Yuka walked back to her mostly empty house, alone. The seventy-five-year-old entrance door hitched, scraping the floor. Another repair was unaffordable. Carefully, she shut them tight and bolted them. False sliding doors helped project the image of a tranquil home while providing security. The second lock was newer. Auntie installed this ugly deadbolt during the Second War, long before Yuka moved to Konoha.

"Mrp. Mrrp. Raow?"

Big Cat skittered to Yuka's feet and started weaving, his tail straight up in the air.

"Uh-huh, sure, I never feed you," she murmured, "It's been three whole hours since your last meal. The tragedy."

Picking him up made him purr. What a big cuddle-boy. Yuka buried her face into the cat's shoulder-blades.

The same pile of photos lurked on the table, exactly where she left them since last week. It was getting pathetic. She put Big Cat aside. The whole week had been so productive already, might as well sort the pictures. Yuka would feel better after getting this done.

Pre-War pictures in one category.

Post-War in another.

Finally, wartime.

A separate category could've been made for Mom's photography, but she didn't have the energy. The consequences of Yuka treating an old camera like a toy shared space with Mom's work. Destruction seamlessly integrated with the mundane things that fascinated older children.

One photo couldn't be placed: Aiko shoving her hand at the lens, frowning with tangled morning hair. Presumably, she didn't want Yuka pointing a camera at her face. Yuka likely laughed as Aiko gave her that death stare.

"I was such an annoying kid," she slipped the other photos back into their package, keeping the family photo and Aiko's unwanted portrait. Everything else could stay in a drawer. The closet that she rarely opened still waited across the kitchen, as innocuous as a package of photos. Meaning was assigned by human beings, not intrinsic to any given object.

Photographs are imitations of light and color.

A closet is a hole in a wall.

With the matter 'settled', Yuka brewed tea and listened to the wind rustle through the trees outside her home. Konoha would warm up eventually. Spring marched forward. By mid-April, they'll have so many beautiful days it won't be remarkable.

Big Cat hopped onto the counter. He wasn't supposed to walk on surfaces where food was prepared. Stopping him, however, was a losing battle. Yuka didn't even bother anymore. A silent 'tut' was all she offered, scratching his little chin.

She had to wake up at 6 AM.

…

At first, Yuka thought she was dreaming.

Hushed whispers. People creeping around in the grass. What sounded like arguing?

Yuka's eyes shot open. The sky outside her window was purple.

Big Cat slept heavily on her back. He hissed half-heartedly when she moved.

Feeling like a bag of rocks, Yuka dragged herself to her feet. She was tired enough to be incredibly paranoid. Every light she passed by was turned on. It was barely dawn. Sometimes that was creepier than night. Also, there were people outside her house. She could hear them clearly.

A loud, demanding knock. Yuka damn near jumped out of her skin. Another knock. And then another. "It's 5 AM!" she groaned.

Before she could question whether it was a clever idea to answer such a knock, a voice rang out.

"Your house is needed for a mission!"

A child's voice? The fuck?

Yuka opened her door.

A long-haired boy with pupilless blue-white eyes stood at the entrance. His eyes were starkly similar to a boy with a rare eye disorder that she taught a few years ago. If he hadn't been glaring directly at her, she might've thought he was blind. But just as plenty of blind people have 'typical' looking eyes, it seemed not every person with white eyes was disabled.

And, oh, how he glared at her. Directly. Intentionally.

Straight into her eyes. As though she were ruining his day. How dare she not be immediately awake at this hour? He had a Konoha standard-issue forehead protector.

"Good morning, civilian," his voice cracked as he tried his best to sound… at least fifteen? But that only highlighted how obvious it was that he couldn't have been older than twelve.

Baby shinobi.

"Hi. My name's Ms. Tanaka," Yuka tried to smile with her eyes as well, but she was too tired, "It's 5 in the morning. Is there something you need?"

"We need access to a portion of your home for a mission," he shoved a piece of paper in her face, "Please give written permission."

"Huh? What am I writing?" Yuka stepped back. As young as the boy was, he was still only a few inches shorter than her. That paper was far too close to her eyes.

"You're saying we can search your house."

Yuka wasn't thrilled at the prospect of being an asshole to a kid, but there was no other choice. She couldn't let a child rifle through her things. Really, whoever sent him at 5 AM to bother her was at fault. His superior? Ah yes, his jonin. She'd bitch at the jonin, instead.

"…Can I talk to your jonin?" Yuka asked, "You have one, right? An adult?"

His face went red.

A girl crawled out from underneath her house, half-caked in mud, "We're so sorry! Neji has, like, zero social skills."

"I'm following procedure. You have to get written permission before you conduct searches on private property. What you're doing is ILLEGAL, by the way!" he spat.

Just like that, another boy hopped off her roof, sailing clean over her head and landing smoothly next to Neji, "But an innocent life is at stake!"

Yuka blinked. It was far too early for this shit. "Hey, uh, I don't know what's going on, but the underside of my house isn't safe to crawl under. It's old and there's… um… rusted nails and broken glass down there. You could get tetanus."

"Not a problem, ma'am!" the boy from the roof took himself as seriously as Neji. He had big, bushy eyebrows and huge eyes. "Tetanus is no match for our training!"

