.

They spent days driving through black

Until one day, at the end of the tunnel, a pillar of light

broke through the shadows.

I sat up in bed after a few hours of fitful sleep.

Sunlight streamed through half-opened curtains, and a whisper of a breeze brushed through the cracked window to tussle the age-worn white fabric. I could hear birds, loud, clear in empty air. The sheets of my bed—mine, for the first time since Wave—brushed against the bare skin of my arms.

A yawn pulled its way up from my chest and ballooned out of me, chased by a second, smaller yawn, an afterthought. My arms went above my head, joints crackled and popped.

It was a new morning. Yesterday, the last week, felt like a dream I was waking up from. If it weren't for the scabs littered on my palm from digging my nails into the delicate skin, I might have been able to believe that was the case.

Detachment, distancing. I could work with that.

Kakashi gave our team the day off of training to prepare for a day's worth of D-ranks tomorrow, that much I remembered. I also remembered being in a daze and telling Naruto I'd see him today as if we did have training still. I didn't want to. Maen was home today, and I wanted to curl up on the couch and spend the day with him, maybe read a book, sketch, listen to some music. But Naruto deserved better than that.

I rubbed away at my eyes. Let out a breath. Forced my legs off the side of the bed, my feet to touch the floor. Walked over to my closet.

All of my gear sat in a sad heap on the ground, in the general vicinity of my closet without actually making it inside. Piece by piece, I stripped out of my pajamas and slid into my mesh, a t-shirt, and biker shorts. I pulled on my weights. On my way out of my room, I grabbed a hair elastic off of my bedside table and put my hair up into a disaster of a ponytail.

Kakashi gave us the day off, but I wasn't giving myself the day off.

I was going to train. Kakashi gave me a handful of different exercises to improve my sense of hearing and smell, all of which required better chakra control than I already had. I needed to work on those, along with the new taijutsu forms Lee tossed my way. Bonus points if I worked on those forms through sparring with Lee. There were some pent up emotions smoulding in the back of my mind that I could do to burn off in a good spar.

I was going to hunt down Naruto and make him eat real food. No ramen. It would have vegetables, and he would eat all of it. Or most of it. No matter what, as long as he ate a meal that involved no ramen, I would be satisfied.

When all of that was done, then I would sit around and become one with the couch.

I grabbed something from the fridge to eat on the way to the training grounds and left a scrawled note in my wake. Maen was asleep, and I guessed he'd stay that way well into the morning given how late he got home. It was possible that he wouldn't be awake even when I got back. Still, it didn't feel right to speed out of the door without some trail left behind.

Gone to train, be back in a few hours.

I was going to be fine today.

I was.

.

.

Despite the early hour, the training grounds were filled with people. Not all of them were from Konoha. Most weren't, actually; a slew of foreign genin crowded the cratered earth as they got in last-minute training before the first part of the exams. They sequestered themselves into corners and ran through the basics. Hand signs, conditioning, projectiles. Nothing that would show their cards to their enemies.

I ignored all of them and walked into the back end of the grounds, past where foreign ninja were given access to. The noise and the incessant buzz of chakra died down. Most of the Konoha ninja were in this section of the training grounds, the genin especially, taking advantage of the privacy afforded to them.

I picked an empty area, way back, and got started. Time blurred into a haze of movement and sweat, no noise in the air but my heaved breaths. Blissful mindlessness took over. No thoughts to race over the barren landscape of my mind, no anxious feelings to set my heart at an unsteady beat and move my hands like a puppeteer. Just peace.

It didn't last as long as I wanted it to.

Ino stomped into my sanctuary with the kind of grace civilian women wanted to cultivate in their young daughters. It was an odd thing, how one could make something normally rough, smooth.

"Go away," I said.

"No," she said.

I fell into a neutral stance, every inch of my skin coated in sweat. "Ino, I'm busy."

Ino crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at me, decked out in full training gear. She sniffed. "Yeah, busy avoiding me for the last week."

"Oh, wow, I wonder why."

"It's been over a month since you agreed to train with me, but you've only done it twice."

"Three times," I corrected.

