"In the moment I was born, I wouldn't stop screaming,

Saying that I wanted to fade away and disappear.

Every since the day I stopped I had always been searching,

For the one I'd someday meet,

For the you that has to leave."

-Eine Kleine, rachie

"What's the verdict?" Yahiko asked, hands laced behind his head.

An old oil lamp flickered with orange light from the floor, casting moving shadows on the walls.

"Metastatic tumors," Naga muttered. He sat across from Yahiko, hands steepled under his chin, staring at the lamp. "The oldest mass I found was in the epithelium lining, but it spread to her mediastinal lymph nodes."

Yahiko blinked once. "I understood that, but if you could use smaller words for Oka and Hidan..."

Hidan, sitting on the floor, leaned forward and mouthed curses at him.

Naga's lips twitched up. "She has tumors in her lungs. A lot of them," he explained. "She hasn't been able to breathe properly for years, and that's caused damage to her organs."

Yahiko considered this. "How long will it take to fix her?"

"I don't know," Naga admitted. "A while. I need to remove the tumors in sections. Her kidneys won't be able to take the strain if I don't heal them at the same time."

"So, about two days?"

"It'll be almost impossible to keep her breathing at the same time."

Yahiko paused. "Two and a half days?"

Naga looked back at the lamp. He didn't smile. "I've never done anything like this before," he said quietly.

"Could we help?" Konan asked, next to Yahiko.

Naga shook his head. "Too delicate."

"Doesn't matter if you don't think you can. You still have to try," I said, sitting on the arm of Naga's couch. I swung my legs, watching the shadows dance and twist. "You said you would always help."

I felt three sets of eyes on my back, but I didn't turn around.

The couch squeaked as Naga stood.

"How long can she hold on?" Konan asked.

"I don't know," Naga answered, the unspoken 'why' hanging in the air.

"You and me should scout out the area around the genjutsu. I don't expect it to be complex, since it was made to trick civilians, but I still want to look at it. If you can sense through it, we'll know how many people we're up against."

"I can't," Naga said. "I have to clean the room, try to make it as sterile as I can. That is, if you want me done in two and a half days."

Yahiko grinned, and I thought I caught a ghost of a smile as Naga climbed the steps.

"Nagato couldn't be the one to go, anyway," Yahiko said, tilting his head Konan's way. "He's not subtle enough. If they have anyone who can feel chakra even a little, they'll be able to tell he's a shinobi."

"In other words, you want us to go in blind," Konan deadpanned.

"I don't think there's any other shinobi," Yahiko said. "Even if Suisai had the money to hire one, which they don't, what shinobi would come out here in the middle of a war to handle a civilian problem?"

Konan frowned. "But Haruto said Abhuraya brought in a genjutsu user."

"He did," Yahiko agreed.

"I didn't sense that he was lying."

"Because he doesn't think it's a lie," Yahiko said. "They can't be a rouge-nin. Even if Abhuraya has a secret stash of ryo somewhere, he has no way of contacting one. Why would they stay here when Konohagakure is only half a day's walk away?"

He shook his head. "If the daimyo is as important as Haruto made them sound, Abhuraya would be throwing whatever status he has away if he brought in foreign shinobi."

Konan's eyes widened. "You think the genjutsu user was always here?"

Yahiko looked at the ceiling. "Haruto said Abhuraya had a son, remember?"

"Ren," Konan breathed.

"Abhuraya didn't have to bring in someone from the outside. He already had a genjutsu user with him the whole time."

"You can't be sure he's a civilian."

Yahiko smiled a little. "Why would Abhuraya need to bribe Haruto's former friends if he wasn't?"

Konan sat back, knuckles pressed to her mouth. "You and I should go. I still want to test the strength of the genjutsu, and if Ren is a sensory-type, he won't notice you."

"There goes my confidence."

"We should go before sunrise," Konan murmured. "Then we can decide where's best to enter."

"Oka and Hidan will go."

Konan stared at him.

"Hidan will fucking what?"

"Our clients are sleeping upstairs, Hidan," Yahiko said serenely.

"Why the shit should I care—"

Yahiko sat up and Hidan mouthed the rest at him.

"Why?" Konan asked.

