Three Hundred and Sixty

Yatsude wakes up slowly. His left side, where he is attached to his twin, aches. He reaches up with his right hand and rubs his eyes. When he is fully awake, he looks down to see why his side aches. Maybe Sazanka put something on him to annoy him.

Yatsude blinks and rubs his eyes again. There is a gap. Why is there a gap? Why is his arm lying on the bed beside his brother's arm? How is it possible? Why are there bandages around both of them? What happened?

Yastude whines. He lifts his left arm up and sees the distinct gap between him and Sazanka suddenly get overwhelmingly big. He begins to panic. What's going on?

Yatsude screams in terror.

Sazana wakes up, sees the gap between them and screams in horror.

Yatsude tries to sit up, and immediately pain explodes in his left side. Sazanka does exactly the same thing and starts crying in pain.

The nurses and Lady Tsunade rush into the room. Lady Tsunade pulls out some bandages and quickly wraps up Yatsude and Sazanka so that the gap is gone. "Shhh," she says, petting their hair soothingly. "It's alright, you're alright. I didn't realize you wouldn't understand what I meant by separating you."

"Why…?" asks Yatsude, whimpering. "What happened? There was a gap between us!"

"Yes, I know," says Tsunade gently. "You two are not like other twins."

"We're not?" says Sazanka, sniffing. "What are other twins like?"

"Other twins...well...other twins were born with a gap between them," says Tsunade, carefully. "Twins are not supposed to be joined together like you two were."

Yatsude frowns. So he and Sazanka should be like all the other people, not joined? Hang on... "Were?" Yatsude starts to feel panicky again.

Tsunade starts stroking his hair soothingly again. "Yes," she says. "Were. I seperated you. You are not joined together anymore. That's why there was a gap between you."

Not joined to Sazanka? Yatsude starts to cry. Sazanka starts crying too. Then, from the other side of the hospital room, Sekitei starts crying in sympathy.

At that moment, the door opens and Uncle Madara walks in with Tachibana and Ajisai. "Oh, great," he says, and turns to leave again.

"Don't you dare!" snaps Tsunade. "They are your responsibility, so Joe help you if you don't help me calm them down!"

"Fine," sighs Madara. "Stop crying, you three!" he orders.

The nurses facepalm.

"Why are you crying?" asks Tachibana.

"I'm crying because they're crying!" wails Sekitei. "And they're crying because...I'm not really sure. I didn't understand what Lady Tsunade meant…"

"They are crying because they got a shock," says Lady Tsunade. "They did not understand what we meant by 'separating' them."

"What do you mean by that?" asks Tachibana, tipping his head to one side.

"How do we explain this?" mutters Tsunade.

"Easy," says Madara. "They all know about sex already, so we might as well just tell them what goes on inside when a baby is made."

"What's that got to do with the twins?" demands Tachibana. "They're already born."

Uncle Madara pulls out a piece of paper and screws it up into a ball. "You all know that a baby is made when the egg from the mother and the sperm from the father join together, right?"

"Yes," say the kids, nodding. Everyone knows that.

"Well, at the very start the new person is called an embryo," explains Madara. "At that early stage, sometimes the embryo will split in half, making twins. Like this:" he tears the ball of paper in half. "But Sazanka and Yatsude didn't separate properly, so they stayed joined together on one side. Tsunade just finished making them split like they should have before they were born."

"Were they naughty not to split inside their mummy's tummy?" asks Sekitei.

"Yes," says Uncle Madara sarcastically. "They were VERY naughty. I mean, it's not like they didn't have any control over that."

"Uncle Madara is mean!" whines Sazanka.

Yatsude starts crying again. "We didn't know we were supposed to split fully!"

"I was being sarcastic!" says Uncle Madara. "Of course it wasn't your fault! If anything it's your parents' faults for being so inbred!"

"So it's a good thing there was a gap between us, then?" asks Yatsude, wiping his tears away.

"Is," says Lady Tsunade gently. "The gap isn't gone, I just covered it up so you two would calm down."

Yatsude's eyes widen. "Not gone?"

"Like it or not, you two are separated for the rest of your lives," says Uncle Madara. "Get used to it."

"But why?" whines Sazanka.

"Because Tsunade is not going to stitch you two back together again!" says Uncle Madara. "Tsunade, take that bandage off."

Tsunade takes off the bandages around the twins. Madara walks over to the bed and says, "Look at this." He points to the bandages. "You are not joined together anymore."

Yatsude looks down. There is no gap since he and Sazanka are so close together, but the bandages left on them do not go around both of them. Yataude has bandages wrapped around just him, and Sazanka has bandages that are wrapped around only him.

"Take a good look," says Madara. "This is your life now. No more fighting for elbow-room. No more having to do everything in sync. You can do your own things apart from each other now."

Sazanka stares at the gap and then nods. "Good," he says.

Yatsude stares at the tiny gap between them and starts to feel sick. "NO! Nononononono!" He starts to panic.

Uncle Madara grabs Yatsude's face in his hands and looks him dead in the eye. "Calm down," he says sterly. "You are fine. There is nothing to worry about."

Yatsude chokes back his tears. Uncle Madara says it's fine, so it must be, right?

The morning dawns bright and clear. Naruto, Minato, Kushina, Sparky, Mrs. Sparky and Kurama's Guards set off for Kurama's Temple after breakfast. One guard stays behind: the one who got her legs crushed. She is still in hospital, and even Tsunade cannot prevent her being wheelchair bound for the rest of her life. The Guards will need to find two new members.

It is a sombre party that walks through the forest to Kurama's Temple. No one talks much for the entire trip. At noon the day after setting out, the party reaches the Land of Eddies. They run across the surface of the ocean, straight from the mainland to the southernmost end of the main island.

Very soon Kurama's Temple comes into view. As he watches it come into view through Naruto's eyes, Kurama sits up and waves his tails. If only he were free so he could return a bit more majestically.

If only he could return under better circumstances. Returning to attend the funeral of a Guard was never how Kurama envisioned things going. He used to imagine destroying the Leaf in vengeance for his long imprisonment and returning to his Temple in glorious triumph. But one of his Guards is dead and one is crippled for life. He must choose two new Guards and deliver bad news. Kurama already made it clear to the Guards that he will deliver the news about the dead and crippled Guards.

Oi, Naruto, says Kuarama. Can we hurry it up a bit?

Sure, says Naruto. I don't really feel all that excited, and I've been wanting to come here for ages.

It's because we are here for a funeral, sighs Kurama. I am not that excited either - at least, not as excited as I would have been.

Naruto speeds up his pace, separating from the main pack. The rest of the group speeds up to match their pace. They close the remaining distance to the Temple in a few minutes. The Sparkies fly overhead, leaving a trail of sparks behind them.

"Is that a welcoming committee?" says Naruto, squinting at the beach ahead of them, where a crowd is gathering.

"Looks like it," says Minato, catching up to Naruto.

The rest of the group draws level with Naruto and Minato. They spread out in a line as they approach the beach, kicking up steam as they run across the water at high speed. As they get closer, the crowd on the beach begins to shout and cheer.

"They won't be cheering for long," says Sei, heavily. All the same, he seems excited to return home.