"I can never take back all that I have done,

But at least I know now that I'll never run,

It's alright,

Better days have begun,"

-Poison Berry, Kuraiinu

A long stick wiggled from a hole deep in the sand. One end of a string was tied around the top. The other bobbed in the water.

Naga reached for the stick, but it stopped moving before he could touch it.

"It's not a fish," I told him, sitting next to him, feet half-buried in damp sand. "It probably got caught on something."

Naga slowly lowered his hand. He stared at the rod, then at the line. "When are the fish supposed to bite?" he signed.

"Sometimes they don't," I told him.

Naga sagged and looked at me. "Why does Yahiko like to do this?"

I shrugged, reached out, and wiggling the rod deeper in the hole. "He says its relaxing."

"Is it relaxing to you?" he signed.

I thought about it. "No. But I don't not enjoy it."

I still thought it would be easier to catch fish myself and I liked swimming around underwater, but I liked hearing Yahiko laugh when I couldn't tie wire in a double knot around the rod, too.

"That means you do enjoy it," Naga signed.

"How?"

"It's a double-negative. It cancels out when you—"

"This is why I have you squishy humans carry me," Namekuji said. He slithered around Maho, to the left and behind us. A coat of black sand stuck in his slime.

"You're squishier than all of us," I said back.

"Have you seen your insides? No, I'm not."

"What does that mean?"

"Your brains are like fruit mush squeezed into jars," he answered. "I don't know where to start with your stomachs."

Maho sat with his legs up and his chin on his knees. A sad looking pile of sand that was supposed to be a tower was next to him.

Naga stared at the line in deep concentration, trying to summon a fish.

I turned to face Maho. "Someone should teach you to swim."

"—having bones doesn't make you any less like walking sacks of raw meat—" Namekuji argued in the background.

Naga shook his head. "You have bones," he signed back.

Maho shifted his gaze off the sea, blinking at me.

"You grew up in the mountains, right? Do you know how?" I asked.

"Can you disconnect yours?" Namekuji asked. "I don't have human bones. How they hold you water bags up—"

"I don't need to. I know how to water-walk," Maho answered.

I hummed at that. I looked at Yahiko as a potential teacher, but he was curled on his side, asleep, his back to us. He was farther up on the sand, loosely holding bunched up wire.

He was supposed to fish with us, but passed out as soon as he sat down.

I looked at Joji next. He sat in the shade, sharpening a kunai with a pointed rock. "I don't plan to take Maho on as a student," he signed without looking, deflecting responsibility.

I didn't look at Naga because he was already doing enough for Maho as is.

"Is it that important?" Maho asked.

"What if you're on water and run out of chakra? What if you only have a little left and need it for ninjutsu? What if you're trying to hide?" I asked back.

Maho idly drew letters in the sand. "When the hospital is built, that's where I'll be. I don't want to leave the village, and I don't want to fight."

"What if you don't have a choice?"

Maho paused. "Is the cease-fire still going?"

"Doesn't matter," I answered. "What if you need to save a civilian from drowning?"

Maho wound his arms around his legs, glancing at me. "Why do you want me to learn to swim so bad?"

I drew back. Because you can't die from something stupid, like drowning. Because you can't die at all.

"You can learn to swim and not fight," Naga signed. "She's right. It can help you save other people."

Namekuji nudged my arm, covering me with sand. "Why do you need so many fingers, anyway?"

I almost laughed. I pulled him into my lap. "I don't want Maho to die," I quietly admitted.

Namekuji curled up. "The thumbs I understand, but the rest? Humans only need three fingers at most."

I did laugh then. "Maybe for the same reason you don't need them."

Maho stood after something Naga signed, looking at the water. "Where do I start?"

Naga paused, standing, and I stared hard at Joji.

Joji turned the kunai back and forth with one hand, inspecting the sharpness. "I'm told I'm not an easy teacher," he signed with the other.

I only stared and stared.

Maho stood uneasily at the edge of the bank, Naga gesturing at the sea. The rod in the sand was still.

Joji glanced at them for a few seconds, then stuck his kunai in the sand and stood. "Be calm," he signed at me as he passed.

"Nice intimidation and all, but why couldn't you do it?" Namekuji asked after a second.

