Kotori was dead.

It was unlike all the times she thought she would die and had passed out, only to wake up in a hospital. She had felt it. The moment of her death, when her soul finally separated from her body. Well… she wouldn't reflect on that moment. It hardly mattered anymore.

She thought she would be sadder at her passing. That she'd be full of regrets for the life she had yet to live, all of the things that she still wanted to do, all of her hopes and dreams left unfulfilled. That she would be desperate to return. Instead, she felt sorrow only for her friends. She knew they would mourn her passing just as she had mourned others. Ensui, especially, would take it hard. She wished he hadn't been there in her final moments for his sake.

But mostly, she felt at peace. Her soul lighter than it had been in years, free from all of its earthly burdens. She hadn't realized how weighed down she had been in life. Now she felt as light as a feather. It was a surreal moment. She smiled as she listened to the birds chirping and the sound of a flute calling her. As her eyes took in a place that she never thought she'd see again.

Kotori was home.

She stood under a teal torii that marked the entrance to the Sorano compound. The Sorano compound itself was a modest size. It was walled in like the Hyuga compound. There was enough houses for the dozen or so families who made up the clan lining the perimeter along with a dojo and a training yard tucked into the back corner. There was also the large main house for the clan leader. Her grandfather had lived there throughout her childhood, before he had died in the third war and her uncle Karasu took over.

In the centre of the compound was a giant ginkgo tree buzzing with hundreds of species of birds. She spied her uncle's azure winged blackbirds, her brothers' bush warblers and orchard orioles and her beloved black-capped chickadees.

In life, the tree had been set ablaze, the compound crushed under the feet of a rampaging chakra beast. Kotori hadn't been able to afford restoring the place - and in the long run couldn't afford the upkeep or taxes for a property that was meant to be shared. It had been too full of memories, too full of grief. So she had sold it back to the village and walked away from it, never intending to see it again. Her memories had faded over time.

But now everything was exactly the same.

One of her chickadees flew over to her, circling twice around her head. She followed it to the stone path that lead towards the family shrine. The forest behind their compound made up the bulk of their clan lands and was their shining jewel. It was where the Sorano first learned to fly with their ninja hawk partners and were truly free. There were obstacle courses built in the treetops, swinging bridges and log ropes full of hidden traps to catch them off balance.

Kotori skipped from rock to rock as she had done as a child. The music growing louder as she approached. There, sitting under her favourite maple tree, was a man. He had long brown hair that was tied back in a ponytail, his forehead protector pushing his bangs up and over it. He had the same olive skin tone as many in their clan. But it was his eyes that drew her. Not many had those forest green eyes. Most of the Sorano clan had sky blue. Her chickadee flew over to him, tweeting along with the last few notes of the melody before landing on his shoulder.

Kotori instantly recognized him. "Dad?"

Sorano Hayabusa's eyes crinkled in delight as he jumped up to greet her. He was a stout man, but surprisingly light on his feet. He grabbed her by the shoulders, spinning her around once before pulling anyway, taking her in almost reverently.

He cupped her cheeks with his hands and while they looked calloused and rough, the only thing Kotori could feel was warmth and love.

"I'm so proud of you, sweetheart. Welcome home."

She didn't realize how badly she needed to hear that.

He grabbed her in a tight hug, almost hesitating to let go. Once he did, Kotori looked at him and realized… her father had been so very young when he died. They looked roughly the same age.

"Come, sit with me. I want to hear everything," he said. "Your mother and brothers are waiting for us in the Pure Lands, I just couldn't resist the chance to have you to myself after all these years."

"I wouldn't know where to start."

Hayabusa laughed - it was a joyful sound. "Anything. Your favourite season. Your favourite food. Peaches were your favourite, when you were little. Do you still have that stuffed hawk your mother made you? You used to carry it everywhere. I remember you as a little girl - and here you are, a fully grown woman. I want to hear you speak."

Kotori smiled because talking to him felt so natural, so easy. "I still like peaches. I don't know about favourite. And I have the stuffed hawk, with some other things. Your flute."

"Do you play?" He eagerly asked.

"I learned, when I was little." She hadn't played in years. Not since she had been twelve. "Can you play something?"

"Yes this one is your song. I used to play it every night before you went to sleep."

She sat down next to him on the log, resting her head on his shoulder as he began playing the flute again. It was a cheerful and upbeat melody, one that wove the few notes her chickadees made into a longer song.

