Angst

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Ink Burns

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

This is a work of fanfiction, produced according to the principles of transformative fair use as put forward in US copyright law, and abiding by the custom and practice of fan-produced work in Japan, where the source texts were created. No author is in any way affiliated with any of the creators of the source texts, nor with the companies who distribute their products, nor any other rights holder, and these stories were not authorized by either the creators or the producers. Ink Burns is a fan site and the material here is freely provided for the enjoyment of fellow fan-community members; there is no commercial infringement.

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"Air Feeds Fire" published on 2004-01-05 13:35:50.

"Gone the Sun" published on 2004-01-19 13:35:16.

"Ever - Chapter Six" published on 2004-02-08 18:44:19.

"Snapshots" published on 2004-03-02 16:38:55.

"Challenge - Chapter Seven" published on 2004-06-20 19:23:10.

"Nutshell" published on 2004-06-23 01:06:36.

"Detour" published on 2004-12-11 17:57:04.

"Facing the Music" published on 2005-01-05 13:27:27.

"Interlude" published on 2005-01-05 13:43:12.

"Engarde" published on 2005-01-05 14:36:47.

"Worth" published on 2005-01-06 16:59:39.

"Promise" published on 2005-06-16 12:57:26.

"Only A Story" published on 2005-08-06 19:45:05.

"Stare at the Sun" published on 2005-08-08 19:48:41.

"If I Should Wake Before I Die #3" published on 2006-02-02 21:45:34.

"Closed Circuit" published on 2006-09-26 14:25:28.

"Dragon's Whisker" published on 2007-02-22 20:24:11.

"Feed Them On Your Dreams" published on 2007-02-27 21:11:23.

"New Year in Winter" published on 2007-04-10 21:33:47.

"Taste Your Salt Water Kisses" published on 2008-02-27 15:09:57.

"Ice Is Also Great and Would Suffice" published on 2008-06-30 14:18:01.

"Hanging Upside Down" published on 2008-08-14 13:44:18.

"What's Love Got to Do With It" published on 2009-01-20 15:50:19.

"Blood Will Tell" published on 2009-07-27 20:41:34.

"Love on a Budget" published on 2009-06-19 14:30:37.

"Revelation" published on 2009-06-25 14:55:17.

"Five Things That Never Happened to Xanxus" published on 2009-08-03 14:21:10.

"Surprised Into Greatness" published on 2009-12-14 17:56:59.

"Archimedes' Lever - Two" published on 2009-12-23 15:32:36.

"Archimedes' Lever - Three" published on 2009-12-24 15:12:49.

"The Flower and the Bird and the Wind and the Moon" published on 2010-05-25 12:14:08.

"A Theme in Pentatonic - Three" published on 2010-06-01 16:11:58.

"A Theme in Pentatonic - Four" published on 2010-06-03 12:29:42.

"Cat's Cradle - Chapter Four" published on 2010-06-10 14:55:37.

"Hall of Mirrors" published on 2011-04-08 11:35:12.

"Without Fear or Favor" published on 2011-10-12 16:13:05.

"Life Lessons" published on 2011-07-29 12:56:27.

"It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Seven" published on 2011-09-09 12:10:14.

"And We'll Laugh About It" published on 2011-09-10 13:30:23.

"Up on the Angel's Shoulders" published on 2011-10-17 19:49:06.

"It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Nine" published on 2011-09-23 13:15:55.

"It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Eleven" published on 2011-10-07 15:14:54.

"It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Twelve" published on 2011-10-14 14:37:42.

"It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Thirteen" published on 2011-10-20 12:51:30.

"It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Fourteen" published on 2011-10-28 12:24:05.

"To the Silver Night Sky" published on 2012-02-22 13:17:24.

"It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Seventeen" published on 2011-11-18 17:25:38.

"It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Nineteen" published on 2011-12-02 12:13:06.

"Taste of Steel" published on 2012-03-28 17:28:28.

"Strong as Freesia" published on 2012-08-24 17:34:38.

"This Moment to Arise - Preparations" published on 2012-12-12 13:36:27.

"This Moment to Arise - Stumbles" published on 2013-01-30 14:37:16.

"Not the Direction of Gravity" published on 2013-09-06 18:22:51.

"The Simple and the Subtle - Chapter Two" published on 2014-03-30 12:15:25.

"Long, Like Memory" published on 2015-05-24 17:16:38.

"The Wandering Fire" published on 2019-08-16 18:02:05.

Attributions can be made by author's name and a link to the archive.

This ebook edition was published on September 6, 2019 by the Ink Burns fanfiction archive.

Cover illustration is .

Cover design by Branch.

Air Feeds Fire

After Ed has to kill he has to deal with having killed. Divergent Future, Drama With Porn, I-4, faint spoiler ep 25

I

Edward Elric was not crying.

He had not cried standing in the bright winter afternoon with blood freezing on the metal of his hand. He had not cried when Hawkeye drew him back so the soldiers could take away the body. He had not cried when they came back to the headquarters complex, merely asked Al to go up to their rooms without him.

Roy had seen the aftermath of enough days like the one just past to know precisely how much trouble that meant.

That was why he had kept a quiet eye on Ed all day and finally ended up standing on the roof at nearly midnight, watching his protÃ©gÃ© kneel motionless by the rail, still not crying but pressing his clasped hands hard against his mouth.

"Hagane."

There was no response. Roy had not really expected one.

He came softly, and just a bit cautiously, to kneel behind Ed and draw the boy back against him. Ed was shivering, but Roy had little hope that it was from the cold of the night.

"Let go."

That, finally, provoked a reaction, a violent head-shake. Roy tightened his grip.

"Ed, you must."

The shiver was harder, now. Ed's breath was coming uneven, as if he had run a race to the end of his endurance and a bit beyond. When he looked up Roy had to conceal a wince.

Earlier the normally expressive eyes and mouth had been utterly blank. Now the eyes were dull, the gold frosted, and bitter lines caged his mouth.

"I... I'll..."

"It will be all right."

"No! Leave it...!" Ed broke off with a wrench in his voice.

Roy blew out his breath in a white cloud.

"You know," he murmured, "many would say that I only helped you go where you wished to go, and that's true. But it's also true that I knew the path you chose would bring you here some day, and you did not know it. I've been your commander these five years, knowing that someday you would kill. So here you are, and here I am. Let it go, Ed. For this night, I'm here. I promise to catch you."

The shiver had become a wracking shudder, and Ed finally turned into Roy's arms and the golden head pressed into his shoulder. The harsh breathing ran over into sobs.

Roy said nothing more, only held Ed and stroked his hair and waited.

At last Ed quieted. Roy took it as a measure of the boy's exhaustion and pain that he made no protest when Roy gathered him up and carried him inside. After a moment's thought Roy turned toward the rooms he kept here for the, frequent, occasions when he couldn't be bothered to walk home. Al didn't need to be worried by seeing his brother like this, and Ed didn't need the pressure to be the collected big brother. Reaching his room Roy only bothered with a single candle, by whose light he set Ed down on the bed and briskly stripped off his coat, belt, boots and shirt before pulling up the blankets.

Ed looked up at him, neither blank nor frozen but his eyes were hazy and his mouth at a loss. When he spoke his voice was barely there.

"Taisa..."

"Sleep."

Ed's eyes widened and his jaw set, hard.

Roy wadded two of his many pillows up against the headboard, kicked off his own boots, and settled down beside Ed. As an afterthought, Roy drew the tie out of Ed's hair.

"Sleep," he repeated, firmly. "I'll stay with you.

He carded his fingers lightly through Ed's hair, unraveling his braid, until the wide, alarmed eyes began to drift closed.

After perhaps an hour Roy allowed himself to hope that this would be enough. It took people differently. For some, the simple presence of another human being who understood was comfort enough, and Ed was, after all, still quite young. If that failed, alcohol was a common alternative. Roy had seen a few scholarly sorts who got through the night by reading favorite books. It was as good a way to avoid reality for a little as any other, he supposed. His mouth quirked up, recalling how Hughes had gotten him though a night like this, years ago.

Roy rested his head back, starting to doze.

Perhaps it would be enough.

II

The gun was swinging around...

"Ed."

Ten more centimeters and it would level with Ed's chest...

"Ed, wake up."

Not yet! He lunged forward...

"Haaaa!"

Hands were on his shoulders, it was too warm to be outside, his throat hurt. Ed blinked, and the chiaroscuro of the room resolved into Roy Mustang.

He's not wearing his uniform. He always wears his uniform. Ed shook his head sharply at the total irrelevance of that observation. What...?

He remembered the Colonel promising to stay, the roof, the street in the afternoon sun... A shudder ran through him, and he fell back on the bed. The Colonel propped himself beside Ed on one elbow, apparently the better to examine him. He actually seemed... worried.

Ed turned his face away.

Mustang reached out and turned it back.

"You were dreaming about it?" he asked, before Ed could snap at him.

Ed flinched, and turned over to put his back to his commander. A familiar sigh, though less extravagant than usual, brushed past his ear.

"That won't work, Ed."

Mustang leaned over and pulled Ed back around, and looked down at him very seriously.

"Have you ever been drunk?"

Ed blinked at the non sequitur, startled into answering.

"Once. I remember being very upset about absolutely everything. Can't think why people enjoy it."

"Mm. That won't do then."

The Colonel's look had turned thoughtful, as if he were carefully turning over words for some question he wanted to ask. Ed waited, feeling suspended in a bubble of unreality between the horror he was trying not to think about and the normal, daily routines of life that he couldn't quite manage to recall right now. He wanted to do something to drive the horror further away, but couldn't think what would do it. And the tangible warmth of the Colonel's body beside him was comforting when so much else familiar seemed so far away. Under that warmth a little of the tension seeped out of Ed's shoulders.

Mustang nodded, as if Ed had answered whatever question he hadn't yet asked, leaned down and kissed him.

It was a gentle kiss, but it continued for a while. Long enough for Ed's mind to stop being blank. Long enough to notice how pleasant the blankness had been, and to register that the experience was not actually displeasing. Just... startling. When Mustang drew back Ed couldn't quite find anything to say.

"Perhaps, yes," Mustang mused, and added more quietly, "what a memorial for him."

The feeling of unreality clashed with the extreme presence of the moment as Mustang's mouth found Ed's again. Moments of time flashed through Ed's mind. The Colonel smirking at some successful manipulation; the Colonel coldly ordering him to pull himself together; the Colonel smiling evilly at Ed's fury; the soft look that sometimes passed over Mustang's face when he found some new lead or hope for his star subordinate. And a new moment, now, Mustang's fingers threaded into Ed's hair and his lips warm against Ed's ear, and Ed didn't care, now, about the strangeness, because Mustang was making him solid and here and that was enough.

He started to lift his hands, hesitated, and only closed the left on Mustang's arm. Mustang lifted his head.

"Use both hands. I don't want you stopping to think about anything just now."

Ed let those words echo in his head, understanding that Mustang meant to distract him with this, probably quite extensively, and that if he consented he would have to trust Mustang to see him though something he had no experience of.

He hated not knowing what he was doing.

Mustang was waiting for his answer.

Slowly, Ed reached up and wrapped both arms around Mustang's back.

Something flashed in the dark eyes looking down at him, like that sometime softness but hotter. Ed let out his breath and shivered as Mustang scattered a line of butterfly kisses down his chest.

Mustang's gloves were of such rough cloth Ed hadn't expected his hands to be so soft. Soft and cool, in contrast to the warmth of his body, as they mapped paths down Ed's arms, circling his wrists and fingers, across his stomach. And finally, slowly, between his legs.

"Aaaaaahhh..."

Ed's body arched up against Mustang's hand, his lips parting under Mustang's mouth as his legs, half reflexively, opened under Mustang's touch. His own hands closed hard over Mustang's shoulders, trying to brace himself in the tide of sensation. As Mustang paused to unfasten Ed's pants, Ed gathered the wits to note that he seemed quite adept at it; a lot of practice, perhaps. The thought made him laugh, and Mustang drew back a bit.

"I'm sorry; did that tickle?"

"Only in my head." Ed's own reply made him laugh again.

Mustang's brows twitched up, and then he smiled.

"You're much too coherent."

He tipped Ed's head to the side and began to trace the tendons of his neck. Ed's wits departed again. When he felt Mustang's tongue and then teeth on his throat such heat rushed down Ed's spine that he barely noticed the departure of his remaining clothes, too.

The feeling of other cloth against his skin recalled him.

"You're wearing too much," he managed, though his voice was husky.

Mustang didn't joke this time. His mouth lost its usual curl and became grave as he brushed back Ed's loose hair. "I don't want to push you to anything tonight."

Ed shook his head and ran a finger down Mustang's shirt, looking studiously at it to avoid his eyes.

"I..." I want to feel your skin. He couldn't possibly say that! Ed felt himself blushing and damned his fair coloring for the umpteenth time, because Mustang was sure to notice it, even in the low light.

"Hmm."

Mustang's faint smile had returned, Ed could hear it. He saw it, too, when Mustang stood up from the bed and Ed looked up.

Mustang gracefully stripped his clothes off, wholly unembarrassed, and his eyes never left Ed's.

This was not helping the blush to go away.

And it was different, when Mustang returned to the bed. The light slid over his skin and down long, sleek muscles. The heat of his body was shocking, and his weight somehow more solid now. It left Ed gasping as Mustang sank down over him, and he froze at the silk-shivery feeling.

Again, Mustang waited for him. Waited with a question in his eyes. Waited until Ed breathed out an answer.

"Roy..."

Then he moved, and Ed lost track of time and thought, because the world consisted of Roy's skin against his own; of Roy's palms sliding down his ribs, urging his legs apart. Roy's teeth nibbled the inside of Ed's thigh, stealing his voice; Roy's hair brushed, feathery, against him; the burning wet heat of Roy's mouth closed on him, stealing even his breath.

Fire unfurled through Ed's veins, tossed him up like a spark. He felt the curl of Roy's tongue but couldn't feel the bed under him. Everything in him rushed down, down to one point, and then swept out like a shock front, leaving him shaken, trying to remember how to breathe.

Gradually his attention to normal details returned, and he noticed Roy lying against his side tracing random patterns over his collarbones.

"What about you?" Ed asked, as his wits recovered enough to determine what the localized pressure against his leg probably was.

Roy lifted his head. "Aren't you falling asleep?"

Ed, pleased to be contrary, gave him a smug smile. "Nope. What about you?" he repeated.

"I hadn't thought to go quite that far to distract you."

"Whatever works," Ed shrugged, insouciant as he could manage while naked.

Like the flame he commanded, Roy had created a small sphere of light and warmth, but Ed could feel what was outside that sphere waiting for him. He didn't want to leave yet. On the other hand, there were certain stories that he had overheard both among the soldiers and on his travels... He looked up at Roy. "Would it hurt?"

It took Roy a second to follow Ed's train of thought, and then surprise flickered across his face, followed by speculation. At last, he drew himself up with cool dignity. Quite unfairly, Ed thought, he managed it very well despite being naked. "It certainly would not. I have considerably more skill that than, Edward-kun."

The tone was classic Mustang-taisa, but he was grinning. Ed, already on edge, broke down laughing again, but buried his head against Roy's shoulder, shy of the sudden intimacy brought by that look. How much more intimate can we get? he wondered, exasperated with his own silliness. As Roy's arms closed around him, though, Ed knew that somehow this moment was far more intimate than what Roy had just done for him. And compared to this, even that might be lesser.

"Do it, then," he whispered.

Roy put a hand under his chin and tipped Ed's face up to see his eyes. "Ed..."

The question was back, and this time Ed scraped together words to answer it. The man who had stayed by him tonight, who had known and cared what he would be feeling, who had used him and driven him and protected him, who had let him fly free to chase a dream all these years, deserved words now. "If you say you won't hurt me, you won't. I trust you."

Roy's eyes widened with more surprise than Ed had ever seen him show. And then his mouth quirked and he leaned over to rummage in his nightstand, emerging with a small bottle whose cap he removed and set handy. He looked back at Ed, one brow tilting up. Ed, remembering some more of the stories he's heard, blushed again, but didn't look away.

"Do it."

Roy's hand passed down the length of Ed's spine, drawing Ed to him. "I will."

His hand worked its way up again, digging into the muscles, gradually unwinding them. Ed, pressed full length against Roy's body, was hard put to stop himself from purring.

"Sure you're not trying to make me sleep?" he sighed, eyes half closed.

"Not asleep, but I do need you to be relaxed."

"Couldn' get much more r'laxed than that," Ed mumbled against Roy's chest.

The grin edged back into Roy's voice. "We'll see."

Having reduced Ed to suitable pliability, Roy arranged him, spread out, on the bed and set out to discover every particularly sensitive spot on his body. Ed himself hadn't been aware of any of them. The sole of his foot; just behind his ankle; the back of his knee. Roy spent some time on the hollow of Ed's hip, making him squirm. When Roy sucked, hard, on Ed's nipple the sudden spike of sensation brought Ed up off the bed. Roy gave him a smug look through his eyelashes before moving on to Ed's shoulder.

The odyssey ended with Roy lying over Ed, teeth and tongue playing with his ear.

"Thought you... haaaa ah... said... relaxed..."

"Much too coherent," Roy chuckled. His voice, so close and soft, so resonant and deeper than Ed remembered hearing before, swept a shudder through him every time Roy spoke.

"It won't hurt, regardless, but for you to enjoy it I also need your proper... attention."

He moved his hips against Ed's.

"Ah!"

"Mm. Impressive, as always, Hagane."

Ed couldn't manage a proper glare, but the glint in Roy's eyes said he appreciated the effort.

In a rush Roy sat back on his knees and pulled Ed up to straddle him. The irrepressible corner of Ed's mind noted that he was now taller than Roy, but only had a moment to appreciate it before Roy slid a hand up into Ed's hair and drew him down to a kiss. This kiss was deep, demanding that Ed not only receive but return. Ed thought, a bit fuzzily, that Roy seemed to be pursuing Ed's voice with his tongue. Roy's tongue tasted faintly of salt, and something else Ed couldn't place.

Then Roy's other hand returned, slick now, sliding between Ed's cheeks, moving, circling, slowly pressing... in.

Ed made a sharp sound in his throat. Neither his body nor his mind could quite decide how to react. Roy's fingers were still moving, as if seeking something... something... oh...

Tremors raced through Ed. His hips jerked against Roy. His moan was swallowed in the kiss. And Roy's fingers were still moving, pressing, there... there...

Ed broke away from the kiss and tossed his head back, and Roy laughed.

"Now. This wasn't it?"

His teeth closed once again on Ed's throat and Ed lost all control of his movement and thrust hard against Roy.

"Now."

Roy let Ed back down on the bed, and Ed's senses narrowed down to snapshots. Roy's hands spreading him open. That sliding pressure again, but larger this time. Slowly, slowly, moving. Ed's own hands clenched on the sheets; the thought flashed by that his right hand was probably putting holes in it. And something... shifted. The slow movement was smoother. He's... inside me. Ed let out breath he hadn't know he was holding, and for the first time heard an answering sigh from Roy.

Roy was leaning over him on one hand. Sweat gleamed on his skin, his breath came fast through parted lips, his eyes were half-lidded but burning. Because of me... Ed's presence, his body, had broken the reserve of this famously reserved man. The thought curled, hot, in his stomach.

And then Roy shifted, moving inside Ed again, sliding, pressing there, and his other hand came up to surround Ed and stroke him, and the heat surged up, wringing Ed's every nerve. He could hear his voice and Roy's, but both were distant. The fire closed on him, tighter, tighter, and Ed strained with it, spreading his legs and stretching his arms wide into it, seeking the hard movement of Roy's body, until the world shattered into sparks and brilliance.

"Ed!"

When his senses returned to normal order Roy was leaning on both hands and they were both panting.

"Roy... I..." Ed couldn't, for the life of him, think how to finish his sentence.

Roy gave him a faint, gentle smile and stroked back his hair before hauling himself off the bed with a slight groan. "Wait here a moment, Ed."

Roy returned with a damp towel and a glass of water. He handed the glass to Ed and dropped two small pills into his hand. "Take those," he directed, "or you'll feel it in the morning."

Lassitude was too pleasant for Ed to emerge just to ask what Roy was talking about.

"I trust" Roy remarked, as he settled back down, "that you'll be going to sleep now?"

Ed mumbled an affirmative, just aware enough to hear Roy's Good and feel a cool hand rest on his shoulder before he was asleep.

III

Roy woke slowly, slowly enough to remember who was in bed beside him before he started and woke Ed.

He propped his head on his hand and regarded the boy for some minutes. In the approaching dawn, with the sheet cast down around his hips and his hair fanned out over the pillow, Ed looked like an artist's sculpture. Roy was reasonably sure that Ed had, as yet, not the faintest idea how striking he was, but Roy had watched his protÃ©gÃ©'s gold eyes and powerful body attracting admiration and desire for several years now.

That Ed had actually let Roy do this was... unexpected. Roy had been careful not to step beyond the line of teasing, with him. Of course, these were extraordinary circumstances. He didn't regret using something that had drawn Ed back from the edge so well, but he hoped that this night would not disturb the working relationship he had spent so much time fostering...

Ed stirred, stretched, opened his eyes. He blinked, visibly putting his memory in order, and finally reached up a hand to touch, briefly, the center of Roy's chest.

"Thank you. Taisa."

End

Gone the Sun

Roy's memories of his friend. Drama with Angst, I-4, spoiler ep 25.

Colonel Roy Mustang stood in the night.

Stood while the chill settled into his bones.

Stood and remembered.

"Roy! About time you got here! Serve you right if I finished your drink."

Roy suppressed the urge to grin. "Oh, well, I was a bit delayed," he said, elaborately casual. "Notice anything different?"

He posed so as to show his new First Lieutenant's insignia to best advantage. He was sure Maas saw it immediately, but he made a great show of squinting at Roy from all angles.

"Hmmm. You got your haircut? No? I know, you put on this month's new shirt! No? Hmm. New perfume?"

Roy swung at him, laughing, and Maas ducked and slapped a drink into his hand. As Roy sat he thumped him on the shoulder.

"So how did you get promoted before me, you rat, and why didn't I know?"

"It just happened now," Roy protested. "As for how, I imagine our worthy superiors judged I better fit their image of a command-track officer." He looked down his nose.

Maas nodded, wisely. "Ah, of course. Ineffectual, easily-manipulated, effete clothes-horse..."

"Effete!?"

"Did I mention the easily-manipulated bit?" Maas forestalled another swing by holding up his glass. "Cheers," he grinned.

Roy growled. "You'll get yours, Hughes. Especially if you, a mere Second Lieutenant keep mouthing off to superior officers."

"As long as the officer is you, there's no problem," Maas pointed out, mildly.

Roy had to admit the justice of this observation. They clinked and drank with enthusiasm.

"Did I mention the congratulations bit yet?"

Roy's mouth quirked. "Not in so many words, but I got the idea."

"Well, congratulations, my worthy superior." Another clink. "If you can just manage to control that temper of yours, you'll go far."

"And what's wrong with my temper?" Roy inquired.

Maas lifted a sardonic brow at him. "What, should we go another couple rounds of hand-to-hand to demonstrate? After the last time?"

Roy's eyes narrowed at the reminder. He's not getting me this time, he swore to himself. "Yes, I think we should do that," he drawled.

Half an hour later Maas swept his legs out from under him for the third time and Roy stayed down when he landed. At least Maas was breathing as hard as he was.

"The point I was making," Maas panted, "is that when something pisses you off you just put your head down and charge. You don't pay attention to anything else."

"Whereas you do?"

"I pay attention to everything, Roy. That's my gift. Yours is to barbecue things that annoy you. Apparently this makes you command-track material."

Roy hauled himself upright and eyed his friend. "Are you really upset about that?" he asked, quietly.

Maas looked at him thoughtfully. "No. You're good with people, you like playing politics, command will suit you. So, no." A slow smile spread over his face. "I'm going to jab you about it until you try to fry me, of course. But I'm not really upset."

Roy fell back with a groan.

The Colonel's hands held the rail in front of him so tightly it would have hurt if he had noticed.

Roy signed off yet another report and threw it onto the stack for his new aide to take away. He was becoming convinced that the only thing higher rank was really good for was making you read more reports.

And it wasn't as if most of them actually came from, say, the field agents in Intelligence, which might have some significant information in them somewhere. No, these were the reports about how many uniform code infractions had taken place in the last month.

Of course, there were other ways to find out what Intelligence was up to...

Right on cue, his aide opened the door to their offices.

"Sir. There's a Hughes-taii here to see you."

"About time," Roy muttered, slapping down the most recent useless report. "Show him in, Shoui."

Maas threw himself into the chair of one of the spare desks and tossed a folder carelessly onto it.

"So?" Roy asked.

"Another new aide?" Maas shook his finger at Roy. "If you keep going through them like this the higher ups won't let you have any more shiny new ones, you know."

"Never mind my staff, Maas, are they sending us or not?" Roy snapped.

Maas eyed him. "Your staff will matter rather a lot, to your command, if they call you up alone in your capacity as the Flame Alchemist, won't it?"

Roy inhaled very deeply and restrained his urge to throttle Maas. "If they're not planning to call me, then the point is moot, isn't it? Do I have an answer to my question already?"

Maas grinned. "There. You are getting better at this."

Roy gave him a sour look. "I'm so glad you approve, sensei. Now will you give me a straight answer?"

A new voice spoke. "Based on this correspondence, Sir, Dai-Soutou Bradley has agreed to start choosing State Alchemists for deployment in the North at some time in the next few years."

Two head snapped around to see the Lieutenant, who had apparently taken Maas' folder and been reading through it the whole time.

"My file!" yelped Maas.

The blond woman looked at him coolly before continuing, to Roy. "No one is named specifically, yet, but as you are one of the most combat effective State Alchemists it seems reasonable to assume that you will be one of those chosen." She handed him the folder, open to the pertinent page.

"Thank you, Shoui," Roy said, a bit bemused.

"Sir." She saluted and strode out of the office, closing the door behind her.

"Who is she?" Maas murmured.

"Lisa Hawkeye," Roy told him, flipping through the pages. "Hers was the best of the personnel files I got to choose from this time. She's very efficient. Expert shot, too. Snipers would have snapped her up for certain if she hadn't chosen officer's training. I admit," he added, thoughtfully, "I hesitate to ask her for tea."

He expected some crack from Maas about having a sense of self-preservation after all, but what he got was an extremely serious look.

"Roy. Keep this one."

Roy raised an eyebrow.

"I mean it. You need her. You need someone who's brass tacks and no nonsense to back you up. You can get so flighty sometimes."

"...flighty?"

"What, you prefer flaky?"

Roy actually paused to think about that, and Maas clapped a hand over his face. Until he saw Roy's sly grin.

"You bastard! You did that on purpose!"

Roy smirked. "You did say I was getting better at this." He tossed the folder back to Maas. "There won't be any trouble over that being gone, will there?"

Maas sniffed. "Of course not. As long as I get it back before they notice."

Roy had the grace to look concerned.

"Don't worry, Roy. This is my field." He smiled lazily. "And the things you want me to do are loads more fun than my actual orders. Mustang-shousa, sir."

Roy came around the desk and closed a hand on Maas' shoulder. "Thanks, Maas."

"Any time."

The air burned in the Colonel's lungs.

If he could stop his breath heaving so much, it might be better.

Champagne had been flowing pretty freely, and Roy figured he could get away with it.

He made sure Maas was in ear-shot before sidling up to Gracia and lifting a hand to brush her hair back from her cheek. "So, may the Best Man claim a kiss from the bride? For good luck?"

"Hey," Maas squawked, gratifyingly, "hands off, Mustang! Find your own!"

"Surely there are no other ladies in the world so enchanting," Roy declared. "Besides, she should have at least one kiss from a good looking man before she spends the rest of her life putting up with your scruffy face."

Gracia's efforts to restrain her new husband were hampered by her own giggles. Finally she resorted to kissing him into submission, though she blushed a bit at the whistles from the guests.

Roy offered Maas a fresh glass in compensation, as Gracia left for another round of mingling with the crowd. "Happy?"

Maas looked at him as if Roy had asked whether it was nice to be able to breathe. "Aside from a few troublemakers who seem to have crashed in by impersonating a member of the wedding party, I've never been happier in my life."

Roy showed his teeth. "I did warn you what would happen if you kept making fun of your superior officers."

Maas grinned back. "You're a bastard." He slung an arm around Roy's shoulders. "So," he continued, "since you can't have Gracia," this backed up with a dire glare, "what about that Hawkeye-shoui of yours?" He gestured with his glass across the room to where Gracia and Hawkeye had their heads together and were laughing.

Roy looked at him as if Maas had asked whether he would like to gargle ground glass. "...Hawkeye? You are joking, right?"

Maas now looked smug. "Thought so."

"You thought what so?" Roy eyed him narrowly.

"She is the one you need. And you know it. I can't imagine any other reason you, of all people, would refrain from making a pass at a woman that impressive."

"The regulations forbidding fraternization within a command?" Roy suggested. "The fact that I really don't want her to shoot me anywhere important?"

Maas laughed uproariously, which Roy thought rather unfeeling of him. After all, Hawkeye clearly liked Gracia and probably wouldn't shoot her friend's husband. A mere commanding officer had no such assurances.

"Just remember what I said, Roy," Maas told him, recovering himself, "keep this one."

"Right, right. You too."

Maas raised his brows. "Hm? How's that?"

A corner of Roy's mouth curled up. "Well, you never know when a wonderful lady like Gracia will wake up and realize how many other, much better looking, men would be happy to..."

Maas chased him around the table, brandishing the champagne bottle.

The Colonel could feel tears starting to freeze on his cheeks. He could feel himself shuddering.

He supposed it was the cold.He sank to the ground and wrapped his arms around himself, trying to stop the shivering.

It must be shivering. It was cold out.

Roy knelt, shaking, in the broken stones of Ishvar.

The muscles of his stomach hurt from being wrung out so hard. Bitterness filled his throat and mouth. He was contemplating whether he had the strength to stand when hands closed over his shoulders. He started, violently.

"Roy! Roy, calm down. It's me."

"Maas?" Roy coughed. He didn't question how Maas had found him. Couldn't think past the noise and the smell and the memory of fire, the words that wouldn't leave his head... your orders... just following orders...

Maas caught him as he doubled over again. "Here. Drink this."

The water washed away a little of the bitterness. Roy hadn't thought it would leave.

"Now drink this."

The burn made him cough again.

"Finish it. You need it."

Roy didn't argue. He emptied the bottle and slumped back against a shattered wall beside Maas. Whatever had been in it seemed to unlock his voice. It was the first time Roy had spoken in what felt like days. "...can't go on. Like this. Have to stop..."

"You could turn in your license," Maas said, quietly.

Roy shook his head, suddenly wild to make Maas understand what he meant. "Not that! We have to stop. This has to stop!" His voice was harsh, and Maas silently handed him the water again. Roy laughed.

It took a while to stop.

"We can't stop it now," Maas told him softly.

"Maybe." Roy looked over the rubble around them. "But we can stop it again. This can't happen again, Maas."

Maas' voice was impatient, pained. "Do you really think you can stop it?"

Roy didn't know what was in his face, but when he looked at Maas whatever it was made his best friend edge back.

"Roy..."

"If I'm the one making the decisions I can."

It looked as though Maas would protest that statement, but he bit his lip and looked away. "Are you serious?" he asked at last.

Roy clenched his fist, feeling the roughness of his glove against his skin. Not again. "Yes."

Maas looked back at him, grave and measuring. "All right. Whatever I can do to support you, I will."

Roy blinked. "Are you serious?" he found himself echoing.

Maas looked at him more normally, with affectionate derision. "Of course I'm serious."

"Maas... This isn't a joke. This is..."

"Treason. I did get that part, yes." Maas took Roy's shoulders again and shook him a little. "But if anyone can actually pull off an idiotic, suicidal stunt like this, it's you. And you're right that this can't go on and leave anything spared of us. And I will always support you. Always, Roy. Understand?"

Maas' bare statement had the force of anyone else's oath, and Roy bowed his head, bringing his hands up to grip Maas' on his shoulders.

"Understood," he whispered.

"How long is always, Maas?" he whispered now.

Dimly, he felt something warm settle around his shoulders. Looking up he found Hawkeye beside him. She had brought his coat.

He had kept her. Or, perhaps, she had kept him. And she had picked up his plans as easily as she'd picked up the folder that day, given herself to his cause as easily as she'd given her opinion, grounded him and guarded him as efficiently as she did everything else. Maas' advice was almost always good.

Always.

How long?

"Hawkeye."

Her eyes widened. The Colonel very rarely called her by anything but her rank. "Sir?"

His hand closed tight on hers. "Promise me you'll do your best to live through this."

He could see her weighing it, weighing, most likely, his life against her own. That was why he had not asked for more. But finally she nodded.

"I promise." Her grip suddenly rivaled his. "Promise you will too."

That was the exchange, he knew. That was his duty to them. To live. To succeed in what they gave their own lives for. The weight of it bent his head down. "My best," he agreed. "I promise."

She accepted that with a nod of her own and climbed back to her feet. "Are you coming in yet?"

"In a little while." He looked up at her. "Thank you, Chuui."

Her eyes were serene as she saluted him. "Sir."

Roy looked up at the clearing sky, wishing he could think of something to pray to for the peace of his friend's spirit. But, in the end, the only thing he could offer was what he had promised his second.

"My best, Maas. Everything I am. I swear it."

Tears could not even this exchange. But perhaps time would. Roy closed his fist.

Everything.

End

Ever - Chapter Six

Ed learns the price that playing can cost. Drama, I-4

Ed chewed on the end of his pen and reached without looking for a book he'd set aside earlier. His hand patted empty air, empty table, a larger book...

"Here, Nii-san."

The book dropped into Ed's hand and he looked up to see Al standing beside their library table, bought when they couldn't find a desk big enough, and looking at him with affectionate amusement.

"Thanks, Al," Ed mumbled around the pen.

"You've nearly lived in here for days, Nii-san," Al pointed out, concern shading his eyes. "Do you... want some help?"

The glow of gratitude made Ed feel like clouds had lifted after a rainy day. Al's methodical approach always helped him ground his own more scattershot intuition.

"I didn't want to take you away from your work, but if you have some spare time..."

"Don't be silly," Al admonished him, pulling up a chair. "I don't have very many clients yet, and I'll always have time to help you."

Ed softened and reached over to lay his left hand on Al's arm. "Thanks."

For all the difference in their appearances, their smiles were identical.

"So," Al settled to business, "what are you working on?"

Ed leaned back with a sigh.

"It isn't pretty," he warned. "And the explanation will sound really strange, too," he added after due consideration.

"Anything else would worry me," Al assured him, straight-faced.

Ed ignored that and gave his brother a quick synopsis of how he had come by his new project. Al nodded and frowned, and finally just sat with his chin in his hands looking inward and contemplative. Ed had quickly learned, or perhaps relearned, that this was Al's version of deep concentration, the parallel of what he'd been told was his own hazy and far-away look when caught up in a thought.

"Do you trust Mustang-shousho to keep this hidden?" Al asked eventually.

"Yes," Ed answered at once, and then had to stop and think how to explain that trust to his brother. "It isn't that I don't think he'll use any advantage to hand, because I know he will. And I know I'm one of those advantages, and he probably counts you as a part of that. But the promotions he's working for have a point. I don't know what it is yet, but I know it includes the power to keep things like this out of military hands without all of this shuffling around."

Al was looking at him with the disconcerting sharpness his brother rarely showed openly. "He's teaching you to do that, isn't he?" he asked quietly.

Ed blinked, genuinely nonplused. "Do what?"

"To see things like that and use them. I mean, you've always seen, Nii-san, but..." Al trailed off, looked down at the table.

"Hm," Ed half laughed. "You too, little brother."

Al glanced back up with a sudden, rueful smile. Ed clasped his hand tight.

"You said to be careful, Al, and I am. I promise."

Al accepted that, relaxing and reaching his free hand for Ed's notes. "Let me see what you've got so far."

A few hours later Ed was about ready to take their bookshelves apart plank by plank.

"I know I had it here just the other month, where did it go?" he growled, sprawled on the floor to look under the shelves.

"What are you looking for, Nii-san?" Al called.

"Ruland's lexicon. There's some nomenclature I want to check." Ed peered under another shelf.

"Wasn't that one we got from the National library?"

Ed froze and then lowered his head to the floor with a thump. "I'm an idiot," he muttered. He hauled himself upright and stretched. "We also wanted some of the Vaughn texts, didn't we? I may as well go get them all now."

"All right. Try not to get too distracted browsing, Nii-san," Al told him with a smile.

Ed ruffled his brother's hair in an attempt not to look shifty. "Of course. Be right back."

He could hear Al laughing as he fetched his boots.

It might, Ed reflected later, have been better if he had done as Al said and come right back with the books. But he didn't, and Major Morland found him while he was wondering whether Hollandus would be of any use.

"Ah, Elric-san, I've been hoping I might run into you."

"Hm?" It took a moment for Ed's mind to return from Hollandus' accounts of Taste and recognize the man in front of him as one of the officers he sometimes saw in the General's orbit. "Ah, Morland-shousa, was there something you needed?"

"Actually, it was about something I was just looking for," Morland gestured to the shelves around them. "I was looking for the report on your visit to Zenotime, what, two years ago? But only about a third of it seems to be archived. I don't suppose you have a spare copy tucked away?"

"I don't," Ed answered indifferently. As far as he was concerned reports were only good for hamster bedding. "I'm sure Mustang-shousho has a full copy, though."

Morland gave him a tight smile. "I'm sure. Mustang-shousho is very thorough about such things. But he's out of his office today and I had hoped to take a look at the report before I'm overwhelmed with my own paperwork again."

For one echoing moment of time Ed only thought it odd that Morland would not know that the General was, in fact, in; Ed had gotten a note that he would be in all week and Ed should just drop by if he got any promising results.

And then something in Morland's expression clicked.

He remembered the General saying it would be better if the military personnel didn't see them in company too often. Morland didn't know how much more aware of the General's movements Ed was these days. He didn't know Ed had any way of catching the lie.

He wanted the report from Zenotime without the General's knowledge.

The full report.

"Is he out today?" Ed asked, trying to look only surprised instead of in shock. "Well, then I guess there's no point in my stopping at the office. Thanks for telling me. Sorry I couldn't help you."

"Oh, it's not a big deal," Morland waved it off. "Good luck with your research, Elric-san."

After Morland left him Ed leaned against the shelves for a few minutes, trying to breathe evenly.

And then he bundled up his books and walked as quickly and quietly as he could to Mustang's office.

Ed closed the office door behind him and leaned against it. "Shousho?"

"Results already?" the General asked, surprised. "That's impressive even for you."

Ed swallowed twice before he managed to speak. "Different results."

The General frowned, taking in his expression, which Ed had finally allowed to go blank and frozen. He stood up and came to steer Ed away from the door to the couch.

"Sit down." And, when Ed was seated, "Now, what happened?"

Haltingly, Ed recounted his conversation with Morland. "The full report, the details of the process Magwar wanted to use," Ed said softly to his clasped hands. "Shousho..."

"I see."

Ed looked up to see Mustang standing with his head lowered.

"I will take care of it, Fullmetal."

"How?" Ed asked, his brain starting to work again. "Morland's immediate superior is Lake-chuujo, if he asks for the report..."

Ed broke off sharply as Mustang raised his head. He had never seen such a cold look in the General's eyes.

"If Lake has not yet heard of the possibility, then it need only involve Morland." The words seemed to be pulled out of the General on barbs.

"Morland has supported you," Ed whispered, starting to see the shape of something terrifying.

"He has. And while that allowed him to learn the edges of the secrets he wants to know the whole of, it also involved him in things no loyal officer should have done."

"Treason...?" He read the answer in those chill black eyes. Ed felt as though he was suffocating. "How... can you... "

"Do you truly want to know the answer to that, Fullmetal?" the General asked, deathly quiet.

The General had deliberately allowed Ed to see what he intended to do, Ed realized, in order to present this choice with the most brutal possible clarity. He had educated Ed more gently than Ed had realized until this moment, letting Ed see the manipulation as an intricate puzzle and sheltering him from most of the consequences of solving it.

"I don't... I...," he stammered.

"Think about it," the General directed, looking away.

Released, Ed fled the office.

Ed closed the book he had been reading and checked the clock. "I need to get going."

"Nii-san," Al looked up with a frown.

Ed shook his head. "I need to go, Al."

Al looked extremely un-sanguine. Still, that was an improvement over what he'd looked like a little over two weeks ago when Ed had come home and curled up in a ball in his room for hours, shaking. Al had discerned, quickly enough, at least one part of the cause and Ed had had to rouse himself in order to prevent Al storming the General's office to demand an accounting.

Ed wasn't at all sure he'd succeeded in communicating just what had shaken him so badly. He suspected that Al thought his current errand was needless self-flagellation, just Ed being oversensitive to his part in something that was really the General's doing.

He thought Winry might have understood a little better. At any rate, she had refrained from death threats against his commander, and hadn't argued when Hughes brought Ed the results of the court martial and Ed insisted on seeing the sentence carried out.

She was waiting for him by the door.

"Ed," she told him, low, as he reached for the doorknob, "it's all right if you can't do everything."

Yes, he rather thought she did understand. "I need to know whether I can or not, though."

She accepted that with only a slight darkening of her eyes from sky to steel blue. But she seized him for an unexpected hug before striding off toward her workshop, back straight.

Hughes, after a single sharp look, had told Ed where to go, so he didn't have to speak to anyone as he made his way through the headquarters complex to a small courtyard out of the way of anything. He was grateful for that.

Could he do this part of what the General did? Did he want Mustang to teach him this? Ed hoped to know soon. Sixteen days of wondering had done things to his appetite and sleep patterns that Al didn't approve of at all.

He stopped in the shadows of the courtyard, next to the General. Neither of them looked at the other.

