"Anyone could have intervened,

when the world tried to break me,

but instead I came out stronger than ever before,

and I believed it would be better,

to break that tether,"

-Daybreak, Cami-Cat

Matsu tilted his head back and dropped sandwich crumbs in his mouth.

"Traitor! Leaf scum!"

He leaned on a balcony rail and watched as a man was dragged between two others to where Sae was meeting with four civilians, trying to twist free as he was thrown down in front of them.

Matsu could hear metal being pounded straight from one of the structures behind them.

Not all of them were Sasori of the Red Sand who, if the rumors were true, had enough puppets to do more work in a day than they were capable of in a month.

The walls weren't even finished on the floor he was on.

They turned as a teenager was forced to his knees next to the man. His arms were tied behind his back and heavily scarred hands held onto the back of his head and his shoulder, keeping him still.

Matsu glanced at Sae. If he remembered right, the woman with brown hair in next to her was working with Mamoru-sensei and Joji-sensei to make a roster for kids. A shorter, blond man near them distributed the tools that came from Iron.

"Isn't that—?"

A man who he knew had a scar curling along his chin took a step back, staring at the man that'd been tossed down in front of him. Matsu knew he got the rice, fish, and whatever else into the hands of people who knew how to cook and serve them. A man with long hair to her right worked with ninja to keep fights from breaking out in the market.

Sae eyed the two, then closed her eyes and sighed. "What evidence do you have against them?"

The woman with the scarred hands shoved his head down. "He popped up during the war. No name, but a sad story," she answered first. "My sister and I took him in. Fed him, treated him like family. He helped us find the civilian encampments when there was nothing left for kunoichi here. He always snuck off to do his own thing, but he was allowed that, you know? It didn't click until I caught him trying to run."

Her bottom lip trembled and she shook him. "Why'd you go that far, huh, war dog? Why us? We didn't know anything!"

He didn't react.

Matsu felt like something was wrong. Something about what she'd said, but he didn't know what.

"I've done nothing wrong," the man next to the teen said, spitting blood as he lifted his head.

And Matsu's eyes widened a little, because he knew him.

"He's the other one the Wolf said she didn't like, isn't he?" the blond asked distastefully.

The butcher's left eye was swollen shut and the bruises beneath his patchy beard were unmistakable.

"Is this what she meant?" the long-haired man asked cautiously, looking at Sae.

Matsu hadn't thought of the butcher since the last time they met.

"She's never been subtle. He's too alive for her to have known he was a spy," Sae answered.

"Why else would she say that?" the blond asked. "He's guilty of something."

The butcher spit blood again, trying to catch Sae's eye. "I've done nothing—"

"He might as well be a traitor. He stole stew from me. Took it right in his hands and ran like a dog. He still won't admit to it," the man behind the butcher, his accuser, said.

It was what he wanted, right? Revenge, or avenging himself.

No, this isn't what I want.

He didn't recognize the thought as his own until he'd already thought it. But he hadn't stopped Oka when he had the chance. It was already done.

He felt something startlingly close to guilt.

Guilt? For him?

He had influence, and this was how he used it? He looked for the anger he felt before but couldn't find it. Instead he felt pity.

Sae eyed the butcher, "That's not enough. I won't have him killed to satisfy your bloodlust."

"You'll just let him go free? What message does that send to the people that waited in line and followed the system that you set up?" the accuser asked.

"Did anyone else see him?" the man with the chin scar asked tentatively.

The accuser took a step back and turned to walk away, shaking his head in disgust, until his eyes caught on the second floor of the structure next to him, where Matsu was.

"Lord Matsu, what do you think should be done with him?"

The civilians startled, shooting Matsu surprised looks, not having realized he was there, but Sae only narrowed her eyes.

The butcher glanced at him and then pressed his forehead to the dirt, resigned, thinking he'd condemn him.

Matsu didn't have the answer he wanted to hear. Even so, it was obvious disrespect. "I have no say. I'm here as a worker, not to make decisions on civilian crimes."

