"If I reached to the sky,

Would I ever take flight,

And bloom without a single fear?

If I reached out to that sky,

Would my heart come back to life like a lie?"

-White Silence, BriCie

Yahiko crouched in front of a group of lilies.

After what happened, Naga planted more around the hideout.

Yahiko stared down at them, his back to me. He reached out but stopped just before his fingers touched a droopy petal. His hand shook.

He clenched his fist after a second and pulled back. He pressed his knuckles to his forehead. I heard him take a deep, shuddering breath. He looked down at them for another moment, stood, then went in the opposite direction.

I watched him go and thought I understood how he felt.

I stepped close to a flower, knelt, and ran a finger up and down the long stem.

If I couldn't rip them up, I wanted them to shrivel and die on their own.

But they wouldn't. They thrived in the rain.

I dropped my hand and sighed.

バラード

I sat at the edge of the lake. The water was tinted purple. Dead fish floated on top.

Maho reached for a big fish floating on its side, red leaking out of its silver scales.

Naga grabbed his wrist and Maho's fingers twitched, hand hovering over it as it bobbed listlessly.

"If I extract the poison then maybe I could make an antidote. If an animal drinks from the lake and gets sick—"

Naga shook his head. "You can't," he said firmly.

Maho's hand clenched but he sat back, frowning.

I looked sideways at Naga. "Did you make an antidote yet?"

"No. It's... hard. I don't think I can," he admitted. "Not until I find a chemistry book."

I hummed.

"I'm more worried about it spreading underground," he murmured.

Yahiko stood feet away, idly tapping the nagamaki against his shoulder as he stared at the water.

Joji cleared his throat and I glanced back. He knelt beside a patch of grass. "The footprint here is from a shinobi sandal. Better quality than most," he signed. "Enough of it is intact to have been made only in the last six hours."

I looked back at the purple swirls in the water.

Hanzo the Bastard did this.

"Can you tell if he came alone?" Naga asked.

"If he came for this reason alone and was confident in his skills, he would have no reason not to," Joji signed.

Would the Bastard poison every animal in Amegakure just so we couldn't eat?

I turned to Naga. "Why didn't you tell me about the Sage of Six Paths?"

Joji stood slowly, unable to move as fast as he used to, and walked a circle around the lake.

Naga looked confused for a second before his eyes lit up in realization. "You saw not-Madara again?" he asked.

"I didn't," I promised.

He relaxed. "I didn't think he was real," he admitted. "I still don't know. We can't know how much of what not-Madara said was true and how much were lies. The Sage of Six Paths was always something make believe, like the story about the princess from across the sea."

"But the masked man has his own dimension," I pointed out.

Naga didn't answer immediately, glancing at the lake. "You said his eye was red?"

I nodded.

He looped his arm around his knees. "It sounds more like he has a dojutsu to me."

Yahiko glanced over.

"Like mine?"

Naga shook his head. "The sharingan," he guessed. "It's red, and it can do things we've never seen before."

"And it runs in the family?"

"The Uchiha," he answered absently.

On the opposite side of the bank, Joji knelt and looked at a dead fish on the shore. It was a smaller one. Watery poison dribbled from its mouth.

"Wouldn't be hard to pretend to be Madara Uchiha when you are an Uchiha," Yahiko said.

"Is he as old as he says he is?" I asked.

"No. Too many things don't add up," Yahiko answered. "You caught him off guard when you talked about that genjutsu dream, and he tried to cover it up by lying right after. If you did see him because you met before, he should've known exactly what you saw. But he didn't."

"And it was of something that didn't happen," Naga murmured.

"He underestimated you," Yahiko continued. "He thought you would be easy to manipulate. It's not a coincidence he came to you so soon after..." he trailed off.

Naga glanced at the poisoned lake and sighed. "Is this what you wanted, Yahiko?"

Yahiko turned away. "We're not done."

Naga closed his eyes for a moment, then joined Joji on the other side of the lake.

Maho flopped back and covered his face with both hands. I wondered if this was worth abandoning Iwagakure for.

の

Naga spat a yellow ball of acid at me, making the reverse ram seal.

