She's going to die, Katsuo thinks, his eyes filling with tears hugging Kana's fevered body. It's all very confusing because they see the wound and it looks so innocuous, little more than a scratch, but then the scratch turned black and it won't stop bleeding, little but constantly, no matter what they do. When the second day arrives and the wound looks worse, he was already completely unaware of his surroundings and another onslaught of orcs and wargs found them. He even had a moment to curse how many orcs there were in this universe because it seemed like they were multiplying like lice.

Katsuo is scared because there are too many of them and Kana is sick and Eiko's screams don't help. The teenager, who had become their guardian in this strange world, would kill, cut, and dismember everything that came very close to them, but Katsuo knows that her situation is only getting worse and that scares him more than the orcs. He does what he can and his months of training and Kana-imposed discipline have proved essential. He still wasn't great on offense, neither he nor Riki and Kana had instilled in them the "endurance and speed first" facet, so they fought and endured.

And they held up very well, the boy thinks with a hint of pride because neither he nor Riki is more than bruised, disheveled, and sweaty. But the satisfaction is short-lived as he notices Kana's staggering body unceremoniously fall flat on the ground.

Kana, as he feared, was getting worse. She seemed to have fought through sheer force of will and now she looked painfully pale and dying. It wasn't just the venom scratch, but multiple cuts and injuries and "Oh, God, her leg!" - Katsuo thinks, alarmed, that piece of her anatomy at an odd angle and definitely broken.

Raijin groans in pain beside Kana, a piece of his ear that looks like it has been ripped apart by teeth.

Little Eiko is curled up breathing shallowly, babbling unintelligibly and horrified.

Riki, his cousin, his little brother, looked at the new graveyard of orcs and wargs, with a blank expression.

Kana was going to die because they had no idea how to fix her and there is no chakra in this damn world.

And it's his fault.

A broken sob escapes from Katsuo then and his anguish is so great that he doesn't notice the spiders until it's too late.

"We will all die." It's his thought and he briefly wonders if he'd find his uncles in the Pure Lands. He had never given much thought to what came after death, but if his uncles were right, then there was a very good and beautiful place, with all those he loved.

But no, they don't die. Instead, it's the spiders that die, torn apart by an animal-like figure at least his size.

At first, he thinks it is Raijin, but then he realizes he's too big to be Raijin and the wolf was right there beside him. That one's fur is brown—a fairly dark shade, but still brown and not black, and his eyes a shade that looked more like gold than Raijin's caramelized amber.

The kill is swift and fierce. The huge wolf turns its head towards him and then appears to become a mist before materializing as a boy. His eyes widen, because "what the hell? Is that Riki?"

It's strange how he misses being a wolf, even though it had only been a few seconds since he'd reverted to his human form. He's disorienting, very irritating, having to go from being a predator to a small, fragile creature, so young...

"Riki?"

He blinks slowly, the familiar name grounding him in the present and then the wave of concern comes all the way back at the sight of Kana and Raijin.

"You… you just… H-how…?!" His cousin whispers in disbelief and Riki doesn't even think before briefly explaining.

"It was a gift from Father."

"Uncle Kato?"

"What? No."

"But you just said…"

"Ugh, I don't know, Katsuo, but it doesn't matter now! We need to get one of those elves and make them heal Kana and Raijin! One of us stays here and the other looks for an elf."

Riki looks expectantly, waiting for Katsuo to venture out with that part of the task. When the other is silent for longer than is comfortable, the boy becomes impatient:

"So? Are you going or what?"

"But… Kana said we should be together…"

[Liar. He's just afraid to go out alone.]

"Kana is sick, the decision is now up to us!"

"Well…" Katsuo looks at the girl and then at Eiko, uncertainty coloring his expression. The Uchiha feels his anger rising at the older's hesitation and he snorts in mockery.

"I'll go, then. I'm not afraid to break an order if it's worth it. And Kana is worth it."

[Katsuo is just like the others. "We shouldn't do this", "Father didn't tell us to do that", and "We should be together". Bullshit.]

