I live! Barely, but here I am. Sorry for the wait (again) This chapter gave me pains. Thank you to all who favorited, reviewed, and alerted, it you who influenced me to keep trying. (I felt so guilty that I was taking so long). I hope you enjoy this chapter, it's way past my bedtime and I am so tired right now. I do my best writing when I should be sleeping... I apologize for anything weird that may have slipped through my self-beta 'does this make sense' check.


Silver Streams

See Who I Am

Ai made a point of visiting hospitals as little as humanly possible. She'd had enough drugs and needles to last a life time. The scars she was so conscious about on her arms and down her back was reason enough for that. Ai was glad she'd rarely had occasion to go, no cold had gotten bad enough and not being a ninja meant she was seldom hurt enough. She also didn't know enough people who met either of those conditions at any point to visit them.

The only notable exception being Hayate. When he'd gotten that face full poisonous gas a few months before the Chunin Exams, she's visited the hospital nearly every day before he was released. And then she'd hovered about him at their apartment, always nearby to get him anything he'd needed since he'd been put on bedrest. He'd been the only reason she willingly visited the place.

Except now, remorse boiling uncomfortably in her stomach, she strode purposefully through the hallways, tugging at the long sleeve of her shirt. Even not being here for herself, she was incredibly uncomfortable. It made her feel hyper attentive and paranoid. Also, the place was just too white, why did they have to be white? White was a horrible color. And it stained so easily. Seemed like a bad idea.

Her room back at her apartment had been painted a 'warm muffin' color. That golden-yellow was relaxing, comforting, and if she had to imagine what it might feel like to sit inside a freshly baked muffin, then that was precisely the color it should be.

Consumed by the thoughts of better colors, Ai opened the door a tad too harshly, scaring the red-clad, pink-haired girl inside.

"Oh, Ai," Sakura sat back down on her chair, hands folding into her lap. "You startled me." She watched as the older and much taller girl entered and couldn't help but observe her walk looked a bit like a caged cat, impatient and quite possibly contemplating violence. "What are you doing here?"

"Feeling guilty mostly," Ai confided bluntly, surprising the younger girl. With quick strides, Ai reached the end of Sasuke's bed. He didn't look that similar to the nameless boy from her past, but she couldn't shake the familiarity off. She briefly wondered if she could convince him to shave his head once he woke up, get a better comparison. At the least, he definitely needed a trim.

He was hooked up to a few machines monitoring his vitals, but apparently chakra could do wonderous things, such as set the body in a static enough state that feeding and watering were unnecessary. He didn't even suffer other bodily functions. Which she supposed was good, at least he did have a tube shoved up his –

Sakura let out a small interrupting cough, drawing Ai back from her train-wreck worthy thoughts. The small girl obviously thought she'd been staring at Sasuke for too long.

Shrugging it off with a passive blink, Ai vaguely gestured at the daffodil-holding vase on Sasuke's bedside table. "Mind if I add to it?"

"Um," Sakura gave her a good look over, noting the obvious lack of flowers. "No?"

Ai grabbed the shoulder bag hanging by her hip and swung it around her front to gently dig into. Carefully, she pulled out the two long-stemmed metal flowers she had made. Their five-petal points sharp, capable of drawing blood against the unwary. She had created an excellent reproduction of a borage flower and was unconcerned as she placed them in water, as she'd made them of a hardy stainless-steel blend of her own design.

"Those are pretty," Sakura commented from where she sat. Each long stem bore two metal blooms and stood tall over the daffodils, but their light weight kept the vase from tipping over. Which was more luck than intent, as she hadn't put the slightest thought into keeping them upright.

"But sharp," she warned. The height might preclude any harm, but it was worth mentioning, "So, be careful when you change out the daffodils."

"Oh, okay. But, um," the younger girl hesitated a moment, "why metal flowers though?"

Ai smiled slightly. "'Cause I'm lazy and I hate hospitals. This way I don't have to come back and change them out. Two birds, one stone, or flower." She paused. "Except it's four flowers. Two birds, four flowers. Kind of defeats the purpose of that saying, I guess," she said with a little shrug.

Sakura giggled softly. "You know, you first appear kind of scary, but you're actually pretty nice, aren't you?"

Tilting her head up to look down on the pink-haired girl, Ai responded. "Just don't let it get out, I have a reputation to maintain as the reigning Crazy Ice Queen Bitch." The young girl snorted, hands flying up to her mouth to stop any others from escaping.

