Author's notes: And we finally return to Orochimaru's camp in Grass, having come full circle. Tsume now just has to get back to Konoha, which will take another, oh, five chapters. And then we resume the Delta Years! :D

o-o-o

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o-o-o-o-o

They stayed at the relief station only long enough for Danzo and Tsume to heal a little more, and restock diminished supplies. Jiraiya and his team, Danzo, Kushina, and Tsume left by mid-afternoon the next day. With her body mostly not aching and a pair of sturdy sandals on her feet, Tsume was pleased that she didn't have to be a dead weight carried by someone else in the party. She was also dressed in a black shirt and black fatigues – an old uniform of Oyubi's, which had been hemmed with a pair of scissors and some strategically placed string through the belt loops to make it fit somewhat decently (it was painfully obvious that her chest didn't fill out the shirt like Oyubi's had. But someday, Tsume promised herself with a dejected little poke at her flat boobs that didn't require a bra or even wraps for support, someday it would…).

They still traveled fairly slow, mostly due to Tsume being as out-of-shape as Danzo had said – although Tsume suspected that she was also paying the price for her forgetfulness and smashing through and beyond her limitations earlier – and took frequent rests. Tsume was secretly grateful that Minato's teammates moved almost as slow as she did, and required almost as many rests. Which probably meant that Minato and Kushina were freaks of nature with their stamina. They managed to avoid most of the patrolling enemies, except for one group that caught their trail and followed after with a greater speed than their group could travel. Jiraiya and Minato dropped back to deal with them, while Danzo and the genin continued onward.

Patrolling enemies became sparser as patrolling allies and Konoha nin became more frequent. The Konoha nin moved in large clusters, regrouping further north to meet the oncoming forces that Tsume had sniffed out and detailed to Danzo and Jiraiya. Danzo still had Tsume track paths around their allies, although twice he had to identify their party when it couldn't be avoided. It seemed that most of the Konoha nin would much rather have avoided Danzo, judging by their shifting scents and uncomfortable facial expressions. By the time they reached Orochimaru's camp, it was the fourth morning after their departure from the relief station.

Orochimaru's camp was much larger than the last time Tsume had come through. Most of the troops had been in Suna and Ame four months ago, and the camp was now too large to be contained underground. Large tents stood in the very center of the camp, surrounded by underground pits. Green ribbons hanging from the pole crests fluttered in the wind.

"I have to report to Orochimaru-san," Danzo told Jiraiya as they entered the camp's parameters.

Jiraiya nodded. "I'll go with you. This was as much my mission as it is his."

Danzo shook his head. "No. He's still your teammate and you still need him covering your back. I'll shoulder the repercussions and fallout."

"What about me?" Tsume asked, waving her hand in the air. Danzo didn't even look at her. He barely looked at her ever since they left the relief station, and had only spoken to her to give orders on setting up camp or avoiding patrols. His lack of attention still stung. Tsume spent most of the trip wondering just how to apologize to him for ignoring the limits he had set with her maximum olfaction. As Danzo started to walk away without saying anything, Tsume snagged the back of his shirt with her left hand. "What about me?" she asked again as he froze. She forced herself not to hunch her shoulders as he twisted his torso to glare down at her.

"Your input is not necessary. I can report your capture and rescue without you."

Uh… Yeah, so maybe going with Danzo to Orochimaru made her official story kind of suspicious. Which reminded her that Orochimaru really was going to be pissed off with Danzo removing her from the brothel. "Okay," she said, letting her hand fall away from his shirt.

Jiraiya nudged her shoulder. "Why don't you head over to the infirmary tents and see if your grandmother is still alive?"

Tsume supposed she should, since she was now the clan head's heir. Unless Grandmother went with an ancient clan tradition, generations old even before the founding of Konoha, where two alphas would battle to the death for the title of clan leader. She could totally take on the other alpha, even with her dominant arm in a cast – Kashin was probably just seven years old, so all Tsume would need to do was sit on her younger cousin until Kashin grew bored and hungry.

Tsume sniffed the air, and then hunched her shoulders. "She's alive." Barely though; probably the only thing that kept Grandmother alive at the moment was her spite against death itself. "But I'd rather go see Sakumo-sensei."

"Grandmother first; I'll find Sakumo for you. Look, kid." Jiraiya crouched down beside Tsume and tilted her chin so she could see his face. "I told you once before, although you probably don't remember it, but your great-grandmother is a black hole of negativity, a naysayer who would never see you being successful even when you are. You've spent most of your life trying to please her, and until you settle something inside, here," he touched Tsume's sternum, fingertips resting where her heart fluttered against her ribcage, "you're going to spend the rest of your life trying to please this idea of Grandmother even after she's dead and her body long gone. Don't let your best years waste away like that, so go get that closure before it's too late."

Tsume thought of all the things she could've said or did with Hidarime. She wished that she had written a goodbye letter to her sister like she had written them to Kushina and Kokoro, so Hidarime could've at least died knowing how much she meant to Tsume. Then Tsume thought of Grandmother's parting words on that distant hillside. "Do you think…" She dropped her eyes to the ground; the prairie grasses had been tramped flat by the passage of thousands of shinobi. It looked like it wouldn't ever grow back, but she could smell the life just waiting to flourish when the trampling had deceased. She glanced shyly at Minato, Kushina, Hotaru, and Osamu, who all stood waiting and watching patiently. She made sure her voice was too soft for them to hear, unless they heightened their hearing with chakra. "Do you think I'm weak, pitiful, and useless?"

Jiraiya waited until she raised her eyes to him again. His smile was faint as he gently shook his head. "See, Tsume, this is what I'm talking about. These are your grandmother's words, aren't they?"

She dug a toe in the ground and nodded stiffly.