The boy turns around and feels his body change into wolf form again. His reflexes are sharper and his speed is greater. Riki runs, and sniffs the air, looking for one of those pesky elves.

"For Elbereth!" -Legolas exclaims, his heart racing for a second, just awakened by a huge wolf whose muzzle was very close to his face. He pales, looking around at searching for other elves, for the first-time regretting being in that secluded corner of his to think about life.

The animal opens its mouth wide and the blonde instinctively closes his eyes, because there really isn't time to do anything else. He waits for the inevitable bite, holding his breath…

And the wolf snorts in his face.

"Someone I care about is injured, and of all the elves we've encountered, you seem the least incompetent. Now, come."

A voice echoes in his mind, deep, somewhat dark, and full of power. The heir narrows his eyes suspiciously and replies:

"And what reason would I have to go with a creature of darkness?"

"Oh, I do not know. Maybe because if you don't, I'll rip the necks of every elf I see?"

The prince swallows, the threat hovering, the wolf's sharp white teeth before him. He may fear for his life - but he fears more for his people.

"Show the way, beast."

And he shows, both walking through the forest under the shadow of the dense trees and the sound of the river waters filling the place. The tension around them is almost palpable, and in a different situation, Legolas could have remained silent just watching and waiting for the moment to eliminate the threat. But that would be inconsequential without further data - it wasn't just one wolf if he were to judge by what it said, and he wasn't going to risk retaliation to his people. He needed to find out more about the enemy.

"You said there's one wounded. I must warn you that, as much as I have some skill in healing, I don't see what use a… wolf… would be. Your breed isn't exactly something we want to stay healthy, I'm sure you can see why."

Again, that noise equated to a snort.

"Presumptuous of you to think I'm taking you to treat a wolf. And for your information, I'm not a wolf either. Not just a wolf, at least."

The heir's mind analyzes the implications of such a statement and when the most plausible possibility presents itself, he questions it:

"A skin changer? Why would your kind leave their land?"

He didn't answer. Legolas then realizes that he will get nothing more from the man. "In this case…"

"What is the patient's situation? I am a warrior, not a healer, and depending on the severity, it would be appropriate to bring the wounded into the care of a healer."

"But a warrior has to know something about treating his own wounds. And you, elves, all have more than the bare minimum of knowledge on the subject."

The blonde grimaced and then nodded, knowing it was useless to deny it. After all, there was an inherent healing ability in every elf, thanks to an elf's fëa.

"Yes, I have some knowledge in healing."

"Hm." There is a pause and Legolas almost thinks that the skin changer will not answer him when he finds him speaking in a softer, sadder voice.

"A broken leg, minor injuries, multiple cuts, I think they're deep, but I'm not sure. What worries me the most is the orc venom. It started from a small scratch on her abdomen, somewhat blackened around the edges and which doesn't stop bleeding no matter what we do. Today is the second day she's been like this."

The elf frowned, worried about this person despite being threatened to help. Cautiously, he voices his thoughts:

"I've seen these effects before. I'll need to get the antidote and other medical supplies from the palace."

The shifter growls and the prince tenses even more.

"And then you're not coming back! Or you would come back to hunt us down and then all would be lost!"

It was a logical enough conclusion, especially since the skin-changer had threatened his people. But the immortal decides no, he wouldn't, with the next words echoing in his mind, so broken, so filled with despair, he couldn't just ignore it despite the earlier intimidation.

"We only have her. If... if she dies... I... I don't know what we would do..."

Legolas puts caution aside and gazes with the utmost sincerity at the shifter.

"I give you my word that I will return only to heal the patient if you give me your word that you will not harm my people."

"All right. I promise."

The elf feels some of his apprehension decrease with the promise. Soon, he sets out for the palace to collect the necessary supplies, all the while thinking about the reasons why that race of men would be so far from their lands.

When he returns and follows the wolf to their destination (with a distinct trail of corpses of orcs, wargs, and spiders) he realizes he was mistaken.

