In earth years, it takes them roughly ten before they can leave Hinata and Naruto behind them, though with promises to stay in touch, to reap their own souls.

Lee knows better than to assume that the good in everyone's heart can come out in death and Gaara has come to see his partner as more than just a nuisance that he can't get rid of. They are not quite invaluable to each other yet, but they are close friends to the point where they will spar together given the time and Lee can get Gaara to smile every once in awhile. Lee can compress himself into the smallest atom of matter possible and rest, not "sleep", in Gaara's eye if he feels the want to and Gaara can become a grain of sand and contemplate the strange things that he contemplates in the safety of Lee's light.

So, yes, they are very, very, very close friends.

They are also very, very, very close to a soul that does not have the urge to go to any version of Hell or any section of Heaven.

"I'm not ready to die yet," the man named Uchiha Itachi whispers hoarsely. His chest moves weakly, something rattling in his lungs, and a thin trail of blood leaks out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes are blind and they stare through Gaara and Lee as if he can see them when he can see nothing else.

Uchiha Itachi, even with his want to live a little longer, is already a confusing enough soul. On one hand, he massacred his entire family, minus his little brother, knowing that it was an unacceptable thing to do. On the other, his doing so stopped World War III from ever happening. And he does, honestly, love his baby brother. There isn't a mean bone to be found in the weakening body of Uchiha Itachi.

As a matter of fact, he's practically ninety percent love.

Itachi's husband leans forward, looking confused, tired, and mostly heartbroken yet melancholy. "I know you're not." The man has tattoos of gills on his cheeks and there is the slightest tint of blue to his skin.

"Cyanosis," Gaara growls. "His blood is low in oxygen."

Gaara always manages to just know these things and Lee flips open his databook and writes it down so he too shall know it. His databook is actually nothing more than a piece of abyss and his pencil is a thread of Grace. At least he will never run out of space.

"What is wrong with Itachi?" Lee asks.

"Lung cancer."

"What's that?"

"He has tumors in his lungs."

"Is that bad?"

"It's bad enough that we're here."

He concedes to that. "Did the lung cancer make him go blind?"

"No, that's part of his family genetics."

"Okay." Lee flaps his wings around him and Gaara as they watch Itachi watch them, his husband trying to get his attention back.

"Why is that man being so persistent?" Gaara rumbles after a moment, transforming beneath Lee's feathers. For the Shinto religion, his form will hardly be appreciated.

"They're married," Lee says solemnly.

Lee can't explain why he knows some things about their souls and Gaara knows other things. It has just always been that way and always would be, he guesses.

"Itachi?" Itachi is taking his last breath. Lee and Gaara stir, at the ready, because the best time to judge a soul is after it leaves the body. It's like taking a product out of its box, you can't be sure just how perfect something is by looking at the display, you have to see it. "Baby? C'mon, baby! Remember, you're not ready to die! DAMN IT, Itachi, come back! BABY?"

It's too late. Itachi is standing over his husband and his body and he's seeing them with perfect clarity. Lee stares at this man who knows he is guilty, wants to go to Yomi for the things he has done, but Lee also knows that he isn't guilty. He has done unbelievable things, but this is one of those times where the reason why he did the crime is far stronger than the crime itself.

Lee smiles and reaches out with a hand that is still mostly a child's, though he could pass off as fourteen. "Hello, Itachi. My name is Lee and I would like to take you home now."

"Home?" The Uchiha looks down at him. His hand finds the red thread of fate tied to his finger that leads to his husband and pets its frayed edges. "My home is here, thank you, Lee-san. If it's all the same, I'd like to wait till my husband and brother can join me."

Lee retracts his hand and nods. "YOSH, that is perfectly understandable!" Gaara shoots him a look that says he clearly disagrees. "Would you like to wander the world aimlessly as you do so or would you like for me to lead you to the waiting room?"

Itachi glances back at his husband who is cursing life, death, fate, cancer, and everything else he can find to blame. "By 'wander the world aimlessly', do you mean I can stay by their sides?" A man runs into the room who is also an Uchiha but it takes Gaara saying it in a hiss for him to catch a name. Sasuke. This is the baby brother. He looks at the body of Itachi and he looks undecided. First there is nothing and then there is horror. Gradually, there is pain. But Itachi is the man who left him as a child with no explanation for the crimes he had done and so the hesitations are only expected. "If that is what you mean, then I would like that first option, please, Lee-san."