"Look, I really don't want to get you in trouble, but you're crawling under my house and… woke me up at 5 am? I thought I had burglars," Yuka pinched the bridge of her nose.

Across the street, a strange, tall figure appeared to be talking with her neighbor, a little old lady who owned five cats. And… she possibly hated her guts? It had been nearly ten years since Yuka spray painted her mailbox, though.

'Innocent life'… getting underneath the house… oh. Yuka turned to Neji, "For future reference, you could've just said you were looking for an animal."

He kept glowering. Alright.

"I got her! Porkchop is safe! Extracting, now."

"Good job, Tenten!"

In the seconds that Yuka had turned her head away, the girl disappeared under her house again, emerging with a ruffled, dirty white cat. Baby shinobi were still extremely fast.

Not quite 'disappear in between blinks' quick, yet.

The tall figure noticed Yuka, and she waved. Suddenly, he took off into a sprint. Running towards her house like a maniac. He slid as he stopped his momentum.

At this point, she was awake enough to be something other than tired and irritated. But there had been too much drama already. Nothing could shock her.

"Someone lives here!?" he cried out, in pure, genuine dismay. The man seemed even taller up close. He wore a green jumpsuit and had a bowl-cut that was so out-of-style it was almost cool.

"Good morning," Yuka smiled, "Did my neighbor say the house was abandoned, by any chance?"

"…I told everyone the woman was lying," Neji sniffed, "This house might appear abandoned, but…"

Thanks. Repairing this place costs upwards of one hundred thousand ryo, but you probably don't have to worry about money yet, do you?

"So you did…!" tears streamed down the jonin's face, "And here is the most important lesson, Neji. Though he may train for a thousand years, your sensei is still only fallible! You were right to listen to the enthusiasm of your youth. Every mission, from D Rank to A, requires 100% effort!"

"He might want to avoid leading in with 'we want to search your house' next time. But I appreciate that he cares about doing it right."

That only seemed to infuriate the boy more.

"Hm. I'm afraid we still cannot approach people this way! Only a chunin or jonin can ask to search someone's house in a nonemergency situation. Mutual respect is the foundation of Konoha's community," he turned to Yuka, "Some people may find my approach to training too soft-hearted, but when young people make mistakes, they need to be corrected with a compassion that acknowledges the trials of growing up! I hope you aren't offended by my liberal teaching style!"

A pause. Almost like the punchline to a joke. This man wasn't joking, though. He seemed as serious as Neji, as serious as the boy who leapt off her roof.

At some point, the girl returned the cat. Porkchop was no longer in her arms.

"It's already five-thirty-six AM! We only have five hours to do laps around the stadium before our next mission. A thousand pushups! Civilian engagement retraining! Let's do better! Let's seize the day with youth!"

The boy with the thick eyebrows looked thrilled, "Of course, sensei! Thank you for providing this learning opportunity, ma'am!"

"We're really sorry!" the girl repeated.

Yuka tried to say something about how that was excessive, given that they were just trying to rescue a cat from her admittedly hazardous open crawlspace. They were already off. A little pack of ninjas followed their leader into the sunrise.

And she hadn't even had coffee, yet.

…

The students brainstormed in silence. While Yuka never let her tiredness impact her teaching, she couldn't help but feel disoriented and stupid.

Even 'good shinobi' had a habit of happening to people. They appeared, claimed the space for themselves however long they needed, and then vanished. While Yuka tried to process the events of the morning at work, those ninja kids were likely well on their way to the next mission.

They didn't seem like bad kids. Not even 'Neji', who was more of an awkward stickler for the rules than a pocket-sized jackboot.

If civilian children tried to fish a frightened cat out from under her house that early in the morning, she would've just warned them that they could get in bad trouble doing that at another adult's house. Ask them to let her get someone trained to handle animals because the underside is unsafe. Chat with their parents, after, maybe. Not to demand anyone be punished, just… talk. Laugh it off. Make them aware their kids acted a bit recklessly.

Unfortunately, these children were shinobi attempting to complete a mission.

"What are we doing now, Ms. Tanaka?" Miyuki called out, "It's been twenty minutes since we started brainstorming."

Another collective sigh.

Her students almost got away with doing nothing.

…

All throughout the week, Yuka wondered how Kakashi was training his kids. His 'underlings' or 'subordinates', as she heard him say.

With tears streaming down his face, that strange other jonin proclaimed to be softhearted and liberal. He insisted that children needed to be treated with compassion. Immediately after, he assigned the genin hours of running and 'one thousand pushups'.

It wasn't that hard for her mind to wander to Mr. 'Shinobi Cannot Be Mediocre', in response. Make the children hungry, they'll get frustrated and betray each other. Filter. Out. The. Weak. Also, you look nice today, Yuka, was it something you did with your hair?

Saturday closed in on her, but she had come to expect that feeling. Kakashi's dates always felt like they were pursuing her, approaching in a threatening way. Even before she knew truth about him. And all three times they met, something unraveled. She noticed another thing about him that set her on edge. Truth was a developing concept.

And he kept asking, 'Do you want to do this?'.

Yuka would proceed to say yes and wonder what possessed her later.

There was a lot still unsaid. A lot he didn't know about her. The knowledge gap went both ways, being shinobi hardly made him psychic.

All she had to do to reminded herself was picture that jonin, confused and dismayed.

'Someone lives here?!'