A line of soldiers filed out into the sunshine, followed by two more escorting Morland between them. Ed felt a twinge of shame at how relieved he was when they blindfolded him, and Ed knew Morland couldn't see either Ed or the General standing witness.

When the guns fired Ed jerked and spun around to lean his head against the cool brick behind him, choking.

Is it better than pregnant women killed and their babies turned into inferior Stones? he asked himself, desperately.

And, as if all it had taken was that one trick of phrasing, he knew his answer.

Yes.

He turned back to watch the body being carried away, and still had to support himself against the wall as he shuddered, but the answer in his heart didn't change.

"Are you going to be all right?"

The General did not ask, Ed noted, whether he was all right just at the moment.

"Yes," he answered, still a little strangled. "I'll... I'll be in tomorrow."

For the last two and some weeks, Ed hadn't set foot in headquarters. Al had fetched books they needed from the National library.

The General's hand closed on his shoulder. "Look at me."

Ed turned and looked Mustang in the eye. What he saw there stopped his breath like a punch to the stomach. Pain. Guilt. Helpless rage. It tore a response from Ed. "Necessary," he got out. "It was better than what would have been."

"It was," Mustang agreed, in a voice like broken glass. "But that never makes it easier or less terrible, or lessens the responsibility."

"I... I see that." And Ed did see it, in Mustang's face.

"As long as you do. It's your choice." Mustang let him go and turned away.

How long has he been doing this, Ed wondered as he made his slightly unsteady way home. How many times?

Al and Winry were waiting for him when he got back. They took one look and tucked him up on the couch with a cup of tea and one of them to each side. Ed let the weight of the mug steady his hands.

Remembering Al's fury with Mustang, the first words out of Ed's mouth were, "He's been doing this for us all along."

"What do you mean, Ed?" Winry asked.

"He's been making these decisions all this time, making these choices so we wouldn't have to."

"He's been using you all this time to give him the power to make the decisions," Al said, voice harsh as even his brother rarely heard it.

"Yes," Ed agreed. "And it would be easy to keep on that way; to let him keep sheltering us. But he agreed to show me the way to stop being used. And... someone has to choose. And I want it to be me."

"Why?" Winry wanted to know. "If you have to make choices like this..."

Ed was silent for a moment. "What do alchemists do?" he asked at last.

Winry blinked at this apparent non sequitur, but Al understood. "Alchemists work for the good of all," he recited, eyes shadowed.

Ed nodded, straightening just a bit.

"Can you do it?" Winry's question recalled what she had said as he left.

Ed looked at her soberly. "Yes."

Winry read his eyes for a long moment before nodding and putting her arms around him. Ed turned to Al, who already wore a tiny smile, and knew his brother had accepted Winry's judgment on this. Al also wrapped an arm around Ed's shoulders.

"Let us know if we can help, Nii-san. All right?"

Ed leaned his head against Al's. "I promised, little brother. I will."

TBC

Snapshots

A handful of moments: Roy and Hughes at Ishvar. Drama With Occasional Porn and Angst, I-4, spoilers ep 15.

Second Lieutenant Roy Mustang poked at his dinner roll. He should be eating it, but he wasn't sure he had the energy.

It had been a very unpleasant day.

As Roy counted it, the day had started last night, when he had been assigned his least favorite duty, counter-assassin bodyguard. When he was looking out for one or more of the high ranking officers he had two possible distasteful outcomes. He could spend the entire time wound tighter than his own watch spring for absolutely nothing. Or he could actually counter a threat, which meant using fire on another human being, and while he could do it in the heat of the moment he was always sick afterwards.

It was the smell, he reflected morbidly, kind of like the smell of dinner here in the mess tent.

The comparison was not making him any more eager to eat his roll.

Last night had been a watch spring night. Which meant he hadn't been able to sleep after, and was now stumbling around the camp in a state of advanced blear, fervently praying he wouldn't draw night duty again tonight.

It was almost enough to make him want to be assigned to a Demolitions team for a few days. Annoying as it sometimes was to be looked at as a walking fuse, he wasn't usually bringing buildings down on living people.

His musing was interrupted by a hand snatching his roll from under his eyes. Spinal reflex grabbed it back before he consciously recognized the hand as Maas Hughes'. Roy glared up at his friend, who was standing across the table and grinning at him.

In doing so he forgot to keep a good grip on his bread.

"Ah, come on Roy," Hughes cajoled, examining the roll that was somehow back in his own grasp, "it's not like you were eating it. Toasting it maybe. Are you experimenting on whether you can start a fire by giving something the evil eye?"

"Give me back my bread, Hughes," Roy growled, in no mood for horseplay.

Hughes' slow grin told Roy that his wishes had no bearing on the situation.

"Make me."

Roy did not normally rise to that kind of bait in public. He had a certain dignity to maintain, and being an Alchemist who had become an officer by default rather than through training didn't make things any easier. But today he was tired and short on temper, and decided that the shortest distance between two points was to vault the table and tackle Hughes.

It was unfortunate that Hughes anticipated him, and took off sprinting, but Roy wasn't about to let that stop him now.

The two of them ducked and wove around tables and soldiers, Hughes cackling and Roy snarling. He didn't even consider the fact that he had his gloves in his pocket. He was going to strangle his best friend with his bare hands, by God.

Right after he got his damn bread back.

Hughes ducked out of the mess tent altogether, which turned out to be a tactical error. They both skidded to a halt directly in the path of Brigadier General Hakuro. What was even worse, Master Sergeant Mitchell was with him, and Hakuro's pursed lips and narrowed eyes were nothing to Mitchell's expression of abysmal expectations wholly fulfilled.

It was the second expression that snapped both Second Lieutenants to attention.

Hakuro passed on without deigning to speak, but Mitchell paused long enough to rake them both up and down.

"It's nice to see someone in high spirits. Sirs." His tone could have put ice on the sand at noon.

Roy winced.

When Mitchell was safely out of sight and ear-shot he rounded on Hughes, mouth open to berate his friend for getting them both into trouble.

Hughes lobbed the roll back to him.

Roy regarded the rather battered hunk of bread for a long moment. "If you tell me that this was all for the sake of getting me to loosen up, as you like to put it," he enunciated precisely, "I am going to remember that I have my gloves with me."

"All right," Hughes replied, airily, "I won't tell you that, then."

He started to stroll back into the tent. Roy's lip curled back. Dignity, he reminded himself strenuously, an officer has a certain dignity to maintain.

Ah, screw it.

The roll bounced off the back of Hughes' head. Roy was unsurprised that Hughes reacted fast enough to catch it, though it would have made things more... piquant if he hadn't.

Roy made his way very calmly past his startled friend.

"Decided you don't want it after all?" Hughes asked.

"Of course I still want a roll. That's why I'm going to have yours. You get that one."

"Excuse me?" Hughes blinked at him.

"In the words of your illustrious mother," Roy said in his best laying-down-the-law tone, which he had, in fact, learned from Maas' mother, "you touched it, you take it."

Maas choked at the imitation, and Roy smiled with great satisfaction.

Then he sprinted back toward the table to lay hold of Maas' roll before his friend recovered.

"Affinities have nothing to do with personalities, Maas, there have been plenty of studies on it."

Roy sprawled on the floor or Maas' tent and took another drink of his beer.

"Oh yeah? Point out to me one person who's more of a cast iron bastard than Gran. And he binds that stuff to his skin." Maas shuddered, delicately. "There's got to be a connection."

"Maas..."

"Not to mention Armstrong," Maas continued. "He can call it art all he likes, there's a man whose answer to everything is brute force." He paused for a contemplative pull on his own beer. "Sometimes it's the force of pure bull-headed chivalry, but still."

"You're reaching, Maas," Roy informed his friend.

"So what about you? You and your flash fire temper, even if you don't usually show it to the poor suckers around here. Boy are they in for a surprise some time," Maas added.

"I control my temper, Maas, and what does that do to your little theory?" Roy arched a brow. The gesture didn't seem to have the same effect it did when Major Gloster used it. Roy would have to work on that.

"Doesn't mean it's gone," Maas pointed out with some justice. "Besides, that isn't the only thing your personality has in common with your affinity."

"What else is there?" Roy challenged.

"Your brilliance."

Roy blinked. Maas gave him a sidelong look.

"It's just like fire, really. It flickers. There's no better word for it."

"Flickers?" Roy repeated. "Do I want to know?"

A corner of Maas' mouth curled. "You're brilliant," he stated. "I don't think anyone doubts that, except possibly Mitchell, and that's his job. But you have the most uneven application I've ever seen. When something grabs your attention, you give it everything you've got, but if it doesn't you couldn't care less."

"What's wrong with focusing on the important things?" Roy asked, a bit defensively.

"It's the not focusing on a few important things that stands out," Maas replied dryly. "Like eating."

Roy was indignant. "I was only fifteen, Maas, and it was only once," he protested.

"A very memorable once," his friend noted. "Your mother nearly had hysterics when you fainted."

Roy sniffed. "The whole argument is false logic," he declared. "You already know my affinity is fire, so you map my personality onto that. If you didn't know, you wouldn't be able to guess based on my personality."

"Maybe," Maas allowed easily. Then he grinned. "It's still a favorite pastime for both the officers and the troops."

"What is?"

"Guessing what someone's affinity would be if they were an advanced alchemist."

Roy rolled his eyes. A smile twitched at his lips, though. "So? What is yours supposed to be?" he asked.

Maas chuckled.

"The general consensus is that I would have an affinity for lightning. Supposing that's possible, of course, most of the guys are pretty sketchy on their science. Is it?"

"Mmm. Could be," Roy allowed, squinting at the canvas above him. Trying to translate from technical terms, he essayed, "If you break air, the bits left over can have an electrical charge. If you could recombine them correctly, you could get lightning. You'd have to clear a path for it, though. It would be very delicate work."

He smirked.

"If you were," he drawled, "I bet what you'd really have an affinity for is air itself. You'd have all the raw material you could ever need coming out of your mouth. Of course, the temperature might be a bit high..."

A small knife zinged past Roy's nose and clattered off Maas' footlocker. Roy laughed. "That's the last of my beer you're getting, Mustang," Maas told him darkly.

Roy grinned and propped a foot on his knee. "Seriously, though," he said, thoughtfully, "if it did work that way, which it doesn't, but if it did... I'd expect you to have an affinity for plants."

"Plants?" Maas blinked.

"Growing things," Roy explained. "An affinity for, well, life. The quiet parts that most people don't pay attention to."

Maas was silent, and, looking over, Roy thought he detected a faint blush. He decided to take pity on his friend.

"So, can I have another beer?" he asked lightly.

Maas growled, though Roy could see the gleam of appreciation in his eyes. "Oh, so that's what this was all about, hm?" Maas languished dramatically. "My best friend, and he only likes me for my beer!"

He tossed over another can.

"I hate these boots," Maas grumbled over the footgear he was polishing. "They might at least have chosen rough leather for the field, but no, it had to be shiny!"

"They aren't that bad," Roy said, fitting the last piece of his gun back into place.

Maas gave him a dour look from where he sat on the bed. "You, of course, wouldn't think so, Mister Perfectly Groomed. Gran probably keeps you hanging around the command to be a sartorial example."

"Ah. Would that also be why he keeps assigning me bodyguard duties like I was some kind of self-mobile gun?" Roy inquired rather acidly. He glanced up at Maas and couldn't stop a smirk. His friend was looking at him seriously, and had apparently forgotten the rag full of boot polish dangling from his hand.

"You're going to get polish all over your bed, you know," Roy pointed out helpfully.

Maas contemplated the boot in his hand, set it down carefully, neatly folded his polish rag beside it, and pounced on Roy, wrestling him to the floor.

Roy tried not to laugh too hard; he needed all his breath. He hadn't won a wrestling match with Maas in about ten years, but some were closer than others. For one thing, Roy had a stronger grip.

It was hard to use it effectively, though, when Maas started cheating and tickled him.

Roy wasn't sure when wrestling gave way to something else, but he was sure it happened sometime before the salt taste of Maas' skin was on his tongue. He traced the line of Maas' throat, and his friend arched back with a rough, low sound of pleasure.

They drew apart of get rid of interfering clothes, and Maas tugged Roy toward the bed. Roy's bare back touched Maas' sheets and he pulled Maas down against him. Yes, that was what he wanted.

"Maas, do you have...?"

Maas chuckled in his ear. "Since being your lover? I stashed some away every place I could think of." He reached an arm under the bed and Roy laughed low in his throat.

"Does that mean I should try to find all those places?" he purred.

Maas shivered against him. "God, Roy, sometimes I think you could bring a person off with nothing but your voice," he whispered against Roy's shoulder.

Roy leaned in to close his teeth on Maas' ear. "Want to find out?"

Maas laughed, breathless. "I thought we had something else in mind for now?"

His fingers returned, cool and slick, and Roy leaned back with a sigh. Maas stroked him, soothing and seducing Roy's body until he was rocking up into the slow thrust of Maas' fingers.

"It happens every time, and it still surprises me," Maas murmured.

Roy made a questioning noise, about all he could manage.

"The way you relax so fast for me."

Roy knew there were a lot of reasons for that, some old and some recent, most having to do with the core of gentleness in Maas. It was what his steel and danger were wrapped around. But Roy didn't have the breath or coherence to explain that at the moment. "You're my friend. I trust you," he managed. He drew Maas down to a kiss. The long fingers inside him curled, beckoning, and Roy gasped sharply. "And I want you," he added against Maas' mouth. "Now, Maas."

He could feel Maas' lips curve into his crooked smile. "Now that doesn't surprise me in the least," Maas told him.

Maas withdrew his fingers slowly, stroking them across that electric place inside Roy, leaving him trembling. When Maas started to move between his legs, though, Roy put a hand on his chest to make him wait and turned over. He released a sigh as he felt Maas' chest against his back, and Maas curled them both up.

Roy liked this feeling, of Maas' long, lean strength folded around him. He couldn't stop a sensuous wriggle as Maas' arms wrapped around his ribs.

Though Roy would never have admitted it out loud, he felt very safe like this.

"Is this all right?" Maas asked against the nape of Roy's neck, and it was Roy's turn to shiver.

"It's good," he said softly.

And then it was better than good, because Maas was pressing into him, and there was something about Maas' care that always undid Roy. And maybe he'd been under too much stress lately, because suddenly he was on the edge of tears for no reason he could find. Gentleness shouldn't cause tears, should it?

Maas was as slow now as he had been earlier, and for once Roy gave himself up to it, letting Maas set the pace, long, leisurely thrusts, until he lay shuddering under his friend, completely abandoned to Maas' touch. Heat built gradually in Roy until he almost felt he was floating, only Maas' weight anchoring him. It wasn't until Maas' hand slid between Roy's legs that the heat tipped over into explosion, and Roy jerked against Maas' body behind him, as Maas drove into him faster, harder now. Fire drowned Roy's senses.

He drifted, pleased that Maas was still curled around him.

"Feel better now?" Maas asked quietly.

Roy sighed a bit. "I can never keep anything from you, can I?"

"Nope. Besides," Maas' arms tightened, "you never want me to make love to you like this unless you're feeling shaken up."

"Thanks, Maas," Roy said, past a small catch in his throat.

He felt Maas smile against his shoulder.

"My pleasure," Maas whispered.

Roy knelt on the cliffs in the darkness, wondering why he wasn't in shock.

Shouldn't he be? Shouldn't he have difficulty believing that he had set half a city on fire? Fire so hot it exploded stone.

But he had never doubted for an instant that it was his hand, his will, his doing that caused the destruction he now looked down on.

His power.

Even if the amplifier was no part of him, it had been his power.

He had always known his own power.

Shock would have made things vague, perhaps a bit more bearable. Not so hideously solid and exact in his sight and memory. Every flash of light, every hurtling shard of stone precise and brilliant.

Maybe he didn't deserve that mercy.

The fist that held his gloves and that glowing ring clenched tighter.

"Roy."

Roy bowed his head. It didn't really surprise him that Maas had found him here. Maas always knew how to find him. He waited for whatever words his friend might find for this occasion.

Maybe they would even help.

But Maas said nothing, only set his hands on Roy's shoulders, kneeling behind him on the sand.

Roy didn't know how long they sat like that in silence, but eventually he leaned back just a little and Maas folded his arms around him. Roy breathed in for what felt like the first time all night, breathed out, felt himself shaking. Had he been shaking before? Or had it just started?

"Don't let go?" he asked, voice faint and thready.

"I won't," Maas assured him.

And he didn't, as Roy listened to the sobs that tore loose from his own chest, distantly amazed at their violence. They subsided slowly, and after a time Roy lay back in Maas' arms, exhausted and wrung.

Maas still said nothing, only stroking Roy's hair back from his forehead. They sat together there until the sun rose and called them back down to the camp.

End

Challenge - Chapter Seven

Disaster strikes for the whole team. Drama with Angst, I-4

After such a golden autumn, no one expected what happened in the heart of winter. Yukimura himself said afterwards that he had thought the tingling was merely pinched nerves, and had made an appointment with his doctor. At the time, all Masaharu knew was that he heard his captain's voice falter, saw his partner's head snap up, heard Sanada's sharp exclamation, found himself running, with the rest of the team, to where Yukimura had crumpled to the ground.

"He's still breathing, but his pulse is uneven," Yanagi reported, tense, as Jackal sprinted for the cell phone in his bag and called an ambulance. "I didn't see him hit anything when he fell."

"He didn't," Yagyuu seconded.

"Then what's wrong?" Sanada asked, voice ragged. Yanagi closed a hand, bruisingly tight, on his shoulder.

"I don't know, but you have to keep the club calm until the ambulance gets here," he told their vice-captain.

Sanada's head bent, and Masaharu was close enough to see the muscles of his jaw standing out as he clenched his teeth. He drew in a quick breath and nodded.

"The rest of you, get changed. We're following him to the hospital," he said, tightly, before turning away and calling the club to order, dismissing them for the day.

Masaharu remembered the rest of the day as an appalling blur in which random moments of panic stood out: a paramedic calling urgently for oxygen; Akaya shivering against him as they sat in a waiting room; the date on a sports magazine, three months old; the chill of Yagyuu's hands when Masaharu folded them around a can of coffee.

When a doctor finally emerged, though, it was Yagyuu who took one look at Sanada's hunched form and went to meet him; Yagyuu who explained that Yukimura's parents had been called, but they, his team, were the only ones there for him at the moment; Yagyuu who wormed the diagnosis out of the doctor and carried it back.

Relief made Masaharu lightheaded, as he listened to Yagyuu's account of the information he had extracted. Guillain-Barre, very unlikely to be fatal, Yukimura had already regained consciousness though he was still very weak. Then the bombshell. Up to a year for recovery in severe cases. This was a severe case.

The team stared at each other, stunned. Their captain would be away from them? Most likely the entire year? The sight of Yukimura being wheeled past, pale and still, wiped away any lingering fantasies of a quick return, though.

It was too much for Sanada, who called after him with a promise that the team would wait for its captain, would remain undefeated for him. A promise like a charm for Yukimura's recovery; if they kept faith for him, surely he would return. Masaharu could see the tremors running through Sanada's body, see the terrible tension in his bowed head and tight fists. Yanagi stepped to his side, clasped his shoulder, and, when Sanada looked up, nodded firmly, giving himself to the promise as well. Akaya, the baby of the team, who would now be playing in every match when the new year began, stepped forward, and nodded, just a touch tremulously. The doubles players, with barely a glance at each other, stepped forward as one.

The tension drained out of Sanada, and he closed his eyes, swaying slightly against Yanagi's supporting hand.

"Thank you," he whispered.

The team slowly regathered themselves, leaning on each other more heavily, now that the one who had lifted them all up was gone. The winter was a nightmare, as one month, and then two crawled by, and Yukimura remained hospitalized, largely paralyzed, often on respirators. The mood of the team darkened, and Masaharu began to wish for the new year to start so that they would have outsiders to take out their accumulated stress on. Even when Yukimura began to regain some strength, and the worst fear lifted, the prognosis remained poor. He would be a long time recovering.

In March, Sanada and Yanagi drew up a tentative training schedule, which included, to everyone's initial dismay, weight training. Wrist weights, to be precise, worn all the time. The vast complaints of Masaharu's shoulders indicated that it was a good idea, in a sadistic kind of way.

"We'll work up from lighter weights to heavier ones," Yanagi explained, as he handed the pocketed bands out. "Thanks to our location, we have always had to face most of our strongest competition twice: once at Regionals and again at Nationals. The schedule aims for peak performance starting toward the end of Regionals."

The mood was somewhat lightened by the gathering to move Yukimura back home, during Spring Break. He was coherent, and smiling, and pleased with them. He was also far weaker and clumsier than any of them had ever seen him before.

"It isn't as bad as that," he finally told them, probably exasperated by the dour expressions surrounding him. "Just watch. I'll be back with you for Nationals. I promise." He then proceeded to regale them with descriptions of his physical therapist, who was apparently psychic. She had listened to his goals, taken a long look at him, and utterly forbidden him to go anywhere near a tennis court without her presence.

Masaharu had to snicker at that. "She's got your number," he told his captain, who actually blushed, faintly.

The team started the new school year in a strange mix of hope and fear, confidence and screaming tension, brilliance and darkness. Masaharu couldn't help thinking there would be trouble sooner or later.

The first time Sanada lost his temper, they all knew there would be trouble.

One of the third years, a player who was in the pool of alternates, should any of the Regulars be... absent, made the mistake of trying to excuse his loss to a second year and collected an abrupt and vicious backhand. Silence fell over the court like an iron bar.

"There can be no losses. Not for us. Not this year," Sanada said, cold and hard.

And then Yanagi was there, with a hand on his shoulder, drawing him away, speaking quietly. The doubles players, just switching after a match, drew closer to each other. Masaharu had seen Marui's start of shock, felt Yagyuu, beside him, freezing with a tension he had largely shed over the past year.

"He's totally snapped," Marui murmured.

"Not totally," Jackal objected. "But Sanada has always been a harsher leader than Yukimura; and now he leads alone."

"Indeed," Yagyuu agreed, tone distant and chill.

Jackal and Masaharu exchanged a glance. They would have to shield their more tightly strung partners when possible, and in Yagyuu's case, at least, that would mean keeping him away from Sanada as much as possible when either was on edge.

If they agreed to this.

That knowledge passed among all four of them. They had to choose, and they had to choose now, whether or not to break ranks over this. Either they could seek to restrain Sanada, probably by appealing to Yukimura, or they could accept his ruthlessness in the name of their common goal and give themselves over to his command without question.

Any other options involved breaking from the team, and that was unthinkable.

Yagyuu was the first to voice a decision.

"We will await Yukimura-san's return undefeated," he said, evenly, repeating the promise Sanada had given their captain.

Masaharu nodded. If Yagyuu could handle it, he could certainly handle it.

"This will change who we are," Marui noted. After a long moment of silence, though, he shrugged and blew a bubble. "No losses, hm? I can deal with that."

Jackal nodded without speaking.

"All right, then," Masaharu sighed, and looked around to catch Yanagi's eye. He made a quick gesture to the four of them and nodded. Yanagi smiled with uncommon relief and nodded back, before he returned to soothing Sanada. Akaya, standing beside the bench Sanada had been steered to, arrested Masaharu's gaze before he turned back to his partner.

The pattern hit him with the force of a premonition, as analysis lying latent until triggered sometimes did. This was where there would be a problem. With their youngest, most volatile member, the one who did not have a close supporter within the team.

The one whose restraining voice was now gone, and whose second mentor was sliding headlong into a dangerous frame of mind, and whose other teammates had just agreed to ride along for the trip to hell.

And if there was a damn thing that could be done about it, Masaharu didn't see what it was.

TBC

Nutshell

Takes place during Chapter Seven. Introspective. Yukimura tries to deal with his debilitation over the winter. Angst, I-5

"O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2

He tried to sleep as much as possible.

At first he had made an effort to say awake, instead. To assure himself that, however his body might be failing, his mind was still alert and capable. Thought and coherence made him more than the mannequin he felt like, whenever the nurses had to dress or wash him. Besides, when he was alert he was as far as he could get from the lurking weakness that had pounced on him without warning, and stolen his life in the moment it had stolen his consciousness.

Sometimes he wondered it it had stolen his soul, too, and wished his hands had enough sensitivity to tell him that his body really was still flesh that might be responsive again, and not just flesh colored plastic. Though the latter would, he supposed, make it easier on the nurses.

When he caught his thoughts wandering in those directions, he gave up on alertness. A hospital room offered very little to focus an alert mind on, in any case. For a while, he entertained the speculation that it was deliberate—that the hospital staff had designed these bare, blank, square rooms specifically to depress their patients' minds into a vegetable state so they would be less trouble.

He mentioned this to the staff psychiatrist, in a fit of useless temper, during one of the periods when he could breathe and speak on his own. He actually managed to laugh, the next day, when a stack of audio-books arrived. Those didn't last him very long, but they did suggest that distraction might serve him better than simple alertness.

So then he started replaying tennis matches in his head. He reconstructed them with great attention to detail, going back, and back again, to add all the little things he remembered, the way he might groom a bed of some temperamental flower seedlings. His first match with Sanada, the heaviness of those returns against his racquet, the shock in those hard, brown eyes, the startled softening when Seiichi smiled and thanked him. His first match with Yanagi, the knife-edge precision that almost caught him in a lattice of predictions, the flare of his own curiosity, the falter and then fascination in suddenly blazing hazel eyes when he lunged beyond the cage of prediction. The mutual frustration that always accompanied the blood-red glint in Akaya's eyes. The devilish gleam in Niou's, just before some unsuspecting victim walked into one of his traps. The silent allegiance in the angle of Yagyuu's head when they spoke, and the explosive speed of his shots. Jackal's unbending pride that only showed when he played. The layers of Marui's game, flamboyant over subtle, careless over sharp.

When he ran out of matches, he redesigned his garden, in his mind's eye, wondering whether some honeysuckle would be more trouble than it was worth. It was about time to prune back the wisteria, in any case, before it harmed the maple with its showy burden of flowers and tightening vines.

There were times Akaya reminded him a lot of the maple and wisteria.

When he had his garden growing nicely, in his mind, though, he opened his eyes and the square, bland lines of the hospital ceiling hit him like a fist in the ribs. The stillness of his body made him frantic, panicked. This wasn't how he was supposed to be. The respirator was suddenly obtrusive again, choking him.

His heart-rate finally set off the monitors' alarms, and quick voices surrounded him. He felt a burning spread down his arm, and the world fell away.

After that, he slept as much as he could. After all, nothing else could possibly help him, it was clear now. And he wondered, while drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness, whether he was really alive, lying here without air or earth or movement or the scent of sun on clay, or if the machines just made it appear that he was.

End

Detour

Roy and Gracia discuss some difficult plans. Angst with Drama, I-4, spoilers ep 25.

Gracia Hughes had been blessed with an innocent face. It had served her well, as the wife of an investigator. She had also been blessed with a sharp mind, which had served her even better as the wife of Maas Hughes, in particular. She knew why Mustang was making the suggestion he was, and she knew she would be able to do it.

She just didn't like it.

"I want to go with him," she insisted. "Surely it will be safer for all of us, especially since I doubt Alicia can remember to talk about her father as if he were dead. Some of that can be passed off as a child not understanding, but still."

Mustang didn't turn away from the window. "It would be better if you told her he is dead. It could become the truth at any time." His tone was cool and factual.

Gracia finally lost her hard-held composure at this suggestion, and snarled. She stalked closer to him and wrenched him around by the shoulder to face her. The names she wanted to call him stopped on her tongue, though, when she saw the harsh lines frozen around his mouth. They reminded her that Mustang had known her husband even longer than she had. Her lips tightened.

"That doesn't answer me."

"If you disappear with no explanation, questions will be asked. It will put Hughes back in danger if whoever tried to kill him suspects he's still alive." Mustang measured out his words as if they were some precious resource, flat eyes looking through her.

"All right," she conceded after a moment. That did make sense, in the unbending operational logic she was used to from listening to Maas talk about his work. "But I'm not telling Alicia he's dead. If I tell her that her father's gone away for a while, that will be close enough to the lies people tell children." She watched Mustang's face for any hint of give, prepared to fight for this one, even if she had to fight dirty and start making less veiled references to the Elric boys.

The bitter straightness of his mouth didn't flinch, but his eyes were helpless and lost for one instant before he turned away from her again. "Do as you like."

His brusque tone made her want to give him a solid kick in the shins. Or perhaps higher. But the memory of something Maas had once said held her back. When Mustang actually sounds angry, he'd noted with a wry smile, that's when you know you've got hold of the real him. And the real Mustang was her husband's dearest friend; Maas trusted him. In the end, so did Gracia. So, instead of smacking him, she did something that was probably crueler. She closed her hands over those squared shoulders and leaned her forehead, wearily, against his back.

"Don't, Roy," she said, very quietly.

A shudder ran through him, and the shoulders under her hands jerked with a harsh breath, and she felt tears prickle in her own eyes. Again. She swallowed them back.

"I'm going to say goodbye to him. And then I'll see you at the funeral." It wasn't real, she reminded herself as her throat closed. It wasn't real. Not yet. She straightened and stepped toward the doors to the next room where her husband lay, unconscious.

"Gracia."

She stopped.

"I'm sorry." Mustang's voice was low and hoarse, and as ragged as her heart had felt when she first saw Maas lying so very still.

Gracia sighed, scrubbing both hands over her face. Yes, she remembered, it was just like Roy Mustang to think he was responsible for everything and everyone. She came back to him and stretched on her toes to plant a light kiss on his cheek. She tasted salt on her lips.

"You're an idiot," she corrected, gently. "He'll live. He will." The repetition was fierce, and he finally looked down at her again. "What you have to do now is succeed. You hear me?"

The shadow of a smile eased his mouth. "Yes, ma'am."

Gracia nodded briskly, the way she did when she'd finally managed to get Alicia's boots, gloves and hood on in the winter, and crossed into the other room with her head high.

Once there, she sagged down into the chair beside Maas' bed with an unvoiced sigh. She brushed her fingers through his carefully washed and combed hair, and settled her hand on his chest so she could feel him breathing.

"This isn't going to be easy," she whispered. "I don't even know exactly where you're going to be. Or how our clever Mustang-taisa intends to spirit you out of here. Oh, I know why," she added, waving her free hand. "It's just going to be hard. A hard time." She swallowed thickly, looking down at the unresponsive face. "But no one can possibly say you haven't done your part. So sleep well, love. I'll be home, waiting, when you wake up."

She pressed a kiss to Maas' warm, still lips, brushed away the tears that fell on his face, and stood. She didn't bother to dry the tears from her own face, as she walked out. They were only appropriate to a woman whose husband was dead.

End

Facing the Music

Sanada's and Yanagi's reactions to the whole story about Belial. Drama with Angst, I-3

Saying that Genichirou and Renji were not happy simply did not address the magnitude of their feelings on the subject.

Seiichi found that he couldn't really blame them; his own feelings upon seeing Mad Hatter's hunger for Niou were comparable enough that chiding them would have made him a hypocrite.

“What's in it for him?” Genichirou demanded, after his explanation, in simple terms, of the nature of his deal with Mad Hatter.

“That,” Seiichi said, coolly, with the weight of his team’s eyes upon him, “is a private matter between me and Hatter-san.”

His team allowed the matter to drop, for the time being, but Genichirou and Renji fell in at his side as he locked the clubhouse after practice. They followed him home, making small talk about the club and the team’s preparations for Nationals, and lingered in the kitchen to make small talk with his mother while she prepared a tray of snacks for them before Seiichi led them upstairs to his room.

Seiichi took the bed, Renji chose his normal seat at Seiichi’s desk, and Genichirou paced back and forth. The pacing lasted for some time before Genichirou whirled, crossing his arms and glaring at Seiichi. “Were you going to at least tell us?”

“If the need arose,” Seiichi said calmly, sipping his tea. “Which it did, today.”

That set Genichirou to pacing again, while Renji took a cake and asked, “A deal with the devil?”

“Not the devil,” Seiichi corrected him. “Hatter-san is a lieutenant of the devil’s, if I understand correctly.”

“And what does the devil’s lieutenant want with a junior high student’s soul?” Renji asked.

“I haven’t asked. Hatter-san is not the type to give away unnecessary information.”

“And knowing what he wants with your soul isn’t necessary information, Seiichi?” Genichirou was verging on an explosion.

“Not particularly,” Seiichi said. “When you’re not certain whether your body is going to be able to draw its next breath, and you can’t lift your hand to scratch your nose, and the tennis courts seem so far away that they might as well be on another planet, you find that the concept of hell loses a great deal of its terror.”

Genichirou stopped mid-stride, and when Renji spoke, he sounded stricken. “It was that bad?”

“Worse,” Seiichi said.

Genichirou turned back to him. “I don’t like it,” he said.

“I’m not asking you to,” Seiichi said, “but it was my choice to make, and I have no regrets.” He met Genichirou’s gaze and held it.

Genichirou nodded, satisfied, or at least placated, before grabbing his bag and leaving abruptly.

Seiichi laughed, soft and wry. “He took that rather well, don’t you think?”

“Well enough, although I suspect he’s heading off to disembowel straw dummies,” Renji said, rubbing his forehead. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me what the terms of your contract are?”

“That’s really a rather personal question, Renji,” Seiichi told him.

“If you tell me, perhaps I can find a way around it,” Renji countered.

Seiichi blinked, and then smiled honestly for the first time since Mad Hatter had revealed hirself to his team. “I doubt you’ll find one.”

“It’ll make me feel better to try,” Renji insisted.

“All right,” Seiichi relented. “I’ll see about getting you a copy of the contract, such as it is.”

“Thank you.” Renji stood. “I need to be going. See you in the morning?”

“Of course.” Seiichi stood as well, and saw him downstairs. After Renji had put on his shoes, he said, “Thank you.”

Renji looked back at him, and smiled. “You’re welcome,” he said, and left.

Interlude

Sanada makes a further discovery. Angst, I-3

Seiichi knew the moment Genichirou noticed Mad Hatter’s seal, low on one hip and inconspicuous except to a thorough lover.

Genichirou went still. “What is this?”

“The Hatter’s mark,” Seiichi said, and there was no point in telling him how it had come to be there. “A seal for the contract.”

As he had half-expected him to, Genichirou pulled away and sat, back to Seiichi. “His mark,” he said, voice flat.

Seiichi sat up as well, and placed his hands on Genichirou’s shoulders. “Part and parcel of the deal, I’m afraid.” He kneaded the muscles that were already beginning to knot up again.

“Every time I have myself convinced that this has all been something Niou cooked up, something happens to prove me wrong.” He shook his head, and began gathering his scattered clothes.

“You’re going?” Seiichi asked.

“I—yes. I am.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I need to think. Sorry.”

Seiichi inclined his head. “I’ll be waiting when you’re done.”

“Will you?” Genichirou asked, doing up his last button.

“Of course.”

Engarde

Kurai is depressed and Hatter is curious. Drama with Angst, I-3

Kurai was used to walking her realm with Noise's steady presence at her back like a tether that kept her from flying apart from all the different directions in which her land, her people, her responsibilities pulled her. But today she walked the length and breadth of it alone. She did it to reminder herself that she, and her land, and her people, were not part of Assiah though they were so achingly close to it. Close enough that it rubbed against the softest skin until it broke and bled. She did it to remember that they were not angels, or demons—no matter how individual members might theorize or debate; that they were their own, a people apart. The forgotten and despised children of God.

It was the Witch's shattered realm that eventually drew her—with all its psychic pain and loneliness like a blackened mirror for her own.

She stood where she had stood that first time, the first time she had fallen through its silver borders. The first time she had seen Anthy as she really was, or was meant to be. Kurai knew the Great Angels, lords of Hell, Lucifer and the Messiah, and knew a fair number of their psychic reflections, but she had not—at least not yet—meet anything like Witch. Or like Utena.

Kurai placed her hands against the smooth dome of silver and leaned her forehead against it, careful to avoid thinking about going through the silvered glass-like stuff.

And it wasn't fair that she would fall in love, with one or both of them, when she couldn't have one or both of them. Just like last time—just like Setsuna.

It just wasn't fair. She wanted to know when she would find someone who loved her the way Setsuna loved Sara or Utena loved Anthy. Because she was tired of being in love, when no one loved her back.

"One thinks that one's lord's Royal Wife is somewhat ... distressed," Mad Hatter commented, hir voice sliding through the darkness like whiskey through rich coffee.

Kurai looked up to where se sat, lounged insolently really, on a twisted tree branch that she was fairly positive had not existed there moments before. "Hatter-san," she sighed resignedly. "What do you want?"

"Is it not enough that perhaps one wished to look upon Her Majesty's beauty and spend pleasant moments in her company?" Hatter asked sweetly. Cocking hir head to one side she managed to look both coquettish, innocent, and sly.

Kurai made a face. "I'm not beautiful."

"Oh, there you are very wrong." Hatter appeared before her. Clasping her chin with two fingers, se stared into Kurai's black and silver-blue eyes. "Her Majesty is quite lovely, and will only grow to be more beautiful with time."

"Stop it!" Kurai smacked hir fingers away. "Stop it..."

Hatter might have been angered and offended had it not been for the naked pain and distress on Kurai's face. So se dropped hir hand without further comment as se waited for the inevitable explination. Kurai wrapped thin arms about herself and looked away.

"You don't love me, or think me lovely, Hatter-san. You never have," she said without looking at her shadowed companion. Hatter's face was unreadable. "It was only ever a pretty lie to get the promise that you got." Kurai turned to lock eyes with Hatter, and despite the tears her face was hard. "You can stop lying to me now."

"This one does not always lie, Kurai. This one is honest and tells the truth when it needs to be said—and you are lovely..." Hatter stopped as Kurai shook her head violently, denying all se said. Se was not, perhaps, entirely sure what se would have said to Kurai, to make her believe. But it did not matter. Still shaking her head, and not looking at the demon, Kurai turned and plunged into the swirling silver mists.

Hatter placed one hand upon the border of the other realm thoughtfully. It hardened underneath hir fingers, and se got the very clear sense of no. Se could probably force hir way in, but it was not hir way to do so. Se cocked hir head to one side.

"What are you then, and what is our little Queen to you?" Se asked.

For a moment se saw the image of a girl with wild purple hair and emerald, inhuman eyes in a dirty and torn smock. Hir eyebrow arched. The girl mouthed only one word to hir.

