Published: 2/2/2019

Edited: 2/12/2019


That night I was so exhausted I collapsed into bed without thinking hardly of anything. I probably should have expected it considering I'd had the bunker on the brain, but I dreamed of Tokiya and Hatsuta. The odd thing was, though, that I didn't remember the dream. Instead I woke up half-tangled in a blanket, blinded by late-morning sunlight.

I lifted a clenched fist from my side. Then I put it back and ran my hand over my skin as the sensation of dream-pain faded away. Fog-like anxiety began to dissipate in the warmth of the sun. And then in a moment I sat up and felt no worse for the day's start at all.

I'd dreamed of the bunker, but the bunker had begun to soften a bit at the edges; it no longer lingered in my mind as an image sharp enough to cut myself on. It did not stick in my head when I tried to turn my thoughts away, but it did not crackle angrily and pick at my consciousness when it went out of sight, either. It was just—just a memory. There if I wanted it. Gone if I needed it to go. Not locked away, not vanished by dissociation, but simply stepped aside.

The morning went very well for me. Despite everything, Koharu was also oddly cheerful when we met over lunch. If I had known that I'd just begun my final week in the western ward, I am certain we would have celebrated together.


The last piece of the puzzle of my strangely fragmented dissociation patterns floated into place when I sat down in front of the mirror and finally began combing out my hair. I had let it go so long that it took nearly twenty minutes to disentangle it. But after some patient effort and a small pile of spent hair later, it fell straight over my shoulders again, and I noticed that my bangs had grown considerably since I'd entered the hospital. I smiled a little as I tucked them behind my ear. I did not consider myself a particularly vain person, but my face suddenly seemed quite pretty.

Then I was struck vividly with the image of bumping into Minato at the Equipments Office. He'd smiled, made a comment about how I'd grown, and tucked my hair behind my ear after I'd traded my old vest in.

I abruptly sat back in my chair and understood. In a way, I had never forgotten. The guilt I'd held towards Kakashi had pushed my resolve to finally write the series down, but ever since the night Minato came home from Kannabi Bridge—the night he had sat in the kitchen and talked with Auntie—I had been on fire. But I had tried not to think about it, tried to avoid remembering my responsibility, and so the stress had built up until there were moments I could not even bear to remember being with him—

"Suzu-san, Hayato-sensei is calling for you!" A nurse appeared in the doorway with a mysterious smile. I started and set down my comb.

"What is it?" I asked, puzzled. "We weren't scheduled to meet today, were we?"

"No, but he has something to tell you. Why don't you go on and see for yourself?" her mysterious smile grew a bit.

Hayato-sensei was sitting at his desk with his folders and his notes spread out before him. He looked quite as though he had never left. It certainly did not seem as if he had been out for a week with a cracked rib. But then again, I thought as he swiveled in his chair rather than rising to greet me as he usually did, looks were very often deceiving.

"Good morning, Suzu-san," said Hayato-sensei. He was smiling as well. Increasingly bemused, I smiled back.

"Good morning. How are you?"

"Much better, thank you for asking. Why don't you have a seat?"

I sat and eyed him expectantly. He laughed.

"No need to beat about the bush, then," he said as he turned back to his folders. "I want to administer your discharge eval today. Do you feel up to it?"

Having slouched a little over the arm of my chair, I sat upright as soon as I had processed these words. I regarded him with an open mouth.

"Why so shocked, Suzu-san? You'll catch bugs with your jaw hanging open like that," he teased lightly.

I snapped my jaw shut. Then I asked, "I can leave?"

"If your evaluation is favorable. By the reports I've received from the staff, though, I'm not too worried."

I continued to stare at him. Then I asked again, "I can leave?"

Hayato-sensei's gaze softened a little.

"This place was never a prison, Suzu-san," he replied kindly. "It was only a place for you to stay while you got well. The village does not mandate shinobi come here because it wants cage them; it does so because it knows that ninja are strong, and that they may need help controlling that strength when they struggle with their pasts."

"I—" I swallowed. "I don't think I'm done struggling with my past."

There was still so much to do—people to remember, encounters to unpack, fears to face, regrets and mistakes to address…

"No, likely not," acknowledged Hayato-sensei. "But you're ready to leave regardless. The struggle will likely go on until the day you die. But the western ward was only a place for you to find your footing, and I think you have it now."

I brought a hand up and chewed on my lip.

"Would you like to take the eval today, or shall we wait?" Hayato-sensei asked softly. "If you need to stay longer, you can. They say the war is ending soon. You have all the time you need."

The war was ending soon? I looked up at him. If the war was ending soon, then—then there was no time. If the war was over, Minato would be Hokage, and if Minato were the Hokage, that was the beginning of the end.

"No, let's do it today," I said, gripping the hem of my shirt with white knuckles. "There are things I have to do outside. Let's do it today."


