Disclaimer: All HP characters are the property of JKR, the WB, and respective publishing companies and all Naruto characters are the property of Masashi Kishimoto. This is nothing more than a simple FanFiction that I have written. I have made no money from this or any of the other stories I have posted on this or other sites.

Warnings: AU for parts of both worlds (i.e. kiss canon goodbye), mild character bashing, mild to moderate violence (there are shinobi involved after all), and a few others that will be announced as they crop up.

AN: This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.

Chapter 31: Reflections

Monday, August 11, 2003, Evening
Tazuna's Home, Nami no Kuni

Twenty-nine year old Tsunami (daughter to the bridge builder Tazuna and mother to eight year old Inari) idly wrung the water from the cloth in her hands before folding the damp fabric and draping it over the forehead of the injured young man currently occupying her guest room. As she knelt beside the unconscious captain of the shinobi trio that her father had hired to protect his unfinished bridge and the people of Nami no Kuni, Tsunami's thoughts sifted through the memories of her interactions with the somewhat standoffish, if mostly polite young man.

The first time she'd seen the man had been when the strange copies of the man (two of them pretending to look like other people, including her father) had knocked on the door in order to inform her that her father and the team of shinobi he'd hired would be arriving soon. The clone had also made it a point to assure her that her father was unharmed despite the perilous journey he'd taken to hire a team of shinobi. She wouldn't actually meet the man himself until the day after the small group arrived at the house.

As she listened to the three shinobi interrogate her father in regards to Gato and the threat the island community faced that first night, Tsunami had been prepared to hate the emerald eyed man for the things his clone said to her father. Her hate and anger had evaporated halfway through the conversation when the man's strange duplicate had responded to Tazuna's attempt to manipulate the men's emotions by bringing up Inari during the conversation; her father had hoped to guilt trip the shinobi to make certain they didn't abandon the mission. Tsunami will never forget the man's words or the tone he'd used when he addressed her father.

'Oh, so you want to play that way, do you, Tazuna-san? Well how's this for a guilt trip… I left behind my five year old son in order to perform this mission. I'm not married Tazuna-san, I'm the only parent my son has ever known and you know what the saddest part is? I'm not even my son's biological father. I'm his godfather. You see, I adopted my godson when his grandmother died nearly four years ago. She was a proud woman in the prime of her life but she lost the will to live after her heart was broken when her husband, her only daughter, and her son-in-law died one right after another within a six month period. My godson had less than a month with his parents before they died and he was just over a year old when his grandmother passed away.'

'Had you been up front and honest about what this mission entailed, my team would have never taken it and you would have gotten a team with the experience necessary to deal with the problems here in Nami. Instead, you lied and my little boy now stands a rather high chance of being orphaned for the third time in his short life. That's not even considering the fact that I am also the guardian of my not-quite thirteen year old cousin; whose parents died the night he was born. Are you going to be the one to explain to my son and my cousin why I won't be coming home if I die here on this island because of your lies, Tazuna-san?'

As a mother, Tsunami couldn't fault the man for resenting her father for lying about the situation in Nami no Kuni. She also couldn't fault her father for doing what he could to help the people of Nami.

Dealing with the actual man, and not his clones, had been rather different than she had expected since he was obviously much better at controlling his emotions than his clones. Takeshi, as she'd learned he was named, was unfailingly polite if a little on the blunt side; he obviously didn't believe in mincing his words, though he didn't go out of his way to hurt people's feelings either. Tsunami also hadn't failed to note that the man was extra sensitive to Inari's moods; the man going out of his way to avoid appearing in any way threatening around her son after picking up on the fact that Inari was leery of him.

Tsunami also hadn't missed the way her son snuck around and spied on the trio of shinobi when they were hanging about the house; particularly on Takeshi and his odd clones (there were just so many of the solid-but-not real duplicates that they always seemed to be under foot). She sometimes feared that her only child would one day declare an interest in becoming a shinobi due to some of the rather amazing and unbelievable feats the three men pulled off from time to time (like walking up walls or making things appear out of thin air). Each day that passed without that dire pronouncement from her little baby boy was another knife-to-the-heart that was safely dodged.