"You're always going to be haunted by those words, unless you tell your grandmother the honest truth of yourself. You have to recognize and feel the truth, and tell it to Inuzuka Shinzou while she's still around to hear it, otherwise her words will always drown out your own. Her bitterness will cling to you like a shadow, and you'll never be free of it. And no, I don't think anything like that." He bumped his forehead against hers. "I remember you in that bed, when Tsunade-hime would come around to work on healing you. And look how far you've come! You had to be strong and stubborn to make the recovery that you've had. Tsunade's healing would've meant nothing if you hadn't stepped up to the plate. You are strong, compassionate, and absolutely remarkable. I am so very lucky to know you."

Grandmother was the void, Tsume realized. As long as Grandmother was always there, in spirit if nothing else, then Tsume was always going to be sucked into the darkness of worthlessness.

Tsume had enough of voids. She straightened. "You're right. I'll do it. I'll go and speak with her, and give her a good piece of my mind."

"Do you want me to come with you?"

"No." Tsume shook her head. Her gaze traveled over to the rest of her companions. "I have to do this on my own." Minato gave her an understanding smile, and Kushina raised a fist in support. "I'll go do it now, before I forget."

"I doubt you'd forget something like this. However, knowing how easily distracted you are, I'll hold you to it." Jiraiya ruffled her hair as he stood up. "The rest of us are going to hit the mess hall. If I cross paths with Sakumo, I'll tell him about you."

"Thank you." Steeling her resolve, Tsume parted with them and made her own unerring path through camp. She weaved through different shinobi, most of them unmasked and not all of them Konoha nin, and around tents. She finally found herself at a tent that was short in height but long and wide. A few guards and one med nin stood beside the entrance. Their discussion went silent at her approach. The smell of death, pain, and infection was almost overpowering, worse than any hospital she had ever been to. Tsume pulled back her sensitivity down to the zero of her baseline; in comparison to that moment under the maple tree with Danzo, it felt like she could barely smell anything at all.

"If you're not wounded, no admittance," said the med nin, a tall, bald man with nut-brown skin and eyes so dark that they were nearly black. He stopped Tsume before she could duck in. "And no, that hand in a cast won't work because it appears to have already been treated."

"I'm here to see my great-grandmother, Inuzuka Shinzou."

The med nin eyed Tsume suspiciously as the guards chuckled with dark humor. "Now I know something is wrong – no one wants to see that bitch. You either have a death wish, or you wanna finish her off. Frankly, I only care about the former. Besides, you lack the Inuzuka markings. And where's your forehead protector? What's your name?" The two guards crossed their arms and looked down at her with stern expressions. Passersby sent them curious looks as they circled around the tents to their own destinations.

Tsume touched her unmarked cheeks reflectively. She could feel her resolve seeping away. She knew that if she couldn't get through the tent, she'd never try to see Grandmother again. She felt the void loom behind, dark and empty and cold. She almost looked over her shoulder. "I… Grandmother wouldn't let me stay long enough to get my forehead protector. Look, I'm Hidarime's younger sister, Tsume. I know my sister was killed two weeks ago in that blast zone, and I never got a chance to say goodbye. Can't I do that with my grandmother?"

One of the guards spoke. "Do you have any papers or identification? We can't let anyone wander into the tents with the wounded. You could be an enemy kunoichi for all we know, who somehow managed to sneak into the heart of the camp… Yeah, that's a bit of a stretch, I suppose," he added when the other guard nudged him in the ribcage, "but we can't give you admittance," his voice dropped into a grumble, "no matter how much of a blessing it would be if you succeeded."

"Hold." The entrance flap was lifted, and a lean figure bent under it before straightening in the sunshine. "Tsume?" Up close, Nara Shikake smelled of himself and his clan's pungent herbal and deer-antler medicine. He wore a medic apron that used to be a pristine white, but was stained now with various body fluids and ointments. His gray-streaked dark hair, every bit as unruly as her own, was bound in a ponytail on the top of his head, and he was taller than the guards and the med nin. "I was told you were dead."

Tsume stared unabashed, breathing in his scent that reminded her of early autumn wheat mingled with a sharp bite of frost. His expression was characteristically flat and his eyes carefully guarded, but she enjoyed his scents of relief, surprise, and hope. "Yeah, that's what Danzo and Kushina-chan and everyone else said."

"Danzo?" one of the guards echoed, his eyes going wide. "Shimura Danzo?"

Tsume glanced over. "Yeah. He's the one who rescued me from the Iwa nin that I guess Grandmother thought killed me." The guard looked very uncomfortable with the idea of any involvement concerning Danzo. She added, with just a hint of mischievousness and a finger pointed towards Danzo's direction, "I can go get him so he can vouch for me."

The guard cringed. "No, no, that's quite all right. I'm sure he's busy doing something else. We mustn't disturb him."

She turned back to Shikake. "I need to speak to Grandmother. It's very important."

Her sire was silent for a moment as he considered her, tracing his lips with one of his medicinal-stained fingers, but Tsume was used to seeing Shikake silently considering her from a distance with shrewd, regretful eyes. Tsume and Shikake crossed paths occasionally when his son, Shikaku, was in the upper year Academy classes and was inevitably dragged into Tsume's schoolyard brawls – and she would never, ever admit that she had deliberately timed some of those brawls, even though no one would believe that Simpleton Tsume could be so clever.

Shikake always seemed approachable despite being quiet, and she always wanted to speak to him in private, but Grandmother had put the fear of doing so into Tsume long before she lost the ability to feel fear. It hadn't been enough to stop her from approaching the Nara Forest to see if she could talk to him in private, and boy howdy did that end badly for her.

"You're aware then that she's dying."

"Yeah. Jiraiya-sensei said I needed to talk to her before she died."

"And I suppose your words need to be said in private."

