My mom was Akatsuki, I learned.

Akatsuki was the name for a group of people working on a very specific project.

"So is Aunt Muwana like… the leader of this group or something?" Mayu asked.

Nanny Yumi laughed very heartily at that.

"No."

No one led Akatsuki. No one controlled Akatsuki. No one created Akatsuki.

Anyone who claims to have must be on one big ego trip, and most likely a man.

Nanny Yumi calmed down. Smiling, she said, "However, anyone can create Akatsuki. Anyone can lead Akatsuki. Anyone can control Akatsuki."

My head spun. Mayu's did too.

It was too early in the morning for riddles.

"No one led dance, but anyone can lead a dance," I said slowly.

"No one created music, but anyone can create a song," Mayu realized.

We passed Nanny Yumi's test.

Both of us had matured enough to understand this big new secret she had to share with us.

"We are in quite a terrible world, aren't we?" Nanny Yumi said. "The good news is, in every terrible world, you can be assured there are others who also hate it. Who want and demand better. Who resist and revolt. Who come together to build the world we deserve. Light-bringers who usher in a new dawn."

Nanny Yumi told us to never take goodness for granted. The good we experienced was not a result of dumb luck. It was the hard work of the people who came before us, the people around us, who, through combined, coordinated efforts of sabotage and counterfuge, gave us the little pockets of hope and safety for us to grow up in.

"I'm pleased you have come around to seeing the military as evil, little Ayae, because Akatsuki aims to destroy the military," Nanny Yumi said plainly.

Mayu perked up. "Which military?"

"All of them," I said quietly. I was staring at the open book in my hands. "All at once."

The books had many big words I didn't know, but the sentences were actually very simple. As simple as my third grade textbooks.

If I was understanding my mom's words correctly, these were instructions on how to…

"End the shinobi?!" Mayu read alongside me.

I read some more.

No…

It was more than that.

The shinobi were just an obstacle to her true target. My mom wanted to bring down the people who created the need for shinobi in the first place: all the ruling families who used them to wage war against one another, who used them to control the land through violence. She wanted to end the daimyo.

And even then, eliminating the rich and powerful was still a stepping stone to the bigger goal.

The fall of nations.

The end of civilization.

Reading it all, Mayu had an expression between wide-eyed disbelief and thrill. She laughed. "Holy cow. This is straight up terrorist stuff. Your mom is batshit. She's a supervillain."

"What! My mom is not a villain!"

"These are some pretty villainous plans we're holding," Mayu said, flipping through some of the other books. She turned one of them around to show me. "Look, it's a list of places. To bomb."

I stared back in dismay.

"Damn, your mom is cool!" Mayu exclaimed, turning the book back to her.

"You just called her a villain!"

"A cool villain!"

"A villain is evil! Evil isn't cool!"

"Evil? Villain is just an insult for poor people."

"Huh?"

"Yeah. Just like how hero is a praise for rich people. What's a hero? Someone who acts noble. Who do they defend? The nobles! C'mon Ayae, how have you not figured that out. It's practically elementary!" Mayu knocked my head.

Mayu excitedly devoured my mom's books, admiring them like treasure.

Mayu wasn't like me. She didn't grow up in a place where all the girls worshiped nobility and clans, wishing nothing more than to be married into their families. She didn't go to a school where all the boys dreamed of one day becoming Hokage.

All Mayu saw growing up was how bitterly unfair it was that the rich families controlled everything, while the servants working under them struggled from day to day to survive. She had heard everyone rage and grieve about the military and how they destroyed their homelands.

Everyone complained so loudly, but when it came to what to do about it, they all got quiet, Mayu's own family included.

Mayu couldn't stand their quiet. So she made very loud music saying all the things none of them had the courage to say.

Apparently, my mom wasn't a quiet person either.

My mom wasn't just not quiet, she wasn't the type of person to sit around. She wasn't the type to talk big and not follow through.

There wasn't just a list of places to bomb. There were blueprints. Guides on everything from communication to food to mutual aid. Instructions for organization and guerrilla warfare.

The strategies that the Academy had taught me, my mom had all the counter-strategies.

"Hey look, a bingo book!"

Mayu showed me a book filled with names. Many of them were well-known royal families, but there was a surprising amount of information on individual clans and shinobi too.

My stomach fell.

Mayu caught my expression, then followed my gaze to the page I was on.

"Oh."

Mayu looked slightly guilty.

I tried to act calm.

"This information is out of date," I ended up whispering, not knowing what else to say.

