A/N: You should really see the beta-edited version of this, the comments. Such comments. Yes, Shana, it's a dad joke and I STAND BY IT.


Dear Gaara. Of the Sands?

No no no


Dear Gaara the Kazekage

that is an awkward way to start a letter Raiku


Dear Gaara,

Hello, I am doing well! I heard you almost died (did die?) but I am glad to hear that you are doing better. Better enough to write to me! Me, even, since I'm probably directly related to all those horrible things happening


Dear Gaara,

It was good to hear from you that's a lie it was scary FOR THREE YEARS I WROTE LETTERS WHY IS THIS SO HARD


"Alright, minions!"

Raiku took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the sweet scent of nostalgia. Yamada, bellowing at them from the side of a training field. It was like she was a kid again. Well. A kid or a young adolescent. A kid or a slightly younger teen. It felt like normal, really, when she thought about it. Which was still nice!

The man in question was sitting rather than looming the way he always had previously, but that could be forgiven since he wasn't technically allowed to be out of the hospital. The hospital gown couldn't manage it despite its best attempt - she had long accepted trivial things like clothes wouldn't diminish his ability to threaten her, even as the gown fluttered gently in the breeze.

"As you may or may not have realised, things are getting serious around here!"

'Could've sworn we've almost died like a thousand times already, felt pretty serious to me,' Daisukenojo muttered to her. Raiku nodded fervently.

Yamada wasn't one to let that salient point slow him down. "International tension is rising, missions are getting more serious, and people are going to expect you to be the finely-honed killing machines that your qualifications promise you are."

No "get me", she realised. He was actually trying to make a serious point right now. Not a good sign.

Yamada's expression was more grave than foreboding, really. She should have noticed. She'd felt more and more relaxed since she had gotten back to Konoha, which had made her father frown and disappear to wherever he went to analyse Plot. Apparently having a sentient force of Destruction feeling more at home wasn't exactly a good thing, though he'd given her one of their famous only-slightly-stunted hugs to try and ease the sting of that assessment.

"If we can't get you guys to Jounin level—or at least somewhat like it—by the time this all comes to a head, you are gonna die. Do you get me?" Yamada wasn't yelling. His gravelly voice was even. "You'll die."

Daisukenojo had gone pale under his freckles, Raiku realised when she snuck a look along the line. Ryuu's expression was unreadable. Raiku, who had at least had some warning in the form of dark ropes of Plot stretching across streets and homes to mark Naruto's evolution moving forward, was starting to feel a hot flush of fear in her chest. She didn't want to die. Not for someone else's foreshadowing. She didn't want to be the casualty that made Naruto realise that the world was a dark place. The idea of it being Ryuu or, heaven forbid, poor Daisukenojo, made her feel vaguely nauseated. She wanted to die far out of that kind of Dramatic nonsense, where she could be sure she was herself.

Whatever that was, she thought with a dark sort of amusement.

Yamada cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. Or tesseracted his shoulders, really, because a mere three dimensions would have trouble encompassing that much human being. "So let's get down to shaping up you goddamn disasters!" He pointed directly at her. "Versatility!" He moved his finger from her to Daisukenojo. "Technique integration!" Then to Ryuu. "Endurance!"

'I get endurance?!' Ryuu demanded. 'Me?!' He threw a hand out towards Raiku. 'She has the width and durability of a twig! Hers is just as bad!'

Raiku shrugged; he had a point.

Yamada scoffed. "She takes a sleeve off and the person who hits her gets a one-way ticket to meet his maker, get me?! You on the other hand, you don't kill them in the first two minutes of direct confrontation and you lose steam. Her problem is that she can only kill them or run off, either of which she can do until she drops. Long after you've murdered your way to a nap, get me?!'

'But,' Raiku felt compelled to point out, 'I am extremely good at those two specific things, so. I think I should get a pass.'

You are destruction.

Raiku let herself blink, but her expression of optimism for this excuse didn't falter. 'Yep.'

