She returned to school the next day covered in bruises and cuts. Her father, who had left to report to the Hokage's office for an overnight mission, had told her to stay home, but she could feel Kimura's silent, judgemental stare from the dark living room.

"My, my," he said, "Now you have wounds just like the rest of us ninja. I wonder how the little civilian got them, though. Perhaps, playing ninja?"

Shun had heard the whole thing and looked at his sister in worry. He tried to stop her from leaving. "Dad says you should stay home," he said quietly.

She ignored both her brothers. She powered her way out the door with her backpack.

The school day was rough. Each class period felt like a slog, she could hardly pay attention enough to take notes, the aches and pains were overwhelming and she just felt so tired.

"Yasahashi?" The old woman called on her. The old woman taught a civics class. She had a test in two days. Yasahashi's palms were sweaty. She'd stopped taking notes in any of her classes two weeks ago. She was just doing it to pass the time. Too bad she didn't understand what she was writing.

"Yasahashi." The old woman said again, "Would you like to go to the water fountain?"

She was quite thirsty. "Sure," Yasa said.

"Takamaru, will you go with her?"

Takamaru walked her out of the classroom and to the water fountain, as soon as they were out of the classroom, he spoke to her in a low voice, "Yasahashi, what's with you? You look really beat up."

Yasahashi guzzled the water at the water fountain, unable to respond. Finally after a long slurp, she breathed and wiped the water from her mouth with her hand.

"It's nothing," she said.

"Did someone beat you up? Did you pick a fight with someone stronger than you?"

She shook her head, "No…"

"Then what happened?"

She glared at him, "Look, I'm kind of embarrassed about it, alright?" she said. "I forgot I couldn't do something and kind of ended up in over my head."

"But, Yasa-"

The bell chimed, signalling the beginning of passing period. There was only one class left in the day which the both of them had to attend.

"I just want to finish the day and go home," she said, shoving Takamaru out of the way.

"Ow!" the civilian boy cried. He watched Yasahashi walking back into the classroom to get her books. The old woman looked at her scrutinizingly, causing Yasahashi to take pause.

"One day, you'll realize that the battle scars do not make the warrior," she said.

Something about that statement made her really tired. Yasahashi didn't have the energy to respond. She grabbed her stuff and headed to Professor Ayame's afternoon class.

Takamaru averted his eyes when she walked in. She sat by the mint plants, hoping that their medicinal properties would help her feel better somehow. She tried her best to hide her injuries, she didn't look up from her desk, but she could feel Professor Ayame's eyes on her in the way he hesitated every now and then while giving his lesson. She couldn't think of anything he had said that afternoon, she just tried to get through it.

Finally, the day ended, and she zipped up faster than she'd moved the whole day, trying to muscle past Takamaru and the other students.

"Koizuma, a word," She heard professor Ayame call.

But she refused to stay in the urban planning classroom for any longer.

She limped through the Konoha roads aimlessly. What she'd said to Takamaru was a lie earlier. Yes, she wanted to get through the day, but she didn't want to go home. Her father wouldn't be there tonight, and Kimura would.

Instead, she thought of those beautiful women from the night before. The one who had healed her and the other two. They were like angels, and that alleyway was some mysterious gap between dimensions.

She tried to find it, wandering through alleyways and paths. But, she just couldn't place where it had been, she'd been moving so fast that night over the rooftops and was delirious with adrenaline.

In exhaustion, she came to a stop. It was hard to find anything in Konoha for the first time. But, she just had to get there again. The feeling she got from that place… Those ladies… It was like a feeling of care and acceptance. A warm hug, like from her father. She nearly shed a tear thinking about it, how very much she wanted that feeling.

She returned to the main roads. Something smelled good from one of the restaurants she was passing, and her stomach growled. Her legs were so tired and she longed to sit down.

"Hungry, Yasahashi?" came a voice in front of her. She looked up to notice Professor Ayame travelling in the opposite direction as her.

"Sensei…" she nodded finally.

"May I treat you to some soba?"

The two sat together in the near empty soba joint, it was getting towards the end of the dinner rush. Yasahashi slurped the noodles, feeling her strength returning to her. The professor hadn't said much to her along the way, just commenting on how the village was changing since the wars end. It was true, Yasahashi had noticed the change in the traffic flow and mood.

Professor Ayame paused in eating his soba and sighed.

"This is this thing I want to tell you about, Koizuma. I see it as a problem in much of the ninja world." he said sternly, almost in his lecturing tone.

Yasa slurped her soba and pretended to listen.

"Why did you choose the math academy, Yasa? You still want to become a ninja, right?"

Yasa froze at this, several noodles hanging out of her mouth.

"You're still throwing shuriken in the training grounds. You haven't given up, have you?"

A single tear rolled down Yasa's cheek and fell into her plate. She stiffened. She could not cry.

"But why?" Professor Ayame asked, "Why do you want to be strong when you already are, Yasahashi? Is helping the village from behind a desk not as romantic as the clang of two opposing shuriken in the moonlight?"

"I'm not strong," Yasa said quietly.

