A/N: Once again, I have returned! With the lovely Shana, whose cackling with me has been a delight.


'Do you think she's okay?' came Daisukenojo's already lowered voice, further muffled by the door.

'Yeah, obviously, I think the crying is the ultimate sign of equanimity you goddamn idiot.'

Daisukenojo, predictably raising his voice at Ryuu. 'I know it isn't, asshole!'

Raiku sniffled and rubbed her face into the pillow. It was almost enough to make her smile. Or it might have been had they all not taken one look at her in the woods, put their arguments on pause and then bundled her back to the compound and into emotional quarantine.

She wasn't even sure whose bedroom she'd been stuffed into. From how clean it was, she had a sneaking suspicion it was Zeshin's; that certainly made her feel less guilty about the sheer amount of snot and tears she was getting on the blanket she was clinging to like a beached mermaid. For all that it probably spoke to an unhealthy approach to emotional situations, her seclusion in the cool, dark room was a welcome reprieve. The world felt too hard and bright with her eyes so red and sore.

That was enough, she told herself sternly for the third or thirtieth time; that was quite enough crying. She'd never cried this much in her life and she was clearly just getting it out of her system. All the crying she'd obviously missed out on. She sniffled again and took a slow, steady breath in, pushing past the shuddering in her shoulders as she did so.

It's alright. It's alright.

Raiku let out a wail half-muffled by the pillow, letting out a fresh flood of tears.

There was lots of shushing from the closed door, followed by further heated whispers. 'See what you did?!'

'That wasn't my fault!'

'You have to go in there, Hatori.'

'I fucking do not.'

'No, I think Ryuu has a point.'

'Oh shut the hell up, Byakko, you don't get a vote.'

'Stay out of this, Byakko.'

'Oh cool, two against one, that's fair.'

'You were born two against one, assholes, as far as I'm concerned, you two are unfair to the world.'

'Oh holy shit, that's low.'

'What the hell, Hatori?'

'Yeah, Ryuu got abducted. Too soon, Hatori.'

'Would you two—that is—no, don't you, don't you dare—!'

The door clicked open, letting a rectangle of yellow light spill across the floor. There was an awkward clatter before it decisively closed again and left her in darkness.

She heard Daisukenojo curse under his breath and she burrowed further into her makeshift nest.

Daisukenojo sighed. '…Raiku?' He asked tentatively. She felt the edge of the bed dip down under his weight. 'Uh. You are, um.'

He cleared his throat.

Raiku sniffled.

'I know you're really upset,' he said slowly, the words oddly practised. 'And I don't know why, and you don't have to tell me, but if you want to then you can.'

A beat.

'And if it's because of Ryuu and his stupid family drama, I promise I'll suckerpunch him right in his pretty-boy face.'

Raiku snorted. Well. She half-sniffed half-snorted, resulting in a sound no Character would have been caught dead making. 'Your mum sends you to check on your sisters a lot, huh?' she mumbled, voice thick.

Daisuke coughed. She could almost hear the blush. 'Yes.'

Raiku let out another undignified sound, wiping her nose roughly with her arm.

Daisukenojo's weight shifted a little in place. 'What can I,' he started, then tried again. 'What do you need?' He sounded more than a little desperate. 'What's gonna help, here?'

Raiku dragged the blankets more tightly around her body. 'I don't need anything.'

'Can you at least tell me if he hurt you?' he asked, leaning closer to her. She felt his hand gingerly touch the blanket over her shoulder. 'Are you gonna be okay?'

Raiku almost sobbed, but managed to bite it back just in time and with no small sense of bewilderment. He was being nice—there was no reason to start crying again, surely? She nodded instead of speaking.

The weight of his hand on her shoulder, over the blanket, was comforting. A heavy presence just resting there, something that wasn't the energy bouncing around inside her, looking for an outlet. She'd been readying herself for something, breaking down the barriers between her electrical force and the outside world, and it had gone nowhere. Tsuji had died so quietly, and then there were just these useless tears and the feeling that she'd missed something; that despite all she'd seen, she hadn't understood.

The silence was companionable for a moment, in that sad, quiet fashion that a shared understanding often seemed to be.

'Are you sure you don't want me to punch Ryuu in the face?' Daisukenojo whispered.