"Because they're kids," Yahiko answered, and I slowly turned around. I stopped swinging my legs.

He held up a placating hand. "People will see them as kids," he amended quickly, before I could leap at him. "You won't know how the genjutsu works until you're close enough to be sensed. If Abhuraya's men can see us, but we can't see them, then we lose the chance to take them by surprise. If we stick around for too long, the people on this side will get suspicious. We're not exactly subtle either, Konan." He ran a hand through his hair.

Konan glanced at Hidan. "His hair is gray."

Yahiko laughed a little. "Yeah, but they're still growing. It'll be easier for them," he said. "People will give them the benefit of the doubt or make excuses for them, just because they're smaller. We don't need to know how strong the genjutsu is—"

"I do," Konan said.

"Because as long as we know that Ren's a civilian, you can break it," he continued. "We only need to know what the outside of the palace looks like, and the entry points. Oka can do that."

"And Hidan?"

"She shouldn't go alone," Yahiko reasoned.

"You just want a break."

"Speaking of break," Yahiko began. "Remember that bet we made earlier—"

"Those two things don't have anything to do with each other."

"—I won," he finished.

Konan crossed her arms and smiled. "And yet you never said what would happen if you won."

"I—What?"

"Nagato and I said that you would clean up after Namekuji," she pointed out. "What did you say we would have to do?"

Yahiko stared blankly at her.

"Too bad," Konan said sweetly.

"I never got the chance."

"Sounds like a you problem."

Yahiko stood, walked over to a small window, and stared out of it, contemplative. He didn't speak for a long time. "You'll leave in the morning, Oka," he said gravely. "It defeats the purpose if you go now."

Konan covered her mouth to stifle her laughter.

熱

The stairs creaked as I walked upstairs, bending a little in the middle.

I saw Haruto first, on the floor next to the bed.

A stump of a candle in a bowl on a nightstand, the light barely enough to see by.

The bed in the middle of the room was bigger than any I'd ever seen, and the woman in the middle took up so little of it. Her hair was a wispy brown, spread out all over the pillow tucked under her head.

Naga pulled a blanket off her, folded it, and put it on the floor.

I stepped closer and saw Hanako, curled up at the foot of the bed, hugging Kuu tight to her chest.

Why did a room with so many people feel so cold?

I stopped next to my brother, looking down at the thin skeleton on the bed. It didn't look like she was breathing.

She wore a nightdress too big for her, plain and cream.

I'd seen a lot of sick or hurt people before, but this...

She looks dead.

I pulled Namekuji off my head and held him out to Naga. "I don't know if he'll be able to help, 'cause he's so small," I said quietly. "But you always have him with you when you heal people."

Namekuji stared at the woman. I knew it was bad because he didn't say anything.

Naga paused for half a second, then accepted Namekuji. He put him down on her chest. "Tell me if her heart rhythm changes," he murmured.

"I know you can do it," I said, looking up at him.

Naga's smile was small. "I'll try."

ヘイズ

I stood at the window, watching the sun come up again.

I couldn't see much of it. Yellow and pink in the distance, the gradual lightening of the sky. There were so many colors.

"I hate that bastard," Hidan said.

He sat next to me, his back against the wall. I followed his glare to Yahiko, who was stretched out, face down on the floor close to the rightmost couch.

"That's okay." I looked back out the window.

Hidan frowned. "You're so fucking weird."

"Want to watch the sun with me?"

Hidan stared. "What part of that made your shit brain think I wanted to watch the fucking sun?"

I shrugged. "It's pretty. I thought maybe you'd want to look at something pretty too."

Hidan was speechless. "Your whole family is full of bitches."

I glanced back, as if assessing his statement. Konan was asleep on the couch above Yahiko, hair in her face, her mouth open. I didn't really know what 'bitches' meant, and I knew no one would explain if I asked. "Maybe," I said anyway.

"You're a fucking asshole."

"Sometimes."

"Your parents are cocksuckers."

"Mama and papa died when I was little," I told him, and watched him draw back, eyes wide. "I don't really remember them."

Hidan swallowed hard, eyes on the floor. "I didn't ask for your shitty sob story," he muttered.

