"Whaa?! So you're saying you all lived inside a mountain?" Naruto scoffed.
"No, I told you, the temple was carved into a cliff fault in the Caihong mountains. Only a few parts of the temple actually went really deep underground. And the whole temple was designed so that air could flow throughout the passages and chambers almost constantly. It didn't really feel like living underground at all." Juno said. "Only a few chambers, like the giant Pai Sho room or the Room of a Thousand Echos were actually inside the cliff."
Talking about the Western Air Temple was making Juno nostalgic. It had been several years since she had been able to visit her childhood home, but her memories of the temple were crystal-clear. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine herself walking along the lofty halls, or gliding around the surrounding mountainside with the girls from her cohort. She could picture with almost perfect clarity the small room she shared with her two best friends - the small pot of bamboo Ami struggled to keep alive, and the cloying scent of Li Fen's favourite incense. The thought of her old friends brought the familiar sting of sadness, though it had faded over the course of the last seven years. Now, Juno could think of them without feeling an abyss of depression, just the ache of an old wound, never fully healed.
"What's Pai Sho?" Sakura asked. Juno shook her head of the morose memories, glad of the distraction.
"It's a strategy and chance game. You play with tiles and a gridded board...but the rules change depending on where you are. I've played versions where you have a time limit and you need to play quickly, but I've played others where matches can be stretched across several days…"
"Hmm, sounds like shogi" Sasuke spoke up from behind them. He was keeping pace with Kakashi at the rear of the group, but would occasionally pipe in with an observation or a question when he felt like it. Juno always felt a sense of personal victory when she could get him to join the conversation. The boy was too recalcitrant for his own good.
She angled her head to look at him from the corner of her eye. "Oh? Do you play games like that, Sasuke?"
"Not really."
Sigh. Well there went that line of questioning.
Juno quirked her mouth in a self-deprecating smile and turned her attention back to the road. The path they were on was wide and well-worn, although Juno could see it becoming even more so now that the bridge to the Land of Waves had been completed. She hoped that the completion of the bridge would lead to the increase in trade, commerce, and travel that Tazuna and the others so desperately worked for.
Thinking of the bridge builder and the newly dubbed 'Great Naruto Bridge' made Juno think once again about the painful goodbyes she had made two days prior. After careful deliberation, she had decided to take Kakashi up on the offer to return with Team Seven to Konoha and speak to their Hokage. That meant saying goodbye to Tsunami, whom she had grown to think of as a friend, and young Haku, who had been slowly settling into his new home.
"Do you think we'll ever see you again?" Tsunami asked from over her cup of tea. They were relaxing on the settees in the small parlor adjacent to her bedroom, where Juno had comforted her just a few days before. They had recently started an evening ritual taking tea in her rooms after dinner, using the time to discuss certain topics away from the rambunctious kids or the men of the house.
Juno had just broken the news that she would be leaving with the ninja when they departed for Konoha the following morning. She had made the decision not long ago and had been waiting for the right time to discuss her choice with Tsunami in private. The older woman had given her plenty of space to think about it, not trying to sway her either way, which Juno appreciated. Now, she braced herself for the note of wistfulness and the sheen of tears that graced Tsunami's gaze. She felt the slight welling of tears herself. Though they had known each other for only a short while, both women had felt a kinship with the other. Juno was used to making fast bonds with people she met through her travels, and it was always hard to say goodbye when the time came. This time would be no different.
"I hope so. I'm not entirely sure what my life will be like once we reach the village. It could be a long time before that happens." Juno replied honestly. Kakashi had given her a decent idea of what the life of a shinobi was like. If she ultimately decided to pursue that path, it was likely that her ability to roam the world unrestricted would come to an end. It was a hard pill to swallow, especially considering how tempting it would be to check on the small family she had grown close to.
"Well, you'll just have to write us as often as you can. I'm sure Haku would appreciate updates on how everyone is doing. I'll write down our address for you." Tsunami rose from her seat to bustle over to a small set of drawers, quickly scribbling the aforementioned information on a small slip of paper. If she took the minute to subtly swipe the moisture from her eyes, Juno pretended not to notice.
Juno smiled as she accepted the piece of paper. She had had many pen pals in her original universe - eclectic collections of friends and acquaintances that she kept in frequent contact with. It had been part of her expected duties as the Avatar to maintain correspondence with people from the diverse nations for diplomatic reasons, though some she just wrote to for her own selfish reasons. It would be nice to keep the practice up if she decided to make Konoha her permanent home.