Raiku's laugh came out only part-sob, which she was counting as a victory.

Daisukenojo huffed a little as well, patting her shoulder again. 'Do you want to get some rest instead?'

She nodded again and he withdraw his hand and stood.

'Okay. I'll check on you later, okay?'

'Okay,' she said thickly, and pulled the blanket up over her nose. She dimly registered him leaving, but was asleep before she could hear him speak again to whoever was waiting outside.


Raiku woke to the muffled sounds of shouting, coming from what seemed to be the floor below. The bed was shuddering slightly along with the walls, intermittent rumblings that seemed to match the yells. There was thin, weak daylight coming in through a crack in the blinds when she creaked an eye open. Her vision was slightly blurred, her eyes crusty and swollen, so she rubbed her face roughly with the blanket.

No Plot anywhere, she noticed wearily, dragging her gaze over the room before her. Nothing too big, then.

Another yell in a deeper voice, another shudder through the walls. A burst of wind slammed the external blinds against the window with a clatter.

Raiku thought about getting up. She thought about doing the shinobi thing and investigating the disturbance.

It's alright. It's alright.

She shifted experimentally and her whole body ached. In a strangely removed way she felt sore, like pain had remained but the immediacy of it had somehow left.

She felt a thousand years old.

She exhaled heavily, feeling her ribcage contract and the electricity hum through the walls. It felt so structured and organised that it had reached what passed for electrically sedate, forming a more ordered counterpart to her own energy.

Raiku considered this, eyelids already drooping.

Another, less forceful shout. The deeper voice again.

Raiku relaxed heavily into the bed, rolling over onto her other side and away from the light.

If it was really important, they'd wake her for it.


He looked at her with black eyes. Had Tsuji's eyes been black? Or brown, or grey?

'God,' he said softly. 'You really are so alone.'

And Tsuji smiled then, when before he had not.


It was weird, how too much sleep could feel like none at all.

She'd registered falling asleep and waking over and over, disturbed by various half-remembered goings-on in the house around her, maybe a dozen or more times. It all blurred together into one hazy, dreamless mass, and so when she woke again, it took a moment for her to even register that she was no longer sleeping.

It stuck, this time.

Raiku rolled onto her back and took a deep breath, rubbing her eyes.

The air was stale inside the room, she noticed for the first time. She hadn't opened a window when she'd been shoved in and she'd lost track of time, so god only knew how long she'd been in there. The low, wounded feeling she'd been wrapping herself in had eased enough for her to uncurl her limbs awkwardly. They twinged a little, having spent too long in one position.

After taking a moment to psych herself up, she rolled to the edge of the bed and onto her feet. She'd been still for so long that it was dizzying for a split second, like the ground was further than she'd expected, but then she was standing. Standing! Like a proper human being. She stretched and felt her joints pop, yawning and crossing the room.

Raiku opened the door and peered out into the dark hallway. Her pale glow lit an empty corridor, and she tentatively stepped out, only to hiss curses and clutch at the wall for balance as something clattered underfoot. She managed to regain her balance and squinted down, dropping into a crouch.

DO NOT TOUCH, HATORI

Ryuu's familiar sharp scrawl basically yelled at her from a note attached to the covered dish. Raiku reached for it, only to hesitate and double-check the note, quickly flipping it to make sure she wasn't similarly specified on the other side. Sure, someone had left this there—likely Ryuu, in a bizarre twist of fate—but he'd tricked her before. Always check both sides of the note, she had learnt the hard way.

Having confirmed that the coast was clear, she ignored the plate in favour of shuffling the six large riceballs into her arms, humming to herself. They were baked, as was her preference. Apparently the Takeshita family had not only produced Ryuu, but some excellent taste.

She glanced around again, mouth now reassuringly full of carbohydrates. She couldn't hear anyone. It was night-time, sure, but it wasn't that late…

Actually, what time was it?

After a quick search revealed no convenient timepieces, Raiku gave up and padded down the hallway in the dark, cradling her riceballs like they were her precious baby. Her precious, precious calorie baby.

She made her way down a set of stairs and immediately found herself back in familiar territory; this was Byakko's kitchen. Weirdly ominous in the dark and silence, like she was intruding somehow, but she could work with familiar.