She stomped her foot. "That's not any better!"

"If you're gonna get at me for being an ass," I said, adjusting the weights on my wrists, "you might as well have your facts straight."

"You said you'd train with us."

"I know I did."

"So why aren't you?"

"Why aren't you training with Lee instead?"

She pursed her lips. I tilted my head and raised an eyebrow, expectant.

"You answer first," she said.

"No," I said.

"I asked you first, you need to—"

"I don't need to do anything except train myself," I said. "I don't need to train with you and I don't need to give you an answer. I should, but there's nothing actually making me do it."

"Really?" she asked. "Not even basic decency?"

I gave her a dry smile. "Why won't you train with Lee?" I asked again. She didn't answer. "If you want to get stronger, you can go and train with him. He's better at teaching, better at taijutsu, and just generally a better person than me. If you actually care about getting stronger, you should go find him like Sakura did."

Ino let her arms fall to her side and glared at me. "You know," she said, her voice tight and annoyed, "you don't need to be such a gigantic bitch."

In one fluid motion she flicked her ponytail over her shoulder and turned on her heel, marching out of the area with her head held high.

I went back to my training and pretended the interaction never happened.

.

.

"No ramen."

"But, come on—"

"No. We can go get barbeque or sushi, or just some kind of real meal."

"Ramen is way better!"

"Ramen is high in sodium and not a balanced source of anything."

"Ramen…"

"No."

Naruto scrambled forward to block my path. He placed his hands together, dipped his chin, wobbled his lip, widened his eyes. "Please?"

People perusing the restaurant block grumbled as they walked past. The crowd's footsteps, scents, and voices mingled with the smell of fresh-cooked meat and clatter of utensils from those dining in the various open-aired spots. Fire Country weather was fair enough that most restaurants—that were aimed towards civilians, at least—had no wall to seperate the tables from the streets. The street was a hub, and could be smelt and heard from blocks away.

"You've gotten better," I said. I flicked him on the lip. "Not good enough, though."

I kept walking. Naruto rushed to catch up and Urushi, the ninken Kakashi tasked with keeping an eye on Naruto, trotted along at his side.

We wandered around for a few more minutes before Naruto gave in and consented to barbeque. That was an easy one. There were a few along the street, but the best place to go was near the very end of the block, an Akimichi-run restaurant. A lot of people passed it since the entrance was tiny and a bit run down. Get inside, though, and you'll find a ninja-friendly place with private booths and food prepared right in front of you.

A middle-aged Akimichi woman bustled over to hand us our menus and a pot of tea after we settled down in one of the booths.

The restaurant was quiet. Not silent, but the conversations around us were spoken in hushed tones and weren't accompanied by the expected meal-time caucophany. If the active chakra signatures of the other patrons hadn't already tipped me off, that would have done it.

The smell of cooking meat smothered the air.

I kept my eyes on the menu and let the cup of tea sit right close. The flowery tang of the herbal tea worked well as a cover. I'd gotten better with the smell, remembered that it was different, that it was mundane, but memories with strong ties to sensory experiences were stubborn and it still managed to unsettle me.

All I could do was breathe in through my mouth and force myself to ignore it. No more running from these issues.

The waitress returned a few minutes later to take our orders.

"Pork and beef ribs," Naruto said. I shot him a glare and he tacked on, "Please."

She smiled at him and answered with a nod. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the expression was strained, tight at the edges and not reflected in her eyes. She reached for his menu before he could hand it to her.

"I'll get the seafood medley and two orders of roasted vegetables," I said. I glanced at the dog. "Did Kakashi send food with him this time?"

"Uh… no."

Somehow, I expected nothing less. "Filthy moocher," I mumbled. I cleared my throat and looked back at the waitress. "I'll also get an order of grilled chicken, but without any sauce."

She scooped up my menu and scurried away.

Naruto didn't seemed fazed by the behavior—after all these years, it must have been something that he didn't register much anymore. He was more concerned with scritching Urushi behind the ears.

"I'm kinda surprised Kakashi's still sending you guys the dogs," I said.

