"I'll hide the pain, thoughts of what could be,

Inside a dream, a fantasy,

It clings to me, and I struggle free,

But it always drags me back down."

-Beautiful Cruel World, AmaLee

Dog. Snake. Horse. Tiger. Snake. Dog. Tiger.

Mamoru-sensei slammed his hand against the stone floor. Cracks surged down the hallway and spread under the remains of the shinobi I fought. The ground shook.

I watched the floor buckle and cave in, burying them. Earth surged up and smoothed over the hole, replacing the stone floor with one of dirt.

Mamoru-sensei pulled his hand back and the shaking stopped.

"How many shinobi do you think are left in Amegakure?" I asked, behind him. The lantern in the middle of the hallway gave everything an orange hue.

Mamoru stood. "Give it a few years," he answered. "After the Second World War, civilians were inspired by Hanzo and became shinobi. There are those who'll want to learn to fight to be like you, too."

Like me?

Someone so drenched in red that it would never come out? Someone who wouldn't mind becoming a monster to kill a monster?

"They'd be inspired by you too, sensei."

He didn't say 'us.'

Mamoru-sensei eyed the seam in the floor where dirt met stone. "I'm not old enough yet to take credit for what I didn't have anything to do with."

"You trained us," I pointed out.

Mamoru shook his head. "If not me, you would've found someone else."

I looked at the lantern on the wall, watching the shadows flicker and dance. "It wouldn't have been the same," I said. "Maybe I never would've learned any earth jutsu. Maybe Osamu never would've come to us. Maybe we never would've found anybody else."

"Lucky you found me, then." He sounded off, somehow.

"Lucky for us, or for you?"

Mamoru looked at the stairs. "I figured we wouldn't be able to pull this off without another death," he admitted. "And it would be me. You and Yahiko would've made it out alive, and I'd have taken Hanzo down with me. But, it didn't happen that way. If you and Yahiko came alone, you would've killed him. And now... I'm the only one left."

"You're wrong."

Mamoru glanced back.

"There are a lot of us left. Me, Naga, Yahiko, Joji, Namekuji, and Maho."

He moved his stare away. "It's not easy to come back from being prepared to die," he said. "I was ready for a deathmatch. It isn't luck or paranoia that kept Hanzo in power this long. When he was on the battlefield, he was his own army. We just cleaned up after him."

I ran my fingers along a groove in the wall. The only evidence left of my fight was the dried acid stains.

"Wherever Tadao, Osamu, and Konan are, they'd have a lot to tell me. The life I lived up until now—it wasn't the best, but it wasn't the worst. It was enough. But I'm still here. It's not easy," Mamoru said again, shaking his head.

"Too bad."

His eyes flashed to mine.

"You didn't die. You don't get to see them," I said. "Konan wouldn't want to see you if you let Hanzo kill you."

I could be mean when I wanted to be.

Mamoru-sensei frowned. "Any other time, Yahiko coming here would've gotten him killed."

"Maybe. That doesn't change that you came here to die."

"I came to protect both of you."

I dropped my hand. "Not by fighting as hard as you could, but by dying."

"I was being realistic about what we were walking into."

I only smiled. "It's easy to pretend to be noble when you're dead," I said. "Besides, nothing would've been okay if you died for us. It would be worse, even if you don't think so."

I turned away before he could respond and walked down the hallway. The dirt was soft and cold under my feet.

Yahiko and Naga were in the main room of the shelter.

Naga sat closer to the door, a neat pile of scrolls next to him. Yahiko sat on the broken desk, open scrolls on the floor around him.

Even if Mamoru-sensei helped more, it would take them days to go through all the messages Hanzo ignored.

"I think I'm going to ally with Kusagakure," Yahiko said. He tossed a cream scroll up but broke into a coughing fit before he could catch it and it tumbled away. Poison came out with his breath and he slapped a hand over his mouth, turning his face away from us.

The veins on his hands were still visible, but not as prominent, pale purple and thin instead of dark and swollen.

"What's Emon protecting you from?" I asked.

"If only it was that simple," Yahiko drawled. "The short answer is that she isn't. It's like how people dose themselves with small amounts of normal poisons to become resistant to them. Emon does that for me. She secretes poison, and I keep it contained to my lungs with a chakra barrier. It's actually a good chakra control exercise—"

"'Normal poison?'" I mused.