I tilted my head. "It's not a 'sob story'. It's the truth."

Hidan didn't seem to know what to say to that.

I sat next to him and crossed my legs. "I wasn't trying to make you feel bad."

"I don't," he hissed. "Talking to you is like talking to shit. I don't know why I fucking bother."

But he didn't move away.

.

.

.

"The lavender field used to be west of town, but that's gone now too," Hanako said. "We used to have a festival in the spring to honor Inari and celebrate the wheat harvest, and one in the summer for the lavender."

I followed her down a white-bricked path, wire-fences on either side. I left my cloak back at her house.

"What kind of shitty name is Inari?" Hidan asked, hands in his pockets.

"It's—" she paused, glancing back. "Inari is a god we believe in. Some think that our fields were burned because we didn't have any festivals this year, and so didn't have Inari's protection."

"Or Inari didn't give a shit and wouldn't have protected your shitty fields anyway."

I heard Hanako's breath hitch, but I didn't try to stop Hidan. He would only get louder.

"Where you're from, do they believe in gods?" Hanako asked, her voice carefully level.

"I don't fucking know," Hidan answered, pulling his hands out. "But I don't. It sounds fucking dumb."

Hanako glanced back at me.

"I don't know what a god is," I admitted.

Her eyes widened a fraction. "A god is..." she trailed off. "They created the world and divided it between themselves. They have the power to manipulate the world however they want. Inari can encourage our crops grow and flourish or push them to wither and die."

I hummed. "Do you believe Inari let them burn your fields?"

"No! I think it was outside Inari's control," she answered. "People should be blamed, not Inari."

"Fucking crazy," Hidan said under his breath.

Hanako's fists clenched at her side, but she didn't turn around. She stopped. "Keep going forward. You'll run into it." She ducked into an alley and disappeared before I could respond.

"You scared her away," I accused Hidan.

"So fucking what?" he asked. "We're not supposed to be seen with her close to the shit anyway."

I stared at him. He stared back at me.

I sighed, loud and exaggerated, but headed forward again.

.

.

.

One second I was walking and the next I faced the opposite way, staring back the way we came from. I stopped.

"What the fuck?"

The path was there, the fence was the same, but we were somehow facing the wrong way.

"What the shit happened?" Hidan demanded.

I turned around. I wasn't supposed to break the genjutsu, but maybe I could recognize it. "Let's go back this way," I chirped loudly, giving Hidan my fakest smile.

He stared at me for a moment and seemed to understand. He grumbled but turned around.

The second time was a lot like the first. We walked for a shorter time than before, and then we were back at the start. Except I thought I felt...

A hint of something. A brief, subtle buzz of chakra across my skin.

"Did you feel that?" I asked.

Hidan looked bewildered. "Feel fucking what?"

Then again, Hidan hadn't been trained by Mamoru-sensei.

I shrugged. "Maybe I imagined it. Come on."

The third time I was sure I felt it. Chakra spread thin, but not thin enough to be missed by anyone with even a little experience with genjutsu.

Hidan looked disoriented. "This is messing with my fucking head," he complained.

"Maybe this way," I said, walking forward. I slipped through a gap in the fence, walked through a patch of tall, wild grass between two buildings, and came out on the other side on another white-bricked path.

There were trinkets lining this one, presents addressed to Inari.

It led straight to the genjutsu too.

"Why the fuck," Hidan said and didn't finish.

It was in case we were being watched. If we kept turning around and hitting the genjutsu at the same spot, no one would believe it was by accident.

I didn't answer though. I only smiled and gestured for him to follow me.

The fourth time I felt the exact moment I walked through it and ended up on the other side.

The fifth time I slowed, letting Hidan go first, and I saw through the illusion. I saw it when he was tricked into thinking he was going backwards. He turned around, never breaking stride, eyes foggy. I felt the seams when I stepped through, shaking off the attempt to make me believe I'd imagined Hidan's vacant expression.

Hidan dropped to the ground, head between his legs. "How the shit isn't this making you sick?" he gasped.

If I knew for sure that we were alone, I might've answered. "Maybe we should go home."

"Fuck that and fuck you," Hidan spat, just like I thought he would.