The accuser looked confused. The butcher raised his head quickly to stare at him in surprise.

"Next time you ask him instead of me, you won't be able to speak to ask a third time," Sae warned. Ignoring the butcher as she turned, she focused on the teen. "Nothing to say in your defense?"

Something Matsu was missing. What had she said? That she caught him?

He squeezed the rail. Without a fight? Without a scratch?

"Thank you," the teen said, and then the wire snapped.

Matsu was leaping over the rail before his mind caught up to his body, as the teen grabbed the hands that tried to recoil from him and yanked his adopted family towards him. Matsu's feet stuck sideways to the rail as a screw dug warningly into her throat and he stopped.

It happened so fast.

Matsu flooded his leg muscles with chakra, so quick it hurt. He didn't know why he did it until the teen suddenly stuck out his tongue and the civilians turned to run.

He launched off the rail, hearing the snap of metal behind him. He thought of staying back too late, after he'd already wrapped his arms around Sae. He saw the glowing red mark on the teen's tongue right before they went rolling across the ground.

He thought of saving everyone, and then threw the idea away as the teen exploded. He reasoned that he wasn't strong enough not to be slowed down if he grabbed more than one person as he twisted mid-roll to put his back to the explosion, his mind still hanging from the rail in the instant before he leapt.

He thought that he had to chose someone as heat dug claws into his back or no one but him would live, and he heard something crackle and fall behind him. His back was numb, but he still put himself between Sae and a wall as he was thrown into it. He thought that it was his fault as he involuntarily cried out.

He should've seen the signs earlier, he should've—

Matsu only knew he'd lost consciousness because he was on the ground when he blinked awake. His vision was blurry and filled with spots, but so what? It wasn't new.

He saw a figure that might've been Sae, clutching her arm as she stared at a red, waving blur farther away.

He wondered why he'd gotten involved instead of just leaping back, to safety.

He stared at the fire until it became a little clearer, but not enough for him to make out the damage it'd caused.

He could've died.

Sae blocked his vision. A hand was on his shoulder and she was saying something. His name?

Who would tell Enyo if he did?

His eyes slid shut.

星座

Yahiko sat on the floor when I walked into the main room, staring blankly at the words written on a scroll with a black cover.

I made out the white symbol of Kusagakure under his fingers. Another scroll, red, was on the floor next to his leg. He didn't look up, even when I stood in front of him.

"What happened?"

He only looked up when I tugged the message from him. I could read some of it but— "Katakana," I noted, looking at him.

It was supposed to be easier to read than kanji, supposed to bridge the language gap between nations, but I'd learned to read it last, so a lot of it didn't make sense to me.

He leaned back on his hands. "Remember those ninja I sent to Kusagakure? One of them was named Chizue. Bald, big guy. It doesn't really matter," he said, waving the description away. "Turns out he was a Root bastard. There was an attack there. Fuji, Haya, and Tora are all dead. It looks like we tried to get rid of Fujiwara."

"Why would we?"

"A third party within the village was involved. Apparently, they've been trying to put someone else in charge for a long time. They were used, but they told anyone who'd listen that the orders came from Amegakaure. Whether Fujiwara believes it or not, and I don't think he does, Chizue came from here. He wore our flak-jacket, acted like an rain-nin, and everyone believed that act. Even me."

"So we lost Kusagakure?"

"That's what that message says," he answered. He smiled humorlessly. "The alliance between us and them was never meant to last. In fact, it's lasted longer than I ever thought it would, but this—there's enough rice sealed away to last a little while, maybe three, four months, but we're going to run out. I shouldn't have relied on them so much, but I didn't think—"

"When are we taking the fields?"

He laughed. "It's not Fujiwara's fault. If it was it'd be different," he said, shrugging. "He doesn't have a choice. A lot of people died, and a lot more blame us. All the evidence he has points to us, even if it doesn't make any sense. We're only not at war right now because of two reasons. One, he'd lose, and two, it could set off another world war."

