A Green Beast training a pair of knuckleheads.


"Impressive Naruto!" Might Guy's beaming smile was brighter than normal as he watched the exhausted child collapse as he finished his last lap. Unlike the first few times when it had taken him all day, he had completed all of them before noon. He had managed to do what even Lee struggled with at odd times through what had to be sheer stubbornness and determination.

No matter how many times he fell, he rose back to his feet, pushed himself to continue running.

He had completed all one hundred laps that marked the start of his training.

"I'm dying…I see lights!" Naruto groaned on the ground in utter exhaustion, was unable to do much with his exhausted legs. "I can't feel my feet!"

"Nonsense!" Guy crouched down, patted his sandal clad feet. "They're right here!" He continued to smile as he rose back to his full height, continued to smile as he saw that he had been right in taking Naruto under his instruction, that this was worth whatever punishment could possibly fall on him from the Third Hokage.

The boy had stamina even he would be hard pressed to match, a drive that equaled his own in his desire to continue on no matter how many times he fell.

It was a reminder of his younger days and a testament to the strength of the younger generation, the drive they had to go past those who had come before them.

He felt more than a little honored to play his own small part in such an important thing as this, work to see his latest student's determination pay off, to see his hard work flourish into hard won skill.

That he would have the honor of raising not one but two pupils was nearly more than he believed he deserved, filled him with boundless pride day in and day out.

"Guy-sensei is right!" Finishing his own laps, Lee beamed down at Naruto with a similar smile. "You've accomplished something great Naruto! You've struck true to your Ninja Way and accomplished your goal of running one hundred laps!"

"…So…tired…" Naruto could only continue to groan on the ground but eventually managed to drag himself to at least sit up. He heaved out one last breath before he decided to get back on his aching feet. Rock Lee, Might Guy's other student, wasn't wrong when he said he had stuck to his Ninja Way.

It was all about never giving up.

"The next Hokage…can't ever give up…on anything…once he says…he'll do it…" Naruto was still exhausted but this wasn't the first time he had been over it.

He had been training with Guy-sensei for a few weeks now, always either right after he was done at the Academy or all weekend like he was now. Might Guy had taken his training seriously from the start, had told him everything he expected of him, what Naruto should expect from him, and what he had to do to keep training with the Jonin.

One of them was to stop ditching his Academy classes all the time, to start doing the work just like Lee was doing a year above.

"A stellar Shinobi is one strong in both body and mind!"

The fact that he had started off the lesson with a punch to the face after he had learned Naruto had skipped his next class had been another reason the blonde was against ever ditching again.

Iruka-sensei was happy at least.

He hadn't lectured him since he had stopped ditching, had even offered to help him with catching up on the work he missed. The same work that had been part of the crushing weight Guy had dropped in his lap with a smile and told him to get to work.

He had no idea he had slacked off so much for it to hurt like that.

He still wasn't the best at this whole Academy class thing but he was getting better grades on the test Iruka-sensei had been handing back the past few weeks if nothing else. The happy smile on Iruka-sensei's face, that he told him he was proud of him, was another plus to Naruto on meeting Might Guy, getting the chance to be his student.

"Now on to the next exercise!" Guy's words were met with exuberance from Lee, Naruto not having to force himself to have a tired smile on his face.

As tiring as this all was, his time with Guy-sensei was starting to be something he looked forward to.

"We'll begin with the basics of Strong Fist!" Guy held his fist in the air. "A thousand repetitions of the basic kata! We'll etch the very foundation of our strength into our very souls! If not? Why we will simply do a thousand more until the lesson sticks!"

"You are wise beyond your years Guy-sensei!" Lee eagerly fell into the opening stance, one arm behind his back and the other raised with palm up towards the sky. "Let us begin!"

"YEAH!" Naruto had managed to get his breath back, managed to copy Lee's own stance even if it was still a bit shaky, still not as good as Lee's but he was improving more and more every day! It was the first thing Guy-sensei had made him learn after he had stopped ditching classes. He wasn't going to disappoint him and not get just as good at it as Lee, as Guy-sensei was. "Get ready for the next Hokage to be the next Taijutsu master too!"

"Then let us begin!" Guy did so, a straight punch followed by another and another. Three simple blows that carried with it the fundamentals of the style known as Strong Fist. Each carried with it the force to break bones, to send enemy Shinobi flying away. It had done so in the past and would do so in the future as long as any of its practitioners called themselves Shinobi of the Hidden Lead.

Lee and Naruto were quick to follow his example.

Punch. Punch. Punch.

Punch. Punch. Punch.

After the first dozen or so repetitions, Naruto fell into his thoughts.