"Yes you are, Yasahashi. And the world is broken if it makes someone like you think that you are not. The world is more than just shuriken in the moonlight, you know. The world is more than just muscles and jutsu and dying for the sake of others. The world has roads in it, for people walking on and getting to their loved ones. It has buildings for putting them inside and keeping them warm and safe. It has tears, and romance, and messiness. And you are allowed all those things."

Yasa had started crying even more onto her plate, but she was doing it in such a way that she was pretending she was not. She shoveled the rest of the noodles into her mouth. The restaurant owner brought out some dango free of charge.

"Don't let anyone tell you that you're worthless, Koizuma."


Yashashi couldn't sleep that night. It had been 3 hours since Naruto left and she hadn't heard him return. She stayed up, working on Ayame's plans, tracing the lines he had drafted and wondering about that strange, foreign man who filled his life with plants and cared so deeply about his students.

"What would you do in a situation like this…" she mumbled to herself.

Just when she was about to call it quits and go looking for Naruto, there was a knock on the door.

It was strange to get a visitor at this hour. Yasa assumed it would be one of her neighbors. She put her pencil down and trudged over to the door. She was shocked to see the face of her older brother on the other side, looking down at her with a grimace.

Apparently, Naruto had stolen a sacred scroll and disappeared. Scouts were out investigating all over the place, including Kimura, who was part of a cell in the intelligence squad.

"Did you notice any strange behavior from him tonight?"

"I mean, he was pretty upset. He apparently failed his exam again today…" Yasa muttered. She noticed the slightest smirk from her brother and her face hardened, "You know, this doesn't sound like something Naruto would do. He's pretty stupid. How's he supposed to know where some super important scroll is located?"

"Interesting."

"What is?"

"Nothing. I just realized that you're a biased witness."

She slammed the door in her brother's face.

It all turned out okay for Naruto, thankfully. Though, that couldn't be said for everyone. It came out that Mizuki had snapped and tricked Naruto into stealing the scroll. Mizuki had tried to kill Naruto, take the scroll, and flee the village.

Kaeda was broken.

"If only that stupid nine-tail brat hadn't gotten on Mizuki's nerves so much! Then, he wouldn't have done what he did…" Kaeda raged that night.

"Kaeda, listen to yourself."

Kaeda had been holding Haku and he was starting to look scared by his mothers energy.

"I can't believe they blamed Mizuki over Naruto." Haku started to cry in his mothers arms, but she didn't notice, "They should have realized the mental strain that boy was putting on him! No wonder he was such a jerk all the time…"

"Kaeda!" Yasahashi yelled, "Naruto is a child!"

Kaeda suddenly seemed to realize that Haku was crying, she looked down at her baby and bounced him to try and calm him down.

"You made Haku upset with your yelling, Yasa." Kaeda said sternly.

"You made him upset with yours! Mizuki was bad news, Kaeda…"

She didn't respond.

"Don't tell me that you never had a bad feeling about him."

"I love him."

"You and Haku deserve better."

Naruto returned to the apartment like nothing had happened. He stuck his tongue out at everyone and boasted about how he had passed the exam, that Iruka-sensei himself had given Naruto his own headband, and that "one day I'm going to become hokage!"

"They just did that to make you feel important. You're still just a dumb widdle genin!" came old man Izukai's voice through the halls. The sound of the older man bullying a child made her ears bleed.

"Hey shut the crap, you pathetic old man." Yasahashi yelled down the hall. Naruto looked up at her with awe, "Why are you picking on a 12 year old?"

The old man looked at her in surprise. He was speechless.

Yasahashi turned around and headed back down the hallway, hitting the walls between the doors with her fist as she walked and shouting, "I can't be the only adult in this apartment building."

The very next day, she left for work early and stopped by the academy.

While she was at her desk working on a design, Takamaru came up to her and nearly spit out his coffee when he read the half finished form for an academy teacher's position on her desk.

"Hey, don't come over here and stain my designs."

"Does that say what I think that says?" he asked.

"Yep," she said, grabbing it and pulling out her pen, "I was meaning to finish this and drop it off at lunch today."

Takamaru stared at her in confusion. "Now," he said, dumbfounded, "don't tell me you're going to start coming to work in your ninja clothes!"

"I'll do that on the day you start obsessing over invasion scenarios and disaster relief again."

"Fair… But, Yasa- Why would you throw away your career here?" tears started well up in the man's eyes, "Didn't you give up on being a ninja years ago? What about Professor Ayame's designs?"

Yasa didn't reply. She finished signing her name on the paper and took a sip of her tea.

"Yasa?"

She put her mug down and looked her friend in the eye and smiled, "I'm sorry, Takamaru. I don't think you would understand. It's a ninja thing."

Takamaru didn't like that answer, he didn't talk to her for the rest of the day. It was the first time the man had every shown any anger with Yasahashi, or anyone she knew for that matter. But how could she explain to someone unwounded by the ninja world how she had intended to heal it?

What Yasahashi failed to realize is that everyone has been wounded by the ninja world.


Beep beep! Kakashi's Prius here. There was an old couple arguing in the back seat. As they were arguing, I noticed the physical manifestation of their argument ooze out of their pours and settle in my seats. So, if you feel like arguing back there, that's why.