Chapter summary: After the Kannabi Bridge mission, there are cuddle piles, nightmares and unwanted appearances of people who Tenzou would rather avoid.


Kakashi is far too still in his arms. There is a gaping, bloodied hole where his eye should be.

Red tears are pouring down his ashen face. He's dead. He's dead and Tenzou can't save him.

He presses his face against Kakashi's chest and tries to hold back the sobs, tries not to think about how Kakashi will never open his eyes again and how still Kakashi's chest is and how he's dead.

It's just like the rest. It's just like how he couldn't save the others in those tanks. They all died and Tenzou's so damn useless.

There's a cry and Tenzou looks up. Obito stands over him, Rin lays unmoving behind him. There's bright red blood splattered all over him but it's not his blood.

"She's dead," Obito says. "She's dead and it was your fault." His voice is harsh in Tenzou's ears, like someone is slamming pots and pans around him.

Rin's dead.

He's useless. He can't save anyone. Everyone always dies, always dies, always dies and it's his fault.

There are tears pouring down his cheeks, and he grips Kakashi in his arms and presses his face against the breastplate.

"They're dead because of you," Obito is saying, untamed fury lacing every word.

"They're dead because of you, they're dead because of you," the mantra continues and Tenzou can't hold back his cries. There is a raging fire in his chest, raging and burning him from the inside out.

He grips Kakashi tighter as if holding him will give him life. As if it would block out Obito's anger and the image of Rin's dead body.

They're still dead –

Tenzou jerks awake and coughs, hot tears are pouring down his face. He fights to get a breath in but it catches halfway and he coughs again harsh enough that his throat aches. His lungs protest at the abuse and he leans forward, his head tucked against his chest, almost touching Naruto.

He's hot but cold and feels like he wants to cry as much as he feels like he wants to scream.

He runs a hand over his face and holds it there, trying to ignore how his whole body trembles.

There's a weight on his chest and for a moment all he can see is Kakashi and the missing eye and the blood and how cold and dead he was and how Tenzou was useless and –

Naruto. Sleeping. On his chest. That was the pressure.

Tenzou tries to settle his breathing, but the most he can manage is a wheeze and a cough. He looks over Naruto and spots Kakashi lying on the futon. Tenzou watches Kakashi's chest as it rises and falls for several moments before he can convince his brain that he's not dead. He's breathing. There's no blood. They all survived.

Rin is laying against him, soft breaths bouncing off his exposed neck – alive.

He reaches up and places a gentle hand on Rin's forehead and feels the warmth of her skin. Alive he tells himself.

He looks over at Obito, who's leaning against Rin. His face is peaceful and relaxed.

He's not angry. He's sleeping peacefully. They're all fine.

Tenzou forces himself to rest against the back of the couch and runs his hand over Naruto's hair. He closes his eyes and begs sleep to come back to him.

It works for a moment, but he chokes on a breath as Obito's face – so full of anger and sadness and pain – floods his mind and he jerks upright again.

Rin grunts softly at the sudden movement. Tenzou hisses to himself and edges his way out from where Rin was leaning against him and rests her back against Obito. Neither of them stir and he places Naruto on Obito's lap, arranging his hands so Naruto won't topple off at the slightest movement.

He rubs at his eyes fiercely and fails to rid the image of Kakashi and Rin's unmoving bodies. Tenzou kneels down by Kakashi's bed. His breaths are steady and consistent – alive.

He stands and heads to where his new Chuunin vest is that Minato gave him upon his return, as a makeshift present for 'officially' becoming a Chuunin, and slips it on and ties his Hitai-ate around his head.

He's kidding himself if he thinks he's getting anymore sleep right now. Tenzou pulls on his sandals ignores the tremors of his hands, the pounding of his head and the tears that are still fresh on his face.

He needs to blow some steam. Get rid of this awful, crushing feeling in his head that runs all the way deep into his chest.

Tenzou opens the window of the living room and jumps into the darkness.


"Your skill set has expanded nicely since your rescue."

Tenzou freezes, having not sensed another presence and forces himself not to startle at the voice.

He turns slowly from his position about to release a Mokuton jutsu – one he's having particular trouble with – and faces the owner of the voice.

Lord Danzou looks down at him. His robe is the same, right arm tucked away and bandages still covering half his face.

The hairs rise on the back of Tenzou's neck and he almost takes a step back, but he stops himself. He can't falter in front of Lord Danzou of all people. He needs to get stronger and crumbling under the gaze of someone who has decades' worth of knowledge and experience is not where he wants to start.

For a moment Tenzou is tempted to ask him why he is out at this hour, but the same can be asked of him, so he holds his tongue.

Danzou tilts his head ever so slightly. "Take that stance again," he says and Tenzou takes it on instinct before he can consider what Danzou's asking. It was an order, rather than a request, and Tenzou doesn't think he's brave enough to blatantly refuse even a simple order such as this from a man like Danzou.

Danzou approaches him, looking him up and down, walking around him in a slow circle.

"Loosen your muscles, the Mokuton doesn't require such brute force. Don't force the chakra, just mould it and guide it in the way you need." Danzou says, stopping to stand in front of him.

Tenzou nods and forces himself to relax - harder with the presence of Danzou hovering not a metre away.

The Mokuton is different than other jutsus Tenzou knows.

It tends to feel like it's always flowing, always moving inside of him. He feels oddly insulted for using it for creating such simple structures when he can tell it urges to be used like the Shodai Hokage used it – pulling a forest from his fingertips.

Tenzou's skill and chakra reserves are far, far from ever being that skilled, however.