Raiku stood in the dark for a moment, considering her options as she thoughtfully mowed through her riceballs. Six hadn't been enough, really. That was just neglectful. She could make more?

No, she decided. She wanted to be outside. She was sick of being in other people's houses and feeling like she was intruding.

She'd intruded on Tsuji's whole life, came the thought unbidden, and she made for the door instead of addressing the unwelcome inner voice. When the opened and she finally took a step outside, it felt like it was her first in what seemed like an age.

The courtyard beyond was dark but for the periodic torches, and there was a gentle wind rustling through the leaves. Raiku breathed in the fresh air, slumping in relief, then froze.

Zeshin was leaning against the porch railing with his back to her, apparently absorbing the night air like she was. Shit, Zeshin, were he and Ryuu still fighting?! Was she allowed to be out of the room?! Oh god, she had to get back inside. Raiku started to swivel, but the graceful fall of long, black hair down Zeshin's back shifted slightly as he turned.

It was too late; he'd seen her. Yellow eyes were looking at her gravely.

Zeshin was so picturesque, so striking in the torchlight, Raiku noted with ill-concealed distaste. But that was hardly his fault, so she tried not to hold it against him.

'He-ey,' she said awkwardly, then coughed when her voice came out unexpectedly hoarse.

Zeshin inclined his head. 'Good morning,' he said quietly.

Raiku flushed. 'Okay. Ha ha,' she said, shifting uncomfortably on the spot. 'I get it, I slept for ages.'

Zeshin raised his eyebrows. 'No.' He jerked his head out into the dark courtyard. 'It's 4AM, it's morning.'

'…Oh,' she said lamely. He gestured at the free mile or so of railing next to him. It took her a second to realise he was asking her to join him and she quickly tripped over herself to get there, like a normal person, damnit Raiku.

'How long… was I asleep, actually?' she asked, when the silence stretched to breaking point.

'A few days,' he said. 'It seemed to take a toll on you.'

Raiku quickly looked around for Plot, because there was no way this conversation was happening organically. What, her and the leader of the Drama were just happening to run into each other?

There was nothing. Nothing but the barest traces of Plot, wisps of narrative potential looking for actual stories to fill.

Raiku's mouth twisted uncertainly. Well… weirder things had happened? Her father had been on Uchiha Fugaku's genin team for an exceptionally brief period, and he'd come out of that fine. No machinations involved, though parent-teacher conferences had always been oddly tense when they met in the schoolyard going in.

She tapped her fingers on the wooden railing. Excellent. Without a Plot, did she just wait until it got awkward and then leave?

'Are you feeling better?' Zeshin asked, almost startling her out of her skin.

She shifted her weight from foot to foot, trying to hold off the urge to sprint back inside for what would seem, to Zeshin, like no reason. 'Uh. Yes?'

He tilted his head. Like an eagle studying a mouse it was about to disembowel and also belittle, maybe.

She endured a split second of this scrutiny before she cracked and threw her hands up. 'I don't know! I feel confused! I woke up and I was hungry and I haven't really thought about any of this and I just…' To her horror, she felt her eyes start to burn again. She fisted her hands in her hair. 'No! I'm done crying! I don't want to cry anymore! I've had enough!'

She heard Zeshin let out a long sigh. 'You're just a kid,' he said, more to himself than her.

Raiku didn't feel like a kid. At that moment, she just felt exhausted, dried out and eroded from the constant crying. Like a cliff standing against the sea.

Hands grasped her covered wrists, pulling them down. She opened her eyes, still feeling that treacherous moisture swimming there.

Zeshin regarded her solemnly. 'Was he going to hurt you?' he asked her.

'No,' Raiku said uncertainly.

'Was he going to hurt your people?'

'Yes,' she whispered.

Zeshin nodded. 'Then you did the right thing,' he said firmly. With his grave eyes and the eerie loveliness of his features, he seemed almost unreal. Like a statue, she thought again, and it was almost enough to make her pull away.

'But… he wanted to talk to me,' she said, voice cracking. But it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to tell Zeshin what she meant to say, because she had no idea what she meant. She couldn't express to Zeshin that feeling from Tsuji, that weight of years spent waiting alone for someone to look at him. She couldn't put into words how it felt to have failed the expectation that had lived in Tsuji, and that space in her mind even now that still felt waiting, like he was somehow still trying to tell her something she could not yet understand.