Kotori had an understanding that she could linger in this plane of existence or choose to move on and see the rest of her family. Her mother and her brothers. Her grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. But she wasn't ready to move on just yet. Her soul yearned to find Kakashi's; she could feel his presence, somewhere out there. If she closed her eyes she could see the red ribbon wrapped around her heart stretching out into the vast unknown. When she opened her eyes, she could still see the Sorano clan lands before her. However if she focused on that red ribbon wrapped around her heart - if she followed it - she could see Kakashi sitting next to her on the log, facing the opposite direction. She could feel the heat on her back, as if a campfire was burning brightly.

The music, the campfire - their worlds slotted perfectly together.

For a moment, everything faded and it was just them. As if they were in a pocket dimension of their very own. His hand rested on top of hers. They were no longer made of flesh and bones. Rather than the calloused hands she had known in life, she felt the very essence of his soul. Bright and warm, flickering against hers.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Didn't mean to keep you waiting."

He gave her a mock glare. However there was no real ire behind it. It was hard to feel much of anything in this existence other than peace.

"Maybe it's not what either of us intended, but I'd - I'd be happy sitting here with you for eternity," she said.

And she would be. Until their souls were reborn into the next life. She felt a sense of peace that whatever happened, they would be together.

"I didn't want you to - I never wanted you to follow me so soon. But now that you're here - "

"I know."

"I need to see a few people," Kakashi said. She could feel the nervous anticipation buzz through him and knew he intended to seek out Obito and Rin. Kakashi's soul would not have peace until he finally put those old earthly regrets to rest. "And then I'll come find you. We'll go together."

"Of course. I'll wait for you."

She blinked open her eyes and found herself lightly dozing on her dad's shoulder as he played the final notes of her song.

"There you are," Hayabusa murmured as she stirred. "How is Sakumo's boy?"

"He's good, really good," Kotori shyly admitted.

"I should have seen that one coming - you used to get so upset when he'd play with your brothers and ignore you."

"You knew Kakashi?" She vaguely recalled that Kakashi had known her older brothers, but she had assumed he knew them in the way that all shinobi children of a similar age knew each other. Most of them had grown up playing kick the can or ninja at Senju Park before going off to the academy.

"Yeah, his father and I were on an ANBU team together. The Hawk and the Hound," Hayabusa fondly reminisced. "You know, Sakumo babysat you and your brothers once. You couldn't have been older than two at the time. There was a little accident where the boys were roughhousing, I think they were playing kick the can or something and you always wanted to play with them. But anyway, Kakashi tripped you, you skinned your knee. I've never seen Sakumo look so grave and apologetic over a little bloodshed and tears."

Hayabusa was chuckling over the memory.

"Poor little Kakashi was mortified," Hayabusa laughed. "Ah, he was a good kid. Good heart."

Kotori felt warm as he spoke, sharing stories of her forgotten early years in return for everything that had happened since. When suddenly, she was struck by a greenish light.

"What's going on?" She nervously asked.

"You're being called back to the Land of the Living. Go. I can wait for a while yet," Hayabusa promised her, his fingers weaving a familiar set of hand signs that ended in the bird seal. A black-capped chickadee formed in the palm of his outstretched hands. "I'll keep watch over you until then."

"The chickadees - " she realized.

"Were my gift to you."

xXx

The first thing she noticed was pain. A dizzying amount of pain. Her limbs were heavy and her eyelids felt as if they were glued shut. She groaned as she cracked open her eyes to find a blurry figure hovering over her.

"Dad?" She mumbled.

She squinted and the blurry figure finally came into focus. Dark hooded eyes instead of forest green. Ensui's hair had started to fall out of his ponytail and he hadn't bothered to fix it. His face was smeared with soot and - tear tracks. He had been crying?

No, he was crying. Ensui's face crumbled. "Oh thank the gods."

He helped her sit up before pulling her into a hug. It was uncomfortably tight and she was pretty sure she still had some cracked ribs, but she didn't say anything as she tiredly buried her face into his shoulder.

"You died," he gruffly said. The hurt was evident in his voice. "Fathers aren't meant to bury their kids. It's not the natural order of things. You understand, right - ?"

And now she was the one crying. "Yeah, I understand."

She was fortunate she had been given two fathers. One who watched over her from beyond and one who was by her side day-by-day. In that brief moment she had with her father, she had realized the kind of unconditional love and support Hayabusa would have given her if he had the opportunity to do so. That he would sit in purgatory to watch over her her entire life. It was the same kind that Ensui had offered her for so many years.

She deeply inhaled. Ensui smelt smoky. Not cigarette smoke, but as if something had been burning. The village, she realized. They were sitting outside a large crater where the village used to be. All around it were large amounts of stone and other debris.