Joji put a hand on Naga's shoulder, signed something I couldn't see, and my brother backed off, looking faintly surprised.

"Because I'm younger than him," I answered.

Because it shouldn't be my responsibility, I thought, where no one else could hear.

サンドキャッスル

"I want to see Kota," I said, standing in front of my brother.

Naga sat on the floor of the hideout with his legs crossed, a scroll in his lap. He stared up at me.

Maybe I wasn't ready before. Maybe it would've made me hate more. Maybe I spent so long thinking about revenge that I didn't want to.

"After I finish this," he murmured, still a little raspy.

.

.

.

The trees in Shikkotsu were still massive, the grass still felt like it was climbing up my body, and Konan was still propped up against electric blue roots.

She looked the same while I was taller, older.

A big root wound up over her legs and smaller, spindly branches broke off to circle up her feet and stretch up her side. There was another bigger root around her middle, giving her face a bright blue tint.

I saw the red, mismatched thread of my old scarf poking through the grass. It was folded next to her. A half-finished flower crown was propped against a root. I turned back to look curiously at my brother.

"Konan—she was making another flower crown," he said quietly. His arms were crossed like he was cold. "For the one you lost. It was more intact than that, but it was crushed when I found it."

I looked at the flower crown again. Parts of the ring were empty where she didn't finish, but the ripped paper flower heads were from being soaked in water, being pulled out too roughly from under something, or both. The crooked paper stems were because it didn't dry straight.

I felt a familiar ache in my chest, but it wasn't as strong as I thought it would be.

"You kept my scarf."

"You stopped wearing it after..." he trailed off. "I thought you might still want it someday."

It was just like my hair. Maybe it fell off. Maybe I took it off. Maybe I stopped caring to put it on.

I picked up the scarf, feeling its softness, the hard spots where Namekuji's slime dried and wouldn't come out. I looked at the stitching around patches of darker red.

"Thank you, Naga," I murmured.

Kota was a few steps away from Konan. She was wrapped up in more roots, but smaller ones. They looped between her legs, behind her head, over the wound that killed her. Green and red mushrooms grew down the branches.

She looked the same, too.

I knelt next to Kota and wrapped the scarf around her neck. "Mamoru-sensei thinks there's a place after this one where we can meet again," I told her. "I hope you're happy there."

I left her, took the flower crown, and fixed it on Konan's head.

"I don't know if I'll come back," I quietly admitted. "It's hard. But I wanted to. At least once."

I moved back, took a breath, and turned around.

Naga was sitting, his shirt pressed to his eyes. I watched him shudder.

I sat beside him, leaned against his arm, and closed my eyes.

海水

Yahiko stood at the back of the room, holding an open scroll up at us. "Yugakure wants us to take down a group of missing-nin living in an abandoned inn southeast of the village. They're dangerous, but nothing we can't handle. And the pay is too good to pass up."

"Did they ask you, or Hanzo?" Naga asked, sitting politely on the floor as his audience.

"Doesn't matter," Yahiko answered airily.

I sat halfway up the wall to his left with my legs crossed.

"So, it's a bounty," Mamoru-sensei concluded, leaning against the doorframe.

Yahiko waved a hand dismissively. "That's a missing-nin term, sensei. As unofficial co-Taiyōkage and you all unofficial jonin, I prefer to call it a 'mission'."

Mamoru scoffed.

Maho watched sleepily from his place against the wall opposite of me. His old Iwagakure shirt was thrown over him like a blanket.

"Why is Yugakure asking us?" Joji signed, sitting in a corner.

"Two reasons," Yahiko began, tossing him the scroll. "One, Yugakure has no allies. They were allied with Konohagkure during the Second World War, but not the third. And being an enemy of Kumogakure in one war didn't make them friendly in the next. They never had Kirigakure or Sunagakure."

"Which leads to the second reason..." he trailed off and shrugged. "Being neutral or hostile to the countries surrounding them meant they fought a war on all sides. Yugakure pulled out, but only because they couldn't fight anymore. If I had to guess, I'd say they don't have a lot of shinobi to spare."

"We're Yugakure's last choice," Naga muttered, amused.

"More like only choice," Yahiko corrected, rubbing his chin. "Helps that the group we're being sent after has been killing more merchants recently. They've killed lone travelers and low ranked missing-nin for years, but the village ignored them. Until it became a problem for them, of course."