Koharu regarded me with a wistful smile as I pulled on my socks and began fastening my sandals.

"Your gear is so stylish," she told me, seated backwards in my chair. "Cute, but not obnoxious or impractical. I love it."

"Thanks," I grinned. "I sewed it myself."

"Really?" Koharu's eyebrows rose. "That's amazing. You should make something for me when I get out."

I smiled warmly.

"Come by when you do and I'll take your measurements."

After I had gotten dressed in my own clothes and had carefully stashed my journal in my belt pouch, we took a quick detour to Masaki's room.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," he said back. He was still cuffed to the bar.

"I was going to walk Suzu to the desk," Koharu told him.

"Escaping at last, huh? You got in after us, but you're leaving before. I'm jealous."

"If it's okay with you, I thought I'd visit every now and then until you guys get out," I offered tentatively. Even now I was not quite sure where I stood with Masaki. Masaki, though, smiled at me.

"That'd be great. Don't forget us while you're out there. Thanks for hanging around with us nutcases."

I let out a relieved laugh.

"I should say the same. Thanks for hanging out with me, too."

Goodbyes so said, Koharu walked me to the intake desk as promised. I spoke with the receptionist, who provided me with paperwork and then confirmed my discharge.

"Take care," Koharu bade as we gave one another hugs. "I'll look forward to your visits."

"I'll look forward to fitting you for clothes," I replied.

Koharu laughed and waved over her shoulder as she turned to leave. As she went, she smiled at the man behind the desk. I wondered if she would not be by to see me sooner than we'd thought.


The House reabsorbed me with silent welcome. I had faintly dreaded the thought that my cousins and aunt and uncle would treat me differently, but they were just the same as always. After I got back and life continued on quite as if I'd never left.

"Oh, good," Auntie hummed warmly when I appeared in the doorway. "There you are. I'm glad I'll have the chance to ask—did you want lemon cake for your birthday this year? It seemed like you enjoyed it last time."

Life had been so eventful that I'd forgotten I even had a birthday, but as it was I turned twelve just as I was released. An absurdly normal party ensued. There were presents, streamers, candles, and, indeed, lemon cake. My cousins gave me hugs and I got into a wrestling match with Jinta on the living room floor. Haruka tied ribbons to my kunai holster.

And then the next day we woke up to a village ablaze with news of the war. Minato Namikaze had killed a thousand Iwa shinobi. More than that, he had clashed with the Third Raikage's son on the way to meet with Suna forces and had fought him to a draw to cover his comrades' retreat. This alone would have been enough to stir up the people, but then the two remaining Sannin returned unlooked for from the eastern front with extraordinary tidings: Kumo had put up the white flag. Konoha, predictably, went mad.

A few days later the Third Hokage dispatched the internationally famous Ino-Shika-Chou trio to deliver an armistice to Iwa. News of a reply from the Tsuchikage broke just as Minato returned to Konoha.


The streets were exploding with celebration as I silently hiked up the mountain face looking over the village. Minato had been absolutely unapproachable since his return; everyone wanted a piece of him. They were clamoring for photos, for interviews, for questions about his upcoming inauguration… Even playing the "cute little sister wants to see big brother" card hadn't been enough to get me through his new entourage of hangers-on.

At that rate there had been no telling when I would get a chance to disclose the contents of the story to him. It might be weeks after his installation before I could. Considering how time sensitive this was becoming, that wasn't an option, so I did the next best thing: I snooped around Intel until I found someone who knew where Jiraiya of the Sannin lived.

Jiraiya made his home in a tucked-away crevice on the mountain overlooking the village, just west of the Hokage heads. It had been quite hard to grab hold of that information, though. From what I had gathered, it seemed said crevice may or may not have been associated with the entrance of the ANBU Base's residential sector. I had no idea what I thought about that. On the one hand, having a Sannin to be the watchdog of the village's most secretive ninja was brilliant. On the other, Jiraiya was hardly a stable resident of the village, and his work often took him out of the village for months—or years—at a time. I guess people were just counting on the fact that he was a seal master with extensive security traps.

Still, I was wary knowing I was approaching such a sensitive location, so I was circulating chakra in my ears quite vigorously as I made my way up the small, obscure path. As a result, I was still a ways out of range when the sounds of an argument drifted into my enhanced ears.

"Sarutobi-sensei wouldn't—"

"Evidently—"

"Orochimaru, listen," Jiraiya's booming voice insisted as I made my way to the front door. I halted on a dime.

Orochimaru?

"Wait a moment, oaf," a low voice commanded lazily. The door slid open and I found myself staring up into slitted yellow eyes.

Orochimaru was, in his own way, a handsome man. He was very pale, but something about that lent him a rather classical beauty. His hair was very long and dark. Like any shinobi, his body was also conditioned for fitness, so his figure overall was very regal and impressive.

