The moment when they set foot in the elven lands was quite noticeable. There was a kind of corruption spreading in those lands, a forest whose echo of verdant beauty and vivacity could still be seen here and there, but which only made the sad reality of that anguished land more evident.

Kana gestured and the black wolf the size of a dog approached, walking beside her. She scratched his ear, huffing in amusement as his tail wagged happily.

"Tsk. Already tamed, little wolf?"

"So what exactly happened?" Kana asked calmly, her black eyes roaming over the twisted shapes of trees and dense canopy. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Katsuo biting his lip.

"I… was training. I wanted to show Riki the shunshin technique you taught me. I thought we were alone, but... There was a group of fishermen who were coming back and saw what I did... and then they started accusing us of being servants of the enemy."

"Hm. And the Sharingan?"

"They tried to get me and Eiko." Riki intervened, showing an arm with a bruise. Raijin growled as if understanding they'd been attacked, and circled Riki and Eiko, licking his arm.

"I just couldn't control it, one moment they were catching Riki and the next I saw red."

"OK."

The boys looked at each other and the eldest left his lips parted.

"That's it? No lectures about how I compromised all of us or that I fucked up and…you know… I should have listened to you when you said I was supposed to train only when you were around?"

She smirked, inwardly amused at his disbelief. Of course, it had been a direct disregard for her orders, and at home, disobedience to the captain's orders could have had serious consequences, especially for Uchihas.

But Kana was not so blind as to treat them merely as subordinates. There's something good about having been friends with a Yamanaka for so long: they manage to cram a little common sense into even the most emotionally stunted of Uchihas.

"Also, they need more training, away from curious eyes. Eiko has grown up enough to no longer be a concern in the grand scheme of things. And what better way to increase their reflexes and camouflage skills than in a forest?"

The girl shrugs nonchalantly.

"It might have been for the best."

The wolf emits what appears to be something between a bark and a short howl, quite in agreement.

Kana slows her pace, feeling a tingle, like energy probing her. Similar to a sensory ninja, though certainly without the subtlety of one.

"Oh? How fascinating. Are these the elves? Or some other creature of this world?"

"Anyway, we have a slightly more limited choice of places to go. I believe that isolated as they are, the village will spread rumors about us being spies. People seem pretty paranoid about this Sauron. So, Rohan is out for now. If the contact with the natives of this land is little like Minastir implied that the elves did not mess with humans, we can continue in the Forest and from here we will see where to go. Travel the world or something like that... Only, with a little more discretion from now on."

"I'm sorry for blowing our cover..." The boy said sadly and looked at the floor.

Kana stopped, staring at him contemplatively.

"They were a threat to your safety. Don't apologize for protecting yourself and our family, Katsuo. Now, let's see your progress with the shunshin, shall we?"

Riki was sore all over his body and he threw himself down beside Katsuo, who was panting with equal weariness. Training for him, the younger, didn't involve chakra techniques, but he had enough kata to master to even think about chakra. On top of that, he also took the meager lessons in fuinjutsu theory, which was mentally exhausting, especially in a forest that, in most places, was dark.

"Rini! Rini!" Eiko stammered, throwing herself on top of him, which made his sore ribs complain and he let out a rather undignified "oof".

"Now what?" He questioned, trying to dissuade her from using him as a trampoline.

"Pay! Pay!"

"Eiko, look, Katsuo-niisan, he looks like he wants to play with you..." Riki pointed to the cousin next to him. Katsuo glanced briefly and opened her arms to the girl, who sat on top of Riki and pouted.

"Rini! Riniii!"

"Kana-neechan?"

The teenager didn't even stop sharpening the blade.

"Eiko wants Rini."

"Eiko-chan… Rini tired. Rini very, very tired. Play later?"

"No! No! Pay! Now! Pay with Rini!"

"Eru give me energy." The boy thought before frowning in confusion. "Who is Eru? And why did I think that?"

"Uh... so how about... we play... we play..." Riki looks around, looking for something that wasn't exhausting and would still be enough entertainment for the one-year-old girl. His gaze landed on Raijin, sitting alertly beside Kana.

"How about we play the wolf game?"