Zeshin nodded again, somehow seeming to understand anyway. 'Listen to me,' he told her. 'You're a shinobi. You've trained all your life to kill people and sometimes, they're not going to deserve it. Sometimes protecting your people, protecting your family, means hurting people who don't deserve to be hurt. This isn't a hero's life,' he said, looking at her properly then. 'It's not a right versus wrong life. If you're going to do this, you have to decide whether hurting people who would hurt what's yours is right enough.'

It hurt, in that way that a true thing sometimes could.

Which made the fact that it was Zeshin saying it feel even stranger.

'Why are you helping me?' she asked, sniffling again and hating herself for it. It seemed to be a trend; people being nice to her when she'd already hurt them. People carving pieces of themselves out to give to her, when she'd already taken so much.

Zeshin let out another sigh. 'Do you promise not to tell the other little monsters?' he asked, looking out into the trees.

'Yes?'

He rolled his eyes, seemingly at himself. 'I don't like what we expect children to do, in the warrior's life,' he said with a somewhat self-conscious shrug. 'No matter how involved they think they were in that choice.'

'I wanted to be a shinobi,' she pointed out.

Zeshin gave her a weary look. 'No child understands what that means,' he said.

'You trained Byakko.'

He nodded, looking out over the courtyard. 'Yes,' he said. 'I did.'

That space in Raiku seemed to grow wider for a moment. Feeding from the silence.

Zeshin patted her on the shoulder. 'Don't stay out here too long,' he advised, pushing away from the railing. 'They'll start looking for you again soon, and you'll have to suffer through their "help".'

Raiku tried a smile, but it wobbled off her face before it could really do anything for either of them.

'If you're able, they wanted to leave in the morning.' Zeshin paused in the doorway. 'Early start,' he warned, before he walked inside and let the door swing closed behind him.

Raiku thought about that for a second. She'd been asleep for days, but she impossibly still felt tired. But she'd been awake, this time, however briefly.

Shower, she decided. Shower, then sleep. Their water tank might never recover, but they probably saw that coming.

Yawning, she headed inside.


'And you're really just letting us leave?'

Daisukenojo had surrendered his delicious meat-bread breakfast to Raiku the next morning. Since they'd put his arm in a cast at some point between the fight and that morning, this was probably the safest decision he could have made. She munched on it happily while he actually sussed out the finer points of their departure.

The consensus of Team Yamada seemed to be that they would never speak of Raiku's feelings again. She was basing that assumption off the careful, studied non-reaction of Daisukenojo to her appearance that morning, and also the minimal yelling that had accompanied her theft of his breakfast.

It felt too easy, she had to admit. But there were only faint, winding traces of Plot left, so it wasn't like she could trigger anything big.

'You're just going to help us get Yamada to the middle of the woods and leave,' Daisukenojo repeated, giving Zeshin the king of dubious looks. From a young man raised with Ryuu, the sheer impact of this expression could not be overstated. 'Leave us there. After all of this.'

Zeshin hadn't regained all his Plot-based aggression and blind zealotry, but his glare could still stop a man dead. 'No, I'd like the shinobi from the village who sent shinobi to kill my family to wake up in the middle of my family compound. And then to report to your village about it afterwards.'

'But we're taking Ryuu with us,' Raiku asked, just to confirm. 'And you're… fine with that.'

'Where is he, anyway?' Daisukenojo asked, leaning over the railing on the porch. 'You're not replacing him with Byakko again, are you?'

Byakko raised his hands where he was leaning against the wall of the house. 'Hey.' He sounded offended. 'He's saying goodbye to our grandparents, thanks.'

Daisukenojo's head snapped towards him. 'His grandparents are alive?!'

'He said that before, Ryuu almost got into a whole fight about it,' Raiku reminded him, licking a crumb off the paper wrapping for her food.

He gaped. 'What would they even be like?'

Byakko smiled.

Zeshin narrowed his eyes.

Daisukenojo hastily looked up at the sky. 'Good day to travel,' he said innocently.

'It's not without compromise,' Zeshin said, still giving Daisukenojo a suspicious look. Like at any second, he would cast aspersions on Zeshin's parents.