Mine

~~~

It had not been one of her wiser ideas, Kurai determined in retrospect, plunging into the silvered mists that were steadily encroaching into her territory. But she had to get away from the Mad Hatter and all the pretty lies that simply were not true, no matter how much she wanted them to be. Ever since Setsuna had gone back to Assiah the weight of those lies—the ones she had told herself, the ones other people like Akane had told her—pressed against her until parts of her cracked from the strain.

Witch's realm was one of psychic eminenations. A maelstrom of seething emotions that shivered and changed, nearly physically tangible things that could rip and tear. It was an unsettling place to be even when Kurai was able to control herself, but when she was feeling shattered and beyond all protection it was unbareable. Emotions like shining lances, like glistening swords, speared her. Cut her open and left her to bleed.

She was rocking on the barren ground, hands pressed so hard against the sides of her head that her ears rang, trying to block out all the endless screaming that was as much her own as it was the the centuries of bottled emotions left in this place to howl. Kurai had the disconcerting feeling of falling and the sound of rushing wings. Then gentle fingers that were cold to the touch pried her hands from her head. Witch knelt next to her, emerald eyes bemused.

"You should have run from the swords."

Kurai resisted the urge to check herself for wounds. Somehow she knew that nothing here could hurt her body unless she believed it could. Rather than being reassured by the thought, she was terrified. She gripped Witch's slender arms. "Where are we?"

Witch shook her head. Pulling away from Kurai's grasp she walked a little ways away from the kneeling Dragon Queen and stared out at the endless horizons. "We are in the place inside my head that is larger than the place outside of it."

It was the same answer that she had been given before, but now it made more sense—and less. Kurai stood up slowly, as if pushing through heavy water. As she stood the decision she had start to make when she first stared into Anthy's strangely hopeful eyes clarified and solidified. "Come away from here."

Witch turned back to her. They were so close that whispers sounds like ringing bells, too loud, too likely to be heard. "Would you lead me from here?"

The air shivered around them, hinting at the return of the maelstrom. "We'll lead each other."

Witch's smile bloomed, blazing and fierce. It was the last thing that Kurai saw before the darkness claimed her and the rushing wind. When she awoke Noise was peering down at her with anxious concern. Past her worried retainer she spotted Mad Hatter who was staring not at her, but at the opalescent dome of Witch's domain. Kurai sat up, everything in her body screamed in protest, but her head felt strangely clear. As if she had been cleansed of the paralyzing depression. In its place was a hard determination.

She went to stand next to Mad Hatter, who glanced inquiring down at her. Without saying a word Kurai placed her hand against the silvered surface and thought: "Soon." It was enough.

Worth

Tezuka sets up ranking blocks. Angst, I-4

"Headache, Tezuka-kun?" Raphael asked, leaning against one of the empty desks.

Kunimitsu took his hand from his forehead. "I'm fine," he said, and that was true, but not likely to deter Raphael's bored curiosity.

"And here I thought there wasn't the homework assignment invented that you couldn't master," the angel said.

"It's not homework," Kunimitsu said, and because today was not a good day, he simply slid the stack of papers towards Raphael, who picked them up after a moment.

"Lovely penmanship," Raphael noted, which was a reminder Kunimitsu didn't particularly need to write out a clean copy for Ryuuzaki-sensei. He handed the papers back. "What is it?"

Heartbreak, he wanted to say. Disappointment. Exclusion. The last time I have to decide who stays and who goes—until the next time I have to decide. "The assignments for the ranking matches."

Kunimitsu took out a fresh sheet of paper and began transcribing the names again, this time without the cross-outs and scribbling. "Hardly seems worth a headache," Raphael said, examining his nails.

Kunimitsu put his pen down. "Raphael-san." When the angel was looking at him, Kunimitsu spoke carefully. "There are only eight slots for Regulars."

"And a slot for the captain, of course," Raphael said.

"No. Including the captain." Kunimitsu began writing again, filling in the names for the A Block. His name. Fuji's. Arai's. Yoshimura's. Kuwahara's.

"I see. Perhaps worth the headache after all." Raphael at least had the decency to sound respectful of a difficult decision. "Still. It seems odd to eliminate one of your best players purely for the sake of numbers."

"Are you suggesting I make an exception?" B Block: Oishi. Kawamura. Ikeda. Nishi. Mikami. Fushimi.

"Of course not," Raphael said. "It's not like you would listen."

"It would be easy," Kunimitsu said. "Seigaku gives its captains the power to make these decisions. I could do it." C Block: Kikumaru. Inui. Nagayama. Saeki. Hiratsuka. Nakahama.

"But you won't." He could feel Raphael eyeing him. "Why not?"

"Seigaku's strength lies in the monthly ranking matches." D Block: Echizen. Momoshiro. Kaidoh. Ninose. Kashiwa. Ogawa. "While I am captain, no one who wears that jersey will ever need to wonder whether he earned the right to wear the jersey."

"I've heard," Raphael murmured, "that before this year, freshmen weren't allowed to compete for a position on the Regulars."

"That's true," Kunimitsu said, evenly. "Before this year, they were not." Raphael's eyebrows drifted up. "Before this year, there wasn't a freshman skilled enough to be worth ranking against his sempai."

"There wasn't?" Raphael smirked. "Sumire-chan tells me stories, you know."

"Ryuuzaki-sensei has been a coach for years. I'm sure she knows many stories," he said.

"Indeed she does." Raphael stood. "A good leader, Tezuka-kun, knows when to break his rules, and when to follow them." He paused, probably waiting to be asked whether he thought Kunimitsu was a good leader. When Kunimitsu didn't ask, Raphael sighed, expression wry. "You're one of the good ones," he said. "For what it's worth."

Kunimitsu inclined his head. "For what it's worth," he said, "thank you." He stood as well, and went to deliver the paperwork for the ranking matches to Ryuuzaki-sensei.

Promise

Knowing the history of Byakuya's promises, Rukia makes one of her own, and hopes Renji can accept it. Drama with Angst, I-4.

Rukia walked to cool down, through the streets and lower courts, circling until she caught her breath and her muscles stopped burning. When her hands finally agreed to close firmly again she climbed up to the roof of the Thirteenth Division offices to watch the sunset. It was a familiar thing to do. She couldn't decide whether it comforted her or just made her feel more alien now, with everything so changed.

The sunset itself was beautiful, though.

"Ah. I wondered if I would find you up here." Ukitake-taichou settled, soundlessly, beside her.

"Did you need me for something, Taichou?" Rukia unclasped her arms from around her legs and straightened.

"No, no, relax." Ukitake-taichou smiled down at her. "No need to spoil the sunset; you always did like coming up here to watch."

Rukia was worn out enough to take him at his word. They watched the sky until the last hint of teal faded away and the stars were out. Finally, though, Rukia sighed and cupped her hands together, whispering the words for light. She released it over their heads and turned to face her captain. "What is it, Taichou?"

Ukitake-taichou gave her a wry look. "Can't fool you, can I?" He eyed the captured seed of brightness above them. "I forget, sometimes, just how great a volume of kidou you know. Sometimes I wonder if you shouldn't have gone into the Second Division, where you'd use more of it on a regular basis."

Second? Rukia felt a cold grue crawl down her spine. The only division she would less want to be in was the Twelfth! She shook her head. "I'm happy here."

"That's good to hear." Ukitake-taichou leaned back on his hands. "You've been practicing with Abarai so much, lately, I was starting to wonder if you wanted to transfer to your brother's Division."

"No!" Rukia bit her lip as Ukitake-taichou started upright. Less vehemently, but still firmly, she repeated, "No. I'm happy here. And I wouldn't do that to him."

Her captain cocked his head. "Which him?"

Rukia blinked. "... either of them," she answered after a long pause. She tossed her head as if to shake off her thoughts. "I practice with Renji because he's the only one who doesn't treat me like either an avatar or an idiot. Well," she added, "he does still treat me like an idiot, sometimes, but that's just Renji."

"He does seem very fond of you," Ukitake-taichou chuckled.

Rukia flinched.

"It's like that, is it?" her captain asked, softly.

Rukia looked away. "I won't ask Nii-sama to break his promise," she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "I won't put him between his promises again." If her adoption was the last rule to be broken in the house of Kuchiki... then so be it. Her knuckles whitened.

Ukitake-taichou sighed and reached out to ruffle her hair. "If that's your choice. Just let me know when you're ready, then. I'll clear a court for the day and grab someone from Fourth, for your poor unsuspecting division-mates."

Rukia stared. Ukitake-taichou laughed out loud. "Oh, come now. It's obvious what you've been training toward." He smiled at her, gently. "I'm glad to see you've finally found the heart to advance seriously." He stood and stretched. "I'll look forward to watching."

"Thank you, Taichou," Rukia whispered to the breeze he left behind him.

Another day, another walk. This one not to cool down, but to compose herself. She focused on one detail after another, as she walked through the halls of her house. Steps measured. Hands steady. Expression calm. Breathing even. At last she stood at the door of her brother's room. One more breath.

She knelt and slid the door aside.

Byakuya-nii-sama didn't move from where he sat looking out into one of the gardens. "You challenged for a higher seat today," he remarked.

Rukia's mouth quirked before she schooled her expression again. News had traveled fast. "Yes," she agreed. "I am now seated third in the Thirteenth Division." A great ways to advance in a single day. A single, very long, day. She ordered her leg muscles not to start shaking again.

"Good," her brother stated. "How soon will you rise to fuku-taichou?"

Rukia lifted her head, proudly. "Within two years," she answered, prompt and firm.

Now, Nii-sama turned his head, brow lifted. Rukia held his gaze, shoulders straight. Perhaps she wasn't the prodigy that her brother was, and perhaps she hadn't driven herself as hard as Renji had. At least, she hadn't used to. But if she had a cause to put her strength toward, she believed she could do it.

A subtle softening passed over her brother's face. Nothing so overt as a smile, but Rukia brightened to see it. I'll make our house proud, she assured him silently. I will. I promise.

"Good," he repeated, voice a shade warmer.

Rukia bowed and withdrew, breaking into a grin as she ran back to her own room.

Rukia was happily off-duty and lying in the grass trying to blow all the fluff off a dandelion when Renji tracked her down.

"So!" he thumped down beside her, cross-legged, sake bottle a smaller thump a second later. "I hear you advanced. About time you got your lazy ass in gear."

"As if you should talk, Mr. Brow-nosing Social Climber," she shot back, lazily.

"Me!" he protested. "Who's the noble house girl, again?"

She grinned at him with a wicked gleam in her eye. "I'm not the one who acts like a noble house-boy."

"You little," he sputtered and swatted at her. She ducked, laughing.

"Yep. Little and fast, not a big, clumsy oaf like some people I could mention."

Renji flopped back in the grass with a groan. "I forgot what a mouth you've got on you, when you're in a good mood." He took a swig from the bottle and held it out to her. "Here. Drink up. You'll be too busy to celebrate soon, I bet." He leaned up on an elbow and eyed her with an evil grin of his own. "You did remember, didn't you, that Third Seat in your division gets to do all a vice-captain's work without any of the advantages?"

Rukia tipped the bottle back for a healthy swallow. "Of course I did." She shrugged. "Ukitake-taichou deserves a break from those two maniacs."

Renji's toothy grin softened. "Always you do it for someone else." He shook his head and snorted. "Well," he added in a more normal tone, "I bet Kuchiki-taichou was pleased. Not that he'd have said so. No, I bet the first thing he said was 'So when are you getting the next level?' Wasn't it?"

Rukia drew herself up and looked down her nose at him. "It was not."

"Oh?" Renji arched a skeptical brow.

"It was the second thing he said," Rukia informed him with dignity. "The first thing he said was 'Good.'"

"Wow," Renji marveled with mock-amazement, "he must be going soft in his old age."

"Maybe he is." Rukia brushed her fingertips over the now-uneven fluff of the dandelion. "I used to think he didn't care. Now," she paused, "now I think he just tries not to." She folded up her knees and wrapped her arms around them, a little of her old forlorn feeling trying to creep back. "Knowing the whole story... I'm amazed he doesn't hate me. Can you imagine? Your wife spends her marriage to you distracted by someone else, and then her dying wish is for you to find that someone and take them in?" She shivered.

"Yeah," Renji agreed, slowly. "That must have hurt."

Rukia hugged her knees tighter, words becoming muffled. "Why does it seem like everyone misses love by looking the wrong way? They ignore it while they have it, or they don't notice it when they find it. Or they find it when it's too late."

Renji frowned. "Rukia..."

"You know," she hurried on, "while I was in the human world... I remembered how much I missed having a friend. Someone I trusted enough to yell at and argue with. A real friend." She looked up, biting her lip. "I missed you."

Renji's face was still. "Yeah, me too," he answered at last, quietly. He leaned back on his hands, staring up at the sky. "You think Kuchiki-taichou trusts anyone?"

He did understand. Rukia gave him a shaky smile of gratitude. "He's starting to." She cleared her throat to dislodge the catch in it. "A little." Her smile steadied. "Hard for even him to deny it after admitting he cares in front of half the captains and vice-captains."

"Ha!" Renji's bark of laughter sounded a little like her throat clearing. "If anyone had the brass balls to deny it, it would be him."

"Yes," Rukia said, softly. "Nii-sama believes very much in propriety." Which did not include another commoner marrying a member of Kuchiki. Even if that member had started as a commoner herself. "Pass that bottle over, Renji. Quit hogging the sake."

"You're an idiot," Renji told her, tossing the bottle to her. "Not as much of an idiot as me, but damn close. You always put everyone but yourself first."

"You can't put everyone first," Rukia whispered. "One person has to come before another." She took a long swallow, letting the burn of alcohol loosen the knot in her chest. "And who says I'm not as much of an idiot as you?" she managed. "You and your competitive streak."

"In some things, I am indubitably superior," Renji enunciated, waving a hand to get the bottle back.

Rukia eyed him measuringly. "I suppose I have to let you have this one," she allowed. "After all, I'm not enough of an idiot to lie with my hand behind my head right next to someone who knows... " she grinned evilly, "all my ticklish spots." She darted a hand between them and tickled his ribs.

Renji squawked and flailed. "Damn it, Rukia! That's cheating! Cut that out!"

Rukia sprang back out of reach, laughing. Renji glared at her, panting for breath. "Not only," he growled, "do you pull a sneak attack, but you keep all the sake! This means war!"

"Hmmmm." She pulled a thoughtful face. "So, if I buy you a bottle of your own, will that mean truce?"

Renji hauled himself to his feet, looking as dignified as he could with grass in his hair and a smile twitching at his mouth. "Always knew you'd be good at diplomacy."

They walked close, as they turned back toward the city, but Rukia noticed Renji was careful not to even brush against her shoulder.

Maybe she'd get another bottle for herself, too.

Nii-sama...

End

Only A Story

Byakuya and Rukia speak of regrets and possibilities. Drama with Romantic Angst, I-4.

"Tell me about Hisana."

It was starting to have the comfort of ritual, for them. Rukia thought of it, irreverently, as her bedtime story. Whenever she and her brother shared an evening, she asked.

"She loved growing things," Nii-sama said, tonight. Perhaps the gardens had brought it to mind, for him; Rukia had insisted he come tell her what kind of flower was blooming, tiny and blue, on one of the bushes. He trailed his fingers through the leaves and flowers, releasing more of the light, sweet scent into the evening. "Many of these, she chose."

Rukia smiled, kneeling by the bush. She liked finding things she had in common with her sister. Though she doubted she'd ever have the patience to actually choose and arrange a garden.

"Her love of life was more contained than yours."

Rukia looked up just a bit guiltily, wondering how much of her thought had shown on her face. Nii-sama wasn't watching her, though; his eyes were distant.

"I've often thought that was why she died, in the end," he said, voice fading into the dusk. Rukia bit her lip. When he finally looked down at her his eyes were sharp again, though. "How much theory of spirit and form did you have before I took you from the Academy?"

"I had the basic course. I was thinking of the advanced one, but..." Rukia shrugged. "Ukitake-taichou taught me a little more."

Nii-sama's tone turned precise and scholarly, the way it did when he explained anything. Rukia hid a smile; she sometimes thought it was a shame that he couldn't have become a teacher. Though he'd have scared his fainter-hearted students half to death, no doubt. "In the human world, spirit is a function of bodies. In our world, bodies are a function of spirit," he began, and she nodded. That axiom she was familiar with. "Even among humans, regret and despair can kill, if they're strong enough. Among us..." Rukia's eyes widened and she reached up to touch her brother's hand. "They do not have to be as strong," he finished. His fingers tightened on hers for a breath.

"The stronger the sense of spirit and self, the greater the power," he continued eventually. "What you may not have learned is that those two things do not always go together. Hisana had a strong spirit. Her sense of self, though, was... injured." He looked down at Rukia, and the tight line of his mouth softened. "You are strong in both."

Rukia stood and gazed up at him solemnly. "I won't leave you."

An unaccustomed hint of humor quirked up the corner of his mouth and his hand brushed her shoulder as he stepped past her. "You're also more stubborn," he remarked. "Though perhaps I'm not one who should say it, when we're speaking of Hisana. It was my own stubbornness that brought us together. Even had I not been the head of the house, even had I been able to marry, more properly, from the house to be with her... that kind of thing is only appropriate with a spouse of high rank. Or sufficient honor."

There was something in his tone, tonight, a weight of meaning, of implication, that was unusual. Stubbornness, propriety, marriage from the house... a spouse of sufficient honor. Rukia stared at his back as she worked through the parallel he might be offering her. "Nii-sama," she managed, at last.

His voice was soft. "The fact that you are strong enough to bear regrets does not mean that I wish you to do so, Rukia."

She came to his side, then, and caught his sleeve, leaning her head against his shoulder. "Either way, there are regrets," she whispered.

His arm came up around her lightly, silently, in the dusk.

End

Stare at the Sun

Renji catches a glimpse of Rukia dealing with her own new position. Drama with some Angst, I-3

"Are you sure it isn't a problem to do this right now?"

Not, Renji had to admit, that the Thirteenth Division seemed any less motivated because their captain was sitting on the sidelines talking personnel instead of directing. At least not the handful of squads involved in this exercise. The shinigami side chased the Hollow side good and sharp.

Maybe it had something to do with who was standing in for Ukitake-taichou. Renji thought he'd probably jump, too, if Rukia was barking at him like that.

It was good to know she hadn't lost any of the edge off her vocabulary after all those years in a noble house.

His grin lingered as he turned back to Ukitake, who was waving a dismissive hand.

"No problem at all. Might as well get some work done while I'm sidelined." He frowned a bit. "Are you sure you want to let this one transfer, though? With his battle record...?"

"Very," Renji growled before he could stop himself. "I mean... ! I'm sure I'll be able to work around it. That's a captain's job, right?" He didn't think his attempt at a hearty laugh fooled anyone. Ukitake's eyes were twinkling, for pity's sake. Renji sighed, wondering who else he could palm off Sukikase on. He'd already been in and out of all the other Divisions. Back to Eleventh, maybe, and hope Zaraki killed the man, this time?

"Captain!" A booming bass exclamation interrupted them. "I have the medication you left behind today! Please accept this sign of my great respect!"

A screech answered. "Kotsubaki, you cheater! I was going to say that! Give me that bottle, I'll deliver it to the Captain!"

Ukitake sighed, and Renji eyed the approaching scuffle. He really, really hoped Ukitake wasn't as evil-minded as, say, Rukia, for example, was. Because if he were then he'd offer to trade these two for Sukikase.

Rukia's head swiveled to fix the pair with a stare to do a basilisk proud. "Kotsubaki! Kotetsu!" Her voice cracked out like a whip.

Even Ukitake jumped a little, and his two fourth seat officers froze—with Kotsubaki's hand jammed in Kotetsu's face to hold her off while she flailed for the bottle and Kotetsu's foot drawn back to kick him in the shins. They blinked at Rukia.

"You embarrass our division and our captain, acting like this," she rapped out.

They wilted under her stern look, shooting hangdog glances at Ukitake as they shuffled upright, straightening their uniforms.

"Yes, Rukia-san. Sorry."

"My apologies, Rukia-san."

Renji had to stifle a laugh, and a comment of Bossy as ever. Those two looked like little kids called on the carpet for getting their best clothes muddy or something. And then their expressions changed, and he started.

Kotetsu gained a small, shy smile. Kotsubaki looked down at his toes before glancing back up, and Renji could swear he was blushing. He turned to look at Rukia, wondering if she'd cast some spell he'd never heard of on them.

And maybe it was magic, but it wasn't one he didn't know. Rukia was smiling at them, gentle and warm. A fond look that lit up the air around her like the sun had suddenly come out.

"Why don't you two go help the Hollow side?" she suggested, taking the medicine with, he couldn't help noting distantly, a thief's deft snatch. "I think the shinigami side is having too easy a time." She deposited the bottle beside Ukitake and herded Kotsubaki and Kotetsu off to join the exercise.

Renji sat down with a thump.

"Abarai-kun?" Ukitake asked, mid-swig. "You look like you could use some of this stuff yourself. Is something wrong?"

"She used to smile like that." It came out in a whisper as he stared after Rukia, feeling like he couldn't catch his breath. "She used to." Before they became shinigami, before she was Kuchiki, before...

Ukitake cocked his head, hair sliding over his shoulder. "So?" he said, softly. "Now she does again? She's gained things. Family. Friends. That's something to smile about, isn't it?"

Family. A brother; Nii-sama. And friends. Best friends; just friends. The words echoed in his head, and the echos hit him like rocks, and Renji turned a glare on Ukitake only to find Ukitake's eyes dark and serious, not mocking at all. Renji turned away sharply. "Yeah, it is." He cleared his throat, hoping to clear the harshness from his tone. "So about this transfer."

"I'll take him," Ukitake agreed. "As long as Kuchiki is here, Thirteenth can handle all its problem children just fine."

Renji's mouth curled in an unwilling smirk. "Yeah, I'll bet."

She was back, he told himself, sternly, as they scrawled signatures on all the necessary lines. The Rukia he had grown up with was back, here in the middle of the Court of Pure Souls, kicking ass and taking names and besotting everyone around her again, and he had no place being upset about a freaking miracle having taken place.

Even if he wasn't the one who had made it happen.

End

If I Should Wake Before I Die #3

A bit after game-end, Cloud broods over Zack's sword and gets a visitor. Romance with Angst, I-3

Dust puffed up as Cloud drove the sword into the ground.

It took him a moment to pull his hand away from the hilt, and then he stood just staring at it. His new sword was an excellent one, but this... this was Zack's sword.

"Which is why you have no right to use it, idiot," Cloud muttered to himself, slumping down to sit beside it. His hand still stole back out to touch the blade.

"You're going to cut yourself, playing around like that. Don't you know better, by now?"

Cloud surged halfway to his feet, only to fall back with a thump, staring. He had to swallow a few times before he found his voice; when he did it was hoarse. "Zack?"

On the other side of the sword, Zack put his hands on his hips and grinned. "In the flesh." After a considering pause he added, "Only not, of course." He looked down the length of his body with a critical expression. "She's right, this really does take it out of you. We should make this quick."

Cloud bowed his head, dozens of childhood whispers dinning in his ears. Something left undone could hold a spirit to the world; and surely someone like Zack had had hundreds of things left undone, and now he couldn't rest, and it was entirely Cloud's fault. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Zack sounded startled. "What for?"

"If you can't move on... I..." Cloud stared down at the dust. "It's my fault."

There was a sigh and then a small thud, and Zack was sitting beside him. "I realize it may be hard to believe after the past couple months, but, honest, not everything in the world hinges on you personally." Zack sounded patient, now, and Cloud's head sank a little lower.

"I know that," he protested. "But..." He looked up and couldn't get another word out in face of the wry smile Zack wore.

"Let me guess. You think you got me killed."

Cloud might have been out of it at the time, but he remembered enough to be very clear about the fact that he had gotten Zack killed. Since Zack obviously didn't agree, though, he shrugged and looked away. "It isn't just that."

Zack leaned back on his hands. "So what is it?"

Cloud raked a smudged hand through his hair, embarrassed and guilty, and a little annoyed that Zack was going to make him say it out loud. "Damn it, Zack, I was pretending to be you! Claiming to be you!" A glint off the sword caught Cloud's eye and he slumped again, muttering, "Running around, waving your sword, telling everyone I was a SOLDIER First Class, and used to be Sephiroth's friend, and..." The sheer humiliation of it choked him. "You can't possibly tell me you aren't pissed off about that."

"Sure I can." Zack chuckled as Cloud's head whipped up to stare at him. "Cloud, you idiot, you were sicker with transition than anyone else I've ever seen, and by the time you could put two words together in a row all the physical evidence and memories you had pointed to you being me. Why should I be mad at you about that?"

Cloud opened his mouth and closed it again, nonplussed by this attack of logic.

"Besides," Zack crossed his ankles comfortably, "you did a good job of being me. Saved the world and everything." He smiled at Cloud, eyes sparkling behind the glow. "I'm not mad. I'm actually pretty damn proud of you."

Cloud's chest suddenly felt light and shaky, and he swallowed against a hot tightness in his throat. "Zack..."

"I mean, look at how well you turned out. You are First Class, now, my friend." Just as Cloud thought he might have to look away or cry, the sparkle turned into a gleam. "Of course, some things never change."

Cloud yelped as Zack tackled him into the dust and glared up at his captor. "Zack!"

Zack grinned down at him. "Too much seriousness is bad for you."

Cloud's eyes narrowed and he growled. He remembered that line. And, while he might have gotten pummeled like a little kid three or four years ago, things damn well had changed, now. He twisted and heaved, and bared his teeth in a grin of his own when it actually worked and dumped Zack off him. He dove after.

They thrashed back and forth though the rising clouds of yellow until Zack finally got his weight over Cloud's hips and both Cloud's hands in a good grip. By then they were both out of breath and laughing.

"I'm going to win next time," Cloud declared, wriggling his wrists to test Zack's grip.

And it did loosen for a second, but in an odd way. Cloud frowned. He frowned more when Zack muttered, "Aw, hell."

"What? Zack? What is it?"

The smile he got this time was a little more crooked than normal. "Just reality catching up with us again." Before Cloud could ask what he meant, Zack shook him a little. "Listen. It wasn't your fault, Cloud. And I'm still here. Remember." His expression turned considering. "Actually... why don't I make sure of that."

Just as Cloud's brain was starting to catch up to who and where they were and what must be happening, Zack swooped down and kissed him. Cloud's brain hit the pause button again.

Zack's lips were gritty and his mouth tasted of dust. And then it was just warm, and wet, and the soft pressure of Zack's tongue searching his mouth.

And then it was nothing.

Cloud lay, staring up at the sky, quite alone on the bluff except for the sword. "Damn it, Zack," he whispered, hearing his own voice shake. "I demand a rematch."

A short gust of wind ruffled his hair like an affectionate hand.

End

Closed Circuit

Al wakes up, restored. Not all the news is good, though. Drama with Angst, I-4.

One

Al smelled pine as he drifted out of sleep.

That was right. He and Nii-san were home. They'd come home to... had they...?

Jolted abruptly awake he sat up all in a rush and then had to stop and try not to be dizzy. Nothing was right. There was too much light and strange shadows, and under the scent of rain was the smell of something scorched. Old ash. He stared around him blindly, trying to make sense of what he saw. Dark walls around, but only sky above him. Wet grass under his hands.

"Nii-san...?" he whispered, and then shivered hard. "Nii-san?!"

"Al...?" A soft thump behind him made him spin around, coming up onto his knees. Winry stood on the other side of a crumbled wall, with a basket of flowers spilled at her feet, staring at him.

Only... it was wrong. Winry was too big.

"Al!" Winry-he-thought-probably sprang over the wall and rushed to throw her arms around him and he yelped, a bit stifled, as he was squashed against her. "Al! Al, you're back! Oh, Al!"

"We got back last night," he managed. "I'm really sorry we didn't come see you, but Nii-san wanted to start right away, and..." he trailed off, bewildered. "Is Nii-san with... Are you really..." He pushed away from her and looked around at what he was starting to recognize as the burned shell of his home. A cold, cold thread of terror wound through him. "What happened?"

Winry sat back and really looked at him, and frowned. "Al," she said, slowly, "you're... How..." Al thought maybe he could see the same cold feeling in her eyes, too. She shook her head and took a breath. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Her expression was determined, and he took some comfort from the familiarity of that. "Nii-san and I got home from studying with Sensei," he whispered. "We were going to... bring Kaa-san back." His voice slowed as he looked around again at the burned house and the weirdly grown-up Winry. "Winry," he asked, careful and distant, "what happened?"

Winry closed her eyes for a long moment and took another breath. "Okay." She looked at him again. "It's okay, Al. I think I know what happened. I'll tell you everything. It's going to take a while though. All right?"

"Where's Nii-san?" He tried to keep his voice from shaking.

"I think he's still in Central City." Winry ran a hand through her long hair. "That's part of the taking-awhile part."

Al swallowed hard and nodded. "Okay. Tell me."

He listened while she talked and the sun rose, listened hard, tucking it all away in his head. And when she was done he was silent for a long time.

"Al?" she said at last, hesitant.

"At least I'm back." He looked up at her with a small smile. "That's the important part. I can make more memories; as long as I'm here."

He had to admit, though, it was extremely embarrassing when Winry grabbed him to hug again. She squished a lot more than she used to.

Two

Pinako-baachan took one look at him and pulled out a large bottle of beer to thump down on the table in front of her. Then she sent Winry to the station with a message to Central, care of as many different people as they both thought might know where Nii-san was, and sat Al down and filled in more details for him. She stared into the speckled brown glass of the bottle all the time she talked about his father. That was one part Al deeply regretted not remembering. Or experiencing. Or whatever. He and Nii-san were going to have to come up with whole new equations to talk about what had happened to him and probably some new technical vocabulary too. The thought steadied him, and he smiled.

When a pretty young woman called Rose arrived, a week later, she brought a baby, a badly injured and wild looking boy, a story, and all of Nii-san's notes. Al listened to the story, and took the notes, and then went up to the room he'd been given, closing the door silently behind him.

He didn't come out for a while.

Three

Al traveled to Central City that winter, to meet some more people for the first time again. A man named Mustang received Al from a bed and held very still while they spoke, wincing whenever he had to move his head. In a low voice, he told Al many more details about the lost years with his brother. Another man, named Hughes, insisted that Al stay with him and his wife and daughter, and sprawled over his couch when he talked, and told Al many more details about the first man. Al listened politely, and asked questions softly, and didn't break until the little girl called him nii-san. Hughes' wife drove everyone else out of the room and held him quietly until he stopped crying. He managed a small smile just for her, when they saw him off again at the station.

It took another season before he could smile without having to think about it.

Four

Al was reading through Nii-san's notes again. He almost knew them by heart, now, even the terrifying part about Al being consumed by the Gate, and the strange, sketchy part, clearly written in a hurry, about passing through the Gate. That was at the very end of the stack of notebooks and loose paper, and Al always slowed down when he got to it.

This time he stopped completely and ran his fingertip over the hasty curves and slashes of his brother's shorthand where it read "gt = psg". The note for "passage" was underlined twice.

Al sat, staring at the second bed in the room. He had ignored all hints that it might be removed.

Whatever the passage was, it wasn't only one-way. He was living proof of that. And what Nii-san had done once, perhaps he had done again. The Gate. He had to find out more about the Gate.

He had to find a way to open it.

Al's mouth firmed into a line that would have been very familiar to anyone used to dealing with his brother. He restacked the notes and walked down the stairs with a steady tread.

"Pinako-obaasan."

Winry and her grandmother and Rose all turned to look at him. Al took a long breath.

"Would it be all right if I asked Sensei to visit for a little while? There's something I want to ask her."

End

Dragon's Whisker

Civil war erupts, and Seien returns. Drama with Angst, I-4

Seiran was playing catch, in the garden with Shuurei, when a roar went up from the streets nearby. He started to his feet, reaching out to catch Shuurei's shoulder; he'd heard sounds like that before, from the throats of men charging with weapons in their hands.

"Seiran?" Shuurei's eyes were wide, and he gathered her closer, tense.

"It's all right, Shuurei-chan." He would make it be all right. He had no wish to be the Whirlwind again, but to protect Shuurei...

"Yes, it's all right." They both relaxed as Shouka-sama stepped out from under the garden trees to join them. "I barred the gate behind me as I came in."

"Shouka-sama, what's happened?" Seiran asked quietly.

His foster-father looked more weary than Seiran ever remembered seeing him. "It's a riot. Two of the city merchants got a tip from someone in Civil Affairs about a load of barley coming in, and they bought it all up." His smile was worn. "Reishin is furious, of course, but the Department of the Military refuses to give him any support to repossess the food, and when the people saw what prices were being charged..." He looked toward the noise, which now had smoke starting to rise over it.

"What is Shou-taishi thinking?" Seien burst out. "Even if the Emperor is too ill to deal with this, his councilors aren't!"

Shouka-sama's mouth tightened. "I... am not sure what he's thinking, anymore," he said, voice low. "I have considered that it might be time to ask him."

There were screams in the roar of voices, now, and Shuurei flinched from the sound, drawing closer against Seiran, looking up at them both with wide eyes. "Is it..." she had to stop and swallow, "is it really going to be all right?"

Seiran's arm tightened around her shoulders, and he looked over her head at Shouka-sama. His foster-father's brows lifted at whatever expression was on Seien's face. "It will be all right." Seien said, low and definite. "And when you go to see Shou-taishi, Shouka-sama... please take me with you."

Seien stood in the shadows, in the snug, dark clothing Shouka-sama had given him for the swift, cautious trip to this office. It was a distastefully familiar kind of clothing, but it served its purpose; Shou-taishi had mostly ignored him as he listened to the two men speak. Seiran had listened, and now he was staring at Shou-taishi with disbelieving eyes.

"It is the Emperor's command," the man reiterated, hands folded calmly on his desk.

Shouka-sama sounded just as outraged as Seien felt. "But you must know what's happening to the people!"

"If the country cannot cleanse itself, better it die."

The evenness of Shou's voice, set against the memory of the harsh crowd roar, was too much for Seien, and he stepped into the light. "How can it cleanse itself when no one leads it? When the people with strength won't use it? How can he demand such an idiotic thing?!"

Shou's brows lifted. "Shouka, you should teach your people bett—" He broke off, frowning, looking more closely at Seien.

Seien growled and pulled off the muffling scarf he had worn for the trip here. Shou-taishi sat back, slowly, eyes fixed on him.

"Seien-koushi." A wintry smile was all the welcome he offered. "You've gained some awareness of politics, since you've been gone, I see."

Seien slashed a hand down, as if to knock away the comment. It wasn't politics he recognized, here and now. "I didn't expect to see bandits in charge of this city, but what else do you call that?" He pointed out the window where fires were starting to glow in the dusk. It looked a whole lot like the work he'd seen from the murderous bastards who'd found him years ago, and now everyone he cared for in this world was in the middle of it. He glowered at Shou. "What do you call yourself for letting it happen?" he whispered.

"I call myself a servant of the Emperor." Before Seien could snap at this, Shou pushed himself up from the desk, turning to look out the window. "Before sense or mercy or life itself, I am the servant of the Emperor." He clasped his hands behind his back and snorted. "And just what do you think you can say about this, in any case? A prince exiled for treason, who has broken his exile and returned in secret from the throne and the ministers alike? How can you say you care for this Court?"

The words stung all the more for being indifferent, without malice. And true enough. Seien drew himself up. "I don't give a damn how many times vipers bite each other," he answered roughly. "I do care who else will be caught in their thrashing around. And if cutting off the snakes' heads now will stop them, then I'll do it." Seien swallowed both distaste and some cold anticipation. It would not, after all, be the first time.

"Hmm." Shou-taishi turned his head to glance back at Seien. Seien thought there might have been a shadow of a smile on his face, and he rocked back, wary. "Well, then." Shou directed a rather sardonic smile at Shouka-sama. "Bring him along and meet me in the Emperor's rooms."

Shou-taishi and Shouka-sama knelt by the Emperor's bedside. Seien did not. He had begun to, twelve years' habit not worn away by a few years gone from court, but the light in his father's eyes and the color of his skin had frozen him still.

"You're not sick," he whispered.

Shou looked up at him in an interested way, but Seiran hardly noticed. He know what illness and death looked like, now, knew them closely and well; he saw neither in his father's face.

The Emperor met his eyes for a long moment before turning his head to gaze up at the ceiling. "I am not," he agreed. "But the courts are."

"So it's true." Seien pulled in a hard breath past his clenched teeth, a hiss of rage. "Why didn't you just kill them yourself, then, and not set the entire country on fire to burn out a few?!"

"Some clans have tried that, you know," his father remarked, conversationally. "It didn't work. It only sets a bad precedent."

"Well, you could do it now, surely!" Seien spread his hands, half pleading. He had thought to do it himself, after the Emperor's death, but that was clearly a long way off and there was no more time left. "They've given you a reason now, haven't they?"

"And who," his father asked, softly, voice completely, dreadfully neutral, "will step into the place left empty, when they are gone?"

Abrupt fear struck through Seien like lightning. Time was entirely run out; he had to make his own move now, and make it blind. He was shaking, mouth dry, eyes fixed on the Emperor's face. Completely unsure whether he was about to die for his answer, the death he had escaped five years ago, but entirely sure it was better for him to take this cup of poison than leave it for Ryuuki, he whispered, "I will."

The Emperor looked down to meet his eyes and then, oddly, at Shou-taishi with a tiny, crooked smile. Shou met the Emperor's eyes for a long breath and finally, slowly, nodded. The Emperor closed his eyes with a sigh.

Shou turned a calculating look on Seien. "Very well. I'll see to stopping the chaos and putting down the princes. Go with Shouka, Seien-koushi. In a little while we'll be able to announce your return."

Seien nodded, silent, rather dizzy with the speed of this reverse. He knelt briefly to his father, fighting not to wobble as he stood again and followed Shouka-sama out.

They were back home, inside the gates, before either of them spoke.

"Are you all right?" Shouka-sama asked gently, resting a hand on Seien's shoulder.

"I..." Seien swallowed, closing his eyes. "I..."

"Ah." It was the understanding in Shouka-sama's voice that broke Seiran down, and he didn't resist when Shouka-sama tugged him closer—only shuddered, burying his harsh sobs in the black fabric of Shouka-sama's shoulder.

They stood for a long time, that way, in the dimness under the half-stripped fruit trees.

End

Feed Them On Your Dreams

The Emperor is dying; Seien talks with both his fathers. Drama with Angst, I-4 (Significant Novel Spoilers)

Don't You Ever Ask Them Why

Seien sat beside the Emperor's bed, looking down at his father. The man looked pale and sunken, small in the middle of his crisp sheets and soft blankets. "So. You called your fate to you."

The Emperor's mouth quirked at one corner. "It looks that way. Or perhaps the gods think it's your time and I'm just in the way."

Seien almost flinched, catching it back at the last moment; that was close enough to the way he often thought of himself, just a placeholder, really, to make his stomach twist with the thought that he and his father were more alike than he'd thought. The Emperor vented a short half-laugh, about as much as his body would allow him by now, and closed his eyes.

"You want to know something," he stated.

Seien's fingers tightened around each other; it was true enough, he didn't come here for any other reason.

And that, in a way, was his question.

"Will you tell me, now," he said, low, looking down at his clasped hands, "why you didn't pay more attention to your family?"

The Emperor smiled at the ceiling. "You resent me for that." It wasn't a question.

Seien's anger made his voice a growl. "You spent years and years fighting to reunify the country, to break the power of the great clans until imperial law ruled everywhere again." His control slipped and he slammed a hand against the wall. "And you almost lost it all just because you ignored what was happening in your own inner courts! Why?!"

The Emperor managed a sigh. "I doubt you'll understand yet, but all right." His eyes, already detached, turned still more distant. "There was a woman I loved. Strong and beautiful as the sun. She shared my dreams for our country." He was silent for a long moment, thin fingers tracing over the covers. "She died for them." The curve of his mouth had become bitter. "I could barely look at any other woman, after that."

Seien frowned. He could almost understand that, but... "So you couldn't care for our mothers. What about us? What about your sons?"

Very quietly, his father said, "You weren't hers."

Seien stared for a long moment. "And that's why you let them build factions and scheme and betray and poison the courts, the city, nearly the whole country?" He took a long breath, trying to settle his roiling stomach, and still couldn't make his last words come out as more than a harsh rasp. "Did you think your kingdom would be a good funeral offering? Was that it?"

"I did say you probably wouldn't understand," the Emperor murmured.

Seien made a disgusted sound.

"I think everyone should be allowed one great foolishness in their lives," his father added, reflectively.

"Not the Emperor!" Seien snapped, utterly incensed that such selfishness had almost destroyed the peace, the world, of Ryuuki and Shuurei.

At that, his father looked at him directly, smile growing. "Well, perhaps you'll be able to keep your own foolishness out of how you rule, then."

"I will." Seien knew it was probably foolish to tempt fate by saying such a thing, but he was determined that it would be true.

The way his father laughed still made him uncomfortable.

"Take the throne with my blessing, then. My son." The Emperor reached out, and the weight of years and empire poised over Seien's shoulders pressed him down to his knees to accept it.

And Know They Love You

Seien sat on a stone, under the bare branches of an inner court garden, and drew up his knees to rest his forehead on them. A bit of damp chill struck up from the stone, through the rough cloth of his robes.

The rites were over; the funeral procession was complete. Tomorrow, everyone would call him Emperor. Tonight, he desperately wanted a shred of quiet in which to catch his breath and brace himself.

The rustle of footsteps nearby almost made him whimper.

"Seiran."

Warm relief washed over him, and he lifted his head. "Shouka-sama." And then he had to pause, startled. Shouka-sama was barely visible against the tree trunks, in the dusk, all in snug black, rather than mourning.

"There are things you have not been told about how the previous Emperor reigned." Like his figure, Shouka-sama's voice nearly disappeared into the breeze through the garden. "I would like to tell you, now that I can."

Seien was quiet for a moment. Shouka-sama could only have come here dressed like this to let Seiran know, without words, just what tales he wished to tell. To let Seiran deny it, if he wished.

Part of him did wish, but most of him was wary enough to want to know everything; he might need it.