According to the bingo book, the Uchiha was still under the last clan elder. It noted his granddaughter Masako as the successor to the main bloodline.

Outdated or not, this wasn't information that anyone could have known without infiltrating Konoha, and infiltrating my clan specifically.

"How…?" I looked at Nanny Yumi for answers.

"Is it surprising that your parents would have common interests or shared dreams?"

"My dad is also Akatsuki?!"

"And your grandparents. Your grandmother had a keen ear in the high courts, while your grandfather had a wealth of knowledge in the structuring of the military."

I couldn't hold it in anymore.

"Is this why my dad brought me to Konoha? To collect more intel? To…" I had to remember to breathe. "Kill my own clan?"

Because this bingo book was making it very clear that for the plan to work, the Uchiha were at the top of the list of clans who had to go.

"You know your clan wouldn't hesitate to kill you or your dad if they knew what we were up to, right?" Mayu grumbled.

"You were just talking about helping me save Itachi, like, an hour ago!" I bristled.

"And the offer is still on the table!" Mayu said, arms wide. "But it's never been us that said no to a ceasefire, has it? No, they are the ones who can't call quits. For all you know, he could have been the one who did the hit on your mom!"

I froze.

"Take that back!"

"Oh, wake up, Ayae!"

"No fighting indoors," Nanny Yumi said calmly.

Mayu and I stopped our wrestling match. Or rather, I had to stop, because it wasn't a fair fight, and I hated that I couldn't have a fair fight, because I was in a very fighty mood. Instead, I crossed my arms, sulking. Mayu rubbed her arms, sore.

"Take that back," I repeated coldly. "Don't you know it's rude to accuse someone you don't know of something you don't know they've done?"

"You have it that bad for this boy?"

I glared.

Mayu held up her hands. "I take it back! I take it back! For the record, I don't believe your cousin killed your mom. Sorry. I was just… trying to make a point," Mayu said, very frustrated. "Which is, you can't be sure. If it was impossible, then you wouldn't have gotten all defensive. And that it's possible, and not just a stupid joke, is the messed up part. The world we have is messed up."

Mayu got closer to me.

"Ayae, don't you see? Our moms were friends, and we were always meant to be friends. Fate has brought us back together, me with my city smarts, you with your military smarts. Together, we can do this. We can pick up where the adults left off. We can actually change the world!"

"By killing my friends and family," I said flatly.

Mayu had no words.

She facepalmed.

"You're really tripped up over the killing our killers part, aren't you."

"Just a little," I said sarcastically.

"So you'll just let them kill us?" Mayu said, her voice getting weaker.

The room went quiet.

I was a storm.

I knew I was being unfair to Mayu.

Mayu would kill if it meant no more soldiers and no more war and no more suffering in the world. My clan would kill Mayu just to shut her up. They would kill my dad for treason. They had already killed my own aunt.

I didn't need her to convince me who the real bad guys were. Itachi had already told me who the bad guys were. It didn't even matter if Tomoe sealed the memory from me, because not a year later, Z and my Kurohyou friends told me again. And if I hadn't met them, I'd learn the truth from someone else.

I looked helplessly at Nanny Yumi.

"My mom… was my mom hoping that I would continue her work?" I whispered. "Is that why you saved all this for me?"

Nanny Yumi did not blink.

"Absolutely not."

"Say what now?" Mayu said.

Nanny Yumi had been very entertained by both Mayu and me. We both looked like our moms but also couldn't have been more different from them.

"Only narcissists use their children to further their own agenda. Your mother did what she believed was right. You must now do what you believe is right. She left these to you because she wanted to show you something, ah, cool? If you agreed with her, then she'd be excited to have helped a fellow ally. If you disagreed with her, then she'd laugh in your face and tell you too bad, stay angry." Nanny Yumi chuckled. "There were already thousands of these books in circulation before they got your mother. And there are hundreds of thousands now, translated and retranslated, written and rewritten, in the hands of children from nations across the world. Children who will eagerly carry the project forward, each in their own ways. Akatsuki isn't something that believes in, or can afford to believe in, nepotism."

I recovered.

"And my dad?"

"From what he told me, he had two specific goals when it came to you."

"Which were…?"

"To keep you alive. And to give you the happiest childhood he can." Nanny Yumi smiled. "I see he hasn't done too shabby on the former. Only you, I believe, can grade him on the latter."

My eyes welled up.

I had hoped my parents would at least make my decision a little harder.

But leave it to them to make it dumbly easy.