God. Zeshin's parents. What would they even be like?

Zeshin started to turn her way and Raiku hastily looked at the ground.

'Ryuunosuke has agreed to remain in contact with us on a provisional basis,' Zeshin continued. 'And you have all agreed that if a word of this place or these people reaches your superiors, I will personally—look at me, Gairano,' he said, staring at her, 'If even one word of this is breathed outside these walls, I will personally come to your village and kill everyone you've ever loved.'

'Why me specifically?!' she asked.

'Yeah, she's a compulsive secret-keeper,' Daisukenojo agreed. 'It's my family you should be threatening.'

'Was it the crying?' Raiku worried. 'Did it soften me too much?'

'You are soft.'

Raiku didn't jump, but she did screw her eyes shut and tense. 'Why?' she gritted out. 'Why do people like sneaking up on me so much?!'

Ryuu padded up the steps, his bag already over his shoulder. 'Because you look like a startled critter every time. Are you ready to go?'

Raiku rolled her eyes. Apparently her crying-induced leeway was already over, because this earned her a stomp on the foot as Ryuu passed.

'Are you ready to transport Yamada?' he asked, ignoring her hissing and hopping around. 'We're taking him to the clearing you blew up. Should sell any story about a fight long enough for us to get him home to Konoha for medical attention. Once the report's filed, case closed.'

'I don't think he'll buy it,' Daisuke said, with the loud, pointed tone of someone who had said it many times before.

Ryuu bared his teeth. 'But that's what we're doing, so you better sell it.'

'This seems too easy. Does this seem too easy?' Raiku asked no one in particular. 'What, we all have a fight and a cry and then suddenly all that interpersonal tension is gone?'

Ryuu glared at Daisukenojo, who innocently looked up again. 'Oh,' Daisuke said airily. 'I wouldn't say it was sudden?'

'We'll catch you up later, Toaster,' Ryuu growled.

'You were asleep for a while?' Daisukenojo remarked, all his sentences for some reason ending on rising notes like questions, like not sounding definitive would save him from Ryuu's wrath. 'And. There were things? That happened?'

Raiku felt oddly excluded. Likely because she had been excluded from the resolution process. Because she'd missed the conclusion of this particular narrative. 'What happened!?' she demanded. 'This makes no sense!' She followed after Daisukenojo as they made their way across the courtyard towards the gate, where Yamada was lying on a stretcher. She had identified him as the weak link in this baffling scenario and damnit, she wanted answers. Ryuu moved to the other side of the paved area to both pointedly ignore Byakko and speak to a small, much older woman, looking only mildly like he was being tortured.

Daisukenojo shoved a bag into her hands. 'Shut up!' he hissed as soon as Ryuu turned his attention away from them, a shocking change from his previous tone. 'They've been arguing for days and we're finally about to leave this nuthouse, okay? We'll tell you later!'

Raiku blinked at him owlishly, clutching the bag to her chest.

Daisukenojo turned back to Ryuu, now standing beside Byakko looking murderous, and resumed his cheerful expression. 'Right! Anything else we need to do?' he called, shrugging his own bag onto his shoulders.

Byakko smiled lazily. 'Just one.' And then Byakko stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Ryuu, hugging him tightly to his chest.

Raiku dropped her bag.

'He went for it!' Daisukenojo shrieked from the other side of the courtyard to The Great Embracening. 'He went for the hug!'

Raiku stepped back swiftly, putting Yamada's prone form between her and the twins.

Ryuu stared into space over Byakko's shoulder, stunned eyes so wide that she could see the whites all around his irises.

It looked like a good hug, Raiku observed beneath the screaming top layer of her consciousness. Byakko had strong arms and good hygiene. He seemed to be good at hugs.

He was still going to die. Definitely.

Byakko patted him on the back once then pulled back. 'You know how to reach me,' he said with his crooked smile.

Ryuu stared at him, clearly rendered mute under the force of his own inhuman rage.

'I'm gonna go,' Byakko said cheerfully, and vanished.

Ryuu opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again without saying a word.