She could appreciate the shinobi for the things they've done to protect her home and her family but she had no desire to see her only child grow up to be a killer or be left to wonder each day whether that day would be the last time she saw her son alive.

Knowing how she personally felt about watching her son take up the life of a shinobi, Tsunami couldn't help but wonder how a young father could have taken up such a dangerous profession knowing he might one day leave behind a son. It had taken her two days before she gathered up the courage to ask the man why he continued to live the dangerous life of a shinobi if he was so worried about leaving his son and cousin alone. Takeshi's answer had been just as startling as his response to her father's attempts to make him feel guilty.

'I could have chosen to take up the life of a civilian when I left behind my old life in order to move to Konoha so that I could watch over my cousin. For a while I toyed with the idea of becoming a business man. In the end, I chose the life of a shinobi because it is not in my nature to stand aside and allow others to give their lives to protect me. I also knew that being a shinobi would allow me the greatest chance to protect my family. The life I chose also brought me that much closer to a part of my family that I never knew existed until the day my brave little itoko turned up in my home town all alone and searching for his only surviving family.'

'I'm sure I don't have to tell you how intense even the smallest connection to one's family can be for an orphan that grew up knowing nothing of who his parents were or what they did for a living. To finally make that connection has a profound effect on a person and it offers them a measure of comfort in the icy abyss of living a lifetime alone. Following in the steps of my grandfather and my uncle alongside my cousin allows me a glimpse of what my life might have been like if I had been born in Konoha. I felt the same way when I followed in my parents' footsteps to attend the boarding school where they met and fell in love with one another.'

Takeshi had then met her gaze as he finished with, 'I have no desire to leave my son without a parent but he will never be alone the way I was growing up because my cousin will be there for him to watch over him in my stead should I die. In the mean time, I will fight with everything I have to return home to my family at the end of each mission; that is just who I am and who I will be so long as I still draw breath.'

Tsunami's attention left her memories as her eyes fell once more upon the living flesh of the man who'd been filling her thoughts for so much of the past several days. He was a handsome young man, if a bit exotic looking with his thin face, aquiline nose, pointed chin, full lips, high cheekbones, full eyebrows, wide forehead, round eyes, and rich green irises (a color she'd never before seen in the eyes of a living person). The dark bird's nest that doubled as the man's hair gave him a boyish appearance while his tanned skin hinted at long hours spent beneath the sun.

In contrast, the many scars that covered the man (Tsunami had seen most, if not all, of them in the course of treating the man's numerous injuries earlier that day) made him seem far older. As did the blank expression the man tended to wear all the time, though the years dropped from the man's face when he smiled (something Tsunami had only glimpsed once or twice since he rarely ever smiled). There were times when the man's startling (and entrancing) green eyes led one to believe that he was positively ancient though; as if he'd seen far too much in his lifetime and it had aged him beyond his physical years.

And while she thought him attractive, she had no interest in pursuing him as a love interest; she'd already lost two husbands and she had no interest in allowing herself to fall in love with another man that would undoubtedly die young because of his chosen profession.

Her thoughts then turned to the condition in which she (or rather her impressionable son) had found the man in just that afternoon. She'd been digging through the supplies Takeshi had given her in an effort to plan that night's supper when she heard her son screaming for her in absolute terror. She'd rushed outside to find several clones converging on an unmoving figure pooled at her son's feet. It wasn't until she reached Inari's side that she recognized the fallen man as a half dressed Takeshi; his trench coat and shirt missing, his pants soaked in blood, and his chest streaked with blood and dirt.

She'd thought him dead until one of the clones pronounced him as alive if exhausted and semi-unconscious as the copy prodded the original with a foot. That had snapped Tsunami out of her shock as she shoved the clone that had toed the original towards the edge of the property and imperiously ordered it to report Takeshi's condition to his teammates. Two more clones had then been designated to haul the still bleeding Takeshi up to her guest room while another was told to do something about the blood soaking into the ground.

