"This desire calling me,

A never ending loop.

Making all the same mistakes,

A hundred times.

Crumbling from all the shame inside."

-ScaPEGoat, AmaLee

Bodies were tangled in the thick grass, hands and feet sticking out of the mud.

Trees were bloated with blood, trunks dyed pinkish-red. Red cracks ran up the sides like veins. It clung to the tips of the hanging leaves and left dark, dried streaks on the grass. Some of the trees were missing chunks, riddled with holes, or scorched black.

I felt like I was still in Amegakure, except there was no rain.

Yahiko's hand shot out in front of me. His eyes were fixed on something below me.

I didn't see it at first, until the clouds parted to allow a little more moonlight through, and I spotted a silver flash of ninja wire hidden in the dark. It was pulled taut, waiting patiently for someone to walk into it.

I turned my head, following it until it disappeared into the underbrush.

It was a trap, forgotten or left behind by people who were probably dead.

Yahiko pointed up. "Let's travel through the trees from now," he signed. "Be careful."

He turned around to relay the same message to Konan and Naga and I went to the nearest tree, leaning a foot against a bright red patch of bark. It made a watery squirt when I applied pressure, sap and blood dribbling down into the grass.

The only difference between Amegakure and here was that I could see the curve of the moon when I looked up.

綺麗な

I leaned forward when I saw the first traces of light.

It was a slow, hostile takeover of the night sky, yellow slowly eating away at dark blue. It leaked through the clouds, bathing them a mix of deep orange and dark pink.

Naga's breath caught. He stood on the branch on my right, watching the sky with wide eyes.

The darkness persisted for what felt like hours, until a small circle appeared at the bottom of the sky, growing bigger and brighter with each minute that passed. The outer circle was a bright, dazzling expanse of yellow, the center a white I'd only ever seen on paper.

I reached out, curling my fingers around the light, the warmth.

I watched the thing they called the sun rise and grow, reshaping the darkness to a light, gentle blue.

It was bigger than I ever imagined.

Pinpricks spread down my fingers and touched the bare skin of my neck, drying the water I carried with me from Amegakure. It felt like I was in Shikkotsu again, but this wasn't warmth.

It was heat.

It burrowed deep into my bones and curled around me like a blanket.

I never felt anything like it before.

The color bled out of the clouds until they were a solid, fluffy white and I realized that it was over. That this was what it felt like to watch the sun rise.

I wished I could've bottled it up and taken it back with me.

I wished Kota had been here to see it.

I dropped my hand, and for the second time in two days, I was crying again.

I wiped my eyes. I wanted it to be like this every single day.

I'd dreamed of seeing it for years, but I still felt blown away.

"Either you really liked it, or you really hated it," Yahiko mused.

I glanced over. Yahiko and Konan were on the branch to my left. He was grinning, but he was crying too.

Konan leaned back against his shoulder, arm looped through his. She didn't look at me, but I saw a dry line on the back of her hand where she'd been wiping her tears.

I turned back to stare at the sun, but it started to hurt after a few seconds. I lowered my gaze, surprised at the dark spots filling my vision.

The sun made see something that I'd only ever experienced when I was dizzy and starving.

Why don't you want me to look at you, Sun?

Naga's head was tilted back when I looked at him, soaking up the warmth.

I didn't have the words to describe how I felt.

"Thank you," I managed to Yahiko.

残酷

Naga paused on a branch, abruptly stiff. "Nine people. Southeast," he signed quickly. "I think they're fighting each other." He turned to Konan. "Can you feel them?"

Konan, frowning, shook her head.

"I can spit acid at them," Namekuji helpfully offered, on top of my head.

I shushed him. Sweat beaded down my forehead, loose hairs sticking to my ears.

Heat simmered just under my skin, like the sun was trying to boil me alive. My Akatsuki robe was tied around my stomach, sleeves bunched up around my shoulders.

I tilted my head back and grinned when I felt warmth on my face.

It was still better than the cold.

Konan, her cloak tied around her waist, looked to Yahiko. "What do we do?" she signed.

Yahiko looked southeast. "How much chakra do they have left?"

Naga hesitated. "I don't know," he said. "They're at the edge of my range. We would need to move closer for me to know for sure."

Yahiko didn't respond for a few seconds. "We'll wait here until you can't sense them anymore, or they head this way," he signed back. "We don't know enough for interrupting them to be worth it."

I sat back and crossed my legs. "What if someone's hurt?" I asked Naga.

Naga closed his eyes. "I still won't go," he signed. "I can't. Yahiko—" he faltered. "He was right. There might be more of them past where I can sense them, reinforcements, or they could be stronger than us. If I go and any of those are true, I'll be putting you, Konan and Yahiko in danger too. I'll still help as many people as I can, but I won't if it means being the reason you get hurt." He dropped his hands, frowning.

