A/N: Intended to be read after chapter 60.

"You put your finest suit on,

I paint my fingernails,

Oh we're going out in style babe,

And everything's on sale,"

-As the World Caves In, Matt Maltese

Mamoru thought he'd done enough. Enough by training those four and by defending them when he had to.

It was more than enough after he watched Osamu die. After Konan.

He'd been convinced that sacrificing himself for them would give him some kind of noble death. A death he deserved, that he'd chosen, in a way that ninja rarely got to choose.

Then all he'd wanted was to fade into the background of retirement. To be an Ame-nin was to carry the thought with you that you wouldn't live to twenty-five to every battle, every lookout job. That you'd be lucky to make it to twenty.

Mamoru didn't know why he was so special.

Asuga waved her hand in front of him to get his attention. She was learning too much from Etsu for his liking, but it brought him back to the present.

"Go back to the forge," he said immediately.

Asuga waved her hands in frustration. "Lessons," she signed, keeping up with his long strides. "You promised."

Mamoru had doubts that Joji would take her if he introduced them, even if he explained her situation. Asuga could speak. Theoretically. Apparently, she used to when she was a kid, back when she was friends with Etsu's son.

"You. Keep. Saying. To. Wait," she signed slowly, unused to signing so many words at once. More used to relying on her hands or her expression.

Mamoru tugged lightly on one of her twin ponytails. "Tomorrow."

She pulled her hair free. He'd seen Etsu put a hammer in her hands when she got annoyed, and then she'd go at it at a length of heated metal until she calmed down enough to bang out the dents.

It was another adopted bad habit, except Etsu would've just thrown one at him.

"Not a child," she signed forcefully. "Do not. Treat me. Like one."

Mamoru automatically categorized anyone he had at least ten years on as a child, regardless of age. Her nickname, Little Asu, didn't help.

Maybe that'd change when, if, he hit forty.

"Yesterday. You said," Asuga signed at him. "Day before. Day before that."

"You're an annoying kid, you know that?"

Asuga grabbed his arm and shook it like it held the weight of all the times he'd blown her off.

Another kid too familiar with him.

"Go back to the forge," Mamoru said again. "You can't come with me."

Asuga signed no and stayed at his side.

Why did he attract the stubborn ones?

.

.

.

"Who's this, Mamoru-sensei?" Nagato asked.

"Asuga," Mamoru dismissed, saying nothing else, leaving Nagato in awkward silence.

Asuga stopped. She was older than Nagato by four or five years, but still looked at him in wide-eyed reverence.

"You don't have to stare," Namekuji said, leaning on top of his head. "He doesn't have a bad face for a human. It's not that good either, but—"

"It's nice to meet you, Asuga," Nagato said over him.

"I am—" Asuga's fingers fumbled, twisting together wrong, and she dipped her head. "Honored," she finally managed.

"If I put you in front of a water wheel, could you fix it?" Mamoru asked. He was only here to show Nagato the southwest underground entrance. He hadn't planned on dragging Asuga, or himself, into what Nagato was looking for down there.

But it seemed that no matter how much he thought he wanted it, retirement didn't suit him.

Before Maho and Oka found that water wheel, he'd thought Hanzo had them all destroyed. It wasn't an unreasonable assumption when, at the height of his paranoia, Hanzo fed the engineers that used to maintain them to Ibuse for knowing too much.

If civilians with skills that threatened Hanzo weren't caught and didn't defect, they starved. An apprentice blacksmith was the best he'd get.

Mamoru wanted to drag his hand down his face. The village was a mess. It was no wonder progress was happening at a snail's pace.

Asuga hesitated. She looked at Nagato and quickly away. "First. See," she tentatively signed.

"Can she even swim?" Namekuji asked disdainfully.

"Ignore him. He just wants attention," Nagato said reflexively.

"Tomato face," Namekuji named her.

"Doesn't matter if she can or can't," Mamoru answered as Asuga hid her face in her hands. "As long as she can hold her breath for more than thirty seconds, she'll be fine."

Namekuji eyed her skeptically.

.

.

.

Asuga stumbled to the side, holding herself up against the curved wall as she coughed and spit water.

Mamoru grabbed the metal bar of a grate blocking the way ahead and shoved it up. Two halves of a steel door banged shut behind them, and the water that followed them in drained over the side of the platform they were on.

Nagato shook water out of his sandals, uselessly, because he was soaked.

Asuga fell to her knees as she looked over the platform, and Mamoru followed her wide-eyed gaze to the chasm below them. The walls were made entirely of large pipes. A few boxes that gave off yellowish light were attached to the walls going down, but most of them had rusted over or broken.

He hadn't seen white lights down here since the Second war. If he didn't have Maho's account that someone had been maintaining a section of this place, he wouldn't have believed it.

Someone - who?

Who would Hanzo have told? Why?

He wasn't thinking broad enough.

If Root knew about this place-no, not them either.

"Is this where Maho and Oka were?" Nagato asked, stepping up to the edge to look at the walls.

The difference between ninja and civilian playing out right in front of him.

"No," Mamoru said as Asuga crawled under the grate but stayed as far from the edge as she could. "They were southeast."

"It's more space than I thought," Nagato said.

A pipe bridge hugged the walls. They were the only things that connected the platforms up here. Mamoru gave Nagato an encouraging push onto it.