"A little rabbit has appeared on your doorstep," the snake Sannin observed rather apathetically. I was struck with the sudden notion that I had been seen admiring his looks and was currently being written off as a shallow and vacuous little girl. I paused and wondered if I wanted to pick a fight with that image, but then decided against it. If a shinobi as dangerous as Orochimaru deemed me inconsequential, that was more than could be hoped for.

"A what?" Jiraiya appeared behind him. "What do you—oh. You're… eh? You're Minato's kid sister."

Orochimaru's gaze seem to cool a bit. He eyed me with mild distaste, as if I were a nasty thing he'd found stuck to the bottom of his shoe, and brushed past me to the road.

"Wh—hey!" Jiraiya started. "We're not done talking!"

Orochimaru responded by throwing a withering look over his shoulder. It was a bone-chilling glare; even though it was not aimed at me it sent a violent shiver crawling down my spine. Jiraiya deflated as his teammate turned and made his way back down the mountain.

I put a hand in my belt pouch and watched Orochimaru as he went. Orochimaru… he was not someone I had devoted much thought to. In Naruto, he'd been a man like a cockroach: disgusting and impossible to kill, he had spread disease to everyone he touched. And like a cockroach he'd lived to the end. The Earth girl had never finished watching the end of the series, but she had seen enough glimpses of the sequel about Naruto's son, Boruto, to know that Orochimaru was outliving nearly everyone. (1)

I didn't know much about how Orochimaru's profile fit into the timeline of the series. He had done a great many things in Konoha and in Root, but when had he done them? By now he would have been experimenting on innocent citizens for some time. Had he met Anko already? When would he defect?

"What are you doing?" A large hand closed around my forearm. I looked up and saw Jiraiya staring down at me. His face was an odd mix of puzzlement, worry, and foreboding.

"Don't try it," he continued. "Orochimaru would crush you in an instant. But what reason would you have to attack him, anyway?"

I found my face folding into impassivity as I looked up at him. My thoughts must have shown on my face. That was no good; Oyuki would have slapped me upside the head if she were here.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I replied, pulling away from his grip and taking the scroll from my pouch in the same motion. "No chuunin with half a brain would think about taking on Orochimaru of the Sannin." Not alone, anyway.

I eyed Jiraiya calculatingly. What would he do when he learned about his teammate's future? What would he do when he read about his own death? Who would Jiraiya become in the months to follow?

"What's with you, then?" he returned my stare. "Something about you's changed since I last saw you. You're making so many uncute faces."

"Am I?" I asked dryly. "I thought my face had grown more beautiful."

Jiraiya took on a bit of a helpless look. That was interesting. Nothing ever phased Jiraiya in the series; whatever he hadn't met with a sneer or a gag, he'd met with hard shinobi steel. Perhaps this was what he'd been like before he'd been betrayed. He was still fierce shinobi and a legendary killer, but there were still some soft bits showing on him. He'd probably aged hard in the twelve or so years before Naruto's birth. He'd lost a teammate and a student in that time…

"I mean, that's not necessarily wrong," he grumbled as he tousled his white hair restlessly. "I'm not saying you're not pretty. But that's not—argh, I mean—"

As amusing as it was to see a twelve-year-old make a man twice her size squirm, I figured this was where the comedy routine ought to stop. I cut him off by holding the scroll out to him.

"...What's this?"

"It's intel," I decided to call it. "It's not sanctioned or anything, but I'd class it as S-rank sensitivity. Be careful—I didn't have time to code it when I copied it over. It's raw."

Now he was giving me a properly incredulous look. Well, whatever public image he tried to cultivate, Jiraiya was a spymaster at heart, and this was possibly the worst intel trade-off he'd ever participated in. In broad daylight, out of doors, two conspicuous figures… we'd even had a witness. Still, it wasn't as if Jiraiya and I had any established ciphers or signals, and there was no time to go about this with any more finesse. This information had to be handed over now, before it was too late.

Jiraiya squinted at me dubiously.

"Are you Suzu Namikaze?"

"Yes."

"What's this about?" He looked at the scroll.

"...It's complicated, but it's probably enough to say that it's information about the destruction of Konoha and her Hokage."

That had a focusing effect. Jiraiya gave me a sharp glare.

"That's not a funny joke, kid. I know your brother's busy, but you should know better than to cry for attention with something like that."

"It's not a joke." I put a hand on my face, exhaled, and noticed that my fingers were beginning to tremble. My nerve, evidently, was fraying fast; perhaps it was time to withdraw. "Just read it and find me later. I'm going home now. I'm tired..."

Jiraiya must have seen me start to shake because he didn't press the point as I began to retreat. And as I walked away, leaving my secret between the Toad Sage's fingers, the decision I had agonized over was taken out of my hands forever.