It was small, about the size of a textbook, but it would splash if I let it hit the ground. And even if a little of it met skin, it would burn and burn and burn.

I could still hear him mumbling that he was sorry over and over.

I threw up my left hand. It struck my palm, curving around my hand, suddenly soft and malleable. The acid made it to my wrist before it began to shrink, sliding backwards, and I felt pinpricks of nature energy down my hand and up my arm.

The instinctive reaction was to absorb the energy into my reserves, but I couldn't. It was a type of chakra I didn't know how to deal with. If I let it linger in my body or mix with my chakra, I'd turn into a slug.

So, I didn't.

My hand was still raised when the energy slid down my pathways, was rejected by my chakra, and bounced back up. I felt an itch in my throat, the sting of acid as the jutsu reformed itself, and I made a protective layer of chakra inside my mouth.

I leaned forward and spat it back at him, weaker, more chakra than acid, but he already disappeared.

A flicker to my right, a shadow on the sand, raising its fist. I jerked back—but not fast enough. Pain blossomed across my cheek and my head snapped to the side.

I stumbled back but didn't fall.

The acid ball hit the sand and bubbled, eating through it.

I touched my cheek and hissed at the sting.

Naga dropped his hand. "If you had enough time to try and dodge, you had enough time to counter."

"I'd lose control if I pushed chakra out around me," I denied. "And you were too fast to try and focus it."

"I could slow down."

"It would just be more holding back. Like this." I gestured to my cheek. The hit should've knocked me down.

"I tried not to," Naga said with a small, rueful smile. "I was using my full strength up until right before I hit you."

"You should've been born somewhere else," I mused.

He looked at the sky. "Why do you say that?" There was insecurity under his even, casual tone. He wouldn't meet my eyes, and I knew why, because I knew him.

He thought I thought he was weak. Not physically, but mentally. Because he held back, because he planted flowers for the people he killed, because he couldn't kill without his hands shaking.

But that didn't make him weak. The same way how Yahiko used to spare our enemies didn't make him weak, either.

"I don't think you're weak," I said, and heard his soft inhale. "You're the strongest of all of us. Even Mamoru-sensei."

He raised his arms. A blue line ran down his shoulder and split in two at his elbow, tracing his bones down to his wrist. He looked unconvinced.

I stared at the spot where acid burned a hole in the sand. "You must think Konan was really weak."

His eyes jerked up to mine. It was a low blow, but I didn't stop.

"She held back against me too, all the way to the end," I continued. "She'd always taunt me or start laughing so hard she couldn't fight anymore. But I never thought of her as weak."

He frowned.

"I really miss her, sometimes."

"If she was here, she wouldn't let me think like this," Naga murmured, glowing fingers touching my cheek. "She'd boss me around until I believed I was better than I am."

I looked at him. "You deserve better, Naga."

He waited, then frowned. "But not you?"

Did I?

I thought he should've been born in Suisai because there he could help people freely.

I thought he should've been born in Konohagakure because he wouldn't have to kill as much.

I thought he should've been born in Sunagakure because there was no civil war there.

But... me?

What was better to someone raised to kill and maim and hurt?

"She wouldn't let you think that you're worse than me. I'll always regret making you feel bad for not feeling guilty when you were little. No matter how much I try to move past it, it still comes up again," Naga said, shaking his head. "I was scared of you growing up the wrong way, but I was jealous too. Planting lilies doesn't always help. Back when I held the guilt in and shut everyone out, I hurt you. I thought it would be easier, sometimes, if I didn't feel at all."

"It's not easy when you feel bad for who you are," I said.

Naga winced. "I was a bad brother to you, wasn't I?"

"No. You did your best," I answered. "You were a little kid. You didn't know how to raise yourself, but you had to raise me."

Naga sighed and sat. The blue lines receded. "It feels like I messed up a lot."

"You kept me alive. You didn't have to."

"I did," he denied. "You were all I had left."

"But it would've been easier," I mused.

Naga shook his head. "I never would've been able to steal without you, and then I would've starved, because I was too much of a coward."

"You would've survived," I said with certainty.