Confronting Grandmother about the brothel where everyone could hear it definitely wasn't a good thing, but Tsume didn't know how else she could say what needed to be said without revealing the Black Ops. "Privacy is very important."

"Come, then. I'll set up a barrier around her bed so that you're not overheard." He glanced at the guards and other med nin. "Oh, yes. Just take my word that this is Inuzuka Tsume."

One of the guards lifted his hands, placating. "Hey, man, I ain't getting between a Nara and his kid. That would be almost as bad as getting between an Inuzuka and her dog. Or getting noticed by the Captain …"

Shikake didn't say anything or even acknowledge the remark of paternity – Tsume's eyes and spiky hair was identical to his own, so there was no point – as he swept the tent flap back and waved Tsume though. She followed him down the aisle, past the rows and rows of sometimes empty, sometimes occupied cots and through the moans, cries, and occasional static scents.

In the distant corner of the tent, with three ninken on the cot and one beneath it, Tsume saw Grandmother curled up with her sheets shoved to the side. She looked small and brittle, a shriveled up shadow of her former self. The ninken were sleek, long-bodies hounds and still gigantic in size – their shoulders easily reached Tsume's waist, and only because she had gone through a growth spurt in the brothel. Engulfed beside the ninken, Grandmother seemed child-sized and vulnerable.

Grandmother's hair was undone, a cascade of tangled silver spikes that was almost as wild as Tsume's hair. Aunt Natsumi once told Tsume that she was nearly the spitting image of Grandmother, back when Grandmother had been a young girl, except that Grandmother's hair was as red as Kushina's. Tsume sometimes wondered if the physical resemblance didn't also mean she might become more like Grandmother in word and action too, and she desperately hoped not.

Grandmother's nostrils flared and her eyes cracked open as Tsume's approach. Tsume saw Grandmother's hand curl into a white-knuckled fist. One of the ninken – Ni – considered Tsume without a sound, even as the fur across Ni's shoulder stood on end. San and Shi ignored her. From beneath the cot, Ichi growled a warning.

"Someone wants a private word with you," Shikake said as he tugged some paper screens around the bed for makeshift privacy.

Grandmother's air rattled and wheezed as she took a deep breath. "Send this worthless rat away." Her voice was rough and her mouth was dry. "I had no intention of ever seeing her again."

Tsume felt her resentment flare. "I'm not going anywhere, Grandmother." When Ichi growled again, Tsume crouched down and snarled. "Back off!" Ichi retreated away as the growl pitched into a whine.

Shikake's fingers flashed through several seals. Tsume felt a pressure build up momentarily around her ears before it puffed out. "There, that will keep things private for you." He ignored Grandmother as he rested a light hand on Tsume's shoulder. "Come see me when you're done, all right?"

Tsume looked at him wide-eyed. That was the first offer of any sort she could remember him extending to her. "Really?"

Grandmother laughed. The laughter turned into painful, hacking coughs, and she curled her arms around her middle to brace her abdomen as more fluid spilled out of it, saturating the soaked bandages even further. "The barren wench still desperate enough to eagerly accept her cheating husband's bastards?" Her hospital robe was stained with gastric fluid, pus, and blood.

Shikake tilted a bored gaze down on Shinzou, looking completely unbothered by her insults. "The Nara clan's claim came before your own, and we have always welcomed the unwanted Inuzuka children. Our forest opened its gates to her, and Tsume spilled her blood within its boundaries. Blood always calls to blood, no matter which side of the sheets you're born on. Besides," something gleamed in his eyes, "the Inuzuka clan has no place to be naming anyone illegitimate bastards."

Grandmother sneered and her voice dropped into a broken hiss. "Do not talk to me about how the forest willingly opened its gates to Tsume, not when the stink of Uchiha Madara was everywhere."

Shikake's expression didn't change. "Come to me afterwards," he told Tsume again, just before he left.

Grandmother, still bracing her abdomen, rolled over on her side to steadfastly ignore Tsume. Tsume studied the ridges of Grandmother's spine through the thin white hospital gown. Her thoughts whirled with more than just resentment, as she distantly remembered iron-wrought gates, suspended between two trees, silently swinging open at her curious touch. "I survived, Grandmother," Tsume began, carefully reciting what she had practiced in her mind while she was walking to the tent. "I know you didn't think I had it in me, because you said the mission was either going to make me or break me, but here I am."

Her great-grandmother remained silent, making no movement to indicate that she even heard Tsume's soft voice.

Tsume looked at her right hand. The cast was muddy and stained with grass. Her knuckles were itching again, and so did the exposed fingertips. She made sure to raise the volume of her voice. "I wasn't broken, like you expected me to be." She walked around the cot to face Grandmother again. "It hurt every night, and I think it would've broken me if I could feel fear, but I'm still in one piece." Grandmother had her face tucked against the crook of her elbow, eyes squeezed shut in pain. "Hey. I'm talking to you, Grandmother."

Grandmother cracked one eye open long enough to glare at Tsume. Her eye was bloodshot. "Go ahead and blabber like you always do. I'm too weak to shut you up this time."

Tsume had a lot of things she wanted to say, but now she couldn't remember any of them. She had expected Grandmother to lash out, verbally if not physically, but the stony silence was entirely unlike the stern, loud woman who had raised her. "I'm alive," was all that she could think to say, trying hard not to let the frustration and resentment overwhelm her thoughts.

"More's the pity." Grandmother buried her face back into the crook of her elbow. "I've seen six generations of Inuzuka women come and go. I remember standing beneath that blank stone cliff, in the forest clearing where the Village now exists. I saw the First Hokage's walls of Konoha, half a year after the birth of my third daughter. After ninety years, I'm so tired of living… I've outlived my chosen heirs – I've buried my mother, grandmother, aunts and sisters, daughters, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters. All those whom I've placed my hopes and my dreams are dead. Why…" Tsume smelled Grandmother's grief and tears. "Why does the wrong great-granddaughter live?"