The sixth time, I knew how to go through without breaking it.

It was as easy as making yourself believe you were going the right way, even if everything inside screamed that you weren't. It was harder in practice.

The seventh time, Hidan clutched his stomach and cursed me out when I suggested taking a break. It made him want to keep going to spite me.

The eighth time, I stepped into it, steeled myself, and kept walking 'backward'. My legs told me that I had somehow turned myself around, my eyes showed me the path and the fence. I felt off-balance. My stomach twisted, but I grabbed Hidan's arm and kept walking.

And then the palace was there as if it had always been. I stared up and up at it. It had three floors, with a roof on each, sloped and curved in ways I'd never seen before.

A man stepped in front of me. He was taller than Yahiko. Wider, too.

He looked down at us, and I saw confusion in his eyes. I saw his concerned, perturbed frown as he looked between the invisible wall and us. There was barely any suspicion at all.

I remembered what Yahiko said. What we looked like to him.

Children. Hidan's clothes were cleaner, but my shirt was thin and old, held together by red thread and my own refusal to wear anything else.

If he thought we were shinobi, he wouldn't have stopped to stare at us. He looked us like we were civilians, so he didn't see that Hidan was tense beside me. He brushed off the fact that I didn't have the body of one, because I was little to him.

If Yahiko came in my place, he would've been 'little' too.

I let it go.

I channeled Konan and pointed at the palace, smiling until it hurt. "We found it," I told Hidan excitedly, ignoring the man. "I told you it was here."

The man crouched. His nose was crooked, broken and reset too many times. "You were looking for the palace? How did you get past the barrier?"

He wouldn't have asked if he knew how it worked.

He sounded curious, his stance relaxed. Maybe he thought we were war refugees, maybe he just didn't know every single kid that lived in Suisai. Either way, the suspicion was gone.

Before I could answer, Hidan stumbled forward and threw up on his legs.

The man jerked back, but not fast enough. The bottom of his pants and shoes had taken the brunt of it and were forever ruined. I pinched my nose, looking away, and patted Hidan's back supportively.

He cursed at me even as he coughed and spit.

The man looked disgusted, but forced his eyes back to us. "You might not know what you've done, but I need you to walk me through exactly what you did and felt when you—"

"You fucking bitch," Hidan gasped, shaking me off.

The man blinked. "Pardon?"

"I said you're a fucking bitch."

The man seemed at a loss.

"I fucking hate—" Hidan stopped himself, and I knew he would've said genjutsu. "—you. I hate your stupid, fucked up nose."

The man looked at me, as if I would be able to explain Hidan. "We kept getting lost," I said. "But I knew it was the right way, because Hanako said so."

I didn't doubt that someone had seen us with Hanako.

Hidan pointed at me. "Shut the fuck up," he said, wiping a hand across his mouth. He turned back to the man. "We don't owe you shit. Fuck you and your questions."

The man's eyes narrowed at me. "Hanako?" he asked. "How do you know her?"

"I'm going to hurl directly into your face next," Hidan promised.

The man, looking suddenly alarmed, took a step back. "Hanako told you to come here?" he asked again, only looking at me.

"Don't ignore me, you titfuck."

I tapped my chin. "She didn't tell us. We made a bet. I knew the palace was here, but he said it wasn't. Hanako was on my side. She said that if we went this way, we would find it."

The man frowned. "You shouldn't have listened to Hanako. Chief Abhuraya is doing extremely important work within the palace, and curiosity isn't an excuse—"

Hidan made a gagging sound, covered his mouth, and locked eyes with the man.

The man sucked in through his teeth, eyes flashing down to his pants. He stepped forward, quickly took us by the shoulders, and steered us back toward the 'wall'.

"Chief Abhuraya doesn't want to be disturbed," the man said sternly, hastily. "If you come back, I'll have to tell both your parents and Hanako's father."

He gave us a little push and then we were back through. He and the palace were gone.

Hidan dropped his hand and groaned.

"You okay?" I asked.

"I feel like shit," he answered. "Just fuck off."

I thought about it. Instead I took him by the arm and pulled him after me. He let me.

ボーッ

Haruto sat halfway up the stairs, watching us through the rails. His back was against the wall, legs awkwardly stretched out. He had deep bags under his eyes.