Funny now, maybe, but Ai had legitimately heard someone mutter that behind her back once. But she'd been called a lot worse before.

"All right," Sakura agreed, green eyes sparkling. That levity faded as she spoke. "May I ask you something else?" Ai gestured her to do so as she slid her bag into its original place. "When you said you felt guilty, was that because you were there? When he got hurt?"

One could always count on the ninja rumor mill.

"Yeah, he, uh, asked me to help out, but turns out I didn't really help him at all. Sorry."

"No, it's not your fault. Sasuke shouldn't have asked a partially-trained civilian with no combat experience to help him." Sakura's eyes widened and she let out a little gasp. "No offense! It's just –"

"Facts are facts. I'm not bothered by that." Or at least it was true enough that Ai didn't feel the need to start a debate. Plus, right or wrong, it was easy enough to spot the schism between civilian and ninja society. The latter frequently looked down on the former as helpless and often hopeless, while many civilians saw ninja as warmongers and monsters. And that didn't even get into the whole in-village and out-of-village view people had of each other.

Though, of course, there were always exceptions and not everyone felt that way. But there were also the extremists.

"Ah, well," Ai broke the awkward silence that had settled on them. "I actually have a meeting I need to get to, so…"

"Oh, right. Okay. Thank you for visiting and for the flowers."

"Sure," Ai agreed, though she wasn't sure Sakura could accept them on Sasuke's behalf, even so, she hoped Sasuke would see the use in them. After all, they weren't just pretty flowers.

Leaving the young ninja to molder in her depression, Ai slid out more quietly than she'd entered. Nearing the stairs, she nearly bumped into Lee who was coming from another intersecting hallway. They stared at each other for a moment, Ai noticing the boy leaned heavily on a crutch, before Lee brightened.

"Ai! It has been quite a long time since we last saw each other." What was truly surprising, in Ai's view, was that Lee seemed genuinely happy to see her. Which she thought weird since they'd really only met once, if you included all passing interactions in the tower as one, and she'd been pretty icy then. Also lying half the time in an attempt to get a rise out of the genin examinees.

"I suppose it has." Ai was pretty sure the last time she'd see him was at the end of the second round in the Chunin Exams, that put it at two months and some change. She couldn't recall where or from who, but she had heard Lee had been badly hurt during the preliminaries. "Are you coming from PT?" Lee tilted his head, giving an oddly adorable confused look. "Oh, physical therapy, though it could also stand for physical training."

Lee made a sound of understanding. "Yes, I am on my way out. Are you well?" He glanced her over, scanning for anything amiss.

"Oh, yeah, I was just dropping off a gift."

"That is very kind of you."

Ai hummed. "I guess." She waved for him to move forward before her and as he turned down the same hallway to the stairs, she matched her pace to his. He had asked her how she was doing, so societal conventions dictated she ask as well. "How are you doing? Is therapy going well?"

"Yes! It is sometimes difficult, but Guy-sensei has told me that if I keep up on my physical conditioning it will be easier for Lady Tsunade to heal me when she arrives!"

Come to think of it, Ai was pretty sure she'd heard Guy mention that name back when he'd been speaking to that old guy. "Is she, like, a doctor or something?"

"She is the best medical ninja to come out of our village!" Lee clenched a fist of his right hand, raising it up. "And once I have been healed, I will be able to return to duty with renewed zeal!" He used his fisted hand to throw a few punches in the air.

She smiled at his enthusiasm and pulled open the door to the stairwell. As he clacked through and began his turtle-pace down, a thought occurred to her. "Wouldn't you rather use the el…" Ai trailed off. She'd been about to say elevator, but as the word began passing her lips her mind caught up and asked where the elevator was. Which was quickly followed 'Have I ever seen an elevator?' She quickly began to sort through her mind of all the buildings she could remember being in and how she'd traveled their floors.

Ai hadn't been in every building in the Leaf Village, obviously, but she couldn't recall a single ride in one. She'd always taken stairs. The technology surely had to exist. Her mind supplied her with an animal-based hoist system, which she had seen, years and years ago but nothing she's classify as a 'modern' elevator. At least not in her sense of the word.

"Would I rather use what?" Lee asked after some time had passed and she never continued her sentence. But his words passed over he like water on a duck. She was fully lost in her mind at the moment. Thoughts gaining speed.

She supposed it wasn't like ninja had need of them on the daily, they could easily jump up stories and hauling heavy materials could be done with a scroll. Yet, did nothing exist of the kind for civilians either? She knew the village held physical fitness in high regard, but to the point of requiring the injured to abide to their stance on vigor as well?