I wondered if he felt like he was letting them die.

Yahiko leaned back against the trunk, hands laced behind his head. "Even if none of that was true and we could take them, healing them isn't a risk we can take now," he said quietly, staring up. "While I'm confident we can take on the whole world if we have to, people will come after us if they know there's a medic-nin on the battlefield." He shot Naga a lopsided smile. "At least wait until after we're done in Suisai."

Naga didn't smile back. His clenched his fists in his lap. "I know," he murmured. "Doesn't make it any less frustrating to do nothing."

Yahiko glanced at him and sat up, rolling up his pant leg. "If you really want to help, you can look at this weird mole that appeared on my foot the other day. I woke up one day and it was just there."

"Ignore him. He's disgusting," Konan said. She held up a hand and small slips of paper swirled lazily above her palm. "If you want, we can make a tower while we wait."

Naga only smiled.

一人で

He was a beast.

It was the first word that came to mind when I saw the boy bathed in blood. There were streaks of scarlet in his gray hair, across his mouth, and dried into the grass around him.

There were five others around him, all dead.

Konan's eyes went wide. Naga sucked in. Yahiko went still.

The boy was hunched over one of the bodies, a bloody kunai gripped tight. I saw the wildness in his eyes as he stared up at us, a monster lurking under the skin of a boy.

It was okay though, because I was a wild thing too.

I hopped down, bending my knees so landing didn't hurt, and straightened.

"Oka!" it was Naga who called after me and followed me down from the tree.

I didn't turn around.

The boy tracked the movement, eyes purple and dull. His headband told me he was from Yugakure.

How many people did the war make you kill?

How many bodies did it take to turn you into this?

I thought of what I should say, what Yahiko would do if we were in Amegakure.

I cupped my hands around my mouth. "Hey," I called to him, forgoing the need to be quiet. If we weren't alone, we wouldn't have found him alive. "Want to come with us?"

Naga made a noise of protest.

I heard Konan swat Yahiko, whisper-hissing that this was all his fault.

The boy didn't hear me. His expression didn't change. He didn't blink.

I dropped my hands.

Words wouldn't work on him. He wasn't listening.

Looking at him, at the way he stood, holding his kunai up, his other hand ready to defend, even though we were only standing and watching him—it told me of a way to reach him.

It was a language that I was the only one here that really understood.

"Don't, Oka," Naga said quietly, knowing even before I untied my cloak, folded it, and put it down on the ground.

I took off my scarf, dropped it on top of the cloak, and gently pulled Namekuji off my neck. "I'll be right back," I told him, lowering him on top of the pile.

"This is why I don't like using you people as heaters," he grumbled. "You always move me just as I get comfy."

Naga grabbed my arm. He was all worry, eyes flicking between me and the boy. "We don't know what he's capable of," he warned. "Yahiko will make a plan and—"

"Does he have more chakra than all of us?" I interrupted him.

Naga's hesitation was answer enough. He still wanted to protect me, like always.

I pulled my arm free and walked away from him. I could hear Konan above me, whispering loudly, but if Yahiko wanted to stop me he already would've.

The boy held his kunai up higher. He clutched it closer to the blade than the handle, telling me he either wasn't used to using throwing weapons or trained badly.

I smiled at him.

He leapt and I spun a kunai into my palm, clashing with him, sparks flying between us.

We were both products of war.

He pulled back and swung again, wild and unfocused. His body was a puppet, his strings the desire to survive and kill.

I parried him, throwing him off balance. I twisted and drove my foot into his stomach.

He stumbled, pain flashing across his face, but he didn't fall. His eyes narrowed when I grinned.

He threw himself at me. He didn't care when I twisted his wrist and forced him to drop the kunai. His other hand clamped around mine before it hit the grass, nails digging into my arm until it hurt.

I bared my teeth at him, and he bared his right back at me.

He yanked, trying to pull me closer, his mouth opening, straining to sink his teeth into my neck.

I let go of the kunai and shoved a hand under his jaw, forcing his mouth shut, hearing the click of his teeth.

He thrashed his head until I lost my grip, and I jerked back before he could bite me.

He wouldn't let go of my arm.

I drove my fist into his nose and he howled. Still, he didn't let go.

He grappled at my throat, one eye closed, blood dripping from his nose. I rewarded the effort by digging my teeth deep into the fleshy part of his hand.

I could bite too.

He hissed and let go of my arm. He grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked.

I bit down harder, shaking my head like a rabid dog, but he had an iron grip. He pulled and pulled until I let go of his hand with a gasp, my neck aching.