Yamada glowered, folding his arms over some misappropriated scrubs in a size she was honestly surprised the hospital stocked. "You need to be able to do a wider variety of things, Speedy, get me?!"

She sighed.

'I think mine was fair,' Daisukenojo said thoughtfully. 'I don't use techniques that much. I can see that.'

'You know,' Raiku muttered to him, 'when you're not flipping your lid, your general attitude makes us all look hysterical.'

'You are hysterical.'

"Anyway!" The three of them snapped to attention. "This works out well. Sullen, Shorty," gesturing between Ryuu and Daisuke, "consider yourselves joined at the hip for sparring. Shorty, you don't use techniques and he'll kill you, get me? He's gonna draw back and suffocate you before you can touch him. Straight kill you."

'Metaphorically?' Daisukenojo asked, his air of defeat already answering his question.

"Literally. Sullen, that freckled bastard will get inside your guard and just hammer at you until you crack. Unless you can condition up alongside normal training, he's gonna break that pretty face right in half."

Raiku glared briefly at Ryuu's pretty face. If only the world were so lucky.

"And Speedy. You." Yamada stared at her shrewdly. "You're gonna be tricky."

Raiku winced.

"Normally I'd sic your crazy doppelganger on you, but he's got his own students to worry about." Even without the additional trauma carried with any mention of Kakashi, Yamada's stare was never a pleasant thing to endure when your fate was in his hands. The squinting made it worse. "I called in a couple of favours for your sorry self. Which was expensive, get me? Not to mention I've gotta put them up in my house and let me tell you, Suzu was not happy they arrived when I was away with you lot, get me?"

Them? That wasn't good. That wasn't good. And arrived?

Yamada shifted, which could have been due to him not having healed properly or could have been due to another, more difficult kind of discomfort. Raiku prayed he'd torn a stitch storming over to the training ground. Maybe even gotten an infection. Please god. "And now the son of a bitch is late."

Raiku, aghast, took a step back. 'What is happening?!' she demanded.

Yamada gestured between Ryuu and Daisuke. "While we're waiting, get yourselves ready. I'm gonna be watching you two like hawks, get me?"

Daisukenojo coughed, flushing.

"Yeah, that's right, little bastard—I remember your stunt at the first Chuunin exams. Get stretching!"

The three of them obediently started settling into stretches, which for Raiku mostly meant pointedly bending herself into improbable shapes while Daisukenojo glared from his more basic ones. He actually had very good flexibility for a more stocky shinobi, but he couldn't compete with her ectomorphic excellence. He could break her in half, but not compete.

Upside-down, Raiku stuck her tongue out at him from her effortless bridge. He pulled a face at her, bent over an outstretched leg to stretch his hamstring. Daisuke's arm at least was out of the cast, but his mother likely hadn't healed him with this in mind. After a few minutes of these shenanigans, Ryuu pushed Raiku over with his foot and put a stop to it. They were probably ruining the ominous air Yamada's warning had created.

Which was of course her goal, but she couldn't exactly tell any of them that.

After the horribly long time this always took shinobi, a powerful snap of Yamada's fingers brought them all back to attention. When they looked up at him, Yamada turned to the side, revealing a shinobi standing behind him.

Naturally, this was handled less than gracefully.

'Holy shit—!' Raiku helped, jumping back.

Daisukenojo choked on his mouthful of water. 'Did you have some guy standing behind you this whole time, who does that?!'

'What the fuck?!'

Yamada snorted. "You're disgraceful. He only just got here. Hatori, I expected better from you at least."

Raiku cautiously edged forward, leaning around Yamada to try and get a look at the newcomer.

It was embarrassing, how long it took her. The shinobi was not quite her height and more muscular, hair cropped so close to his head that it was more a shadow than an actual colour. He wore the usual tan and pale colours of a Sand shinobi and the vest of a Jounin, but other than being roughly her age she couldn't pin down anything more personal. He was handsome in a classically masculine way with dark brown eyes and skin, but it wasn't until her eyes caught on the colour around his eyes that something in her memory twinged. Bright yellow rimmed the outer edges of his eyes, matching the single yellow line that stretched all the way up his neck, cutting him vertically in half from where his chest was hidden by his vest up to the inner crease of his lower lip. It was that brightness and the Sand forehead protector tied to hang from a belt loop that finally cinched it.