Juno blinked the memory away just as a cloud passed over the sun, casting the landscape into soft shades of green and grey. In her mind's eye, she could feel the piece of paper with Tsunami's address carefully folded in the interior pocket of the travelling pack the family had given her as a farewell gift. She made a mental note to remember to ask Kakashi how the mail system worked in this world. She hadn't seen any Messenger Hawks flying around, so she assumed they used some different method of delivering correspondence.
Her goodbye to Haku had been slightly different, but no less bittersweet, than her goodbye to Tsunami. In the two days since the battle on the Great Naruto Bridge, Haku had been settling - a little awkwardly, a little shyly - into the family dynamic of the Bridgebuilder's home. He had spent most of that time tailing Naruto and the others, who insisted on jumpstarting his 'education' in how to be a 'normal person'.
Though, Juno thought to herself wryly, it's ironic that such a wildly rambunctious and diverse set of children think that they're the experts on being 'normal'.
He had also spent a lot of time with Inari, who had decided to take 'his new brother' under his wing. It had been a sweet joy to watch the typically closed off Haku slowly blossom under the bright attention of the other children. He had taken to smiling quietly during dinner at the other's antics, and asking soft-spoken questions which everyone always quieted down to listen to and respond.
"Do you truly believe you will find your purpose in the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Juno-san?" Haku had asked her. She had been meditating before bed, perched cross-legged on the roof of the windmill adjacent to the house - the same place where she had carefully debated the merits of revealing her true story to the group in what seemed like a lifetime ago.
She opened her eyes from her meditative trance, and looked over to Haku, who was mirroring her seated position just to her right. She hadn't heard him climb up the side of the windmill to join her, though, considering he was a ninja, she supposed that shouldn't have been too surprising. She took the time to ponder his question, gazing out across the water, brightly illuminated by the full moon.
"It could be. I won't know until I give it a chance." She replied. He nodded at that, and joined her in looking out across the waves. She observed him out of the corner of her eye. The change in him after two short days had been astounding to see. His eyes, which had once been cold and calculating, had turned doe-soft, and his face had lost the porcelain-doll quality to it. Instead, his fine features seemed to light up, as though illuminated from a quiet warmth within. It was clear to see that the prospect of finding a home with the Bridgebuilder's family had brought him internal peace. Juno was slightly envious of him.
"I hope you find what you are looking for." He stated, meeting her eyes with a shy gaze.
Juno gently returned his smile. "Me too Haku, me too."
Coming back to herself, Juno noticed that the day had progressed well beyond mid-afternoon. The group had just recently left the main road to enter the surrounding woodlands in what Kakashi assured her was the most direct path to the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Juno supposed, with a name like that, it would make sense that there were no obvious marked paths leading to it, but it still felt like they were just wandering through the wilderness.
Juno didn't really mind the travelling. The weather had been getting progressively warmer the further inland they travelled, and she had taken to keeping her poncho rolled up inside her pack in concession to the heat. It was also hard to be bored when she was constantly inundated with questions about herself and her original home world. At certain points she had to beg off the conversation. If it got to be too much, she'd just shoot a pleading look in Kakashi's direction, and he would divert the children's attention with some training exercise or other. Like listing off the edible plants in the area, or practicing scouting ahead of the group without detection. It was nice to have such an observant and intuitive travelling companion.
As the sun began its final descent, the clouds that had been threatening rain most of the afternoon finally broke open. The group decided to stop for the night early to get out of the rain, and Juno had Asa scout for a good place to set up camp while they hid from the downpour under the thick canopy of a large tree. Asa's thick pelt was pretty water-resistant, so the weather didn't bother him as much.
He eventually led them to a jutting outcrop of rocks, which Juno earthbended into a shallow cave. They laid out their sleeping rolls in a tight formation underneath the rock shelf, then played a game of 'rock, paper, kunai' to figure out who was unlucky enough to be the one venturing into the deluge for firewood. After Naruto left, grumbling under his breath, Juno took the time to gently waterbend the moisture out of the remaining member's rain-soaked bodies.
"You sure are handy to have around Juno-chan!" Sakura exclaimed, sliding her fingers through her newly-dried hair.
Juno was a little distracted, answering her with a quiet 'hmm'. She was slowly sending her water-bending awareness over Kakashi's seated form, carefully connecting to and lifting every bead of moisture clinging to his body. All the while, she fought to keep a blush from rising in her face. Bending the water away from the kids had felt perfunctory and practical, like washing the dishes after a meal. It felt slightly different with their teacher. Feeling her way around his body with her water-bending was kind of an intimate experience. She couldn't help but be aware that she was manipulating water that was clinging to the fine hair on his chest and thighs, and that the body under her roving senses was very masculine and fit. She tried to complete the task as quickly as possible while still managing to do a good job. It didn't help that he smiled his thanks to her with a charmingly upturned eye.