"This section was for waste management," Mamoru explained, guiding Asuga ahead of him. "Before the connections were broken, the pipes drained waste from every building in the village. Bodies were dumped here from the southeast when interrogators were done with them."

Nagato looked down, unable to see the bottom, but realizing what caused the smell.

Asuga stayed close to Mamoru, walking slowly, shivering at a gap created by a small part of the pipe breaking off.

"Amegakure is in the Land of Rain," Mamoru half-signed, using the dim light to get her attention.

Asuga bit her lip, slowing down more as she rubbed her arms. "Repeat," she eventually signed.

Mamoru did, going through the signs until she could focus on him without looking elsewhere.

"You were a better partner when you were squishier," Namekuji complained.

Asuga jumped.

"Any other slug would see me being used to them as a good thing," Nagato said, a smile in his voice.

Namekuji mocked him at a higher pitch and Nagato didn't react.

Asuga studied his hand again. "Amegakure," she signed, unsure. "Rain—"

Her foot slipped on algae.

Mamoru quickly caught her elbow as she dangled backwards, one foot still on the bridge. She didn't seem to have registered what happened until after he pulled her up. She started gasping, fingers digging into his arm as she pressed close to him.

Nagato gave him a look that said, I think you should've left her behind but I won't say anything because you're still my sensei and that's supposed to mean you know what you're doing.

Mamoru returned that look with one that told him to keep his opinions to himself.

It took almost two minutes before Asuga shakily let go, looking embarrassed at herself. "Thank. You."

"Watch your feet," Mamoru said.

"Yes," she signed, and bowed deeply at Nagato. "Sorry. Forgive."

Nagato looked at him over her head. "There's nothing to forgive. You didn't do anything wrong."

Mamoru's cool gaze challenged him to say what he was thinking.

Nagato scratched his cheek and didn't.

"But—"

"Let it go," Mamoru said before she could complete the next sign.

Asuga hesitated, looking back at him, but dropped it.

Nagato stepped up onto the next platform and explored the small space while he waited for them. Once Asuga had carefully maneuvered up, Mamoru ignored the next bridge and instead slid open a squeaky door that looked no different from the wall.

"You kids and your luck," Mamoru said. "How Oka and Maho ended up southwest from where they started is beyond me."

The bulbs were older down the hallway, and only one still worked at flickering intervals.

"From what I understood, they were following the lights," Nagato responded.

That didn't make it better.

Asuga was between them, trying not to let on how cold she was.

"I think I have to tell Sasori about this," Nagato sighed.

Mamoru glanced at him like he was insane.

"We're not using any of this," he said with a shrug. "Right now, he doesn't have anything but a promise that we'll keep a promise."

"Is this the right time to talk about this?" Mamoru asked, not looking at Asuga.

He trusted her, but that didn't mean secrets weren't secrets.

"You brought her here," Namekuji deadpanned.

The hallway sloped down.

Mamoru didn't dignify him with a response. "You want him to build a workshop down here?"

"The lights still work," Nagato mused. "Whoever did the maintenance was good. It's all intact. There's rust, and there's grime, but everything he'd need works."

"The working-order of everything isn't the problem. If he has this, he has more access to the village than I think you realize."

Nagato smiled and shook his head, "Yahiko already gave him that."

Mamoru said nothing, and Nagato's smile grew.

The end of the hallway opened to a room with curved ceilings, stone walls, and a still wheel at the center.

Nagato went to it and Asuga slipped around him to follow, eyes wide, forgetting her fear.

Mamoru put his hand in his pocket. He hadn't come here that often, but there'd always be people here when he did. Fixing something, making sure the water flowed right, keeping the pressure on the slats low. Bags of tools would be all over the floor, or cots, or papers with ideas for improvements.

Now the room was dim and empty. The slats were dilapidated and covered in algae.

Nagato touched the stone next to a crack and flakes of rust fell off his fingers when he rubbed them together.

"You underestimated it," Namekuji said.

Asuga got on her knees without hesitation and stuck her hand in a gap.

"Can you fix it?" Mamoru asked again.

Nagato stepped back, then followed his gaze.

Asuga pulled back when she noticed them. She stared at the wheel, patted it, and looked at him. "Try. Want to."

Well, she couldn't make it worse.

"Tools," she continued, eyes bright and her arm covered in plaster. "Hot stone."

Mamoru looked at Nagato.

"Yahiko'd call this a waste of resources," he mused.

"It is," Namekuji pointed out.

"He'll be angry," he said, but sounded amused.

"Tell him to come find me if he wants to talk about it," Mamoru sad. It'd end with Yahiko throwing up his hands and walking away, as it always did when he was on the receiving end of someone else's stubbornness.

"Not that," Nagato said, not quite hiding his grin, "He'll have to melt the stone."

"He'll whine for days," Namekuji complained.

"Before I forget," Mamoru began. "Happy birthday."

Nagato blinked a few times and said, "It was yesterday, sensei."

Mamoru looked at him. He counted the days, and decided he was wrong. "It's today."

Nagato shook with laughter. "Sensei it's—I know when it is."

"Did anyone else wish you happy birthday yesterday?"

"Yes."

Mamoru was silent. "It's today," he said again.

Nagato opened his mouth, closed it, and finally nodded. "Thank you, sensei," he said politely.

A/N: Iudicium - Judgement

Here's my writing advice for the day. Don't write if you feel burned out. Even if you feel like you can in the moment, you'll look back and go, 'I could've done x, y, and z better.'