Tsunami had then knelt down beside her bawling son and hugged him tightly before ordering Inari to set her four largest pots on the stove and fill them to the top with water for her so she could boil some water. She had prayed the task would help break her son out of his extreme state of shock that he'd fallen into sometime around the moment his cries had trailed off. Tsunami had run into the house right after that to gather her first aide kit and an old sheet that could be cut up for bandages.

After a moment's hesitation, she'd also grabbed her sewing kit just in case any of the man's injuries needed to be sewn shut. She had then taken everything up to her guest room and shoved the sheet at one of the lingering clones while ordering the fake to tear the sheet into two inch wide strips. The other clone had then been instructed to strip Takeshi out of his pants and to clean him up so that his wounds could be treated.

While they were doing that, she'd hurried downstairs to check on her son and start the water boiling and found Inari standing in the middle of the kitchen shaking as more tears poured unchecked down his cheeks. Her little boy had then looked up at her with tormented eyes that cut sharply through her heart and pierced her soul with an unspeakable pain and a sense of failure for not being able to protect her baby from the harsher aspects of life.

'Why?' Inari had demanded through his tears. 'Why did he do it? I heard him that first night; he's got a little boy that's younger than me. So why would he do something so stupid? Doesn't he care how much it hurts?'

Tsunami had only hesitated a brief moment before asking her son what he'd meant because she hadn't known how to answer his question without understanding exactly what it was that he was asking her. Part of her didn't want to understand because she didn't want to know just how much more of her baby's innocence had just been stripped away while the rest of her knew she had to know in order to help her son come to terms with whatever was bothering him. She felt her heart constrict when she heard Inari's answer even as she felt relief that it wasn't as terrible as she first believed.

'I asked him what happened when I saw him stumble out of the forest and he said he was doing his job. Why would he take such a stupid job if it gets him hurt? Doesn't he care that he's hurting his little boy? Why did ojiisan have to hire shinobi anyway? Why couldn't we just leave and go live somewhere else where Gato wouldn't ever find us?'

The single mother had done the best she could to answer her son but she'd been a bit rushed at the time because the knowledge that there was a man upstairs in her guestroom bleeding to death had never been far from her thoughts. Still, she'd at least given him something to think about other than the near death state of the injured shinobi. Tsunami made a mental note to speak to her son again first thing the next morning as she collected the cloth from Takeshi's head and dipped it in the bowl of cool water, wrung it out, and replaced the cloth; an action that was more about feeling as if she was doing something than about necessity since the man didn't even have a fever.

In fact, Takeshi's injuries had been no where near as severe as she'd expected them to be given the state that he had been found in. Once the worst of the blood had been cleaned away, she'd discovered a rather nasty bruise along the right side of his ribs, the dislocated and discolored joints of his severely swollen left arm, a trio of deep lacerations across his lower back, a shallow slice that ran across the man's jugular, and several smaller scrapes and bruises scattered from head to toe. She'd expected to find deep, life threatening gashes littering the man's body based upon the amount of blood he'd been covered in when she'd first seen him.

She'd nearly thrown up when it dawned on her that most of the blood might have belonged to the man or men that had attacked the shinobi. To keep her mind off the possibility that the man she was treating might have just killed at least one other human being, Tsunami stitched and bandaged the gashes on the man's back. The arrival of Takeshi's teammates helped distract her further when the two men quickly and easily dealt with the young man's dislocated shoulder, elbow, and wrist before they tended to the rest of his injuries.

Tsunami had fled the room at that point so that she could start supper, only to find that several of the unsettling clones had invaded her kitchen and were cooking the evening meal. She'd been half tempted to chase the fakes out of her kitchen but chose instead to attend to the other chores that she'd left undone in order to help the shinobi only to find that those too had been taken care of by the clones. After the meal, when the clones had deftly taken care of the clean up, Tsunami had grabbed the bowl of water and headed upstairs to nurse the shinobi since there was nothing else for her to do and she knew she'd go stir crazy if she didn't keep her hands occupied.