Fujiwara knew how dangerous Yahiko was if given the chance to send a message back, so he made his decision without letting him.

Yahiko tilted his head back. "Kusagakure has no choice anymore. They'll ally with Konohagakure."

he didn't say they caught Chizue.

"And I know Chizue was Root because of this," he said, picking up the red scroll and holding it out.

I threw away the Kusagakure scroll.

"It came directly from the Tsuchikage, and it's about Maho. Someone tipped them off that we have him," Yahiko explained. "Konohagakure and Iwagakure aren't all that fond of each other, so it had to be someone pretending to be a missing-nin, or someone who was paid off."

"Why?"

"Even if it wasn't Konohagakure, it's clear to me that the bigger nations want us to remember that we're not as powerful as we think we are. They want us to see how easily they can take away what we built," he answered. "If the Tsuchikage knew we had Maho the whole time it wouldn't have taken this long for him to ask about it. Remember how quickly he taunted us, well, Hanzo, about Yugakure?"

They all watched Hidan recognize Maho, I remembered.

Something poked my stomach and I glanced down at the red scroll as Yahiko poked me again. I realized then that the walls were shaking, plaster raining down around us. I looked up at the ceiling as it started to crack, being pulled down by the weight of my anger, and held out my hand to catch dust like it was rain.

"I'd like not to be buried alive," Yahiko said.

I hummed, not looking at him. "You wouldn't be."

He paused. He moved the nagamaki to his lap and didn't react to the pieces of stone that started to clunk down next to him. "I get it, I do, but the hideout didn't do anything. It's innocent."

Cracks surged down the wall as it bulged outward and started to completely fall.

Yahiko shook plaster out of his hair. "You know, I think if I was anyone else, this would've made me give up. The only one I wanted anyone to find out about was Sasori. We spent so long grabbing at anything we could use as a lifeline, and yet Konohagakure never stopped treating Amegakure like a battlefield."

"I think I'm going to burn the whole world down," I decided.

"I've been thinking about what we could still do, and there's one thing left," Yahiko told me. "It's an all or nothing thing."

"Why would Kirigakure be any different?" I asked him. "Aren't you sick of trying?"

I pushed stones away from him and me as he laughed and said, "You sound like not-Madara."

The shaking abruptly stopped.

"Why do you keep trying, Oka? Why won't you give up on the world, Oka?"

"He didn't say that."

Yahiko waved a hand dismissively. "It's the gist of it. You told him you didn't want peace, remember? But you still wouldn't help him. It wasn't just because you didn't trust him, or that dream."

I tilted my head. "And If I said it was because of Kota?"

He shook his head, "not-Madara couldn't understand you way, way before you found out about that. If he'd come to me right after Konan, I think I would've accepted his offer of power and whatever else I thought he could give me. You didn't need to stay in Amegakure to save it."

"I couldn't leave," I said. "I still had you and Naga."

"You would've had us even if you went with him," he dismissed. "So, I'll ask it back, why do you think I want to keep trying, Oka?"

"To make a better Amegakure," I said, and tasted the bitterness of the lie.

i could've made Amegakure better a lot faster if I'd let not-Madara teach me how to use the Rinnegan.

"Because that's all you know how to do," I corrected, but it tasted just as bitter.

if I remade the world into one I liked, what would it fix here, in this reality?

"Because the Amegakure in this world is the one you love. You don't want another one in a dream or another dimension. You want this one, even as ugly and terrible as it can be, so you have to learn to live in the awful world around it, too. You have to want to."

Yahiko waved the scroll at me. "not-Madara'll never be able to understand you, because he'll never be able to wrap his head around how you can love any part of a world like this."

"Or you."

He laughed again. "He doesn't want my eyes."

even after this, I still wanted this reality.

The realization left me silent.

"A promise for Kirigakure," I eventually said. "It could all be a lie."