Right after Hidan and I left, Naga kicked him and Hanako out of the room.

I leaned over an unrolled scroll, drawing the palace in wobbly black streaks with my pointer finger. A container of black ink sat on the floor next to my knee.

Hidan sat under the window, a dirty-looking cup between his legs. Steam wafted from the top.

Hanako made it for him to help his stomach.

He muttered about how bad it smelled even as he sipped from it.

The bottom floor of the palace was a big rectangle, the middle floor a square on top of it, and the top floor a small box. I dipped my finger in the ink, ignoring the thick brush that sat next to it, and drew little sideways rectangles for windows. There had been two on the bottom floor next to each other, two spaced apart in the middle, and one on the highest floor.

The bottom windows came out smudged and bled into each other, but the top was passable.

"Are they big enough to fit through?" Konan asked, leaning down, pointing at the highest window.

"No," I answered absently, struggling to draw the intricate roof designs from memory.

"And you didn't see a door?"

I shook my head. The bottom floor 'roof' looked more like wavy lines cutting through the corners of the building.

"Yes," Hidan objected. He picked up his tea, came closer, and sat across from me. He gave the drawing a quick once-over. "So shitty."

I sniffed. "Better than you."

"Fucking no."

Yahiko, holding a cup of hot water, blinked down at him.

"I'm barely using any curse words," Hidan shouted. "You don't have to take it out on me just because you've got a giant stick up your ass—"

"Where was the door, Hidan?" Konan asked loudly, cutting him off.

Hidan stared at Yahiko. He kept eye contact as he shoved his thumb in the container, splashing ink on the floor. The sides of the scroll bled black.

Yahiko was expressionless. "You're cleaning that up."

"Fuck if I am," Hidan scoffed. He leaned down and reached over me, ignoring my attempts to add tiny shingles to the middle roof. He drew a wiggly, upside-down rectangle in the blank space, close to the bottom floor.

"Would he mellow out if he picked up drawing, you think?" Yahiko asked Konan.

"Not a chance."

"I didn't see a door," I said, giving up on the roof. It looked like one big dark stain.

"That fat ass was in the way," Hidan told me, drawing a thing at the top. It had the head of a person and the body of an animal, with too many legs and a lot of teeth. "But I saw it."

"You're completely sure?" Konan asked.

Hidan looked at her. He picked up his cup, chugged it, then burped at her.

Konan leaned away, nose wrinkling. She waved a hand back and forth. "Why?"

"Konan will go in through the top floor," Yahiko decided. He ignored Hidan sticking out his tongue, focused on the scroll. "I'll handle the middle floor. Oka and Hidan can take the bottom."

Konan shook her head. "And, of course, I get the hardest job."

"That's where I'd put Ren, if I was Abhuraya," he reasoned.

"Along with the strongest people he could find to protect him," she said.

Yahiko smiled. "If you don't think you can do it, you can always ask for help."

"If anyone here needs help, it's you—"

"Why the fuck did you want to know where the door was if you weren't going to fucking use it?" Hidan asked. His palm was splattered with black. The container was on its side.

"I considered using it," Yahiko answered, stroking his chin. "But we don't know enough about the inside. If we all go in the same way, we give Abhuraya a chance to escape through a hidden passage or hide in some secret room behind the walls. Plus, I like to have all the details before deciding on a plan."

"I asked him about the door," Konan pointed out.

"Details." Yahiko said, waving a dismissive hand.

"You already knew what we would do the second Oka finished drawing," Konan deadpanned. "You weren't going to change it, no matter what he said."

Yahiko took a long drink from his cup. "We leave at dawn," he said airily.

"Why wait?" it was Hanako who asked, her back to us, washing a shirt in the sink.

"Because he's a show-off," Konan answered.

"It's already late afternoon," Yahiko said, ignoring her. "People need to see us when we go, and know it was us when we come back. I only have one chance to do this right. I don't know how long it'll take if we start now."

I stared up at the window, at the light spilling into the room, at the way everything touched by it was vibrant. Tomorrow then.

A/N: 熱 - Heat, ヘイズ - Haze, ボーッ - Daze