"Maybe we should kill the leader of Yugakure, too," I mused.

How many died while the village pretended not to notice?

Yahiko pointed a finger at me. "No," was all he said.

"I assume you, Nagato, and Oka are going?" Joji asked.

"I'm not," Yahiko said. "Someone has to be co-Taiyōkage around here. But if anyone else wants to join them..."

All eyes went to Mamoru-sensei.

"I'm retiring," Mamoru announced, looking between me, Naga, and Yahiko. "I don't plan on leaving, but I've been a shinobi for too long. It's about time I find something else to do."

Yahiko and Naga exchanged a glance.

"Like what?" I asked.

"Anything else," Mamoru answered, and said nothing else.

Yahiko's gaze skirted around Joji. No one wanted to say that he wasn't as strong as he used to be.

He couldn't move as fast after he was stabbed, only made worse by the infection and the lack of training in between. Even when he was in the same room as Yahiko's would-be assassin, he couldn't stop them before Yahiko was cut.

Joji only scraped kunai together in the silence, sharpening them.

"Joji-sensei's busy," Yahiko said lightly. "He's got his followers to worry about."

"Followers?" Naga asked.

"These two civilians. One of them is, well, the boy who gave Kota her necklace," he said, forced cheery.

Matsu called him 'Enyo'.

"They'll lose interest soon enough," Joji signed with one hand.

"They've been following him around for a week now, trying to get him to agree to teach them. From personal experience, I don't think it's a good idea—"

"I think he should," Naga said.

Yahiko paused. "Between the two of us, only one of us was his student."

"It couldn't have been that bad."

"I still have nightmares about what it must be like to be taught by samurai that didn't turn ninja," Yahiko told him.

I looked at Joji. "Was it that bad?"

"I only worked with shinobi who obeyed orders until Yahiko, even young ones," Joji signed.

"He hated you," I translated.

Mamoru-sensei snorted, hiding the noise by coughing into his palm.

"You learned to work together," Naga pointed out.

"It took years," Yahiko said.

"You were his first student."

"I didn't plan to take another," Joji signed.

"Why is water so deep?" Maho mumbled, shivering, pulling the shirt up over his face.

I leaned forward, arm on my knee, chin propped on my palm. "I think Joji should do it, too."

He could watch them like he watched Maho.

"You're outnumbered," Naga said, smiling.

Yahiko shook his head. "That would only be true if it was my decision."

Naga and I looked at Joji.

Joji looked extremely unamused. "You'll come to regret suggesting that I do."

"Maybe," I said. "But if they become half as good as Yahiko is with the nagamaki, maybe not."

"I think I cried at least three times," Yahiko said idly.

"Only three?" Naga asked, grinning.

"That I can remember," Yahiko said, tapping his chin. "There's some memory loss. Trauma. I'm sure it's normal."

"What about Namekuji?" I asked.

Yahiko blinked at me.

"For the mission," I added.

"What about him? Break him in half when he gets back from bug hunting," Yahiko said.

陥没穴

Yahiko dropped a hand on Naga's shoulder and shook him back and forth. "Just go already."

His voice was muffled by the collar of his shirt. It was pulled up over the bottom half of his face because he was coughing poison again.

"But—"

"I'll ask Joji-sensei to have Maho keep practicing," Yahiko interrupted, dismissing his concern. "Chakra transference, right?"

"Chakra poisoning," Naga corrected.

"How is he supposed to practice with that, anyway?"

"He needs to practice more so he doesn't do that," Naga answered. "He uses too much chakra sometimes, and that can be just as dangerous as not using enough."

"Ah."

Standing on the water just offshore, I looked at Maho.

He shrugged, standing a few feet back. "I'm working on it."

Naga still hesitated.

"You know, this is starting to feel a lot like you don't want to go—"

"It's a lot of pressure being the only medic-nin in the village," Naga said. "Last time we left it was all on me. I knew that people might die without me, but I still went."

"Isn't having help a good thing?" I asked.

"I feel like I'm shifting that burden onto someone else," Naga answered.

Maho looked confused. "I chose this," he said. "I want to help people."

"I wonder," Naga murmured. He chose to be medic-nin too.