Naga put down the scroll he was reading with a sigh, "It's more like how I learned to take in nature energy. I could only take in a little at a time at first, and I slowly worked my way up to more."

"That's what I said!"

"Where do people poison themselves?" I asked Naga.

"Sunagakure, I think."

"Point is, I have to get used to—" Yahiko broke off, coughing again.

"If it's only in your lungs, why is the rest of your body still poisoned?"

"That's not Emon's poison. It's from the triplets. It's different. Emon is breaking it down, but she can't take it all in at once."

I leaned against the doorframe. "Why does she have to be in your lung to do that?"

He picked up the cream scroll. "Because she's a baby."

I blinked.

"Nagato looked at me like that too," he said idly, tossing the scroll up and down. "Emon is a baby salamander. That's why she's so small. Kansetsu told me that she can't control her poison yet, but she doesn't secrete much. She needed someplace warm, wet and dark to grown, hence—" He gestured at his chest.

I thought of Ibuse, towering over shinobi. "How big will she be?"

"While a salamander outgrowing my lung is a pretty terrifying thought, she won't. Shouldn't. If she does, you have my blessing to kill Kansetsu."

"You won't die," Naga murmured, reading a scroll.

"But I will be traumatized."

"What makes Emon's poison different?" I asked.

Yahiko's smile faded. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and stared at the scroll in his hands. "Ibuse's poison isn't meant to kill. It's meant to paralyze his enemies so he can eat them. Emon—" He coughed hard. "—Emon isn't that nice. Her poison is like the triplets'. It attacks the lungs first and paralyzes them. Makes it so you can't breathe."

"The triplets were bad. It felt like every muscle in my body locked and it took everything I had just to keep breathing. I couldn't even use chakra. I stopped being able to feel anything after a while," he continued. "But Emon doesn't do that. The more of her poison breathed in, the faster your throat swells and closes. Even if you can breathe, it won't be for long."

Naga stared at him and Yahiko flinched when he looked up. He tried to smile but couldn't quite manage it.

"What does she eat?" I asked.

Yahiko turned and blinked. "What?"

"Emon," I prompted.

No matter what you say or do, you'll always be Yahiko to me.

He blinked again. I waited for him to take the imaginary hand I extended to try and lighten the mood, watching his eyes light up in realization.

Yahiko groaned and dropped his head in his hands. "I don't want to talk about it," he said, muffled.

"She eats the mucus lining his lung," Naga answered, as if the last minute never happened.

"I never should've told you that."

I paused. "Wait. Where does she use the bathroom?"

Yahiko groaned louder.

回復

Standing at the edge of the shore, I watched the sea surrounding the village. Water lapped over my feet and buried my toes in sand.

The waves were calmer, smaller, and I wondered if that was because of the sun, too.

A boat could ride to the other side with no trouble at all.

A fishing pole made of wood and string stuck out of the sand next to me, the line bobbing in the water. The 'bait' was a worm Yahiko dug out of the ground.

How long could a worm live underwater?

Yahiko laid on the sand next to me, hands laced behind his head.

"Happy birthday, Yahiko."

"My birthday..." he trailed off. "It's today?"

I faced him. "You didn't know?"

"I didn't want to," he admitted. "I wanted to forget all about it. When it came around again after Konan died—it was too much."

I watched waves carry the fishing line closer to shore. "She picked Naga's birthday too."

He stared up at the clouds. There were only a few, wispy and white and almost see-through. "What's today's date?"

"February twentieth," I recited. "It's supposed to be that day, anyway."

"'February twentieth,'" he repeated.

"Naga's birthday is in September." I freed my feet from the sand.

He tilted his head towards me. "Yours is in December, right?"

I shrugged. I knew it was after Naga's, but before Yahiko's, because Konan thought I should be last.

She decided everyone's birthdays around mine.

"Nagato told you it was my birthday?"

"He never forgot. Maybe he knew you didn't want to hear about it, too."

Yahiko's eyes widened. He shook his head. "He deserves a better best friend. He thought I'd be upset, didn't he? That why he didn't come here himself?"