"Woo...fuh?" Eiko tilted her head, her cheeks round and dark eyes curious. Riki combed a straight strand of her short dark brown hair, and found himself explaining:

"Rajin is a wolf. He goes "awoo". We just have to do the same. So... awooooo... see?

"That's not a wolf, It's a dog with diarrhea. Clearly, that's not a howl worthy of an Uchiha and you need someone who knows how things are done. Eiko, pay attention." Katsuo scoffed and then prepared his throat, letting out his "Uchiha" version of a howl.

"Awoh! Awooooooooo! Awoooooo!" Eiko imitated, a bright smile on her face and Riki found himself smiling along.

"Kana-neechan! You too!" The boy asked happily.

Kana looked at him perplexed for a moment.

"No way." Her expression said.

Eiko glared at her, frowning in irritation.

"Yes way." It shows the faces of the three children who looked at her expectantly.

"Hell no, I don't… Uh. Geez! Three is not fair."

She sighed before shrugging and doing the same. After all, if you can't run away from the madness, join it... right?

Soon, there were four children and a wolf howling out of tune in Mirkwood Forest. If anyone asked, however, she would never admit such a fact.

Riki laughed, not caring about his ears hurting or Eiko jumping on his belly and he howled.

"Having a pack is good. I should have gotten one a long time ago."

Riki frowns, the tone of his voice changing to something more animalistic, much like a real howl. He widens his eyes at the silence that follows, a chill of fear running through his body. He shouldn't have done that… whatever that was.

Eiko claps her hands happily.

"Rini wofuh! Again! Again!"

"Dude. That was worthy of an Uchiha wolf." Katsuo joked and Riki felt himself relax, laughing nervously. He doesn't have much time to relax as Kana stands, ears pricked and every posture screaming alert.

"Formation! Fast!"

He barely had time to grab Eiko's arm and place himself in front of her, while Katsuo positioned himself beside him when a swarm of black shapes crashes through the treetops. Eiko screamed, terrified and squeezing his arm.

He turns pale at the sight of countless eyes and huge spider paws stretching out before him. Witnessing her guardian's lethality, Riki has trouble following Kana's fluid movements and the serene expression on her face.

"It's like this is nothing at all." He thinks in awe, her experience contrasting with Katsuo's clumsy jabs. One of the spiders got too close and Kana split it in two, a gooey liquid splattering on the floor.

"Uh. Minastir was not exaggerating when he said that the spiders are big. Riki, give me Eiko and get your weapons. It's good a time for you to throw kuna... daggers, I mean. Katsuo, behind you." She warns assertively, but without urgency, after picking up Eiko.

Riki recognized then that she trusted them, that she was sure that those spiders were mere unforeseen events and that they were perfectly capable of handling it. A desire to reward that implicit trust surged, dispatching the uncertainty of his ability that had paralyzed him.

"Hai!" Katsuo replied, the fatigue of the previous training forgotten along with the laughter and howls. Now adrenaline was pumping through his veins and he put into practice the lessons learned in those six and a half months in Middle-earth.

And as the spider count dropped significantly, Riki had a poignant thought that this was what he was made for.

[To purge the scum and uselessness of this world. To forge the world into a beautiful and functional place, together with its true brothers. Like before.]

He didn't question where that thought came from, or when, exactly, it was before.

He liked the forest. It was not as frightening as Minastir told.

Who would care about giant spiders when they had the precision of a ninja and a wolf? (That day when he and Katsuo got stung, became paralyzed, and found out what it was like to be in a cocoon didn't count because everything turned out well, in the end.)

And the Orcs? Pfff. They couldn't keep up with the speed of a pre-genin like him and Katsuo. (Of course, there was an embarrassing occasion when he was unable to fight because the orc he had killed had fallen on him. Eiko had laughed and said 'again', that little brat.)

Hostile trees and animals? Kana could make even trees tremble with her killing intent if she was really bothered. (He would mock Katsuo for eternity for pissing himself when she did it the first time. It was kind of hilarious, but only until she decided they were taking a few days to learn how to deal with killing intent at different intensities. Even Eiko. Yeah, Kana sometimes was too much.)