These people fought and died for the village. Lost limbs for the village, and they couldn't get a damn elevator in a hospital? Or a ramp by some stairs? Hell, if they didn't want to use the electricity, they could pay some minimum wage genin to haul rope on a hoist all day. That even provided training for the brats!

"I… I think I'm feeling righteous indignation," Ai marveled. She looked up meeting Lee's confused eyes. "I didn't know that was even possible outside of, like, the Bible, or something."

"Huh?" Lee's wide eyes somehow got wider.

"Lee!" she cried out

"Y-yes?" He squeaked, back straightening like a soldier about to receive orders.

"You deserve an elevator!" His only response was a couple owlish blinks. "I'm going to get you an elevator!" Ai stomped down the stairs, leaving the confused green-clad boy behind her.

By the time she'd angrily stormed her way to the next floor, Ai realized what she'd done. "Some glorious start." She muttered, skipping stairs as she ascended them.

Lee had only made it down a few more steps when she arrived. He watched her as if she might explode once more.

"Would you like help?" Lee face softened into a grin.

※※※※※

Ai slid the paper she'd scribbled relentlessly on for the last few minutes over to Inoichi, who'd been waiting patiently across the table. He picked it up to begin reading, but set it down with a sigh after a few seconds.

"Well, I wasn't expecting it to go perfectly, but it seems we've already reached an impasse."

"Hm? How so?"

Inoichi's finger trailed down the list. "I recognize some of them, and know where we can get them, but others," he shook his head, "I don't recognize their names." At her puzzled look he expounded. "That either means they're not native to our country or –"

"Or," Ai murmured, "we have different names for them."

"Precisely," Inoichi confirmed. "Not an uncommon thing between countries, but it does present a few problems." Ai nodded her understanding to his words.

"I can write down the chemical compounds for synthetic manufacturing, but I'm not sure that will be much help in the short term."

Inoichi let out a short chuckle. "No, it wouldn't," despite his words, he was grinning. "That's years, easily a decade or more, of attempting to reverse engineer. Especially as we don't do much in the realm of synthetic chemicals, we generally focus on what flora and fauna can give us. But I suppose having them won't hurt and we might recognize some of them that way, instead." Ai nodded and began sketching, as she did so Inoichi, watching her quick pencil strokes, asked her, "Do you happen to know any of the plants these come from, or even what they look like?" His finger tapped on the list.

Ai paused and looked up. "I could check, but it's probably unlikely. I wasn't made to be a botanist. Or even a biologist," she added. "But atomic compounds and medical ingredients are good stress-test material."

Her word choice caused a few questions to bubble up in his mind, all of which he wanted answers to, mostly to satiate his curiosity. Inoichi hadn't been the one to question her when Hayate had first brought her to the village as a young child, he had since read the transcript of that interview and it had been an interesting read, but he'd genuinely longed for the chance to talk to her himself, to get a psychological taste of her so to speak. The way she'd stated the oddest things, like she was merely telling them the color of the sky.

Ai never used the term born when referring to herself, only made. She never spoke of parents, she used the word creators, saying she didn't know where they'd acquired the genetic material. She'd even said in the report that she knew how to read, but had never done it before 'coming here'. Her view of things was just slightly off kilter and the part of Inoichi that loved psychoanalyzing, wanted to hear about her childhood from Ai's own mouth. Sure, he could read about her whole childhood, the highly classified report was incredibly revealing. It was either one of those things so odd they had to be true or completely fabricated, but done in a way that left Ai convinced it was real.

Whether Ai was from another dimension, time, world, or she'd been raised on some undiscovered island or in a cave as an experiment with strange parameters, Inoichi didn't know – though there were enough jutsu that messed with time and space he was willing to keep an open mind on the matter.

The question he'd settled on, mostly to keep their train of work on track, was, "You'd have to check?"

Ai rested her elbow on the table and tapped the pencil top on her cheek. "I'm not sure it makes sense, but I don't actually 'know' all the things I know."

"You're right that does sound rather peculiar," he agreed.

Ai pouted her lips for a second as she stared up at the ceiling. "Sort of like a librarian. I may know where to find the book, but that doesn't mean I've read it."

Inoichi hummed his acknowledgement. "You can look later; it isn't an emergency." Ai nodded and resumed sketching. It was just as well, Ai'd been told on numerous occasions by Hayate, Yugao, and now Aoba, that she was creepy when she went searching in her mind for things. A moment of silence passed before Inoichi broke it. "What were you made for?"