"No. I would've died, lonely and sad and guilt-ridden."

"Konan would've found you," I said, but I couldn't think of why.

Naga stared at me for a second. He took my hand and tugged until I knelt, then pressed the back of his hand to my forehead.

I hummed. "It's spilling over again?"

"No," Naga said, but didn't elaborate. He dropped his hand and looked at me again.

"What?"

"Could you tell me what you saw in the genjutsu about not-Madara?" he asked, unusually serious.

"He won't kill you, Naga," I promised. "I'll kill him first."

Naga didn't answer right away. "Tell me about how he turns intangible. And about his dimension."

"He uses his eye," I answered, plopping down. "He went through things in the genjutsu too."

"It lets him do it forever?"

"No."

"How long?"

I picked up a handful of sand and let it fall through my fingers. "Don't know."

Naga went quiet. "Tell me everything he did to me."

I hesitated, imagining the version of my brother I saw in the genjutsu. Eyeless, helpless, begging, but Naga looked at me with trust. Trusting me to tell him the truth.

I told him.

王

Maho hovered over a green-black bird, breathing hard, a glowing hand cupping a tiny wing.

It laid in the center of Naga's folded cloak, asleep as Maho put the bones in its wing back together. Naga, opposite of him, watched him work, scrutinizing his chakra.

"He's underground," Yahiko announced, his first words as he entered the hideout.

There was only one person he could be talking about.

I watched Yahiko pick his cloak up from where he'd left it on the floor and slip it on. He pulled off a hat and tossed it aside, abandoning his civilian disguise.

Naga sagged, lifting his gaze.

Mamoru-sensei leaned forward, an intense look in his eye. "Where?"

"Southeast. Near the border," Yahiko said distractedly, fitting the nagamaki to his back. "An abandoned shelter."

Mamoru sat back for a moment. "Doro shelter?"

Yahiko picked up his weapons pouch and didn't answer.

"It's a trap," Mamoru-sensei said. "No one's known where the Salamander's been since he left the tower. It's a set up for another ambush."

Yahiko paused. "So what?"

Mamoru sighed. "Let's assume it's not. What do you think it means that the Salamander let his location become public? He won't be there when you get there, or he'll already be dead. You're smarter than rushing in blind."

"Yeah. I used to think that."

I knew that no matter what was said or done, he'd go, even if it was alone.

"What'll you do about what's waiting for you if it's an ambush?" Mamoru-sensei asked, staring hard at his back. "You think your need for revenge is strong enough to take down every shinobi still loyal and the salamander, by yourself?"

Yahiko's fingers twitched. "If that's how it has to be."

"It won't bring her back," Naga said, quiet and sad.

"I'm going," he decided, ignoring Naga. "Are you coming with me or not?"

"I'm not," Naga said, frowning. "The village is broken in more ways than we thought. Killing him won't fix that. It won't make shinobi value civilians. It won't change that most of the civilians have given up on shinobi. It won't even fix us."

Yahiko didn't turn around.

"We've given up on the people here," Naga quietly added, pressing a hand to his face. "We never helped those civilians leave the village, and we stopped catching fish for them before Hanzo poisoned the lake."

Yahiko tilted his head back and said nothing.

I looked at him, at Naga, then at the twine around my wrist. I promised a little boy I'd kill them all for killing Kota.

We didn't need to kill Hanzo the Bastard, I mused. We could lock him away, like with the traitors in Suisai. We could force him out of the village.

But in either scenario, he was alive and I wanted him dead.

Killing Hanzo the Bastard wouldn't change anything, except maybe I'd hate a little less.

I stood.

Naga sighed at me and I wondered if it would always be like this.

Us, opposite of each other. He'd come if I asked, but only to protect me. I'd stay if he asked, but only so he didn't worry.

"I'll take Namekuji with me," I promised.

"Who's that? Because this Namekuji never agreed to this," Namekuji spoke up, but I didn't smile.

Naga looked at me, mouth opening to tell me to stay, but he didn't speak. He dropped his gaze to his lap, hands curling into fists.

I wouldn't ask him to come, and he wouldn't ask me to stay.