Zeshin walked back towards him, Ryuu's pack held easily over one deceptively strong arm. He took in Ryuu's frozen state with a raised eyebrow, then raised his free arm as if to invite him in for a second hug. The drape of his coat made it look far more inviting than such an elegant motion should have. 'No?' he asked dryly when Ryuu continued staring into space. Raiku squinted and yes—his lips had twitched.

Okay.

That was unsettlingly humanising.

They had only a brief window before Ryuu snapped out of it enough to destroy Byakko for the hug and then kill them all for witnessing it. They had to leave or they'd be there for hours.

'Alright!' she said brightly, running over to stand behind Ryuu and giving him a light push so he stepped forward. 'Time to go! He'll write to you, or whatever he does! Let's be off!' Finally, her own chance to give Ryuu an unwelcome arc of correspondence,

Ryuu started a sort of shocked trudging. His mind may have been permanently broken, she worried, but it was too soon to tell.

Daisukenojo fell into step beside her while two Takeshita members tried to lift the stretcher with Yamada, eventually grabbing two more of their clansmen and moving into action.

'Are you going to be alright if we go back there, anyway?' Daisukenojo asked her quietly, giving her a hand to push Ryuu.

For a moment she was tempted to say no. To say that the shape of the tree Tsuji had stood before was too familiar, now, and that she couldn't bear to see the body in the corner now that it was a stranger.

But when she thought more carefully, it became clear that there was no real reason for her to refuse. It was a clearing, now; there was nothing left there that meant anything.

Raiku nodded. 'Yep!' she said. 'I'll be fine.'

She would be. She'd just have to make it work.

'Onwards!' she said to herself, squaring her shoulders.


Given how straightforward the entire summation of this Plot had been, she had sort of expected Yamada to wake up as soon as the Takeshita left, yet it took a disconcertingly realistic time. It was well into dusk by the time he finally stirred, but Raiku couldn't really hold that against him—his body had a lot more ground to integrity-check after a crisis.

Actually, she almost missed it. She'd meant to catch up on what had happened while she was asleep, while she could be sure that Yamada couldn't overhear. She had a dim recollection of shouting, of some sort of conflict that she'd decided to sleep through, but Daisukenojo was clearly reluctant to discuss it while The Hug was so fresh in Ryuu's mind and she was also tired and felt emotionally like a wrung-out dishtowel. So instead she'd been warping little balls of electricity between her fingers, matching them in patterns between her hands to keep herself amused.

The body that was once Tsuji lay in her peripheral vision, on the opposite side of the clearing from where they had placed Yamada. The Device was gone, as far as she could tell; she could cross the space with no issue. Whatever the alien construct had been brought to do, it was apparently satisfied, but she couldn't look at it. Her eyes just slid over the space every time, like it wasn't meant to be there. There was no Plot Hole for her to blame it on, and the Device was gone—she just couldn't look at it.

Her mind kept mirroring the motion. Sliding over the encounter over and over, that yawning space still there. A thought, half-formed, and that feeling of standing on the edge of something important taken away too soon.

Raiku flipped her hand positions again, trying to focus on that instead.

Without a built-in entertainment, Daisukenojo and Ryuu had settled for playing Mercy. This was made more interesting by the fact that Daisukenojo was stronger than Ryuu and seemed convinced that an arm-cast would add to rather than detract from his position, which should have helped in in a game of Mercy, but Ryuu had none and that somewhat levelled the playing field.

'Daisuke,' Raiku drawled, suspending a cage of lightning between her hands and listening to the comforting buzzing, crackling noise. 'Pretty sure he'll kill you if you don't give in.'

Shinobi Mercy was more complicated than its civilian counterpart. Ryuu had somehow managed to twist the two of them until he was effectively strangling Daisuke with his own arm. The redhead was starting to turn blue.

'Never!' he rasped.

With all this going on, it was no wonder she almost missed Yamada waking up. She caught on around the time he started coughing, and Ryuu and Daisuke sprung apart as though he'd already yelled at them for squabbling.

'Yamada!' she exclaimed, dropping the cage and crawling over to him. 'You're awake!'

'That took forever,' Daisukenojo complained, leaning over her to look down at their teacher. 'You took your time.'

Ryuu was actually doing something productive and had made his way over to check Yamada's pulse. Reminding Raiku and probably, based on his shudder, Daisukenojo, that Ryuu was responsible for their health on missions.