She was just adjusting the light blanket that had been draped over the man (to both protect him from the chill night air and preserve his modesty) when she was startled by the feel of a hand wrapping around her wrist with an iron grip. A soft gasp escaped her lips as she stared at the hand clutching her arm before she looked up to find slightly confused green eyes staring at her. Relief and fear twisted through Tsunami; the former because it was now obvious that the young man would live and the latter because the idea that the man holding her captive had killed hadn't been far from her mind since the moment she first thought it.

"Gomen, Tsunami-san, I didn't mean to startle you," Takeshi rasped wearily as he released her wrist fairly quickly. "I'm afraid I was a little unsure whether you were a friend or a foe when I didn't recognize the room I found myself in upon waking."

"No harm done, shinobi-san," Tsunami hurriedly assured the man as she calmed her racing heart.

"Could you tell me how long I've been out and where my teammates are?"

"You've been out somewhere between six and eight hours and your teammates slipped outside after supper in order to check in with the… other yous that you have running around all over our clearing."

"Arigatou, Tsunami-san; for both the information and for taking care of me. Is your son alright…? I vaguely recall the boy being the one to find me the moment I returned. I am afraid that I might have unintentionally frightened him by showing up in such a terrible state; covered as I was in my own blood and exhausted to the bone."

"That was all your blood? It wasn't the blood of your attackers…?"

"A bit of it might have been but for the most part the two rogue shinobi I was fighting were virtually unharmed by the time I captured them and ended the fight."

"Captured… you mean you didn't kill them?"

"Few shinobi actually enjoy taking the lives of others despite the fact that we carry a reputation for being blood thirsty killers. Yes, we do kill in the line of our work, but it is usually as a last resort or as part of a desperate attempt to save a life. We might grow numb to violence and bloodshed over time but most of us are not lawless criminals that sell our skills to the highest bidder just to line our pockets with other people's hard earned gold. We fight, bleed, and die so that others might live in peace and travel unmolested through the lands."

"Sumimasen, I should not have assumed…"

"You don't need to apologize, Tsunami-san; I understand why you automatically assumed the worst. I reacted much the same way when I first learned what a shinobi was and what they did. It took me years to understand that we are more like soldiers and policemen all rolled into one than we are like thieves and assassins that move in the shadows; our goal is to protect those who can't protect themselves, deal with criminals, and fight wars so others might live in peace. It isn't always a glorious job but it is a job that we can take pride."

"I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe a shinobi in quite that way before," Tsunami confessed as she silently realized that the man had once again managed to surprise her and give her something to think about.

"Few people do unless they are living side by side with shinobi," Takeshi gently pointed out as he pushed himself up using one arm.

"What in the world do you think are you doing?" Tsunami demanded with a soft gasp the moment she realized that Takeshi was trying to get up and hurriedly reached out to push him back down onto the futon. "You're in no fit state to get out of bed."

"I'm fine, ma'am," Takeshi insisted as he attempted to sit up a second time. "I heal fast and I have things I have to do."

"Oh, no you don't, mister; you're not getting out of this bed until your injuries heal. I will refuse to stitch up the gashes on your back again if you go and rip out the stitches because you're too damn stubborn to rest when you need it. And I will not have you frightening my son a second time by collapsing in front of him again. You owe him an apology and an explanation, by the way; he's very angry at you right now because he thinks you carelessly tried to get yourself killed when he knows that you have a son waiting for you at home."

Tsunami would have laughed at the shocked look on the man's face if not for the seriousness of the situation; at least he was no longer trying to get out of bed. Takeshi fell asleep just ten minutes later; the man's exhaustion had pulled him down into the arms of Morpheus the moment he stopped ignoring the state of his body. Shaking her head, Tsunami collected the bowl of water and the abandoned cloth (which had fallen the first time Takeshi had tried to sit up) and left the room.

As she slipped down the stairs, she couldn't help but think about how much the man had just reminded her of her son and how Inari used to try and sneak out of bed when he was sick just so that he could chase after Kaiza when her second husband was still alive.