Tsume choked on her breath. She tugged at the hem of Oyubi's borrowed shirt and tried to think as Grandmother's words punched her in the heart, worse than even Danzo's refusal when she felt poised on the edge of the void. "What's so wrong about me? I survived! I survived that horrible place and all those men and I got loads of Intel on forces and their locations so we can win the war, but it's still not enough for you! You said that I was never unloved! You said you were giving me a purpose, to, to, I don't know, to survive! Why would you do that if I was the wrong great-granddaughter?"

She vividly remembered the blood on the sheets, on her thighs, on the long hook and forceps that Madame Kai had used. She thought of those long, horrible nights and the men – the endless parade of men driven into a seal-induced frenzy like a swarm of sharks hunting a single drop of blood. What did she have to do to finally get something from Grandmother? "And then Danzo got me and we left, and I wasn't a worthless meat shield, I wasn't! I found Kushina-chan two hundred kilometers away with the Kumo nin when everyone else couldn't find her, and I fought a Kumo nin and ripped his spine out with my bare hand!" Okay, so Minato had also found Kushina, but he didn't count because he had a trail of hair to follow and the knowledge that Kushina had been abducted, and all Tsume had was a distant scent at least three or four countries away.

Grandmother curled into a tighter ball. Her bony shoulders shook with muffled cries.

Tsume paced beside the bed for a few moments, tugging and wringing and pulling on the hem of Oyubi's shirt; Oyubi's clinging scent was comforting, even though she wasn't anywhere near by. "You aren't even listening. You never listen to me, Grandmother. I guess… I guess it doesn't matter, does it?" she asked, pausing beside San, who whined and rested her head on the curve of Grandmother's hip. "I could single-handedly win this war, and it wouldn't matter to you, because I'm not my mom, and I'm not Hidarime. I'm just… me." Just Simpleton Tsume, who went through life with a broken brain and an empty void. She stared at the solid ground as resentment simmered and bubbled in her chest. "It's your own fault, you know, Grandmother. If you'd done a better job, then—" Tsume's words turned into a shrill scream as pain bloomed down her left arm. She leaped beyond Grandmother's next slicing attack, claws extended and glinting with chakra. Blood gushed down the three deep lacerations that flayed open Tsume's left arm from shoulder to elbow.

"Shut up!" Grandmother shrieked, pushing herself upright with one arm while the other was still extended forward. "I should've finished what Madara started! I should've drowned you at birth. I told Tsubaki that another pregnancy would kill her, but then she had to get knocked up on a mission and then had the audacity to die before she put the damn contract in place! You were your mother's biggest mistake, from the moment of conception to now! You can't lead, you can't think, and you disdain our clan ways, with the way you dote upon that boy – Oyubi will inherit the clan before you do." She slowly curled all her fingers into a fist, and then extended and pointed the bloody index finger at Tsume. "I told myself that even an Uchiha would lead our clan before it ever falls into your incompetent hands, and I mean it! Even the Uchiha, even Madara, is more tolerable than you!"

Tsume hunched at Grandmother's words. Blood stained her cast where she tried to press her right hand against the gashes to staunch the blood. It dripped onto the floor. Her eyes stung, but she wasn't going to cry – she just wasn't. "You didn't even want me before I overdid it in the Nara forest?" It hurt, because she remembered how kind and loving Grandmother was before it all changed. Before the man who hurt Tsume, the man whom Grandmother evidently hated less than her great-granddaughter, had changed it all.

Grandmother collapsed on the bed as her strength gave out, but her rage still burned like an inferno. "Never. Worthless, useless, and weak."

"I am not! Danzo and Jiraiya and Kushina don't think I'm worthless!" If someone like Danzo could be surprised by her nose, then it meant something. It just had to. "And I'm not useless, and I'm not weak, like you!"

Tsume kicked at the cot with a chakra-powered foot, just like when she had punched at the Kumo nin with extended claws. The force of her foot smashed the cot and sent wooden shards flying through the privacy screens. Grandmother would've gone flying too, if not for colliding with Ichi. She screamed in pain, slumping against the ground. The ninken immediately surrounded Grandmother in protective stances, their haunches bristling and teeth bared.

Tsume felt a flash of vindictive pleasure at the sight of her great-grandmother, vulnerable and weak and crumpled on the ground, finally – finally – at Tsume's mercy.

Then Tsume's hands began to shake as she thought of Mooncalf, with his stupid fluffy dandelion hair and heartwarming smile, carrying her for three days because she was too weak to run, and how he had promised that he would never drop her.

Tsume had a sudden, horrible feeling that she was Grandmother looking at herself, lying on the broken remains of a cot, her head cracked open like a melon as cerebral fluid and blood leaked onto the forest floor. The privacy walls seemed to close in around her, the space shrinking until she was entombed in the darkness and trapped in the void with Grandmother.

She rushed away from the area, knocking over one of the paper screens with a resounding crash. Shikake was leaning against a nearby pole, and he looked up, startled at the racket. His body was stiff and anger marred his face when he saw Tsume's arm. Tsume caught a flash of light in the corner of her eye, and turned her head. A mirror that was suspended on wire hung over the washbin across the tent. Tsume hurried over to it, and stared at her reflection for a moment. She raised her bloody left hand and very deliberately outlined her eyes in the crooked crimson lines, and then painted sloppy crimson triangles on her face – the color of the alpha.

Tsume looked like the monster that she was, but at least she was an Inuzuka alpha bitch monster. Grandmother could never take that away from her. She was strong in spirit, and Grandmother… Grandmother had always been weak and petty in spirit. She wouldn't be like Inuzuka Shinzou, deliberately torturing the weak and vulnerable.