"You have ten seconds to tell me what the hell happened, get me?!" Yamada rasped, before breaking into a cough. He grimaced, thumping his chest. "And someone better tell me why I feel like I've been eating broken glass."

Daisukenojo yanked Raiku's hand back down before she could finish raising it guiltily. 'We all got dragged off into separate parts of the forest, and you were the most banged up,' he said, glaring at Raiku. 'We got—' he leaned closer to Yamada and squinted. 'Is he…' He waved his hand in front of Yamada's eyes. 'Uh, can you… Yamada?'

Yamada turned his head to look at the convincingly barbecued corpse. He grunted.

'Yama-ada,' Daisukenojo drew out, flashing a concerned look to Ryuu. Ryuu crouched at Yamada's side and snapped his fingers before his eyes, a movement that would usually have gotten his wrist snapped.

"What do you think you're doing?" Yamada blinked, eyes going slightly out of focus.

Ryuu drew his hand from side to side over Yamada's face, blocking the sunlight for one eye and then the other. He huffed. 'He's still a little high on whatever they gave him.'

Daisukenojo blanched. 'You can't be serious! We can't carry him, how the hell are we supposed to get him home?!'

'I think he should be able to stand,' Ryuu said, rolling his eyes. 'If we can get him moving, I can keep him upright long enough for him to sober up.'

"I can move myself, brats," Yamada said with a particularly unconvincing cross-eyed expression. "Get me?!"

He suddenly looked green. The three of them jumped back as a single unit, but after a moment, the warning signs for nausea seemed to subside and they cautiously drew back towards him.

'Do we. Do we just help him up?' Raiku asked Ryuu. 'He seems heavy.'

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here, Speedy," Yamada instructed Daisukenojo, briefly confusing both her and probably the Genematrix itself, which couldn't have been used to incorrect things being said with such incredible authority. He sat up and leaned forward, wobbling a little. "I want answers!"

'Easy,' Daisuke said, holding his hands up like he was corralling a wild animal. 'Not too fast now.'

'Are you seriously going to try and catch him if he passes out?' Raiku whispered.

'Fuck no,' he replied equally softly. 'I'm gonna let him fall on his face.'

Yamada glared, bracing his hands on his knees in preparation to stand.

'We need to get you to a hospital, Yamada,' Ryuu said, not even pretending he'd try and catch Yamada. He folded his arms across his chest, just to drive the point home. 'We can fill you in when you're not high as a kite and at risk of internal bleeding. More, that is,' he added spitefully.

Yamada was letting out a sort of long, continuous growl. It sounded a little like a rock tumbler, or a baby avalanche.

Ryuu set his feet further apart. 'You really want to argue right now, when we could be getting you medical attention?' he demanded.

Yamada began the slow, seemingly agonising process of getting to his feet. "You are gonna tell me, Sullen, get me?!" He was grimacing by the time he was fully standing, and sweating a little. "You get this goddamn stay of execution."

Ryuu shrugged. 'We'll tell you as soon as you sober up. In the meantime, it's not safe to be out here in the open with you like this.'

Good logic, but Daisuke's grin was worrying, she decided. He was enjoying Yamada's disadvantaged state too much. She'd have to keep an eye on that.

But maybe after Yamada fully regained his balance, because no no no no—Raiku yelped and ducked out of the way as Yamada crashed down like a felled tree.

THUD.

She winced, covering her face with her hands, not daring to look. 'Is he okay?' she asked, voice muffled by her palms.

'Goddamnit,' Ryuu muttered. 'He's passed out again.'

Daisukenojo groaned. 'Oh come on!' He kicked at the ground, putting his hands on his hips. 'How the hell are we supposed to roll him over?!'

Raiku peered out from between her fingers. 'Can he breathe?' she squeaked.

The boys looked down at their prone teacher.

'Well, fuck.'


Six hours, a soldier pill and four repeats of Yamada's same waking questions later, they were finally up and moving.

Slowly.

She and Ryuu had raced this distance, Raiku thought wistfully. And sure, Yamada and Daisukenojo had somehow beaten them, but it had been so fast.

Unlike this endless march of the damned.

