They walked in silence through the darkness, as silence was the only language they knew with each other.

But Hotaru didn't mind that.

Words got in the way anyway.

She liked that Shino knew how to use so few of them.

I always thought I knew who the Aburame were...I never stopped to think what your real story could be...I never realized, until now, how different I wish things had been for the Aburame and the Kamizuru...

Hotaru glanced Shino's way again.

How I wish that one day I could be your friend too.

Everything I believed about you was a lie, Shino...could it be that we've always had this much to learn from each other?

Shino stopped walking.

"This is it," he said, a hint of excitement brightening his habitually sober voice.

Hotaru dragged her eyes away from Shino.

Instantly captivated by a mirror of lights dancing like golden galaxies over the river.

Fireflies.

Hundreds of them.

Hotaru's eyes lit up as her gaze followed their flight.

Her face exactly identical to Shino's fascination, when he had first discovered the firefly mating grounds.

"It took me years to find them," Shino said. "As a fellow bug user, maybe you could understand why it means so much to me."

I do.

Hotaru thought, thrilled by the warmth of tiny little fires against the numbing cold of her face.

I completely get it, Shino.

She squeezed his arm reassuringly, letting him know she understood.

Unaware of what her closeness was doing to him inside, behind the protection of his collar.

But rather than stiffen his arm awkwardly away from her, Shino pulled her in a little closer.

"Is all this real? Can she be real too?...The only thing that scares me is...if I break this jutsu, will she disappear too?" Shino worried. "That's because for once in my life...I'm not alone. And I like the way it feels...I like...her."

Shino couldn't stop looking at Hotaru.

Because it had to be a dream that a girl this beautiful could love bugs as much as he did.

And maybe, just maybe, she'd love talking about them too.

"Did you know fireflies attract their mates by the way their lights dim and flicker?" Shino told Hotaru. "The male flies to her with his light-song. If the female is drawn to it, she'll answer with her own light-song. Why, you ask? The reason is because they are soulmates, and his light-song is only for her."

Hotaru smiled at that beautiful thought.

Mesmerized by the light show of soulmates around them.

If it took him years to find a firefly...

Hotaru wondered to herself.

Wouldn't he want to at least catch one now and study it?

But Shino didn't seem interested in collecting the fireflies for his bug jars.

He didn't want to move, if it meant her letting go of his arm in the end.

The reason catching one doesn't matter is because...

Shino thought to himself.

Because she will always be my firefly...even if I never tell her she is.

"I'm glad we haven't found a way out of this fog," Shino told Hotaru. "Because it's not so bad after all, getting lost with you. Thank you for coming here with me."

Shino...you and me here...this is all an illusion.

Hotaru thought bittersweetly.

What happens when the jutsu is broken? Would you still share your world with me like this, if you knew who I really was?...What if after the jutsu is broken, we can never go back to being like this again?

Hotaru sighed under the weight of that dilemma, making Shino glance her way worriedly.

"What is it?" he asked her, concerned.

Eventually, you're going to find out that I'm a Kamizuru...by then, we'll likely be in battle with each other again...I don't want you to find out that way. I'd rather you know now who I am, as we watch fireflies...than find out the truth as we're killing each other.

And handling him as gently as he had handled her, Hotaru pulled her arm away from Shino's elbow and faced him.

"Are you tired now?" Shino tried to guess what was bothering her. "I'd be happy to carry you back to your cocoon."

No, Shino...Just please stop making this so hard for me...I have something I need to say to you...

Hotaru took a deep breath, finding her courage to speak and let Shino hear her voice for the first time.

But just when her lips parted to say her first word to him, a dark ominous figure in a beekeeper's suit emerged from the foggy forest from behind Shino.

Hotaru blinked, swearing she was seeing things.

Endless days stuck in this bamboo grove, and she hadn't seen another person besides Shino and herself.

And then it gradually came back to her.

That Shino had been right all along.

There had been a beekeeper in the forest when she was first captured by the fog.

And before she passed out in battle, this beekeeper had tried to kill them both with a 1000 Bee Stings Technique.

"You," the beekeeper had declared to Shino in the blur of her memory. "You're from the Aburame clan of the Hidden Leaf. I warned you that showing your face to me again would mean only one of us walks away."

Hotaru's heart dropped.

The beekeeper was unmistakably a Kamizuru, like her.

Could that mean he was here to finish Shino off for being an Aburame?

"Honeycomb Prism Jutsu!" the beekeeper declared, advancing on them.

Hotaru grabbed Shino, and yanked him out of the path of the beekeeper's jutsu.

Placing herself in the line of fire instead to protect him from the attack.

"Wait, no!" Shino tried to intervene with the beekeeper before Hotaru got hurt in the crossfire. "Beetle sphere!"

Shino attempted to capture the beekeeper in a whirlpool of his insects, but his counterattack came only a second too late.

A curtain of yellow jacket bees ripped between him and Hotaru, tearing their hands out of each other's reach.

Obeying his urgent command, Shino's bugs clashed into the beekeeper's defensive wall.

But by the time his insects devoured the yellow jackets and their chakra, the beekeeper was gone.

And Hotaru had disappeared with him.

"He may be the beekeeper here," Shino vowed, as he and his bugs raced after the beekeeper's tracks. "But if he does anything to her, he'll never recover after facing me."