Tsume rushed back to Grandmother, brushing wordlessly past Shikake and smearing blood against his apron. She snarled at Grandmother's ninken again as they growled, and they whimpered and flinched away from her. She planted herself in front of Grandmother with a wide stance, careful to keep out of reach. She wasn't scared of them, and they knew it. Grandmother raised her eyes to meet Tsume's.

"I'm a survivor," Tsume declared, her voice stern. "I will outlive you and your horrible memories. I will be a better fighter, a better tracker, a better mother and grandmother… and a better clan head." She raised her chin stubbornly, trying to ignore its trembling and the cloying stickiness of blood that coated her eyelids and cheeks. "Oyubi will be my Second, so you'll still get what you want, as far as Uchiha leadership. But she already acknowledged me the heir when we met up two days ago. So there, Grandmother." She crouched down like a predator readying itself to pounce, and stared without flinching into Grandmother's blazing eyes. "And just so you know –so you can just stuff it in that shallow, unmarked grave you wanted to dump me in – the Inuzuka clan is never going to abandon any of its children so long as I live, and that includes our sons."

She stormed away as Grandmother shrieked wordlessly in anger, glad that she had gotten in the last word, even if it wasn't what she had wanted to say. None of it was. She had hoped for a confrontation that would've made Grandmother realize that Tsume was every bit as special and as wanted as Hidarime had been, but that moment was just a fleeting dream that soothed her mind when the brothel was alit with dawn and Madame Kai's cool green chakra was erasing the damage from the last customer. As she stepped past the boundary of the privacy screens, even the one still knocked on the ground, the genjutsu that Shikake had raised muffled Grandmother's voice into silence. Tsume's body trembled from the confrontation, and she felt a vice-like pressure building in her head.

"Tsume?" Shikake waved her close, and then looked startled as she threw her arms – one bound up in a cast, the other soaked with blood – around his middle and buried her face against his sternum as she finally let the tears come.

She had the last word with Grandmother, but why did she feel like she had lost?

oOoOoOo

Shikake let Tsume cry into his shirt as he carefully crabwalked her past the occupied beds to a cordoned-off partition where several stocked cabinets and a rickety examining table were present. He swung her up on the examining table and pulled the curtains around. "Take off your shirt," he said as he went to one of the cabinets.

Tsume blew her nose into the hem of Oyubi's shirt. "I k-kicked Grandmother's cot and busted it. She needs help."

Shikake gave her a considering look over his shoulder, and then shrugged. "Have your shirt off by the time I get back." Tsume tried to obey while he was gone, but her left arm hurt too much to move easily, and her right arm got stuck when her cast caught on the sleeve. She was still crying and also sulking with her two arms tangled in the sleeves, feeling like a cumbersome ugly slug surrounded by graceful butterflies, when Shikake returned.

He did not return alone.

Sakumo has his arms around Tsume in a tight hug before she realized she could smell him through her tear-swollen sinuses, and he was crying tears of gratitude as he planted dry kisses in her hair.

"Oh, gosh." Tsume couldn't stop her bittersweet tears as she leaned into Sakumo's hug, trying to wiggle her arms free so she could hug him back. The scent of his grief was overwhelmed by the scent of his joy. She felt a pressing weight fall off her shoulders to see Sakumo alive and well, even though her nose had been telling her that before she and her companions arrived at the camp. Smelling his life wasn't enough – she had needed him to know about her being alive.

"Don't make me pry you two apart," Shikake warned as he went back to the supply cabinet. "You may need to cut Tsume out of her shirt."

"But it's Oyubi's shirt!" Tsume didn't want to ruin Oyubi's shirt anymore than Grandmother already had.

Sakumo pulled back from Tsume. His vest was smeared with her blood and his eyes were red-rimmed, but his smile light up his face like a miniature sun. He cupped her chin. "And even in the midst of the ambushes and death, there are miracles," he whispered. He tugged at her shirt as a frown wrinkled her brow. "How did you manage this?"

Tsume laughed through her tears. "It's a talent," she said, remembering what Minato and Hotaru had said when she awoke previously at the Whirlpool relief station.

"At least you're back in mostly one piece." Sakumo studied her shirt for a moment, and then carefully worked her left arm free. That slackened the shirt enough so he could slip it off her head and right arm. His gaze was sharp but respectful as he studied her bare torso, taking in the injuries and smattered old bruises. He tucked a towel under her chin to preserve some modesty as Shikake set his gathered supplies down on the examining table beside her.

"I listened in on your conversation with Shinzou," Shikake said without preamble. "And while I have many questions I will be getting answers for, I want you to know the truth. She lied. You were once the most wanted baby in all of Konoha. Nearly started a civil war in fact." He gave Sakumo a metal bowl. "Go get me some water from the barrel beside the washbin," he said. Sakumo immediately obeyed. Shikake raised Tsume's left arm and studied the bleeding lacerations. "I always knew she never told you how you wound up in her care and clan."

Tsume swung her dangling feet and looked at her toes. They were crusted with dirt. The examining table squeaked and swayed with her movement, so she went still. "It's because I was female."

"No, my clan would welcome Inuzuka girls as readily as we have historically welcomed the boys." Shikake's eyes were tender as he hooked a stay lock of Tsume's wild hair behind her ear. She felt her heart hammering with a mixture of elation and suspicion. "For two months – two glorious, beautiful months, you truly were all mine."

Tsume jumped when Sakumo entered the partition. He set the bowl of water beside Tsume, opposite of Shikake's supplies. Shikake nodded his thanks, and then gestured for Sakumo to take a seat. He slid on a pair of recently-cleaned rubber gloves. "You may as well hear this, since you're her sensei."

