"Sometimes all I think about is you,

Late nights in the middle of June,

Heat waves been faking me out,

Can't make you happier now,"

-Heat Waves, Glass Animals

"What'll they do with them? Do you know?" Matsu asked.

I looked across the room to where Hachirou and Sen were, sitting on our old clothes on the floor. Yahiko had been collecting them to give to Yuta to make more cloaks.

Sen was curled up and Hachirou's face pressed into her side. He shivered, freezing even though he was dry and the shelter was too warm.

"I'm sorry, Sen, sorry," he mumbled, had been mumbling, grasping her shirt tight.

Sen's eyes were open, eyebrows scrunched up, but she wasn't looking at anything.

"No," I finally answered.

No one seemed to know what to do with them. They couldn't become shinobi, so they couldn't be pushed onto Joji.

They'd been in the water for so long that it had caused nerve damage in their arms and legs, and they'd overstrained their chakra coils. They'd never be able to use ninjutsu or taijutsu, and they'd be weak, even for civilians.

And they couldn't stay here because they might be targeted, or get caught in the middle of a fight.

I didn't think there were that many people against us left (Hidan hadn't complained about not having sacrifices once), or they were scared (more than they were of me, because I didn't laugh in their faces or use my own blood to draw symbols).

Even if they were all dead, the people who cared about them would try to take revenge.

"What would you do with them?" I asked Matsu.

"Orphans are messy," he sighed. "I know a few groups of them, and they might take the girl in if I ask, but the other one..." he trailed off. He shook his head and smiled wryly, "Well, they'd take them both in if I asked now, but they wouldn't be happy about it. Sometimes being around people and being unwanted is worse than being alone. I wouldn't want to do that to them."

I hummed.

"They just need someplace to stay until she adjusts, right? You don't know anyone who can take them until then?" he asked.

Someone who I knew, but was isolated enough that they wouldn't be seen as Akatsuki.

"I know someone, but I don't know if she's still there," I mused.

"Someone I know?"

"You've heard of her," I said. "Yahiko teases Mamoru-sensei about her all the time."

"The famous Etsudo," Matsu drawled. "Not many know she was even in the Akatsuki."

"She almost was. Would've been, if things happened differently."

Matsu didn't respond, but the quiet didn't feel awkward.

"Yua," Sen murmured, curling up more. "We never went back for her."

Hachirou lifted his head and wiped his nose, "Yua?"

Sen's eyebrows scrunched. She sat up and fell back with a pained, full-body shudder, clutching her leg. "Yua," she forced out. "You-You don't remember?"

Hachirou stopped with his arms out like he'd been about to catch her. He shook hie head, sniffing hard. "I tried to pull you out, but I couldn't," he said, covering his mouth. "I tried, Sen, I really tried—"

"Who's Yua?" I asked.

Sen pushed herself up on her elbows, staring at him in wide-eyed silence. "Hachi," she whispered. "Did you hit your head?"

Hachirou wiped his eyes, not hearing her as he mumbled, "I couldn't grab the water like before. It wouldn't move when I tried to swim—"

She trembled, horror creeping into her gaze. "You don't remember your sister?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Sen," Hachirou said, sniffing.

"Nagato didn't check?" Matsu asked quietly.

"You should ask Naga to teach you about medical ninjutsu," I answered. "To understand it, at least."

Matsu made an embarrassed sound.

Sen leaned away from him. She twisted as much as she could to look at us. "L-Lady Wolf—Yua—she—has it been a long time since you saved us?"

I didn't think it'd help if I told her and it made her upset. "She's alone?"

"Where did you leave her?" Matsu asked.

"By the southeast market. T-the new one! There's a big pipe we found north of it and we—we weren't supposed to be gone that long. And-and it's not as hot in there," she finished lamely, ducking her head.

I looked at Matsu.

"I know where it is," he said, scratching his cheek. "It's a smart place to stay, but dangerous. No one knew where it led, so it wasn't used much."

"How dangerous?" I asked.

"Stupid, adventurous types who went too far in and disappeared dangerous, not what you and Maho found," he answered.

I hummed and glanced at Sen's pleading eyes. "I'll find her," I said.

Matsu followed me as I left the room. I barely heard him. I didn't think he knew how to walk without being quiet anymore.

"You sure those two should be left alone?" Matsu asked.