"Engineering. In a broad sense." Ai continued drawing out chemical compounds. She always found their shapes relaxing. Pretty in a way. "Mechanical, electrical, chemical, technological, weapons." Ai didn't look up from labeling the compound she'd just fished.

"If I may ask, how was the information instilled?"

Ai slid the page she was working on aside and quickly sketched out a decent semblance to what had been jammed into her brain. A round port that was adhered to the base of one's skull, meant to secure the plug, which attached to a long, if quite narrow, metal channel. Turning it right side up for Inoichi she slid it over and resumed work on her previous page.

"That's…" He trailed off before starting again. "That looks like a large needle."

Ai shrugged. He wasn't wrong, per se, with that observation. "Headport, datajack, Brainplug, different names for the same thing. Hollow tube that allowed the interface probe to reach the brain. That way they didn't have to stab their way in every time."

"Into the brain? How did they set it?"

"Carefully, I imagine. I don't actually remember getting it, or ever not having it, until the medics in Cloud removed it." She looked up at the older man. "We were always told it'd kill us if we did. Fry our nervous system, deliquesce our brains, saponify our spines, or any of the all the other things they wanted us to fear. But I suppose chakra can work miracles and kept my brain from leaking out."

"The scar on the back of your neck," he confirmed. At its mention Ai's hand twitched as she refused to let it reach back for the mark. Would she ever not feel the sensation of the probe sliding into her head? "It must have been a delicate operation to remove it."

"Given that everything we had with us, from our metal weapons to our clothes, were disintegrating at an alarming rate, I can only assume it was doing the same inside my skull. It was likely killing me and their removal of it saved my life. I actually started improving once it, and the spinal electrodes, were gone."

At this point Inoichi just couldn't help himself anymore. "And these spinal electrodes were for?"

"Strangely, having loads of information transmitted into you head can cause seizures, which resulted in severe damage to the body, what with all those needles jammed in. However, it turns out the paralytic drugs didn't mix with everything else they gave us for data transferring, at least according to the ones whose brains liquified and then oozed out of their facial orifices. So, they settled for running electricity along our spines to cancel out anything our brain sent down. And yes, to answer your question, it was an incredibly pleasant sensation. Like a fluffy cloud massage, or at least what I imagine a fluffy cloud massage would feel like. Luckily, I wasn't in an early batch and they figured all that out before it was my turn in the chair." Given Inoichi's look he picked up on her heavy sarcasm use. Ai looked down and carefully wrote the next name beside its corresponding compound. "All done," she said shoving that paper at Inoichi too.

"I'm sorry you had to go through all that," his voice was solemn and his eyes full of empathy.

Shrugging uncomfortably, Ai looked away and said, "What happened, happened. And it's not like you did it, you don't need to apologize."

"True, but that doesn't mean it was right."

Well, if he wanted to talk about right and wrong, she had a matter that would also change the subject.

"Speaking of what's right, the hospital should have an elevator. It's inhumane to force those disabled to climb that many stairs."

She didn't see Inoichi's small grin as she didn't want to make eye contact again, Ai was still unnerved from earlier. "I'll put that proposition forward."

As Inoichi escorted her out of the house, they were waylaid by his daughter.

"Wait," she called, stepping out from the kitchen she'd been in. Her front was protected by a lilac apron and she was wiping her hands on a cloth. "I was making some dorayaki, would you like some Ai?"

"Um," she hemmed, tossing a quick look towards the tall man besides her, the brief idea of this being some test dashed across her mind. Inoichi, however, revealed nothing, only standing there with a placid smile on his face. With nothing to hint in either way, she replied, "Sure, thank you."

Ino's grinned brightened. "Come in for a minute, I'll put them in a box for you."

"If that's the case, would you mind seeing Ai out, Ino?"

"I can do that," Ino agreed.

With a pat to her shoulder, Inoichi departed. "Take care of yourself, Ai."

Nodding, Ai followed the much shorter girl into the kitchen. As Ino bustled about and prepared a box of dorayaki, Ai studied some of the flower arrangements in the kitchen. Seeing them brought an idea up.

"Ino?" At the girl's hum Ai continued. "can you recommend any books about flowers and their uses to me?"

Turning around as she put the lid on the box, Ino replied. "Sure, I have a number I can even let you borrow if you'd like."

"Please, thank you. I can likely return them to you within a week." After Ino passed the box of treats over, she led Ai into the hallway once more, heading for another area of the house.