Naruto looked up at me with a dopey grin. "I like it! He's real cool. I mean, he kinda smells, and he takes food from my cabinets if I don't feed him—"

"Like ninja, like ninken."

"—but he doesn't pee on my stuff or rip my clothes or anything. So, yeah. He's cool. And, and, this morning, he bit this creep-guy when the dude got all mad at me for no reason."

I smirked.

Like ninja, like ninken.

"I wonder what his plan is."

Naruto shrugged. "Dunno."

Whatever Kakashi had in mind, keeping the dogs around the boys was nothing but positive.

Naruto had something to focus on, and Urushi didn't come with the prejudiced attitude so many in the village carried towards Naruto. He took affection with a wag of his tail and returned it to Naruto much the same. It gave Naruto something to be responsible for, even if he seemed to forget to feed the dog half the time it was around. That could be pinned on Kakashi, though, since feeding Urushi should be his job in the first place.

It was harder to say with Sasuke. I wasn't around him and Bisuke as often, but from what little I'd seen, Sasuke tolerated having a dog around. That was better than what most things got from Sasuke. Given enough time, I figured that it could evolve past that.

A stout man waddled over to our table and dragged a cart with our order laid out behind him. He cooked the vegetables first. That was fine. The smell was nice, pungent and sweet.

Then the first piece of meat went on.

I held my hands together underneath the table and kept breathing in through my mouth at a slow, steady pace. I didn't let my hands curl in or my fingernails dig into any inch of my skin.

Urushi slipped from beside Naruto, under the table, and then back up to settle beside me. His head went onto my lap. I carded my fingers through his fur, something to do with my hands. It was unsurprising that Kakashi's dogs were well versed in handling these kinds of things.

One by one, the meat sizzled in front of us and great clouds of smoke wafted around us, which I blew away.

The cooked food was set out on plates between the two of us and the chef cleaned up the station on the end of our table, took his tools, and shuffled away.

Naruto dove at the food. Ever hungry, he had no pretence of manners or anything of the sort. I couldn't be bothered to try and fix that issue. Instead, before Naruto could get at it, I took the small place of chicken, a handful of rice sprinkled on top, and set it down on the booth seat in front of Urushi.

Then it was my turn. I forced in a breath and grabbed for my chopsticks.

My stomach churned at the thought of eating, but I picked up a piece, some of the shrimp, and took a bite. Another bite. Another, another. It went down and sat like a rock in my stomach.

Next were the real challenge: the ribs.

Since Wave, my stomach refused to accept any red meats. No matter how it was cooked, whether it was pork or beef or lamb, the second it got near my mouth my body rioted, and if I could manage to get it down, it was temporarily. It couldn't keep on. I couldn't spend the rest of my life avoiding them.

I grabbed a piece of beef and nibbled on the end of it, chased the bite down with a sip of tea. Naruto was halfway through his meal by the time I'd eaten the single cube of beef. I ate some of the pork, too, a bit more quickly, and it all went down. Rather than push my luck any further, for the rest of the meal I reached for seafood and vegetables. A cube of beef and a cube of pork, so long as they stayed in place, were victory enough.

The meat went quickly. Naruto inhaled it—ramen or not, he was a twelve-year-old boy and if there was meat in front of him he was going to eat it. Vegetables were another story.

"There's an entire plate right there," I said. I pointed at it with my chopsticks, grateful for the distraction. "You're going to eat it."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't wanna."

"Don't care."

"You can't make me."

I raised an eyebrow. "Can't I?" I asked. "I got you into barbeque instead of ramen, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but—"

"And I remember a couple of days ago, you were complaining about Iruka being on your case about proper nutrition." I tapped my chin in faux thought. Naruto's eyes widened. Busted. "He got a good look at all of the ramen in your house, didn't he? And he mentioned checking in, right? And having to go to special nutritional classes if you didn't get better?"

The 'special nutritional classes' didn't exist. From what I could tell, Iruka invented them on the spot to give his threats some weight. It worked. As soon as the words left my mouth, Naruto grabbed at the plate of vegetables and shoved one into his mouth.

"Fine," he said over a mouth of food. "Meanie."