Learning Might Guy's Taijutsu style, what he called Strong Fist, was exhausting. He had thought it just meant punching really hard all the time, kicking really hard when punching didn't work, but Guy-sensei had stopped that line of thought pretty quickly.

Strong Fist did carry the ability to break bones but it was also control of the body.

Punch. Punch. Punch.

Each punch was to be at someone maximum strength, each strike a reaffirmation of their dedication, each kick a fresh proclamation of their drive.

Punch. Punch. Punch.

Strong Fist was as much of a mindset as a fighting style.

Punch. Punch. Punch.

If you gave your word, you accomplished the task.

Punch. Punch. Punch.

If you took on a challenge, you took it on with all your heart,

Punch. Punch. Punch.

If you fell, you picked yourself back up.

Punch. Punch. Punch.

If you failed, you picked yourself back to try again.

Punch. Punch. Punch.

If you succeeded, you set a new goal for yourself.

Punch. Punch. Punch.

Strong Fist was a perfect fit for the three of them, all three of them too stubborn to quit, too determined to even think about giving up.

Punch. Punch. Punch.

It was a style that exemplified hard work above all else, a relentless drive to improve yourself, improve others if you could.

Punch. Punch. Punch.

Naruto wasn't embarrassed to say he liked doing this, liked training with Guy-sensei and Lee even if the two of them could be kind of weird.

Punch. Punch. Punch.

Even if he went to bed exhausted every night, work up with his muscles aching a bit, he didn't let them stop him from coming back day after day.

Punch. Punch. Punch.

He was going to be a Shinobi who used Strong Fist, who was going to be too stubborn to give up just like he wasn't ever going to give up on being Hokage, on getting everybody in the Hidden Leaf to look up and know Naruto Uzumaki was always going to be around!

Punch. Punch. Punch.


Brothers get the chance to talk at last.


On a familiar pier, Sasuke Uchiha hesitated to do anything but sit.

Ever since what happened a few days ago, what had happened during his practice to stop being a disappointment, he hadn't been able to do much of anything.

He still came out here after he was done with the Academy but he didn't practice anymore. He didn't even practice his long memorized Hand Seals.

All he could do was stare at the water as he sat on the pier.

He stared at the ice floating in it.

The ice that he was causing.

Despite it being so warm, he couldn't help but shiver, wrap his arms around himself to try and ward off a chill only he could feel.

It turns out he was the problem.

He was the one thing that was making using the Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique so hard.

"I can't do anything right…" He wished his legs were long enough to kick the ice filled water below.

He was just a child, wasn't good enough to kick water just like he wasn't good enough to be an Uchiha like all the other kids said.

If he couldn't fix this, fix what was wrong with him, then he would never be a man like his dad, like Itachi, like Shisui.

He would always be stuck as a kid.

"Why can't I do this right?" He almost wanted to cry, angrily rubbed at his eyes with his sleeves instead. He couldn't cry. He wasn't a baby anymore so he couldn't cry. "I have to do this right. I have to. I have to. I have to."

He didn't know when his hands tightened on the planks.

He did know when they cracked, when he felt the cold of the frost that was coming from his hands.

He quickly pulled them away, could only stare at the ice on them.

"No…" He could only shake his head, wipe his hands on his shorts. "No! No! No!" He shook his head, tried to focus on his Chakra, make the fire he knew he should make since he was an Uchiha.

The ice on his hands only returned, had to be rubbed off again.

"I'm supposed to be an Uchiha. I'm supposed to have fire like everybody else!" He wished he wasn't like this, wished he could do something right.

Mom and Dad would be happy with him if he could make fire like everybody else, would be happy if he could be just a little bit like-

"I thought I would find you here." He almost went into the water at the voice behind him, nearly did so if arms didn't wrap around him, keep him propped up on the pier as their owner stood on the wall.

Two fingers gently poked his forehead.

Itachi Uchiha smiled at his little brother before he really took him in.

It quickly dropped.

Father and Mother had both said he had been upset for the past few days, that he had been heading off to the pier he went to after the Academy, staying their longer. More than once, Father had checked on him during his limited free time, made sure he was alright before returning to the police station. When Itachi had asked why he didn't go up to his son and talk to him, why a mother didn't talk to her son after he came home so late, he earned a familiar silence in reply.

He didn't want to show his anger in front of Sasuke, didn't want him to think lesser of his parents because of the poor hand they had been dealt.

"What's wrong?" He was quick to join his brother on the pier, didn't hesitate to do the simple thing and talk to his little brother, try and help him any way he knew how.

"…" Sasuke was silent in a way only a child could be, was stubbornly keeping his problems to himself.

'He's in the big boy phase.' If this was any other moment, Itachi would smile at Sasuke's stubbornness, in his foolish little brother trying to act what he saw as mature and like a grown up.