Lee nods. "It is a date then! Another five years and you shall see us again!"

Itachi goes rigid. "Five years? Both my husband and brother?"

"I am sorry, Itachi, but Sasuke is going down a very bad road now and Kisame was never a good man to begin with, no matter how much you two loved each other. They will be killed within the next five years for the same reason you killed the rest of your family; for the good of Mankind." And Sasuke will "lose his way", as they classically say when someone stops believing in religion.

Itachi shudders. "So when they die, they will go to…" he glances at Gaara who, looking like a rotting human body attached to thin black wings, nods. Lee doesn't add that "they" will only be a "he". Itachi will learn soon enough.

Lee hangs his head. He can't imagine what it must be like to give up so much just to find out that it isn't enough. That it was never enough. "You are the only one who will get to rest with the Kami."

"… How can I change my destination?"

Lee sputters. "Pardon?"

"Godhood sounds too clean and innocent for me anyway. Reassign me to your friend over there and then leave me be till it's time to collect us all."

"I do not think it works that way…"

"Lee," Gaara barks, "let him do what he wants. It doesn't affect us."

"Listen to Shinigami-san, Lee-san," Itachi seconds. "It doesn't affect you."

Lee ages ten years that night as they leave, but they leave without a soul nonetheless.

.

Her name is Haruno Sakura and she tries to beat Lee over the head for making her leave her boyfriend Sai alone in the hospital, unsure of what he's supposed to feel but very much aware of the pain in his heart as Sakura slips away in her sleep after she jumped in front of a car to save a child.

Gaara snarls but otherwise lets the woman vent because she is very much Lee's problem and Lee, despite actually feeling marginally in pain, also feels great compassion for the woman.

When she tires herself and subsides long enough to take a step back and frown at them, she asks, "Why don't I feel like crying? I mean, I was going to propose to that emotionally retarded asshole and now here he is and that's my body they're carting out… this is the hospital I work at. There's my best friend Ino and my mom and my dad… But I don't feel sad."

Just murderously angry, they know.

"When you die," Lee hums, "you somehow know that from either end of the tragedy, your side or theirs, that everything is going to be okay." He rocks back on his feet and pretends not to notice the "that doesn't explain anything" glare Sakura throws at him. "That is the reason, right, Gaara?"

"That's the most unhelpful reason I've heard yet."

"Thank you, Gaara. I knew you believed in me."

.

Kaguya Kimimaro is not evil. Yes, he has fallen into evil hands and he has done evil things, but he would have just as easily done good things had someone pointed out the way to him. But that doesn't change that he has done evil things.

Kaguya Kimimaro is dying of osteosarcoma. Luckily for Gaara and Lee, he believes in reincarnation without also being in Buddhism. So, really, all they have to do is wait for him to die, lead him around for a little bit, and then he will settle into a newborn body.

Have you ever seen an infant that is born not breathing? But then after a few moments of intensive care they come through and everyone is relieved? This is most likely a case of reincarnation where the original soul has died and someone else has moved in, like a crustacean moving from shell to shell.

This is what is supposed to happen with Kimimaro.

Except he doesn't want to go. No, he still thinks he is needed too much on earth to leave, not even in the humble sense that Itachi thought he was needed. He doesn't know that his employers never cared for him, that they all but left him for dead in the end, and he refuses to believe that no one visited him in his last few days of life simply because they didn't want to.

Lee reaches for his soul, about to take him by the hand and walk him around the universe once or twice till he finds where he is supposed to be, and Kimimaro strikes.

Lee is nearly impaled on the soul's arm, which is literally nothing but bone. His disease had made him look at himself differently and so his soul shares his view and has a skewed appearance, like a skeleton plus a few dozen more parts and a face.

Lee would have been impaled… if Gaara's tail had not grabbed him in time, that is. Lee is coddled in the appendage as Gaara takes a protective stance… protecting Lee. The angel feels something strong flow through him, something that makes him think he might be… but that would be bad. And this is not the time to think about that.

But Gaara is guarding him. Even if this isn't the time or the place, Lee feels a blush of happiness spread through his Grace.

"I wasn't done," Kimimaro sobs. "I WASN'T DONE! THEY NEED ME! PUT ME BACK NOW!"