Konoha partied hard when Minato became the Hokage. I think people had enjoyed themselves—as they had a right to after so many years of suffering—but I also felt something raw and painful at the edges of their energy. They pushed ferociously to have fun; they knocked back gallons of alcohol; they sang hoarsely at the top of their lungs, and by so doing they hid any trace of waver in their voices. When they woke up the next day, they were aching with more than just hangover. But this time the morning brought hope with it rather than despair, and that retroactively made the previous night's undercurrent of bitter mourning into something a little more more palatable. It seemed to me that healing might begin soon.

A little time later I finally found my way to Itsuki-sensei again. I found his shop in the market, talked to him, and eventually stayed a night in his extra bedroom. The next morning I helped him stock the store. The way we stood together and silently sorted persimmons somehow seemed more meaningful than any of the training I'd done in the past two years. It wasn't hard, but it was work. Honest, bloodless work—livelihood made on something clean.

A little while later were sitting on stools near the back, peeling oranges and kumquats to make into marmalade, when Itsuki-sensei asked at a length, "What ever became of Akihiko-kun?"

Most people in the know would never ask me about Akihiko so baldly, but somehow it didn't hurt when the query came from Itsuki-sensei. If anything, I found I wanted to tell him. He had a right to know.

"He joined ANBU," I told him. I didn't feel the same compunction about telling him as I had Kakashi. "Though I guess technically he's not an ANBU as such. He's a Special Forces apprentice. There was an undercover ANBU captain who ran with us on a mission to Earth Country who recruited him."

Itsuki-sensei's eyebrows rose as he lowered his knife.

"So he left you? Just like that?"

I was silent for a long moment as I set down my own half-peeled fruit. Then I said, "No. I guess it's more like I left him."

"What do you mean?"

"Susumu tried to recruit us both," I admitted. "But I turned him down. It didn't even occur to Akihiko that we wouldn't go together, and he didn't find out I'd declined until he was already heading out to the ANBU Base. I… it wasn't good. We didn't part on good terms, Sensei."

Something about sadness had permeated Itsuki-sensei's being since we had reunited, but never did it show as prominently on him as it did just then. As he picked up his knife and resumed peeling, he commented quietly, "It's a hard life in ANBU."

"I know."

"He hasn't contacted you since?"

"No, I haven't heard a word. I thought about trying to find him from my end, but…"

"It's not a small matter to put yourself in communication with any person attached to ANBU," Sensei noted. "I doubt very much anyone from the General Forces would succeed without specific connections."

"Got it in one," I sighed glumly. "I couldn't do it even after establishing myself in Intel."

"He's been there for two years?" Itsuki-sensei's face was increasingly concerned.

"Not quite that long. A year and some months."

"And not a word to you, his only remaining childhood friend? Even if you quarreled, that's…"

"His father hasn't heard much from him either," I confided. "I went to him when I couldn't contact Akihiko on my own, but he doesn't have a way to look in on him, either."

"That's not healthy." Itsuki-sensei shook his head. "There's no way he's constructed a sufficient support system in the Special Forces that quickly. And even if he has, that's still not good enough. It's standard practice for ANBU to have a touchstone on the outside, but if it's not you and it's not his father, I'm not sure if he has one at all."

"How do you know so much about it?" I asked curiously.

Itsuki-sensei glanced at the door. People were milling about on the street busily, but no one turned in our way.

"I was a touchstone for a while," he confessed. "For someone from my Academy class. We remained fairly good friends even after everyone split into different careers... he picked me when we were seventeen or so. He's been dead for a little while now, though."

I raised my eyebrows. I never expected Itsuki-sensei might have such a connection to ANBU. No wonder he was so worried; he probably had great insight into what Akihiko's life must be like now.

"...Maybe things won't be so bad for him now that the war is over," I said, but the optimism sounded quite false even in my ears. I thought of Koharu and Masaki's sensei, Airi Sonohara, and the ANBU team that had been dispatched to silence her. "Maybe the bad missions are over now?"

"Maybe," Itsuki-sensei said with tangible doubt.

And then, as we found ourselves sitting silently again, Kakashi appeared before us with a mission scroll in hand.


A/N: In Glory, Suzu was meant to become quite a good friend to Jiraiya in adulthood, but they hardly interacted beforehand. Hopefully that'll handle better now.

I'm really happy Itsuki is back in this. He was such a pointless character in the previous draft, but I feel like he's got some real meat on him now.


Notes:

1. The Earth girl had never finished watching the end of the series…

Like many, I think the whole plot of Kaguya was stupid and a mistake. How do we avoid dealing with her? Well, we're just not going to give Suzu that information. I have no plans for Kaguya to appear in HSS.