'You have got to be shitting me,' Ryuu muttered.

Raiku found her voice. 'Iwao?'

Iwao nodded shortly, sombre eyes meeting hers.

'He's meant to be short!' Daisukenojo howled.

Yamada clapped a hand on Iwao's shoulder. "Stripe's teacher made me pay for this through the nose, but turns out your little friend here is an Earth technique specialist! Exactly what we need, a grounding influence, get me?!"

When the shocked silence reigned rather than any sort of acknowledgement of his admittedly superior wordplay, Yamada's cheerful expression vanished. "So. He's your new sparring buddy."

Raiku gave him a semi-aborted wave.

"Say hello, Stripe," Yamada prompted.

'Good morning,' Iwao said. His voice was low, but not gravelly like Daisuke's was, nor the same combination of deep and threatening like Ryuu's was.

Yamada squinted down at him, apparently trying to decide if that minor deviation counted as disobedience. He must have come down on the side of efficiency, because after a moment he shook it off. "Right, so this is how this is going to work." He pointed between Ryuu and Daisuke. "Like I said, you two! Pair off and start warming up. I'll be back to give you some specifics once these two are squared away, get me? Speedy, Stripe, you'll be coming with me, you'll be doing something different."

Raiku hedged around until Yamada walked past her, Iwao falling into stride easily behind him. She tried to walk next to him and found herself repeatedly lagging behind when she tried to covertly eye him alongside her, taking in the differences between the shy, short boy from her memory and the steady, calm young man standing next to her. He was older than her, wasn't he?

'Hi,' she whispered.

Iwao looked at her side-on. 'Hello,' he greeted, equally softly.

Raiku's fingers twitched at her sides. 'It's… good to see you?' she volunteered.

Iwao nodded. 'It's been a long time.'

Because you stopped writing, she didn't say, though it was her reflex.

To her profound shock, something warm crossed his expression before he turned back to where they were walking. 'My fault,' he added quietly.

Oh god. He had gone all soft-eyed for a second. How was she supposed to punch him in the face?! She hated the soft-eyed look that people with dark eyes could pull off; the most she could manage was manic, and it didn't have the same effect. Obviously. It mostly frightened people. It didn't make her eyes turn all liquid and warm. Daisukenojo could do it and he was a real son of a bitch about it, god.

Yamada drew to a halt in the next training field over, a wide, grassy space dotted irregularly with trees. Probably because they were the only ones to survive previous training sessions.

Raiku sent them a silent apology. They certainly wouldn't survive this one.

There was a feeling that was rapidly becoming familiar, the sudden urge to keep walking towards some further point on from the field—if she had to guess, she'd say that Naruto was nearby, doing one of his legendary breakthrough training sessions. Or possibly another Main Character, drifting past with the world's worst timing. Trying to draw her in to facilitate, when it knew damn well she didn't have to be directly involved. She gritted her teeth against it, clearly marking the urge as alien and Plot-flavoured so she could set it aside.

Yamada turned, his hospital garb fluttering around his knees. He set massive hands on his hips. "Alright! I want a good, mean fight, and do not—do not—try to kill each other! You get me?!"

Raiku widened her eyes, holding her hands up in front of her. 'Why are you looking at me?!'

Yamada folded his arms across his chest. "We just talked about your kill-or-run binary, Speedy! It's the whole reason he's here."

Iwao's eyebrows raised just a fraction. Raiku hastily waved her raised hands. 'No, no! He's making it seem like a, like an always thing! I don't always—'

"Always!" Yamada said with relish. "Kill or run, that's you!" He pointed at her, then at Iwao. "I want you to do your best to incapacitate this one, without murdering him. If I come back here and find him dead, you'll be in trouble, get me?!"