My feet were buried under sand again. "He's busy. He's been neglecting Maho for a while now."

Yahiko relaxed. "Man, I can't believe he got an apprentice before me."

"You wanted him to have students," I pointed out.

"After the hospital was built."

I looked at him, wondering what difference that would make, and he was grinning at me.

He didn't explain, and I didn't ask.

"And I wanted to watch you fish," I said.

Yahiko laughed a little. "Yeah, that's not going to happen. I haven't caught anything all day. If there are fish, they're way out there." He gestured beyond the shore.

"Why do it then?"

"It's relaxing. I don't have to worry about anything," he said. "I can't fish the way I want to, but I can be someone without responsibilities for a little while."

"'The way you want to?'"

He gave me a lopsided smile. "I used to fish at the lake."

Now there were no fish there left to catch.

I gestured farther out. "You could just catch whatever yourself."

His smile widened. "That's not as fun."

He didn't make sense, but in a lot of ways, I didn't either.

I sat close to the fishing pole. "Teach me what's fun about fishing like this."

His eyes lit up.

外傷

I stared at the red splatter on the floor, then up at Yahiko. He sat in the middle of the room, shirtless, a sleeve of his cloak tied around his mouth.

Naga knelt in front of him, stitching a gash closed with slimy black thread. It stretched from the top of his shoulder to the bottom of his collarbone.

Namekuji was on my brother's back.

At the opposite end of the room, Joji held a shinobi in a headlock.

It was someone wearing a purple vest, like the shinobi that guarded Hanzo. Someone with a headband with a line scratched through the middle. Someone with hands dripping blood and fingers bent at odd angles.

A scarlet-stained kunai was at their feet.

Someone who tried to kill Yahiko while Naga and I weren't here.

I felt cold. I slowly breathed out.

The shinobi struggled, legs dangling against stone, grasping at Joji's arm, at his face, but Joji's grip was steel.

Someone loyal to a dead man.

I stepped into the room.

I hope it was worth it.

Because he wouldn't find forgiveness from me.

Yahiko shook his head as I reached for a kunai and I stopped. I watched Joji drag Yahiko's would-be assassin back, past me, and out into the hallway. The shinobi made muffled sounds against the hand over his mouth.

"It's barely a scratch—" Yahiko signed, then shuddered, squeezing his eyes shut. He glanced at Naga, breathing hard.

"My hand slipped," Naga said, but he didn't sound sorry.

"You did that on purpose," he signed.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Naga wiped his bloody fingers on his pants.

"You deserve it," I said. "You shouldn't joke about this."

Yahiko looked at me and dropped his hand.

"What's Joji-sensei going to do with him?" Maho asked. He sat on the floor in the corner, reading from a scroll Naga wrote for him.

I crouched and looped a finger through the ring of the kunai, raising it to eye level. Blood dripped from the tip, down into a small puddle. The attack happened only a few minutes before, maybe less.

"Torture, probably," Yahiko signed.

Maho grimaced. He rolled up the scroll. "I thought Joji-sensei said that revenge doesn't lead anywhere."

I lifted the kunai higher and stared at the wire tied around the handle.

The shinobi only came here with this. There were no other tools on the floor, no pouch or explosive tags. I doubted Joji would've let him keep them.

Were you here for Yahiko? Or to show us that there are people still loyal to Hanzo, even if the cost was your life? Why?

Because Hanzo treated shinobi better? Because you think we won't?

"It's not about that. Where Joji-sensei comes from—" Yahiko stopped signing and shook his head. "They don't treat traitors lightly there. It's not personal. It's what he would do with anyone."

Maho stared at the floor, frowning.

"Naga should teach you to hide your feelings better," I said. I glanced at Naga, but his attention was on a length of thread he pulled from his pouch.

Maho sighed. "I'm more familiar with torture than you think. That's what my ex-division did. Infiltration and capture. It's why I hate it so much," he murmured. He stared at his open hands. "That's what we were doing here. Iwagakure wanted to invade Amegakure. If they took this place, they'd have an outpost between Sunagakure and Konohagakure."