I shrugged. "Growing boys need their vegetables."

He got through half of the plate and I stared him down until he took the rest home. There was a good chance they'd make it to a garbage bin, not his fridge, but it was worth trying.

I walked back into the house that evening feeling better. Not great, not good, but not bad either. I set myself a plan in the morning and I stuck to it.

I'm fine.

The words rang through my head and for the first time in weeks, they held a level of truth to them.

The desk chunin dropped a towering stack of papers onto the mission table and eyed us with a sadistic glint in his bag-rimmed eyes.

The mission room was a complete disaster. Chunin ran around, chattering, shouting, crying, papers flying in their wake as they desperately tried to dole out missions to the available ninja. The exams started later this afternoon and by the looks of it, there was still much to be done in the few hours left.

Naruto was half-asleep on my one side, Sasuke glowering on my other, and Kakashi stood behind us and though I couldn't see his face, I'd guess what miniscule part of his face showed was coated in false cheer.

"One for each of you," the chunin said. He grabbed three scrolls and handed them to Kakashi. "You're expected about," he raised his hand to look at his watch, "ten minutes ago."

Kakashi gave the man a tiny salute and ushered us out of the room.

Crowds of ninja clustered inside the room, mostly various genin and chunin there to do the necessary grunt work, but I saw a few jonin sprinkled in for good measure. The desk chunin doled out tasks to them at lightning speed.

"Man, I gotta go help set up the guard stations around 44," one chunin said.

His friend turned to him with a grimace. "Better than what they gave me—I gotta go and join the trap squad inside that shitty place."

Both of them got sympathy pats.

I couldn't help but wonder what kind of tasks we'd been given.

Urushi and Bisuke waited for us outside, right where we left them a few minutes prior. Kakashi went over to them and dropped a hand on both of their heads before he turned to face us. His gaze went down to the mission papers. He flipped through them, making tiny noises as he went, reading so fast that I doubted he was giving any of it much thought.

"Okay," he said. "Here's what we're going to do."

He handed each of us a scroll, clapped his hands together, and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

A beat of silence.

I sighed. "Alright. Good talk."

Kakashi may have been doing better within the training grounds, but I didn't expect anything less from him when it came to doing our D-ranks.

"Where did he go?" Naruto cried.

I felt around for his signature among the throngs of people. It wasn't hard to find him, given the familiarity of his chakra. "He's up by the hokage monument."

I unfurled my scroll and read the tiny instructions printed out above the seal stamped in the middle of it.

Deliver each message to the named ninja. If required, return their follow-up message to the Hokage. Addresses will be contained on sealed message. If ninja is not at their location, return it to the messenger tower for special delivery.

That sounded easy enough. I put my finger in the middle of the storage seal and added a hint of chakra. Five tiny little squares of paper popped out into the palm of my hand.

"Hn," Sasuke said, staring down at his scroll.

"What did you get?" I asked.

His mouth morphed into a scowl. "I have to go run errands for Anko." After a grudging second, he added, "You?"

I held up the tiny stack of messages. "Message jockey. They ran out of birds."

"I gotta go help this Ibiki dude." Naruto squinted at his paper. "It says he's, uh… on the third floor of some building nearby."

I didn't pity either of them.

Sasuke looked at the two of us. He turned and walked away, hands in his pockets. Bisuke scrambled along to follow behind him.

"Another great talk," I said. I craned my neck to look at Naruto's scroll. "Do you know where it is?"

"Sorta?"

I pointed him in the right direction and once I was confident he would get there in a decent time, I picked up the first message and flew on my way. Of all the missions I could have been given, this one was the most ideal—without a doubt, it was better than what the boys got.

.

.

"So, you're the brat they sent me." Anko fiddled with an empty dango stick stuck between her teeth. "You'll do, I guess."

She sat at the desk of what Sasuke gathered was a control room, with monitors displaying security footage all around and desks with ninja talking on walkie-talkies. Anko's desk was in the middle. Her feet were propped up, her chair reclined back, like she was right in her element amidst the ravaged chaos of the room.