"Mamoru-sensei is somewhere around here," I said, waving vaguely. "Or outside."

Matsu paused and shook his head, "I'll be twenty-five before Joji-sensei finally teaches me about genjutsu."

I pushed up the hatch as I walked up the steps and Matsu held up his arm, muttering about the heat.

I looked towards the white trees scattered around where the sand met the grass. "Is Etsudo's shop still in the same place?"

I heard his sigh as he said, "I taught you the importance of stealth, didn't I?"

"You did."

Mamoru-sensei said nothing, but he was there suddenly, standing in the middle of thin trees with gnarled branches. "First Yahiko, and now you. Why do I bother?"

"Is she, sensei?" I asked.

Mamoru-sensei pushed branches aside as he came out. "What do you need her for?"

"Sounds like a yes," I decided, and walked past him.

Mamoru-sensei watched me with unimpressed eyes.

Matsu shook his head, "How do you put up with them?"

"I ask myself that every day."

.

.

.

I looked at a table covered in crumbs and neatly arranged seaweed sandwiches, and then at the vendor behind it as we passed, a bearded, bigger man.

I heard soft murmurings that said, it's an honor or hasty offers of free food.

A muscled woman selling wrapped fish on a damaged table bowed to me, quick and awkward. I felt the surprised stare of a man with an eyepatch and a boy on his shoulders, but he didn't dip his head or bow at me like others did.

And still, it was only the man selling seaweed sandwiches who looked nervous. "Lady Oka," he said as my stare lingered, not lifting his eyes from the plastic surface.

"It's the wolf," the boy whispered, wide-eyed, pointing at me.

Matsu didn't look at them, but he said, "Those two come here every day."

The stares turned to him, assessing, squinting, deciding what it meant that I was following him, trying to figure out who he was.

"Do you know him?" I finally asked, still looking at the man with seaweed sandwiches.

Matsu turned to look and I didn't miss the flicker in his eyes, like remembering a bad memory.

I hummed.

People went back to talking or haggling, but quieter, their attention still on us.

I watched their shadows, then looked at the shapes in mine. Three figures walking down a road like this one, the middle one holding a round, chubby shape, and the one on the left carrying someone on his back.

I remembered how warm Naga's shoulder used to be as rain poured down on us.

I heard Yahiko telling Konan not to complain to him when her arms hurt from carrying Chibi around, and the way vendors scowled at us. Being looked at we were nothing then and stifling the urge to laugh and laugh when vendors bowed to me.

I stopped suddenly, turning to look at an older man sitting on the middle stair of a staircase that was unfinished. The bones of a wrapped fish sat next to him. He was older and thinner. His eyes were weary and jaded, but I remembered what they'd looked like when his face was fuller. What he'd said—

we should take the whole hand—

Matsu followed my gaze.

—the little rat's been stealing from me for weeks.

Wasn't it funny that I had a clearer memory of the men who wanted to cut off my brother's fingers than our parents?

He didn't look at me, like that vendor didn't look at Matsu, but his eyes were narrowed at his knees. He didn't move under my stare, suddenly a statue carved out into the shape of a person.

"Where's your friend?" I couldn't help but ask.

The conversations slowly died off and tension bled into the market like I was an open wound.

The man on the staircase hesitated, then plucked up a fish bone and picked his teeth with it. "You're mistaking me for someone else, Wolf," he grunted, casual, but his fingers trembled, just slightly.

It was an answer in itself that he only started shaking after I asked. It meant he knew who I was talking about, and that he was dead.

I smiled, and then I was laughing so hard the market went silent.

"What are you going to do with him?" Matsu asked.

If Konan was here, she would've told me to forget him. I could feel her hand in mine, steering me away and saying, it wasn't worth it, or if it wasn't for what happened, you wouldn't have met us, right?

She was right. It was ten years too late to be worth it.

when has that stopped me?

I laughed so loud that my throat ached. I wondered if people would cheer if I killed him like they'd done when we killed Hanzo. I laughed because we'd stopped the rain, but we'd been so broken, and they cheered.

The man on the staircase looked to the side, determined to ignore me, but his hand shook so hard the bone snapped in two. And still, still, he didn't lower his hand as I laughed at his dead friend.

it had been a suicide mission and Mamoru-sensei knew it, and they cheered—

I felt a tap on my shoulder and stopped. I looked at Matsu, and then at his knuckles as he tapped my shoulder again.