"Tell me."

"I came to the capital when I was ten, because the Emperor looked on my clan with disfavor, to see if there was any way to save them. That was when I joined the Wolves. A year later I was given my first target: my great-grandmother."

Seien started, eyes wide and shocked. Even with everything he knew, he had not expected that.

The soft voice wound on through the sounds of rustling branches. "That was the price of my clan's survival—the life of its true leader. The one person bright and strong enough to challenge the country's ruler."

Seien shuddered. Even through his chill sickness, though, ran a thread of hot fury that the Emperor had failed to apply that ruthlessness to his own family. How had he dared become so hard and then fail?

He listened, in the growing darkness, to Shouka-sama's list of bloody tasks he'd done in the Emperor's name. Finally it fell silent and Seien unwound from the rock and reached to catch his foster-father's hands.

"Thank you." He pressed those hands to his lips, brief and hard. "For doing it. For stopping it." He looked up, meeting Shouka-sama's burning eyes. "For telling me."

"You are the Emperor, now," Shouka-sama said quietly.

Seien stilled, caught by the things Shouka-sama wasn't saying—the offer he didn't quite speak aloud. His foster-father gave him a tiny smile, agreeing that Seiran heard the silence correctly.

"Shouka-sama..." Seiran's voice shook. If he asked, he would be spared more blood on his hands. Shouka-sama would soak his own in still more, to save him from that.

"You're family, too," Shouka-sama told him gently.

Seiran closed his eyes, and let the dark quiet of the evening wrap back around them, letting himself rest in his living father's protection.

Tomorrow would be time enough to walk back into the light.

End

A/N: The story and section titles are taken from the lyrics of "Teach Your Children", by Graham Nash.

New Year in Winter

Takes place just after the Final Judgement. The Cards are happy; Yue isn't, very. Drama with Angst, I-3

The Cards were celebrating.

The blue dusk of their Place nearly sparkled with the brightness of their pleasure, lit with the glow of them flitting back and forth, congratulating each other, sharing stories of their capture.

Yue watched over them. He took his duty to them seriously, unlike certain fat, lazy Sun guardians he could name.

He watched, but he did not rejoice with them.

A soft breeze touched the feathers of his wings and he glanced over, unsurprised to see Windy. She stood beside him, hands clasped and eyes lowered. "Yue-sama."

"Yes?" he asked, when she hesitated.

"I beg your pardon," she murmured softly.

Yue shrugged one shoulder. "There is no need. It wasn't your fault." Not Windy's fault that he had been captured himself, subdued and humbled by a little slip of a girl with bright eyes and an open smile. "It was your Master's power and intent."

"Yes." Windy smiled herself, almost as brightly as their new Master, hands pressed to her breast. "A warm power." Her eyes met Yue's properly once more. "I think... you will like it, too, Yue-sama."

Yue sniffed. "It will be quite some time before she is strong enough to see."

"Ah." Windy's smile was, perhaps, a bit wistful as she bowed to him and moved back among the other cards, who seized on her happily. She had been with the new Master the longest; everyone wanted to hear her stories.

As the celebration rolled on Yue caught a number of glances in his direction, flickering toward him between laughter. He answered them only with his presence; he wasn't sociable, the way Keroberos was.

After a while, though, shadow moved in the blue and Dark slipped up to lean delicately against his shoulder. He didn't unfold his arms, but he did curve a wing in over her. Dark was, of all of them, the closest to his own nature; she was comfortable enough to have here. She knew the value of silence, for one thing.

"The bell did not give her any power," Dark said, eventually.

At that, Yue stirred. "I know." He glanced down at the spilled shadow of her hair. "The bell was of our alignment. I saw what it did." And it hadn't been made to do anything but bridge the girl's own power to Windy. His mouth tightened. "If she had not defeated me by her own power, I would not have chosen her as Master for you." No matter how determined Clow had been to make him.

"Oh, Yue-sama." Dark sighed. "You can choose for yourself, as well, you know," she said softly.

Yue looked away, long hair swinging against his back. "That is not my purpose." That much had been made plain; twice. Once by his abandonment and again when Clow guided another's power to take him.

Dark looked up at him with a faint smile. "A new Master is new life to us. A new life gives us all new purpose, don't you think?" She stood on her toes to brush a light kiss over his cheek and slipped away as Yue blinked at her.

He thought of calling her back to ask what she meant, but she had already found Light and twined fingers with her, and he knew the two of them had been unhappy to be separated while the Cards were scattered.

He settled back to watch over them. He would hold to his duty for however long it would last. It seemed to be all he had.

End

Taste Your Salt Water Kisses

Ritsuka won't move out so Soubi moves in. Everyone involved has to readjust their lives. Drama with Angst and Romance, I-5, implicit spoilers

One: Soubi

"You can't just move in!"

"Why not?"

"Well..." Ritsuka's ears saddled. "I mean... It's not the kind of thing..."

"Ritsuka." Soubi touched his cheek, eyes dark. "I can't just leave you here unprotected. I can't. Don't ask me to, please." He was perfectly willing to beg for this, except that didn't always work with Ritsuka. A tiny part of him didn't think that was fair.

Ritsuka was frowning and chewing on his lip. "But... it might just upset Kaa-san more. And," he folded his arms tightly, "the only other bedroom used to be Seimei's." He looked up, straight into Soubi's eyes. "I don't want to put you there."

The sweetness of his Sacrifice's care for him stopped Soubi's voice for a long moment.

"You're both idiots," Kio put in from where he was rummaging in Soubi's fridge. Ritsuka glowered and Kio grinned. "Who says a room has to be a bedroom? Go on a cleaning spree or something, move everything around. Make the old bedroom a closet or something."

"Oh." Ritsuka looked thoughtful. "Hm."

There were times Soubi was tempted to feed Kio his own paints, but he was useful every now and then.

Ritsuka was looking around Soubi's apartment with a more measuring eye now. Finally he turned back to Soubi and wound his fingers in the bottom of Soubi's shirt. "Okay, look. Let me pick the time, all right? I want to ask Kaa-san when she's in," he paused and Soubi mentally inserted a sane phase, "a good mood."

"As you wish," Soubi said, voice low. He could only hope Ritsuka wouldn't wait too long.

Two: Ritsuka

Ritsuka put his hands on his hips and looked around, pleased.

They hadn't actually done anything with Seimei's room; he'd known Kaa-san wouldn't agree to that. But they had moved other things, and now the long upstairs room that had held some of Tou-san's old stuff was cleaned out and turned into Soubi's room and studio in one. Soubi was fingering the pale curtains Ritsuka had dug out of the bottom of Kaa-san's old sewing basket and smiling.

"Perhaps you should think of a career as an interior decorator." He looked over his shoulder at Ritsuka, a faint teasing light in his eyes.

Ritsuka flicked his ears back but didn't glare too hard. He was just happy that Soubi wasn't as tense as he had been lately. He didn't like the idea of a tense Soubi around his mother.

Soubi crossed the room in two long strides and caught Ritsuka's face, delicately, in his hands. "Thank you, Ritsuka," he whispered.

Breathless, Ritsuka leaned into him. A little voice in the back of his head noted he was getting awfully used to doing that. "What for?"

Soubi smiled, dry and sweet. "For indulging your Fighter."

Ritsuka snorted a little. "Right. Come on, let's go down to dinner." He tugged Soubi out of the room and down the stairs.

Dinner was... odd. He was pretty sure Soubi hadn't had a chance to speak to Kaa-san when Ritsuka wasn't there, and the only thing Soubi had said to her when Ritsuka was there was I am here to protect Ritsuka. He'd kind of expected Kaa-san to try to send him away, at that, the way she had Hawatari and Shinonome-sensei. But here she was, serving Soubi seconds and smiling. It was fragile, under bruised looking eyes, but she was smiling.

He wished he could believe it would last.

While it did last, though, he would enjoy it. "It's really good fish, Kaa-san. Can I have some more?"

"Of course." She busied herself getting him another portion and some more pickled vegetables to go with it. "It's good for you, Ritsuka. Eat as much as you like."

For this moment, with dishes clattering in the warm evening and three people around the table, he could believe everything would be all right, and, while his mother was turned away, he smiled softly up at Soubi.

Soubi's rare open smile answered him.

Three: Ritsuka

Ritsuka flinched as a glass shattered against the wall over his head.

"You care more about some stray than your own mother?! Fine! Then get out, both of you get out!"

"Kaa-san..." Ritsuka reached out a hand only to jerk back as a plate followed the glass, and then Soubi was there, hand wrapped around Kaa-san's wrist. His eyes were cold.

"That will be enough."

It scared Ritsuka a little to see Soubi look like that and he reached out again, pleading. "Soubi..."

Soubi's eyes met Ritsuka's, and his mouth tightened, but he finally bowed his head. When he spoke again his voice was quieter. "Come, Aoyagi-san. It's time to sleep for a while."

Kaa-san was crying now, but she went along easily as Soubi led her away. Ritsuka just slid down the wall to the floor and rested his forehead on his knees. He was shaking a little. Not because of the sudden violence. Because of the sudden stop.

Because, deep down, he hadn't really thought anyone but Seimei could stop Kaa-san when she got like this.

But there were no more screams or crashes. Just the faint murmur of voices and the click of a door being shut.

It really was just him that was the problem.

"Ritsuka." Soubi's arms were around him and Ritsuka turned his face into Soubi's chest, tired and hopeless. "Ritsuka, please." Soubi's whisper was urgent. "Please, let me take you out of here."

Ritsuka laughed, one harsh breath. "Maybe I should. Maybe it really would make her better if I left."

Soubi's arms tightened. "Ritsuka."

They were both silent for a while. Finally Soubi gathered Ritsuka up in his arms and stood. Ritsuka stirred. "I should clean up the pieces."

"I'll do it tomorrow morning," Soubi stated, not pausing as he carried Ritsuka up the stairs.

Ritsuka let Soubi undress him and tuck him under the blankets and, when Soubi hesitated, sitting on the side of his bed, reached up silently to pull him down. Soubi promptly slipped under the covers and cradled Ritsuka close, stroking long fingers through his hair, hesitant and tender.

Finally Ritsuka managed to say, softly, "I am glad you're here."

He could feel Soubi relax as he cuddled Ritsuka closer.

Four: Soubi

Soubi stood in the kitchen doorway, arms folded, watching Ritsuka's mother. She started when he finally spoke.

"Do you understand what you're doing to your son?"

She turned wide, dark eyes on him. "I.. I love Ritsuka. He's all I have left."

"You're hurting him," Soubi said flatly.

She folded her hands in front of her mouth, staring at him, silent and trembling. Soubi's thin patience snapped.

"You are going to stop, Aoyagi-san, because you are going to go see that psychologist of his if I have to drag you, and you are going to talk to the woman if I have to force you." He stalked forward as he spoke to stand over her, perfectly willing to intimidate the woman into cooperating or drag her down the street, screaming, if that was what it took.

He stopped short in surprise when she smiled.

"Yes."

Soubi blinked.

"Take me." She held out one wrist as if offering to be dragged and strangeness wrapped around him for a moment, like deja vu turned inside out.

Maybe her smile just reminded him of Seimei's. It was probably only that.

Taking no chances, he took her arm and led her to the door. She went easily, put on her coat when he handed it to her, didn't rage or even protest.

But when he wasn't directing her she didn't move at all.

She gave the clinic receptionist all her information and agreed that she wanted to see the psychologist. She smiled. She cooperated. But when the doctor held open the office door for her she didn't walk through it until Soubi grabbed her arm again and took her in.

He ignored the doctor's raised brows and leaned in a corner, out of the way, with his arms crossed and tried to stifle that queasy feeling of recognition.

Whenever the woman hesitated in answering one of the doctor's questions she looked at him. And then she answered, as if he had... Soubi stifled that thought and kept on trying not to really listen.

"Seimei isn't here to make me stop anymore, you see."

Not succeeding very well, but trying.

He wasn't surprised, when the doctor finally asked what Aoyagi was doing to Ritsuka and Aoyagi slowly turned to look at him, silent, eyes wide and waiting. Soubi swallowed behind clenched teeth and managed to grate out, "Tell her."

The woman obeyed immediately, and the doctor only had a moment to look at him with sharp eyes before she had to pull her professional mask back on. Soubi ignored them both. He didn't want to do this. He didn't ever want to do this. He didn't want to be the one who gave orders. For him to be the one in Seimei's place...

He wondered, distantly, whether Seimei really was god, after all. The universe certainly seemed to have his vicious sense of humor.

By the time the first session was over he was shaking a little and the doctor stopped him on the way out to ask softly whether he was all right.

"I'll be fine once I get back to Ritsuka," he answered, unstrung enough to give her the truth. He'd be fine once he had his Sacrifice to obey and the world was right side up again. He started a bit as the doctor's eyes flashed.

"You can't put all of this on a thirteen-year-old boy," she told him sharply. "If both you and his mother are doing that, then you'll just both have to stop."

Soubi stood as if turned to stone for a long moment before his head bent and his fists clenched under the weight of those words. "I... understand what you say," he managed at last.

The doctor sighed and patted his shoulder more kindly. "Well. I imagine I'll see you next time, too, then."

Soubi took Ritsuka's mother home and went up to his studio and sat, staring at a blank canvas, for a very long time.

Five: Ritsuka

What used to scare Ritsuka was the anger on Soubi's face when he stopped Kaa-san in one of her rages. Now there was something else there, and he didn't know what and that scared him even more. Soubi still looked grim, those times, but his eyes creased like he was hurt, too.

And it wasn't always rages Kaa-san had, now. Ritsuka was happy, glad that he could finally help Kaa-san, at least those times when she just put her head down on the table and cried. But that didn't stop him getting worried.

Finally he cornered Soubi in his bedroom one evening, while he was drying off some brushes. "Soubi. Will you tell me what's wrong?"

Soubi's long hands hesitated. "I... don't want to burden you," he said quietly, without turning around.

Ritsuka scowled. "Don't be dumb." He came and wound his arms around Soubi's waist firmly. "We're a pair, right? Closer than anything else." He rested his cheek on Soubi's chest. "Just tell me."

Soubi's fingers settled softly on his hair. "Your mother," he said, after a long, silent moment. "I see Ritsu-sensei in her. Even Seimei in her. Yet, I see myself in her as well. And so I see them in myself, and I..." A shudder ran through Soubi. "I don't know... what to do now."

Ritsuka wasn't sure he understood, but... Seimei had protected him, and now Soubi protected him. Every now and then, Kaa-san's eyes reminded him of Seimei's. He could see that much. Maybe there were just too many reminders of other people, for Soubi. Slowly he asked, "Can you just be Soubi?"

Soubi stilled. Finally he leaned down to press his lips against Ritsuka's hair. "Who do you want Soubi to be?" he asked, very softly.

"No, I mean..." Ritsuka looked up at Soubi, confused. "I mean, can you just be you?" He laid his hand on Soubi's chest, over his heart. "Be whoever Soubi really is?" He glanced aside, tail curling shyly. "I'd... I'd like that."

He worried some more when Soubi sank down to his knees, but relaxed again when Soubi caught his hand and kissed the palm. Soubi was all right when he did that. Soubi's eyes were dark when he raised his head, but his mouth twitched like he was about to laugh.

"I'll try."

Hesitantly, because he really didn't get Soubi sometimes, Ritsuka leaned into him and put his arms around Soubi's neck. "I'd just like it if you were happy."

The laugh that escaped against his ear was soft and shaky and true.

"I'll try that, too, then."

End

Ice Is Also Great and Would Suffice

Post Soul Society arc, Rukia has to deal with lingering injuries and Byakuya finds old habits of care returning. Fluff with Angst, I-4, mild spoilers

The gardens of Kuchiki House were beautiful and manicured, and Rukia had had to search through them for nearly an hour to find a stand of dark-leaved shrubs tall and bushy enough to hide her. She didn't want any of the servants asking if there was anything they could do for her, Rukia-sama, making it clear that a lady of Kuchiki was not supposed to be kneeling in the cold grass, arms clutched around herself, shaking hard enough to rattle her teeth.

She knew that. She just couldn't help it.

It had been coming for days; she'd felt it like a presence standing behind her shoulder, stepping closer and closer again until it merged with her backbone and unstrung her. She didn't know why it was now, why this hadn't happened when she was locked away or about to die or at some other time that made sense. She just knew she couldn't hold it back any more, and a few hot tears spilled over as her breath rasped harshly in her lungs.

The rustle of leaves and cloth told her her last bid for privacy and dignity had failed and she hunched closer in on herself, stubbornly not looking around.

Not, at least, until two sandals under a familiar hem stepped into her view and she looked up, half despairing, at the very last person she had wanted to see. Her brother stood, looking down at her, still and silent, and she bit her lip until it bled, trying to silence the choked whimpers in her throat. When he stirred, at last, she was sure it would be to turn his back on her lack of control.

He knelt beside her, sleeves sweeping out around her as he gathered her in and held her, silently, against his shoulder.

It was warm.

Rukia pressed her face into the fabric of his kimono, shoulders shaking with her muffled sobs. If he had said any word, long habit might have caught her back, but he only held her, hand spread against her back, over her heart, shielded for this moment from the rest of the world. So she cried for the cold pain in her bones and the fear that it would never leave—cried until she could barely breathe, could only lie against his chest, every muscle trembling and wrung out, as light fingers stroked her hair.

The sleep that had escaped her for a week crept up and wrapped around her like her brother's sleeves.

When Rukia's breathing finally eased, Byakuya sighed faintly. He had known she was distraught, but he had thought it was only the nerves anyone could expect after the battles she had fought. Such things eased in a little time. This appeared more to be work for a healer then a friend's comfort or family's presence.

Well, that was easily enough seen to, now he knew.

He lifted his sister in his arms and carried her carefully back through the house, a look forbidding the servants to question or follow. When he tried to lay her down on her futon, though, he met a check.

She wouldn't let go.

After a few gentle tugs failed, he snorted softly. As stubborn as his sister was, he supposed he might have expected this, and since no one was here to see he let himself smile.

She was well matched to Kuchiki, though she might not know it even now.

He sat down against the wall and settled her securely against him, leaning back to wait out her sleep.

The late sunlight slanted outside the opened screens, burnishing smooth wood boards and dancing lightly over the grass. He had given her this room because the view from it was open and airy, suited, he'd thought, to her spirit. He still thought it suited her, but now for different reasons. Now he noticed the trunk of the tree growing over the pool, slender but strong; the cool shadows and bright, rippling glints of the water; the birds that winged fearlessly down to peck at a scatter of crumbs from, he identified after a moment, the dumplings that had been served for lunch.

The place did suit her, he thought, fingers moving slowly through her hair.

The peace of the afternoon was more than he had found in weeks, perhaps in far longer, and he stirred, frowning sharply as the inner door slid open. Who dared disturb them?

Unohana-taichou stood in the opening for a moment, delicate brows lifted, before nodding to someone in the hall and closing the door softly behind her.

"I see I didn't need to worry after all," she murmured.

Byakuya stifled a moment of annoyance at the gentle amusement in her eyes and kept his voice down. "On the contrary. I intended to send for one of your people as soon as Rukia woke." And then he really heard what she had said and frowned more darkly. "You knew something was wrong?"

Unohana-taichou knelt down beside them with a soft sigh. "Of course I knew. She was locked in a tower made of stone that suppresses spirit strength, for weeks." She frowned a bit, herself. "It's intended to make criminals of such weight as to merit that punishment more... biddable, at the end. The lingering effects are not normally an issue." She reached out a hand, and Byakuya stiffened, but she didn't touch Rukia. Only held her fingers close as if testing for heat.

"As I feared." Unohana-taichou leaned back again.

"What?" Byakuya asked, tensely.

Unohana-taichou's lips curved in a sad smile. "We who live here are pure spirit, Kuchiki-kun. That tower smothers our souls, like fire starved of air."

Byakuya's arms tightened around his sister as his mouth tightened on furious accusations. Unohana was not the one he should direct those to.

Her smile turned softer. "Don't worry too much. She is healing. And you have helped her, already, almost as much as I could myself."

Byakuya had to blink at that, nonplussed. He had no talent for healing.

Unohana-taichou stood and looked down at them, hands folded. "You are a powerful captain, and you hold her within your soul." Her lips quirked. "And she has the wisdom not to let go." She slipped silently back out the door while Byakuya was still fighting down the quick flush he hadn't felt in many years.

He sniffed and settled himself back again, holding his sister close as evening settled over the garden outside.

Rukia woke slowly, feeling warm and happy. For a time she thought it might be a dream, as she hadn't felt either for quite some time now, and clung to sleep, wanting the warmth to stay. It didn't go away as she woke, though, and slowly she became aware that she was leaning on something. Something that moved gently under her cheek.

As if it were breathing.

"Renji...?" she mumbled, confused, and rubbed her eyes. She hadn't seen Renji today, had she? She pushed herself upright and looked up and froze.

Her brother looked back, calmly.

"Nii-sama? I..." And then she remembered hiding in the garden, and her brother finding her, and flushed hotly, raw cheeks tingling with the rush of blood. "Excuse me, I..." She fumbled for some suitable words of explanation or pardon and found none.

"You are well, now?"

"Of course," she murmured quickly. Rukia wondered if it was possible to die of embarrassment; she'd have thought she'd have found out before now, if so, but maybe not. She glanced hastily around, looking for some way to extract herself from the situation.

Her brother's fingers caught her chin, stilling her. "Rukia. Are you well?"

She looked back at him, eyes wide. He sounded serious. She was suddenly aware of the dim, sunset light, and that hours must have passed while she slept.

While she slept and he held her. The warmth of that hadn't gone away; it was still with her, easing the long ache away.

Tears threatened to spill over again, for different reasons this time, and Rukia took a deep breath. Her voice only trembled a little when she said, "I'm better, Nii-sama."

He nodded. "Good." He lifted her and set her down on her spread futon, touching her shoulder lightly as he stood and looked out her outer doors. "Perhaps," he said, "I will come watch your garden with you again tomorrow."

"I... I would welcome that, Nii-sama," Rukia managed, husky.

A faint smile crossed his lips as he looked down at her and repeated, "Good." His fingers brushed her hair as he turned and left.

Rukia scrubbed the back of her hand over her eyes again and laughed softly, shakily.

She was warm again.

End

A/N: Title is from the poem Fire and Ice by Robert Frost.

Hanging Upside Down

Ban is having a bad evening dealing with his ghosts. Shido chooses to help. Angsty Porn with Characterization, I-4

Ban had always known his memory was kind of weird. Or maybe it was his imagination. He blamed the jagan. To make visions, he had to know at least the key points clearly, had to envision them himself.

He remembered things he'd never experienced.

Things he had experienced, he couldn't forget.

There were days he thought that was the curse.

Which was why he was outside, in a nice dark, empty alley, instead of upstairs in the room he and Ginji were renting. Well, promising rent on anyway. Any day now.

Tonight, though, even money couldn't distract him from his fucking memory. He truly hoped Himiko was doing better than he was—was having a nice memorial ceremony, maybe, while Ban did his damnedest to forget.

There was a rustle at the mouth of the alley and Ban pried an eye open to see the damn monkey trainer. Hell. "What are you doing here?"

A soft snort answered. "Came by to make sure your bad money sense didn't have Ginji sleeping on the sidewalk. Again."

"Eh." Ban fished for a good retort about freeloaders and gigolos but it wouldn't quite come so he just waved a hand at the tiny landing above. "Feel free, mother hen." He took a slow drag on his cigarette, hoping this time the damn nicotine would cut in like it was freaking supposed to.

"Midou?"

Ban opened his eyes all the way to find Fuyuki way too close. He dropped the cigarette, but he figured it was probably too late. To night vision like Fuyuki's, the glow would have shown his face clearly.

"What happened?"

"Long fucking day, all right?" Ban sighed. "Go talk to Ginji. He's fine," he added as an afterthought, because all the ex-Volts could get kind of crazy about Ginji, not that he didn't understand how that went.

"When you aren't?" Fuyuki sounded skeptical and Ban silently turned over a few of his favorite Italian curses, because where did the monkey trainer get off being so damn perceptive? And he couldn't walk away from the stairs because that would make Ginji come after him and see him like this. A hand closed on his shoulder and Ban jerked; Fuyuki was definitely too close, and Ban planted a hand on his chest to shove him back.

A large, warm hand on his shoulder, ready to shake him or pull him close; a broad, solid chest under his palms.

Ban fiercely stifled the sound that tried to get out of his throat and forced his eyes open, looking up at Fuyuki, fixing the goddamn present in his mind.

Always taller than he was.

Ban's breath caught behind his teeth, and he didn't know what was in his face but it made Fuyuki frown. "Go see Ginji," Ban said, roughly. "Fuck, why do you care? Acting like everyone's big brother just because you're—" he bit back the word older. Fuck. He wasn't even talking to Fuyuki, was he? A tired laugh escaped him, breaking in the middle.

The hand on his shoulder tightened, warm and sure, and Fuyuki said, slowly, "Ban." His voice was deep and firm, like he had a right to call Ban's name like that.

But while his mind spat, Ban's body leaned into Fuyuki's without his permission. He wanted it so much, to have someone alive to call and chivy and scold him. Too much. Just when he most needed a smart mouth, to piss Fuyuki off and make this into just a fight like any other day, he was too damn tired to find the right words. And Fuyuki saw too damn clearly. And...

And Fuyuki was kissing him.

More than just kissing him. Fuyuki's hand was sliding up into his hair, cradling his head, tipping it back so Fuyuki's mouth closed comfortably over his. Fuyuki's arm was around him, drawing him away from the wall and into the solidity of Fuyuki's body.

Ban's senses all betrayed him. It felt so much like what might have been, and he wanted that too much tonight. Couldn't push it away, even when it was just another damn illusion.

"You're an idiot," Fuyuki murmured against his mouth, and Ban could feel the other man's lips curve. "And a brat."

This time, Ban couldn't stop the harsh, wanting sound in his throat, or the moan when Fuyuki pulled him in tighter. He slid a leg around Fuyuki's, pushing against his hip, asking with his body since his mouth was busy with Fuyuki's tongue in it. He wanted to feel what it could have been like, what there hadn't been time to feel before.

Fuyuki made a thoughtful sound against his mouth and slid a hand down Ban's body to close between his legs. Ban rocked into it, gasping.

"Easy," Fuyuki murmured, fingers stroking Ban's cock through his jeans, gentle like he was with his damn animals. "Easy, Ban."

Easy for him to say. Ban whined a little with relief when Fuyuki got his zipper open, pushing into the warm hand as is closed around him. Fuyuki pressed him back against the wall again, and the feel of a taller, broader, older, body against his made Ban moan. It was so close to what had been, and the firmness of Shido's hand on his cock pulled all of a kid's fantasies out of the past and set them on fire. Ban rested his head back against the brick, gasping. "Never got a chance..."

Shido was quiet for a moment before he nodded. "All right," he said against Ban's ear. One last, slow stroke and his fingers left Ban's cock, slid down the back of his jeans instead, pushing between his cheeks.

"Ahhh!" Ban was shaking against Shido's chest and he didn't care. His whole body was tingling with the slow rub of strong fingers against his entrance. "Fuck, yes..."

"Shh, easy Ban." The light from the street outlined the wild hair of the head bent over his and Ban closed his eyes to keep that image as wet fingers worked into him, slow and rough. He didn't try to keep back his moans anymore, just hung on to the shoulders that more years than he'd lived had filled out and let himself drown in sensation, the feeling of sure, gentle fingers just like the ones he'd known finally touching him the way he'd wanted years ago, of being held tight and fucked firmly and a warm mouth on his swallowing the sounds he made. When he came those fingers pushed into his tightening body hard, rubbing him slowly inside, and the name he groaned was caught under a kiss.

The night came back slowly, the prickle of brick against his back and the tug of Shido's hands pulling up and fastening his jeans. Ban made a faintly grumpy sound and Shido snorted.

"Really an idiot." His lips pressed against Ban's forehead and he said quietly. "Go on up to Ginji." He stepped back and Ban could see his crooked smile in the dim light. "He'll chase the ghosts away, won't he?"

"Damn monkey trainer," Ban muttered, half-heartedly. It wasn't until Shido's figure was a shadow in mouth of the alley that he added, "Thanks."

The streetlights caught Shido's face as he turned his head briefly, and then he was gone. Not like a ghost, though; Ban's ghosts never left that quietly.

Ban's ghosts were never that kind to him.

He stomped up the stairs as firmly as he could, grumbling under his breath just for the familiarity of it. Their little room was bright after the heavy night outside, and golden with Ginji's smile as he looked up.

"Ban-chan."

Ban smiled. He was well and truly trapped by this, however much he growled and snapped. He supposed it wasn't that surprising that fellow inmates were kind; Ginji tended to rub off on you.

"Got the flyers done?" he asked, and pulled the door shut on memories for another year.

End

What's Love Got to Do With It

The Ninth helps Xanxus find someone he can bear to be. Drama with Angst and Fluff, I-3

It wasn't that Tsuna didn't trust the Ninth, because of course he did. And it wasn't that he didn't think the Ninth could handle Xanxus, even, or especially, now, because he did, really. It was just... well, his dad had made him solemnly swear he'd make sure the Ninth didn't overstrain himself.

And that was really the only reason Tsuna kept just happening to pass Xanxus' rooms or the balcony beyond them to check on them every couple days.

His excuses hadn't even convinced himself yet, and he doubted he'd convince either of them, so he tip-toed.

"...didn't you just tell me?" Xanxus' voice was stifled and he was leaning, hands clenched, on the back of an armchair. "Why'd you let me keep thinking I was your kid, all that time?"
The Ninth sighed. "Because I didn't think it would matter."

Xanxus shoulders twitched and Tsuna held his breath.

"It seemed obvious you had to have Vongola blood from somewhere, even if it wasn't mine," the Ninth said, softly. "Your Flame was all the proof anyone needed of that. And who cared how far back it came from? Look at Tsunayoshi, after all!" He was silent for a long moment before adding, "And I wanted another son. I thought... if I raised you, if I loved you, if I was the father you knew... wasn't that good enough?"

Xanxus didn't answer and Tsuna had to swallow the tightness in his throat as he slipped away.

"It doesn't make sense!"

Xanxus was pacing the balcony today, so Tsuna only eased up to the nearest open window.

"How can he be so damn soft and still do something like this to me?!"

The Ninth actually laughed. "Oh, Xanxus. It's the gentle ones who are most dangerous of all."

Xanxus rounded on his father. "You want to explain that?"

Tsuna caught a glimpse of the Ninth's smile. "Tsunayoshi is a gentle soul, yes. He cares very much for people. And that," he rapped his cane on the flagstones, "that is the source of his strength. When the things he cares for are threatened, there will be no end to his determination and no bottom to the well of his strength." More softly, "And that is why I chose him, be damned to his bloodline."

"Because he's stronger," Xanxus said, after a moment.

"Because of the times and the reasons he becomes stronger," the Ninth corrected, gently.

Xanxus grunted, which might be agreement or might be confusion, Tsuna didn't know. He did know he was blushing as he edged back down the hall.

"It's gone."

Tsuna stopped short, hearing the granite roughness in Xanxus' voice.

"You're still alive and breathing, so I doubt it's really gone," the Ninth said, voice gentle.

Tsuna slipped up to peek out onto the terrace. Xanxus was hunched over, leaning on the rail and the Ninth stood beside him, one hand on his back.

"I've tried," Xanxus growled, raggedly. "I've tried over and over and nothing happens!"

The Ninth looked at his son thoughtfully. "Xanxus. Tell me. The people you knew, as a child. How do you feel about them, now?"

Tsuna saw a little of Xanxus' sudden snarl, even from his angle.

"Those fucking bastards. I hate them. I want to crush them all!" One hand fisted and light flashed between his fingers.

Xanxus jerked upright, and it winked out.

"What the...?"

The Ninth smiled. "I thought so. It isn't gone, my boy."

Xanxus turned, frowning. "But every time I tried..."

The Ninth snorted into his moustache. "You didn't try it with a target who truly deserved your anger, did you?" His voice gentled as he patted Xanxus' shoulder. "Tsunayoshi freed your intuition and showed you the truth, didn't he? That those people aren't the whole world. Hard to unknow that, now; of course it affects your Flame."

"Wish he'd minded his own goddamn business," Xanxus grumbled, though it was half-hearted and distracted as he stared at his own hand.

"I don't." The Ninth smiled up at him. "Because now I have my son back. And he can hear me when I say I love him, this time."

Xanxus looked up at that, a sudden tangle of pain and doubt and hesitant want sweeping over his face.

Tsuna tip-toed away, feeling really hopeful for the first time.

"...and I could have destroyed all of the Family's enemies." Xanxus was pacing again, restless.

"The boss needs to be powerful, yes, and able to protect the Family." The Ninth sipped from his wineglass and set it down on the balcony's table, eyes following his son. "But, as you were then, I'm afraid I doubted you would bother to protect instead of simply destroy."

"It's better to be sure," Xanxus growled. "Better to obliterate your enemies than leave them alive to try again."

"And would even that have made you feel safe?" the Ninth asked, quietly.

Xanxus stopped abruptly and stood still, face turned away.

"A boss' job is to make all his Family safe." The Ninth looked down at his hands. "In that, I failed you. I'm glad Tsunayoshi retrieved my mistake, but... I can't blame you if you find it hard to trust."

After a long moment Xanxus said, voice low, "I never really tried it."

Tsuna's heart cracked at the wryness of the Ninth's smile and the shadow of hope in it, and at how young Xanxus' eyes looked when he turned his head and stared at his father.

"What keeps you safe?" he asked, at last.

The Ninth's smile widened, and he opened his hand, gesturing at the mansion behind them. "Having people who love you near is the safest thing I've ever found."

Xanxus frowned. "Huh."

Tsuna firmly stifled an urge to bang his head against the wall with frustration. They'd hear him if he did.

"...a very simple young man, really," the Ninth was saying as Tsuna sidled up to the balcony door. "He acts because he cares. Once you know that, it's easy to predict what he'll do."

Xanxus snorted, leaning his hips against the rail. "Except for the times he acts on idiot moral outrage, or whatever the hell that was."

"Tsunayoshi would never have set his hand on you if he didn't believe in his heart that you're one of his Family, and worthy of his care," the Ninth said quietly.

Tsuna expected the kind of scoffing Xanxus had always met the least such suggestion with, but Xanxus was silent.

"I don't get how he can," he said at last, staring out over the hills. "I tried to kill him, for fuck's sake."

The Ninth snorted into his moustache. "So did his Mist Guardian, didn't he? And look how that's ended up."

An unwilling grin tugged at Xanxus' mouth.

"I've seen Tsunayoshi arguing with the Vendicare themselves on Rokudou Mukurou's behalf. He's done his best to heal the man, and to give him both freedom and a home. It seems," the Ninth glanced up at Xanxus from under bushy brows, "to be a bit of a habit with him."

Xanxus crossed arms tightened and he looked back at the Ninth, eyes dark.

The Ninth smiled. "He protects his people. Remember that, and it will all make sense."

Tsuna slipped away, biting his lip. He felt positive the Ninth was being more generous than he deserved.

"I... I didn't... when you let me go... why... " Xanxus' words were soft and stumbling, and Tsuna wondered for a moment if he was drunk or drugged. He'd never heard Xanxus sound like that before.

"I hoped," the Ninth said, just as soft. "It may have been foolish of me, but I hoped that, with my successor named, we could set aside all of that and try again to just be father and son." He sighed. "I suppose that was pretty insensitive of me, all things considered. I'm sorry."

"It... wasn't your fault."

Peeking out, Tsuna saw that the Ninth had Xanxus' hands in his and Xanxus wasn't pulling away, though he looked at a loss over what else he should do.

"You are my son," the Ninth said, firmly. "I have always been here for you. I always will be." More softly, he added, "I couldn't just leave you like that."

Xanxus looked up at the old man standing in front of him and, slowly, nodded. "Okay." His voice was rough and husky, and even without reaching for the Flame Tsuna could perceive the fear tightening his shoulders. But his hands wrapped around the Ninth's in turn.

Tsuna edged quickly back down the hall, far enough to drag out his handkerchief and wipe his eyes and blow his nose and walk back toward his office grinning like an idiot.

"You sound like being the boss and being a dad are the same thing, half the time."

The Ninth chuckled. "Well, there's a reason we call it a Family, after all."

Xanxus blinked as if that had never occurred to him, and, lurking in the hall, Tsuna did too. He certainly never felt like a father, dealing with his Family.

A babysitter, maybe.

From the sardonic twist to his mouth Xanxus might be thinking the same thing. "Might be just as well, then. Never wanted kids."

The Ninth's eyes twinkled. "You're sure you want to keep the Varia, then?"

Xanxus shrugged, looking a bit uncomfortable. The Ninth reached over and patted his arm. "Well, I'm sure you've gotten used to them by now," he said gently.

Xanxus looked at his hands, frowning, more thoughtful than angry for once. "Maybe."

After weeks of trying very hard not to intrude on Xanxus and the Ninth, or at least trying very hard not to be caught, and of sternly forbidding anyone else to eavesdrop either, Tsuna was extremely startled to find Xanxus waiting for him, in the shadows of his office.

"Xanxus," he greeted the man's reemergence.

Xanxus watched him silently for a long moment before looking down at his own crossed arms. "Sawada."

Tsuna waited, encouraged by the lack of immediate hostility.

"You haven't yet, but. If you did send the Varia out." Xanxus paused for a long moment, not looking up. "What kind of people would you aim us for?"

Tsuna was quiet for a long moment. "I can only imagine sending you after someone crazy. Someone I hadn't been able to talk to. Someone who was killing our people, or-" he remembered the future that hadn't happened, "-destroying our world. Someone I couldn't find any other way of stopping." He spread his hands. That was the truth as clearly as he could give it, and he waited to see what Xanxus would do with it.

"Mm. Could probably do that."

Tsuna's mouth quirked at the grudging tone and then he straightened as he recalled what the Ninth had said to Xanxus about targets that deserved his anger. Was Xanxus actually afraid he couldn't do the job he'd chosen any longer?

"I've been thinking, though," he essayed, by way of testing the idea, "since the Varia are more in the open now, anyway, maybe there's call for your abilities outside of assassinations."

Xanxus gave him a hard look and Tsuna mentally nodded to himself.

"I mean, I need to get to people before I can talk to them, don't I?" he added, ingenuously. "And the Varia are the very best at getting to people."

Xanxus snorted. "And then I'll be right there to kill them when you completely flop," he drawled.

"I'd rather you not, but if it really does have to be done, then yes." Tsuna returned Xanxus' look evenly and saw a flicker of respect. "Are you staying?" he finished, softly, offering that choice again.

Xanxus stilled for a long moment.

Finally he pushed away from the wall and stood, looking down at Tsuna, eyes dark. Tsuna felt like the entire world held its breath. When Xanxus spoke, his voice was clear and even.

"Yes."

End

Blood Will Tell

Sometimes one small mistake can lead to an entire avalanche of nasty consequences. Some small divergences from manga canon; a veritable confluence of clusterfuck.

One of the first things Sawada Iemitsu did in his apprenticeship to the Vongola Ninth's outside advisor was bring the Ninth news of the woman who claimed that her son belonged to Timoteo Vongola. It was an act that Iemitsu reflected on later, grimly, deciding that it was the event that colored his entire service to the Vongola.

Sometimes he wondered what would have happened if they'd simply had someone go around to have a quiet word with the woman instead of bringing it to the Ninth's attention. Would things have gone to the hell the way they had later, or would one of Timoteo's actual sons gone on to inherit the position of Vongola Decimo while his own son went ahead, bumbling his way through life, innocent of its darker sides?

Iemitsu couldn't say.

Such speculations were only fit for musing on over a cup of sake, however, because the fact was, when he'd reported news of the woman who'd claimed that Timoteo Vongola had been the one to impregnate her, and that the result was a boy who could produce a Vongola Flame, the Ninth had simply said, "Hm."

That, Iemitsu had already learned, was one of the Ninth's thinking sounds. "If you like, I can go speak to her," Iemitsu offered. "Explain to her why she doesn't want to keep saying these things."

The Ninth made another of his thoughtful noises, and left his desk. He paced the length of his office, slow, deliberate, to stand before the window with his hands clasped behind his back. "Hm," he said again, and then, "I suppose I'll have to see the boy."

"You will, sir?" Iemitsu repeated, cautiously.

Timoteo turned away from the window. "Yes, I think so. Make preparations for it, please."

Iemitsu nodded, and said, "At once, sir," and that was that.

"I take it that you don't approve of this," Timoteo said, thoughtfully, as Gianni maneuvered the car through narrow, twisting streets that were growing increasingly shabby with their slow progress.

"I haven't said a word," Gianni said, turning down an even darker, narrower street.

"You don't have to. I can hear you thinking it from here."

That was as good as permission to speak freely. "I don't think you should be dignifying this woman's claims with your attention," he said, with a quick glance around as he parked the car. There were faces in many of the windows, but few enough people on the street. "She's not stable, Boss. Everyone knows it."

"Even fools and madmen can be right occasionally." Timoteo unbelted himself, and waited for Gianni to signal that it was safe for him to leave the car.

Gianni half-hoped that he wouldn't be able to, that this whole fool's errand was a trap, but his men appeared at either end of the street and gave the all-clear. He sighed and nodded to Timoteo.

They emerged from the car together, both of them stretching and exchanging grimaces. The days of comfortable car rides that didn't leave them with stiff backs and tired joints were already well past them both, and getting older was proving to be an unpleasant business. The street—which could hardly be called that, and was more like an alley than anything else—was filled with rubbish that stirred around their feet. Gianni grimaced again as they turned to the tenement where the woman Bianca Castelli and her son were supposed to live.

One of Gianni's men slipped up the stairs ahead of them, swift and silent. Gianni and Timoteo followed more slowly, until they came to the top floor. The air inside the building was stuffy, filled with the smell of a thousand competing meals. Even in the middle of the day, the air was full of the sounds of babies crying and radios blaring. Somewhere, perhaps a floor down, a man and a woman were arguing.

Gianni did the honors of knocking on the door of 6010, which flaked paint under the brisk rapping. Castelli herself answered the door.

She must have been pretty, once, but the fineness of her features was blurred now. Her hair was tangled, and she was wrapped in a man's faded houserobe. Her feet were bare and dirty, and her eyes darted between them, too fast and bright. "Yes?" she said. Her knuckles were white where they clutched the door.

She showed no sign of recognizing Timoteo Vongola.

Typical, Gianni thought, disgusted in spite of his best intentions otherwise. "The Vongola Ninth is here to see you," he said, quietly, and watched her eyes go wide, terror mixed with wild hope.

"I knew it," she said, like a prayer, clasping her hands under her chin. "Oh, I knew this day would come."

Castelli brought them into the apartment, hands fluttering like trapped birds, and tried to offer them hospitality in between calling for the boy. Timoteo refused her offers, kind but firm, which, given the state of the place, with not a bit of clean floor in sight and surfaces that even looked sticky, was only wise. All the while she stared at Timoteo, eyes burning with devotion, or perhaps vindication.