"But my ex-village wanted to know how strong Hanzo was first. He beat the sanin, but that didn't tell them enough. They didn't know if the battle was close, or if he did it easily," he said, hands clenching. "Our mission was to watch Hanzo, then capture someone close to him. We didn't know how strong they'd be, but they needed to be taken alive and quietly, and it might've taken all of us to do that. Then my old captain would've stayed behind to pretend to be them. It wouldn't matter if he was found out, because he'd have nothing tying him back to Iwagakure. And in war, it could've been anyone."

The sanin.

Jiraya, Tsunade, and the third one I never met.

Maho leaned his head back against the wall. "But nothing happened like my ex-commander wanted it to. We made it across the sea without detection, but a team from Konohagakure found us. They were leaving the same way we came in. 'No witnesses, no evidence,'" he recited. "If it were Kumogakure, or Kirigakure, maybe we didn't have to fight. But Konohagakure was the enemy. They were 'kill on sight.'"

I watched him shudder hard at the memory.

I wondered if that was his first real fight, a battle between experienced shinobi in a country he'd never been in before. A battle outside the safety-net of spars or Academies.

It seemed like it from the way he grimaced.

Maho shrugged. "Then we took too long and the Akatsuki found us."

"The Third Shinobi World War is over," Yahiko signed.

Maho's eyes widened.

The war was...?

"It's been over for months now. I only found out yesterday."

I stared at the kunai hanging off my finger. The blood was half-dry. The wire was stained dark red.

Joji was outside, torturing a shinobi for information.

Yahiko's chest was streaked red.

Is this what peace looks like?

Maho dropped his head in his hands. "It's not," he said. He took a deep, shaky breath. "I don't believe they just stopped. The Third World war happened only a few years after the Second."

Naga sat back. "Don't move too fast. It'll take longer to heal if you keep pulling the skin."

"What would I do without you?" Yahiko asked, muffled.

"You'd have a lot more scars."

Yahiko laughed. He stood, wincing, and pulled down his cloak-mask. "They didn't stop," he admitted. "It's not official, full blown peace yet. It's more like the bigger countries agreed to a ceasefire. I bet there are still skirmishes, but on a smaller scale. I can't promise there won't be another war either."

Maho shuddered again. "What can you promise? You made me believe you could accomplish peace, and it just led to more death."

Yahiko went still.

Naga frowned. "We didn't want this to happen either—"

Yahiko interrupted Naga with a humorless, bitter laugh. He rubbed the back of his head, eyes on the ceiling. "I did, didn't I? I'm sorry," he said.

Maho's head jerked up.

"But what I know is that there won't be any more genin on the battlefield. At least for a few years. That's what the ceasefire means. No country sends badly trained kids to war because they want to," he continued. "If even three or four years saves genin from having to grow up as fast as we did, I'll take it."

"What difference would it make?" Maho asked quietly. "They'd still be sent out when it started again."

Yahiko moved behind the desk, to the corner he left the nagamaki in. "Would you rather be eleven when you went to war, or fifteen?"

Maho stared at his back.

Yahiko reached for it and his hand trembled. He squeezed his wrist with his other hand, grabbed the nagamaki, and spun back to Maho. He never lost his smile. "If you could've waited a few years before you were sent out, would you?"

I pretended not to notice. I dropped the kunai and stood.

Maho closed his eyes. "Yes."

Yahiko smiled a little. "Looks like I'm a better sensei than you are, Nagato."

Naga rolled up the extra thread and didn't look up. "You can stitch your wound yourself next time, right?"

"No—Wait, I was kidding."

I went out into the hallway. It was quiet.

I found Joji and the body of the shinobi near the bottom of the stairs.

The shinobi sat against the wall, the stone behind him smeared red, eyes closed. Shuriken stuck from his elbows and the back of each knee.

I glanced at Joji. His knuckles were scarlet.

"Tell Yahiko that there were many who were told of where Hanzo was," Joji signed. "Allies and enemies. It sounds like Hanzo wanted to kill all his opposition off at once."

Arrogance.

I hummed. Fresh blood dribbled from the shinobi's stomach. A stab wound. "He deserved more than that for what he did to Yahiko," I mused.

I turned around, daring Joji to lecture me on revenge, but he only shook his head.

"Why use shuriken?"

"Shuriken points are sharper. They hurt more in softer areas," he signed.