Sakumo turned his kind eyes to Tsume. "I'll stay only if you want me to."

"Oh, please do!" Sakumo was one of her most precious persons, and the worry for him that existed ever since she heard of the blast that led to Kushina's capture eased up like an unraveling knot within her heart. It seemed nothing had gone right since she was sold to the brothel, and Tsume needed that familiar reliability Sakumo always seemed to give, especially if it felt like her sire was going to be yanking the rug from beneath her feet (or heart, as the case may be).

Shikake cleaned her arm with gentle pats with his wet cloth. His speech was stilted and slow. "I married the civilian wife my clan arranged for me nearly twenty years ago. We easily became friends and we're actually fond of each other – life would be hell if it was anything less – but there's no passion between us. Seventeen years ago, it was discovered that my wife, Hikaru, was barren and couldn't have children."

Tsume remembered Grandmother's cruel words. Her eyed widened. "Oh."

Shikake shrugged. "In a clan-arranged marriage, children are expected. But as I said, we're fond of each other, and marriage planning and ceremonies are such a bother, so we talked about adopting some orphans. That's not the easiest thing to do in most clans because of bloodline limits and clan secret techniques, but not impossible for ours. Fifteen years ago, your mother, Tsubaki, approached me."

Tsume knew what "approached" meant. Inuzuka women usually took lovers, but occasionally they scoped out what the clan considered good genetic stock. The Inuzuka had special seals and techniques that increased fertility and chances of impregnation that they used to plan pregnancies and to breed ninken. As part of their treaty with Konoha, her clan had special paternity contracts that revoked all paternal rights of female offspring, which the Inuzuka clan claimed full and complete custody, regardless of clan, and that all male offspring would be given to the sire's family without any expectation of custody or contact from the mother. (Or given to an orphanage, if the sire was dead, a civilian who refused custody, or a foreign shinobi.) The trick was getting the Konoha men to sign the contracts before impregnation, or at least before the pregnancy was obvious. Sometimes, arrangements were made ahead of time if the Inuzuka felt the man was of sound stock.

"I spoke with Hikaru regarding your mother's offer. Hikaru considered it a chance to obtain a son through a surrogate, so I agreed to the offer and signed the contract." Shikake finished cleaning Tsume's arm and then smeared it with a thick paste that made her eyes and nose sting from its pungent odor. She felt her arm become cold and numb. "I'm going to save my chakra and stitch you up, since I doubt Sakumo's going to let you go anywhere near a battle zone."

Tsume glanced at Sakumo. "Absolutely not!" Sakumo declared cheerfully, even though his odor burned with a strange mixture of anger and curiosity.

"Despite a difficult pregnancy, Tsubaki gave birth to a healthy boy."

"Shikaku," Tsume supplied, wanting to show Shikake that she was paying attention.

"Much to your mother's disappointment, and… Well, I realized I had miscalculated in thinking that our relationship would be strictly professional." He hesitated a moment; Tsume could see him touching her arm, but she couldn't feel it. "I'm afraid that in the time we spent together, we fell in love. Tsubaki was truly a remarkable woman, and I realized just how empty a passionless life was with Hikaru." He sighed. "Such a bother. But I hadn't set Hikaru aside for her infertility, and I had no intention of embarrassing her by taking on a mistress, no matter my personal desire." Tsume felt her flesh tug as he began stitching, but it was a distant, detached sensation. "I did my best to maintain distance between your mother and me, but we were assigned a dangerous mission together a little more than a year after Shikaku's birth. She was very breathtaking as she destroyed our enemies, and we were both lucky to survive. I hadn't been able to lay aside that love I had for her, and so we… celebrated."

"You had sex."

He eyed her for such blunt speech, and Tsume shrugged, unapologetic. "Yes. That. When trying to get pregnant with Shikaku, Tsubaki used fertility seals and techniques. I thought nothing of the possibility of an unplanned pregnancy, but I guess even Inuzuka women can have an oopsie. She was unable to draw up another contract with me since I was sent on a long-term mission to a newly-created hospital in the Land of Vegetables shortly after our return. I knew about the pregnancy though, because Hikaru kept me appraised – despite my infidelity, Hikaru knew that she could potentially get another son as a result. She felt it was a small price to pay for the embarrassment of my dishonor."

Not getting a signed contract was a gigantic Inuzuka clan faux pas though; Inuzuka women sometimes had abortions rather than risk the chance of having a daughter without a contract in place if the sire was a Konoha shinobi, although the warning of doing such usually pressed the shinobi into signing the contract. It was practically a requirement Grandmother made after the blunder that resulted in Oyubi. She bet Grandmother was just livid. Tsume's eyes flickered to Sakumo; his expression was distant, as if remembering Hidarime-chan. She was fiercely glad that Kakashi was male – she never would've known and gotten close to Sakumo if Grandmother's decision to make Tsume responsible for the White Fang's son hadn't happened, and then she never would've met Danzo, who probably wouldn't have removed her from the brothel.

Gosh, it was overwhelming how one thing could cause a cascade of events.

"Tsubaki had what was called placenta abruptia when she was seven months pregnant, a week before I was due to return home and sign the contract that she wanted, and she hemorrhaged to death. You survived though, even though you were only thirty weeks along. Shinzou was away at the time – the Land of Bears – which I took full advantage of when we learned that you were not a boy. You were so fragile, so little…"

Shikake's hands paused as he considered her with undisguised affection. Tsume squirmed, uncomfortable. She had often wondered, after her brain injury, if maybe life would've been better if she was cared for by her sire's family. It was very strange to learn now that she really and truly had been wanted.

"Hikaru was with you every day that long month that you were in the neonatal unit, caring for you, hoping and praying she would get to keep you as her daughter." A small smile drifted across Shikake's face. "Shinzou was still gone and no one from the Inuzuka clan had stepped forward when the Hokage finally signed your custody over to us. Hikaru was overjoyed when we brought you home."