"Take your time. I know them all pretty much by heart, and if I really do end up needing to look something up, I can borrow my dad's copies."

The room they entered was likely Ino's bedroom, which was a pleasant mix between girlish yet practical. Gentle pastels of purple, yellow, and blue, but the room was arranged for easy flow and movement. A few ninja tools and weapons lay on a desk, lined up, having either been serviced or waiting to be. What really caught her eye were some beautifully pressed and framed flowers hanging on the wall, providing bright bursts of vibrant colors.

Ino headed for her bookcase and Ai waited just inside the doorway. The younger girl's finger trailed through the air as she read the spines of books. She pulled two, tapped her lips briefly, and pulled a third book from the shelf. "These two are good for plant uses, both medicinal and poisonous, while this last one is excellent introduction to hanakotoba." Ino handed them over by settling them on top of the snack box she held. "I know you didn't ask for it, but I think you'll enjoy it."

"Oh, thank you."

"No problem. I hope you enjoy them." The two girls made their way to the front of the house.

"I likely will. I enjoy learning new things." She did, despite her complaining to Aoba regularly, but that was mostly for show and because she enjoyed hassling him.

"I heard from my father that you've been practicing to control and use chakra. If you'd like, I'd be happy to train with you sometime."

"Er, sure," Ai conceded, "sometime maybe. Aoba says my control is still a little too tenuous for a proper spar with ninjutsu, not that I can make much more than a puff of smoke, but he's concerned it might be dangerous and has basically put me on probation." Ai chuckled nervously. "I seem to be a go big or die of shame, type of person currently."

Ino laughed. "That's okay. Taijutsu is an important basic to practice, but if nothing else, I can always quiz you on flowers."

"Deal," Ai smiled at the other girl, straightening from having zipped up her boots. With a parting farewell, Ai left, planning to read these new books and eat dorayaki.

※※※※※

A few days later, Aoba showed up and told her he was cancelling their afternoon training in favor of 'playing herald and running around the village telling all who would listen that they had a new Hokage' – her words, not his. He did, however, tell her to go to the training field herself and practice what they'd been working on.

He'd taught her some basic entry-level nature transformations to practice switching her chakra between. That way she'd get a good idea how each one felt, hopefully then able to recognize them and figure the proper combination for her bloodline.

She went to their scheduled field, honest she did, just for all of ten minutes before she got bored and bunked off in favor of doing something else. That something else was buying a metric ton of food, going to a few different places – she just couldn't decide what sounded best. As she walked down the road the idea of enjoying the day by having a picnic took over, meaning she also needed to buy a blanket.

Ai found a nice spot in a park just slightly off the walkway, but close enough to listen to the running water in the canal. She got a number of strange looks, but that wasn't anything out of the usual, especially as Abel was with her. The nice thing about this park though was it wasn't as pretty or nice as others, so it generally was pretty empty.

Settling down, Ai spread out her haul of food. As she finished, Abel perked up, head swiveling towards someone coming down the road. Following his sightline, Ai spotted Lee slowly hobbling his way down the street.

An ache spread up her left arm. Absentmindedly she massaged the spot, watching as he passed, head down, staring at nothing but the packed dirt.

"Lee?" His name coming out of her mouth surprised Ai as much as it seemed to surprise Lee, who jolted and looked around.

Upon spotting her, he turned fully around to face her. "Oh, Ai, hello." He attempted to smile at her, but the effort was so pathetic he looked even more depressed than he had before, which almost pulled out a 'are you feeling okay?' from her, but she managed to stop that one. It was a stupid thing to say. He looked like a lost and abandoned puppy caught out in the rain, of course he wasn't feeling okay! A Tiny Rock Lee Tim, gimping down the road alone.

"Would you like to join me?" Lee's back straightened and, his eyes wide, took in the veritable smorgasbord arrayed around her. "I got way too much. Bad case of eyes bigger than my stomach."

"Oh, um," he faltered.

"Ah," Ai raised a hand, waving it back and forth, "you don't have to if you don't want to." Abel shivered, the metal of his body humming a light trill for a moment.

"Actually, I would like that." He looked down. "I have not eaten much today." He shambled his way towards her and Ai quickly rearranged the many takeout containers so it would be laid out between them instead of just everywhere. As Lee got to the open space she made, she was about to get up and help, but Abel beat her to it. The cat stood, stopping by Lee's side and, in a rolling ripple, the sharp edges of his spine melted away, creating a place for Lee to place his hand for support.