Raiku coughed. 'You make me sound like a serial killer,' she muttered.

Yamada's eyebrows shot up. He lifted one hand, tilted his head in a theatrically thoughtful expression, then started counting out on his fingers. Raiku watched, confused, for a moment, then gawked. 'Stop, stop!' she yelped, waving her hands quickly. 'Stop counting the murders! We'll start! Come on, Iwao, time to fight, chop chop!' She gave him a push and speed-walked over to the other side of the field, rolling her shoulders and flexing her hands. Yamada nodded, satisfied, and drew back to the edge of the treeline.

"Whenever you're ready, brats!" he called.

And with that, Raiku squared off against Iwao. Well, rhombus'd, given the angle the hovering put her at. She parallelogram'd him? It was bizarre, staring at this … aesthetic variation on someone she'd known a while ago, who she hadn't seen in person in years. Should she have had time to catch up first? Did this seem abrupt to anyone else?

Then again, she had to consider, no build-up was probably a good thing. Lots of Dramatic Foreshadowing wouldn't have been a good sign, while Yamada springing a new sparring buddy on her out of his sadistic need for efficiency was far more natural for their team dynamic.

She cupped her hands around her mouth to call, 'how is this going to work?'

Iwao seemed too relaxed. It was making her skin itch. He gestured with one hand. 'Attack, please.'

Raiku couldn't help it. She hesitated. No enemy had ever said "please" before, unless Ryuu's "oh please try it" counted and the sentiments seemed very different.

'Do you understand that you may die?' she called. Informed consent had featured in many of her lectures growing up.

Iwao nodded. He gestured again.

Raiku glanced nervously at Ryuu and Daisukenojo, who should have been fighting each other but instead were openly spectating at the edge of the training ground. She tugged her gloves off and rubbed her bare palms together, her pale skin immediately starting to crackle and glow. Iwao continued to watch her, seemingly unconcerned, even as the ball of electricity fed by her fingertips took shape.

She tried to make herself throw it at him. Just a little. But her elbows locked the moment she thought of it, keeping her hands close to her chest.

"Speedy! Just do it!"

She yanked her hands apart, electricity flooding back into her skin. 'He's just standing there!' she exclaimed, gesturing at him. 'I can't! He's just… staring at me!'

'His eyes are too dark and gentle, it's impossible!' Daisukenojo cried from the sidelines. Iwao cast him a neutral glance that made Daisukenojo hastily look at the sky. Raiku would have to examine that behaviour later.

Iwao then looked to Yamada, who just gave him a nod.

Then Iwao was gone.

Raiku froze, too much experience with Kakashi's own brand of training suddenly rearing its ugly head. Instinctively she yanked the rest of her sleeves off, leaving her bare from the shoulders down.

'Augh, the stripping!'

"Shut the hell up, Hatori, this is meant to be a fight!"

Raiku almost tore herself in half ducking when Iwao reappeared in a blinding blur of speed, kicking out where her head had been. She lashed out at his planted foot, unsurprised when he sprung away, and launched after him. She hissed when he twisted away from the bolt of electricity she sent after him, its decisive crack! splitting the air between them with the blinding flash. A spire of earth shot up between them – she braced and landed on it feet-first, pushing off to hit the ground again. She turned again and hastily blocked a blow so powerful it jarred her to the bone, realising a split-second too late that she had done so with her bare, glowing forearm.

A flash of panic made her stomach lurch, made her hesitate just enough for a following strike to send her back several feet, skidding in the dust.

When it cleared, there was a low cracking, rumbling noise.

She looked up and Iwao's dark eyes had turned yellow, black sclera against a skin that seemed to have turned to dark stone. When he tilted his head the noise sounded again – stone against stone. It had formed a layer so close to skin it may well have been a transformation, dim yellow light visible through the symmetrical, perfectly even seams.

Raiku tapped her mouth, caught up in her examination despite the way she could see Iwao flexing long stone fingers, then curling them into a fist.

A loud whoop broke her concentration.