"No," Timoteo said again, when she offered them wine, still gentle with her, "no wine, thank you. If I could just meet the boy...?"

"Yes," Castelli said, "yes, of course." She edged away from them, backwards, as if reluctant to let Timoteo out of her sight for even a moment. "Xanxus! Xanxus, you stupid brat, where are you?"

The reply that came back from what Gianni assumed was the bedroom was in a boy's clear soprano, but it delivered a series of curses worthy of a sailor. "I was sleeping," he growled when he finally emerged, scowling.

Gianni was close enough to Timoteo to hear the quiet sound Timoteo made, as of recognition, as Castelli reeled the boy in and began petting him, obviously against his will. "There's Mama's beautiful boy," she crooned, smoothing his hair back from a distinctive forehead. "Show your—" she stopped, perhaps thinking better of it "—show the Ninth what you can do, baby."

The woman was canny in her madness, and had clearly passed that canniness down to the boy. His eyes went sharp, fixing on Timoteo, and he held up a hand that wreathed itself in Flame.

Gianni braced himself against the pressure of it, staggered. The boy couldn't be more than ten, but to be able to produce that much anger, so very young...

Afterwards, he could only assume that Timoteo had been thinking something similar, tender-hearted as he was. "Ah, yes," he said, very softly, crossing the room and kneeling, putting his face at Xanxus' level. "That is indeed a Vongola Flame."

Castelli made a sound, releasing her son and covering her mouth as tears began to cut a clean path down her cheeks. "Yes," she said, nearly sobbing the word, "oh, yes."

After that it was a matter of calling for another car to come for her and the boy as she flew around the apartment, gathering up pieces of rubbish that Gianni supposed held personal meaning for her. Xanxus stood, unmoved, watching Timoteo all the while, his back already held straighter and his eyes burning just like his mother's had.

"I want to ride with you," he announced when they came down to the street. (All the windows had faces pressed to them now, watching the drama unfold. It gave Gianni a headache, knowing that this news was already all over the country.)

"Of course," Timoteo told him, easy about it.

Gianni bit his lip; he would have to talk to Timoteo later.

Later didn't happen until well after they'd returned home and Timoteo had personally seen Castelli and her son installed in a set of rooms in the private wing of the house, and had told them to direct the household staff to provide anything they required. Xanxus accept all this with a stony expression, as if it were only their due. Castelli herself was already calling for a drink—this early in the day!—and Gianni was hard-put to suppress his shudder.

Timoteo didn't dismiss him, so Gianni followed him to his private study, where Timoteo sank into the chair behind his desk and sighed. After a moment, he looked up at Gianni and smiled. "Let's have it, then."

"Are you out of your ever-loving mind?" Gianni asked, since dire catastrophes required extreme measures. "That boy can't possibly be your son."

Timoteo laughed, though the sound was wry. "Of course he isn't my son. Did I ever say he was?"

"No, you had the good sense not to do that much, thank God." Gianni threw himself down into his customary chair, scowling. "That won't matter one bit now that you've taken him in, though. You know everyone will assume that he's your—" He stopped short, unwilling to say it.

"My bastard? Yes." Timoteo's expression turned distant. "Got, no doubt, during my wife's final illness or shortly thereafter, when my manly needs overwhelmed my good sense. It's a very tidy story, isn't it?"

"Oh, very." Gianni raked his hands through his hair. "Why the hell are you letting yourself play into it?"

"He's very clearly of the Vongola line," Timoteo said, brisk. "I suspect from one of the Second's, actually. The boy favors him, and that one had at least half a dozen bastards that we know of, and probably a few more besides."

That was fair enough, but— "You could have said so, and not let the world assume that he was yours." The world would, of course, but at least it would save some of Timoteo's face among those who knew him best.

Timoteo sighed. "Yes, of course I could have. But his Flame, Gianni... To be that young, and that angry..."

So that was how it was. Arguing with him was a lost cause when he'd made up his mind to right some wrong. "You can't adopt every fatherless boy out there."

Timoteo's smile was quick. "No. But I can adopt this one."

The crash was what seized Rafaele's attention, but the shriek and the bellow which followed turned his steps away from the main hallway to investigate. That didn't take long; a sobbing housemaid hurtled past him, her face white, as Xanxus emerged from his room, expression screwed up with anger. "Don't fuck it up again, you stupid little sl—"

He stopped short when he saw Rafaele standing there.

"Now, what's all this?" Rafaele asked, after a quick breath to calm himself.

Xanxus took a moment to answer; his struggle with the decision whether he was required to answer Rafaele was clear on his face. "My lunch was cold."

"How unfortunate," Rafaele said, as mildly as he could manage. "Was it worth screaming for? Or—" He craned his head; yes, it was as he'd expected. "—throwing the whole thing at the wall?"

"I was aiming at her," Xanxus said, with the simplicity of honesty. "But she ducked."

"You were—you do realize that you could have hurt her, don't you?" Rafaele asked, with what he felt was really quite admirable restraint.

"It wouldn't have," Xanxus said, composedly. "If the soup had been hot, then I wouldn't have had to get angry."

Ice slid down Rafaele's spine at the boy's calm. "It wasn't worth getting angry about in the first place."

Xanxus' eyes went flat and cold. "You're not my father," he said. "You can't tell me what to do." His hands flexed, and the air pressure changed with the first oppressive edges of his Flame dancing along his fingers.

"No," Rafaele said, after a measured moment. "I suppose I can't. But I can tell your father what it is you've done." This time, he added silently. Xanxus really was a singularly unpleasant boy. "Perhaps you'd better come with me," he added, turning away, careful not to let Xanxus entirely out of his sight.

"I'm not going to," Xanxus said. "You can't make me." His chin lifted; what should have looked like a twelve-year-old's petulance looked more like an adult's contempt. "You know he won't do anything, anyway. I deserve the best."

Rafaele lost the struggle with himself, although, if he were honest, he wasn't trying very hard. "The best is a privilege you need to earn," he said.

"Bullshit." Xanxus smirked. "Run along and tell the old man I said so, and see what he says. You'll see."

"Mm. I think I've known the Ninth a little longer than you." Rafaele stopped himself and drew a breath. When had he sunk so low that he'd argue with a child? "You may want to clean that soup up before it stains."

Xanxus' lip curled, but he turned on his heel. As Rafaele started downstairs for the Ninth's study, he heard the boy pick up the house phone and call for a servant to come clean up the mess.

He had to wait to speak with the Ninth, who was closeted with Gianni, Federico, Maria, and Fedele—discussing negotiations with the Barassi, Rafaele suspected. Given Maria's predatory smile when the conference let out, he supposed they must have decided to get tough with the Barassi—she loved it when she got to intimidate other Families into behaving.

The other three remained, even after the Ninth called him in, and listened to the story too. Gianni stayed impassive through the whole thing, and Fedele tried to mimic his mentor's stoic expression, but was at least two decades too young to master the effect. Federico, on the other hand, didn't bother disguise his disdain for his adopted brother's behavior.

The Ninth shook his head after Rafaele had finished. "That's the third time this month. And he was so good last month."

"For a relative value of good," Federico said. "Dad, you've got to do something with him before we lose all our help."

"Boarding school, perhaps," Gianni suggested. "Some place that emphasizes discipline."

"I'm not going to send Xanxus away." The Ninth's voice had just enough edge to it to make clear that the suggestion should not be made again. "I'll speak to him."

"Because that does so much good," Federico grumbled, and then held up his hands when his father frowned. "You're the Boss, Dad, and he's your... project."

"And your brother now," the Ninth said.

Federico's mouth quirked. "So they tell me," he said, dry. "It's hard enough with Enrico and Massimo. Couldn't you have brought us a cute little sister to spoil instead of Xanxus? It's difficult to be brotherly to a porcupine."

Rafaele hid a smile as Federico defused his father's irritation; he was coming along nicely, that one. It was no wonder the Ninth favored him most of his three sons. Four sons, now. "I'll be on my way," he said, since he'd discharged his duty to that poor girl.

"So will I," Federico said, standing. "Keep an eye out for that little sister, Dad. Come on, Fedele."

The Ninth's laughter followed the three of them out.

"Boarding school," Federico said, thoughtfully, once they were safely away. "I like that idea. Pity it won't ever happen."

Fedele snorted. "Hard to make up for lost time at a boarding school."

Rafaele raised an eyebrow; Michele's boy had sharp eyes on him.

"Pity," Federico said again, and shook his head. "I keep thinking that one of these days the kid's got to settle down. Then I remember that we're about to hit the teenage years and I want to go get myself a stiff drink."

"Don't go borrowing too much trouble," Rafaele said. "He's your brother, not your son. Leave that headache to your father."

Federico's smile was bright. "I think I will, at that." He clapped Fedele on the shoulder. "Come on, let's head down to the range. I want a rematch after yesterday."

"Ready to be embarrassed again so soon?" Fedele grinned. "You're a glutton for punishment these days."

"Big talk, little man," Federico retorted, and scrubbed his hand through Fedele's curly hair. "I have a bottle of wine that says I'll win this match."

"You're on, boss," Fedele said, and they went off, laughing.

Rafaele watched them go, smiling. Perhaps there wasn't any helping Xanxus, but at least the Ninth's youngest made up for him.

Iemitsu was running late and knew it, but when he fetched up against the knot of the Ninth's sons—who were supposed to be at the same meeting he was later for—he couldn't help stopping, with a frisson of relief. Best to be late in company, he decided, and the higher the rank of that company, the better. He slowed to a saunter, and insinuated himself at the edge of the group.

The cause of their delay came clear at once. Xanxus was glaring at his adoptive brothers, expression as mutinous as only a fifteen-year-old's could be. "Make me," he said, jaw jutting out.

His brothers exchanged nearly identical exasperated glances with each other. "Father said we were all supposed to attend," Enrico pointed out, with all the authority of the eldest brother, as if that appeal to the Ninth's desires was likely to sway Xanxus.

"Then let the old man make me," Xanxus grunted, and tried to push his way past them.

Massimo caught his arm; of the three of them, he came closest to matching Xanxus' budding strength. "That's no way to talk about Father, you little punk."

"Ask me how much I don't care," Xanxus retorted, twisting out of his grip, though not without some effort.

Before he could storm off, Federico gave it a shot. "Xanxus, it's really time you started attending these meetings. You're part of our Family. You should know how it's run."

Xanxus stopped, arrested, however briefly. Then he shook his head, snorting. "Fuck that," he announced, despite his brief moment to consider the argument. "I have plans for my day. And they don't involve listening to a pack of old men arguing with each other."

He broke free of them, stalking off, and they let him go. After a moment, Massimo asked, wistfully, "Do you think that excuse would work for me, too?"

"Your name Xanxus?" Enrico asked. "No? Then yeah, I'm guessing not. God, he's such a little ba—"

"You know Dad doesn't like to hear him called that," Federico said, mildly enough, and checked his watch. "Doesn't like it when we're late, either," he said, grimacing.

"Shit," Massimo grunted, and they moved off together, at a brisk pace. He glanced at Iemitsu as he fell in with them. "What's your excuse?"

"Up late on the phone with Japan," Iemitsu said, rueful.

"Where 'Japan' means his lovely Nana," Enrico sing-songed, grinning, and his brothers laughed. "And how is Japan these days?"

"Lovely." Iemitsu shrugged at them, perfectly aware that he was grinning like a fool and not caring in the slightest.

"When's the wedding, again?" Federico smiled at him. "In the spring, right?"

"May," Iemitsu told him, grinning harder.

"Not soon enough, eh?" Enrico asked, nudging his ribs.

They were upon the room where the Ninth held his business meetings, though. Iemitsu had no chance to do more than shrug at him before they all schooled their expressions and filed in.

"Ah," the Ninth said, from his seat at the head of the table. "So glad to see that you could join us this morning, gentlemen."

"Sorry, Father," Federico said, meekly. "We were trying to persuade Xanxus to join us."

"Emphasis on the 'trying'," Massimo muttered, under his breath, while Iemitsu was grateful to Federico for including him in that 'we'. "Not so much with the succeeding."

It was a good excuse, though; some of the iron in the Ninth's expression unbent itself. "I see," he said. "Sit down. We've delayed this meeting long enough."

Iemitsu slid into his seat next to Guiseppe with a sigh, and tore his thoughts away from lovely Japan in order to turn them to the Vongola's business.

Piero'd had the teaching of all the Ninth's sons, insofar as fighting and self-defense had gone. He'd been the one who'd trained Enrico to be able to shoot without flinching and pulling the shot wide. He'd also been the one who'd seen that Massimo would only ever be a passable shot but was a demon with a set of throwing knives. He'd coaxed (and then berated) Federico into paying attention to the martial side of being a Vongola, when it had become clear who the Boss was looking at to be the Tenth.

He'd had the teaching of all the Boss's sons, but of them, Xanxus was by far his best pupil, for all that he hadn't come to Piero until he was ten years old. The boy, who was sullen with every other Guardian—or so Piero had heard from his brother and from the rest of them—seized upon the things Piero had to teach him, from how to disassemble and care for a gun to the places where the human body was most vulnerable to a quick, sharp blow. He was a pupil to do any teacher proud: a quick study at ten, and a competent shot by twelve. He began a growth spurt at fourteen and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Piero by sixteen, which was the first time he beat Piero in a hand-to-hand match.

When Piero had gotten his breath back, he rolled to his feet. "Not bad," he told Xanxus, who was giving him a fiercely delighted smile, one of the ones that showed all his teeth. "When you get done growing, there isn't going to be anyone stronger than you."

"Of course not," Xanxus said, as if it were only his due. "Come on, old man. Let's go again."

Piero was happy to oblige him. Let the others fret about the boy all they liked—what he liked was that Xanxus knew the value of strength the way his brothers never had.

By rights, the duty should have belonged to the Ninth, but he and Gianni and Maria were abroad, negotiating a trade agreement in Moscow. That left it to either him, Michele, or Rafaele to do it—and Rafaele's dislike of Xanxus was years-established at this point. In the end, Paolo had flipped a coin with Michele and lost the toss.

That left him standing outside Xanxus' rooms, knocking loudly and wondering where on earth the boy was. All the intelligence they had said that he was on the premises, but he hadn't answered the repeated telephone calls—not the one at nine p.m, or the more urgent calls at midnight, then two, or the final, most urgent call, just an hour ago at four.

The door jerked open, and Xanxus glared at him, ferocious. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"We've been trying to reach you all night," Paolo said, pointedly ignoring the fact that the boy—not a boy, really, he was seventeen, wasn't he?—was naked. "May I come in? I'm afraid there's something I need to tell you."

"So tell me," Xanxus growled, scratching his stomach.

"This isn't really the kind of thing—"

"Just fucking spit it out," Xanxus snapped. "I'm getting cold standing here."

"Perhaps if you'd put something on, that wouldn't be a problem," Paolo retorted. Then he composed himself; now wasn't the time. "Are you quite sure—"

Wrath crackled around Xanxus' hands. "Tell me or I'll beat it out of you," he said, low and vicious.

For a moment, Paolo was tempted, if only because an outright attack on one of his Guardians might force Timoteo into doing something with the boy. Then he dismissed the idea. "Your mother," he said, quietly. "She went into her final decline last night. I'm afraid she passed away about an hour ago."

"That it?"

Paolo had prepared himself for a number of possible responses, but he hadn't expected that tone of disinterest. "I'm very sorry."

"You should be," Xanxus said. "Waking a guy up at five in the morning for that. Christ." He turned away.

"She called for you till the last," Paolo said, harshly, wanting to punch through that chilly indifference. "She wanted to see you one last time. She died promising the doctors you'd be there any minute."

Xanxus looked back at him, mouth turned up in a way that was hardly a smile. "Yeah? Guess that's what happens to you when you drink too much. You got anything else, or can I get back to bed?"

"Nothing else," Paolo said, biting the words out with more calm than he felt.

Xanxus slammed the door on him. After a moment, Paolo turned away from it to go find someone who would make the funeral arrangements.

Clearly Xanxus wasn't going to do it himself.

It was a good day up until that point. The sun had shone through the ceremony, but the breeze had been just balmy enough to keep things comfortable, and the wedding had gone off without a single bobble. All his children had come to see their oldest brother married, and their mothers had even (mostly) agreed to suspend hostilities for the occasion.

All told, Michele couldn't have asked to be happier, and told Fedele's little bride Evelina as much when he claimed his dance with her. She blushed prettily and thanked him when he surrendered her back to Fedele at the close of his dance. Michele just grinned at her and elbowed his son in the ribs, and grinned harder when it didn't even begin to budge the dazedly happy grin on Fedele's face.

Perhaps the boy had known what he was about after all, waiting this long to get married.

Michele congratulated them again, and moved off the dance floor to find himself a bit of refreshment. His meandering path towards the bar required several stops—once to speak with the Ninth, who looked as proud of his godson's marriage as he had over his own sons' marriages. He had to stop again to accept congratulations from Paolo and a vigorous round of back-slappings from Piero. Then he had to dodge lovely Giulia, who didn't seem to quite grasp the notion of "suspended hostilities" after all.

It was when he'd ducked behind the stand of potted palms to hide from her that he became aware of the altercation taking place in the little nook to his left. Michele didn't consider himself the type to eavesdrop—was, in fact, quite bad at it, since he never had managed the trick of being still long enough to hear anything interesting. He couldn't help overhearing the argument, though, especially when their voices rose sharply and the gist of the argument came clear in the woman's, "No, I said no—" and the man's impatient, "Come on."

Michele sighed, good mood dimmed, and went to interfere. "Is everything all right over here?" he asked, pleasantly, to the back of the boor in question. The woman—well, the girl—flashed him a grateful look over her would-be suitor's shoulder.

That earned him a growled, "Fuck off," and Michele had to bite back a groan. He recognized that voice.

"Ah, Xanxus. Just the fellow I was looking for." He took his life in his hands and brought a hand down on the boy's nape, pulling him off the girl, who immediately seized her chance to escape and eeled away from Xanxus. "Come, walk with me."

He was no mountain like Piero or Paolo, but he managed to keep his grip on Xanxus all the same, at least until he'd marched the boy outside. "Let go of me," Xanxus snarled, and finally wrenched free of him on the terrace.

"Mm," Michele said, looking him over. "You're what, seventeen now?"

Xanxus just glared at him, death in his eyes. "Eighteen."

"Right," Michele said, blithely enough, but keeping a wary eye on him. "Now, as I remember, girls can be difficult at that age—" It was a lie, but a small one, in service to a good cause. "—But if you have to force them, you're doing everything all wrong."

Xanxus growled at him. "She didn't have any business saying no to me."

Michele forgot to smile, and just stared at him. "The hell she didn't," he managed, after a moment. "She has every right to say no if she likes."

"Not to the Vongola," Xanxus said, stubborn, and Michele felt his blood run cold at the solid conviction in his eyes.

"Yes, even to the Vongola," he said, sharply. "Being the Vongola means that you have a responsibility to your people. You don't rule them because you dominate them. You rule them because they trust you to. And even then, they still have their rights."

It was hopeless, and he knew it before he'd even opened his mouth. Xanxus barely let him finish before rolling his eyes. "Whatever. Are we done here?"

Michele nodded, short and annoyed. "I suppose so. Leave the girls alone," he added, sharp. "I'll be watching you."

Xanxus looked him over and sneered, and the pushed his way past Michele, heading back inside to the reception.

Michele looked up at the sky and took a long breath, making a note to himself to speak to the Ninth later. Someone had better take the boy in hand, and soon. His sense of what it meant to be one of the Vongola was completely askew.

"You have a problem," Maria said, without any preliminaries, as she let herself into the Ninth's office.

As usual, she had to wait for them to catch up with her. "Which of us?" the Ninth asked, while his son and Gianni blinked at her.

"You," she said, leveling her finger at him. "But you're going to have this problem too," she told Federico. "Especially if that old fool you call a father doesn't get this cleared up soon."

"I can't do that if you don't tell me what it is," the Ninth said, too cheerful by half.

He ought to have known better by this point.

"Xanxus," Maria said, and folded her arms. The smile slid off the Ninth's face.

"What's he done this time?" Federico groaned.

"Nothing. Yet." Maria held up her hand for them to wait while she finished. "I don't know who you think you're planning on leaving all this to when they cart you out of here in a pine box, but I can tell you that everyone sure seems to think that it's going to be Xanxus. Especially Xanxus himself. Twenty years old and he's the lord of creation. If you don't want to cause yourself a headache later on, you'll set him straight now."

The Ninth held up a hand before either Gianni or Federico could say anything. "You're quite sure of this?"

"Don't be an idiot. Would I have told you otherwise?" she asked.

The Ninth glanced at his son. "You see what you might have to look forward to from the Cloud?"

"I can hardly wait," Federico said, drily.

"This isn't a laughing matter," Gianni said, quietly; well, he always had been a sensible one. His shadow Fedele seemed to be listening, too. Good. "Xanxus does have his supporters. And you do seem to favor him outrageously."

"Would you like to add 'I told you so' to that?" the Ninth returned.

"It hardly seems necessary," Gianni murmured.

The Ninth sighed, fingers smoothing over the mustache that had finally finished going grey. "I'll have to speak with him." He looked at Federico. "You may have a fight on your hands, my boy. I doubt he'll serve you, else."

At least Federico had the wisdom to look sensibly nervous at the thought. "I'll do what I have to, if it's for the Family."

"Of course you will," Maria said, and directed her attention back to the Ninth. "Do it soon," she told him. "You can't afford to wait."

"I," the Ninth said, easing himself down into his seat after the Tomasso delegation had finally been placated and shown out, "am getting too damn old for this. I should retire."

"Bite your tongue, Dad," Federico said, with a tired grin, and hooked a finger in the knot of his tie, loosening it. "If you retire now, who's going to deal with the Tomasso?"

"Not me," the Ninth said, with great feeling. "That's the whole point." He glanced past his son to Iemitsu. "Still think it's an honor and a privilege to be the outside advisor?"

"Of course, sir," Iemitsu told him, keeping his face straight. Then he added, "It's just a big damn pain in the ass, too."

They all laughed, except for Maria, but even she smiled, just a bit. "You're not wrong there," the Ninth said, with a rueful smile. "The whole thing's a pain in the ass. But once we finish getting the Tomasso put to bed, you'll have some time to go visit that little family of yours."

Iemitsu ducked his head, trying not to grin too hard at the thought. "Thank you, sir."

"Perhaps I'll go with you," the Ninth mused, and his Guardians exchanged glances. "I understand that Japan is a fairly traditional retirement destination."

Federico looked up, entire posture gone still in the process of shrugging off his jacket. "Dad?"

The Ninth looked back at him, mouth quirking under his mustache. "What?"

They all watched as Federico slipped out of his jacket, and hung it over the back of his chair before he spoke, carefully light. "If you're not careful, we're going to take you at your word there, and boot you out the door."

"And why shouldn't you take me seriously?" The Ninth leaned back in his chair. "You're as old as I was when your grandmother retired. It's time I found myself a beach somewhere and spent my dotage basking, don't you think?"

"Oh, that sounds wonderful," Michele sighed, as Federico and Fedele both goggled at the Ninth. "Can there be umbrella drinks, too? I think there needs to be umbrella drinks." He grinned. "And pretty girls to serve them to us."

"I don't believe we were invited along," Rafaele said, dry as dust, but Iemitsu thought he looked like he regretted it. Even Paolo looked thoughtful about the prospect.

"Why not?" the Ninth asked, with a grin. "Umbrella drinks for all of us, and we can let the kids get on with the business of running this place." He glanced at his son. "If they're ready for it."

Federico glanced at Fedele, who shrugged. "Up to you, Boss," he said. "You know I'll go wherever you do."

"Never doubted it for a moment," Federico told him, and looked at his father. "I'm as ready as anyone can be, Father. If you're ready to step down, then I'm ready to take your place."

"Good, good." Timoteo nodded. "After we finish with the Tomasso, then. We'll start the transfer of power after all that is taken care of." He brought his hands together. "Until then, I think a bottle of wine will have to serve us in the place of the umbrella drinks. Someone ring for that, would you?"

Fedele leaped to do as the Ninth had requested as the rest of them laughed and crowded around Federico to offer him their congratulations and advice.

Afterwards, Iemitsu always wondered that none of them, not even him, had thought to wonder how Xanxus would take the news of his adopted brother's impending elevation to the position of the Tenth. In retrospect, it was an unforgivable oversight.

Michele, of all his Guardians, stayed closest to him during the hideous four days when no one knew where Federico, his third son, his successor-to-be, had disappeared to. When Timoteo looked at him, Michele's tight, anxious expression, all his characteristic energy and good humor absent, felt like looking into a mirror. Federico wasn't the only one who'd gone missing, after all. Fedele had been with him when he'd gone missing, as could only be expected of Federico's right hand.

"I hate the waiting," Michele said to him, on the second day, "but God knows I'm not sure I want it to end."

Timoteo knew precisely what he meant. As the hours ticked past, with no word from Federico and no demands from the Vongola's enemies, the ones who'd be delighted to use this lever against him, it became more and more difficult to hold on to hope, especially when the eyes of his people turned bleak, and then refused to meet his at all.

Timoteo waited, and hoped against all expectation of hope, and prayed, while Michele kept vigil with him, looking suddenly old, motionless except for the unceasing movement of the beads through his fingers and the prayers on his lips. Gianni stepped in Timoteo's place while they waited, and young Iemitsu too, handling the Vongola's business as well as Timoteo had ever managed to do.The rest of his Guardians worked tirelessly, searching for their lost nephews-by-proxy.

Enrico and Massimo and their families stayed where the Vongola's footsoldiers could watch over them. Timoteo tried to look past the calculation in their faces, the way they looked each other with the weight of a shifting landscape in their eyes.

Of Xanxus he saw very little at all.

They sent Rafaele with the news.

He let himself into the south study quietly, shutting the door behind himself gently, as if too loud a noise would cause injury. Timoteo had been standing by the window, and turned at the first sound of the latch.

He could tell by the bowed line of Rafaele's shoulders that there was news, and that it wasn't good. "Rafaele," he said, softly.

His Rain wouldn't meet his eyes as he crossed the room, feet soundless on the thick pile of the carpet. He knelt, and pressed his forehead against the back of Timoteo's hand. "Boss," he said, very softly.

"Tell me," Timoteo said, watching the convulsive way Michele's hands tightened on his rosary.

"I'm so sorry, Boss," Rafaele said, voice full of regret. "We'll find who did this to him."

"Fedele?" Michele said, hoarse, while Timoteo closed his eyes against the hurt of knowing for sure.

"No sign yet," Rafaele said softly. "We haven't stopped looking."

"He can't be far," Michele said, voice gone thin and grey. "He wouldn't have let that happen."

No, he wouldn't have, because Michele had named his son well. Timoteo opened his eyes. "What do you know?" he asked, when he thought he could bear it.

"Not... very much." Rafaele hesitated, and climbed to his feet, grunting with it. He looked aside from both of them. "There's—not very much left. Bone, mostly. It took dental records to make the identification." He paused, swallowed. "Whoever did this... used fire to cover their tracks."

Fire. As Michele's head came up from his rosary, Timoteo said, "I see."

"Fire," Michele repeated, softly. "Flame. Boss—"

"I know." Timoteo turned away from his two Guardians and the looks in their eyes. "I know."

"Surely not," Rafaele said. "His own brother—"

"Why not?" Timoteo asked, hearing the detachment in his own voice. "It's a time-honored tradition. My own mother was quite ruthless with my uncles, remember?" And she had warned him to be careful with his own children, to boot. Why hadn't he listened? "Oh, my boy," he said, softly. "My boy, my boy..."

Even he wasn't quite sure which of his sons he meant.

They found Fedele not long after they'd dispatched someone to the main house to tell the Ninth about Federico. Paolo had expected as much.

Fedele was still breathing, which he hadn't expected at all.

No one had, actually, and it took a moment of staring at the mess of the man—bloody, unconscious, gasping for breath—for Paolo's search party to decide what to do and how to react, when it was clear from the expressions on everyone's faces that everyone was wondering how Fedele had managed to survive when Federico had not.

Paolo broke free of his paralysis first. "Vito, start the first aid," he barked. "Don't let him die on us now. He's the only witness we've got."

Vito sprang forward to do as ordered; he was field-trained and their best medic, and Paolo had selected him when hoping against sense and reason that they would find Federico alive. If anyone could keep Fedele alive just a little longer, Vito would be the one to do it.

"Someone get an ambulance and make sure the hospital is ready for us," Paolo continued; Franco was already peeling away from them, running for the cars and civilization at a dead sprint. "Get word to the Ninth and the Sun!" Paolo called after him, and Franco raised a hand to indicate that he had heard.

"Sir." Vito's strained voice interrupted him before he could give any more orders. Paolo turned to see that the man was looking up from where he was kneeling over Fedele.

The bottom dropped out of Paolo's stomach; surely the boy hadn't lasted for four days only to die now— "What?"

"He's trying to say something," Vito said, slow, face gone shuttered and still. "You should hear."

Paolo dropped to his knees next to Fedele, grunting at the ache of them, and bent close. The hiss and rattle of Fedele's gasps for breath didn't make sense, not at first, and Paolo frowned. "I don't—" he began, and then stopped as the sibilants resolved into a word—a name.

"Xanxus," Fedele said, each rasped syllable broken by a gasp for breath. "Xanxus has... the boss. Got to stop him. Got to..." He coughed, deep and wet, and the only thing Paolo could make out of the rest was Federico's name.

"Shh," Paolo told him. "We have Federico already." It was the kindest thing he could think of to tell the boy.

Fedele stared up at him, eyes fever-bright and burning. "Alive...?" he rasped, flailing a hand and fisting it in Paolo's coat.

"Shh," Paolo hushed him again, wrapping his hands around Fedele's and gripping it. "Save your strength. You're going to need it."

Federico had picked well when he'd chosen his right hand; Fedele made a sound, low and raw, and closed his eyes. "No..."

There wasn't anything to say to that, so Paolo gripped his hand and stayed by him until the team of doctors came through the trees for him.

Gianni brought the report to the Ninth, carrying it from the hospital where Fedele was struggling with his injuries and infections and demons. "He's awake again," he announced, when he'd let himself into the Ninth's study and had shut the door behind him.

The Ninth didn't move from where he sat, hunched and exhausted, at his desk.

Gianni placed himself on the carpet before the Ninth's desk, and drew a breath to steel himself for the report. "Fedele is willing to testify that he and Federico were lured away from the Vongola house by Xanxus, and were ambushed by him in a secluded location near where we found them. Fedele says he went down fighting Xanxus, and does not know precisely what happened to Federico, but will swear to it that Xanxus and Federico were fighting each other before he lost consciousness." Gianni paused, and took another breath. "He insists that Xanxus shot first. Without provocation."

The Ninth moved, slowly, passing a hand over his face; he seemed to have aged ten years in the past five days. "Yes. I had... thought that would have been the way of it." He sounded exhausted. Resigned.

"What are your orders?" Gianni asked, when the Ninth didn't say anything else.

The Ninth turned his chair away from him, staring out the window over the gardens. "It is traditional for a Family's heirs to fight each other for the position," he said, when he finally spoke. "Especially when there are multiple strong candidates."

"Xanxus isn't a candidate, Boss," Gianni told him, after sucking in his breath sharply. "He's not your son by blood. He's not legitimate."

"No. No, not technically. But he has the fire for it. The strength for it." The Ninth fell silent again. "One must always think of what will be best for the Family."

"Whatever that may be, it isn't Xanxus," Gianni told him, hearing the harshness in his own voice and hating the necessity of it. "Xanxus doesn't give a damn about the Family. All he cares about is what the Family will do for him."

"And yet that may be all that is necessary." The Ninth's voice was cool, remote—clinical right down to the heart of it. "He has enough of an instinct for self-preservation to remove Federico. He isn't stupid at all. If he becomes the Tenth, he will have to hold the Family together in order to make it serve his desires. In the end, that's all it really takes."

"Boss..." Gianni stopped, and drew a deep breath. "Timoteo. Is that what you want the Vongola to become?"

"No, of course it isn't." The Ninth looked at him, eyes dark and full of pain. "But I wonder if it's something I have a choice in, now?"

"There's always a choice," Gianni said, low. "You know that as well as I do. The question isn't that. It's whether we have the courage to make it."

The Ninth looked away again. "No," he said. "The time to make that choice is past. And because I chose wrongly, Federico has paid for it."

"But Xanxus, Boss," Gianni said, hands knotting at his sides. "You can't leave the Vongola to him. Enrico and Massimo don't have the fire, true, but they're still better than Xanxus. I'm telling you this as your Mist, as your right hand, and as your friend. Don't do this to our Family. Please." When that didn't seem like it was reaching the Ninth, he forced himself to add, "For the sake of your son's memory, if for no other reason."

Judging by the sound the Ninth made, he could have shot the man and hurt him less. Gianni held his ground, and kept his gaze steady, hating himself for it, and after a moment, the Ninth looked away. "Tell him," the Ninth said, low and harsh. "Tell him why he won't be the Tenth, no matter how many of his brothers he kills."

Gianni exhaled, carefully, and bowed as low as he could manage. "Yes, Boss," he said, quietly. "Thank you. For the sake of our Family."

"Leave me," the Ninth said, turning away from him.

Gianni swallowed hard, and let himself out.

"Ready?" Gianni asked, as they stood outside the door to Xanxus' rooms.

"No," Rafaele told him, frank about it since there was no way of being ready for this. He expected that Xanxus probably wouldn't attack them, not here in the heart of the Vongola mansion, with most of the other Guardians present as well, but he almost welcomed him to try, just so they'd have the excuse. "Let's get this over with."

Gianni snorted at him, shifted the papers he carried to his off hand, and knocked.

Xanxus didn't answer; instead, a girl came shuffling to the door, barely decent, and that only because the man's shirt she wore came down to her thighs. She blushed to see them standing there, which was something, anyway. "Yes?" she asked, uncertainly, brushing messy hair out of her eyes.

"We're here to see Xanxus," Gianni said, kindly enough. "Tell him that it's Family business."

"Oh," she said, sleepy eyes going wide, and held the door open for them. "I'll just—if you'll come in—I'll go wake him?"

"If you would, please," Rafaele murmured, as she ushered them into the sitting room of Xanxus' suite.

"It's going on eleven in the morning," Gianni muttered to him, as they stood and waited. "Honestly."

"It's nothing unusual for him, I gather," Rafaele returned, easily enough, despite his own disapproval. Perhaps it was the boy's age, though, and because of the pretty creature who'd answered the door, and not any more sinister motive.

The girl came creeping out of the suite's inner rooms after a few minutes, head bowed and clothes messy enough to indicate a hurried dressing, and let herself out without a word. Xanxus kept them waiting several minutes more, and when he finally appeared, he was freshly showered and wearing an impeccable suit.

Rafaele doubted that he'd taken such care with his appearance out of any respect for their business.

"Well?" Xanxus said, after he'd cast himself into the massive, ornate arm chair that dominated the room. "What do you want?" He smirked up at them, as if daring them to say anything about his attitude.

"Fedele Rizzo has been found," Gianni said, voice chilly and professional. "He has indicated that he and Federico Vongola were attacked by you, wholly without provocation."

Xanxus' expression flickered, just briefly, uneasiness crossing it, before he shrugged. "So what?"

"The forensic evidence that we've recovered from Federico's body indicates that the flames used to kill him were not the ordinary kind," Gianni continued, still dry and relentless—what Rafaele privately thought of as his courtroom voice, the one Gianni adopted to execute difficult Family business. "As all three other Sky Flame users within the Vongola are accounted for, and the Sky is itself a fairly rare attribute, it seems clear from the evidence that you were the one who killed Federico Vongola."

Xanxus had gotten a good grip on his face by this point, and the only thing that he showed now was lazy indifference. "So what?" he said, again. "He was in my way."

"As it so happens, he was not," Gianni said, calmly, and Rafaele held himself ready, keeping a wary eye on Xanxus as Gianni gestured with his sheaf of papers.

Uncertainty crossed Xanxus' face again. "What the fuck does that mean?" he demanded, after a moment. "The old man was all set to retire and let him take over, wasn't he?"

"Of course he was," Gianni said. "Federico actually was his son, after all. You are merely his adopted son."

Xanxus stared at them, eyes gone dark and opaque. "Bullshit." He raised a hand, Flame and wrath wrapped around it, oppressively heavy. "He said it himself. This is a Vongola Flame."

"While it is true that the Sky Flame is most commonly found in the Vongola Family, it is not unheard of in other Families," Gianni carried on, each word precise in the face of Xanxus' crackling Flame. "The Giglio Nero are known to possess it, and we have reports that the young Cavallone does as well."

"The old man said it himself," Xanxus insisted, fierce. "He said that this is the Vongola Flame. He said that I was his son."

"He said no such thing," Gianni said, contradicting him in the flattest tones possible. "I was there, if you'll recall, and the only thing that he said was that the Flame appeared to be a Vongola Flame. You and your mother inferred the rest."

Xanxus stared at them for a long moment, and then laughed, short and ugly. "So what?" he demanded. "You don't have any proof that I'm not, and I have the Flame. What else matters?"

Rafaele didn't have to be watching Gianni to know that he was raising his eyebrows in that infuriatingly superior way he had. "Proof?" Gianni repeated, tone deceptively mild, and Rafaele kept a close watch on Xanxus, who hadn't sat in on enough of the Vongola's business meetings to know how dangerous that tone was. "I have copies here of four paternity tests, for you and your adoptive brothers. Yours is the only one that turns up negative. You are not now, nor have you ever been, Timoteo Vongola's son, except in the adoptive sense and in his patience with your arrogance in assuming that you were."

"You're lying," Xanxus said, low and vicious, both hands wreathed in Flame and desperation. "You've never liked me, and now that that little shit Federico is dead, you're coming up with lies to keep me from my rightful place."

"Please." Gianni drawled the word out, sounding bored. "You're dealing with the right hand of the Vongola, boy. Give me some credit for knowing my business." He dropped the sheaf of papers on the low table before Xanxus. "I have known the Ninth all his life. While your mother was conceiving you, he was sitting in the best hospital in Rome, holding his wife's hand and watching her die by inches. He was not unfaithful to her then, and he hasn't been since. But he's a kind-hearted man, and chose to show more mercy to a madwoman and her son than either of them deserved. And you've repaid him by destroying his youngest son and the Vongola's best hope for the future."

Xanxus stared at him, something like doubt appearing in his eyes. Then he covered it with rage. "Get out," he snarled at them. "Get the fuck out of my sight."

"As you like," Gianni said, and they began edging backwards, towards the door, not trusting their backs to him. "We do ask that you refrain from killing either Enrico or Massimo. The Vongola cannot spare any more of its sons."

"Get out!" Xanxus roared, reaching for the nearest object at hand.

They ducked into the hall and shut the door just in time to dodge the thrown lamp. The crash of its shattering against the wall was shortly followed by the sound of other crashes, which were themselves accompanied by a steady stream of roared curses.

"You didn't tell him about the family tree," Rafaele noted, neutrally, after a moment.

"It's in the papers," Gianni said, straightening his tie, face still. "He'll find it when he looks through them."

"If he looks at them," Rafaele said, after a moment to consider it. And even if he did, it was entirely possible that Xanxus wouldn't find being one of the descendants of the Second good enough.

"That's not really something that concerns me," Gianni said, clipped.

"I suppose it's not," Rafaele agreed, because he couldn't deny that there was a certain dark satisfaction in finally seeing something punch through the shell of Xanxus' arrogance after twelve years of dealing with it. He pushed himself away from Xanxus' door. "Come on. After that, I need a drink."

"You need a drink?" Gianni retorted, falling in with him. "All you did was watch."

"I watched your back," Rafaele corrected him.

The crashes and the curses continued behind them as they bickered their way down the hall, away from Xanxus' room.

The crowd at Federico's funeral was notable for its absences, gaps which were conspicuous among the faces of those who were present. Most prominent was Fedele's, though he could hardly have been expected to rise from the hospital bed where he was still fighting off the effects of exposure and infection in order to attend. (Although it hadn't stopped him from trying, and Iemitsu was only glad that they'd been able to stop him in time.)

Xanxus was absent as well, though mafia tradition had never precluded the triumphant presence of one candidate for succession at the funeral of his opponent. That was just as well, Iemitsu decided, since good taste did forbid such a thing.

More troubling, he decided, as he circulated through the crowd, was the undercurrent of talk that connected Fedele's absence to Xanxus'. It was a nonsensical thing to suggest, of course, but that didn't stop more than a few people from whispering as much to each other.

Federico's wife and daughter were present, but the remote expression on Aminta's face spoke of the bags she had already packed, and her intention to remove herself and her daughter from the Vongola house as soon as the funeral had ended. He hadn't been present for the conversation she'd had with her father-in-law, but they all knew by now that she'd vowed that she and her daughter would have no more to do with the Vongola.

Much good as a vow like that could do her. Still, Iemitsu wished her luck.

Enrico and Massimo were both present as well, but their minds were clearly miles away—on the line of succession, now that Xanxus had vanished to parts unknown and the named heir was dead. Neither had demonstrated the flare for command that Federico had possessed, but... running a Family didn't demand a flare, necessarily. It just demanded competence.

They both had that.

Now they eyed each other warily, speaking to each other in commonplaces, while they calculated their chances of becoming the Tenth now that the opportunity had been so precipitously opened to them.

Damn Xanxus, anyway, for having upset the careful balance that the Ninth's sons had worked out among themselves, because Iemitsu had a sinking feeling that the argument between Enrico and Massimo was going to be a bitter one.

Really, he was entirely grateful that his own position as the outside advisor had removed him from the line of succession altogether. That was one less headache in his life, anyway.

Maria let herself into the Ninth's study quietly, and waited for him and Gianni to acknowledge her presence. "I've found Xanxus," she said, when they looked up. "Alive, even," she added, which was, in her opinion, an absolute pity.

It had an electrifying effect on the Ninth. He sat up straighter, and passed a hand over his face. "Oh, thank God," he sighed. "I'd feared he'd gone and done something—rash."

