital. As the wagon pulled away, he sat on one side. Otoha sat on the other side, a cat on her lap. I sat in the middle, watching all my friends and family disappear, watching the village disappear.
It was going to be a long trip. Both Otoha and Mr. Hatake had brought a book to read.
I just hugged my backpack with my dolls. At some point, I remembered the bead bracelet in my hand and decided to put it somewhere safe. I got out my wallet.
I stood up.
"Wait! Stop!"
Mr. Hatake lazily glanced up.
"Stop, stop, I need to go back!" I yelled to the wagon driver.
"We aren't—" Otoha began, annoyed.
"No, I still have Itachi's card! I have to go back! I have to give this back to him!"
Curious, Mr. Hatake took the card for a look. He relaxed and motioned for the driver to continue.
"This is an old card. It's expired," Mr. Hatake said.
Eyes wide, I looked at him, then at the card. Expired? But the photo couldn't be more than a few years old. My identification papers hadn't changed since I was seven.
"ANBU don't have identification cards," Mr. Hatake continued. "This one should have been destroyed a long time ago." The, and you definitely shouldn't have it, went unsaid.
Horrified, I snatched the card back. I hugged it close to my chest.
Mr. Hatake looked me up and down, finding me more interesting than his book.
"Uchiha Itachi never struck me as a rule breaker."
"He's not! I—" I shrunk. My head spun, trying to understand this new information. "He's not in trouble, is he? You won't report him?"
He blinked. "Over an ID? No. I'm not scum." He leaned into his hand. "Photos are rare," he said. "Photos of precious persons, even rarer. We all wish we had more."
We looked at each other. That was when I understood… Mr. Hatake was not a tattletale either.
We opened up. I shared Aunt Mikoto's cookies. Mr. Hatake put away his book.
Our conversation felt a lot like my conversation with the Hokage. Maybe because our one thing in common was Itachi.
But unlike the Hokage, Mr. Hatake did not know Itachi at all, despite working together on countless missions. This was because it was not appropriate to speak during work. And they never spoke to each other after work either.
Mr. Hatake was surprised by some of my stories of Itachi. Before the school fundraiser, it never occurred to Mr. Hatake that Itachi might have a friend. And even then, he didn't realize that when we said "friends", we meant friends.
He didn't realize that I went over to Itachi's house a few times a week, and Itachi would drop me off at mine. That we did fun things together, that we spent hours and hours chatting and playing games and watching movies and eating watermelons on hot summer days.
Mr. Hatake had trouble imagining Itachi doing things like that. To him, it was all so… childish and quaint.
He thought we had meant the shinobi meaning of "friends". Which was just anyone you liked. Anyone you'd want to protect.
I suppose you could look at it that way, and that definition was certainly true in our case. But...
"Mr. Hatake," I said, a little in disbelief, "if put it that way, then everyone in Konoha would be Itachi's friend."
"Because Itachi likes everyone," he said flatly.
I nodded. "And he would protect anyone."
Mr. Hatake said nothing.
Then he sweat-dropped.
"I see now. No wonder he dismissed me back then," he said, scratching his nose.
I relaxed. His feelings didn't seem very hurt by this discovery.
"You considered him your friend?" I asked.
"After the third time he saved my life, ah, I did assume we had something special," he joked. He stared at the card in my hands, and everything made a little more sense to him. "But I admit, that's something different, and I don't blame Itachi for seeing it differently, if you're the comparison."
"It's not too late, you know," I said grimly. "You just have to talk to him after work… and buy him dango."
His eye curled into a smile. "Maybe."
He said it was very strange. I was now the fourth or fifth Uchiha he knew. The Uchiha were supposed to be cold and selfish, but all of us turned out to be surprisingly warm-hearted.
"Who told you the Uchiha are cold and selfish?" I asked, alarmed.
"Hm?"
"Who told you the Uchiha are cold and selfish?"
My clan got grumpy when they hadn't had their tea. And a few got mean at times and did mean things. But as a whole…
I thought of all my aunts and uncles and cousins.
As a whole, the Uchiha sacrificed themselves and their families to protect others and their families. As a whole, they were the third largest patron of the hospital. As a whole, they gave Konoha the gift of fire.
Itachi couldn't come to say goodbye because he was too busy serving the Hokage, too busy serving the village.
My shoulders rose. I wanted to know who was telling these lies, because the truth was very clear from our actions.
"Maybe, Mr. Hatake, you've only met warm-hearted Uchiha, because the Uchiha are very warm-hearted," I said.
His eye widened.
Then, very slowly, he grew serious.
"If I may ask, Ayae, why are you going to the Fire capital?"
I blinked. "You don't know?"
"I tend to operate on a need-to-know basis." He paused. "In this case, I need to know."
"To dance. I'm going to dance school," I answered.
"To dance," he echoed.
I nodded.
I wiggled my arms. I would have done a full dance in the wagon, if there were more room. But somehow, I felt neither Otoha nor the cat would appreciate that.
Mr. Hatake still looked like his world had turned upside-down.
"Mr. Hatake?"
He snapped back.
"Hm?"
"You see Itachi a lot, right?"
"You could say that."
"Could you pass him a message? Could you tell him… I'll get better. And when I do, he can come see me dance." I breathed. "If he could come to my performance… that would make me really happy." My voice cracked.
Mr. Hatake recovered.
"Okay."