Also, Eiko had started to get the hang of good hiding places, which was his own initiative to teach something remotely "ninja" to the youngest member of the family. Kana approved of his proactive attitude, even though Katsuo was sulking all the while mumbling about how he wanted to monopolize Eiko-chan's love. (He decided that Katsuo was an absolute drama queen when it came to Eiko-chan. At this point, he's pretty sure that Katsuo-nii always wanted a little sister).

With his older brothers, Raijin, in this dark forest, clearing the world of repulsive things and learning fascinating subjects from Kana, it felt like home. More so than when they were in the village and, if he was being completely honest, more than in the Uchiha clan in Konoha.

"I just need Mom and Dad here and everything would be just right." He thinks, a little sadly, and begins to create in his mind scenarios in which he showed them this forest and...

"Hey! What was that for? Can someone no longer bathe in peace in this life?" Riki complained while Katsuo splashed water on him. Coughing up the water a little, the skinny boy pushed the older one who had a smug and absolutely irritating smirk on his face.

"A ninja is always aware of his surroundings."

"Well, we're not ninjas. And stop that, such an irritating thing!" Riki countered, annoyed with Katsuo childishly poking him in the ribs.

"But we will be ninjas when we get back to Konoha. And I won't stop. Yours abandoned dog face was getting on my nerves, so take the nudges as punishment."

"And what if we don't come back?" Riki asked softly. "We could stay here. In this forest. Us five. Killing orcs and other weird stuff."

Katsuo stops nudging him, with a serious face, holding him by the shoulders.

"We will be back. This is not our home, Riki. We can't stay in our own little world just because we're afraid of being alone if..."

He didn't finish. He didn't need to. There were so many factors that could go wrong on the way back to Konoha that it didn't take a genius to understand that the safest option was to stay.

"That's what distracted you." Katsuo stated and the youngest shook his head.

"Not exactly... I miss mom and dad. But I don't know if I want to go back. I don't know how we could ever walk again through streets that were filled with the bodies of our relatives."

There was a moment of silence and Katsuo released him, speaking softly, in a whisper:

"I get it. Sometimes I'm not sure if it's memories, but I have nightmares of that day. It's hard to try to imagine living there again."

Riki nodded and bit his lip hesitantly. Rubbing a soap plant that Kana had found for them to sanitize, Riki glanced sideways at Katsuo.

"Do you... have nightmares about anything else?"

"Like what?" Katsuo asked, confused.

"You know...orcs or...um...a lidless, huge, and quite a scary eye of fire?"

"That was specific." Katsuo pointed, frowning. "But no, I haven't dreamed of any eyes that aren't red. Do you want to talk about your nightmares?"

Riki huffed and shuddered, before smiling wryly.

"Do you?"

Katsuo smiled awkwardly. Definitely not.

"Uh."

Kana isn't proud of that tiny moment when her mind went into a complete state of incoherence and the only thing echoing in her mind was a stupefied syllable. Her thoughts returned to Minastir's description of the species they might encounter through Mirkwood and there was only one logical conclusion.

"Elves."

It was hard to look just as hard as it was to stop looking.

She'd met a lot of beautiful, stunning, and attractive people in her short life—hell, her own clan was gifted with admirable genetics—but that? Holy Cow.

That was the definition of beautiful, in the purest sense. It was as if the beauty of those beings was something intangible that was expressed in their bearing, in their features, something beyond the aesthetic issue, although she couldn't describe why. It wasn't as if those creatures were perfect, Kana noticed, and more as if their beauty was a kind of reflection of a superior being endowed with goodness, justice, and purity.

It was disconcerting. Uncomfortable, even.

Shaking herself from her gawking state as she surveyed the group of soldiers patrolling the forest, she dodged an arrow from one of the beautiful creatures just in time.

"Mnn. Good instincts, to notice my presence, even camouflaged."

She focused her attention on the one who was still looking with sharp intelligence in the direction he had shot. Sun-golden hair and eyes an almost wintry silver-blue evidenced his non-humanity. Transfixed by his deep eyes, simultaneously revealing wisdom and integrity, Kana didn't know how Minastir could have mistaken her or the kids for one of them.