This was not such a moment.

It was clear Sasuke was hurting, that something was wrong, that he needed help. Itachi would normally let him work through it himself, let him have his privacy and only interfere if he needed him to but he couldn't do that today, not with something that made his little brother so upset for so long.

'I wish I had gotten back sooner.' It didn't matter that he had finished his assigned mission early, had returned far ahead of schedule for an A-Rank mission. It didn't matter how good he had been, he had clearly come back too late for what really mattered.

His little brother was clearly hurting so much and had no one to go to.

No one until now.

"Sasuke…I only want to help you." Itachi didn't know if Sasuke would accept a hug but moved to wrap his arm around his shoulders. "I only wa-"

Itachi couldn't help but jump when he touched Sasuke, when his hand felt like it was freezing. Sasuke was quick to nearly throw himself off the pier, actually succeeded when Itachi tried to reach out to him in concern only for the boy to panic and try to move away again.

This time, Itachi succeeded in catching his little brother, ignored the biting frost that, while surprising at first, didn't seem to hurt.

It was, in an odd way, as warm as it was cold. It had surprised him at first, made him worry that something was wrong with Sasuke, but that was all.

"I-I can't do it!" The floodgates seemed to break once he was in Itachi's arms, once the older Uchiha had stepped onto the water once more.

"You can't do what?" Itachi had an inkling of what was wrong, suddenly had new context for many of the problems Sasuke had come across over the years. Such as his persistent problems with learning the Uchiha's signature technique, his complete inability to create even a puff of smoke, a wisp of flame.

"I'm what's wrong! I kept messing up and I thought I could fix it and I thought I could make Mom and Dad happy and I would make you happy and those kids would stop picking on me but I can't! I can't do anything right! I can't use the Great Fireball even if I tried all day! I kept trying and I kept doing what you showed me but I can't do it!"

"Shhhh." Itachi adjusted him in his arms, patted the sobbing child's back. "There isn't anything wrong with you Sasuke."

"Yes it is!" Sasuke was still bawling, was trying to stop his tears, was wiping at his eyes with no success. "If I wasn't me I wouldn't make Mom and Dad sad all the time! You would be happy!"

"Not without you." Itachi tightened his hold on his little brother, didn't let the familiar anger at his parents burn to the surface now.

He couldn't.

Not when Sasuke needed him more than he needed to be angry.

He only continued to hug Sasuke as he continued to let out what had been building up for so long. His failures to learn the signature technique of the clan, Mother and Father being like they were with him, the other children treating him like they did, and so much more simply running over.

He needed to be there for him more than he needed to do anything else.

He could handle his own problems later.

'A Kekkei Genkai of all things?' He tightened his hold on Sasuke. 'A second Kekkei Genkai.' He didn't need to look down to his feet to know the water beneath him was frosting over. He had felt the cold spread from Sasuke to him, wrap him in that strange mix of warmth and cold. He had no doubt it would spread the longer Sasuke was like this, that his emotions were out of control like this.

"I'm here for you Sasuke." He wished he wasn't the only one his little brother could rely on, that someone else would fill the role while he was away on missions, that the two who should love and care for Sasuke the most would show it for once, would treat their son with the love he deserved. "I'm always going to be here for you."

"P-Promise?" Sasuke's tears, for the moment at least, seemed to slow. The cold remained but it had ceased its relentless spread out from the pier.

"Of course little bother." Itachi would tell him no lies, not now. Not if he could ever help it. He would always be here for him. "I promise."

It only set his little brother to a fresh bout of tears, made him hold on to his older brother tighter in gratitude, in relief that someone was here for him.

He spared a glance to the hill.

On it, Fugaku Uchiha stood watching it all from a distance.

He almost wanted to call out to his father, to demand that he do something for his youngest son.

He almost wanted to cruse him, curse him and his cowardice, his inability to act as a father instead of a Clan Head.

He wanted to do so many things.

Instead, he silently met the black eyes of his father.

Silently, he asked him to do something, to do anything for his hurting son.

And just as silently, Fugaku Uchiha left the two of them alone.


A visit to a dear friend leads to a revelation.


"You're looking better."

From his bed, Shin managed a dry laugh.

"And you still don't have a tan." Shin set down the book he had been reading in bed, gave his friend his full focus.

"I believe I would only get a sunburn with my complexion." Sai approached the bed, examined the book he had set on the bedside table. He took his familiar seat at his side. "How are you doing?"

Shin's smile slightly dimmed.

"I'm still not getting better it seems." Shin's smile had an air of sadness to it, something Sai could recognize.

He reached out with one of his hands, took hold of one of Shin's.