Both she and Gianni pretended not to notice the dampness in his eyes. "Don't make stupid assumptions, you senile old man," she retorted. "He's taken up with the Varia." That was rashness enough to fill a book.

Gianni made a sound, surprised, and then thoughtful. "How appropriate."

"Gianni." The Ninth's voice was low, colder than Maria had ever heard him be with one of them, though the Ninth had been remarkably cool towards his right hand in the weeks since Federico's death.

Gianni flinched, and then raised his hands. "I mean no offense," he said, quickly. "But the Varia would suit his personality, don't you think? Give him some direction?"

"I can't argue with that last," Maria observed. "He's found plenty of direction with them. Hell, he's taken over."

That made the Ninth forget his anger. "He has?" he said, sharply, and then frowned. "Pity. That Squalo showed a great deal of promise, especially for someone so young."

"Squalo stepped aside, it seems," Maria corrected him, since the Ninth was bound and determined to leap to conclusions today.

"Wise of him," Gianni muttered. His voice was low enough that the Ninth let it pass unremarked.

"That's good," the Ninth said, and leaned back in his chair, folding his hands together and tapping them against his lips. "Have you seen him, then?"

"He wasn't receiving visitors," Maria said, bland, which covered a multitude of the sins committed when the Varia had tried to throw her out, and the curses Xanxus had shouted after her, about the Ninth.

The Ninth was so used to taking her word as whole and complete that he didn't ask for more. "Ah..."

"Give it time, Boss," Gianni suggested.

The Ninth sighed again. "Time, yes. Time will do it, I hope."

A pretty platitude, but not for Xanxus, Maria thought. Not for his rage. But perhaps the Ninth would be able to Will himself a miracle with his adopted son. She'd seen him do it before.

All the same, counting on a miracle was nothing but foolishness, she decided, catching Gianni's eye and giving him a significant look.

He caught up with her a few minutes after she'd excused herself. "What is it?" he asked.

"The Varia," Maria said. "I don't like the looks of the ones Xanxus is gathering to himself. Don't much like the look of Xanxus, either."

"How so?" he asked.

"You ever seen a dog go rabid?" she asked him, and watched his eyebrows drift up. "They'll turn on anyone when they do. Even their masters. Especially their masters."

He took a breath. "The Varia?"

"I want to keep an eye on them," she said. "And step up security." These days, with Xanxus, surely it was better safe than sorry.

"Done," he said, and Maria gave thanks for a man who was willing to be sensible. There were so very few of them, one had to acknowledge them. "Speak with the twins and do whatever you think is necessary. I'll get the Ninth to agree somehow."

"Done," she said, and turned away. The Ninth couldn't over-rule them when it came to his own safety, after all—that was what Guardians were for, and they were damn well not going to let Xanxus get away with any more slaughter than he already had.

The Ninth would just have to get used to it.

- end -

Love on a Budget

Shirogane has a plan to buy them all time and reinforce the boundary between worlds, provided Ryuuko agrees, and provided Shirogane can bring himself to carry it out. Drama with Sex Magic and Mild Angst, I-4, MANGA CONTINUITY

"We're losing."

Kou blew out a stream of smoke, leaning back on the girder he'd straddled. "Yeah, probably."

Shirogane stood poised on the platform behind him, hands folded on his cane. "I'm going to have to do something about it. If you try to interfere, I'll kill you."

A corner of Kou's mouth quirked. Times like this he really longed for a recorder, just so he could play it back for Akira later. It was reassuring in a way, though. Breath of home and all that. "Well, we'll see if I think it's necessary."

"What kind of lover was Ryuuko?"

Kou choked on a lungful of smoke. The question, out of the clear blue, dragged a chain of memories through his mind. Ryuuko's smile. Ryuuko's fingers ruffling his hair. Ryuuko's hand on his chin. The gentleness of Ryuuko's eyes as he leaned over Kou—

Kou spat out his now mangled cigarette and tried to pretend he was flushed because of the coughing. "What the hell business is that of yours?"

"I suppose we'll see," Shirogane murmured, and walked off another girder into the night.

Kou stared after him. "Okay, that was weird, even for him." He shook his head and tapped out another cigarette, trying not to think too hard about all the ways he missed his master.

"Well finally." Shirogane regarded Ryuuko with a certain amount of exasperation. He knew where Akira got his stubbornness from, that was for sure.

"You bastard!" Kou rounded on Shirogane, eyes blazing. "You let Akira get that hurt on purpose!"

"It was the only way to bring Ryuuko out." Shirogane eyed Kou. "Other than almost killing you. I did consider that."

Kou took a swing at him, which Shirogane had completely expected.

"Kou." Ryuuko was between them, hand wrapped around Kou's fist. "Shirogane knows quite well I'd rather let myself be hurt than let one of my Children be hurt for me."

Kou's mouth tightened and he looked aside, tension washed out of his body in Ryuuko's grip. "Yes, my king."

Shirogane brushed off his hat and put in, dryly, "I hate to break up the touching moment, Ryuuko, but we have a problem." He couldn't help his answering quirk of lips at Ryuuko's wry smile. "Yes, I know that was obvious." He stepped closer, ignoring Kou's glare. "But we don't have time to wait for you to recover all your strength. We have to do something now, before Homurabi tips the balance any further."

"If neither of us have all our strength, what more can we do?" The question was curious rather than despairing—Ryuuko all over.

Shirogane settled his hat back on, speaking from under the brim of it. "You and I are the direct kings. Weakened or not. If we take an action together that resonates through our realms, that may reaffirm the balance for long enough."

Ryuuko looked thoughtful. "I suppose that's true, yes. But what could we do that would be enou— Shirogane!"

Shirogane waved away his appalled look. "No." His lips curled. "It would be the surest way, of course, but I know you wouldn't do it. I won't ask you to kill me." At Ryuuko's side, Kou looked pretty appalled himself, which amused Shirogane a bit, considering.

"What else would be powerful enough?"

Shirogane tipped his hat down a bit further. "Anything that allows the Light to overwhelm the Shadows, really."

After a moment Ryuuko murmured, "Shirogane."

"We'll need Kou's assistance to make sure you can manifest for long enough," Shirogane said, briskly. "I don't expect it to be easy." He started a bit as Ryuuko reached out and tipped up the edge of his hat, meeting his eyes.

"I won't do it by force," Ryuuko said, soft and immovable.

"I know. That's why I don't expect it to be easy," Shirogane snapped.

"Um?" Kou put in, slowly, looking back and forth between them. "What are you talking about? Since I'm supposed to be involved and all."

"We're talking about Ryuuko fucking me," Shirogane said flatly. And then he had to snort at Kou's expression.

"You... that's why... oh," Kou finished, a bit weakly.

Ryuuko touched Shirogane's hand, drawing his attention back. "Call me when you're ready," he said, simply, and raveled away into motes of light.

That, Shirogane though acidly as Kou grabbed the unconscious Akira before he could fall, would mean never. But that didn't matter.

It had to be done.

Akira frowned at Kou and Shirogane impartially and Kou looked shifty. Shirogane rolled his eyes under his hat.

"So Kou needs to give me some fuel so I can be Ryuuko and you and he can do something."

"Yes." Shirogane leaned on his cane, the picture of genteel unconcern.

"And you're not going to tell me what."

"No."

Akira ran his hands through his hair and growled. "Story of my damn life." He frowned at Kou. "Kou-nii, you're sure this is all right?"

Kou ruffled Akira's hair vigorously, probably so Akira wouldn't notice the doubt in his eyes. "Sure it is, Aki. I wouldn't let anything happen to you."

That at least was true, and Akira seemed to know it. "Okay, then," he sighed and crossed his arms, waiting.

He looked a little less sanguine when Kou knelt at his feet and light built between his cupped hands. When Kou lifted the handful of light he took half a step back.

"It's all right, Aki," Kou reassured him, a little husky. Shirogane could see he'd drained himself heavily to produce that seed of power. "Take it."

Akira bit his lip and slowly closed his hands over Kou's. The light flared.

Kou smiled and whispered. "My king."

Ryuuko bent down to press a kiss to his forehead. "Thank you, Kou. Rest now."

Kou barely managed to make an agreeing sound and Ryuuko leaned him gently against the couch before standing to look across at Shirogane. Shirogane lifted his chin.

"So."

Ryuuko smiled and held out his hands.

Shirogane's grip tightened on his cane for a breath. He'd known this wasn't going to be easy. He took a breath and then another and set his cane down, precisely, on Kou's table. He hesitated for a moment and finally left his hat with it; he couldn't hold back in this or they'd fail. Trying to swallow down his tension he walked steadily to where Ryuuko stood and laid his hands in his counterpart's.

Ryuuko laced their fingers together, holding Shirogane palm to palm. "Welcome, my friend," he murmured.

Shirogane closed his eyes and whispered. "Zero."

Light and shadow slid together and a sphere of stillness expanded around them. For the first time in a long while, Shirogane breathed easy, leaving his eyes closed for a moment just to savor the touch of shadow moving through his hands and blood again, as it should.

Ryuuko chuckled. "Well. At least we know Homurabi won't be interrupting."

Shirogane gave him a dirty look. "I did not need that mental image." The joke, however dark, relaxed him, though. It was true; here at perfect zero, in a place that was neither and both light and shadow, no one but the two of them could even exist.

He still shivered as Ryuuko gathered him close. "Don't worry. I'll be gentle," Ryuuko teased, and he growled.

"Ryuuko..." An odd brush against his back distracted him and he glanced back.

Ryuuko was undoing his braid.

"Whatever else has happened, you are the embodiment and lord of shadow," his counterpart murmured. "Your hair should not be bound."

Shirogane drew a breath to protest, and then let it go. Whether or not he had failed his charge, he had to be the king of shadow now, for this. And when his hair spilled through Ryuuko's hands to run free down his back, his breath eased still more. Long, warm fingers stroking through the strands made him shiver again, for a slightly different reason, and he bent his head down against Ryuuko's shoulder, fingers tight in the white cloth over his chest.

Ryuuko's hand closed over the nape of his neck, firm, and Shirogane's hands clenched into fists.

"Shirogane..." Ryuuko's voice was soft and concerned, and Shirogane laughed harshly.

"Stop worrying so much." He took a breath and loosened his grip. "It's not like I'm scared or anything idiotic like that. I just... I don't let go." He lifted his head and smiled crookedly at Ryuuko. "I'm not the nice one."

Ryuuko's mouth quirked at the reminder of their old banter. "Yes, I know, that's me." He stroked Shirogane's cheek lightly. "You're not used to this at all, then. To just feeling."

Shirogane glanced aside. "I suppose not." He was pretty sure he was blushing. Damn it.

Fortunately, Ryuuko really was the nice one and didn't mention it. "I suppose that will probably make this work better," he said, instead.

He also didn't mention the sound Shirogane made when Ryuuko finally kissed him.

Ryuuko took his hands and drew him over to the shadow-and-reality of Kou's bed, touch gentle as he undressed him. Tiny shivers tugged at Shirogane as he held himself back, moment by moment, from pulling away, reclaiming his control and distance. His knees were actually shaky enough that he downright collapsed onto the bed, when Ryuuko tugged him down.

He tried to just breathe as Ryuuko gathered him in and eased him back against the bright-dense sheets.

Ryuuko was his counterpart, the other half of the oneness, the world, they made together, and if he had ever loved anyone besides his own Children, Ryuuko was that person. He clung to that and let Ryuuko's mouth coax his open.

The curl of heat low in his stomach as Ryuuko's tongue stroked his made him gasp.

"Mmmmm."

Shirogane growled a little at the pleased tone of that sound but it caught on a deeper breath as Ryuuko's hands slid down his body, open and slow.

They had been together since awareness came to their realms, but always also apart. They had touched, but never like this.

He hadn't thought it would feel so good, for shadow to feel light's touch.

"Ryuuko," he murmured, and it wasn't as much strain to just accept when Ryuuko pulled him closer, kissed him deeper, gentle and fierce. It called to him, and he shuddered as he let himself answer, hands spread against Ryuuko's back. The careful strength of Ryuuko's hands sliding down his thighs, spreading them apart, drew his body taut, tension and desire twisted around each other.

When Ryuuko's mouth moved over his throat, open and hot, he moaned out loud, letting his eyes close.

Long fingers stroked between his legs and back, pressed slowly, slickly into him, and this time Ryuuko didn't stop as Shirogane's breath turned short and uneven. Ryuuko's touch was gentle and ruthless, and he didn't know which one made this more intense. It was getting easier to let himself go into Ryuuko's hands, and he gasped into Ryuuko's mouth as those fingers pressed deeper.

Ryuuko shifted over him again, and Shirogane almost broke down laughing as he finally realized that Kou's collection of sex aids had, of course, appeared in this space along with all the other nonliving things and that Ryuuko was pillaging it for their own use. The edge of amusement trembled in his sigh as Ryuuko's fingers slid into him again, slicker than before. Ryuuko kissed him quiet, and Shirogane let him, moaning softly under the kisses as Ryuuko's fingers twisted sharply.

If the point of the exercise was for shadow to let itself be overwhelmed by the light, he reflected, a bit dizzy with sensation, they were well on their way.

He hesitated again, though, when Ryuuko's hands urged him to turn over. Ryuuko smiled down at him and kissed him softly. "Let go, Shirogane." His touch was unyielding and that brought comfort and uncertainty and heat all at once.

Shirogane let Ryuuko turn him, a little glad that the fall of his hair hid the quick rush of color in his cheeks. The stroke of Ryuuko's hands down his back, over his rear, made him swallow. The wet slide of Ryuuko's mouth moving up his spine made him gasp, heat tightening through him again.

He shivered, gasping for breath as Ryuuko pressed against him, pressed into him, hard and slow. The stretch of it, the heat of it, the gentle, inexorable demand of Ryuuko's body against his threatened to drown him and his attention locked on the silky slide of Ryuuko's wild black hair falling over his shoulder, a reminder of who was here with him. Inside him. Shirogane shuddered, grateful when Ryuuko's arms closed around him, drawing him in tight to the curve of Ryuuko's body.

Shadow covered by the light, indeed.

"Ryuuko..." he breathed.

"Yes," Ryuuko murmured against his nape, moving against him.

Shirogane moaned openly now, losing himself in the sheer sensation, the steady warmth of Ryuuko's hands on him, the feeling of being opened. "Ryuuko..." He could hear the hunger in his own voice.

His counterpart's arms tightened around him in answer and Ryuuko drove into him harder, fierce and fast and hot. Shirogane groaned, low and wanting, moving under Ryuuko as pleasure twined down his nerves. He didn't care why they were doing this any more, only for the brilliance and power and comfort of his counterpart's presence, with him and around him and in him.

He'd missed it so much.

He moaned wantonly as Ryuuko's hands lifted his hips higher and cried out as a deeper thrust sent fire curling up his spine. Another, and another, and he was lost in pleasure, in the wild heat surging through him, in the tightening of Ryuuko's arms around him.

When he caught his breath again Ryuuko's weight was lean and warm against his back and Ryuuko's breath was quick against his shoulder. "Mmm," he observed, lazily.

Ryuuko's body against his shook with a laugh. "I suppose I might have known you'd be a hedonist if you ever gave yourself the chance." He pressed a kiss against Shirogane's shoulder. "Do you think it worked?"

"We'll know when we release the Zero state." Shirogane wished he were human and could believe in things like crossing his fingers.

He let Ryuuko clean them up and dress him, pliant under his kisses just in case. "I'd never be able to do this with anyone but you," he murmured as Ryuuko's hands cupped his face.

"I'm very glad we could," Ryuuko said softly.

For one breath, Shirogane let himself go completely, leaning against Ryuuko's body entirely relaxed, arms twined around him, laughing. "Yes. So am I." He kissed Ryuuko, open and sweet, resting against him as Ryuuko held him close in answer. The perfection of the moment stilled the very air around them.

And then he pushed away.

"Ready?" he asked, shaking back his loose hair. He'd concluded, after a minute or two of searching, that Ryuuko had most probably pocketed his hair clasp and he would have to shake Akira down for it later.

"As ready as possible." Ryuuko reached out, clasping hands with him again, and they murmured together.

"Light return to light. Darkness return to darkness."

Even with their fingers twined, Shirogane could feel the separation, the letting go, and it wrenched at him. "Ryuuko..."

And then it was Akira's hands he held.

He sighed, catching Akira in one arm and carrying him out to lay him on the couch beside the lightly snoring Kou. He stroked Akira's hair back and murmured to him, "I'll be back later." It was only polite to say, after all, even if Akira wasn't in much condition to hear.

He walked down to the river and stood beside it, watching the light slide over the surface. Eventually he sat by the edge and set his hand flat against the water, watching ripples eddy around it, feeling the cool against his palm and the heat against the back, feeling the palpable difference between realms.

He could feel the same difference spreading out through the world.

"We did it," he informed his absent counterpart, and sighed, leaning his head against his knees.

He missed Ryuuko so much.

Soon he would go back to Akira, tell him that the unspecified "ritual" had been a success, threaten Kou with slow and grisly death if he ever told Akira what that ritual had been, take up his duties again, keep going.

Soon.

End

Revelation

In the final confrontation with Homurabi, Ryuuko returns. Afterwards, Akira finds that he remembers and understands a few more things. One of them is why Shirogane has refused to make any more shin than him. Drama with Mild Angst, I-3, MANGA CONTINUITY, implicit spoilers post-32

This was it. This was their last, best chance to corner Homurabi and hopefully defeat him. Akira was somewhere between exalted and terrified.

But not because of Homurabi.

Whenever Akira had changed in the past he'd been too occupied with, most usually, almost dying to notice before he was suddenly waking up again. This time was different. This time, Akira could feel it happening, like walking down a see-saw and reaching the fulcrum, the tipping point, when uphill suddenly became downhill and the world turned over. "Shirogane..." he whispered.

Shirogane looked around at him, eyes widening. "Oh." Swiftly, he was back beside Akira, one hand on his shoulder. "It's all right. Don't fight it." His mouth quirked. "It's only yourself, after all."

Akira swallowed, looking up at him. He could feel the shadow in him thinning. "I don't... I..."

Shirogane's eyes darkened and his already rather strained smile tightened. He took a long, slow breath. "Akira."

And then Akira was swept up in Shirogane's arms, long fingers winding through his hair and tipping his head back, being kissed with ruthless thoroughness. If he'd had a moment to think he might have been embarrassed at being kissed like this in front of everyone, including the damn enemy!, but all he had time to do was respond. So he did, leaning into Shirogane, mouth open under his, moaning softly as Shirogane's tongue pressed deep.

Relaxing, he forgot to be alarmed by the growing light.

Memory unfolded inside him, memories of Shirogane through ages on ages, his temper and his brilliance, and he reached for Shirogane's hands, lacing their fingers together, kissing back.

Finally Shirogane drew back and they stood eye to eye, hands clasped palm to palm. Shirogane's eyes were still dark; he'd known they would be. "I'll miss being sheltered by you," he murmured.

Shirogane smiled, wry and a little painful. "I'll miss your young self."

Ryuuko laughed. "Pessimist," he teased, affectionately. "You'll have both of me back. I doubt I'm recovered enough to stay in this form after we're done here." Though he hoped, as want flashed over Shirogane's face, that he'd be recovered enough to remember why he needed to find Shirogane other Children as soon as possible.

"What a dilemma," Homurabi prodded at them. "Perhaps I can relieve you of it by killing Ryuuko again." He smiled at Shirogane, deliberate and provoking. "Though I admit I never suspected you of such common taste."

Shirogane's lip drew up off his teeth and he straightened, pure and edged as his sword. "A King will die here today, yes."

Ryuuko smiled. "Yes." A King would die, and a King would sleep, and possibly, if they were all very fortunate, a King would heal.

He would have to trust himself, for that.

When Akira came to again he wasn't sure it was an improvement, because he was half-crushed in Shirogane's arms. After a few tries he managed a slightly rough "Hey." It was followed by a squawk as Shirogane's hold tightened before easing enough to breath at least.

"Akira." Shirogane held his shoulders and examined him, and finally sighed. "You're all right."

"Few broken bones, nothing big." Akira blinked as Shirogane picked him up. "Um. That was a joke. I can walk."

"Actually, no, you probably can't at the moment." Kou looked a little wobbly himself, but he was grinning. " 'Sokay. You don't have to for a while."

Akira looked at the torn ground around them, though he didn't really need to. "We won." It wasn't a question. He knew.

"We won." Aya and Lulu each had an arm around Kengo, keeping him upright, but they were both grinning too.

"Good." Akira sighed. "Now I can finally sleep in again."

Aya growled at him and Kou and Kengo laughed. "Need your bed for that," Kou pointed out and held out a hand. "Here. I'll take him."

"No."

Akira looked up at Shirogane, attention locked by the breath of cold ferocity in that flat statement. "Hey." He laid a hand on Shirogane's chest, feeling the tears in his coat. "Doesn't matter to me who my litter bearer is."

A little of the tension under his hand eased and Shirogane smiled down at him. "Brat."

Akira mouthed a quick It's okay, I've got it at Kou when Shirogane looked up again. Kou gave him an odd look but nodded and let Shirogane carry him.

He thought all the way home. Every now and then he asked if he could walk yet, just to prod Shirogane, but mostly he thought.

Shirogane settled him on his bed, or at least settled him on Shirogane, on his bed. Akira squirmed around, ignoring the indignant little oofs that Shirogane made until he was more comfortable—still lying against Shirogane's chest but at least not cradled in his lap.

Somehow he wasn't at all surprised that Shirogane wasn't letting go.

"Hey," he said, after a while.

"Hm?"

"That first night. The night you changed me. Why did you do it?"

The fingers stroking his hair paused a moment. Finally Shirogane laughed. "Panic, I suppose." His fingers started moving again. "I didn't expect half of what happened. I didn't think you'd bolt. I didn't think the boundary would be so thin you'd fall through it." Dryly he added, "You're good at being unpredictable."

Akira snorted.

"And I still wasn't sure you were the one I was looking for, then. It looked like you, but your power was still so faint. So I used what I was most sure would work."

"So," Akira said, reflectively, "the first time in a really long time you make a contract... and it's basically by accident."

"Not the most elegant way to put it, but I suppose so, yes," Shirogane sighed. "It gave you the power to protect yourself so perhaps it was the best thing in the end."

"Considering how much trouble you instantly got me into," Akira grumbled, and then, while Shirogane was drawing himself up, added, "And here I still am, anyway, alive and everything. So it must be all right for you to make someone shin. All right for you to want to."

Shirogane froze. "Ryuu...?"

"No." Akira looked up at him, arms tightening around him. "I'm Akira. I just... I think I understand more, now." At least it was suddenly clear as day to him just how much Shirogane needed shin around him. And how much he would resist making another, in case he lost them. "I'm me. And either way I'm..." he flushed a bit but finished gamely, "I'm yours."

Shirogane took in a quick breath at that and caught Akira against him, kissing him hot and possessive, the way that turned Akira's bones to water. "Mine," Shirogane growled, human politeness stripped away, and his tone sent a shiver straight down Akira's spine to his cock.

Against the rising heat, though, the thought lingered in the back of Akira's mind that Shirogane's hunger for shin of his own couldn't wait much longer to be fed, no matter how much Shirogane didn't want to risk it.

End

Five Things That Never Happened to Xanxus

These are things that never happened to Xanxus, but could have done, if only things had started out just a bit differently. This fic is what happens when you say to yourself, "Gosh, I've been writing a lot of Xanxus angst lately. I wonder if it is possible to write Xanxus in such a way that he is, well, functionally broken instead of just psychopathically insane." And then you get tackled by a plot bunny that is the size of a goddamn linebacker. Teen and up; warnings for Xanxus doing the things that make him Xanxus.

1. First Encounters

Xanxus stared up at the old geezer—this smiling old fool was supposed to be the Vongola Ninth? please—and lifted a hand to show him the Flame when he asked for it. Surprise widened the geezer's eyes. "Oh, I see now," he said, voice quiet, and actually knelt right there in the street, ignoring all the garbage and crap and what it was doing to the knees of that fancy suit. He laid his hands on Xanxus' shoulders.

Xanxus stiffened. "What the hell?" he demanded.

His mother trembled at his back. "Xanxus, don't be rude—"

The geezer raised a hand, and Xanxus glared at him harder as he touched Xanxus' jaw and forehead, fingertips cool against Xanxus' skin. "I see," he said, again, slowly.

"Wish to fuck you'd explain what the hell that means," Xanxus told him.

"Xanxus," Ma moaned. "Don't—don't—"

"It's all right, Madam." The geezer stood, dusting his hands. "I believe the two of you should accompany me. We have much to discuss."

Xanxus could feel her shake again. "I knew it," she said, in that voice she got when she was about to go off on one of her fits. "Oh, I knew this day would come."

"Yes, I expect you did," the geezer said, looking back down at Xanxus. "Come along, then." He held out a hand to Xanxus.

Xanxus sneered at him; what did he look like, a kid?

The geezer huffed, and let it settle on Xanxus' shoulder instead. Xanxus tolerated it for the time being, letting him guide them over to the cars—big black ones, gleaming against the rottenness of their neighborhood, making it even clearer how crappy the place actually was, and how much the geezer and his goons didn't belong here.

"They'll ride with me," the geezer told his men. They all got constipated looks at that, which was funny to see.

They put Xanxus up front, and Ma rode with the geezer in the back. Xanxus listened in, but it wasn't shoptalk, not yet, just the geezer asking a lot of nosy questions about how he and Ma lived. She sounded pretty much like she was back in control of herself, so Xanxus ignored her. Not like she couldn't handle herself when it came to actually negotiating her prices. Was the one thing she actually managed to do right, most of the time.

Since he didn't have to monitor her and the geezer—and fuck, he hoped he'd still be able to get it up at that age—Xanxus watched the city roll by, wavery behind thick glass, until it gave way to the countryside. That was weird, too empty by half, so he turned his attention to the interior of the car, which was all gleaming metal and wood and leather, one more way of demonstrating that he and Ma were either way out of their league, or moving up in the world.

"Don't do that," the driver said, first thing he'd said since he'd put the car in gear, when Xanxus reached out for a set of buttons.

"Don't tell me what to do," Xanxus retorted, and kept on reaching.

"I said don't," the driver said, and caught Xanxus' hand, all without looking away from the road. He twisted it tight, till Xanxus gasped at the strain. "Those go to the windows," he added, all conversational. "We don't lower the windows, not with the Ninth in the car. That way, no one can shoot him. Got it?"

"Yeah," Xanxus grunted, eyes beginning to water.

"Good," the driver said, and released him.

Xanxus rubbed his wrist and glared at him, but it rolled right off the bastard. That was new. People usually reacted more when he did that. "What do those do?" he asked, finally, pointing at another set of buttons.

"They go to the radio." Xanxus saw him glance at the mirror, and then he reached over and pressed another button. Behind them, a screen rose, separating the front seat and the back seat. "Here, see?" he said, and demonstrated. "Find a station you like."

Xanxus spent most of the rest of the ride scanning the stations—the car radio picked up more than Ma's crappy old set did. A lot more clearly, too.

Even so, it wasn't really until they rolled up to the house that Xanxus began to believe that the geezer might be for real. The house—hell, it might have even qualified as a House—looked about as big as a city block to Xanxus' eyes. It was just like the car inside, too—big and luxurious, more money than Xanxus had ever seen in his life all in one place, and that was just in the goddamn hallways. The geezer spoke to his men, and then led them to a room that was full of sunlight and heavy old furniture, and had the same kind of wavery view as the car windows had. The geezer had them sit, but stayed on his own feet.

Xanxus was starting to hate the way the geezer kept staring at him.

Before he could say something, Ma spoke. "Why did you bring us here?" she asked, all breathy, the way she got when she was trying to charm some new man of hers.

"I couldn't not," the geezer said, blunt, like he hadn't even noticed. "The Vongola can't afford to have you fall into another Family's hands. And it would be a shame if another Family tried to kill you, or we had to do it ourselves. You'll live here now."

Killing? That was interesting. Xanxus looked up, actually interested in the geezer for the first time, while Ma made a sound, like that wasn't what she'd expect to hear at all. "But he's your son."

The geezer didn't look away from Xanxus. "No, Madam, I am afraid that you are mistaken. He is not my son."

Xanxus ignored Ma's tiny, broken sound and looked back, straight at him. "Yeah, so what else is new?" Not like he wasn't used to the names people called him. He wasn't anybody's son. He'd gotten to the point where he liked it that way.

"You have a Vongola Flame," the geezer said, candidly. "And a certain look, around the forehead and the jaw. I expect you're descended from one of the Second's by-blows. They crop up with depressing regularity." He moved, leaning against the desk, relaxed. "Sometimes my predecessors chose to simply eliminate individuals such as yourself," he added, casual. "You can't be allowed to inherit the position of the boss, since you're not of a legitimate line. That hasn't stopped certain people from trying anyway, so a sense of prudence suggests that we ought to avert those incidents by nipping them in the bud."

Ma was crying now, soft and gulping, but she wasn't really all that good at paying attention to what people were saying when it didn't fit in with how she thought the world was supposed to work. Xanxus leaned forward, interested in spite of himself. "Yeah? So why aren't you doing it that way?"

"I haven't decided not to," the geezer said, and actually smiled when he said it. "But I'd prefer not to kill anyone unless it becomes strictly necessary. I hate to be wasteful."

"Makes more sense to stop trouble before it ever starts," Xanxus retorted.

"There are more ways of doing that than just killing the source of the potential trouble," the geezer replied. "You have a Vongola Flame. You are of the Vongola. We have a responsibility to our Family, and our Family has a responsibility to us."

"So... what?" Xanxus replied, narrowing his eyes at the geezer. "You want me to... what? In exchange for... what?"

The geezer was still smiling, like he was in on some joke that Xanxus wasn't getting. "We take you and your mother in. We educate you, and find a place for you, and name you one of our Family. In return, you serve us in whatever capacity best fits you."

The hell he said. "What if I don't want to serve?"

"Then you must not be allowed to bring harm to us," the geezer said, voice soft. "The Family is paramount to all other considerations."

Xanxus snorted. "I'd like to see you try," he retorted, calling on the Flame.

The geezer just smiled at him some more. "Don't do something you'll regret," he said, voice soft.

"Don't think that I'm going to just knuckle over to you, old man." Xanxus gathered himself, prepared to spring forward, and—

The geezer stood and gestured, and was holding a goddamned scepter all of a sudden. Xanxus would have cared more about that, but the geezer had a Flame of his own, and the sudden weight of it, so heavy that he had to gasp for breath, pressed Xanxus back down into his chair. "I doubted that you would do any such thing," the geezer—except he wasn't a geezer, was he? the whole thing had been some kind of act—the Ninth told him, voice cool and heavy with Flame. "But make no mistake. You can serve and stand with us, or you must stand against us." He reached out and laid his hand against Xanxus' forehead. Xanxus thought he might have made a sound against the weight of that touch, but couldn't manage to care as the Ninth's Flame wrapped around him and held him. Xanxus struggled against that grip, but it was stronger than he was. He'd never met anyone stronger than him before; the surprise of it made him still. "I would greatly prefer it if you were to become one of ours."

Behind the strength of that Will there was an offer, a conditional one, and a choice, all backed by an unshakeable resolve to do what was best for the Family, regardless of the cost.

Xanxus could just about respect that. "All right," he gasped. "All right! I'll do it!"

The Ninth curbed his Flame and Xanxus sagged, panting, as the weight came away from him. "I am pleased to hear it."

"Yeah, don't get used to it." Xanxus flexed his hands; he didn't remember banishing his Flame, but it was gone like it'd never been there. "You might be worth it. Don't know about anyone else."

The Ninth inclined his head at that, still smiling faintly. "If you like," he said. "But I'd advise you not to put your faith in men like me."

"Whatever," Xanxus said, eyeing him warily.

The Ninth chuckled. "Put it into the Family, which is bigger than us all."

"Yeah, we'll see," Xanxus muttered.

The Ninth's smile turned broader. "Yes," he said, "you will."

2. Stray

The old man had told him to stick close to the Vongola's Rome headquarters, and Xanxus had given that about as much consideration as he'd thought it had deserved. Now, standing in the middle of a slum in Rome, surrounded by men in suits who weren't Vongola, he was starting to think maybe the old man'd had a point after all. "The fuck do you want?" he demanded, assessing the numbers and deciding that this was going to be a cast iron bitch to get himself out of.

"You're the Vongola's bastard, aren't you?" That was the biggest one of the goons, the guy who was probably in charge.

Xanxus sneered. "Who wants to know?" He called on the Flame, since this wasn't going to end with them all holding hands and singing together, and it never hurt to look impressive.

"That's him all right," one of the other goons said. "Can't mistake the Vongola Flame."

Yeah, showed how much they knew.

The head goon tried for a smile and failed. "Why don't you just come along with us, and we'll talk about it?" the head goon told him.

Xanxus curled and uncurled his hands. "Why don't you blow me?" He launched himself at the head goon and had smashed his face in before the stupid piece of shit had finished gaping at him.

It had been a while since he'd been in an all-out brawl. Xanxus bared his teeth at the rest of them for the fierce joy of it. "Come one, I'll take you all on," he promised them, while they stood frozen in that moment before reaction. "C'mon, you fucking trash."

That woke them up, all right. Xanxus waded into them, lashing out with Flame and fist and laughing at the satisfaction of it. Been way too long since he'd been able to beat the shit out of someone. He'd missed it.

What he hadn't missed was being fucking out-numbered, and out-gunned. The goons all had guns, which was really fucking inconsiderate of them, considering how all he had was his Flame.

He'd just started sorting through his options—all two of them, surrender or go down fighting—as he eyed the closing circle of guns and grinning goons when the balance of things shifted again, this time in his direction.

The first sign of it was a ripple of disturbance in the ranks at the back of the crowd, and then the sound of someone shouting a warning that got cut short by a gurgle. That was enough to distract some of them, which was all Xanxus really needed. As they turned, he lashed out with his Flame again, whipping it across faces and hands, and was viciously satisfied by the shrieks and curses of the men who clutched at their burns.

He never actually saw the man who shot him.

One minute he was laughing; the next, something had punched him, so hard that the shock registered on some gut level, and his arm was hanging at his side, useless.

Xanxus swore, good hand coming up, Flame wrapped around it as he tried to find the bastard who'd dared. Someone crashed into him before he could, knocking him sideways and flattening him against the pavement. He struggled against the weight and the hands that were holding him down, until the guy swore at him. "Just stay down, you stupid brat, and stop making yourself a target!"

He recognized that voice, and blinked up at the old man's youngest son, confused as all fuck. "The hell are you doing here?"

Federico looked down at him, impatient for the first time that Xanxus had ever seen. "Saving your sorry ass," he retorted, and rolled back to his feet.

Xanxus had never seen Federico so much as raise his voice at someone in the two years since the old man had dragged him and Ma out of the slums. Now the man was burning like a torch, Flame as bright as the old man's was, as he whirled into the goons like grim death itself, sword flickering against them, fast and deadly.

Be damned. Xanxus hadn't actually thought Federico had had it in him.

It was over fast, after that. The goons—what was left of them at that point—broke and ran for it, and a few of Federico's men gave chase. Xanxus was pushing himself to his feet, which was surprisingly difficult to do with only one working arm, when Federico turned on him. "You," he said, as his hand collided with the side of Xanxus' head. "What the hell do you think you're doing out here all by yourself? Didn't you hear Dad tell you not to go out alone?" Federico stripped the tie from around his throat as Xanxus stared, frankly astonished by the blow, and hauled Xanxus closer. "Were you trying to get yourself killed?" he demanded, wrapping the tie around Xanxus' arm, yanking it tight.

Xanxus hissed at the rough handling. "The fuck do you care? You don't even like me."

"That's true," Federico said, turning him again and pushing him down the alley, propelling him—ah, there were cars waiting for them. "You're a violent little psychopath, and I would have definitely preferred it if Dad had just brought home a stray puppy instead of you." He shoved Xanxus into the car ahead of him, and had barely climbed in after Xanxus before it lurched into gear. "But you're Family now. Fucked if I'm going to let the Pozzo Nero fuck with my Family."

As Xanxus stared at him, blinking and stupid—it was the blood loss, had to be—Federico tore strips out of his own shirt and folded them into a pad. The stab of pain when Federico pressed it against the wound shocked him out of it again. "Oh," he said, and then rallied himself. "I don't like you, either."

Federico grinned at him. "Yeah, tell me something I didn't already know, brat," he said, holding steady pressure on Xanxus' arm. "Seriously. We could have just gotten a puppy. Lot less trouble, puppies, since they don't go out and do stupid shit like getting themselves shot by disobeying direct orders."

"Fuck you." Xanxus glared at him.

Federico ignored it, still grinning. "That the best you can do?"

Xanxus growled at him, wordless, and looked away, staring out the window determinedly.

After a moment, Federico huffed, and added, "Good fighting, by the way. Never seen someone take out that many men with just their hands and a Flame."

"I want a gun," Xanxus told him, still staring out the window. "My own gun. Maybe two."

"Mm. You're a little young."

"I'm twelve!"

"Like I said. A little young."

Xanxus turned and glared at him. "How am I supposed to deal with situations like these, then?"

"By not being reckless enough to put yourself into them in the first place?" Federico suggested, mildly. "Considering who you are—"

"Fuck that. I'm not actually his bas—"

"Not actually Dad's kid, I know," Federico said, in that really fucking obnoxious way he had of putting everything into nice words when the actual truth was ugly as sin. "But people think you are, so they're going to try to use that against us. Like it or not, you have to deal with that. Not going out alone when we're at war with the Pozzo Nero would be a nice first step."

"I don't want a fucking bodyguard," Xanxus said, and looked away from him. "I can handle things myself."

"You can, sure," Federico told him. "But you don't have to. That's what Family is, you stubborn brat."

"Whatever," Xanxus muttered. "I still don't want a bodyguard. I'm strong enough on my own."

Federico sighed. "Stubborn," he muttered, and then his voice changed, and the atmosphere inside the car turned taut. The warning came too late, and Xanxus cursed as Federico's fingers dug into his arm and Federico's Flame lit his eyes again. "You're not strong enough on your own," Federico announced, Will holding Xanxus in place, implacable as the Ninth's. "I saved your life today. If your Family hadn't been there, you would be dead right now, shot in the back in a stinking alley." Xanxus jerked against Federico, pushing against Federico's Will, but Federico held firm. His fingers tightened on Xanxus' arm again, and his Will reached into Xanxus, implacable, forcing him to listen and to hear. "You are strong, but your Family is stronger, and will make you stronger. You are not alone any more. Understand?"

Federico's Flame underlined the question, and so did Xanxus' blood on the remains of Federico's shirt and on the hands that were gripping his bicep. "Yeah," Xanxus said, slow and grudgingly, not about to admit that Federico had won. "All right."

Federico held him in his Will a little bit longer, and then released him, looking satisfied when he did. "Good," he said.

Xanxus looked aside, now that he could. "You and the old man are crazy." The hell did they think they were doing, just taking him in like that, anyway? It was like they didn't even know how dangerous he could be.

And never mind the faint suspicion he had that he had given in this time, instead of being overwhelmed. That was just crazy.

"Hey, don't go blaming me. I already told you that I wanted a puppy." Federico's voice was cheerful. "But we got you instead, so I'll make do."

Xanxus just growled at him, especially when Federico set a hand in his hair and ruffled it lightly. Before he could do anything about it, the car had pulled in at the Vongola house, and it fell away again in the rush for a doctor and the storm of the old man's anger.

Xanxus didn't think about it again until a box showed up in his room several days later, without a card or a source or anything to say where it had come from. But he didn't need a card, not when the box had a pair of matched handguns in it—the message was loud and clear.

3. Canis lupus

"Hey there, pup."

Federico had the most fucking irritating way of being able to find Xanxus when Xanxus least wanted to deal with any members of the Family. "Fuck off," he growled, dodging the hand that descended to ruffle his hair. "And I'm not a damn puppy. Stop treating me like I'm your fucking lapdog."

Federico whistled. "You are in a temper," he observed, and settled himself on the roof next to Xanxus. The sniper whose post this was made a pained noise, probably because Federico didn't look like he intended to go anywhere any time soon.

Xanxus growled at him again, but the effect was ruined when his voice broke halfway through. Fucking puberty. "Go away."

"Not till I know what's bothering you so much that you're terrorizing poor Lucien."

"Poor Lucien my ass," Xanxus muttered. "He's a fucking menace, is what he is."

"He's a tutor," Federico said. Bastard wasn't even trying to pretend he wasn't laughing. "The most dangerous thing he knows is trigonometry."

Xanxus begged to fucking differ. "Dancing lessons. Motherfucking dancing lessons!"

Federico hooted with laughter. "So you tried to shoot him. I see now. You know Dad's going to have to pay him an awful lot to stay on after that little stunt, right?"

"He should save his money." Xanxus glared out across the landscape, all Vongola land as far as he could see, since glaring at Federico did a whole lot of nothing. "The fuck do I need to know how to dance for?"

"Comes in handy at parties, or so I hear."

"Parties." Xanxus sneered. "Fuck. What do I look like, some kind of diplomat?"

"I sincerely doubt that any of us are going to mistake you for the Family ambassador, I promise." Federico was still laughing, damn his eyes. "But they'll start inviting you to parties sooner or later. You're going to have be ready for when that happens."

"Fuck." Xanxus shuddered at the very idea of having to deal with more people, ones who weren't even Family, and who would all think... "Fucking fuck."

"...hey." Federico's hand landed on his nape. "What's really bothering you, pup?"

Xanxus stared away from him. "You're as bad the old man," he said, finally. Language lessons and etiquette lessons, horseback riding and history and mathematics, like he was the old man's actual bastard and not just the stray that politics had forced the old man to adopt. "Trying to make me into something else." He tried to lean away from Federico's fingers.

They just curled tighter and kept him in place. "How so?"

"Dance lessons." Xanxus looked out over the orchards to the north of the House. "Etiquette lessons. Parties. Fuck. It's like you fucking think that's the kind of person I am. Hell, it's like you think I really am his bastard."

"People are going to think that no matter what," Federico said. "You need the tools to negotiate—"

He sounded all sympathetic, and something in Xanxus snapped. "I don't want to fucking negotiate! I want to fucking shoot people!" he shouted, twisting away from Federico's hand on his nape, this time successfully. "I don't want to smile and make nice with our enemies, I want to fight them! I'm not your fucking lap dog—I'm a fucking wolf, only you and that shitty old man won't let me be!"

Federico let him get the whole damn thing out, wearing his patient I'm listening and I care deeply face the whole time. "Don't hold back," he said, when Xanxus had finished and was panting and feeling raw with having finally said it out loud. "Tell me how you really feel."

"Fuck you. Fuck you a whole lot." Xanxus turned away from him and hunched himself over his knees.

"One of these days, I'm going to have to teach you some more creative ways to swear at people." Federico shifted, climbing to his feet, and then held a hand down to him. "C'mon."