Monday, August 11, 2003, Late Night
Tazuna's Home, Nami no Kuni

Kotetsu glanced into each of the cells as he walked by them; checking to confirm that the new prisoners had been secured by Takeshi's clones. He was having more than a little trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that Takeshi had managed to kidnap Gato right out from under the noses of the bandits that had been lounging about Zabuza's base only to run into the Oni Kyoudai just after leaving the base. It never failed to amaze him how hot and cold Takeshi's luck tended to run; one minute things would be going better than expected and the next everything that could go wrong would go wrong at the worst possible moment.

Shaking his head, Kotetsu peered into the holding cell where the two brothers had been secured and frowned. It would have been better to separate the two men but Takeshi hadn't made enough cells. Kotetsu absently wished that Yamato had been with them; the Jounin could have easily grown additional cells in the blink of an eye. Well, Takeshi could have made more holding cells too; if not for the fact that he'd been rather seriously injured capturing the two missing nin.

Kotetsu turned away from the cell and grimaced over the reminder of the condition that he and Izumo had found Takeshi in once they'd returned to Tazuna's house. Intellectually, he knew that Takeshi hadn't been injured too seriously and that most of the injuries had already been taken care of by the bijuu the other man carried (Kotetsu and Izumo both aware that the younger Chuunin was a Jinchuuriki, even though they had no idea which bijuu the man held) but the sight of the man's ruined and blood soaked pants discarded off to one side had drawn them up short.

The first thing that had run through Kotetsu's mind when his eyes fell on the ruined pants had been the haunting demand that Takeshi's clone had made of Tazuna during their interrogation of the client; Are you going to be the one to explain to my son and my cousin why I won't be coming home if I die here on this island?

Even though the question had not been directed at him, Kotetsu couldn't help but wonder if he would one day be responsible for telling Naruto and little Satoshi that Takeshi had died on a mission. It was not a task he ever wanted to be called upon to perform. Not just because he'd grown very fond of the younger prankster and the precocious son of his teammate but because he didn't think he had it in him to break the hearts of the two young boys that thought Takeshi hung the moon and stars.

Shoving his morbid thoughts out of his mind (he was well aware that Takeshi would live and undoubtedly be right as rain before morning), Kotetsu finished checking on their prisoners before he made his way out of the prison. He then joined Izumo on the roof of the makeshift prison so they could watch over the clearing where Tazuna's house had been built; his eyes tracking the numerous Kage Bunshin that were still running about.

"Kinda makes you feel inadequate and more than a little useless, doesn't it?" Izumo inquired some twenty minutes later.

"Sometimes… mostly it just makes me glad he's on our side," Kotetsu countered. "On the plus side, keeping him around certainly keeps things interesting."

"True."

Another fifteen minutes of companionable silence passed before Kotetsu asked, "So, how bad do you think Naruto-kun is going to prank us once he learns that we weren't around to keep Takeshi from getting injured?"

"It'll depend on whether or not he learns the full list of Takeshi's injuries, if Takeshi ends up with any new scars, and if he gets injured a second time before the end of the mission," Izumo answered after giving the question some thought.

"We're going to pay dearly."

"Absolutely."

"Well, I suppose being pranked to death is far better than dying of boredom."

Both twenty-five year olds shared a laugh at that before they dropped down off of the prison roof in order to scout the perimeter, check on the state of their injured teammate, and insure that their client and his family were safely tucked into their beds – or at least make sure they hadn't snuck off on their watch.

Tuesday, August 12, 2003, Early Morning
Tazuna's Home, Nami no Kuni

Harry was up with the sun and wishing his internal clock had a snooze button because he really could have used another day or two of rest. His entire body ached and he knew it was because his magical reserves were still rather low; he'd overextended himself during the fight with the Oni Kyoudai (and from his stunt with the Kyuubi's seal) worse than he'd originally thought he had. That was on top of all the magic he'd been tossing about since arriving in Nami. His injuries had at least finished healing while he'd slept, though the stitches that Tsunami had sewn into the gashes on his back were currently annoying him because his skin had healed right around them.