The green-clad boy did so, letting his crutch drop and, with Abel's aid, joined Ai on the blanket. Once he was down, Abel circled back around, laying down behind Ai and resting his head on the ground. "Thank you," Lee said to her.

"Thank Abel, I didn't help out."

She didn't mean it as a command, Ai was merely stating the fact that she didn't deserve any thanks, and while Lee seemed a tad confused, he looked at Abel. "Thank you, Abel." The name sounded a little strange coming from Lee, but the cat looked up at him, and nodded his acceptance with all the grace of an elfin king upon his throne before setting his head back on the grass.

"Sorry, I have a couple chopsticks, but no plates. I don't mind if you don't." She said, referring to the fact they'd have to use personal chopsticks to grab food.

"Oh, ah, that is all right." Looking at all the choices laid before him, Lee asked as he took a set of disposable chopsticks from her, "How many places did you go to?" He finally selected a container.

"Five or six," she admitted with a shrug, picking out a container full of fried noodles. "I couldn't decide what sounded best, so I got them all." She didn't add that such indecision usually meant her 'lady time' was coming around.

Aoba could no longer say she lacked tact. She would definitely rub the moment in his face, especially because he couldn't take it when girls started talking about their periods and she liked watching the older man, who should act more his age, squirm.

Lee chuckled at her remark and began picking at his food. "I appreciate you sharing."

Ai narrowed her eyes at him. He didn't seem to appreciate it that much given how little he was eating, but she figured it was mostly his gloomy mood that was hampering his appetite. All ninja seemed to eat like starved dogs. At least in her experience.

They sat there in silence, nibbing at food as Ai's mind franticly turned things to say over and over in her head. None of them sounded right. Surprisingly it was Lee that broke the quiet.

"Ai, may I ask you a question?" He may have been speaking to her, but his eyes remained on his food.

"Sure."

Swirling his chopsticks around and around in his sesame beef look-alike, he finally asked after a moment. "Did you… did you ever want to be a ninja?"

That was a tough question. It didn't have a simple yes or no answer, not really. Ai sighed. "Honestly?"

He finally turned his wide eyes up to her. "Please. If you do not mind."

Ai tapped her chopsticks on the side of the paper container. "Once upon a time," she answered. "I did. But… how do I word this… probably not for the same reasons as you, or even most of the people I've met." She clacked the tip of her chopsticks together a few times, watching them open and close. "When I first saw ninja doing their thing, seeing how they could jump so far and high, watching fire and water and lightning appear seemingly from nowhere…It was like magic and I wanted to do that too." Ai let out another long breath, closing her eyes and rolling her head back. As she shut them to the semi-dark, shadows shifted over glowing white, buildings passing below her, specks of color, dancing, shining, were thousands of people meshing together in Konohagakure. She felt her sense of balance tilt as Tori, so high above, banked. Opening her eyes, she looked at Lee, who was studying her, hanging on her words. She hadn't told this to anyone other than Hayate, though she was pretty sure Yugao knew. "I thought if I could do those things, then maybe things would have been different, that they could be different. If I had that power, people couldn't hurt me again." Lee's brows pulled down, his face shifting to sad understanding. Ai reached up, rubbing at the scar on her neck, feeling the glossy, smooth skin.

"What changed?" his voice was quiet, almost a whisper.

Ai looked away from his earnest, interested eyes.

How to answer that without saying 'a friend smacked me with a genjutsu so well-woven that no one noticed, but it changed my perspective on ninja and then inadvertently spiraled me into near suicide-via-the-same-friend depression?'

"I made friends with them." She looked back at Lee. "I saw the…" She could remember the sight of Hayate pale, bedridden, and coughing. The fear that, somehow, she'd gotten him sick, despite Yugao telling her he'd been caught in a gas attack. The tiredness in his, and Yugao's, and Itachi's, and Shisui's eyes as they returned from missions only to leave again not even eight hours later. "The pressure it put them under. I realized we may have led different lives in different places, but we were so similar. That even power doesn't stop pain. It's just a new kind. I watched as they were hurt, as they cried without tears or complaint. I watched as they left and died. And I guess it changed me. I didn't, I don't want to make people worry the same way." Ai jammed her chopsticks into her food with a sigh and scratched her head. "I'm not sure that makes sense."