Letting her head fall back as she trudged on, she whined. Hours. Hours. And so many more to go. Of just. Walking. Shinobi didn't walk. Walking was for civilians. All she was left with was her thoughts, and gods knew that wasn't good.

Don't even think about it, she told her tear ducts. Don't even. Back to the walking.

And walking at night! Ambush time! Not that she could see a Plot indicating that, feel any unusual conductor activity or had any reason to expect an attack. But strategically, night-time was ambush time!

'Shut up!' Daisukenojo said for the thousandth time, from where he was keeping Yamada on-course behind her. 'I'm not telling you again!' he added threateningly, for the nine-hundredth-and-ninety-ninth.

She tugged her hair irritably, jogging a few steps to catch up with Ryuu. His threats were both terrifying and distracting. That could work.

From what she could see of his expression, he was in prime Death Threat territory anyway. 'What do you want?'

'Why do I have to want something?' she asked defensively, shoving her hands in her pockets and ignoring the fact that she did, actually, want something. 'Can't I just come up here to keep you company?'

'Raiku,' he said, looking skyward like he believed in a divine being to grant him patience, 'my tolerance for bullshit from you is relatively high right now and you're wasting it.'

'…Point taken,' she conceded. 'So. How are you doing?'

'I'm going to pretend you never asked me that. Ever, in our entire time together.'

Raiku chewed on her lip, taking care not to get her mask between her teeth in the process. 'Right then. Can I… ask a better question?'

She didn't have to look to feel Ryuu's wary glare.

Okay, diving right in then. 'I thought you and the others were going to kill each other,' she said, pointedly looking anywhere but at Ryuu. 'I was just wondering what changed? You were all so different by the time we left. I missed most of it.'

Ryuu considered her question for a moment and they walked in silence. 'You ran off,' he said eventually. 'You were gone so fast and suddenly there was this lightning strike from the forest, and it's not like we could stand around arguing when something was still clearly going on.'

Raiku blinked. 'I guess not,' she conceded.

He shrugged. 'It was easier not to kill each other when they weren't trying to kill Yamada as well.'

Raiku squinted. 'Wait. It was really that easy?'

'I wouldn't say it was "easy",' he said darkly. 'You were lucky to miss most of it. Murder aside, they were surprisingly reasonable, but they're still fucking assholes who are holding me hostage for continued interaction. They were terrified and wanted Yamada out of there as soon as possible, which makes sense.'

Hardly as bad as it could have been. They were surprisingly reasonable… in the absence of a Plot forcing Drama where it wasn't necessary, she supplemented mentally.

Wait.

'Did you just say "murder aside"…?' she asked, caught on the hypocrisy.

Ryuu ignored this highly pertinent question and snorted. 'You shouldn't be surprised. You always end up right in the middle of everything, making a goddamn mess. It's no wonder you sent the whole thing sideways.'

Raiku slowed, registering Ryuu pulling ahead of her. 'No wonder,' she echoed. Ryuu had used a softer tone, more like Byakko, more like he wasn't trying to hurt her feelings, but that wasn't what had struck her. It wasn't what had struck her just the wrong way, like a half-felt natural frequency, shaking through her mind.

'Always?' she asked, louder, too loudly, over the rising flood of her own vertigo. Ryuu looked to his left and then half-turned, raising his eyebrows to find her falling back.

'Yeah,' he confirmed, giving her a wary look. 'Always. You're not going to stay here and find another psychopath to barbecue, are you?'

'Why find another when we've got a perfectly good one to barbecue here?' Daisukenojo grumbled, passing Raiku and shoulder-checking Ryuu on his way past.

"Enough," Yamada said with a groan, rubbing the sides of his head. "First stop is the goddamn hospital, get me?"

Daisukenojo spun and started walking backwards, grinning. 'O-ho! Now who's lagging behind, old man?!'

Yamada glared, squaring his shoulders and marching faster towards Daisukenojo and Ryuu, only slightly wobbly on his feet. "You little bastard—"

Raiku had come to a complete stop, watching them go. Watching Daisukenojo break into a sprint, Ryuu snicker, watching them walk ahead without her.

'Always,' she repeated, and

'we know what we are,' Tsuji told her

and,

'we know what we are.' Tsuji, bleeding-begging-breaking, 'we know,' and

she did.