"I thought samurai didn't use shuriken."

Joji paused, glancing at the body. "Samurai don't do this. They interrogate, but torture like this would only be for theft of important documents or the murder of an official or clan members, and even then, they aren't as cruel as shinobi. An enemy would first be given the chance to take their own life," he signed.

And I wondered if Joji made the final blow, or the shinobi did it himself.

"Would they torture you, Joji?"

He eyed me. "I'm not a thief or a clan-killer."

"You taught Yahiko samurai secrets," I mused. "Shinobi would call you a thief."

"If I were to return home, they would treat me as a betrayer, an abandoner. If I didn't take my own life, they would do it themselves," he signed.

"That sounds just as cruel, in its own way."

Joji didn't respond. He turned away from me and lifted the body, pulling an arm around his shoulder.

"Mamoru-sensei'll bury it when he comes back," I said as he dragged it past me.

"My responsibility," Joji managed to sign. "And if an enemy sees the result of an attack, the better."

身元

Naga stood back, making a half-dog sign, waterfalls pouring from his mouth.

Waves crashed down in front of me, colliding with enough force to spray water in the air.

Yahiko's knees bent. He leapt up and back, landing on top of a mossy pillar. Pink flowers grew through the cracks. Water smashed against the side, only a few inches lower than him.

There was a small tower further back, leaning heavily to the side. It was near where I met Zetsu.

I threw my left hand up and stood in the shadow of the wave as it came down. It hit my palm and parted around me, absorbed into my palm. The chakra that flowed down through my coils felt warm. It didn't feel cold, like water chakra should've, but familiar.

It was so close to my own that I couldn't feel the difference after a second. But I couldn't absorb all of it. Not when it would overflow my reserves—

Naga burst through the wave in front of me and my eyes widened. He reached for my wrist.

I dodged sideways and he stumbled through the space I'd been a second before. His pupils were gold, eyes shadowed in blue. I held my breath.

The wave crashed down, broke apart the mud I tried to stick to, and tossed me back. Even underwater, I could still see the shine of sunlight.

I could outlast Naga if I stayed under. He couldn't maintain Sage Mode for half as a long as I could hold my breath. But I wouldn't be able to dodge him either. I dodged his grab on instinct, and barely.

I was slow underwater. If he wanted, he could've already won.

Tiger. Hare. Boar. Dog.

I spun, upside-down, and dug my hands in the mud. It stopped me for a second, long enough to push my chakra into the earth before it was ripped up. A wall twisted up in front of me in the next second, too wet to solidify all the way. But it stopped the water.

I landed on my hands on wet mud and pushed up, palms leaving the ground. I was above the wall when it cracked and broke and water filled the empty space. I flipped in mid-air and landed on my feet on top.

Naga sat a few feet in front of me on the surface, making the reverse ram seal with one hand. Without him feeding it, the waterfall was already starting to lower.

I rolled sideways, acid splashing and hissing in the water. I went to roll again when a hand grabbed my ankle.

I fell to a knee, glancing back at the replica of Naga that poked its head out of the water. I dropped onto my back and drove my heel into his face.

He blocked it with his arm and took that ankle, too.

"Stop holding back."

"No," he said and yanked me under.

Upside down, I threw a kunai. It cut through his chest and water closed the hole.

I reached for the clone's leg, but it kept me out of touching distance.

I stretched down, pressed a hand against the mud, and made the snake sign. The earth opened beneath my palm, sluggishly, heavily, and I burned all the excess chakra I had to make it big enough for both of us to fall into.

The clone slipped, stumbling as water was sucked into the earth. It burst into bubbles. I fell. I reached to the side as I fell, hardening where I touched, squeezing water out, and 'swam' through the earth. It was too wet to hear vibrations through, and I burned chakra to keep it solid. A surprise attack wouldn't work against Naga, anyway.

I lost the second I dodged.

Naga was too fast to be pushed away, but nature chakra didn't mix well with water clones. They were slower. He'd kept the jutsu going himself and sent a clone to attack me. He knew I'd dodge. He knew I wouldn't attack back, because the real him hit hard.

I swam away from Naga, knowing he'd follow from aboveground. I broke through the surface behind the pillar Yahiko was on and threw shuriken up at him.