"Well, the part about the bloodline purges is true. Mamoru-sensei looked into it and said that a lot more people have been trying to flee Kirigakure than usual lately. Because of how isolated they are defectors don't usually get away, but it gives me a good idea of how many are defecting every day that even Mamoru-sensei knows about it."

I looked at the part of the wall where the map had been smudged away and wondered how much control Kirigakure had over the islands around water country.

"Ah, and I almost forgot the other thing that happened involving Root. Matsu was hurt in an explosion. It wasn't meant for him, but Nagato left a little while ago, so he should live."

I stared at him. He smiled.

I hummed, and then I brought the hideout down on top of us.

The last thing I heard before the thundering rain of stone and earth, before rubble was pushed back by invisible bubble above us, was the sound of his laugh.

アンドロメダ座

He sagged, shoulders hunching when he saw me, his body rocking forward like his back was a wall that could protect him from me.

It made him look small.

"How did you find me?" he asked, exhausted.

His feet were in the shallows and a rip down the back of his shirt was badly mended. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, like he hadn't slept since he'd asked me if I was happy with what I'd done to him.

I looked over the water. "This is usually where trash washes up."

He covered his face and trembled. "What do you want? Why won't you leave me be?"

I stared at him.

"Didn't have much before you came along. But you made sure I'd be treated like a sick dog that wouldn't drop dead. All because the Wolf, with her bared fangs and jagged claws, says that I have to live."

I hummed. "You see yourself as the victim."

His head jerked up, "Look at me! Haven't you had your revenge? Have you come for my clothes? My teeth—"

I crouched next to him and the look in my eyes made the words catch in his throat. "How many fingers did you cut off?"

He stopped. Paused. Opened his mouth—

"You must've helped that other guy with little rats before my brother," I mused over him. "Kids that needed to learn a lesson."

His eyes caught on a shadow as I spoke, watching the shape of flames flicker and catch on the sand as they became larger, until something started to come out of them, a wide shape that had him looking up behind me, watching the shadow grow over him.

He fell back with a strangled shout, holding an arm up to defend himself.

I tilted my head back and met the purple-eyed gaze of the giant face behind me.

"What the-what the hell is that?" he asked.

It didn't look at me but followed him as he pushed himself back. It didn't blink. Purple flames made a circle around it, but they were more pink than Hidan said.

The kanji on its forehead said, king.

"I don't know," I admitted, turning around as I stood. It felt like the bird had, like there was a connection, but not a second presence that knew what I wanted to do before I did. It didn't feel like something I could control like the bird summon.

It felt like I'd done this on purpose, like there was a meaning, but I didn't know what it was.

It was twice my height. I touched one of the stitches keeping the flaps over the mouth closed, but it felt smooth like clay, and so did its cheek. My fingers left impressions when I pressed down too hard.

Hidan had only seen the top of its head and its eyes and said it'd looked like a genjutsu. It looked nothing like an illusion now. I could imagine him bending over laughing if he saw this.

"They didn't know how to fight. How could you catch them if they did? So they were civilians," I said, facing him again as he tried to breathe normally, pale and sunken in its shadow. I didn't know what it did, and I didn't know if I could de-summon it.

That didn't matter.

"Was it thumbs, or did you take pinkies?" I asked, standing in the fire.

"You're a demon—"

The stitches broke, unraveling into piles of loose thread on the sand, and I watched the mouth slowly crack open, stretching its jaw so wide that it looked like it was straining not to break. Strings of saliva connected its pointed teeth.

It had a black door at the back of its throat. The tongue reminded me of earth hands, except pink and covered in little bumps like a tongue.

He started to pray to a god called 'Kannon'.

I ducked under its teeth to look in. The hand-tongues wriggled out of the way when I stepped in, refusing to touch me, and I hummed. "That's not the answer it wants, I think."