Sasuke heard some of the gathered chunin chuckle at his expense. He bit off a sigh, let it evaporate into the scowl on his face. "Yes."

"Whatever," she said. "Go get me some dango."

"What?"

"You deaf, Uchiha? Dango. I'm out. You know what that is, right?" she asked. He didn't answer. "The sweet on a stick. D-A-N-G-O."

Sasuke felt a muscle jump in his jaw. "I know what it is."

"Coulda just said so," Anko grumbled. She rolled her eyes. "Real piece of work, you are. Glad Kakashi of all people got you—that's some cosmic karma shit right there."

A bag of coins was tossed at Sasuke. He caught them midair and walked out of the room with his fists clenched in his pockets.

Anko called at his retreating back, "Make sure you pull that stick out of your ass on the walk back!"

.

.

Naruto was late.

He tried to listen to Kasumi and get all of the instructions. He thought he knew exactly where he was going, right up until he didn't. It took him twenty minutes to find the building itself, another ten to get to the room, and by that point, he knew he was in for it.

"Hey, hey!" Naruto said to the first person he saw. "Lady!"

A young chunin turned to look at him. Her hands were at the base of her neck, tying her headband into place. "A genin?" she asked. "What're you doing in here?"

"I uh… here." Naruto thrust the scroll into her hands. "I dunno who this is."

She opened up the first half of it and scanned it. "Helper, blah blah… take orders, blah blah… oh. Ibiki." She looked around the room and pointed to a man in the front of it. "That's him, right there. Just take the scroll to him and he'll give you a task."

"Thanks lady!"

She waved him off. Naruto jogged over to the big scarred dude.

Ibiki was watching him the whole way over, arms crossed over his chest and face blank. "It took you long enough," he said. His voice was deep and rumbly, kinda like all those action heroes Naruto saw on the movie screens whenever he snuck into the village cinema. "You're my gopher?"

"No," he said. "I'm Naruto. Naruto Uzumaki."

Some of the chunin whipped around to face him—Naruto felt their gazes burn into his skin but he didn't let himself look away from Ibiki. All of them could mind their own business, the losers.

Ibiki didn't react to any of it. "Alright, Naruto. It's good to meet you."

Naruto bounced in place, eager to get busy. "Yeah, yeah. What am I gonna do?"

Ibiki reached back and grabbed a stack of clothes like his own. Dull grey uniforms. "You're going to hand all of these out. There are more in the box behind me. When you finish that, return and I'll give you another task."

Naruto snatched the uniforms from him and bounded off to do his job.

He didn't care what they made him do, as long as he was finished before Sasuke was.

.

.

I couldn't get my attention away from the gathering of chakra on my radar, a chunk of signatures that I guessed were the exam participants. Naruto's, a bit away but in the general vicinity, was only a minor sliver, swallowed up by the more vibrant blots on my sense. One of them was a thick, tar-like mass of chakra, that I assumed belonged to Gaara.

My feet stopped on the next rooftop. I was on my way to the hokage tower with a response in hand, one that I was told needed to be delivered with the utmost urgency. I wasn't supposed to stop.

Something I felt troubled me.

It was hard to pick much of anything out of the mass, aside from the pulsing powerhouses of chakra like Naruto and Gaara, two suns that couldn't be blocked out by much of anything. There was something in there, though. A muddled signature. I closed my eyes and honed in on it, the sharp edges of the chakra, the precise but subdued way it moved, with purpose that was being gripped in a controlled fist.

Trying to describe chakra in words was about as weird as trying to describe the sensation of sound to a deaf person, or the wonder of sight to the blind. Putting the intangible into the tangible. Explaining the sensation of eating a delicious meal by comparing it to music—you can get close, you can try and equate it on the basis of pleasure or quality, but it's impossible to make a one for one comparison. You had to get as close as you could get and settle for that.

The signature was cold.

I might have been able to brush that off in another situation. The issue was that something in my gut screamed danger and a name to go along with it: Kabuto.

I forced myself to keep going towards my destination, my mind whirling with possibilities. Kabuto meant Orochimaru which meant that a very real, very dangerous threat to Sasuke was heading towards us like a tornado plowing over a countryside.