'Badass!'

"Stop narrating, Shorty, so help me!"

Iwao tilted his head back to look at her down his nose, combining with the way he set his posture to make the unmistakable come at me stance that shinobi all seemed to know how to do instinctively.

Raiku settled low for a moment, then exploded towards him in a thunderous roll of lightning. He braced hard and they clashed together on contact with a sound like the sky splitting open, striking so hard that she felt like her bones were splintering at the point of contact.

She felt the grin split her face, sharp and fierce.

This.

Iwao dropped his guard and dropped back in the same motion, letting her weight carry her forward so she could fall further into his reach. A boost of electricity sent her back in the air enough for her to twist and send her fist flying towards his face, a punch quickly parried. For a moment she fell into the familiar rhythm of strikes, relaxing into the thriving current of energy that was powering her attacks. At least, until Iwao managed to twist and knee her hard in the side, the heavy stone blow driving the breath out of her her. The harsh jolt of pain sent a shock through her that just dragged more electricity to the surface in response, like the flooding of white cells in an immune response. She drew lightning to her hand and drew it back, feeling the power arc and grow to a screaming, blinding mass of energy before preparing to snap it forward to—

A wall shot up between them, the force shoving them apart.

"Enough!" Yamada roared. Raiku caught herself about to snarl at him and forcibly reigned it back, almost biting through her tongue with the effort. Iwao settled back far more graciously on his other side, just visible under her teacher's arm. Yamada took a threatening step towards her, then stopped when she reluctantly backed up. "What did I say?! What was the one rule?! The point of this is not to murder him, Speedy!" Yamada snapped. "The point is to learn to dial it back without having to be afraid of accidentally murdering your partner, get me!? Murder! Isn't! The goal!" He capped it off by thudding his fist into his palm on every word for emphasis.

Raiku looked at the ground, trying to make her expression less sullen and just barely managing to contort her features into something more contrite. She took a deep breath.

'I'm sorry.' She looked up in surprise at the sound of Iwao's voice, the rumbling distortion of whatever the stone was doing to his throat. Iwao's burning-bright eyes were directed at Yamada, unflinching. 'I provoked her deliberately. It won't happen again.'

Yamada eyeballed him. "Don't even, Stripes," he growled. "It takes two to completely lose their shit, doesn't it Speedy?!"

'Yes…' she said reluctantly. It had been abrupt, even for her. She was just losing it all over the place, but at least there wasn't a nearby roof for her to destroy this time.

"And we're not going to create a diplomatic incident again, are we Speedy?!"

She kicked at the ground. 'No…'

Yamada glared, looking at them both in turn. Raiku quickly looked down, because the last thing she wanted to do was meet his eyes and challenge his dominance. Wait, was that a dog thing? Or was it a Ryuu thing? God, it was so hard to keep track. "Both of you, front and centre, now!"

Raiku shuffled over. When her and Iwao were directly in front of him, side by side, Yamada fixed them with That Look. The look all strict parents had down pat, the face that just screamed "well look what the cat dragged in."

"And what do you call that, Speedy?" he asked, when they'd fidgeted enough. When Raiku had fidgeted enough; Iwao was still, with enviable posture. "I call it attempted murder!"

'No! Wait! I mean, look!' Raiku smacked his shoulder with the back of her bare hand and laughed, delighted, when the shock immediately dissipated into the cool rock skin. 'Look at that, that's so cool! He's fine!'

"Careful," Yamada snapped. "He's not immune to you, he's just got a resistant layer to get through and direct earthing when his feet are planted on the ground. You can still fry him, get me? It'll just be harder to do by mistake when you're not actively trying to barbecue him."

She sighed, deflating. 'Yes, yes.'

"You get carried away and you'll cook him alive in that snazzy ground suit!"

'Okay!'

"Like a goddamn clay roast, he'll just sizzle in there—"

'Thank you,' Iwao said calmly. 'Understood.'