Tsume could see it in her mind. She didn't remember ever seeing or being introduced to Hikaru, but she imagined a tall woman with long dark hair gliding smoothly across the threshold of a quaint little home on the outskirts of the Nara forest, holding a napping baby all bundled up in white.

"But all good things must come to an end." Shikake heaved a sigh. "Such a bother… When word finally reached Shinzou, she abandoned her mission and returned immediately to Konoha. That was a severe infraction, in and of itself. Worse, she demanded that you be returned to her clan, even without a signed contract revoking all paternal rights in place. I fought her, naturally, to keep my daughter."

"But you lost."

He stilled for a moment. "When the Third Hokage told your grandmother that the Inuzuka clan didn't have any right to you, she told him that Konoha had no right to the Inuzuka clan. And that night, the entire clan and all their ninken left without a whisper of a warning."

Tsume felt her stomach drop into her sandal.

"So that's what happened," Sakumo said in shock. "I was just a teen when it happened, but the pandemonium was tremendous. Think about it," he told Tsume, "your clan's compound is stationed a heartbeat away from Konoha's main entrance, primarily for security." He laughed once, partly with bitterness, and partly with admiration. "If I had any doubts that your great-grandmother lacked balls… Your clan's sense of smell and tracking abilities are indispensable and rivaled only by the Aburame clan. I'm sure you can just imagine how shocking it was that a clan notorious for its loyalty should willingly become a mass of untraceable missing nin."

All for me? Tsume was dizzy with the implications.

"Well, not untraceable, per se. Or missing nin," Shikake corrected. "The Aburame had no problem finding the Inuzuka – something that Shinzou could've made very difficult, given that she was old-school ninja and the other Hell Hound – and I'm sure the confrontation wouldn't have been pretty, except the Inuzuka used their skills to stay beyond Konoha's reach for better than a week. And Shinzou has always been a shrewd woman. She had a treaty with the First Hokage that allows the Inuzuka clan the rights and freedom to break away from Konoha without consequences." He sighed. "I still have no idea how she managed to obtain that treaty when none of the other clans managed it."

"Booze and poker," Sakumo replied. "When negotiations were taking place between the Inuzuka and Senju clans six years after Konohagakure's birth, Shinzou got Senju Hashirama drunk first on the peace offering, and then they negotiated the treaties between the Inuzuka clan and Konoha based on who won which game of poker. Or at least that's how Danzo once explained it to me. I suspect that Shinzou's success in getting the First to agree to such negotiations in the first place might've also been due to… ah, a liaison of a questionable nature with Senju Tobirama."

Shikake looked like he had bit a lemon. "Damn. I guess the rumors that the Second liked older women were true. And I thought it was because she could smell if Hashirama was bluffing."

"She couldn't have been that much older, I suspect. Just a decade or so."

"I shouldn't exactly throw any stones, since my great-uncle barely to win our forest in a decisive battle of blackjack before losing the rest of our surrounding territory for the First – damn place belonged to the Nara clan generations before Konoha came into being anyway. What a bother. For all that Konoha talks about the greatness of the God of Shinobi, she doesn't exactly discuss how the First and the Second passed on their terrible drinking or gambling habits to their descendants."

Sakumo rubbed his nose. "Unlike Tsunade, the First Hokage was actually fairly skilled in winning his gambles. My dad always said that the First deliberately lost several of his gambles to give the clans what they wanted, thereby making them feel like they won when they agreed to join Konoha."

"Ancestors preserve us if Tsunade ever follows in their footsteps and somehow becomes the Hokage." Shikake and Sakumo both shuddered in horror. "So, your clan wasn't even wrong in leaving, Tsume – they didn't approach any enemies, they always stayed well within the borders of Fire Country, and we managed to keep word of their unorthodox departure quiet from the rest of the shinobi villages. But the chaos caused by Shinzou's decision made us vulnerable, and would weaken us in the eyes of our enemies when – not if – when word finally got out. Her actions also left the other clans divided and arguing with each other – half the clans admired and supported Shinzou for invoking her clan sovereignty and refusing to allow the Third Hokage to trample such. The other half of the clans despised her for putting a mere baby girl above the needs of Konoha and demanded that the clan be dragged back and put on trial as traitors. Their arguments were getting more violent with each passing day. Civil war would've eventually erupted. It was obvious that to keep peace, we had to bring the Inuzuka clan back, and I knew the only way how."

Tsume thought about Kakashi and how she would give her own life to protect him. But she also understood the necessity of sacrificing one for the whole – that's what the whole mission at the brothel had been about, after all. It seemed strangely ironic that her life began like a sacrifice. She felt a chill race down her spine as she considered the possibility of her life ending the same way. "You gave me up."

His forehead twitched. "No. I never gave you up. I gave you back."

Tsume swung her dangling feet. "There's a difference?"

Shikake studied her for a long moment, his hands not moving. With a sigh, he dropped his gaze away from her and resumed stitching. "I suppose in your eyes, no. To prevent an impending civil war, I bundled you up and went with the Aburame trackers. I knew that your great-grandmother would make an appearance once she caught your scent. We were out in the field for two days before she approached. I negotiated with her – I told her that she could have you back only if she and her clan returned to Konoha. She demanded that I drop all claims of paternity. I agreed not to actively press or pursue a claim, but told Shinzou that I would invoke all paternal privileges if you ever sought me out, just as she could invoke her clan's treaty at any time. Fair was fair, after all. She agreed, eventually. But, Tsume, you never did come looking for me."

Tsume recalled those times she had seen and stalked him from a distance after her brain injury, and wondered about missed opportunities in life. She vaguely recalled Hidarime telling her after Kakashi's birth that Tsume was peaceful because she was simple. Hidarime-chan, Tsume thought miserably, had been right. Things were always more peaceful when things were simple.