The awful part of my brain wanted to leave it be for the sake of some semblance of course correction. The other part knew that we were already fucked; not taking into consideration the human aspects of the situation, letting Sasuke get the curse seal wouldn't do any good if none of the other puzzle pieces fit into place.

I shut both thought processes down. I couldn't jump to one decision or another, especially considering that, for all I knew, it wasn't even Kabuto that I felt there.

With Gaara, when I felt him enter the village, I knew it was him because jinchuriki have a special thing to their chakra. A spark, feel, characteristic. This dimension that made them identifiable when compared to other chakra signatures. All I had that pinned the cold signature to Kabuto was a bit of foreknowledge and a gut instinct.

There was time to gather information and think—I doubted Orochimaru was going to rush into action, if I was right about this. We weren't in the exams. We had all of tomorrow off to do whatever we wanted.

I would watch for Orochimaru and keep tabs on that odd, cold signature sitting the first part of the exam. If this was him, if all of the events concerning him were rolling ahead as they did in canon, I would deal with it, one way or another. I wouldn't panic. I wouldn't be stupid.

I could do this.

.

.

We met up again in front of the mission center.

I was the first one back. I spent the time sitting on the stairs, off to the side to stay out of the way, and watched the first part of the exam unfold through my chakra sense. I felt Naruto, doing who knows what a bit above where the majority of the signatures were gathered. Gaara and the cold signature held my attention most of all. The familiar signatures of Team Gai peaked my interest some, but I knew what they'd do.

There was a point where a sudden mass of signatures shifted out, away from the crowd. It had to be Ibiki making his reveal—the 'twist' final question. I wondered how many more people left because there was no Naruto there to scream out his defiant shtick. Gaara didn't leave, nor did Team Gai or the cold signature.

All of them would pass.

I blew out a breath and forced my body to remain lax, still, casually leant up against the railing on the stairs.

Naruto entered my line of sight half an hour later. He saw me and his face lit up, a whoop leaving his mouth. "Yeah! Hey, hey! Sasuke isn't here, right?"

"Not yet," I said.

"Oh yeah! I got here before him!"

"Was it supposed to be a competition?"

Naruto grinned. "Duh."

"Then I beat both of you."

"I don't care if you beat me," Naruto said. "I just wanna beat Sasuke."

Naruto didn't beat him by much; Sasuke turned up a few minutes later. He looked disgruntled, a darker look than usual on his face and his shoulders hunched. Often I thought that Sasuke's anger made him look older. In this case, though, it made him look childish, the expression on his face more akin to a pout than a scowl.

"Heh, look at that, I—"

I clapped a hand over Naruto's mouth before he could say anything stupid. "Hey," I said. "How was it?"

Sasuke's expression flickered into a grimace before returning to his scowl-pout. "I never want to meet that woman again."

"Yikes."

"Hn." He glanced around. "No Kakashi?"

"Nope," I said. "He's at the training grounds now, though." At the memorial stone.

Naruto's tongue poked out against my palm. I yanked my hand away, lips turned down in disgust, and wiped the spit off on his shoulder.

Sasuke rolled his eyes at us and turned to walk away.

"We're going to go get something to eat," I called after him. "Come with us."

"No," he said over his shoulder.

"You're turning down free food."

As expected, Sasuke didn't give me an answer. He rarely ate with us. I strong-armed him into it a couple of times, but not since Wave.

I sighed.

Naruto blew a raspberry at our teammates retreating back. "Eh, stuck up—"

"Cut it out," I said. "Let's just go get ramen."

In a second, Naruto's expression became one of unadulterated joy. "Ramen!" he shouted. "Ramen, ramen, ramen!"

The magic word.

"Yeah, yeah," I said. I hauled myself up and pulled him beside me. I nudged him forward. "Just walk, Naruto."

Naruto broke out into a mess of conversation that I didn't follow along with. My mind was filled with thoughts of a game plan. I tossed in a word here or there, enough to keep Naruto going, but I was more in my head than anything.

I had a lot of planning to do for tomorrow.