"No, it does!" Lee rushed to assure, though she wasn't sure he entirely spoke the truth. "But that is the nature of people. We worry about those close to us because we love them." When did this become Lee comforting her? It was supposed to be the other way around. "It is why I want to get better," he explained, passion starting to seep into his voice. "I want to show others that you do not need genjutsu or ninjutsu to be a splendid shinobi! I want to be able to protect the village and everyone I care about, even if they do not know me personally!" It was Lee's turn to sigh and his eyes dropped. A silent moment passed, broken only by the running water in the canal.

"I… I saw Lady Tsunade," Lee said it like a confession of sin. "She told me." A muscle twitched in his jaw and he took a sharp breath. "She said I could not be a ninja anymore." Ai ran her tongue along her the inside of her teeth. So that was why he was so despondent. "Unless… unless I underwent surgery, but that the operation has only a fifty percent chance of success and that should it fail, I will die." He let out a soft snuffle. "She said I should be grateful I can even still move and to do something else with my life." The younger boy looked up at her, the edges of his eyes had become red. "But there is nothing else I want to do!" Desperation and pleading choked his voice. "I'm not sure I can live without being a ninja, but I don't want to die either!"

Ai's fist wrapped around her chopsticks, squeezing them. "I'm not sure I know such devotion," she divulged. "Perhaps once, to a few people who are gone now. But to a cause? One in which I feel so strongly towards that I would die for it? I don't think I have such things any longer." As the words came out, she recalled that only a few days earlier she had felt so zealous when she'd told Lee she would get him an elevator.

She really couldn't stick to things, could she?

Ai stabbed her chopsticks into her food again, sharper, harder, than the last time and sighed. Behind her Abel shifted and she felt a tension growing in him, higher, hotter, tauter, then it snapped and dropped, a deep hum vibrated from him. He moved his head to touch her arm,

We are here. The feeling of words came in a wave of comfort rolling over her.

Abel's rumbling bass came to a stop and with it she continued, new resolve forming. "I can't say I like the idea of dying for something, or someone, but perhaps, being willing to do so is a noble undertaking by itself. Lee," she looked up at him and found him looking up from the blanket beneath them as well. "I can't tell you what to do, it's your decision to make and only yours, but you don't strike me as someone to give up on something, especially on something you love, because it involves more hard work than you expected. I know this isn't the same thing, hard work won't change the odds, but if I told you not to get the surgery, how would you feel tomorrow?" He probably only needed two seconds to know how he'd feel. It was the like idea of flipping a coin to decide on something, the moment it chose for you, you wanted the opposite, telling you what you really wanted all along.

"Horrible," he whispered, face crumpling. Ai could see his eyes beginning to water.

"And if I told you to get the surgery?" His face firmed with determination. "I think you already know what you want." Tears slid down his face. Ai bit her lip, silent for a moment. "I know we don't know we don't know each other well, but I'll support your decision," the tears began to fall more quickly and in greater amounts. He dropped his food container to scrub at his face with the back of his hands. "And I'll knock out the teeth of anyone who badmouths you." Lee let out an undignified snort which only produced snot, but he did have a small smile. Ai grabbed some of the many napkins she'd pinned under a rock and handed them over. Abel scooched over closer to the weeping boy and began another low, comforting hum, much like a purring cat. She wasn't sure Lee could feel the same relaxing waves gently stroking at her chakra like she could, or if Abel could even do that to someone else, but she hoped the sound Abel made at least helped.

It took a few minutes, but Lee composed himself, wiping his face clear of tears and snot, sadly it would take time for the redness to fully fade. Feeling generous, Ai dug into her bag and pulled out a little plastic storage container filled with chocolate chip cookies. Chocolate was as expensive as hell – was hell expensive? – so she'd decided these were a good way to parcel out the chocolate bars she'd bought herself yesterday. They weren't a dessert she'd seen around here, and she'd been intending to sell the idea to Shuichi. She popped off the lid. "Here." She offered him the cookies. "Sugar and chocolate help with everything."

He took one, studied it a moment, turning it this way and that, before finally taking a nibble, lighting up marginally. "It's delicious! Thank you!"

"Anytime," she smiled.

Lee had finished his dessert and had moved back to the food, eating with more gusto – not a ton, but more than before, when Abel stopped his purr and perked his head back up, looking down the road.

The figure walking down the street was Sakura. Once she was closer, she smiled. "Lee, there you are. I was looking for you." Lee's chopsticks paused halfway to his mouth and he stared blankly up at the girl. "Oh," she seemed to just notice Ai, but if she was worth anything as a ninja, Ai hoped Sakura already had spotted her. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"Nope, not at all," Ai waved off her words. "Just ordered enough food to feed a pig, but when Lee came along, I thought I'd invite him to join." She grinned. "You know, save me from all them trans fats." There probably wasn't that much in the way of those in these foods, but oh well.