The Mokuton feels less scientific and more spiritual in a strange way. Like a living breathing part of him, that's simultaneously woven into him and an integral part of who he is, but also something different. It's not something Tenzou thinks he could explain out loud without getting confused looks.

The nightmare left him uneasy, angry and hurting. He's been trying to force the chakra to do what he wants when really it's much like Danzou said. It's not about shoving chakra into the form he wants it and forcing it to raise wood from the ground. It's more about guiding it and just moulding it. It's a destructive jutsu with awfully gentle origins within him.

Tenzou shuffles his feet and rolls his shoulders.

He closes his eyes and lets the nature transformations roll neatly together inside of him. The chakra flows through his arms and he makes the seal again. The wood bursts from the earth with the strength that Tenzou's been fighting for the last two hours. The spiked wood curls up around Tenzou's imaginary opponent, crushing it.

Tenzou relaxes his stance and looks up at Danzou. His face is impassive as he expected, but he nods nonetheless.

"With the right guidance, you could become very strong, Tenzou," Danzou says monotonously. There's no happiness, no sadness, nothing that Tenzou can use to grasp at what he might want, what Danzou's goal is.

It's like staring into the abyss, and the abyss is staring back.

Danzou doesn't say anymore, staring at Tenzou for a long moment. Whatever he was looking for on Tenzou's face he must find, as the corner of his mouth twitches up in what he expects is some sort of strange smile.

He turns around and walks into the darkness, out of the limited range of light the moon offers. The Mokuton can't feel him walk, and he can barely sense Danzou's chakra.

Danzou has decades' worth of experience on all of Tenzou's approximately seven years.

He stands in the clearing for a long moment, staring after Danzou, and back at the Mokuton structure that Danzou had helped him produce in about a minute compared to the two hours Tenzou's been flogging himself.

Danzou's probably old enough to have seen the Shodai Hokage in action.

With the right guidance, you could become very strong.

It could mean many things. It could be telling Tenzou to ask for more guidance from Minato and Kushina. It could be a reprimand to Minato and Kushina for not helping Tenzou more. It could be an offer of training on Danzou's part.

It's all the things that Tenzou finds himself not wanting to think about.

Minato is the Hokage. He's been fighting in Third Shinobi War and is neck deep in politics, and if anything, it's only gotten more dangerous and the pressure has only gotten greater in the six months that he's been free from the experiment tanks.

But despite this, Minato is looking after him. Gives him food, hugs, books and is the father that Tenzou's never had (or doesn't remember, but Tenzou tries not to think about the gaping hole in his memory from everything before he became another one of Orochimaru's useless experiments).

Not to mention Kushina, who's the one who saved him. She was the first person who looked at him and saw human rather than just a pawn to be used. She has been supporting Minato, picking up the pieces he can't, doing Jounin missions, taking them on missions, and they're both still, among all this chaos, raising little Naruto.

Maybe Tenzou's biased, but he expected to die in that tank. He wouldn't be alive if it weren't for these people. They're doing their best, and it's already more than he could ever ask of either of them.

If Danzou is offering some obscure advice, he'll take it. When Minato or Kushina have a moment he'll get them to train him, help him expand his artillery and smooth through some particularly harder aspects of the Mokuton.

If Danzou is presenting him with some sort of offer or setting him up for it by showing Tenzou what he can do, he's barking up the wrong tree. Kushina and Minato will stand above everything else. If they want Danzou to teach him then he'd do it, Tenzou's will do what Minato and Kushina tell him. He'll be useful to them. It's the only way he can think to repay them.

Tenzou shakes himself from his thoughts, blinking as the tiniest spindles of light shine over the treetops.

He falls back into the same stance, relaxes and reaches for the connection with the previously manipulated wood. The wood moves, groaning and creaking. Tenzou lengthens the spikes and thickens the trunk experimentally.

He concludes it's an effective way to kill someone, so he lowers it back into the ground and straightens from his position.

He can't ignore Danzou's approach, not when he's seen Minato go so tense and standoffish with his presence near once before.

Danzou makes Minato uncomfortable, and that's more than enough of a reason for Tenzou to be wary.

He dusts himself off and turns back in the direction of the house and leaps off onto the rooftops. He reaches the house in a matter of moments and slides through the living room window and glances around.

Obito and Rin are still leaning on each other, with Naruto, still fast asleep tucked against Obito's side. Kakashi remains on the futon, face still heavily bandaged, reminding Tenzou of how he should be in the hospital. He'd kicked up a fuss about that, and was instinctually uncomfortable in the building even in sleep until he was moved into Kushina and Minato's house just for the night.

He pulls himself up next to Rin, not bothering to remove his Chuunin vest and his Hitai-ate from around his forehead.

The nightmare still lingers, but the training helped his mind focus on something else. They returned from their mission less than twenty-four hours ago he needs the rest. His limbs are heavy and his muscles are sore and sleep, he decides, is going to be his medicine.

Tenzou tucks his legs under him, and after a moment of hesitation lays his head on Rin's shoulder. She moves, wrapping her arm around him and pulls him close – all while fast asleep. Tenzou's smiling before he knows it and shakes his head at himself for his panic-inducing nightmare that had lead him to running out of the house just after midnight when he's almost totally sure Rin and Obito would not have minded if he'd woken them up.

He sends a glance at Kakashi and relaxes. He's alive. Rin's alive. Obito's alive. And even Tenzou's alive.

He'll tell Minato and Kushina about Danzou after he gets a few more hours sleep.


I HATE THIS CHAPTER IM SORRYYYY Idk I re-wrote it like five times and each time I hated it.
I tried to edit this and fell asleep halfway through so I'll go back over it later lmao

(If anyone has any good ideas for this pls let me know I beg of you)

(pls comment to keep me alive (pls study is killing me)