"How am I -?" She said.

"Naruto negotiated with Pein, they reached an understanding. He used the rinnegan to revive all those who had been killed in the fighting. Katsuya-sama has been giving us a play-by-play."

A smaller version of Lady Tsunade's summon poked her head out from underneath Ensui's collar.

"Please allow me to examine you, Kotori-san," the slug said. "Being revived from death doesn't mean all of your wounds were healed. Only the mortal ones."

Kotori was relieved to be back. The ethereal state of being was peaceful, but it had come at the cost of potential. She had been given a second chance at life and the endless opportunities that now stretched before her. She had been given a chance for a future, one with -

Kakashi.

Her heart stopped. She had seen - But, no. If she was alive, then he had to be too. Ensui said everyone had been revived.

"That is all that I can do for now," Katsuya said. "Your body still needs time to heal. Please, do not strain yourself."

Ensui helped her to her feet. He wrapped an arm around her, supporting her weight as he helped her hobble towards where the rest of the village had gathered to wait Naruto's return. Every so often, an ANBU would pass by them and wordlessly clap her on the back before disappearing again into the mass of people. All around them, friends, families and lovers were reuniting in tearful reunions.

However Kotori wasn't paying attention to any of them. Her eyes were scanning the crowd until they found - him.

"Kakashi!" Her voice caught in her throat.

In a way, seeing Kakashi alive felt even more surreal than being brought back to life herself. For those horrible, horriblefew minutes, he had died. She had seen the moment he took his last breath, she had felt his last heartbeat. Gods, he had tried to comfort her with his last words.

He had died.

Kotori knew that they could live to be a hundred and she would still have nightmares about that moment.

She wanted nothing more than to run to him. To throw her arms around his neck and hug him tightly. And yet in that moment there was an entire ocean of people separating them. Everyone wanted to touch him, congratulate him. Kakashi was a hero.

Kotori was nothing in comparison. Another faceless ANBU. One who had ultimately failed. Years of trying to improve the village's defences, months of running her team through drills, weeks of preparation for an invasion. And it had all been for nothing. Under her watch, the Akatsuki had destroyed the village. She and countless others would still be dead if it weren't for Naruto.

She was so caught up in her own thoughts that she hadn't noticed that Kakashi had parted the crowd in his effort to get to her.

He grabbed her, holding her so tightly she could feel the way his muscles trembled. She could feel him. Gods, he felt so good. His earthly presence was warm and solid and squishing her a little too painfully into his cheat, but she didn't care. She never wanted him to let her go, because he was real and he was here and they were alive.

They were alive, they were alive, they were alive!

"You died," he accused, as he buried his nose in her hair. His voice was thick with pain.

"So did you," her own voice tearfully wavering. She understood why he was upset with her - she was just as upset with him. He had died. Didn't he realize how much his loss hurt her too?

They assembled as many shinobi as they could to give Naruto a proper hero's welcome once Kakashi went to retrieve him. Kotori felt a warm glow as Naruto's eyes lit with unexpected wonder as everyone applauded him.

Kakashi stood back, however his eye was crinkled in a proud smile.

The rest of the day was a haze of activity. Everyone had their roles in an emergency. Kotori was proud to see that the village worked flawlessly together. Patrol routes were organized. The barrier division was already at work erecting a temporary barrier until they could repair the one the Akatsuki destroyed. Emissaries were sent to the surrounding villages and capital to request food, supplies or what aid could be given. The rest of the forces worked quickly to set up rows of tents, assigning people places to stay and begin the lengthy process of clearing the debris.

"Do you have a place to stay for the night?" Kakashi asked once he tracked her down that evening.

"I was just going to sleep in a tree somewhere." If she slept at all.

"My father's house was on the outskirts," Kakashi explained. "I haven't been there in years, but it may have survived. We can stay there. There's space to turn it into an emergency shelter - Yamato can create additional buildings."

While the Hatake compound was boarded up and in a state of neglect, it was functional. More importantly, it had running water and indoor plumbing. They quickly turned it into a campsite with as many crammed in as they could reasonably fit. Priority had been given to those with small children. They were given rooms inside the house. Kurenai was sharing a room with Shiori and her family. Aoba's wife was rooming with Ebisu's wife and their two children. The rest of the shinobi set up camp outside in the garden. It was spacious enough to fit about two dozen people.