They weren't shifters, they were the Shadows. The elf frowns, possibilities running through his mind, but his eyes don't stop taking in the whole situation in a worried way: Eiko, the radiant child he held in his arms a few days ago, looked traumatized and empty. A boy with straight, blue-black hair, whose half of his face was covered by a mask, was holding tightly the hand of a figure lying on the ground. The hybrid whimpers weakly next to the person lying on the floor, someone who is both masked and hooded hiding the identity.

He approaches quickly, ignoring the foreign words of the boy who was talking to the wolf. The elf proceeds to heal the woman, lifting her shirt a little, enough to see the poison wound.

"It was the safest option." The elf recalls the words she stated the last time they saw each other, watching her with pity. Her face is covered, like the boy, and the hood obscures part of her face, but he gets a glimpse of her pale skin and straight black hair. Controlling his curiosity to see her properly, he begins the procedures to heal her, humming softly when he needs to poke and fiddle with a particularly painful injury.

When he finishes, he notices that she is very quiet and no longer unconscious. A pair of dark orbs peer at him, like two onyx stones. He's undeterred by the focus he gets, returning her gaze with the same unabashed curiosity as hers, until the two boys come to stand beside her, sighing in relief. The smaller one gave him a nod in what the elf interpreted as silent gratitude. The other communicated a few words that needed no translation to convey pure gratitude in his tone, bowing submissively. The prince gave him a hesitant smile before looking for the child whose condition had made his heart ache to help before anything else.

"Eiko?" He asks, pointing to the child and receiving from both of them what seemed to be a non-verbal agreement for him to approach.

"Oh, poor child." He thinks, her empty eyes saddening him. The elf softly whispers her name, and once she realizes who he is, she throws herself into his arms, crying and sniffling uncontrollably.

The immortal sang softly and stroked the top of her head affectionately. The little girl doesn't take long to fall asleep in his arms, and once he's soothed her, he realizes she wasn't the only one. On either side of the woman, the smaller ones clung to her, the warg hybrid at her feet.

With light steps, he walks until he approaches the sleeping three, positioning Eiko closer to them. He crouches down, reaching for the hood of the first, with brown hair and an undeniably young face, despite half of it being covered. The second barely looks a little older, and the elf stops to observe with fascination the slightly bluish tone in that black hair. And then, there's the woman. A weight settles on the elf's heart, breath in hold because now that he was closer, she didn't seem much bigger than the two of them, all that danger he'd caught a few days before seemed far away, and that confidence he'd bestowed on a woman could very well be the facade of a girl who was forced to grow up faster than she should... The realization that she might as well be a child is enough to encourage him to pull back her hood.

But his wrist is caught by a hand during the process, which surprises him as in this state Legolas cannot understand how she could still be conscious...

"Except she isn't." He thinks, intrigued by the regular breathing and how the small hand lets go of him after a few seconds. Knowing that her body reacted on its own, even unconscious, to a threat was alarming. More alarming was the fact that she, too, looked young. He can't be sure, not with the mask still covering her, but suddenly he doesn't want to be sure.

"What kind of life...?" He didn't finish the thought, shaking his head in disbelief and back away gently, running his hands over his face uncertainly.

"They need help."

He had promised one of them that he would not seek out any more of his people, but that was before he knew they were the Shadows and that three were children.

"Maybe four." He thinks, and sighs. He has his father's order to capture and interrogate enemies, and he has a promise to a child that he would not hunt them down. It is evident that they are all absolutely exhausted, but Legolas has no doubt that there was at least some level of trust they had placed in him to fall asleep in his presence, elven music or not.

He…wouldn't be the only one to break that trust.

Very slowly, he takes more steps back, all the while thinking it wasn't right to leave them asleep and alone, but also with no way to stay any longer without making his guard look for him and find the kids in the process.

"The Valar guard and protect you." He says a sincere prayer and then turns, walking away.

If he had turned around, he would have seen Kana's onyx eyes watching him silently.

When he returns home, it is to find that two of his people had died from the numerous attacks by the enemy's servants taking place in Mirkwood.

He cries and mourns these deaths, not knowing they would be the first of many in the coming months.