I growled and kicked at his knee. His leg buckled, but he was still on his feet, so I kicked the other one too.

He tumbled, pulling me down with him, and then we were punching and kicking and rolling around in the blood and grass.

Eventually, having enough of him tugging on my hair, my elbow connected with the side of his head. It disoriented him long enough for me to jerk his hand away and shove my knee against his throat.

He choked, scratching at my pants, kicking his legs. "Piece of shit," he managed. His eyes looked clearer than before. "Get the fuck off me, asshole!"

I blinked. He had a surprising amount of air for someone with a knee to his throat. I pressed down harder and he wheezed.

"Apologize," I demanded, gesturing at the disaster he'd made of my braid. My arm was bruised purple-red.

"Fuck no," he shouted, somehow. "Go die in a fucking ditch—" he stopped suddenly, eyes widening, looking at the bodies around us. He went limp.

I followed his gaze to the body of a dead boy, laying facedown, then to a girl next to him. She was on her side, skin tinted blue, a jagged cut across her neck. She looked my age.

Not all of them died by his hand.

I shifted off him, inspecting the crescent-shaped marks on my arm as he rubbed his throat and sat up. He turned his back to the bodies, frowning, staring at me.

"Where's your shitty headband?"

"Don't have one," I told him, ignoring the language. The marks hurt, but he didn't break the skin.

"Why didn't you kill me?"

I blinked at him. "'Cause I want you to come with us."

He looked baffled.

I stood up. The blood was uncomfortably warm under my feet. "We're the Akatsuki," I introduced with a smile. "I'm Oka."

He rubbed the bite mark on his hand, troubled. "What the shit is wrong with you?"

"You attacked me," I reminded him. "What's wrong with you?"

He looked briefly surprised, looking away from me. "I don't remember that," he grumbled.

"You're going to make all my hair turn gray before I'm eighteen," Naga murmured behind me. He was kneeling when I turned around.

I patted his head with my uninjured hand. "You worry too much."

Naga's smile was soft. "I can't help it. I'm your big brother. I'll always worry."

"I know," I told him. "But I knew I could win."

Naga shook his head, taking my other hand, his palm glowing green. "You didn't tell me that."

"Would you've let me go if I did?"

Naga didn't answer and stubbornly refused to meet my eyes.

I smiled, looking above him, to where Konan stood on the grass with her arms crossed. "Yep," she said, eyes on Yahiko. "Your fault."

Yahiko squinted at me. "I don't remember fighting anyone on a pile of blood and corpses."

Konan stared at him. "How long ago was it that you recruited Maho?"

"That doesn't count."

"There was blood," Konan said slowly. "And there were corpses."

"I didn't do any fighting," he responded airily. "I only defended myself."

Konan gestured at me. "But you made her think it was okay to recruit people in the middle of a battlefield."

"It was a field of battle," he clarified. "But it wasn't a battlefield."

"And what's the difference?"

"Well, one is a field of battle. And the other is a battlefield."

"So, none?"

Yahiko paused. "I still say this isn't my fault."

Naga released my arm and stood, moving to the boy, only to pause when he pushed himself back, putting space between them. I saw fear in his eyes. It was there for only a brief second before his fists clenched and he stood, glaring at my brother.

"Stay the fuck away from me," he said venomously.

I held my healed hand up for him to see, and the boy's eyes widened when he saw that the bruising was gone. "He's a medic-nin. He wants to help you," I explained. "Or, you could say no and die from all the poison I injected you with when I bit you."

He frowned at the bite. "You think I'll believe that shit?"

I shrugged.

His frown deepened. He thrust out his hand. "You're still shit," he said.

Naga paused. He wordlessly took the offered hand. "What's your name?" he murmured.

"Fuck, and You."

"Don't curse at him," I said.

"That goes double for you," he spat, glaring at me.

"It's nice to meet you, Fuck," Naga politely responded. "Is that a family name?"

I stared at his back. I never heard Naga curse before.

The boy's eyes narrowed. "You're a dipshit," he answered, then paused. "It's Hidan."

"So," Yahiko drawled, walking over, hands behind his head. "Is our foul-mouthed little friend coming with us?"

"Choke on a dick," Hidan growled.

"Enlightening," Yahiko said. "But that doesn't answer my question."

Hidan looked away, "Only if you have something to eat."

A/N: 綺麗な - Beautiful, 残酷 - Cruel, 世界 - World, 一人で - Alone

I hope I did Oka's first time seeing the sun justice.

If you're looking for something else to read, check out Of Gods an Men by strid. Mythological AU. Uchiha-centric. It deserves way more attention than it has.