To distract herself, Juno asked a question she had been pondering for some time. "You know, I've been meaning to ask you. Why do you call me Juno-chan?"
"Ehh?" Sakura responded, off guard. "What do you mean? You don't want us to?"
"It's not that, it's just…" Juno said, focusing on the pink-haired girl. "What does it mean?"
"What does it...you mean, you don't use honorifics in your world?" Sakura said.
"Honorifics? Like, 'your imperial majesty' or 'my lady' and stuff like that?" Juno said. "Is that what 'chan' is?"
"Umm, well it's almost the opposite of those things actually. 'Chan' is something you'd add to the name of a female friend. It's kind of cutesy and more familiar than the generic and more formal 'san' which can be used for both genders." Now that Sakura was warmed up to the topic, she fell into her usual lecturing mode. "Then there 'kun', which is like 'chan' but for boys. And 'sama' is highly referential and formal, reserved for figures of high authority." She turned to look at Juno. "You don't have those where you're from?"
"We have the term 'seifu' which we would call our teachers...I'm guessing that's why you guys call Kakashi 'sensei'?" Juno realized, looking to Sakura's nod for confirmation. "We also have the term 'guru' which is reserved for spiritual leaders...hmm" Juno trailed off pondering. "Well, that makes sense then. You can call me Juno-chan if you want to!" She paused. "Wait, does that mean I've been too informal with you all? Should I be calling you Kakashi-san and all that?"
"Ehh, you don't have to." The man spoke up from behind his book, which he had settled into reading almost as soon as she had finished drying him off. "Normally, if you meet someone new, you'd refer to them by their family name plus the 'san' honorific, then maybe their given name with it." He shrugged "But you can keep calling me 'Kakashi' if you want to."
The blush Juno had been fighting before suddenly rose to the fore and she ducked her head, hiding her face behind the thick fringe of her bangs. To think, she had completely stumbled over a complete set of etiquette and gone straight to the most familiar way of referring to him. She had probably come across as really forward. She was glad that this issue had come to light before they entered the village and she embarrassed herself in front of the whole village, and was glad Kakashi didn't seem too bothered by the whole thing. She supposed her observations of him suggested that he wouldn't find such social conventions too important, but that was pure luck. It was clear she still had plenty to learn!
To recover from her slight embarrassment, Juno cocked her head to the silent fourth member of their group and addressed him, "So Sasuke, does that mean I can call you 'Sasuke-kun'?"
Just as she thought, the quiet boy turned a delightful pinkish hue at the suggestion. He squirmed slightly from where he sat munching on the generous provisions they had been supplied with by Tazuna. He swallowed his mouthful of food and mumbled, "Tch, if you really wanted to, there's nothing I could do to stop it."
"Ah, I'll start doing it all the time, then."
"Whatever." Despite his seeming reluctance, Juno noticed he never said no. She took that to mean he simply didn't want to admit that he was okay with the idea.
Soon enough, Naruto returned with a large stack of fire-wood, collected in record time with the help of his trusty shadow clones, something he bragged about as soon as he re-entered their makeshift shelter. He also took the opportunity to shake the water off his body like a beast, spraying them all in the process. Sakura squealed, and Juno humored him with an indignant cry of her own, with Sasuke adding an annoyed 'idiot!' from his corner. Kakashi merely ducked behind the shield of his water-resistant blanket, eyes never straying from the pages of his book.
He came out of his shake with a grin, clearly proud of his effect on them. It was so disarming that Juno couldn't hold a grudge against him, even if it meant bending more water out of everyone's clothing. After a few more squawks and squabbles, the group settled in for the night. Asa tucked himself into her sleeping bag with a few turns and curled up to sleep.
Juno had volunteered to take the first watch, and so perched on a stone next to the fire, gazing out into the darkness of the forest. The warm crackle of the flames and the chirping of night-time insects lulled her into a light meditation. Listening to the soft snores of her companions at her back, Juno's mind turned towards what the next day would bring. Kakashi expected to reach the village by mid-morning. Once there, they would have a meeting with the Hokage that could possibly determine the course of her future in this world.
Instead of feeling anxious, she felt a strange sense of tranquility. Now that she had made a decision, she just had to see it through to its natural conclusion. That was just a matter of trusting her abilities and intuition. And her intuition is what led her to the decision in the first place. Breathing in the cool night air and the fragrant smoke from the fire, Juno turned her mind to the moment that sealed her decision.