Those things had the weight of centuries inscribed in a look.

"More troublesome creatures lurking, I assume? I fear that the shadows that grow in our home hide, once again, the strange creature that our Majesty warned us about."

The kunoichi blinked slowly, listening to their musical pronunciation in curiosity.

"Different language. Tsc. Harder to deceive then."

The squad of six elves was on guard, but it was the professional defensive posture of someone who was already used to patrolling. Until the reflexive archer said something that made the others apprehensive.

"We're being watched. Probably by this same beast my father warned us about."

Another elf, as handsome as the archer but without his aristocratic aspect, spoke in a tone that passed a little frustration.

"Perception fails me at this moment, my lord. I don't notice any creatures watching us other than the beasts we've become accustom..."

The Uchiha had the typical influx of information received from their shadow clone, which had just been immobilized by their cousins and the wolf, on the opposite side of the position she was.

"A month and a half to become efficient in teamwork and immobilize my clone. I think it's time to increase the challenges for the little ones. What to do? Mm..."

Her eyes flicked to the group of defensive elves below her.

"Maybe…Camouflage, infiltration, and escape?"

Using a shunshin and pulling away, a fierce smile played on her lips with the sound of surprised exclamations at the place where a swirl of leaves had formed. Kana tries to convince herself that she was doing this because the boys just needed more training.

It definitely wasn't because she was bored and the elves seemed like perfect targets for ninja pranks.

The ethereal light of moonlight fell upon the faces of his kind.

The scent of wine and food was inviting, the pleasant melody he'd heard for centuries but that did nothing to take his thoughts from the threat that had observed them earlier. Watching the elves he had led earlier, Legolas was sure he was not the only one thinking about that dangerous and unknown creature.

The creature he had in his aim and yet had missed the mark. It was a piece of fact that he couldn't get out of his head, because he was so sure he'd aimed right, even with that strange sensation of a veil covering his vision and altering his senses so he wouldn't notice the being's location.

Lost in reconstructing every bit of information he possessed about It, the elf could hardly say that he was enjoying his king's attempts at a feast as in those days when the shadow had not spread so far through their land. Instead, his mind replayed each piece of information, trying to extract anything, absolutely anything new from the brief interaction he'd had with the target he'd missed.

"No description of its appearance, no sound emitted, not even a typical smell that tells me anything. All that is known about it is that it is powerful."

His entire body shivers with the residue of that tremendous energy resonating through every fiber of his being, something that neither he nor his race had seen in their entire existence and whose power probably surpassed or equality of an Istari.

That didn't make him any less frustrated with his mistake. He took pride in his craft and it had been a long time since he missed a target on purpose. And, despite his caution, the uneasiness arising from the expectation of a new goal took its place in his heart with stubbornness.

A determined smile played on his lips, blue eyes darting through the forest trees in thirst to find his new prey.

He daresay, that this will be the closest to a challenge he had in centuries.

"Katsuo, you're still wasting more energy doing expansive movements that don't suit your height. Your balance has improved, however. How is the progress with the henge technique?"

The boy flashed a satisfied smile, brushing off the black hair that clung to his skin due to sweat and then transformed into a perfect Riki. The Uchiha arched a brow in anticipation and Kana hummed in approval, nodding.

"Riki, do you think you're capable of starting the third set of clan taijutsu kata and adding to the two you've already learned?"

"Hai!" Riki stated emphatically, his light brown eyes shining with a thirst for knowledge. Kana paused, frowning in confusion.

"I swore his eyes were darker. Uh. I must be getting sloppy for not paying attention to something like that."

"And I? And I?" Eiko asked, jumping up and down, hands curling into little fists. "lan fwight, catch bad pider! And stinky orc!"

Kana narrowly avoided smiling, Eiko's completely serious face speaking of the child's determination. She crouched down, getting closer to the child's height, wondering how that speck of people had grown so much in just seven months.

"You, Eiko Uchiha, will learn to run like a ninja."

Eiko tilted her head, not understanding how running would help in the fight against the spiders.

"Run ninja, not fwight. Wanna fwight!"