How many times could he throw away the little morals he had before it was too much again?

How many would die before we were done?

He couldn't protect me until I was old and gray.

"Namekuji," Naga said quietly. His tone was unreadable, but Namekuji must've understood, because he sighed noisily, but slithered up the back of my leg.

"Nagato-sensei—" Maho began, panicked, and the bird was shaking, vomit on the cloak.

Naga shifted closer to fix whatever he'd done, and that was that.

Mamoru-sensei shook his head but stood. "I won't make the same mistake twice. As much as I disagree with what you want to do, I won't let you walk into a trap without me," he said. "And I've got my own debts to settle with the Salamander."

Mamoru glanced Joji's way.

"The path you're on will lead nowhere," Joji signed to Yahiko, and stayed sitting.

There was nothing left to say.

.

.

.

Mamoru-sensei crouched, pushing aside black sand. He revealed a rusty metal panel two inches under it, the word 'door' drawn on in black ink.

He looked down at it for a moment, sighed, and made the snake sign. I heard a low rumble, sand and earth shifting as it slowly opened, the panel sliding back under sand, revealing a moss-covered stone staircase. Sand poured inside.

I could only see the first few steps, and beyond that it was a dark hole.

"The lanterns are always supposed to be lit, even if it's not in use," Mamoru-sensei noted.

I looked at Namekuji, half hanging over my shoulder.

He scoffed. "If no one was here, I wouldn't have walked all this way."

I thought of telling him he neither walked, nor came here himself, but before I could, two kunai lodged in the cracks at the top of the staircase. A paper bomb was wrapped around each.

Mamoru-sensei reacted first. A kunai appeared in his hand. He flicked it to the side without looking and I followed it with my eyes, just as I heard the sizzle of paper.

I made the snake sign and I was in mid-air the next second, Namekuji sticking to me with chakra, and the kunai was swallowed by the blast.

The boom was deafening.

I twisted, skidded back as I landed on my feet, and held an arm up in front of my eyes to ward off the heat and smoke. Namekuji shifted down my back to avoid the blast of hot air.

I peered under my arm and saw Mamoru-sensei standing farther back, having body-flickered away.

That made Yahiko the closest. He braced, arms raised, face turned away.

Hanzo the Bastard underestimated us, or his shinobi should've aimed better. Osamu died because the kunai with the paper bomb had been inside him, and he would've taken it with him if he used substitution.

Do you think us so weak, Bastard?

Rain beat down the fire, until only a circle of burned sand and blackened stone was left.

Do you think we came all this way to die easy?

"When I signal, cover the hole with a wall," Yahiko said, but didn't wait. He made the tiger sign and inhaled, his chest puffing up.

Tiger. Hare. Boar. Dog. I dropped down and pushed my hands down into the sand until I felt earth. I poured my chakra into it as Yahiko shot a small fireball into the hole. He signaled to me with his other hand.

The earth roiled, breaking up through sand and curving over the entrance.

The wall was blasted with a sudden, intense burst of heat as the fireball erupted inside, engulfing anyone and anything within. I heard muffled yells and screams. The outermost layer of the wall melted near instantly.

After a few seconds, it was quiet as the heat began to die down, the wall wilted and goopy. Yahiko waited ten seconds, then gestured at me.

I pulled my chakra back and the wall fell apart.

Smoke flooded out.

I stepped closer. The fire put itself out without chakra to feed it, but the walls were blackened, and there was a dead shinobi on the staircase, burned so badly I couldn't make out features.

Water was on the stairs, a failed attempt to put Yahiko's jutsu out. I wondered how much chakra he used just to make sure they would all die.

I looked at him as he passed me and went down, but he didn't look tired. He wouldn't have let me see if he was.

He made the tiger seal with his left hand, held up his right, and flames appeared at the tips of his fingers. It smelled like ash and death.

Mamoru-sensei looked down at the dead Yahiko stepped over but said nothing.

"Did you talk to Yahiko, Mamoru-sensei?" I asked.

"He didn't hear anything I tried telling him," he answered.

"Maybe after this."

Mamoru glanced at me. "Don't underestimate the salamander."