Raiku had found herself gripping her own shirt over the abdomen like she could squeeze the mental image out. She knew her face was contorted with disgust, the phantom smell of cooking flesh caught in her nose. 'Ugh, that's so graphic!'

Yamada waved a hand at her. "Move on, Speedy."

She still gagged, mostly just to annoy him. Petty, sure. Funny? A little. She could use the amusement.

He waved his hand. "Again. Once you two get the point, I've got to oversee the other two. So you'd better get it right. Go, go, go!'

Raiku scrambled back to their informal starting position immediately, fleeing Yamada's famously short patience.

All she had to do was not murder her highly capable sparring partner. How hard could that be?


Hours later, bruised to hell and feeling perilously close to scorched herself, Raiku finally collapsed to lie, panting, in the dirt. It was how she preferred to signal that she was done with training. She had perfected it over years of practice.

A shadow fell over her as Iwao came to stand near her head. Benefits of stone skin, she guessed; he didn't look half as beaten up as she did. But he was covered liberally in scorch marks, including a couple of incriminatingly hand-shaped ones. She was slightly reassured by how out of breath he seemed, even under the stone.

Still alive, though. That made the whole exercise a success.

She held her arms up. They felt like limp noodles, but the glow had simmered to a manageable level. It never made her feel worn out, like the electricity was a muscle she could overexert, but it did sometimes take on a sort of satisfaction after particularly sustained bouts of violence. It was a feeling that made more sense after recent developments.

'My arms,' she whined. 'Look at them.'

Said arms shook obligingly, wracked with exhausted tremors.

There was what could have been a huff, coming from something that wasn't a statue.

Get it. A statue. Because he was covered in stone.

Even Raiku had to admit it wasn't her best. But she knew the drill from there—she would whine and then Kakashi or whichever sparring partner would beat her mercilessly past her point of—

Iwao bent and put his hands under her armpits, gripping her there just long enough to lift her from the ground and then set her on her feet. Raiku blinked, momentarily disoriented by suddenly being in a standing position and waiting for her tired brain to catch up. It always worked weirdly after she'd been going off instinct for a while, taking some time to come back online in a way she sincerely hoped was mirrored amongst her friends. He reached his hand out again when she wobbled, but she steadied again on her own.

'…Thank you?' she offered. She wasn't sure what the protocol was for situations like this. Was this when the fight started again? There was a reason Yamada hadn't picked on her endurance: Kakashi hadn't let her rest at the point of collapse, at least not the first time she faceplanted.

Iwao made a brief motion with his shoulders that flowed to his wrists, which then immediately started melting from stone back into skin. She watched, fascinated, as the dark rock turned back to brown skin, a flash of yellow paint at his wrists visible before he pulled his sleeves down. 'How much time does all the paint take?' she mumbled curiously, before he finally stood before her looking like himself.

'Pardon?' he asked.

She flushed. 'Nothing!' Great job, Raiku, she thought; way to ask personal questions about a (possibly?) former friend's body. Nice work.

Iwao made a noise low in his throat, a little sceptical, but didn't question it. Gratifyingly, now that he had his real skin back on, he also looked tired. And scorched, though Raiku would deny to her dying day that the black handprint smudged on his neck brought her any vindictive satisfaction.

They stood there for a moment in a silence that verged on awkward but didn't seem to want to commit.

'We'll be training every day until things improve,' he told her, gesturing vaguely; given how still he had been until that point, it was a little reassuring. A sign that maybe he felt a little of the uncertainty that she did. Also she had caught a glimpse of further paint on his palms, which was interesting. 'We can leave it for today and resume tomorrow.'

Raiku bit her lip. 'Is that okay? Usually Yamada wants us to train until he lets us go.'

Iwao didn't seem to understand the implications of displeasing Yamada, but he couldn't be blamed. 'I have taken the lead on pace. My endurance is also a factor.'

Suddenly paranoid, she gave him a quick scan. He didn't seemed more than lightly singed, but internal damage was always a risk with electrocution.