She pressed her chin to her chest. "I did try looking for you," she muttered, thumping her ankles against the examination table legs. "When Hidarime-chan taught me how to smell…" What she could remember of that day was confusing; most of what she didn't remember was hidden within a scarlet-washed, intense pain. Ever since Yuu had entered her mind she occasionally recalled flashes of that day that she hadn't before. She lifted her chin high to meet her sire's considering eyes. "We smelled alike, you and me and Shikaku, like the way that Hidarime-chan and I smelled alike. Hidarime said we were family, and I wanted to know my family." She had been overwhelmed with all the scents though, not just her family's.

"Ah. I have always wondered how you wound up in our forest."

"It called." She couldn't accurately measure young or old scents even before her brain injury, and Shikake's scent had pulled her like a tugging string. She remembered following the tugging sensation to the forest, and standing before the iron-wrought gates that blocked the only clear path into the forest. Several deer had stood on the other side of the gates, watching and waiting for someone – not her, she knew, because she was just a small child, but her presence and movement didn't startle them. Shikaku's scent entered and exited through the gates multiple times, and she knew it had to be an important place. "And when I touched the gates – I wanted to see the deer better on the other side – it swung open." That was the last part she could remember with any clear clarity.

Well, there was that voice, old and cold and dark, darker than even Danzo's scent. She couldn't remember the man's face – just the long, spiky white hair and the red, red eyes – or her surroundings. She only remembered the voice because somehow Yuu had jarred the memory loose. There were no images but a wash of red, no sensations except pain, and only the scents of salt and snow in Wind.

("Do you know what they say about curiosity and cats, child?"

"No, Uchiha-ojisan. I'm Inuzuka – we don't have cats."

"Doesn't matter. You'll learn that dogs die just as easily as cats.")

The scents that day had been tremendous and wonderful, but they'd never been painful no matter how much chakra she channeled to her nose, not until after that moment. Scents at that level of sensitivity were now agonizing. Tsume trembled as a terrible thought occurred to her. "Do you think… If I never went in to the forest, what would've happened? With us?"

Shikake completed the stitching. He washed her arm down again. "Wishing for what could've been is a useless pursuit of imagination and energy that only leaves us with regrets."

"I… I suppose so." Tsume wracked her brain to remember who Uchiha Madara was, other than the man who met her in the Nara forest. Something about South Sea raiders and stabbing the First Hokage?

Shikake picked up a roll of gauze and began winding it around her arm. "With the death of your sister, you are the heir of the clan. Shinzou has very little time remaining in this world, and the responsibilities and leadership of the clan will fall upon your young shoulders once she's deceased."

Tsume's breath hitched. "What will that mean for you?"

"Whatever you want it to. You'll always be an Inuzuka, just as you are a Nara. Even if your name never reflects that, our forest will always open up to your blood. You're young, and your mother's clan must come first, but if you need assistance or even just a quiet ear in which to confide problems, I'm always here. I'll always be waiting; I never stopped." He secured the gauze and rifled through the pocket of his medical apron for a small tube of ointment. Shikake tossed it to Sakumo, who caught it one-handed. "Apply the ointment twice a day for two weeks to prevent infection, and then have the stitches removed."

"Will do," Sakumo said, tucking the ointment into one of his vest pockets.

Shikake helped Tsume slide off the bench. "The main forces will be leaving in a wave to crush opposing forces; the wounded are going to be transferred back to Konoha, and I suspect that Tsume and Kokoro will be on the train."

"Yes. I will be accompanying them, as will Kushina."

Shikake rubbed Tsume's shoulders. "I have to go with the main forces as head of the Medical Division, since Tsunade is expected to be fighting. I'll see you when I return to Konoha."

Tsume threw her arms around Shikake. The skin on her left arm felt tight and numb. "Thank you," she whispered against his sternum.

He returned her hug, and then waved her off. "I wish I could've done more."

Tsume followed Sakumo towards the exit of the tent, and then hesitated. "Wait. I have something else I have to tell Grandmother." She didn't want things to end between her and Grandmother on a sour, bitter note. Grandmother did care for and love Tsume at one time; there was no other reason Grandmother would've made the entire clan uproot their loyalties and leave their beloved home, no matter what any treaty or contract said… well, there was a lot of pride involved too, which always seemed like a good enough reason to Grandmother, but some of it had to be love. It just had to be.

And, after all, Tsume was a more forgiving soul, and such was one of the ways she knew that she was a better person than Grandmother.

When Sakumo tucked his hands into his pockets and leaned against a pole to wait, Tsume hurried to the other end of the tent.

The privacy screens were still erected around Grandmother's cot. Grandmother was on a pallet with the shattered cot remains swept to the side. Her four ninken lay side by side behind Grandmother's curled back, their heads resting on their paws and their odor thick with sorrow. Grandmother's hand, stained with Tsume's blood, was extended forward on the ground. She had raked grooves in the hard-packed soil. The med nin with the dark skin knelt beside Grandmother, his fingertips resting against the pulse point on the inside of Grandmother's bloodstained wrist.

"Grandmother?" Tsume kept her voice in a quiet whisper. "I'm not sorry that I made you angry, but I am sorry for hurting you. I meant what I said about being better, because I want the best for our clan the way that you do. I still love you."

Grandmother didn't stir. Neither did her static scent.

The med nin sighed and stood upright, dusting his hands off; his expression was grim. The four ninken whined in unison.

"Oh," Tsume whispered, pressing the back of her left hand to her mouth as her eyes stung with tears. For once, she wished that her nose could lie to her.

"I'm sorry, kid," the med nin said as he led Tsume away. "She's already gone."