"Look, do what you need to do, but you don't have to do this," he said.

I blinked up at him.

"That didn't come out right," he said, taking a step back. "The vendor over there—He gave me a sandwich the first time I met him again. It'd been years, but it didn't make me not want to punch him in the face any less. I get it."

He looked uncomfortable. I looked down at my shadow, and it was only my own.

"I mean—I'm the only one here, so someone has to—" he stopped, scratching his cheek. "I've stopped Enyo before. He didn't ever laugh like that, but he doesn't know when to stop sometimes and, well—"

I looked around as he stopped again. The woman with the wrapped fish was snapping her fingers, trying to get the attention of another woman with a scar across her nose that was looking at me, a fish forgotten in her hands. The boy on his father's shoulders ducked down and slowly waved.

They hadn't known what they'd been cheering for.

I looked at the man on the staircase again.

how did it feel to know that they might look away if I killed you, or not understand, but they wouldn't stop me?

"I told you, you're mistaken," he said, almost hoarsely, arm shaking so badly he couldn't take the broken piece of bone out from between his teeth.

but that was too easy.

"I don't like you," I said simply. It didn't seem like much, or anything at all.

what was it like to be disliked by someone like me in a village like this?

I didn't know the answer, but it sounded like it'd be cruel.

I shifted my gaze to the seaweed sandwich vendor. Maybe he wasn't who he was then, maybe he was a better, kinder person, and still, still—

"I don't like you either," I said, and his eyes went wide. I heard Matsu suck in.

I didn't look at either of them as I walked away.

.

.

.

"You didn't have to do that," Matsu said later, after we'd left them and the market.

I looked at his back, following him through wild grass. "You didn't want me to?"

"It's not that," he answered, but he sounded uncomfortable again.

how many people had done anything for you, Matsu?

"You're right," I said. "You should've done it yourself."

He fell into surprised silence, and I heard his slight laugh. "Kind, even when you're scary mean."

"Can't be mean all the time."

He shook his head, and we walked in silence.

"I don't know if we should bring her back to the hideout. Yua," he said.

I heard Naga's murmur next to me, it could help Hachi remember.

"Sometimes it feels like everything I do is a little cruel, even when I don't mean to be," I finally said.

"So what?" he asked.

I stared at him for a second, and then I laughed a little.

He looked back. "What did I say?"

"You're not loud about it like Hidan, so I thought..." I trailed off and shrugged. "Naga or Yahiko would've said something different."

"What did you want to hear?"

I tilted my head. "Dunno," I admitted. "Yahiko would've said something like, you can't be kind to someone without someone else seeing it as cruelty."

"He wouldn't be wrong."

I hummed vaguely.

Matsu made an aggravated sound. "This isn't something I'm good at."

"You talked to the daimyo's people," I pointed out.

"Everyone says that like it wasn't different than this."

"It's easier to talk to people who might kill you for lying to them than people you want to be friends with?" I asked.

He didn't answer. "It sounds bad when you put it like that," he said after a second.

I looked at the sky. "Naga would've hugged me, maybe."

Matsu paused, "Do you want—"

"Nope."

.

.

.

The pipe looked like it'd grown right out of the ground and curved on top of the dirt, big enough to fit into if I ducked.

It was close to the shore and I'd never been out here, I didn't think. Never had a reason to.

I looked around, but there was nothing but deep impressions in the ground where ruins might've been before they were dismantled, colorful wildflowers, and a pipe where little kids fell underground and couldn't make it back out.

Matsu patted the top of it like it was an old friend.

"I never told Enyo I slept in here," he said. "It would've made me a hypocrite, warning him away from a place and then staying in it."

"Why did you?"

Matsu looked at his rust crusted fingers. "Usually when I felt dizzy I could push through it. There used to be weapons all over this place. Bodies, too. Exhausted ninja would have kids go onto battlefields to get them and give us crumbs in return. That's how I got by for a while. One day it hit me all at once how starved I was and passing out in the rain is asking to get sick. So I crawled in here, but was too afraid to go in more than I could fit and got sick anyway."

I stepped closer and crouched to look in the pipe, but it was just a dark hole. "We used to do that, but no one asked us to. Yahiko wanted us to be armed, or it made him feel safe to pretend to be. And he knew we'd need weapons when we trained under someone, even if he didn't know who."

