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SUMMARY: Power comes in many forms.


Re is terrified.

She doesn't want to admit it, wishes to ignore the gnawing fear.

She can't.

Not when it all but immobilises her, not when it's so paralysing that she struggles to breathe.

She hates struggling to breathe.

There is nothing quite as torturous.

There cannot be anything as torturous than knowing that you can breathe, that you can and either forgetting or not and struggling anyway.

She doesn't know if her kidnappers can hear.

She doesn't care.

Re will care later.

Later when she is not fighting for her breath.

Fighting for her life.

She doesn't know why she's fighting, not really.

Not when there's no real point.

Not when there's no Ru or Ra.

They've been in all sorts of scrapes.

But together.

She doesn't know how to be without them anymore.

It was never a real problem.

It is now.

It is and she shouldn't have ignored it.

But if she's not going to make it, she hopes it will be enough time for them to learn.

It won't be an issue for her.

Not if she's dead.

But she doesn't want them to have to learn like this.

She cannot let that happen to them.

To her Ra and Ru.

Re needs to pull herself together.

She can mope about death when the Shinigami comes.

She can weep when she is in their arms.

For that, she needs to survive.

Needs to continue, no matter how hard it will be.

But for them, for her family?

Re will fight.

She will fight and she doesn't need to win.

Opening her eyes for what feels like the first time, Re tries to take in the world around her.

It's her world and she has returned to it.

She has returned and it breaks her concentration and stumbles gracelessly onto the ground.

It shouldn't make her laugh, not where she is.

But Re's been following the world's whims for so long.

Now, she'll try her best to follow her own.

One of the best defences is humour anyway.

Because she's not planning on winning.

She's not even planning on surviving.

Re's planning on living.

Whatever it might take, whenever it happens:

Whether it is in this life or the next.


Gaara is angry.

Not angry like before.

Not angry like when 'Mother' was manipulating him.

Angry of his own accord.

It must be that way.

Has to be that way because this time his siblings do not look away.

This time, Kankuro's fingers twitch like he is trying to refrain from using his chakra strings to attack with one of his puppets.

This time, Temari's rage is visible, hard and cutting like the glass of Suna.

This time, Gaara does not feel alone.

But someone has stolen his friend, has pulled her right out of an admittedly not too safe place (but the place she felt safest) for no obvious reason.

It is because of that that Gaara is not tearing out of Suna looking for her.

It is because the three former Kazekage's children have learnt their lesson.

There is a plot afoot and they must find what it is.

No matter that Sumire could be anywhere.

Could be in any state.

Could be-

They refuse to believe it.

Gaara refuses to believe there's nothing to be done.

Technically, he isn't supposed to know anything about it yet but there has to be something.

He cannot just give up on one of his first friends.

Cannot give up on her.

Will not forget the girl with the sad smile who confidently told him he wasn't a monster.

How could he forget the look in her eyes, far too old.

Gaara will find a way to help.

For now though, he waits.

Sumire would never forgive him for rushing off to save her.

He has to remember that.

Even as he travels back to Konoha to call an emergency meeting of all of their friends, he keeps that close to his heart.

Gaara has to trust that Sumire will find a way.

It takes everything he has not to go looking for her.

He cannot afford to.


Anko never expected this to happen.

She never expected to find them, to find a family.

There was a time when she thought it was her sensei.

When she thought that maybe they could be two broken orphans together, not alone anymore.

But he betrayed her.

Orochimaru left her for dead when she refused to release untold destruction.

She will never understand why.

Especially as she revels in Ra's presence, in the girl's spirit and... innocence is not right.

Innoncence could never be right.

But there is a quality to Ra, despite her jaded view, despite her calculating mind, despite all that she has suffered.

There is a quality to her that Anko cannot quite name but envies.

It cannot be innocence, cannot be naivety but it is just as delicate, just as fleeting and inevitably doomed.

She will enjoy it for as long as she can.

She enjoys it even as they push themselves to the limits to catch up, even as she thinks of Ru and Re who are not there.

Even as she thinks of Kurenai.

But she contents herself with whispered plots, with wicked smiles and sharper knives.

Anko cannot help but be proud of Ra.

It was a foreign emotion before but it has become more and more common.

It was strange yet is now familiar.

In a way, Anko thinks it might be revenge.

Or justice.

Perhaps it is both.

She has what she wanted.

Orochimaru is undoubtedly in some stereotypical lair, plotting something or the other.

The joke is on him.

Anko has everything she could ever have wanted right now.

She has a family, first and foremost.

It is full of broken people but it is still what she has always wished for.

She has Kurenai, her best friend, ready to guard her back in every sense of the word.

She has Ra, Re and Ru, who look to her for guidance.

Anko has everything.