Yahiko crossed his arms and shook his head. "It sucks," he agreed. "That kind of pressure is too much for anyone. But if you're under it for long enough it feels like you can't let anyone else take the pressure off because it's part of you. You feel selfish for letting other people help."

It didn't feel like he was talking about Naga anymore.

"But, and I mean it, tell that part of you to go fuck itself," Yahiko said.

Naga's eyes widened.

"It's an old, bad habit that only makes everything worse," he continued. "You're not shifting a burden onto Maho because it's not your burden. It's not up to you to help the world. People die. That's just how it is."

Naga looked down and away.

I helped Naga with his anger. But I hadn't done much for his guilt, I realized.

"Bashira would've died if you didn't go to Suisai, but someone here might've been saved if you stayed. Right now, someone in another country is sick and dying and there's nothing you can do about it," Yahiko said. "Take it from someone who self-destructed, you can't blame yourself because people die. You just can't."

Naga released a long, tired breath. "Thank you."

Yahiko grinned. "I'm the oldest. How am I supposed to be a role model if I don't stop you from making the same mistakes I did?"

"You don't have to be a role model to anyone," I denied.

"Well, yeah. But I want to be," he said. "At least to you and Nagato."

I looked at him and remembered why I used to think that if he ever looked past the borders of Amegakure, Yahiko could bring the world to its knees.

"You still do that sometimes," Maho quietly pointed out.

Then I remembered why being Taiyōkage was enough for him. Maybe even too much. I turned away, turning my back on the thought of what could've been.

Maho sat on the sand, idly forming a pile of rocks on his knee. "You take on more than you can handle."

"Old habits," Yahiko said, waving a dismissive hand.

It was an old habit to think of him as being more than he was.

"But more importantly, should I send Maho with Oka instead, Nagato? Or maybe one of those civilians following Joji-sensei around—"

"I'm going with her," Naga said firmly, stepping away from him.

I was the only one who caught his smile as he turned away.

"See you again... in a few weeks?" Maho asked.

"Two weeks," Yahiko said, mock helpless. "That's all I can give."

I smiled. "One week," I challenged.

Yahiko considered this, looking at the sky. "Four days."

"Two weeks," Naga decided. He grabbed my hand as he passed, pulling me after him.

I held up three fingers with my other hand.

Yahiko responded with two.

.

.

.

I stopped and looked back. We were a quarter of the way across the sea.

I could still see Yahiko waving, both arms above his head.

It made me grin.

It was only him and Maho on the bank.

Mamoru-sensei and Joji stayed behind at the hideout. Just in case.

Just in case an ex-shinobi snuck in while we were gone.

My smile faded.

Mamoru-sensei trained less since he retired, but he didn't stop all the way. He couldn't.

Just in case there was another assassination attempt, another battle, another war.

"Namekuji won't let anything happen," Naga spoke. He stood steps ahead, waiting for me. Even without words he knew exactly how I felt.

I hummed at that. What if Antei outpost wasn't enough? What if the ex-shinobi banded with Root? There was only one exit to the hideout, but it was the only entrance, too.

I heard Naga walk closer.

"I'm worried too," he admitted.

"What if they need me?" I asked.

Naga was quiet. "What if we need them?"

He shrugged when I looked at him. "How do you think Yahiko feels about sending us into Fire Country? Everything we know about the armistice comes from what we pieced together in the messages Hanzo ignored," he told me. "Kusagakure told Yahiko some, but he had to pretend to know more than he does so we wouldn't be taken advantage of. We don't really know how dangerous it is outside the village."

And I wondered if behind Yahiko's grin he was worried, too.

What if we needed help? What if the palm-sized piece of Namekuji we had wasn't enough? What if we didn't come back?

What if, what if, what if.

"Everyone else is trusting us, so we have to trust in them, too," Naga said.

My stare lingered on Yahiko and Maho for another second before I turned away. "I don't want anyone else to die," I told him.

Naga didn't answer right away. "Me neither," he said quietly.

Trust Mamoru-sensei to be there. Trust in Yahiko's strength. Trust Joji to protect Maho and himself.

Trust that the armistice didn't fall apart.

Trust that Namekuji will be enough for an army.

I thought of the wrinkled, scarred patch of skin on his side, the only part of his body he couldn't turn squishy anymore. All because he didn't want to leave Konan.