I only shrugged and followed Yahiko down.

"What'll you do if you or the orange-haired one can't beat him?" Namekuji asked.

"You'll eat him."

Namekuji scoffed. "I don't eat assholes."

"Then maybe I'll eat him."

Namekuji peered at me, unsure if I was joking.

Yahiko fed fire to a lantern higher up on the wall, only a little burned at the bottom, and a small circle of light flickered around him.

The hall extended to the left and right, then both ways branched off north.

Mamoru-sensei stopped on the second lowest step. "Both ways lead to the main shelter room," he said. "It was built this way to prevent overcrowding."

"The asshole is that way," Namekuji confirmed.

A shinobi darted into the open from the left, wearing a rebreather, barely in the circle of light. Her hands twisted into the bird sign. She reared back to throw a jutsu, but Yahiko was already moving.

The shinobi was forced to duck to avoid being decapitated.

Mamoru-sensei glanced at him, then me. "Take the right. I'll make sure he doesn't get reckless."

I nodded and ran, stopping just before I turned the corner. The stone was cracked at the edge of the light circle, dirt on the floor where there shouldn't have been.

An earth-style shinobi that stopped Yahiko's fire. I turned the corner and faced complete darkness.

"Duck," Namekuji warned, a whisper in my ear.

I dropped down and heard a crash behind me like a dozen bricks hitting the wall.

The shinobi in front of me grunted in surprise.

"Five assholes," Namekuji said. "The hallway isn't wide enough for them to all attack at once."

I spun a kunai in my hand and held it up in front of me.

"Northwest. Nagato's height."

I slashed sideways and heard a surprised choke when my kunai hit skin and sliced through, a thump a second later as the shinobi choked, hit the wall, and slid down. I felt sticky blood beneath my feet.

"Do that push thing northeast."

I raised my right hand and pushed. I heard a shout, a thud, and a groan as another hit the wall farther back. "You could help."

"You're right," Namekuji agreed. "Below you."

I jumped as the stone beneath me broke apart, flipped, and landed on my feet on the ceiling.

Namekuji's slimy body brushed my chin and I heard him spray acid. The shinobi below cried out.

I covered my nose and mouth with my sleeve at the acrid smell. I heard one try to order those still alive to retreat, then Namekuji turned and his words turned into a garbled scream.

I waited for Namekuji to tell me to dodge kunai, to hear the rumble of an earth jutsu or the splash of water, but there was nothing.

Is this all, Bastard?

I wondered if this was what left of the shinobi, if all Hanzo the Bastard had left were the tired and the hungry and Root.

"Turn south. The asshole is that way."

I waited for any sounds, but all I heard was the hiss of acid.

I turned away, walking along the ceiling until Namekuji told me to turn left, around another corner, and I saw light spilling out of a room in the middle.

Hanzo the Bastard killed Konan, sent his shinobi to kill Kota and Osamu, and he was right there.

I dropped down.

I heard fighting at the other end of the hallway, but I didn't look at the shapes dancing on the walls. Yahiko, blade sinking deep into a back. Mamoru-sensei grabbing a shinobi behind him, holding on until they went limp.

I didn't try to hide. If he was as good as Mamoru-sensei said he was, he knew I was there.

I stepped up to the doorway and Hanzo the Bastard knelt in the middle of the room, sickle and chain in his lap, waiting for us.

Do you remember me, Bastard?

Hanzo looked at me in disdain. "I knew the Akatsuki would come," he rumbled. He stood, slow and casual, and I burned. "You continue to prove that the only one I can trust with a task is myself. It's about time I end this."

He leapt, throwing the chain out with his left hand, raising the sickle with his right.

I raised my right hand and the chain snapped away from me. Hanzo flew backwards and hit a desk at the back of the room, cracking it down the center. Scrolls and ink hit the floor.

He pulled himself out of the wreckage and slammed a hand to the floor, just as I stepped into the room.

Paper tags surged up through the cracks in the stone, circling up around my feet and sticking to my legs. I couldn't move.

"It's time for you to stop interfering," he said, and made the tiger sign.

Except.

Except each tag was filled with fire chakra.