Sitting up with a soft groan, Harry began patting down his body in search of the pocket holding his healing potions only to recall that he'd taken off his cloak for his stroll through Zabuza's base. Knowing that he'd never make it out to where he'd left his cloak and the rest of his supplies without a pain relieving potion, he summoned an elf to bring him a vial of said potion and after discovering that he'd been stripped down to just his boxers, a change of clean clothes. Once the potion had taken edge off of his pain, Harry got dressed and went searching for his teammates in order to get an update from them on the status of the mission and talk one of them into cutting out the stitches.

He found an angry eight year old blocking the stairs leading down to the ground floor first.

A foot, sharp in the way that only an angry child's foot could be, connected with his ankle as the kid growled out an angry, "I hate you; you're nothing but a big jerk!"

If not for the pain potion he'd just ingested, the blow would have set his tender nerves to singing and he probably would have dropped like a rock. If not for the past three and a half years of training, the blow probably would have knocked him down anyway or at least set him to howling as he hopped around in pain. As it was, all it did was send a dull throb through his ankle and up his leg.

"And good morning to you too," Harry grunted as he picked the kid up and set him off to the side so he could walk down the stairs. "It's always nice to meet another cheerful early riser first thing in the morning."

He was halfway down the stairs when he sensed a fast flying object aimed for the back of his head. Sighing, Harry reached up and snagged the shoe the kid had thrown at him out of the air before it could hit him. He let out a soft whistle of appreciation when he found it to be a heavy wooden geta sandal; that would have left a nasty lump on his noggin if it had hit him.

"I appreciate the gesture kid but one shoe isn't really very useful; especially not when it's the wrong size," Harry quipped as he gently lobbed the sandal back over his shoulder, without looking, where it clattered harmlessly to the ground when the kid jumped backwards in surprise.

"Don't you even care?" the kid demanded as he finally got over the surprise of Harry returning the sandal in the same way it had been delivered.

"You'll have to be more specific, gaki."

"Don't you care that your kid will be left all alone when you die? How can you be so mean as to leave him? Why do you fight when you know you're going to die?"

"And who would protect my son from the likes of Gato if I am not willing to fight and die to protect him?" Harry asked softly in return as he stopped walking and half turned to face the boy. "How could I ever look my son in the eye if I cowered behind the fear of death and failed to protect him, his friends, his classmates, and his teachers? Someone has to fight and if I am not willing to fight for my family, then who will? If I am not willing to risk my life to protect others, then what right do I have to expect others to protect my precious people for me?"

Harry paused as he watched the kid's eyes grow wide and he could practically see the little gears turning in the kid's mind as something in Harry's words triggered a memory. Harry waited until the kid focused on him once more before he continued, "A great man once told me that it is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. And throughout our life time, there will be times when we are faced with the choice of doing what is right over doing what is easy. When I first learned that your grandfather had lied to us about this mission, it would have been easy for us to turn our backs on Nami no Kuni and walk away but it would not have been right."

Harry watched the child for another minute before he turned and continued on his way out of the house. As he stepped outside into the thin, sun-kissed mist that filled the clearing, Harry couldn't help but reflect upon the number of times that Dumbledore's words had given him the courage to do what was right. There were times when he was still incredibly angry with his mentor over the meddling the man had done in his life but at the same time he was also incredibly grateful to the man for helping to make him who he was today.

As he stepped down off of the porch, Harry's eyes automatically cut to the west as he wondered what his friends in the Outer Countries were doing. It was at that moment that he realized he'd lost touch with the others and that he'd neither written to anyone nor received anything from anyone for nearly a year. A frown tugged at his mouth while guilt pooled in his belly before he forcefully shoved both the guilt and his worry out of his mind. He could rectify the unintentional distance he'd allowed to form between him and his friends and family on the other side of the barrier later; for now, he had a mission to complete.

"What are you doing out of bed?" Izumo demanded as he stepped around the corner of the house and spotted Harry standing in front of the house.

"Offering deep philosophical advice to all of the children that I run into; did you wish to hear yours now or did you want to wait until after breakfast?"

"Did you just imply that I'm immature?"