"I'll do better on my assignments." Sai wasn't unfamiliar with this, knew it was not something Danzo would hesitate to do. He had withheld treatments before, had threatened doctors to cease their treatments before seeing results time and time again. He should've expected this from Danzo once he had stated his refusal to train the children as ROOT's leader had originally intended, once he had approached him with an alternative program.

Long term infiltrators into the normal Shinobi forces under the guise of the already established orphan program was deemed acceptable. He had remained responsible for their care, their training. They needed to perform just as exceptionally as he had for the program to be deemed worthwhile.

Shin only continued to look sad in his bed, watch as Sai's thoughts raced through his head, as he no doubt blamed himself for failing, blamed himself for bringing Danzo's ire down on his friend.

"Don't blame yourself." Shin squeezed his hand, couldn't put much of his former strength into the simple act. He managed to smile as Sai looked at him. "You've done more than you ever needed to for me."

"I haven't done enough until you're better." Sai was quick to disagree. "I've done nowhere near enough."

"You're putting too much on your shoulders when you don't need to."

"You're correct. I choose to." Sai's resolve, ever since that day he had come to understand it, reignited the once suppressed emotions within him, had only continued to grow.

He wasn't a fool, wasn't that idealistic.

He was aware he couldn't change the world, would be unable to invoke from massive change, but he could do his part in this small piece of it.

Yet again, Shin's expression was one of sorrow, one of regret.

"I wish I could do something to help." He cast his eyes around the hospital room, the empty room that Sai had bartered with Danzo for. "I feel…so useless."

"Focus on getting better." Sai managed to give his friend a smile, one that wasn't so dissimilar to the one he had once drawn, the one so filled with life in his picture book. "Once you do that, we can talk more."

"Yeah…" Shin couldn't stop his sigh. "Once I'm better…" He shook his head, tried to move past his sudden depressive slump. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling when thinking about his condition, the weight Sai had so tirelessly carried by himself to help him, to save him. "Those kids you're working with, how are they doing?"

Sai smiled once more.

"I'm…I'm beginning to enjoy this assignment more than I should." Sai found himself unable to stop smiling at the memories Shin's question had brought to the forefront of his mind. "Over the past few weeks, I…I don't know how to describe what it's been like. It's been more difficult than any assignment I've ever took on before but it is, somehow, equally as rewarding as them all. Danzo hasn't eased his standards in the slightest but he's been satisfied with their performance, satisfied with mine. They'll be sent into the Academy in staggered groups, their cover will be as orphans under the new program introduced by the Third Hokage. ROOT will see to their placements and structure their careers to best serve the Hidden Leaf."

"They have much better luck than we did." Shin could find it in himself to laugh.

Their situation had been horrible, both nothing but the latest products of Danzo Shimura's latest harvest in the shadows. The one thing they could rely on during their training had been the other, had drawn strength from their friendship.

The children Sai would be looking after, would be training, would have a much better fate than the two of them.

Once Danzo died, once the darkness he sought to surround himself in finally swallowed him whole, they would be free the quickest.

He still questioned what he would do if he lived long enough to see the same, if he would ever recover despite Danzo's efforts to leave him infirm. His plan had already worked out well enough, had left him stuck on a sickbed for months now. He knew Danzo wasn't to blame for his illness, that was misfortune's fault alone, but he was responsible for how poorly he was recovering.

How prolonged his stay in this empty room was turning out to be.

"I would hope so." Sai sighed at Shin's side. "If I fail them…"

"You won't." Shin was quick to stop such a train of thoughts.

"I won't." Sai repeated his words to him. "I'll do all I can to make sure they have this chance."

Shin was quiet for a moment, Sai the same.

"What are they like?" Shin couldn't help but ask, curious on what normal children, well as normal as any child learning to be a Shinobi, were like.

"They have…so many emotions to them." Sai could see Shin's confusion. "Most were afraid when I first met them, apprehensive, but I explained the situation as best I could to them. They all seemed to respect me, some like me, others appear to dislike me some days before liking me again. Some are always happy, others are calmer than the rest, and others are upset but don't show it. I think they all at least trust me."

"I wouldn't be surprised if they start considering you something like a big brother." Shin couldn't help but laugh at the blatant shock on Sai's pale face. "Don't be like that. I'm sure at least a few of the kids already consider you something like that."

Sai had no words for him, not after him saying something like that.

Shin patted his arm from his bed.

"Don't let me keep you." His smile remained. "Go and check on them if you're done here."

Sai could only numbly nod, his brain still processing the idea that the children could see him as such a thing, could trust him so much that they would consider him akin to family.

As he left the room, Shin could only shake his head at how blind such a phenomenal artist could be.