I focused and absorbed the chakra into my legs. I couldn't use my hand to fix it to one point, and I felt Naga's chakra in Namekuji being absorbed too.

He immediately dropped off my shoulder, the stripes on his back pale.

Fire chakra scorched my pathways, but it didn't hurt. I let it flow through my chakra network, pushed it back into the tags, and they were mine.

Surprise flashed in Hanzo's eyes not only when the tags didn't explode, but when they slithered off me and crawled across the floor towards him.

I laughed at him. "I'll only let you kill me after you're dead."

Hanzo made the bird sign and shot wind at the tags, ripping them to pieces and forcing them to explode. Smoke filled the back of the room.

I ignored the faint ringing in my ears from the blast, eyes flicking to the left as the chain snapped out at me. I threw a kunai, pinned it to the floor, and heard Hanzo land quietly behind me.

A stream of acid shot at him before I turned, forcing the Bastard to sidestep.

I pushed, catching him off balance, but he still tried to stick in place with chakra, staring at me with unyielding eyes.

I smiled a little and increased the pressure.

Stone ripped up under him, and there was nothing for him to hold onto anymore. He smacked into the back wall and fell, struggling to push himself up.

I stared at him.

This was it? This was the man Mamoru-sensei told me not to underestimate?

This was the bastard that overpowered Konan?

"Who are you?" I asked, because this wasn't the man who fought Jiraya and Tsunade and let them live when he didn't have to.

What happened to you?

I was suddenly furious.

"How?" Hanzo asked back, uncomprehending as he stared at me.

I stepped back and I laughed again.

Maho could beat you if he tried hard enough.

I laughed harder, back hitting a corner of the doorframe, and looked at him through my fingers.

This is what blocked our way?

This is what almost destroyed us?

Yahiko walked into the room, blood on his cloak, blood on his blade. He stared at Hanzo like they were the only two in the room.

He didn't see me at all.

Mamoru-sensei stepped up to the doorway as Yahiko closed the distance between himself and Hanzo.

Mamoru glanced at me. I covered my mouth, squeezing my side so hard my nails dug into my skin.

Barely on his feet, Hanzo blocked Yahiko's blade with his sickle, staring at him in disbelief.

Yahiko kicked his knee and he crumpled, sickle bouncing off stone as he dropped it. "How is this possible? I defeated you before so how—"

"'Defeated me,'" Yahiko repeated coldly. He crouched. "You never fought me."

"I imagined this day a thousand times," Mamoru-sensei mused, blood on his face. He slipped his hand in his pocket. "But not once did I think they wouldn't need me. I should've done it myself."

"Okay," Yahiko breathed, and stood. "It's finally time for you to die—"

Hanzo lunged at him, yanking on the chain, and Yahiko caught his wrist. The sickle slid a little and scraped against stone.

He stabbed Hanzo deep in the gut and the Bastard's pupils shrunk.

"I want the last thing you think of to be me, taking everything from you," Yahiko said. He pulled the blade out and Hanzo brushed a hand over the wound, staring at the blood on his palm in shock.

Purple seeped from it, and I heard Yahiko hold his breath.

"What genjutsu is this?" Hanzo looked past him, at Mamoru-sensei. Yahiko raised the nagamaki. "When did you gain the power to—"

He choked, glancing down at the blade suddenly in his chest. He tried to speak as Yahiko drove it in deeper and the light left his eyes. He sank down against the wall, wide eyes fixed on the floor.

Yahiko looked at Hanzo's body, at the blood smeared down the wall, and his shoulders sagged. He left the nagamaki, surrounded by wisps of purple, and moved to the middle of the room.

He closed his eyes, "I thought that would make me feel better."

A/N: バラード - Ballad, の - Of, 王 - Kings

Oka - 12-13

Yahiko's (unofficial) theme song is ScaPEGoat (specifically the English cover by AmaLee).

In case you didn't know, canon!Hanzo stopped training completely when he abandoned peace, thinking himself too strong to need it. In Axis' timeline, this happens at the end of the Suisai Arc. Still in his prime at Shido Valley. Not so much after three years.