Kana recovers in a week. She tries, tries, and tries to pay back the elf, killing and fending off every attack she can from those fair and noble people.

It is not enough.

As much as they didn't want to believe it, it was very likely that someone was using Riki to give their location and that had caused the attacks to increase in the area. Someone who knew about the Sharingan and wanted them as weapons.

"Tsk. Just our Uchiha luck to explain that."

She sees the innocent bloodshed of that race, and a little over two months after having her life saved by an elf, she decides the only way to thank him is to ward off the danger.

"We need to continue our journey in another direction."

Eiko cries. Katsuo becomes melancholy. Riki... Riki doesn't share much anymore after having turned into a wolf. He did and knew certain things without knowing how he knew and did certain things and that was isolating him from others.

And Kana was sad. She wasn't quite sure why, so she bottles what she feels.

(She always does this. She doesn't know if she can stop after a lifetime of boxing things up and trying not to feel).

"Elf."

He blinks slowly, watching the silhouette dissolve into the hooded, masked figure of the woman he'd saved a few months ago. Legolas was surprised at first by the glimpses of her lurking when there was a battle or simply when he was walking alone. She made her presence known, but if he tried to approach her or have a conversation, she would run away. Although, to his delight, she often brought Eiko, who although still didn't know how to communicate with him, was a ray of light whose presence restored his grieving heart. Eiko had a lot of energy and her bright, childlike smile was really the moments he'd been enjoying lately, despite the older one never starting a conversation.

He can't help the spark of excitement that springs because she finally seems to be letting her guard down.

"Mage-Warrior."

She tilts her head, confusion inscribed in those exotic black eyes.

"Mn?"

"Well, I couldn't just keep calling you Shadow, could I? And you actually told Eiko not to tell your names." He speaks in Westron.

"Oh."

There is a pause and the heir waits patiently as the woman/girl (?) seems to ponder something.

"Kana. My name is Kana. I'm a kunoichi, not a mage-warrior."

The blonde smiles, a wide, delighted smile, oblivious to the stuttering state of mind that his genuine smile left Kana for an instant. Legolas was more focused on his joy at the first real conversation he was having with her, and the information she had given him.

"I'm Legolas Greenleaf, my lady, and it's a pleasure to officially meet you, Kana. Now, Kunoichi, did you say? I've never heard of this species before."

"It's not a race, it's... just my profession."

"I see... but then, if I may ask... what are you and your children?"

"Humans." She says and the other looks at her skeptically.

"Not even the Numenoreans had all that power. She can't be human."

He ponders and almost misses her whisper:

"They are not my children. They are my family, but not children."

"Ah. Siblings?" The elf examines her, while she mutters a vague "mnnn" that could be either an agreement or a denial. They are silent, still, and with an atmosphere of strangeness that reminds him of his first attempts to speak with Bard, after the battle. The man was an excellent leader for his village, but, Eru, those first few months were a rather stressful interracial experience: humans and dwarves had such a different culture that he had to be careful with everything he said so as not to cause unnecessary friction.

When the silence stretches a little longer than comfortable, the elder hesitant but burning with curiosity asks:

"Is there a specific reason why you are here...?"

She shifts a little and shrugs. (He doesn't pout. He doesn't.)

"Alright, she's a little difficult to communicate with. But I have experience with humans of few words."

"It's a nice day, would you like to join me on a walk?"

Legolas doesn't wait for an answer, taking a few steps and giving the other some time to decide. When she follows in his footsteps and stands side by side with him, the elf has to do his best not to leave his satisfaction inscribed on his face.

The weather was really nice and the forest that day, at least in that part, was a little brighter and greener. It was a little frustrating to be so close to the subject that piqued his curiosity and had to hold back so as not to scare her away, but that moment of silent company was pleasant nonetheless.

They stay like that for a while, just in contemplation, side by side, until she seems to relax enough to speak.

(Legolas almost wishes she hadn't).

"We're leaving."

"What?!" He thinks, a little alarmed, and it's only his years of life that keeps him from reacting visibly to what she says.