"It wasn't a normal thing taking in someone with an extra mouth to feed. No one wanted to take care of Enyo but me. You were lucky."

"Yahiko didn't want to take care of me either at first," I told him and he seemed surprised. I felt his eyes on me, but I only pulled up a wildflower and spun it between my fingers. "He wanted Naga, and that was enough for him to take me, but not before he thought about it."

I didn't hear Yua, but the first thing she would've been taught was how to be quiet, to hold her hands over her mouth and stop breathing when people bigger than her came close.

"Even so, he took you in. He was way ahead of everyone else," Matsu said.

"Maybe," I said, looking at the yellow petals. "You're like him, a little."

"Yahiko?" he asked, disbelieving.

"No one would give you what you wanted, so you took it," I explained. "No one else would show disrespect to Joji by following him around."

Matsu turned around. "Stop praising me," he finally said.

I hummed. "Make me."

Matsu cracked a smile. He knocked on the top of the pipe with his knuckles. "Yua! You in there?" he called.

The hole remained dark and silent.

"I don't think scaring her will help," I pointed out.

"Might've made her make noise to let us know she was in there," he said back.

I looked into the pipe for another second, then tossed the wildflower away and shifted forward, rust and algae sticking to my palm as I crawled into it.

"Who's scaring who, now?" Matsu asked.

It only took until I was completely in the pipe for it to be so dark that I could barely see. It'd be easy for a civilian to get turned around and disappear.

"Sen sent me," I said to the dark.

Yua didn't answer.

Pieces of old fish were smudged into the rust and metal. I was probably terrifying her. I wouldn't come out for me, either.

"Sen told me—I came to get you," I added, lamely, and heard a tiny breath before she went silent again.

I shifted around until I sat against the curved wall and looked at my lap. I should've pushed Matsu into the pipe.

"My brother used to leave me alone in places like this, too," I said, and maybe she didn't know enough words to understand me, but I kept talking, "He'd tell me not to move, or that he'd come back soon, and he did. It didn't stop me from being scared I'd never see him again, because everything seems to big when you're small. I want to help you, Yua, but I won't make you come out."

I caught a quiet sniff, and then the sound of small hands and feet. I looked at her tangled mess of black hair, her tawny brown skin, and the shirt too big for her. She didn't come all the way into the light, but looked at me and burst into tears.

Matsu bent to look in and I picked her up and handed her to him.

He hugged her as I crawled out and swept stains off my cloak.

"How old is she?"

She cried her eyes out into his chest.

"Two, two and a half?" Matsu said quietly, patting her back.

I looked up at the clouds, but all I felt was an old, lingering sadness. "We should go back to the market. Get her something to eat."

"Let me calm her down first," Matsu murmured.

I kept my eyes on the sky.

.

.

.

"Asu! How many times do I have to tell you not to come in while I'm working—"

Etsudo stopped as she turned, her hammer freezing above a glowing lump of metal on a stone table, a metal sheet over her face.

Hot air came out of the room in waves. Thick, black smoke came out of a small furnace built into the back wall and flooded out of a hole in the ceiling.

"Oka?" she asked. She hastily pushed the plate up with gloved fingers and said my name like it was why.

why are you here, Oka?

My hair stuck to my forehead as I stepped inside.

The seaweed sandwich vendor hadn't been there when we went back, or the man on the staircase, but Matsu had still paid for a boneless fish for Yua. He stood in the doorway with her on his shoulders, handing her bits of fish.

I trailed a hand along a smooth part of the wall that replaced the chunk Hidan had gouged out of the stone.

His hair was covered in crumbs.

"Not wearing your cloak today?" Etsudo tried. She wiped her face and left something ashy smeared across her cheek. She couldn't hide a nervous tremble.

"It's too hot," I answered, looking at a smooth patch of stone on the floor. "I'm sorry. About Hidan."

She only looked at me. That was the last time I'd seen her, when I'd introduced her to someone who could've came back and killed her at any time. It was probably why she looked at me like I was something to be terrified of.

Etsudo shook her head and threw her face shield off. "You remember my apprentice? Blond, pigtails, affectionately called a pest by Mamoru? He says she learned too much from me but—" she stopped herself. "Her opinion never changed on you, or the Akatsuki. She takes in all the news she can when she leaves, and uses every sign Mamoru taught her to tell me what she thinks is most true. I've heard that when the Wolf of the Rain pays you a visit, it's for nothing good."