"I implied nothing," Harry retorted with a smirk when he caught sight of the pouting scowl that Izumo was now leveling at him. "All teasing aside, I'm feeling much better than I did yesterday after my fight. I'll be a bit sore for a few hours yet though because I'm still rather exhausted. All I really need is for someone to cut the stitches out of my back before I hunt down something to eat. I'd have grabbed food first but I thought I'd check in with you guys and see what happened after I crashed."

"And the philosophical advice you were offering?"

"Tsunami's son took offense to the condition I returned in yesterday and when he attempted to take me to task for my apparent disregard of my son's feelings, I gave him some food for thought; after I returned the sandal that he attempted to bean me in the head with."

Izumo laughed heartily as he pulled out a kunai and gestured for Harry to turn around. Harry complied without any of the hesitation he might have felt six months earlier; lifting his shirt up just enough to expose the three lines of neat, tiny, and tight stitches that Tsunami had used to close the gashes on his back. As the razor sharp tip of the kunai nipped and tugged at the threads fused to his skin, Harry focused on Izumo's verbal report after giving a brief prayer of gratitude to whomever it was that had invented pain relieving potions as each stitch ripped his skin a bit as it was pulled out.

"Things have been fairly quiet since we returned yesterday afternoon. Your clones had secured the most recent prisoners by the time we got back. Tazuna has been real quiet and jumpy ever since he'd learned you'd been hurt while Tsunami and her kid have been rather moody. Tsunami nearly skewered a few of your clones when she found them in her kitchen last night but she eventually let them be as she tended to you personally."

"Do you know if any of the five new prisoners have woken up yet?"

"One of Gato's bodyguards was yelling and cursing a few hours ago according to the clones you have on duty but other than that, no. When do you think you'll be up to making additional cells? I really don't like the idea of the Oni Kyoudai sharing a cell."

"We won't need the extra cells," Harry countered as he leaned forward to allow Izumo better access to the lowest line of stitches in response to Izumo tapping on his back. "Once I get all of the information I can from the latest five prisoners, then we can make arrangements for them to be housed elsewhere. Now that we have Gato, everything else should fall into place fairly easily; providing nothing else goes wrong."

"What about all of the bandits that are running around terrorizing the villagers?"

"Well, we have several options… we could capture them and send them back to Konoha, we could capture them and turn them over to the villagers, we could just chase them out of Nami no Kuni, or we could dispose of them permanently."

"The Hokage won't want to deal with them, the villagers will either stone them to death or just set them free, and chasing them out is going to just cause problems in other places," Izumo pointed out as he pulled free the final bit of thread.

"So basically, we will have to leave them to the mercy of the villagers which might well see them back on the streets again or we give them a shinobi's final mercy?" Harry asked as he straightened up, pulled his shirt back down, and glanced over his shoulder to meet the gaze of his teammate.

Izumo didn't reply. There was no reason for him to say anything further; the answer was plain as day in his eyes.

"May Merlin, Maeve, and Mungo protect and preserve me from madness and give me the strength to do what I must to protect the innocent," Harry solemnly intoned in English as he continued to hold Izumo's eyes. After a full minute, he tore his gaze away and headed for the temporary prison as he stated, "Thanks for getting rid of the stitches for me, Izumo. I'll be interviewing our newest guests if you need me… or I will once I grab something to snack on."

Notes:

* Slightly modified quote by Dumbledore taken from CoS, Chapter 18. Original quote: 'It is our choices Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities'. The bit about a choice between 'what is right and what is easy' is a reference to the speech that Dumbledore gave at the end of GoF (chapter 37) when speaking about Cedric's death and Voldemort's return.

AN: Next chapter will be up on Friday and I think that's the last story in this arc... though there might be one more after that. I'm not certain as I'm working on a different story right now. In any case, I'll be posting the next arc right after I finish the Wave Arc since it's already written and I still haven't decided which story I'll be updating next. For now, I'll leave my fellow Americans with a HAPPY TURKEY DAY and the rest of you with pumpkin pie. ~ Jenn