Xanxus glared at it, and thought about smacking it away, except that the sniper was really giving him a nasty look for all the shouting, and would probably shoot him for striking the Ninth's precious Heir. "What?"

"We're going to go talk to Dad."

Xanxus glanced up at him, wary; Federico was still smiling, but there was steel in it now. "What about?"

"Finding you something that'll be a better fit." Federico jerked his head at the door. "C'mon, no time like the present."

Now what the hell was that supposed to mean?

Federico sighed while Xanxus puzzled over this new turn in Federico's mood, and leaned over to haul him to his feet. "I'd swear, sometimes it's like you don't understand a word I'm saying."

"That's because sometimes I don't," Xanxus muttered. "Seeing as I don't speak Lunatic."

"Really? And here I thought you were a native speaker." Federico pulled him inside and dragged him back downstairs.

They really were going to go see the Ninth—Federico took him right to the old man's study and waltzed right on in like he owned it. Xanxus guessed he did, sort of, or would eventually. Federico didn't even seem to mind that he was interrupting the old man at work.

"Federico," the old man said, giving his son a tolerant look and Xanxus a rather sharper glance. Yeah, he'd heard about the thing with goddamn Lucien by now, all right. "What is it?"

"It's time we found Xanxus a place in the Family that can make use of his skills, don't you think?" Federico said, maneuvering Xanxus to a spot in front of the desk and planting himself next to him.

"I beg your pardon?" the old man asked, those bushy eyebrows of his climbing up his forehead.

Federico set a hand on Xanxus' shoulder. "A more suitable position, I think," he said, casual. "Some place where he can do the things he does best. I'm thinking he might try a stint with the Varia."

Xanxus looked up at him, sharply—the fucking Varia? That would be—

"Out of the question," the Ninth said, flat. "Have you lost your mind? He's still a child. The Vongola are not so desperate for soldiers that I would send a child to fight for us."

"I'm fourteen," Xanxus said, offended to his core, but they both ignored him.

"He may be a child, but he's a fighter, Dad." Federico's own voice had gone flat. "He's always been a fighter, and he always will be. You think that it is a kindness to shelter him from the harsher realities of our life, but it's not. He doesn't want the Vongola to shelter him. I say that it's time to stop caging him and hoping that doing so will tame him, because it's not working. Keeping him penned up is only going to make him wilder."

"No," the Ninth said, eyes gone steely. "No, I will not countenance it. When he's older, when he knows what it is that he's deciding—"

"Xanxus," Federico said, face and voice going still, like he was on the edge of calling his Flame. Xanxus found himself responding to that tone without quite meaning to, spine snapping straight as Federico addressed him. "How old were you when you killed your first man?"

"Dunno," Xanxus said, which was the honest truth. "Eight, maybe? Something like that. He was hassling Ma, I think. Wanted more of her take than they'd agreed to—no, wait, that was someone else. I think." He shrugged. "Never kept track. Sorry."

The old man was starting to look pained. Federico just squeezed Xanxus' shoulder. "Thank you," he said. "I don't think the details are really that important."

"If you're sure," Xanxus said, watching the old man's mouth go tighter.

"Federico—"

"No, Dad." Federico's voice was quiet, and the first echoes of his Will were stirring below its surface. "He's not an innocent to be protected, and he hasn't been for a long damn time. It would be nice if we could make up for that now, but we can't. What we can do is respect what Xanxus is by letting him serve the way he's fitted himself to serve us. The way he wants to serve us."

Xanxus held his breath through the whole of Federico's speech, shocked by the clarity with which Federico saw him, and the stubbornness in his voice and his Will, all set against the Ninth for his sake. Who would ever have thought that Federico would do such a thing for him?

The old man seemed just as surprised about Federico taking Xanxus' part as Xanxus himself was. "This is what you'd set yourself against me for?"

"I would set myself against the world for any of my people," Federico said, perfectly serene, and that casual claim drew Xanxus taut. Federico squeezed his shoulder again. "Ask him. Let him tell you what he wants for himself."

The Ninth's eyes flicked to Xanxus' face. "Well, boy?" he asked, slow and reluctant.

"Could I join the Varia?" Xanxus asked, and fuck if he cared how eager that made him sound. "They get the really interesting missions, right?"

"They slaughter the Vongola's enemies." The Ninth's voice was harsh. "They are assassins and remorseless, ruthless killers."

Xanxus matched him, stare for stare. "Like I said. Interesting."

"You see, Dad?" Federico's voice was soft. "Just be grateful that he's ours. Forget the rest. It's not going to happen."

"It seems not." The Ninth looked away from them booth. "I'll speak to Tyr."

"Thank you, Father," Federico said, and bowed, old-fashioned and formal. He pulled Xanxus down with him. "My apologies for interrupting you." He clapped Xanxus on the shoulder when they'd straightened up again. "C'mon, you."

Xanxus was pleased enough with matters—the motherfucking Varia, hot damn!—that he let Federico shuffle them out of the old man's study without protest. Federico stopped them in the hallway. "All right," he said, looking down at Xanxus, still in serious business mode. "You owe me, and I'm going to tell you how I plan on collecting."

"How?" Xanxus asked, wary, since it always paid to be careful of Federico in this mood.

"You're going to be one of the Vongola's best fighters," Federico said. "Possibly even one of the fighters who'll live on in our legends after you manage to get yourself killed, depending. But I'm going to ask you to do something harder than spilling blood for us."

"Like what?" Xanxus said, pretending that he wasn't pleased by the praise.

"Learn the social rules. And the dancing. You don't have to like them, but you have to learn them," Federico said, and he sounded absolutely implacable about it. "I will not have you disgrace me, and I will not have you be vulnerable to our enemies by not knowing how to handle them when shooting them isn't an option. Do you understand?"

Xanxus scowled at him. "Can't I just—"

"No. You can't," Federico told him, flat. "You have to do this. This is not negotiable." Then his mouth quirked. "Think of it as a method of fighting, just in a different medium. If it helps."

Xanxus huffed at him. "It doesn't." He looked away. The Varia. And Federico had faced down the old man to do it. Goddamnit, he did owe him, didn't he? "Fine."

"Thank you," Federico said, and ruffled his hair. "It won't be so bad," he promised. "Not if you're going to be Varia. People will be too terrified to talk to you."

"Hmph." But the idea had a certain appeal to it.

"Yeah, I thought you'd like that, cub." Federico ruffled his hair again and turned away.

"Cub?" Xanxus echoed, raking his hands through his hair and reordering it. "The hell?"

Federico grinned over his shoulder. "You're not a wolf yet," he said. "Yet. But you're getting there."

And he laughed as he strolled away, as Xanxus stared after him, too surprised to say anything to that at all.

4. Dies Irae

Tyr listened, impassive as a stone god, as the Ninth explained the mission he'd like the Varia to take, and when the old man had finished, simply said, "No."

Xanxus felt his commander's refusal like a blow, but the old man—and damn it, he really did look like an old man now, and moved and spoke like one, showing every last year of his age now—the old man just sighed. "Less than a ninety percent chance of completing the mission successfully, then?"

"The Cetrulli are an old and powerful Family," Tyr said. "Their strength is comparable to our own, and they did manage to breach our own security to kill Federico." The old man flinched at the name of his son, but it just made Xanxus' rage sharper to hear it spoken so casually. Tyr took no notice of either of them, and carried on with his analysis. "We cannot move against them in a covert fashion, retaliate as you have asked us to do, and remain undetected."

"And that would mean open warfare, which is outside the Varia's purview," the old man said, and rubbed his forehead. "All right, thank you. We'll find some other way."

That was the absolute limit. "Fuck that," Xanxus ground out, even though it wasn't his place to speak up in this council, or do anything more than observe. "Fuck keeping it a secret. Kill 'em all and let the whole world know what you get for fucking with our Family."

"It's not that easy," the old man said, weary. "I'd like nothing more than that, but—"

"But nothing! They killed Federico!" Had punched right through Federico's security while he'd been on holiday with his family and had killed them all—and just the thought of it made Xanxus curl his hands into fists, both the Vongola Flame and the other one, the one he hadn't used in years, rousing in response.

"But I am not willing to declare open war on the Cetrulli," the Ninth said, flat, while his advisors stirred and muttered, and Tyr hissed, "Control yourself!"

Xanxus flexed his hands, Wrath and Will burning hotter. "Fuck the politics," he gritted out. "You know I'm right."

"And I know that I have no right to tell the commander of the Varia which missions he will accept!" the Ninth retorted. "Your commander has said no, and will not take part in an open war against the Cetrulli. The Vongola will find another way."

"Is that how it is?" Xanxus breathed, possibility crystallizing itself for him, clear and perfect as ice.

"That's how it is."

Xanxus furled his Flames away, against the moment when he would need them. "Fine."

The old man nodded, because he'd never understood Xanxus half as well as Federico had, and had never seen far enough. "Moving on, then."

Tyr stayed to listen to the old man and his advisors argue over alternative schemes, and to give his advice. Xanxus waited them out, darkly amused by the fact that the old man and his men couldn't come to any satisfactory conclusions, and by the covert frustration that showed every time they looked at Tyr, until the old man called an end to things for the morning.

Tyr ignored all of them and swept out of the meeting with his usual magisterial calm. Xanxus followed after him like a good little squad leader.

His commander was no fool. Tyr went straight to the Varia's practice yard, and only spoke to Xanxus once they were there. "You spoke very much out of turn this morning," he noted, as he faced Xanxus and loosened his sword in its sheath.

"But I'm right, damn it," Xanxus said, and let his Flames unwind themselves again as he faced the man down. "You know I am."

"I know that you think that you are right." Tyr was as dispassionate here as he was in everything, and that made Xanxus want to grind his teeth. "I know that you do not have to concern yourself with the same things I do, and that you have the luxury of being able to allow yourself to be angry."

"It's not a fucking luxury." Xanxus flexed his hands, opening and closing them, watching him. Fucking luxuries weren't supposed to hurt so damn much. "What are the chances of doing the mission successfully, open warfare aside?"

Tyr lifted a shoulder, his eyes never leaving Xanxus'. "If we don't worry about remaining concealed? Nearly a hundred percent. But we can't do the mission without revealing ourselves, and I will not let that happen."

"Why the hell not?" Xanxus demanded, rage burning hotter, till the air shimmered around him. "It's not like anyone doesn't know we exist, even if they pretend not to."

Tyr smiled, faint, just the corners of his mouth lifting. "Nevertheless. While I am the leader of the Varia, we will remain a secret. An open secret, if necessary, but a secret."

Even while that made him growl, Xanxus had to admire how well his commander knew him, and appreciate the opening. "Maybe it's time the Varia had a new commander."

"Think carefully," Tyr told him, still wearing that little smile. "Are you ready to do this? You're nineteen—do you really think you're ready to take over if—if—you can cut me down?"

"I guess we'll have to find out," Xanxus told him, and attacked.

Tyr had twenty years and some on him, and had trained with the sword his whole life. He had been one of the best training partners Xanxus had ever had, even without a Flame of his own, and Xanxus had always enjoyed their sparring matches. This was no training match, however, and Tyr hurled himself at Xanxus, grim and intent. Xanxus caught Tyr's sword on one of his guns, and they closed with each other. Tyr's lips peeled back from his teeth as Xanxus lashed out with his Flames. "It seems that Federico's wolf has gone rabid," he noted.

Xanxus just snarled at him, wordless, and they broke apart.

The battle dragged on, since neither of them would give way; Xanxus was dimly aware that the clash of it was drawing spectators to the training yard—other members of the Varia coming to linger at its edges, silent observers who didn't move to interfere. He paid them no mind, being more concerned with Tyr's sword and the gun that had gone spinning away, thanks to a particularly clever twist of Tyr's blade.

They closed again, and again; he raised a line of blisters along Tyr's cheek with the Wrath. Tyr laid his forearm open in return, on the next pass, when Xanxus wasted a precious fraction of a second reaching into his boot for his knife. They were both soaked with sweat when Tyr spoke again, against his ear, hushed. "Think, if you still can," he said, as they wrestled with each other. "Killing them all won't bring him back. Killing them won't lessen the grief that you feel."

"You're wrong," Xanxus retorted. "Killing them all will make me feel much better."

Tyr's bark of laughter was short and harsh. "God save us from reckless young fools and madmen," he said, as they broke apart again.

"You're a superstitious old fool," Xanxus growled at him.

Tyr just laughed again.

The sun had sunk behind the walls of the House and cast the training ground into shadow before the balance of the fight finally shifted. Xanxus harried Tyr across the yard, maneuvering him until the man put a foot down in one of the places where Xanxus' Flames had gouged at the earth. He wobbled for just a fraction of a section, but Xanxus had been waiting and ready for it, and lunged forward, ignoring the glancing blow of the sword against his shoulder and the way it sliced him open, and sank his boot knife into Tyr's chest, all the way to the hilt.

Tyr breathed out, a sigh that sounded regretful, and folded in on himself.

Xanxus caught him—he owed the man that much—and let Tyr's weight bear them to the ground. The look Tyr turned on him was resigned. "I always did wonder if it was going to be you," he managed, with one of his teeth-baring smiles. "Tell me something."

Xanxus raised his eyebrows. "What?"

Tyr's breath was starting to turn short and to gurgle. "Why didn't you just shoot me?"

Was that all? "No one would have followed me if I had."

"Maybe you know what you're doing after all," Tyr gasped, and died with laughter, frothy and red, on his lips.

Xanxus regarded him silently, and then closed his eyes and eased him the rest of the way down. Then he unpinned the Varia's crest from the dead man's jacket and rose. The edges cut into his fingers as he faced the other members of the Varia who were watching him. Xanxus lifted his hand, showing it to them. "This is mine now. Anyone want to argue about it?"

The training yard was silent, until one of the squad leaders shrugged and called, "All yours, Boss." He was echoed by a murmur of agreement.

"Good." Xanxus lowered his hand and retrieved his gun and knife, and turned away from them all.

"Where are you going, Boss?" someone called.

"To see the old man," Xanxus said, without breaking stride. "To see about our next mission."

People scurried out of his way as he stalked back inside; one of the serving girls shrieked outright at the sight of him. Xanxus ignored them all as he made for the old man's study and booted the door open.

The old man was clearly startled to see him. "What the—you look like a hot mess, boy."

He was probably right, but Xanxus couldn't find it in himself to care. He made his way to the old man's desk and dropped the badge on it. "When do you want us to move?" he asked.

The Ninth looked down and a series of emotions chased themselves over his face as he stared at the pin. "Oh, my boy," he said, finally, softly. "What damn fool thing have you gone and done now?"

That seemed like it should have been obvious, so Xanxus ignored the question and picked the badge up again. He weighed it in his fingers, and then pinned it to the remains his shirt, and was acutely conscious of the slight weight of it hanging there. "When do you want us to begin?"

The Ninth looked up at him, eyes grave and dark. "Get cleaned up," he said. "Tend to those wounds. Then come back, and we'll discuss it."

"Yes, Boss." Xanxus bowed, quick and sharp, and turned away from him.

The old man's voice stopped him at the door. "You didn't have to do this."

Xanxus looked back at him. "No," he said, at length. "You're wrong. I did."

The old man sighed, but didn't try to argue with him. After a moment longer, Xanxus went to clean up.

The Cetrulli died as easily as any men did, though in rather more pain than most. Xanxus led the mission against them himself, repaying the fire that had killed Federico with his own Flames and tearing the very heart of the Cetrulli Family out with his own hands. When the Varia were done with them, not a one of the Cetrulli's actual family was left breathing, nor any of its advisors or most of its commanders, and its shattered remains had scattered and were seeking shelter with any of the Cetrulli's allies that would take them in.

And Tyr, damn him, had been right. The fighting had been satisfying, had let him freeze himself over and throw himself into the fierce pleasure of extracting vengeance from the Cetrulli, but left Xanxus at loose ends when it had ended.

Fortunately, Tyr had been right about the other thing, too—the Varia could no longer remain secret, not when half the old Families were appalled that the Vongola had moved so ruthlessly against one of their own, and the other half had applauded. They were all at open war within the year, giving Xanxus all the battles he could desire. He bent his will on those, and ignored everything else.

By the time the last of the Ninth's sons fell, Xanxus no longer felt much about it at all, save for a certain weariness with the boredom of having to chase the last ragtag members of the Cetrulli to the ground in order to exterminate them.

5. Fire and Ice

Enrico had been dead for a year and a half, and the ceasefire between the surviving Families had held for an uneasy eight months, when the Ninth called Xanxus into his study.

Xanxus was glad of the summons. He'd been getting bored with all the peace and quiet.

"I have a question for you," the old man said, and laid his hands flat on his desk as he looked Xanxus over. "Many people think you are going to be my heir."

"People think a lot of things," Xanxus retorted.

"They do." The Ninth looked at him, head-on and serious. "I need to know. What do you think?"

"I think people are full of shit." Xanxus shrugged. "Not actually your bastard, remember? Some other guy's bastard. Therefore, not eligible."

"What if I told you that we could make the argument that you were?" The Ninth watched him, eyes sharp and focused. "What would you say then?"

"I'd say you're full of shit." Xanxus waved a hand at the old man's office. "You wanted me to take this, you would've been grooming me for it. If not when they got Massimo, then after they got Enrico. You don't want me as your heir. You've got something else up your sleeve."

"Is that so?" The Ninth leaned back in his seat. "How do you figure that?"

"You think I can't tell when you're testing me, old man?" Xanxus leaned back, too, and set an ankle over his knee. "You're too calm. You want to know what I think before you go order me to do something."

The Ninth's eyes glinted, just faintly. "Very well." He picked up one of the folders that was sitting at his elbow and passed it across the desk.

Xanxus flipped it open; there was a photo of a boy right on top, looking about as feckless as they came. "Who's this?"

"Sawada Tsunayoshi." Indeed, there was the label, on the back of the photo.

Xanxus glanced up. "Any relation to...?"

"His son, yes." The Ninth was still watching him.

Xanxus paged through the little dossier, till he came to the piece of paper that was a family tree. "You've got to be fucking with me," he said, and flipped back to the photo. No, the kid still looked like a fucking baby, and not even genetics could change that. "This is your new heir?"

"He's still a little raw," the Ninth said.

"A little raw? Fuck. He hasn't even been in the oven yet." Xanxus flipped the dossier closed. "You might as well invite all our enemies to a party and ask 'em to slit our throats."

"Mm." The Ninth picked up the other folder and offered it to him.

Xanxus flipped it open, expecting to find another possible heir. Instead, his own face stared up at him. "What's this...?" he asked, paging through the dossier rapidly. The Ninth didn't answer, didn't say a fucking word, until Xanxus reached the piece of paper, very like Sawada's, that traced his own family tree, right back to the Second.

He stared at it for so long that the Ninth finally cleared his throat. "The major distinction between you and Tsunayoshi," he said, as Xanxus raised his eyes from the family tree, "is that Tsuna's line is legitimated by the First's remarriage, and yours is not."

Xanxus just stared at him, silently, waiting for him to get to the point.

The Ninth gestured at the two dossiers in his hands. "Most of the Vongola favors you," he said. "The irregularities of your family tree can be overlooked, in light of that."

"Most," Xanxus repeated, hearing the harsh edge in his own voice. "What does that mean?"

"It means that the boy isn't one of us," the Ninth said. "He hasn't been raised in this world. Reborn has been with him since Enrico died. He says that Tsuna's heart is... very pure. Rather like Federico's." He stopped, and ran a hand over his face.

"Why tell me this?" Xanxus demanded, holding up the folder that someone had compiled on him. "If you want him, then why should I even matter?"

The Ninth dropped his hand from his eyes, and looked at him, steady. "Because I am asking you which one of you I should choose to be Tenth after me," he said, slow and even, and upset Xanxus' entire worldview by doing so.

The Varia had swung into action without a murmur of question when Xanxus went from the Ninth's office to their quarters, not even when Xanxus gave them some admittedly peculiar orders. They moved without question, proof that all the bastards knew what was good for them, and didn't even bat an eye at his choices, or the announcement that they were going to Japan. It wasn't till they were on the jet that Bel looked up from playing with his knives, grinning as sharp as they were, and asked, "What's up, Boss? We got a mission to kill someone or what?"

It was an understandable assumption; he'd assembled the strongest squad leaders the Varia had for this. "Something like that." Xanxus cast his eye over them, assessing them. "It's time to figure out who's going to be Tenth, me or Iemitsu's brat."

"Well, hot damn." Bel's grin stretched wider. "We gonna go kill him?"

"Maybe," Xanxus allowed; it wasn't out of the question. "We have to fight him for the rings."

Lussuria was the one who did the math first, looking around at the other five of them and then squeaking. "All of us?" he asked, breathless, and they stilled.

"Yeah," Xanxus told him, and watched them all grin at each other.

"We won't let you down, Boss," Levi vowed.

"You'd better fucking hope not," Xanxus told them, and hauled himself up, heading to the front of the jet's cabin, away from them and their speculations.

Squalo joined him there, all uninvited, and sat across from him. "So," he said, after a moment. "What's the plan?"

He should have known. "What plan?"

"Boss." Squalo gave him a long look, and then snorted. "Please. Like you don't always have a plan. And like you didn't have us do some damn weird things to get ready for this. So. What gives?"

Yeah, Squalo wasn't just his second because he was good with a sword. "Tell you later," he said, since Squalo got loud when he was surprised, or excited, and this was going to be one hell of a surprise, all right. Squalo wasn't going to see it coming, no matter what he'd put together in that pointy head of his.

Wasn't anybody going to see this one coming. Xanxus settled back into his seat, and smirked at nothing at all.

Xanxus didn't think much of Sawada Tsunayoshi the first time he met the boy. His photo in the Ninth's dossier hadn't encompassed the full flailing, wailing reality of the brat's existence. "That brat isn't fit to lick the boots of a real heir," he told Squalo, sourly, after the Cervello had outlined the way the ring battles would happen and they had retired to their headquarters.

"You're going to massacre him, Boss," Levi agreed, readily, missing the point entirely. "You're the only one fit to be the Tenth."

Squalo aimed a kick at him. "The boss wasn't talking to you," he grunted, and then jerked his head at the door. "Get out, all of you. We've got strategy to discuss."

They went, obediently or sullenly, each according to his kind, and Xanxus mused on the usefulness of having a second like Squalo, someone who understood Xanxus' moods without his ever having to make them clear. Once he had booted the door shut after Lussuria's slinking ass, Squalo underlined the point by getting Xanxus a drink, two fingers of whiskey, neat, all without a word.

"This is a fucking farce," Xanxus told him, when the alcohol was a warm glow in his belly.

Squalo kicked a chair over and straddled it, showing his teeth. "You're not wrong. Buncha weaklings, all of them. Beats the fuck outta me how they took Rokudou down."

"Luck," Xanxus grunted. "And probably Reborn." That one couldn't seem to help meddling.

Squalo's teeth flashed again. "Guess we'll see how far luck gets 'em this time."

Xanxus grunted at him.

Squalo didn't need more of a hint than that, and rose immediately. "Night, Boss," he said, and went out.

Xanxus let him go, considering the nature of luck and the Vongola's shitty run of it, these past few years, and then went to check the Gola Mosca, while he was thinking about it.

He reconsidered his stance on Sawada after the battle for the Lightning Ring. Even an observer could feel that there was power in the brat's Flame, as long as Sawada's people were concerned. Perhaps it hadn't been all luck and Reborn that had contributed to Rokudou's defeat.

But the brat was still ten years too early to be the Tenth. Too fucking naÃ¯ve, too—that much was clear in the shock on Sawada's face when the Cervello declared his half of the Sky Ring forfeit. Xanxus had to laugh at that—hadn't the brat known what kind of sacrifices a real boss had to be prepared to make? Especially when one of his Guardians was a damn toddler?

Ten years too fucking early, definitely, Xanxus decided, while the brat's friends consoled him for his stupid mistake. He had potential, yeah, but even the fucking Arcobaleno couldn't turn someone that wet behind the ears into a boss overnight.

The Zero Point came as a complete fucking surprise. Xanxus hadn't known that Will and Flame could turned in on themselves like that, going through heat to come out into cold that burned just as fiercely as the accusations that he had betrayed the Ninth. The image that Xanxus took with him as the Zero Point closed around him and dragged him down was the cool, regretful look in Sawada's eyes, and the last thing he felt was the shock of recognition at the sight—the face was all wrong, but he'd seen that look before, in the old man's eyes and in Federico's eyes.

When light and heat broke through that arctic darkness and dragged him out of that frozen silence, Xanxus could barely gasp for breath, stunned by the betrayal of his Flames and the weakness that gripped him. Mammon was hovering over him, holding a double handful of Vongola Rings and wearing a shit-eating smile that said Forgive and forget, eh Boss? as Bel proclaimed Xanxus the Tenth.

All Xanxus could do was laugh at that, at the utter ridiculousness of it, when he couldnâ€™t even get off the goddamn ground under his own power. Bel had to shove the damn ring on Xanxus' finger himself while Mammon prattled on about the mystic power the rings would give the new heir. "You don't know shit," Xanxus rasped to them, and clenched his fist around the ring.

He'd heard of the Vongola trial, mostly in whispers and the fragments of rumors, and hadn't given them more than cursory attention, because they'd never concern him. As the outside world fell away again, Bel's triumph and Mammon's smugness blending with the protests of Sawada's people, Xanxus had just long enough to wish that he'd listened to those whispers more closely.

Then the screaming started: a whole succession of voices, agonized and terrified, pleading for mercy or more time or just plain howling in senseless pain. Images came with the screams, explosions and shattered bodies, blood running across a thousand different floors and sliding off the edges of blades, and the empty gaze in the eyes of corpses, identical in men and women and children alike.

Revenge, someone whispered.

Ambush. Another voice.

Eradication. And another.

He was suspended in some kind of space, surrounded by a throng of shadowy figures. Their voices rustled like dead leaves brushing against each other, blending and overlaying each other, nearly indistinguishable.

Our past sins. Murder, revenge, betrayal. An insatiable thirst for power.

Xanxus looked through the throng, but their faces were shadowed, and even though he had seen portraits of them all, had lived for years in the house where their faces gazed down at him on a daily basis, he could not tell one from another, nor could he keep a count on them—were there eight? Or nine?

This is the bloodstained history of our Family, they whispered to him. Xanxus only half-listened, peering at them, trying to make a count, trying to bring their faces clear. You who hold the ring of the Vongola, you who claim the Sky—do you have the resolution to inherit the weight of these sins?

That one—that one might be the old man. Xanxus strained after him, but the shadow slipped away, replaced by one that may have been the Third. Xanxus snarled his frustration, and then snarled again when that shadow whirled away, too.

Do not look away, the throng whispered. Look and see the destiny of the successor of the Vongola. This is the purpose of the life you were given.

"Of course it is!" Xanxus flared, facing them and trying glare at all of them at once. "You think I don't know exactly what I am? You think I haven't given the orders to kill? You think I don't know exactly what my guns and my Flames are for?"

The throng of them circled closer, a sigh rippling through them at his answer. Will you pay the price? they asked. Will you shoulder the burden of our history and all its glory? Will you uphold the Vongola?

Xanxus snarled at them again. "I'll do whatever it takes," he told them, gesturing at the flood of history streaming around them. "I serve the Vongola. Doesn't matter who gets in the way of that, I'll cut them down."

They sighed and swayed as one. Ah...

It was the wrong answer; Xanxus knew it before the voices and images of their history fell away, before he found himself standing before the circle of them, nine in all. Only the old man showed any regret, looking at him.

The First spoke. "No," he said, and the weight of his voice and Will drove Xanxus to his knees. "That will not do. Your heart is frozen. You haven't shouldered our burden, even a little bit." He lifted his hand. "As you have rejected us, we reject you."

"Like that's a fucking surprise," Xanxus managed, before nine generations' worth of Vongola-caused suffering came crashing down on him.

When he came back to himself, he had screamed himself raw, and one of the Cervello was stooping over him to strip the Sky Ring off of his hand. "The rings have rejected Xanxus' blood," she announced. "The winner of the Sky Ring battle has defaulted to Sawada Tsunayoshi."

That sparked protests all around, from Bel's squawk to Sawada's Sun proclaiming his confusion. "How can it reject his blood? Isn't he the Ninth's son?"

Laughing hurt. Xanxus did it anyway, and forced himself to his feet, because he wasn't by damn going to do this lying on the ground like a fucking worm. "Told you all you didn't know shit," he wheezed, and spat the blood out of his mouth. "I'm not the old man's son. Never have been." He laughed again, laughed at all of their stupid, shocked faces. "And you're surprised it rejected me?"

"No." That was Sawada, swaying on his own feet, speaking up before anyone else could. "That's not it at all, is it? That's just what you want us all to think." He took a wobbling step away from his companions, towards Xanxus. "I understand, now," he said, eyes and voice clear. "What the Ninth showed me."

Bel took a step, and stopped when Xanxus growled at him. "Bullshit," he told Sawada. "What can a brat like you understand?"

"Everything," Sawada said, confident, closing the distance between them, step by shaky step. "You didn't betray the Ninth at all, did you? You're not here because you wanted to be the Tenth. You're here because he sent you here."

Xanxus coughed and spat on the ground between them. "Not bad," he said, and ignored the shock and disbelief from the Cervello and Varia and Sawada's own people. "No other way to make sure a brat like you was ready to take over for him."

Sawada came closer, till he was tilting his head back to look up at Xanxus. "No," he agreed, still in the grip of that clear, steady calm. "I'm much stronger now, thanks to you."

"Damn right," Xanxus told him, with the grim satisfaction of a job well done. "Would've killed you myself if you hadn't gotten stronger. Might still do it if you fuck this up."

"I know." That clear gaze was starting to be unnerving. "You love this Family very much."

"The hell you say." Xanxus rolled his eyes. "What are you, brain-damaged? I was following orders."

"That's what you want to think. That's what you want to believe. But you're wrong. I felt it." Sawada frowned, lifting a hand. "It's still there. It's covered over," he murmured, and even though he looked like he was half-dead on his feet, his Flame lit again. "It shouldn't be," he murmured. "You're only hurting yourself with it."

"Mind your own business," Xanxus told him. "Maybe I like it better this way."

"No," Sawada said, very softly. "No, I see now, what else he meant."

"Sawada," Xanxus said, warning him, but Sawada ignored him and came forward anyway, pressing his hands against Xanxus' chest.

"You've given a great deal," he said, Will pressing against Xanxus', the raw heat of it gentled enough that it didn't burn. It was no less determined for that. "You are owed this."

"Fuck off," Xanxus grated out, resisting the pressure and warmth of Sawada's Flame. "I don't want this." Not again. He wasn't going to survive another round of this.

"You're still lying," Sawada told him, unshakable as a mountain, and folded his Will around Xanxus and held him.

Xanxus lost the rest of his voice on the cry that tore out of his throat as Sawada's Will pressed against the places he'd walled off years ago, after the first of the old man's sons had died. "These are hurting you," Sawada said, softly, Flame burning hotter, purer. "He would not have wanted this."

"How the fuck would you know?" Xanxus gasped, hating the parts of himself that strained towards Sawada's Will, responding to it. "You weren't fucking there."

"I just know," Sawada told him, simple as that, and brought the walls the rest of the way down.

As his knees bucked and he went down for the third time that night, overcome by the torrent of things that he'd wanted to never have to think about again, Xanxus decided that, fuck it all, this time he was going to stay down.

When he woke up, he was in a pleasant room that was filled with sunlight, and the old man was sitting beside his bed, doing paperwork.

The rush of relief—and shock at realizing he was relieved—at seeing the old man doing something so emphatically normal as his paperwork rendered Xanxus' voice into a rasping croak. "You."

The Ninth looked up, and even Xanxus couldn't mistake the look that crossed the old man's face as anything but pleasure. "You're awake," he said, with every evidence of delight.

"No fucking kidding." Xanxus' throat ached with the effort of speaking, and was barely managing a whisper. "You're not dead."

"Hardly." The Ninth smiled. "I told you I'd do just fine."

Yeah, and Xanxus had seen how he'd looked when the kid had sliced the Gola Mosca open. "You were—I saw you." It'd been clear, too, when he'd had the ring. "With the other bosses."

The old man fucking smiled at him. "One doesn't have to be dead to attend the trial of one's successor, even if it often ends up that way."

"You shitty old man." Xanxus looked away from him, stared out the window—the sky was the deep blue of the Mediterranean; they were home. And even focusing on that fact couldn't stop him from saying, "You scared the fuck out of me."

He heard the sound that the old man made, surprised and wondering, and then the sound of papers being set aside. "I'm sorry," he said, and set a hand on Xanxus' shoulder. "I didn't... expect it to affect you. Not like that."

"No, you just knew it'd tear me apart from the inside out when they rejected me." The old man had told him as much when they'd discussed what would happen if he had to take up the ring. At the time, it had seemed like an acceptable risk to take.

Now he wasn't so sure. The thought of the trial recalled the burden that they'd placed in front of him, and that brought on a wave of nausea. Xanxus closed his eyes and fought it, and the groan that wanted to come with it, back down. "The fuck did Sawada do to me?"

"Forced you to recall yourself, I believe," the old man said, after a moment. "And asked you to recall that you are, in fact, human."

"I don't think I like it," Xanxus told him, from behind teeth that he had to clench against the nausea and sense of dizzy unbalance. Fucking hell, what was he supposed to do with all this goddamn emotional shit?

"You never have, much," the old man agreed. His hand moved to Xanxus' forehead and rested there, cool. "I find myself hoping that it sticks, I'm afraid. I should like very much if I could have one of my sons returned to me."

Xanxus squeezed his eyes tighter, so he wouldn't have to look at the man. "I'm not your son."

"Not by blood," the old man agreed, voice quiet. "Not by the measures of the world. But you're the son my heart recognizes. You're the brother Federico claimed for himself. Those are enough for me." He sighed. "I wish they could be enough for you."

Xanxus turned his face away at the mention of Federico and all the things that the mention of his name brought surging out of the places he'd buried them. The old man's hand settled on his shoulder again. "Fuck," he said, when he could breathe past the knife edges of the hurt. "Fuck. I should have been there. It should have been me."

What the fuck had Sawada done to him, that he was saying these things out loud?

The old man's hand clamped down on his shoulder. "No," he said, fierce. "No. He would not have wanted that, any more than I would have." His grip eased again. "You've seen the reports. The presence of one more man—even one such as yourself—would not have saved him. I would have lost both of you if you had been there." He stopped, and then started again. "As it was, I rather thought I had."

"You always were sentimental, old man," Xanxus muttered after a moment.

"Perhaps," the Ninth said, and squeezed his shoulder. "Nevertheless."

Nevertheless, indeed. Xanxus took a breath, and another, and decided it was time for a safer subject, until he could gain some control of himself again. "Sawada has the ring now?" he asked, and opened his eyes.

"He does, and has found it in himself to face what that means." The Ninth was looking into the distance and probably not seeing anything that was in the room. "He will do great things for our Family, I think."

"Kick his ass for him if he doesn't."

The old man's eyes returned to the present and flicked down to him, and he laughed. "Yes, I've not doubt that you will."

Xanxus snorted at him. "Glad you approve of the choice."

"I do." The Ninth went serious on him again, looking at him with dark eyes. "I would have approved the other, too."

The fuck? "Don't be stupid." Xanxus glared at him. "You saw what happened when I put the ring on."

"Mm. I did." The Ninth lifted a shoulder, as if it weren't even worth mentioning. "The Ring chooses the successor the Family needs. And sometimes what the Family needs is a new direction, like what I expect Tsuna will give us, and sometimes it needs the strength that will guide it and protect it, as you would have done." He stopped, studying Xanxus, and then continued, apparently satisfied with whatever he saw. "What was rejected was the coldness in your heart. We are a Family, my boy. The boss must care for it. Do you see?"

Xanxus listened to that—the boss had to care?—and then snorted. "Definitely made the right choice," he muttered.

The old man's smile was faint. "Mm. He's done well with his people so far."

It was impossible to mistake the old man's intent, not when the old man was looking at him, practically mooning over him. Xanxus grunted. "Whatever. I guess he'll do."

"Yes," the Ninth said, with the smile that all three of his sons had inherited, and that made Xanxus' breath hitch to see. "I think he will." He took his hand away from Xanxus' shoulder and busied himself with his paperwork. "Now that you're awake, there's someone who'll be wanting to see you. I'll just send him in, shall I?"

"Whatever," Xanxus muttered, and settled back against his pillow as the old man went out. It'd be one of the Varia, wanting to report their status—Bel, probably, wanting to talk about who was going to take Squalo's place, since he had exactly the right kind of initiative to put himself forward in a time of chaos. Of course, he trusted Bel about as far as he could throw the little shit, but it wasn't like he had a lot of options to work with in the other squad leaders.

Damn Squalo for getting himself killed, anyway, and that thought came with another wave of sickness—damn Sawada and his fucking Will, too, because this was already getting fucking impossible to stand.

Xanxus gritted his teeth and was trying to ride it out when a ruckus raised itself outside his door. The distraction was a welcome one, and he raised himself up on an elbow to listen to the voices as they spiraled upwards, until someone yelled, "I can fucking do it myself!" and booted open the door.

Squalo wheeled himself into the room, expression mutinously clear even through a layer of bandages, while a handful of the lowest-ranking Varia hovered behind him. "See?" he demanded of them. "Now piss off!" Xanxus stared at him, at a loss for words, as Squalo slammed the door in their faces and wheeled himself over to the bed. "Hey, Boss."

It was as bad as waking up and finding out the old man wasn't dead; the shock made him dizzy. "Squalo," Xanxus said, feeling like he had a case of fucking whiplash. "The fuck. You're not dead."

Squalo snorted. "Fucking Cavallone fished me out before the shark finished me off. Guess he thought he'd be able to get me to spill my guts to him for doing it."

"That little bastard," Xanxus managed, after a moment, some of his whipsaw dizziness grounding itself in familiar anger. "He never said a word." And it went without saying that Squalo hadn't, either, or else he'd have known about this a lot sooner when Cavallone spilled the plan wide open.

Squalo snorted again, baring his teeth. "Yeah. You shoulda seen the look on his face when it all came out. Turned so red I thought he was going to pass out."

"Serves him right," Xanxus said, because it did. Goddamn Cavallone, keeping one of his people from him like that. "Bastard. I thought you were dead." Fuck, he was going to kill Sawada for afflicting him with this case of verbal diarrhea.

Squalo's surprise showed in his eyes, and that only briefly. "Not yet," he said, after a breath of silence. "Which is a damn good thing, since Bel's already started making a hash of Varia business. Gonna take forfuckingever to get it all straightened out."

That was so close to what Xanxus had been thinking before Squalo had come in that it startled him into a laugh; once he started, he couldn't quite stop, till Squalo peered at him, clearly anxious, and demanded to know whether he was all right. "Yeah," Xanxus told him, when he'd managed to get a grip on himself again. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just glad you're not dead, is all."

Squalo blinked, clearly startled, something like pleasure flashing in his eyes. "Yeah, well, me too," he said, and cleared his throat. "So, anyway, here's where we're at."

Xanxus settled in to listen to Squalo's report. He could just about imagine the way Federico would have smiled at that, and said, "Not bad, cub." For once, the thought didn't do much more than ache.

Yeah. Maybe he was going to do all right after all.

- end -

Surprised Into Greatness

In the universe where Federico survives, Byakuran is still a problem ten years later. This time, it's someone else who dies to send Tsuna and Xanxus against the Millefiore. Drama with Angst, I-4

Federico sat back in his chair, eyes fixed on the harshly lined face of the man across from him. "I see why you insisted this meeting be so secret," he finally said, mildly.

Irie's tightly clasped hands twitched. "I know it sounds insane," he muttered, but Federico waved that off.

"I hold fire in my hand and it doesn't burn; we're used enough to insane-sounding things, I think. And we've been watching the Millefiori for a while now. Some of my people are very suspicious of coincidence." He sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. "How sure are you that this will work?"

"I'm not sure at all," Irie said, low and harsh. "But this is the only thing that has a chance. Sawada is the only factor that holds Byakuran back in this world, but even he can't do it alone. It has to be both of them."

Fedele stirred at Federico's back, where he'd been listening in what Federico suspected was frozen horror. "Boss, Xanxus will... I mean, he'll..."

Federico winced, thinking about it. "I know. You're sure that bullet won't kill me?" he asked Irie.

Irie nodded silently.

"Good." Federico smiled with no amusement at all. "Xanxus and Tsuna deserve the chance to kill me themselves, afterward, for doing this to them."

Sunlight fell gracefully through stained glass and into the open coffin.

Fedele had known it was going to be hard. It couldn't be any other way when the Vongola's Boss had been killed—not killed, the back of his mind whispered, clinging to that but he couldn't let it show or it would all go for nothing—killed by an ambush no one had seen coming. He had forbidden anyone to tell Federico's wife or son, saying it was for their own safety in hiding, which was true enough. But the fury and pain in the eyes of the other Guardians, the stripped, blank looks on the faces of the two kneeling by Federico's coffin, sliced his heart like a knife.

"It was the Millefiore, wasn't it?" Tsuna said at last, a little sense coming back into his eyes as he looked up at Fedele.

Xanxus' head came up, too, though it wasn't sense that was creeping into his expression.

Fedele took a breath and dropped the last pebble on the poised mountain face. "Yes."

Tsuna nodded and he and Xanxus stood as one, and their people stepped towards them, out of the small crowd of Vongola leaders, drawn into the sudden, silent tension.

"Don't get in my way," Xanxus growled, shreds of brightness already crawling over his clenched hands.

"Don't be stupid," Tsuna cut back, cool and level with the rising of his Will. "We'll go together. Otherwise Byakuran might get away."

Fedele could almost hear the click as those words locked around Xanxus, and he could tell Xanxus felt it too even though he bared his teeth. "Fine. Hurry up, then."

"Wait." Fedele swallowed as both of them turned to stare at him; the weight of their combined focus was like running into a steel wall. "One of you has to take the Ring."

Sandro spun around to stare at him. "Fedele, what the fuck?"