Sakura gave her a funny look, but turned back to Lee. "I got these for you." She offered him the bouquet of daisies in her arms.

"For, for me?" he stuttered. He set his food down and took the proffered flowers, looking into them with wonder. "Thank you so very much Sakura!" Despite his already red cheeks, Ai could see them turning redder. She looked away, exchanging her noodles for some white rice and adding a few pieces of chicken marinaded in a dark sauce.

Awkward third wheel much?

"Hey, did you hear? Lady Tsunade healed Sasuke and he's recovering at home now. He'll be back to normal in no time!" Ai choked on the clump of rice she'd put in her mouth and it sprayed disgustingly out, splattering across her lap and blanket. Luckily, it hadn't received much in the way of chewing. "Are you all right. Ai?"

She waved at them, face in her shoulder to block the coughing and gagged out a, "Fine." Ai was no expert in love, despite her name, but she was pretty sure what just happened there was mean. How could Sakura not know how Lee felt and then to just bring up the big S word? Talk about shooting someone down.

Sakura, passing on Ai's strangled breathing, moved on to tell Lee about how he should get checked out by Tsunade then brought up Sasuke again.

Hot damn, could she kick a guy while he was down. Surely it wasn't intentional, right?

Still, Ai, a rush of irritation washing over, wanted to jump up and silence the girl. Abel's tail swished, picking up on Ai's annoyance. It flipped forward and clacked across his ribs, clicking on each one, back and forth, in a steady staccato. The sound drew both Sakura's and Lee's eyes to her. The movement of Abel's tail stopped as she rested a hand on his boney hip.

She didn't offer any explanation and after a moment, Sakura turned back to Lee and said. "I should get going. I hope you get better soon Lee, and it was nice seeing you again Ai."

Attempting a second mouthful of food, Ai looked at the girl. "Was it?" she thought watching Sakura walk away.


The chapter where Ai accidentally takes Guy's place and talks to Lee about his surgery, only with less Romeo+Juliet we'll die together drama.

I actually wanted to have more - get all the way to the small blurp that would be the Hokage's inauguration, but I decided you guys had waited long enough. The conversation between Ai and Inoichi actually got away with me a little bit, same with the convo between Lee and Ai. The second one not the first.

Below you will find a little blurb of Sasuke (nothing really special) waking up in the hospital. Not necessary for understanding, but will slightly tie in later (the next chapter).

Fun Fact: Borage flowers can also mean bluntness. Which if Ai knew the meaning at the time she totally would have meant that. Additionally, they're often used as companion flowers in gardens, often planted beside tomatoes, to lure away pest insects that want to eat the tomato plants.


After Sasuke Wakes up in the Hospital

Sasuke still felt out of it upon waking. Despite Sakura throwing herself on him, which didn't feel great, sitting up had sapped all the strength he possessed and he felt he could do little else but stare mindless out at the wall. His sight was blurry but slowly sharpening.

He sensed more than saw the other occupants of the room leave and soon after they did, Sakura leaned away from him, sitting back into her chair and wiped at the tears that had spilled down her face. He let out a slow breath, turning his head away from his teammate, and surveyed the room.

Hospital, his mind supplied. He supposed it made sense, recalling what he did, but he shoved those memories away, unwilling to dwell on them.

His eyes, feeling better than earlier, drifted over the flower in the vase by his bedside, but paused as it caught sight of shining metal. Sasuke's vision traced up the smooth, thin, and shiny metal rod finding that attached to its tops were four equally polished flowers. petals pointing out like a star, the ends sharp and dangerous-looking. Between the five thicker 'blades' were five thinner spines. Pointing out from the center was a small spike, looking no less sharp than any other piece.

Sasuke wasn't sure how long, or not so long, he stared at them, brain trying to process what he was staring at, but Sakura finally noticed and followed his sightline.

"Aren't they pretty? I brought you some daffodils while you slept."

His voice, hoarse, and throat, sore, - how long had he been out? – made speaking unpleasant. "The others?" He clipped out.

Sakura, who had started to pour him water at his first attempts to speak, paused. "Oh, um, Ai brought those." She hesitated for a moment before adding, "They're called borage. They… They mean courage, I think,"

Sasuke didn't care an iota what they meant. While they may have looked like flowers, he could only see a uniquely crafted shuriken.