Sai was still off on a mission while Sakura was with Shizune, the two medics keeping vigil over Lady Tsunade's bedside. Their Hokage was unconscious, having expanded too much chakra to continuously heal the people of the village. It was unknown when she would wake - or if she would at all. Naruto had been invited and set up a bedroll between Yamato and Kakashi. Neither of them were far from his side. Naruto was unusually quiet. The teen looked shell shocked and Kotori figured that the events of today had finally started to catch up with him.

Which was why she hadn't heard him sneak up on her. She startled, holding a bird's nest that she had found on the ground. Fortunately the three eggs were still intact. She had been trying to find a new home for it, one where the momma bird and her eggs wouldn't be disturbed.

"Oh, hey Captain Kotori!" Naruto cheerfully greeted her. "Kakashi-sensei invited you too?"

He seemed unusually amused with that, failing to hide a snicker.

"Um, yes."

As far as Kotori knew, Kakashi still hadn't told his students about her. He had his reasons. He might even consider it necessary with the masked man and the remaining members of the Akatsuki still at large. Before it had felt like a private joke between them - the fact that Naruto and Sakura hadn't caught on. Now she felt like the joke.

They had died. He had died. She had died. The thought kept circling in her head. It felt like it should change things somehow. Perhaps it would. She cradled the little bird's nest close to her chest.

She placed the nest on one of the rafters in the small pavilion. There was enough space for the birds to come and go, but they would be safely tucked out of the way and undisturbed. Her chakra bird imitated a swallow's calls until they lured the mother over towards them. She tweeted at them, almost in reproach, before settling into the nest.

"There you go," Kotori cooed at the bird. "Now your eggs won't get trampled. Besides, you have a much nicer view from up here."

After some more murmured words, Kotori was able to stroke the bird's head with her finger. She wished she had some seed to offer the mother, but knew she would be fine.

Naruto lingered with her, watching the rest of the shinobi celebrate on the other side of the garden. Someone had a guitar and was strumming popular camp songs. Voices carried, laughing and boasting feats from their day. Someone else passed around aged whiskey Sakumo must have left behind. It felt a little ridiculous because half of them had been dead only hours ago and their village was nothing more than rubble. It would take months, if not years to rebuild.

Yet they were still here. They had won. That seemed like reason enough to celebrate.

Naruto seemed hesitant to join them. It was odd. Kotori didn't consider him particularly shy. While none of his usual cohort were around - most of the others his age had clans and families they were with tonight. But that had never stopped Naruto before. They were singing, laughing, celebrating - a victory possible all thanks to Naruto. He should be with them.

Eventually Naruto spoke. His voice softer than she had ever heard.

"It's everything I ever wanted when I was a kid, you know? Everyone hated me. I wanted - I wanted to prove myself, to make them respect me."

Kotori had a memory of long ago, that sad little boy pouting as she tried to reason with him.

No one likes me anyway.

He seemed to be wrestling with some silent demon, one he didn't dare voice. Kotori had an inkling what it could be.

"This didn't happen overnight," Kotori gently said. "The bonds that you've made have happened over time. Sakura, Shikamaru, Kakashi, they all believed in you. When the Akatsuki was looking for you, not a single person in this village was willing to give you up. You never needed to prove anything to belong here. Once people got to know you, the real you, not the stupid fox they thought you were, how could they not like you?"

"Thank you, Captain Kotori," Naruto said. The smile he offered her was blinding. It wasn't difficult to imagine how he had managed to make peace with Pein.

She patted him on the shoulder before leaving him to his own thoughts.

It wasn't long before Naruto joined them around the campfire, back to his boisterous self. He was sitting between Iruka and Yamato on a log, singing terribly with Gai and Lee in a rowdy drinking song. Izumo distracted Iruka while Kotetsu slipped Naruto cups of sake. Yamato rolled his eyes and looked the other way.

"It's like base camp, back in the war," Izumo said. He was sitting on the ground next to Kotetsu. Aimi, Yugao and Kotori were on the log behind them.

Genma was sitting on a stump near Aimi, his legs stretched out before him. He too had been revived from the afterlife. Aimi hadn't left his side since. Next to them, Kurenai was sitting on a log next to Raidou and Shiori. Aoba and his wife were across from them along with Ibiki, Tokitake and Iwashi.

Kakashi was off to the side, his arms crossed as he stood upright, leaning against a tree. He was staring pensively into the fire.

Her eyes caught Kakashi's across the campfire. His eye met hers before curving into a crescent. For a moment it was just the two of them. Her soul felt a flicker of familiarity. Of peace.

In the coming days ahead of them, Kotori would try to hold on to that feeling.