The underside of the mouth felt like softer clay, leaving a deeper imprint of my fingers on the back of the teeth for a few seconds before it went smooth again. I looked at the dark area around the throat and made out faces straining against the other side of the smooth skin.

I watched them turn to look at me, screaming against that door, and realized that I was playing with something I didn't understand at all. I stepped out of the mouth. The hand-tongues tumbled down into the space I'd left.

"I've done no wrong," he said hoarsely. "Why can't you understand why I acted as I did—"

A pink hand shot out of the mass and bent around me, dripping with saliva as the man's breath caught and he started to scream, only for fingers to slide into his mouth and muffle him. It forced his jaw open more when he tried to close it and he made an alarmed sound.

His hands scraped at the long arm of the hand, pulling off chunks that fell on him like melted candy, but they just grew back.

It grabbed his tongue and pulled it slowly out, straining as far as his mouth allowed.

"Are you sure that's your answer?" I asked, knowing what would happen next, thinking of a girl that drowned in the sea.

I should've felt something, but I didn't. There was a rolling tide of nothing as I tortured him. I didn't feel like he deserved it like before, but he did.

I knew he did, even if the feelings were gone.

He nodded, tears streaming down his cheeks, and I didn't do anything but watch as the hand yanked hard on his tongue until it ripped off.

He'd lied.

Blood dribbled from the end as the hand waved it back and forth like it was wagging a disapproving finger at him.

He started coughing blood, splashing it on the sand and touching his mouth right as he screamed.

"You believe you didn't do anything wrong, but that doesn't make it the truth," I said, not knowing what I wanted to do with him, or why I was doing this at all.

I let him scream until he'd quieted to staring at me and making desperate noises. But he still hadn't answered my question.

The mouth cracked open a little more, the corners of its lips starting to rip, encouraging me, sending me a message of what it wanted, and I hummed again. I moved out of the fire and he kicked backwards, holding a hand out at me, shaking his head, sputtering blood.

I snagged the collar of his bloody, ruined shirt and he clawed at my fingers as I dragged him through the bloody sand towards the mouth. The hand tossed his tongue into the wriggling pile.

His nails hurt, but I kept my eyes on the sky, and then I tossed him in.

Hands rose up to catch him, pulling him down, grabbing at his legs when he tried to free himself. He stared at me, mouth still open, and then teeth snapped shut.

The eyes above me rolled up fast, showing the whites and veins. I took a single step back and dropped suddenly, unexpectedly to my knees, breathing hard, staring at the sand in confusion.

Half of my chakra was suddenly gone.

I blinked a few times as I got used to the sudden emptiness and pushed myself back up.

The mouth rumbled open, dripping more saliva, and the tongue-hands were shoving him through the gap before it fully opened. He dropped in a heap on the sand and stayed there, horror in his eyes.

I nudged him with my foot. "How many so-called rats was it?"

"Seven," he said immediately, fumbling to get it out faster. "I was responsible for less than half—when the refugees flooded in from all over during the war they never listened either—"

"I didn't ask."

His teeth clicked shut.

"Why won't you leave me be?" I repeated, pressing my foot harder into his side as I leaned down. "I might be a tamed wolf, but you're the one wearing the leash."

Maybe that was the answer. Maybe if I found who was still alive and gave them to Mamoru-sensei, I'd feel something other than nothingness.

"Everyone knows that the rice comes from Kusagakure, so you must've heard about the ninja that used to deliver it, right?" I asked but didn't wait for him to answer. "Tell everyone they knew that they're dead."

"Everyone? How am I supposed to know—"

"Wasn't a question," I said, and he went quiet. I nudged him again. "Now, what did they look like?"

A/N: 星座 - Constellation, アンドロメダ座 - Andromeda

*Kanon is a JP god of mercy.

*Kusa uses Katakana because the "forced occupation" made their language a mess.

*Mei uses Katakana to reach a broader audience.

This only matters to the nerds who know what it's supposed to be used for and the bigger nerds who're actually Japanese.