"I... I suppose... It will be good for Eiko." That's all he says, because, really, what is there to say? He doesn't know her, doesn't truly know any of them and he should be relieved that the Shadows are leaving since they're dangerous. But he finds himself strangely disappointed.

"Yes…" She says and then takes a deep breath as if gathering courage which makes him watch closely.

"I wanted…um…well. Hm, you know, tell you... tell you... uh... y-you know...?"

"Oh! She is embarrassed!" He thinks, a little amused to see that normally so mysterious and calm presence in a sudden search for words.

"Thank me for taking care of Eiko?" He suggests, politely and she agrees.

"And for saving me. And not try to capture us, despite the threat."

Legolas nods, despite being uncomfortable remembering the words of the one who had turned into a wolf. Thinking of softening the atmosphere, he jokes:

"Well, I suppose I'd like to see more of your inventive pranks. Pink hair? Blue skin? Really, that was cruel...but hilarious."

"Ha. About that. Sorry, we were bored and kind of curious about your kind. I think we have exaggerated a little?" She laughed a little, embarrassed.

"Have you never seen an elf before?" He asked, a little surprised when she shrugged, saying no. Somehow, he thought she had seen it all in her life.

"Hm... you know... there's something I don't understand... Why did you do that?" She asked, genuine confusion in his voice. The elf pondered the question.

"About Eiko, it was because it was the right thing. I couldn't just leave a child alone, especially one who was with a warg hybrid, I thought she was in danger. As for the other two things... I really don't know. Maybe I'm just as bored and curious as you are. Mages who spew water and fire from their mouths? Faceless shadows that can transform into anyone? Disappearing into thin air? I don't know, that sounded interesting."

She looked at him with an amused glow.

"You don't have much of a sense of self-preservation, do you?"

"One of the downsides of being an elf, I believe. After all, it is difficult for an elf's heart to fear the dangers of life as much as humans do, since most of these do not affect us."

"Is it true then? Your kind is practically...immortal?"

"Yes." The heir is saddened then, remembering the recent losses among his people. "But we are not exempt from a lethal blow, as we have been harshly reminded in the past moons."

"I'm sorry for the comrades you lost."

"The only sound is the rustling of leaves." The elf thinks, absently thanking the condolences and paying attention to the fact that she was always as silent as a shadow, even more subtle than himself. "A human wouldn't be so silent. Even trained Dunedain are not so quiet."

"Do you already know where you're going?"

She puts her arms behind her back and walks a little slower, and for all the calm she appears, Legolas can still feel that she has begun to withdraw again.

"Mnn..."

He sighs.

"At least tell me when you guys leave? I would like to say goodbye to Eiko."

She scratches the back of her head and the elf understands then that this was not a possibility.

"So quickly?" He says, not caring how a little disappointment from him shows in his tone.

"We've already waited longer than we should."

"What a shame. I wish I had more time to get to know you properly."

"Why?"

"It's always good to make a new friend.

"O-oh." She mumbles, at a lack of words, because in all this time, he's been sincere in their interactions. It's so disconcerting that it's hard to understand.

"Are all elves that weird?" Kana reflects, that hint of optimism that was smothered by a life of manipulation and deceit resurfaced. Maybe that's why she was so reluctant to leave – being around this race made her want to believe in goodness.

"Don't be stupid, Kana. Believing in goodness is such a naïve thing to do."

"Ah. I... really have to go. Goodbye, Legolas" The Uchiha says, waving and turning away.

"Wait!" He exclaims. She stops in her tracks, just turning her head, waiting.

"Will we see each other again?"

"I don't know." She answered him honestly.

"If we meet again... Will I be able to meet you without masks?"

The elf is locked in that sharp gaze, knowing the woman was perceptive enough to understand that it wasn't just the piece of cloth covering her face he was talking about.

"I've lived under masks for so long that I don't know if I could take them all off even if I wanted to. But I could try. For a friend."

He's not sure how he knows, but he knows she gave him a smile. Maybe it was the eyes.

"Then I'll try to be that friend if our fates entangled once more."

"Mnnn. Sayonara, Lele."

Those eyes…they screamed hope and caution in equal measure.