He ducked. "Must be nice to have enough chakra to flood half the village and feel fine," he said, eyes on Naga.

Naga held out his hand and helped me up. His golden eyes faded to black. "I don't think it reached the village," he said.

Yahiko didn't blink. "You don't 'think?'"

"It would only reach the outskirts if it did. At most it would be puddles."

Yahiko tapped his sheathed sword against his shoulder. "You're not making this better."

"Spar with us," I said.

Naga wasn't wearing his Akatsuki cloak. It was too small for him. Mine was too.

"Can't say I'm surprised you're asking after you attack me," he responded.

Yahiko only wore his because he'd torn the too-tight sleeves off and had Naga stitch the tears in the back.

"Shinobi don't play fair," I told him.

Yahiko looked at the sky. "That is true."

I waited.

"Thing is, Emon reacts when my chakra is agitated. She treats even a little stress like I'm about to die. I'm teaching her the difference between normal stress and battle stress, but she sleeps most of the time," he explained. "And I only just started to remember what life was like without coughing every other second."

I hummed. "Why'd you come?"

Yahiko shook his head. "Didn't know I wasn't allowed to watch a spar," he said dryly.

Naga looked up at him. "You don't have to pretend not to be lonely."

Yahiko stopped moving. "Joji-sensei and Maho were great company," he eventually responded, but it was monotone.

I wondered if there would always be some sadness lingering between us, like a bitter aftertaste to something sweet.

"I feel that way too, sometimes, even with other people around," Naga said.

Yahiko didn't look down.

"Mamoru-sensei still hasn't come back?" I asked. I missed Namekuji.

"I don't expect him to for a while," Yahiko answered, hopping down. "Can't be easy finding shinobi who aren't loyal to Hanzo, still able to fight, and willing to hear him out."

"And won't lead him into a trap," Naga added.

"That too." He didn't meet Naga's eyes.

There would always be a ghost following us.

I raised my right hand at Yahiko.

He tilted his head.

"You're going to spar."

He considered that. "I remember you being there when I explained what Emon's poison does."

"You can make an antidote."

He blinked. "I worry about you, sometimes."

"You're too close to dodge," I warned him.

Naga sat and crossed his legs.

"From knowing nothing about poisons to a master so fast," he said idly. "What if I said I didn't know if there is an antidote?"

I smiled. "Then find one."

His blink was slower. "I feel really stressed right now."

"I won't use Sage Mode," Naga said, glancing at Yahiko.

"And now I'm insulted."

"You've never fought me using full Sage Mode," he protested.

"Double insulted."

I lowered my hand. "What if I absorb your chakra? Would that poison me?"

"One, I'm not answering that. Two, make an earth wall."

"I thought you didn't want to spar."

"I'm not. I'm going to do something to fix my damaged pride." Yahiko unsheathed the nagamaki.

I crossed my arms. "And if I won't?"

"I wasn't trying to insult you," Naga said, amused. "I sparred a lot against Oka without it at first."

Yahiko held a hand against the flat side of the blade and it glowed bright red. He gave me a flat look, then turned to Naga. "And you don't see anything wrong with comparing me to a thirteen-year-old?"

Naga leaned forward. "Are you saying Oka isn't worth comparing to you?"

I looked at Yahiko. He opened his mouth, closed it, then turned his back on us, facing the pillar.

"I haven't named this jutsu yet," he said.

He lowered his stance, heat waves coming off his blade, and launched forward. He swung sideways. His blade hit the corner and sliced straight through to the other side.

The entire pillar shook. He stepped back as the top half started to slide, scraping and rumbling as cracks spiderwebbed up the side. There was a glowing red line between the halves.

I stared at Yahiko's back as the top half tipped over and hit the ground hard enough to send a tremor under my feet. I wondered if this is what he'd been doing for the last three years, if it was why he never trained with me or Naga or anyone else.

How long did it take you, Yahiko?

I couldn't help but think of what Naga said before.

It must've been lonely.

A/N: 回復 - Recovery, 外傷 - Trauma, 身元 - Identity

Chapter 22 but with context.

You thought the birthday scene from chapter 8 meant nothing, didn't you? Well think again-*shot*