'Your electrical contact was less overwhelmingly aggressive towards the second half,' he continued. 'With more regular practice, moderation should happen naturally. Your energy seems to have settled more already.'

Raiku glanced down at her arms, then rubbed the skin of her upper arms self-consciously. 'It gets a bit… easier? When I've been using it a lot. It feels a bit more…'

"Appeased" wasn't the right word. "Satisfied" wouldn't make sense to him.

'Natural,' he guessed.

Raiku looked up in surprise. 'Sounds right!' she agreed quickly.

Iwao's gaze hadn't used to be so assessing, she thought, avoiding it then. 'It must be tiring,' he said, after a moment that stretched just past the point of comfort. 'Drawing it back constantly.'

Raiku's eyebrows shot up. 'We-ell,' she hedged, tugging a long piece of white hair, 'it's… easier when I don't have to.' Too ominous, her Gairano instincts warned immediately. The implication of obligation combined with destructive capability, just a hair over the line into Dramatic territory.

'I know,' Iwao said. When she just stared at him, baffled, he added, 'I saw. I remember.'

It took a second for her to make the connection, and when she did she felt a little embarrassed. Like he'd seen her naked instead of covered in ash and blood, years ago. But either way it was a basic state, and she had to admit it made her feel uncomfortably exposed. With short, shy Iwao, it hadn't felt as… something. But she didn't know what to do with this taller, dark-eyed young man who seemed to see so much, when he'd already seen more than she would have wanted.

Well… she knew one thing to do with him, but trying to fight him without murdering him didn't seem particularly social.

Her silence had gone on for too long. Iwao inclined his head and then turned away, a few steps down the path back into Konoha before she realised he was leaving.

'Hey, Iwao, wait!' Raiku jogged a few steps to draw even with him, then hesitated at the edge of what was a personal space bubble so defined she could practically see it. 'You're… staying with Yamada?' she asked lamely.

Iwao nodded.

She cleared her throat. 'And, uh. Is your team with you?' she asked, floundering for a topic. How the hell did someone catch up with a possibly estranged friend? Were they estranged? What were the criteria?

'Hijino and Akihito are waiting in the village to me to join them.'

Hito, hito—the other one had an eerily similar name, right? She snapped her fingers, 'Akihiro! Where's he? Is he coming later?'

Iwao tilted his head. 'I would be surprised.'

'…Why?' she asked, rubbing her neck. Things were bad between the twins, she remembered, but they'd still gone everywhere together as a team.

'He's dead.'

Oh. What could she even say to that?

'Oh.'

Well done, Raiku.

'I'm sorry?' she offered, then cleared her throat. 'I'm sorry,' she said more certainly. 'That's terrible. Was it long ago?'

He shrugged. 'About a year ago. Maybe more. You'll see.'

Raiku blanched. 'I'll see?'

Iwao nodded. 'By the way, Raiku,' he added. 'It's good to see you.'

And then he did it.

He winked at her. So effortlessly and naturally that for a second she was positive she had imagined it. He turned and resumed his walk, leaving her gaping behind him in the fading sunlight.

Raiku thumped her chest a few times to try and stop her heart from doing its hysterical dance. 'Iwao!' she rasped when she had air back. 'What the hell was that?!'


Dear Gaara,

It was nice to hear from you! I hope you're doing well. Uzumaki Naruto told me that you had been hurt, but I'm sure you're recovering quickly. I hope Kankuro is not helping look after you. He was terrible. Not as a person! He was not reassuring when I was hurt? But I guess that it might be different if you are related! I'm sure he's taking great care of you, I'm sure everything is fine!

Well, I am going to go train, but. Write later! I will write later, I am not giving you instructions. I would never tell you what to do! Never! Please don't take it that way it just isn't how I operate but obviously you know that because we have met before in person wow I guess that was three years ago already I wonder if you're taller than me now but then again I am pretty tall ANYWAY

Bye!

Gairano Raiku


A/N: I know for a fact that at least one of you readers ships Iwao/being alive, this chapter serves as confirmation that I am in your head, eating your thoughts.