Juno was laying at the edge of the deck surrounding Tazuna's house, her tall boots laying next to her and her feet swaying through the brackish water. She had stuck her legs through the gaps in between the poles of the railing, and had her arms tucked behind her head. Kakashi was seated against the walls of the house a few paces away, book propped open in front of his nose. They had both been spending the last two days relaxing - neither one especially inclined to be productive after the stress of the last week. Juno had spent the day prior recovering from a slight hangover and taking naps in strategically peaceful locations - namely, wherever the four young ninja of their group were not. Likely for the same reason, Kakashi was often found nearby with his beloved book. He had given his students 'the days off' to do whatever they wanted, which ended up including exploring the village, sparring, or trying to bug Haku into spending 'normal people time' with them.
Though her body felt rested and relaxed, Juno's mind definitely wasn't. She had been spending the last two days mulling over Kakashi's offer from the night of the party. There were good reasons for and against the choice of returning with the group of ninja to their village.
Firstly, based on what she had observed from this world so far, it appeared as though ninja village affiliation was one of the only things that conferred a sense of social value and prestige. 'Rogue ninja' such as Zabuza, were seen as little more than thugs, vagabonds, or at the very least, no one of consequence. If Juno wanted to continue doing some of the work she wanted to as the Avatar she'd need to have social leverage. The only reason people had deferred to her judgement and will in her original world was because the name of 'Avatar' had carried with it an intense level of social clout, something she had none of here.
The downside, of course, was the fact that Juno would have to sacrifice the impartiality she had enjoyed in her original world. To be a ninja, she would have to swear fealty only to Konoha, and their Hokage. Being loyal to one group of people rather than all humankind definitely went against her training and expectations as the Avatar.
But she had adapted before. As an Air Nomad monk, Juno had been raised to believe that achieving spiritual enlightenment was the loftiest goal one could have. She had been taught to eschew all earthly attachments, and to purify her spirit by valuing the sanctity of life above all else.
When she had been revealed as the new Avatar, Juno had to let go of some of those goals. To be the Avatar was to be attached to the world. To give herself solely to the service of humanity and spirits, at the expense of all else. She couldn't be detached from the dirtier aspects of that role. Getting involved in politics, diplomacy, arbitration - that meant dealing with material wealth, and with grey area morality.
And getting involved with armed conflict, well, that was something else entirely. It's not as if she had been able to approach a group of violent bandits who had been terrorizing a town and just convince them to 'value all human life', or for the villagers to simply 'detach themselves from their earthly desires'. At the end of the day, she had needed to use force. Even to the death.
If she could go from being an Air Nomad monk to being the Avatar, couldn't she do it again? Could she adapt and evolve into yet another version of herself, a ninja of Konoha? At its core, being an airbender was all about freedom and finding the path of least resistance. That includes freedom from static states of being, from dogmatic thinking. It seemed to her that the path to becoming a ninja was the path of least resistance to achieving a sense of purpose and place in this new world. If she had to sacrifice some of her old ideals and values to do so, then so be it.
And if she found her new reality to be too untenable, then she would change again. The freedom to act as she saw fit would never be completely sacrificed, even if she did swear fealty to this 'Hokage'. She would always be free to choose her own destiny, even if the only choice was between doing what she thought was right, and death.
Juno slowly raised herself unto her elbows, then shifted her weight all the way forward and sat upright. She gripped the poles of the deck railing in front of her, then looked over towards where Kakashi sat.
"I've decided." She said. He looked up from his book, folding it shut with a finger between the pages to keep his place. His expression was difficult to discern, as usual, but she could see that he was paying close attention.
"What'll it be, then?"
Juno smiled, "I will come with you to Konoha," she said.
She could see his posture ease slightly, and his expression tipped easily into a returning smile. Juno had never noticed how much emotion could be conveyed within a single eye, but it was clear to her that he was pleased with her decision. Juno was happy as well, swinging her feet with renewed vigour in the cool water.
"The kids will be pleased."
Juno let out a short laugh, "Ha! I can hear Naruto shouting now. I'll go tell them." She rose from her position on the deck and quickly dried her feet before donning her shoes.
"My ears thank you." Kakashi said dryly, returning to his book.
A sharp snap in the fire drew Juno out of her reverie. She blinked, and turned to add another log into the flames. She briefly used her firebending to stir it back into activity, then rose from her seat to go wake Sakura, who had the next watch. She saw the girl yawn widely and sit in on the same stone Juno had occupied only moments before.
The rain had quieted to a light sprinkle. Juno softly adjusted Asa within her sleeping roll to accommodate herself as well. Laying down on her back with her arms thrown overhead, she let the quiet sounds of the night lull her to sleep.