I followed the wall to the next, where bedrolls and bags were on the floor. "Only if you've done something that I'd need to bite you for."

"Yeah? And what did I do to earn a missing-nin at my door dumping his scythe at my feet whenever he wants?"

I stopped. She bent in front of the furnace, tossed a bucket of water in, and quickly stepped back as it hissed and steamed.

If Mamoru-sensei had known, he wouldn't have let her or Asuga be alone with Hidan. At least back then.

I hadn't known what I was apologizing for.

"I wish I could've played cards with you and Mamoru-sensei and Konan."

She didn't turn around.

"I never wanted to, and then when I did it was too late," I continued.

"What do you want, Oka?" she asked tiredly.

"I still want to learn to play," I said instead of answering. "And listen to you making fun of Mamoru-sensei."

She looked back at me in surprise.

"I'm sorry about the floor, and the wall, but not for anything else," I added. "But you were never in any danger from him or me."

Matsu stepped into the room. "You don't know me, but I'm not a missing-nin, or someone like Hidan. I'm not trying to interrupt, but we came here for your help. There's these two kids who hurt themselves playing with their chakra, and they need somewhere to stay while they recover. Oka thought of you."

Etsudo stared at him. "You look like Hanzo."

"My father," Matsu said, handing Yua part of the tail. "This one on my head is the sister of one of them. They know how to survive. The girl, Sen, just needs her wound looked after until she can walk again. Hachi has a head injury, but he's able to function fine."

"Who slept with Hanzo?"

Matsu looked at the wall. "Hachi's been having memory issues, but we can't do anything about it."

"No, seriously, someone slept with that crotchety old man?"

"Yua," he stressed, jiggling her leg. "Seems low maintenance enough. She doesn't make much noise, and doesn't complain about what you give her to eat."

Etsudo took off her gloves and came closer, covered in sweat. She held her hands up to Yua. She didn't go, but she didn't stop Etsudo from pulling her off Matsu. "Come, sit, tell me about your mother's taste in men. Have any siblings?"

"We should get them moved here as soon as—"

"That can wait," Etsudo said, unrolling a cot and putting Yua on it. "Oka, can you—" she faltered and swallowed. "There are cards in the bag next to you. Mamoru and I—we—" she couldn't finish, unable to look at me.

I hummed, but bent down to look.

"So, siblings?" Etsudo asked, popping back up.

"We don't have the same father," Matsu said. "And he doesn't look like him."

"I've heard that love is blind but... Hanzo?"

Matsu looked exasperated, but he smiled too.

.

.

"Yua!" Sen gasped as Matsu put her down. Hachi helped her sit up. Her wide eyes shot to me the second after, "I-I mean thank you, Lady Wolf."

I only watched Yua tremble and rub her eyes as she tried to sniff quietly.

Hachi looked at her in confusion. They both had brown eyes. "My sister?" he asked Sen, and Matsu closed his eyes.

Yua tried to speak, but couldn't. She pressed her hands over her face and cried.

Sen glanced at Hachi with a flash of fresh horror, then made herself focus on Yua. "We didn't forget you. Yua look—" she grasped as her empty pant leg and shook it at her, trying to smile playfully even as her voice shook.

Yua's eyes widened. "What happened?" she whispered.

Sen sniffed and wiped her nose. "We had an accident—I couldn't come get you, but Lady Wolf did, and you-you're here now."

Sen held her hands out for her as she got up, but instead she collapsed in Hachi's lap and curled up.

Hachi frowned, looking at Sen as he awkwardly patted her back, and Matsu left the room.

"Hachi?" Yua asked, looking up at him.

"It's okay," Hachi said, glancing at Sen again.

Yua only stared at him in scared, confused silence.

"Matsu bought these," I said, nudging a bag full of sandwiches towards them with my foot. "We found someone you can stay with. I trust her, so you should too."

"Hachi?" Yua asked again, less sure.

"I'm here," Hachi said after a second, shooting her a wobbly smile, but Yua didn't look any less afraid.

A/N: Staircase Man was introduced way back in Chapter 3.

Matsu - 21

Lore for Later: The nurse that delivered Naruto and was killed by Obito was canonically Hiruzen's wife.