All because of Ibuse and his poison.

Ripples spread under my feet as I walked further away from the shore.

Would you mind if I killed Ibuse too, Yahiko?

"Where's Namekuji?" I asked as Naga fell into step behind me.

Naga wordlessly reached into his right sleeve and pulled out a palm-sized slug.

"It's like you humans hate sleep," Namekuji said immediately. "I don't treat you like pets when you sleep."

"'Pets?'" I wondered.

Namekuji grunted vaguely at me and slithered back up under Naga's sleeve.

Naga looked amused. "They're wild animals that are taken in by people, live with them, and are fed. Like bringing a binturong to our hideout and not letting it leave."

I tilted my head his way. "Why would anyone do that?"

Naga smiled a little. "I don't know."

I looked down at the murky surface of the water. "We should fish soon."

.

.

.

A thin, curvy fish hung suspended over a small fire, skewered on the end of a stick.

Naga called it an eel.

His own was already cooked. He held the stick across his lap, neatly peeling the skin back to reveal white meat.

It kept slipping away when I tried to catch it by hand, the skin as smooth as water. Unfortunately for it, Naga knew water style.

The branches and logs were wet, taken from the swap just beyond the sand, and the fire was only stubborn sparks.

I could barely see the lily Naga planted years ago for Etsudo's son at the edge of the watery grass. It was hunched over, escaping the shadow of a mossy tree, face upturned towards the sun. Upright, it would've been half as tall as I was.

Or maybe it wasn't the same one at all but a seed of the original plant that refused to die.

It made me think of a younger me and Naga, hunched over a hole with dirty hands, remembering the dead. And I thought of Kota.

I hope my scarf keeps you warm in that other place.

I pulled the stick off the fire, turning it back and forth. The tail was cooked, but not the head. "Are we going to Yugakure first, or the inn?" I asked.

Naga swallowed. "We see Chief Sugiyama first," he answered. "We might not be able to turn down what he offered to pay us, but I'm not sure he'll do it. I want to talk to him about it."

I held the top half of the eel over the fire. Naga absently fed Namekuji bits of meat.

"Hidan is in Yugakure," I mentioned.

"Should be," Naga agreed.

Silence lapsed between us. It had been three and a half years since we left him in Yugakure.

It felt like longer. I'd watched the sun implode and openly welcomed the black curtain of hate that filled my sky. I wrapped that hate around myself until Hanzo was dead and I had to peel it off, bit by bit.

I let the stars and the sun back in my sky, even as my fingernails stayed inky and black.

Three years.

"Do you think he's still alive?" I asked. He was my friend, wasn't he?

He'd been weak way back then.

Naga paused, trying to smile. "He could've survived just by cursing all his enemies away," he mused.

I didn't respond.

His lips curved down. "I don't know," he sighed.

I lifted the eel, eyeing the burnt skin. I wouldn't know if Hidan's death hurt until I knew he was really dead. He didn't understand me, but I still cared about him, right?

"I hope he's not," Naga murmured.

How would we find out you were dead, Hidan? Would anyone tell us if we asked?

I scraped off the skin and dropped it in the half-eaten pile in front of Namekuji.

"This isn't as good as a binturong," he told me.

"Then don't eat it," I said back.

Namekuji made a disgruntled noise and turned away from me.

I smiled, looking back at Naga. "What'll you do for your birthday?"

Naga swallowed fish meat. "I never do anything, Oka," he murmured. "It's just a day."

September nineteenth.

"It's not just a day. You told me about Yahiko's birthday," I pointed out, aiming the exposed meat at the fire.

"I knew he'd want to know," Naga defended. "My birthday—it hasn't felt like one for a long time. And you only care about yours because I do."

I hummed. I'd have to talk to Yahiko about it then.

"I don't want a big deal made out of it," he said.

I made a vague noise and bit off a piece of warm meat.

Naga stared at me. I only smiled.

A/N: 貝殻 - Seashell, サンドキャッスル - Sandcastle, 海水 - Seawater, 陥没穴 - Sinkhole

Fun fact: Swamp lilies can grown 2-3 feet tall.

I made a Twitter just to post vague, out of context spoilers for this story that spoil nothing until after the chapter is read: Luminus_Lantern (underscore included).