Lee's wings shiver and curl around himself and Gaara. The feeling is suddenly not as strong as this soul's pain. "We can not."

"You've made a mistake, I can't die, I can't die now!"

Lee thinks of what he told Sakura. How she wasn't said because she knew that everything would be okay. Kimimaro hasn't had that same epiphany, he sees. Then again, his life has never been okay. Lee hopes, as Gaara traps the soul beneath his hand and waits for him to see reason, that his next life will be better.

.

Gaara and Lee see Hinata and Naruto again about the same time they go back to collect Itachi and his family.

"Yeah, we're here for Uchiha Sasuke," Naruto yips. "I don't know, he might make it up."

Lee shakes his head. "We have met him. If that man goes to Heaven, it will be the worst mistake made since Gaara put Valentin in Hell."

"I apologized for that."

"And I appreciated it, just as I apologized for Beverly," Lee coos back to Gaara.

"But… we're the ones who have to judge his soul," Hinata hesitantly inputs, riding on Naruto's back as Lee flies by Gaara's side. "We'll keep in mind what you two are saying, though."

"We saw into his heart and the things he wants to do. We have even seen the aftermath of some of his actions." Lee shakes his head. "You are right, however. It is your call. Good luck!"

.

Lee has never seen ghosts make love before. It is an experience he isn't sure how to explain. There are two globs of human spirit and they are meshing into one another on the ceiling as Lee and Gaara watch, the first in shock and the second in boredom.

Finally, in his shinigami form, Gaara calls attention to them. "We're back."

Itachi and Kisame, his husband, swirl into being in front of them. "Yo, Shinigami," says the blue-tinted man who looks more like a shark now than before his death. "I guess we're finally going down, huh?"

"Yes," Lee says. "We will lead you to Yomi where you will be punished for the wrongs you have done in life and where horrifying monsters will eat you under a bleeding sky."

"Cool." Kisame stretches, though it is hardly necessary. "You ready, baby?"

Itachi is looking over his shoulder toward the horizon. Lee knows what, or who, he is looking for. "Sasuke 'lost his way', Itachi. He will not be joining us."

"What will happen to him?"

"Well…" Lee rocks back and forth on his heels. "As someone who is Atheist, his soul will be collected and then thrown into a plain created of his own life, sins and virtues. There will be no God or Devil there and his only company will be his memories, the good and the bad."

"So it will be like we are with him, Lee-san?"

"If he chooses to remember you, yes."

"… Thank you."

Lee smiles. "No need for that, Itachi. Now, are we ready to depart?"

Itachi looks up at Kisame who looks down at him. "You sure you wanna come to Yomi with me?" Kisame asks.

"It sounds like it would be more entertaining than where I would go otherwise." Their hands come around each other and hold. Lee becomes fascinated by the red thread that dangles from their fingers.

"Then I guess we're ready!"

.

"I can't get this fucker off me!"

Lee and Gaara watch on as Naruto bucks and kicks and snarls and claws, but there is no getting the filthy soul off his back.

In all honesty, this is the strangest form Lee has ever seen a soul take. How a person sees themselves is represented by the form they possess after death. There has been more than one occasion where he has taken a cat to heaven in the form of a watchdog or a child who decides that he or she is a horse. One time, a man thought he was a tree and he and Gaara had had to hoist him up, roots and all.

This man has grotesque wings like clawed hands and a black star-shaped marking is on his nose, lips dark and fangs pointed, and his black and golden eyes are framed by a fall of dusty black hair. His skin isn't right either.

And he isn't letting go of Naruto for anything. Not even for Hinata who is trying to pry him off, zipping around as Naruto tries to dash from dimension to dimension to galaxy to break the hold the soul has on him.

"So this is Sasuke…" Gaara's ear twitches and his tail comes around Lee's waist to hang limply off his hip.

"I suppose so! He has a really strong grip, does he not?"

Naruto literally goes up in flames and still the soul of Sasuke holds fast to him and his nine tails.

"He will have to let go at some point."

"Yes, but I do not think he plans to do so anytime soon." Lee lays a wing across Gaara's shoulders. "Do we help or should we continue on to the next soul?"

"If they can't handle him by themselves, they'll let us know." Gaara uproots himself and goes off towards Mars. In the core of the planet, burrowed like moles, a funeral is taking place.

Lee follows.