"Eiko will fight, but only after learning a few things. It's a very, very important thing to know how to run. Riki, Katsuo, and I already know how to run like a ninja, don't you want to learn too?

The girl shook her head vigorously, short, spiky brown hair bouncing along.

"Yea! Wanna lan!

"Learn."

"Lan!"

"Learn."

"Le…le...lean?"

"Uh... Almost there. Katsuo, a demonstration of the ninja run?"

"Hai, Kana-neechan."

As the boy ran, the female teen felt a rough tongue on her hand, followed by a short yelp. Riki snorted and pointed at the black wolf.

"He doesn't want to be left out of the pack."

"He is..."

"Food? Come on, Kana-neechan, at this point we all know he's more of a ninken. What does it cost to train him in the same way?"

She glanced at the strangely intelligent wolf and shrugged.

"Mn."

"Is that a yes? Or a maybe?

"Mn."

"Ugh! I'm going to start compiling a list of your monosyllables and the meanings behind them! It's practically a language of its own!"

"Oh?"

Riki stared at her in concentration.

"That was totally an 'Oh' of 'I'm enjoying your frustration, keep on, entertainment', wasn't it?

"…Mn."

"Ha! So it's a 'maybe'!

Kana sighed.

"Kids."

Riki liked the forest.

But then, Riki met them.

And he promptly decided that he hated the forest and its damn perfect elves who ruined his life just by existing.

Seriously, he didn't understand why Kana, Katsuo, and Eiko were so captivated by them! He honestly didn't see why they had to keep testing their skills on elves of all things. But it was ok because Kana said they could travel the world and soon he could leave behind those idiot elves who only served to distract his brothers and sisters from what was really important. After all, they had a mission and it was definitely not fraternizing with elves.

[It's always the elves. Always.]

Perched in the treetops, Kana raised her hand, signaling Katsuo to wait. Turning to Riki, she counted down with her fingers, silently.

"3,2,1…now!"

A rustle of leaves and a howl is every warning they have. She follows Riki's movements, mounted on the wolf, her genjutsu making his form an indistinct shadow.

With admirable accuracy, he hurls projectiles of his own invention at the elves, causing a much-needed distraction.

"Phase one: cause a riot." Riki thinks, satisfaction filling his chest at the alarm it caused. Several cracks were heard around the place, smoke rising from the stones on which he inscribed his still small knowledge of fuinjutsu.

"We are under attack! Defend yourselves!"

Katsuo, beside Kana, sharingan active and concentrated expression before turning around and gesturing for signs that he was ready. Kana shook her head, giving him permission to proceed.

"Second phase: confuse the opponent."

The smoke cleared, not that it had done much to block the elves' sight, and where there had been six elves there were now seven, one of them quite stunned to see a reflection of himself before him.

Katsuo couldn't help but approach the elf, invading his personal space and examining him with fascination. It wasn't every day he saw a new species, after all, and Kana said knowledge was power. (He hated when she made them dissect the orcs, but he had to admit it was far more efficient to kill them already knowing where each organ was).

"Iston!"

The elf and the elf-Katsuo turned to where their companions stood, distressed and unsure of what to aim for.

"I am the real one! This creature is trying to confuse us!

Katsuo pouted. It was just like Kana said – they would have to try to learn some of that language if they wanted to be a real threat.

"Meh. We just wanted to scare you." He thinks, smiling mischievously, and raises his hand, doing the shunshin technique, releasing a wave of chakra that left the millennial beings in a state of shock with so much energy.

Kana contemplated that, as she suspected, the beings of this world seemed to feel quite a bit when chakra was used.

"Tsc. Such inconvenient."

She just hoped her chakra suppression was enough to not give away her location to that world's equivalent of a sensory ninja. From what she'd seen, that first archer she'd first encountered could be someone with that skill.

"Well, the list of things to teach just goes on and on. Uh... What is the salary of a ninja academy teacher?"

"Kaka and Rini have alweady finish pay?" Eiko, who was peeking curiously from Kana's lap, asked in a whisper.

"Yes, they're done with playing. And we're on our way."

She said, jumping from branch to branch, an expression quite pleased with herself at the thought of the countless possibilities of pranks... ahn... training she had in mind.