Fedele met the Lightning's outraged look evenly. "Ricco is too young to lead, even if we all support him. Not if we're at war. It has to be one of them. They're the only two with the strength and the right."

Before anyone else could start arguing Xanxus made an impatient sound through his teeth and stooped down to Federico's body again, drawing the Sky Ring off his finger. He straightened to the sound of breath being taken in all through the church.

And threw the Ring at Tsuna.

Tsuna's hand closed around it, though he never looked away from Xanxus. "You're sure?" he asked, low.

"The Boss can't lead the Varia too. We're wasting time. Take the damn Ring and let's go," Xanxus bit out.

After a long, still moment, Tsuna nodded and slid the Ring onto his finger, closing it in a fist. He raised his chin and his Flame flared up in his hand, running over his glove to shape the Vongola crest. That was all Fedele had time to see before the light of Tsuna's Flame turned brilliant, actinic white that etched people's shadows behind them as they flung up hands and arms to shield their eyes.

When the light died and he could look back up, he found Tsuna on his knees, hands braced against the stone of the floor, breathing like he'd just run a marathon. "Anything," Tsuna, whispered, as if he were answering someone's question. "Anything."

"Boss?" Gokudera asked quietly, kneeling beside Tsuna with a hand under his arm.

Tsuna looked up and smiled, wry and serene. "I'm all right."

Fedele took a deep breath as Gokudera got the Vongola's new Boss—sort of the back of his mind pointed out, not helpfully—standing. One more thing to do. "The Vongola Ring has accepted Sawada as the Eleventh," he announced, completely unnecessarily but it was tradition to say it out loud, and pulled the Storm ring off his own finger, holding it out to Gokudera.

"Um. Fedele?" Giancarlo wasn't as loud about it as Sandro, but he managed to convey what the fuck do you think you're doing? just as well.

"The Guardians are the members of the Family closest to the Boss, most trusted to watch his back." Fedele kept his eyes locked on Gokudera's. "We're the Tenth's Guardians, not the Eleventh's." Gokudera's eyes darkened and he nodded slowly and reached out to take the ring.

Giancarlo made a sound like someone had punched him in the gut and Fedele stifled a flinch at the acid rush of guilt. His fellow Guardians were going to pound the shit out of him for this, after, and he was going to deserve it. Giancarlo stepped past him, though, and held the Rain ring out, steadily enough, to Yamamoto.

"Great, fine, now can we go?" Squalo snapped, once the transfer of the Rings was complete. Fedele started to give him an evil look but noticed the way Squalo's eyes flicked toward Xanxus, who was glaring murderously at thin air.

"Someone has to stay and guard the headquarters," Tsuna started, and Fedele lifted his hand a little.

"We'll do that." Guarding the mansion, and Federico's body, would keep his fellows from doing anything too rash, and he saw the knowledge of it in Tsuna's eyes as he nodded.

"Very well. Let's go, then."

Xanxus stalked out immediately, his squad leaders swirling after him like a kite's tail. Tsuna followed, slower, with a word to this or that underboss, a sharp beckoning gesture to Giannini, a hand on Yamamoto's shoulder sending him after Lal Mirch as she started to slip away.

Fedele felt dizzy, head stuffed with what was true and what was apparently true and what might or might not happen. But in the midst of all that he was, at least, grateful that Tsuna seemed to be fit for the role he had to play. Whatever the truth of it wound up being.

Tsuna didn't bother with an office, and certainly didn't even consider taking Federico's; if they came back from this alive he'd think about it then. Besides none of the office rooms were big enough.

Instead he took over the reception hall.

Maps and lists scattered over the tables and the parquetry floor as Gokudera pulled reports together and called in the people who kept observation on the Millefiore headquarters. Some of the reports were written in Chrome's neat hand, and he sent Lambo to find her with a question about the underground entrances. Ryouhei and Squalo argued at the top of their lungs in one corner, pulling the blueprint of the Millefiore main building back and forth between them, stabbing at access points and each other's chests with stiff fingers. People swirled in and out under Xanxus' silent, brooding eye, as he leaned against the wall, and Tsuna could barely remember their names though he knew them all. The world was in freefall and the only thing holding his feet down was the promise he'd given to those who'd come before, in the no-place where they'd judged him. He would do anything it took to protect his Family and his Family's heart.

Lal stalked in, snarling over her shoulder at Yamamoto, and Tsuna wrenched his thoughts onto yet another track. "Lal," he cut through her protest and Yamamoto's inexorable smile, "have any of CEDEF heard from my father yet?"

"No, nothing," she snapped.

Tsuna breathed out, torn between cursing and giving thanks. "Then you'll have to lead them."

She folded her arms, giving him a stony look. "We're not part of the Vongola."

"This is an emergency. You are," he rapped back.

"Besides, where else do you expect to find the one who killed Colonello?" Reborn rolled into the room with a motorized purr and Tsuna's mouth twisted with the mix of affection and relief and pain he'd felt for most of a year.

They hadn't been fast enough for everyone. They hadn't been fast enough to save Verde or Skull. Or Colonello. Even the other arcobaleno didn't know what had become of Fon, and none of them would speak of what had happened to Uni. But they had, at least, understood the non-trinisette radiation in time to save Lal and Mammon from most of it. And to save, at least, Reborn's life.

He had insisted the protective suit be tailored into a proper, black mafia suit, and had only agreed to the wheelchair after Giannini motorized and armed it. But he was still with them, and looking up at Lal with black eyes as unreadable as ever as she whirled on him.

"Who?" she demanded, voice dark and hungry, and for one moment Xanxus glanced over at them.

Reborn shrugged. "Who knows? But we know who's doing this, and we know where they'll be."

"The foot soldiers we take with us will clear the way," Tsuna said, eyes running down yet another list as Gokudera handed it to him. "But we need CEDEF to secure our retreat. Will you do it?"

"I'm not staying in the rear," she said flatly, arms folded.

"I wouldn't expect you to."

"Fine." She turned away and stalked out, and Tsuna's mouth quirked up for a moment at the way Yamamoto drew smoothly back out of her path and winked at him before following her. If any of them were sane by the time they left, it would be thanks to Yamamoto, he thought.

"I suppose you're coming too?" he asked Reborn.

"Yes."

No other explanation was forthcoming, and Tsuna hadn't really expected any. He just nodded and turned back to the maps and hoped that Xanxus' version of patience would last as long as he needed it to.

Details ticked through Tsuna's mind, past the eye of his focus, and in the back of his mind one of the voices he was currently ignoring was busy cursing Byakuran for placing his headquarters in a city. "Lal, open up a corridor to the south to get the bystanders out," he snapped into his headset.

"Basil is taking care of it," she snapped back. "You're a fool. We have to have lost surprise by now."

Tsuna's eye measured the fire coming from the buildings that surrounded the headquarters, channeling his people toward that massive, central building. "He knew we were coming already."

A final explosion sheared the front off one of those firing galleries and Gokudera's voice said flatly, "We're clear."

"Then let's go."

Byakuran's front door was locked, the entrance barred by a wall of something that probably wasn't just steel. On the surface it looked like a good tactic, just the place to pin the attackers up against, but... "Xanxus," Tsuna called.

A column of raging Flame licked out over his shoulder and struck the wall, flaring, eating into it, and it was only a breath before it burst.

Tsuna's eyes narrowed, intuition ticking over. "Byakuran has something in mind," he stated. "Keep alert."

The strongest box and ring holders, and their support squads, fanned out to clear the building.

Ryouhei jogged at Lal's shoulder and worried just a little. He wasn't normally one to complain about anyone else's single mindedness, but the darkness in Lal's eyes made his nerves twang. He respected Lal's professionalism, though, and when she stiffened and shouted "Down!" he dove for the floor without hesitation, along with the rest of the squad.

Lal was the only one hit.

"Lal!" He reached for his secondary box.

"Ah~h, just like that the stupid flies walk into my web," a light voice sighed from the darkness of the ceiling. "I expected better from Lal Mirch. Colonello was thinking about you in his last moments, you know. Can't you try to be more worthy?"

"Ginger Bread," Lal grated, hand pressed to her shoulder.

"Quick, before you go after him," Ryouhei muttered, eyes fixed on the floating thing in the corner that looked like a kid and talked like a devil.

Lal elbowed him back. "No. This fight is mine."

Ryouhei had his mouth open to protest when she turned her head just a little and looked at him. Her expression made him sigh and step back. "All right. It's yours," he agreed, resigned; he couldn't deny her determination or her right. He waved to their support squad, drawing them back as Lal's rings lit with Flame, and prepared to wait.

To witness for her.

Yamamoto's mouth quirked and he stuffed the map they'd made of the Millefiore headquarters into his pocket and called Tsuna. "The building is moving."

"Yes." Tsuna sounded calm, but he always sounded calm when his Will was roused. "Can you still find your way?"

"I'll manage. I got cut off from my support squad, though, and they were pinned down by some Millefiore foot soldiers. Think anyone can get to them?"

"We'll try."

Yamamoto accepted that as philosophically as he could and moved on down the hall, snorting a little at the doors that opened ahead of him and closed behind. "A simple invitation would have done, you know," he called out.

"This is an invitation."

Yamamoto looked up and smiled, slow and hard. "Genkishi." He lit his Ring and opened his boxes, not rushing. Genkishi might or might not be a true swordsman, but he was close enough to open a duel formally, properly. Shigure Kintoki sang in his hand, delighting in the purity of Flame the Vongola Ring provided to wrap around it. "Squalo's still really pissed at you, you know."

Genkishi flicked his fingers before resting his hand back on the hilts of his swords. "Superbi Squalo's temper tantrums mean nothing to me beside my duty to carry out God's orders." His eyes fell on Jirou and he lifted a brow. "So it's true. You use four blades. Perhaps there will be no need to hold back, then."

Yamamoto set his stance and sent Kojirou winging above them with a flick of his Will. "It will," he murmured, letting the stillness of the sword wash over him, "be my pleasure."

Lambo was not in a good mood. First his support squad had gotten locked behind one of the sliding walls, and then he had wound up in company with Lussuria (and really, Lussuria was the kind who gave all of them a bad name), and now they were facing four piles of mobile muscles and a really disturbing woman who needed to figure out what the zipper on her top was there for.

It was not a good day.

And those muscles were really hard to do anything about.

And when Lussuria vanished into one of the piles, knee first, Lambo had had enough.

He shot the scary woman's weapon out of her hand to give them some time and hauled out his Bazooka, groping for the trigger. Ten years from now, he was probably going to be pretty annoyed with himself, but only until he remembered how important this was.

Squalo was muttering evilly under his breath as he watched their backs and Tsuna found himself amused, inappropriate as it seemed under the circumstances.

"...fucking Yamamoto gets all the goddamn fun..."

Xanxus didn't even seem to notice his second's seething, and Tsuna wasn't sure if that was good or bad, or even if he truly cared right now. No closing door or shifting wall had stopped them, and the Millefiore foot soldiers seemed to have finally drawn back from their path. Tsuna was distantly glad for that. It was Byakuran he wanted, and he would go through whatever was in the way, but the weight he could feel building up behind his floating fury would be less heavy if he didn't have to go through stacked bodies.

There was someone ahead of them now, though. Someone leaning against the wall, tapping a crop against his leg.

"And here are the little Vongola," the man sneered, straightening up. "Didn't you learn from your burned fingers last time?"

"Glo Xinia," Tsuna identified him. This one he would feel little guilt about.

"Indeed. And if I alone could kill your precious Rokudou, what makes you think any of you will survive to reach Byakuran?"

Tsuna glanced aside at Chrome, who had been following him quietly the whole way, and frowned. "Chrome?"

"We will deal with this," she said, soft voice sweet and cold as she stepped forward and her trident flashed between her hands.

"But..." It was true, Tsuna hadn't seen Mukuro for a little while, but that wasn't uncommon and he hadn't worried until now.

"Boss." Chrome looked over her shoulder and smiled, and the smile had a dark quirk to it that was very familiar. "Go ahead. We'll take care of it."

Tsuna heard what she said, this time, and nodded slowly. "Very well."

He would, after all, feel little guilt about Glo Xinia.

Gokudera swore as half the room suddenly fell away and the floor rose under him. It had been a risk to let him scout ahead, and now it looked like he'd just have to trust that nothing would stand against both Xanxus and the Eleventh until he got back to his boss.

Uri's growl recalled him to his own risks and he slid under cover just as a small, heavy ball crunched into the wall where he'd been with a nasty, final sort of sound.

"I almost wish we didn't have to do this," a whimsical voice echoed through the room.

"Gamma," Gokudera said quietly, watching the ball spark and pull itself out of the wall, soaring back over head. He flipped his jacket back from his belts. He'd read all the reports on this man, and this wasn't going to be fun.

"Unfortunately, the princess sent me a message. Or a puzzle. Hard to tell which. Either way it was orders to go all out, I'm afraid."

Gokudera's hands flicked through his boxes and he sent his defenses spinning out just in time to meet the lash of lightning that hammered down in a column on all sides. "Then we'll just have to go all out," he said, loud enough to be heard, and rolled out from under cover, slamming home the Flame Arrow cartridge and sighting on the blocky blond man above him.

Gamma smiled wryly as he watched the shot come.

In the end, the Millefiore squads hadn't fallen back, they had just prepared an ambush for the moment when Tsuna and Xanxus were alone, the moment when Squalo had finally been drawn off by an attacker who looked disturbingly like Belphegor and separated from them. Tsuna supposed he wasn't surprised, but he did wish there weren't so damn many foot soldiers hemming them in. He kicked another Millefiore away and fell back beside Xanxus. He couldn't put this off any longer.

"Cover me," he shouted over the snarl of Xanxus' guns and the screams around them.

Xanxus' lip lifted but he shot the attacking squads away from Tsuna as Tsuna closed his eyes and started to build his Flame carefully.

He'd always had to be careful; he'd broken more than one ring before he learned how to feel for the limits of the one he was using. This time the process was strange. The Vongola Sky ring didn't seem to have any limits, no matter how he built up his power. So he let it grow and breathed through it and fought to balance the Flame reaching outward with the softer Flame that would brace him. Finally, from the heart of the conflagration he lifted his head and spoke, quiet and sure.

"Xanxus. Look out."

He stepped past his companion and released the shot, and bodies and walls blew away from them, floor after floor and room after room.

As debris rained past them, Xanxus brushed himself off and eyed Tsuna with something besides rage in his expression for the first time in days. All he said in the end, though, was "Let's go."

Tsuna nodded and they climbed through what looked like some labs and maybe the communications hub unopposed.

Irie waited until the footsteps faded away to cautiously lift his head and look around his shattered control center. His mouth quirked as he looked at his smoking box weapon. He wasn't sure any of the Vongola had realized exactly what this building was, but they'd stopped Melone's ability to move just the same.

Now it was time for him to move.

He found his guns mostly intact in their cabinet and put a tranquilizer into each of the Cervello, just to be sure. He slipped down into the mechanics lab and dragged an unconscious Spanner under a desk where he'd hopefully have some shelter from whatever happened next. He closed the eyes of the three technicians who hadn't lived through the demonstration of the Vongola Eleventh's power.

And then he started stripping off his uniform.

He was down to the, in his slightly light-headed opinion, incredibly ugly boots when a voice spoke from behind him with no warning.

"Turning your coat literally and hoping to escape? How improper."

Irie looked up, wide eyed, into the narrow, predatory gaze of the Vongola's most dangerous and unpredictable man. "I... I can explain," he gulped, setting his ring down and raising his hands slowly.

"Indeed?" Hibari Kyouya leaned lightly against a broken wall. "Make it fast, then. I don't like to leave Namimori for longer than necessary."

Once the building stopped moving, Tsuna's people started regathering, and some of Xanxus' with them: Gokudera scorched and limping and tight-lipped; Yamamoto in company with Squalo, laughing as he obligingly described a sword fight for Squalo's growled critique and moving a little stiffly with a bandage across his back; Ryouhei looking battered but carrying Lal Mirch, who flatly refused to be evacuated, and guarded by Reborn and Viper despite their unremitting contemptuous jabs at each other; Belphegor waited for them, perched in a broken window, covered in blood and giggling, to say that Lussuria was busy making sure Levi survived and that Lambo was watching over them; no one knew exactly when Chrome rejoined them, but she was there, stepping silent as a shadow over the creaking floors with a soft, full smile on her lips.

They seemed to have left the Millefiore squads behind, as they gained the upper floors, and if they'd left their own support squads too, Tsuna only thought, distantly, that it was just as well. The next thing they found should be Byakuran himself.

So he was more than a little surprised when the form that stepped out of a side room and into their path was child-sized—a girl, looking weighed down by the Millefiore cloak over her shoulders.

"Sawada Tsunayoshi, Vongola Eleventh?" she asked, quietly.

His gaze caught on the ribbon around her neck and the familiar shape hanging from it. "Uni," he murmured.

"You've come," she said, with an evenness he recognized from his own voice these last few days, and that tugged at his heart but he stifled it; this was one of the two bosses of the Millefiore. She was still speaking, though, and her next words caught him entirely by surprise.

"I am the boss of the Giglio Nero, and on this day I dissolve the alliance between my Family and Gesso." She took a step closer, level gaze turning pleading. "I am also the boss of the Arcobaleno, and as the keeper of the pacifiers I ask for the Vongola's protection."

"You what?" Tsuna managed after a moment, feeling like his brain was spinning.

She looked down. "Byakuran doesn't care about my Family. It's only my heart he wants, to control the pacifiers. I went away, inside, to protect my heart and my charge, and sacrificed my Family because of it. There was no other way. But now," she looked up, biting her lip. "Now you're here, and you've won this far, and this is the time! Please." She lifted her hands, and he started, seeing they were full of the faint, colored glow of the lost pacifiers. "He must not have these."

"She is correct."

Tsuna looked around sharply to see Hibari climbing the last stairs with a rather bedraggled man Tsuna recognized after a moment as Irie Shouichi in his wake. "This," Hibari announced coolly, "answers the questions I have had for the past five years. Byakuran must not have the pacifiers and the rings." He beckoned peremptorily and Irie stepped forward, fidgeting.

"I have to tell you. You see, ten years ago..."

Turning the things Irie had told them over in his mind, Tsuna was unsurprised to find another of those impressive-looking and yet entirely insufficient metal walls blocking their way up to the top floor. It was the kind of mockery he was starting to recognize as Byakuran's manner. Xanxus fired once at it without breaking stride and Tsuna gathered his Flame in his hand and punched it viciously to shatter the weakened metal, sending shards flying through the ceiling and walls above.

His anger was sizzling on the edge of his ability to control it.

He was also unsurprised to find Byakuran smiling at them, bright and cheerful in the middle of his blown-out top floor. "What a good job!" The congratulatory tone was gruesome, considering the bodies scattered behind them, and Tsuna clenched his jaw and closed a hand tight on Xanxus' arm. They needed to know what Byakuran thought he had up his sleeve before they moved.

"What a shame you had to waste all that effort, too," Byakuran sighed, and turned a little, crooking a finger at the one door still standing. His smile turned smug and chill as six people Tsuna had never seen or heard of filed out to stand behind him. "These are the real six Funeral Wreathes, you see."

Gokudera made a choking sound, indignant for his opponent as much as for himself Tsuna thought. Xanxus just spat on the smoking, broken floor. "So what?" he growled.

Byakuran tapped a finger against his lips in a way that would have been playful under other circumstances, and Tsuna held back a sick shudder. "Well, I don't want to be unfair. You're all so tired out. So how about this! We'll have a round of Choice." Poison-cold eyes turned to Irie. "You'll like that, won't you Shou-chan?"

Irie stepped forward, faint ravaged hope showing in his eyes. "For what stakes?"

"The Trinisette, of course!" Byakuran spread his hands, the image of reasonableness. "If you win, you get all the rings and pacifiers I've gathered. If I win, I get all of yours." His gaze brushed over Uni as if casually, and she shivered and moved closer to Reborn, pacifiers gathered protectively to her chest.

"Irie," Tsuna said quietly, eyes not leaving Byakuran. "What does he mean by 'Choice'?"

"A battle," Irie explained, low and quick. "There are rules to it, that would limit him. It's a game we invented years ago—"

Tsuna held up a hand to stop him. "I see." His other hand tightened on Xanxus' forearm and then let go. Xanxus smiled.

"You've mistaken us, Byakuran," Tsuna said, lifting one hand and letting his Flame start to build. He dropped the other hand behind him and met Byakuran's eyes, levelly.

"This isn't a game."

Xanxus drew and fired in one motion, and Tsuna had one moment to see rage twist Byakuran's face before one of the six newcomers was in front of him, meeting Xanxus' Flame.

The fury Tsuna had held back, channeled into his Will, not given in to, built and built, and now he let it go, called it up, fed it to his Flame until his burned and raged like Xanxus'. He tracked the shouts, the explosions as their people hemmed in Byakuran and his six Wreathes, and he pressed against Xanxus' shoulder and shouted, "Together! Both of us!"

He could feel the vibration of Xanxus' snarl, but Xanxus stopped his fire and set his feet beside Tsuna, and his Flame started to build too. "For our world," Tsuna murmured. "For our Family." He heard Reborn calling for everyone to get back, and whispered, "For Federico."

Xanxus screamed as he fired, raw and agonized, and Tsuna stretched out his hand and drove his own heart and Flame out, after the thing that had twisted their world and their lives, the living person he could not allow to continue living. He met Byakuran's eyes one last time before they disappeared in the wild fusion of Flames, blank and somehow surprised.

And then they really were in freefall and Tsuna barely had the strength left to keep himself on top of the rubble instead of underneath it. The jagged ruin still stole the world away when he landed.

Tsuna woke up with Reborn's shoe in his ribs, which was comforting. Hazily, he decided that said something about his life. "Gokudera," he rasped, and coughed. Dust hung thick in the air.

His right hand appeared in his field of vision, leaning over him. "Here, Boss. We're all accounted for. Ryouhei has broken bones and Chrome is still unconscious. Mammon's protective suit tore and he's been evacuated back to headquarters. Squalo has a concussion and Irie has internal bleeding; we're waiting on immobilizers to move him. Everything else is minor."

Tsuna sagged back against the rock with a sigh of relief. "Thank you." After this long, Gokudera knew what was most important to him. He looked at Reborn. "Uni?"

"I'm fine," Uni answered herself, coming to kneel beside him. "Thank you for doing this."

"You're welcome, though we didn't have much choice." Tsuna waved a hand and Yamamoto stepped in to helped him up. Once he was standing, Xanxus left off growling at his people and stalked over, attitude only slightly impaired by an exhausted stagger every now and then. Tsuna couldn't help a tiny smile.

"Is he dead?" Xanxus demanded, hard eyes tracking over each of them. A ragged edge of tension still ran through him.

"Not like you left any bodies to check," Gokudera pointed out dryly, but Uni shook her head.

"He's gone," she said with certainty.

"Gone." Xanxus looked at them, and then around at the rubble that was all that remained of the Millefiore. The tension in him wavered uncertainly.

Tsuna took a long, slow breath. "All right. It's over, then." He let the breath out. "So it's time to go home."

A murmur of relief ran through his people until a raw crack of laughter broke it. "Home?" Xanxus swayed on his feet. "What for?"

Tsuna flinched. "Xanxus..."

"Um?" Irie edged cautiously closer. "He... he isn't dead. Federico."

Tsuna just looked at him, completely unable to make sense of the words. "What?"

"The bullet he was shot with. It was one of the special bullets. It didn't kill him; he's only suspended." Irie's words came faster in face of their stares. "It was the plan he agreed to, for the sake of defeating Byakuran. He's still alive."

Tsuna's stunned thoughts worked through that slowly. A plan. For defeating Byakuran. That required Federico be dead. Only not. He looked around at the flattened ruin he and Xanxus had made of the building and thought about the constant pain at the back of the past few days. Finally he bowed his head. "It worked," he whispered, which was all the forgiveness and blame he could possibly afford his boss.

His head snapped up again at the sound Xanxus made. Xanxus was staring around too, eyes wild and wounded. "Boss..." he whispered, harsh, and sank to his knees like the strings holding him up had been cut.

Maybe they had.

"Xanxus!" Tsuna slid to his own knees in front of Xanxus, grabbing his shoulders. Xanxus wrenched away from him in wordless denial, but Tsuna didn't give way

Xanxus was one of his Family.

He reached down into himself even though his Will and spirit felt scraped raw and pulled up strength out of the oath he'd given.

Anything.

He leaned his forehead against Xanxus', and wrapped his Flame around memories of Federico, and and pressed them against the void of Xanxus' pain. He held Xanxus' Flame in his, held on to the knowledge, the memory, that Federico loved them. "He wouldn't have done it for anything less than our world, for anything less than the life of our whole Family. You know that!" And he knew it, because he'd given the same promise himself.

Anything.

Eventually Xanxus sagged in his grip, whole body shaking. Tsuna sighed softly and leaned against him. "I know," he whispered. "I know." Slowly he levered himself to his feet again. "Come on. We need to get home." He looked over at Uni and Irie. "You too."

He was careful to put Irie in a different car than Xanxus, though.

Federico had believed Irie when he said this was the only way, that Federico himself had to be out of the picture so that the Sky ring could go to Tsuna, that only rage at his death would drive Tsuna and Xanxus to do what had to be done and see it through to the bare, blasted end. He would never have agreed if he hadn't believed it.

When he saw Tsuna shepherding Xanxus toward the mansion, though, and saw the broken slump of Xanxus' shoulders, that didn't really help.

Chaos surrounded them as the wounded were unloaded and the dazed looking prisoners-turned-allies of the erstwhile Black Spell were led off to one of the emptier wings, and all of it required his attention, his direction, the reassurance that he lived. But the idea of betraying the pain and need in Xanxus' shuttered eyes, again, made him sick. Xanxus hesitated as he came to them, turning his head away, and Federico bit the inside of his lip hard.

Tsuna made an exasperated sound and gave Federico a stern look. "Until tomorrow morning," he said, and held up his ring hand. "Until then. Just go." He pushed Xanxus firmly toward Federico and turned to march off toward the knot of Vongola underbosses gathering around the young Giglio Nero boss and her second, Gamma.

Federico blinked and his mouth quirked. "Well. I suppose we'd better do as he says, then." Xanxus didn't answer, and Federico's heart twisted again. "Come here," he said, softer, and closed an arm around Xanxus' shoulders, leading him into the House. He could feel the tremors running through Xanxus and cursed himself and fate and Byakuran impartially.

He only waited until a few doors were closed behind them to pull Xanxus against him and hold him tight.

A shudder ran through Xanxus and he clutched Federico's shoulders. "Boss..." he said, low and hoarse.

"Only to save our Family," Federico whispered to him, one hand coming up to cradle the back of his head. "Not for anything less than that, I swear it. I'm sorry."

Someone like Xanxus didn't cry easily, and the harsh, stifled sobs that wrenched out against his shoulder set Federico to damning Byakuran and his ancestors for ten generations, and himself for doing such a thing to the one most loyal to him, no matter the reason. He held Xanxus to him tightly, and drew in a deep breath. "Never again," he said, closing his eyes at what he was promising. "Never again, for any reason; you have my word."

Slowly, Xanxus quieted, though he still didn't look up. "Your word?" he asked, finally, voice choked and rough.

"My word," Federico swore, wrung out by the pain he'd caused. Maybe what he promised now would lead him to a betrayal of his greater Family, but he couldn't. He couldn't think of doing something like this to Xanxus again.

Xanxus nodded just a little against his shoulder. "Okay."

"I'm sorry," Federico murmured again, at a loss because the words weren't nearly enough but he couldn't think of anything that would be.

Xanxus shook his head. "Just... let me stay?"

Federico caught him closer, fiercely. "Yes."

Eventually he pulled Xanxus into the bedroom and down onto the bed, and worked off his shoes and jacket, careful to never let him go entirely. Xanxus watched him quietly, with bruised eyes, and pressed close when Federico settled beside him. It was an hour, maybe two, before the tightness of his arms around Federico finally relaxed a little, and his breath started to come deeper. Federico stayed awake, holding him close, fingers running slowly through his hair, watching over him as the sky lightened.

Never again, he promised in his heart. Whatever it took, never again.

And as Tsuna leaned wearily over a table, drinking the coffee Gokudera brought him as he spoke to Uni about the anti-Trinisette generator, the Sky ring gleamed for a moment on his finger.

Federico called in all the Family's leaders the next afternoon, and sighed at the way they shifted and murmured among themselves. "All right, everyone shut up and listen." He laid it all out as clearly as he could, the danger Byakuran had posed, the evidence across time that said Tsuna and Xanxus had to be the ones to bring him down, the stakes that they had gambled against, the Trinisette itself. He watched his people's eyes move over Reborn, in his wheelchair, and over Uni, with the gently glowing box set between her hands on the table, and over Tsuna and the six who stood behind him.

"We won that gamble," he told them, putting as much assurance in his voice as years of experience let him, "and the Family is safe."

"And you're alive," Tsuna added, with just an edge of dryness. Federico was sure he'd hear more of it in private. "So there's something left to do."

Another stir ran through the room as Tsuna rose. He met Federico's eyes, mouth twitching just a bit at the corner, and pulled the Sky ring from his finger. "This is yours." He offered it on his open palm. "Boss."

Federico took the Ring back, smiling wryly up at Tsuna. "I know you never wanted it," he murmured, just between the two of them, and then raised his voice for the rest. "You've done everything I asked of you and more. Thank you."

Tsuna snorted softly, covered by the generally relieved rustle in the room as he took his seat again. Behind him, the rustle continued as Tsuna's Guardians passed their Rings back to Federico's. Not the way things usually happened, but Federico took a certain comfort in the relief on a few of their faces. At least he could relieve these few from the burden of the last few days.

"Now," he gathered his people's eyes back to himself. "We have two last things to deal with. One is our new alliance with the Giglio Nero." He nodded to Uni, who nodded serenely back. "We will be working together to recover the Mare rings from the Millefiore headquarters and restore that balance."

A generally approving murmur went around. From Fedele's quick report, it seemed that some of Uni's people had impressed the Vongola, who appreciated honorable opponents.

"The second thing is a new member of our Family." Federico opened his hand at Irie, sitting quietly off to the side. "Irie risked more than his life to bring us news of Byakuran and a plan to defeat him. I have taken him and a few of his own people who survived into the Vongola."

The murmur was more dubious this time, and cut across by the harsh sound Xanxus made as he pushed half out of his chair, glaring at Irie. Federico had expected that, all things considered, and started to reach out to him, but someone else beat him to it.

"Xanxus." Tsuna laid a firm hand on Xanxus' shoulder, and there was compassion but no shred of compromise in his voice. Federico's brows went up. Apparently this experience was going to have some lasting effects; he'd never heard Tsuna speak like that except in the deepest grip of his Will and in the middle of a fight.

Xanxus glowered at Tsuna, but subsided under his hand.

Another murmur went around the room, this one with a thoughtful undertone, and any protests over Irie were lost in the sudden sidelong looks at Tsuna.

Federico resisted the urge to rub his forehead and curse. Damn, damn, damn it all anyway.

He'd hoped to avoid this.

"So Cienna and Ricco are coming back to the main house soon?" Tsuna leaned back in his hair with a sigh. "Good. That will be the last thing we need to get things back to normal."

"Mm."

Tsuna cocked his head at Fedele. "What? Is Cienna still upset with Federico?" Not that he could blame her in the least.

Fedele ran a hand through his hair, not meeting Tsuna's eyes. "It... might not be the best moment for Ricco, especially, to come back."

Tsuna frowned. "Is he that upset with his father?" He could understand being a little shocked over the whole temporarily-dead thing, but Ricco had always struck him as quite resilient.

For some reason, Fedele was giving him an exasperated look. "No, it's this thing with you."

Tsuna blinked, at a loss. "With... me?" Surely no one else had heard him tearing strips off his Boss for this whole affair? And even if they had, who would have told Ricco about it?

Now Fedele was staring. "Tsuna. Are you telling me you really don't know?"

"Know what?" Tsuna was starting to get irritated with all this obscurity.

Fedele sat back, frowning at him. "That a good two thirds of the Family is saying that you should be the Eleventh, after Federico. That you already are, in fact."

For a long moment, the words didn't even make sense. When they did, Tsuna's chair went over with a clatter.

"They're what?!"

Federico was trying to find just the right ending to his exquisitely polite letter to the Vendicare, telling them that it wasn't his problem if they couldn't keep track of their prisoners and no they could not search his headquarters for Rokudou Mukuro, when his office door flung open with a crash. He had his gun halfway out before he realized that it was Tsuna.

Tsuna, panting and rather wild eyed.

"Have you heard about this?!" Tsuna demanded, before Federico would ask what the hell was wrong.

"About what?" he asked, holstering the gun and sitting back down.

"Everyone thinking I'm supposed to be the Eleventh!"

Ah. Now it made sense. Federico sighed and gave Fedele, just now coming up behind Tsuna, a wry smile. "I've heard it mentioned in passing, yes." No one was quite saying it to his face, yet, any more than they'd mentioned it to Tsuna himself, which just went to show that the Vongola didn't have any stupid underbosses.

"Sorry, Boss," Fedele murmured, closing the doors after them. "I didn't realize..."

Federico waved it off and pointed to a chair. "Sit."

Tsuna sat, looking thoroughly unnerved. "I mean, when we were at war, yes, I suppose it made some sense. When it was the only way. But I'm not in the line of real descent! I would never take that away from Ricco!"

"I know you wouldn't," Federico said, quietly. "But, Tsuna, the fact is you are in a legitimate line. And the whole Family has just watched you prove your strength." And his leadership, more to the point.

Tsuna downright glared at him, rather the way he often did at Reborn. "Stop helping! You can't possibly want to see that happen."

Federico sighed. "No, I don't. But I have to deal with the facts as they are, and this idea has gained a great deal of momentum. I have to consider the good of our whole Family; an internal fight will serve no one."

Tsuna's mouth tightened and he lowered his head. "If it is your judgment that taking the Ring after you is the best service I can give to the Vongola, I will, of course, do as you wish," he said, low.

Federico winced. The conscience of the Vongola had a way with pointed words. "I'm trying to calm things down. Just give it a little time."

"I'll try." Tsuna sounded dubious, and Federico couldn't really blame him.

Tsuna did his best to give things time for a month. And then another. He did his best not to fry the liver of any Family member who mentioned the possibility of being the Eleventh to him, and stopped being able to complain about it, either, because Gokudera looked like he secretly agreed with them even while he was sympathizing and Yamamoto laughed and Hibari asked what was stopping him. He held onto his patience with both hands, and his teeth on bad days, and tried not to give Federico too many reproachful looks.

The part that really got to him, though, was the way Ricco had started looking at him.

"He has to know I wouldn't!" he insisted to Federico, almost pleading. "He knows that, doesn't he?"

"I'm sure he does, Tsuna, he's known you for years." That would have been more soothing if Federico hadn't had a little frown line between his brows. "I think it's just that he keeps hearing the edges of conversations about this."

Tsuna slumped back in his chair a little, contemplating fried livers again. "Boss," he said quietly, "I don't think this is going to go away."

"Not easily, no," Federico agreed, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "Not unless we make something of it. I'd hoped to avoid that."

"I'll be happy to make something of it," Tsuna growled, and Federico's mouth tilted.

"I know it's an insult to your loyalty," he said softly. "I'm sorry to have asked you to stand and swallow such a thing. I hope you know that I have no doubts of you at all."

Tsuna's temper ebbed away on that assurance, and he ducked his head. "I know."

The moment of ease was broken by a quick rap on the door. "Dad? Are you... oh." Ricco hesitated, and Tsuna's heart twinged. "Well... actually, maybe it's good if I can talk to both of you?"

"Come in, son." Federico smiled and held out a hand. "What's on your mind?"

"Well..." Ricco perched on one of the chairs, shifting nervously. "It's about this thing I keep hearing, about, um, Tsuna being the Eleventh instead of me."

Tsuna took a breath and braced himself. "Ricco," he said as calmly as he could, "please believe me, I have no intention of doing any such thing."

"Well, about that." Ricco shifted again. "Um. I think it might work out?"

Tsuna stared at him, caught completely by surprise, distantly aware that Federico was staring too.

"Ricco," Federico managed, finally, "why would you say that?"

"Well, Dad," Ricco huffed a little, "if I'm the next Boss then I have to get married, right? And have heirs too, right?" His face wrinkled up like he'd smelled something bad. "And that means going to bed with a girl. And the... the squishy bits." He didn't add yuck! but he might as well have.

Tsuna opened his mouth and closed it again, exchanging completely bemused looks.

"I think you might feel differently when you're older," Federico started, and for a moment that made sense to Tsuna, but... thinking back he was very sure he'd grown out of the girls-are-icky stage much younger than Ricco's current sixteen, and so had everyone he'd known.

Ricco had stopped fidgeting and was giving Federico a look of complete exasperation. "Dad. I don't mean it like that at all."

As Federico blinked, Tsuna ran Ricco's phrasing past his mental ear again and started to have a glimmer of suspicion. "Ricco?" he asked, and when Ricco turned that grownups-are-idiots expression on him, murmured, "Am I right in thinking it's the having sex with girls that's the problem, and not having sex with girls?"

Ricco brightened up. "Yeah!" And then he glanced at his father and started fidgeting again.

Federico made a couple of tries before he settled on, "I'm sure there are ways to deal with that..."

Ricco crossed his arms and looked mulish. "I haven't heard of any way to have a kid with another guy, have you? And I don't have any cousins last I looked. Except Tsuna." He hunched down a little more and added, "And have you heard what they want me to do?! They want me to marry Mari!"

Tsuna sat bolt upright. "Exactly who has suggested marrying off my daughter?" he asked, very evenly. His two-year-old daughter!

Ricco blinked and edged back in his chair. "That was, um, Filippo Diatto."

"I see."

Federico looked like he was getting a headache. "Tsuna, please don't kill anyone without letting me know first," he murmured, and sat back, running a hand through his hair. "Ricco. I suppose I can understand why you might be hesitant. But giving this up... do you really understand what this means?"

Ricco looked up at him, serious. "It means that Tsuna will be Boss after you, and take care of the Family. It means I'll be an underboss, I guess."

"And under Tsuna's orders," Federico added, gently. "Even if you disagree with him. Can you give him your whole loyalty that way?"

Ricco looked over at Tsuna and said, directly to him, "Yes." He broke into a sudden smile, the same one that melted resistance when Federico showed it. "I trust you. You'll take good care of everyone."

"Ricco," Tsuna said, softly. He reached out and laid a hand on Ricco's shoulder. "I'm honored by your trust."

Ricco blushed and ducked his head. When he looked up at his father again, his eyes were wide and entreating. "Dad. Please. I think this would be best for everyone. I mean... if I'd had a sister you wouldn't have forced her to marry someone she didn't like, would you?"

Federico shook his head, looking stunned. "No. No, of course not." He pushed away from his desk and held out his arms. "Ricco, come here."

Tsuna smiled softly and looked away, giving Ricco's teenage dignity a little privacy as the two of them hugged each other tight.

"I never intended to do any such thing," Federico said, a little husky, and Ricco nodded vigorously against his shoulder. He took a deep breath and looked across at Tsuna. "So. Considering this... are you willing to take the Family after me, Tsuna?"

Tsuna took a moment to reorder the thoughts that Ricco had turned upside down and settled his shoulders, meeting Federico's eyes. "I am."

Federico smiled that sweet, bright smile for him. "I have no doubts of you," he said, quietly.

Tsuna bowed his head, giving again, silently, the promise he'd given once before. Anything for his Family.

Ricco straightened up and scrubbed a hand, as if casually, over his eyes. "Okay! I can tell Lambo it's all okay, then!"

After a moment of silence, it was Tsuna who said, "Lambo?"

Ricco froze. "Oh. Um."

"Lambo?" Federico echoed.

"Um. Yeah." Ricco smiled at them both hopefully, edging backward toward the door all the time. "So, that's all cleared up, right? Great!" He was out the door before either Tsuna or Federico could frame the question hovering over both their heads.

"On the bright side," Tsuna finally said, a little weakly, "after this, managing the Family should be simple."

Epilogue

Gokudera leaned back in his chair and gave Tsuna a wry smile across the desk. "Well, at least this time we have a little more notice to prepare."

"I'm not sure that's actually an advantage," Tsuna told him. Staring down the gauntlet of inheritance without a mafia war to distract him was doing bad things to his nerves.

"Well I appreciate it," Gokudera said dryly, and Tsuna shook himself and smiled at his right hand.

"I know. Most of the re-organization is falling on you. I'm sorry I can't—"

Gokudera waved a hand to cut him off with a small smile. "Boss. It's my job, and it's one I'm glad to do for you. You take care of boss-stuff and leave the rest to me."

Tsuna reflected, once again, that he didn't know what he'd done to deserve the friends, and soon the Guardians, fate had given him, but it must have been something pretty stupendous.

"Speaking of which," Gokudera added, "have you found anyone who might take over—"

A tap at the door interrupted them, and Ricco stuck his head inside. "Tsuna, do you have a moment?"

"We were just," Tsuna started, but Gokudera shook his head, suddenly smiling cheerfully.

"No, it's nothing that can't wait. Go ahead." He stood and gathered his paperwork and was out the door before Tsuna could do more than blink.

"Well, I guess I have a moment." He waved Ricco to a seat. "Something on your mind?"

"Only the same thing that's on the mind of absolutely everyone in the entire Family," Ricco snorted, and Tsuna had to stifle a laugh.

"So what about your dad's retirement?" he asked, obligingly.

"Well." Ricco ran a hand through his hair and took a breath. "I was thinking that I should take the Varia."

There were still times, even after all these years, when the mafia world shocked Tsuna, and this was one of them. "Why?" he finally managed to ask.

Ricco just looked back at him, eyes dark and serious. "We both know Xanxus is going with Dad, when he retires. There's no way it could be different. And the knowledge that the leader of the Varia wields the Sky Flame has been one of our hole cards for a long time, hasn't it? There's only one person with the Sky who can take the Varia now." His mouth quirked. "Mari is way too young."

Tsuna, who had had his mouth open to mention how young Ricco still was, closed it. He was starting to have a suspicion of why Gokudera had left so fast; Ricco had a solid grasp on strategy, at least, if he'd spoken to Tsuna's right hand ahead of time.

"Tsuna." Ricco leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "I know you don't like assassination or most of the rest of the Varia's business. But there will still be times we need it. And when those times come, the Varia had better still be the best. I can do that for the Family." Softly he added, "And for you."

Tsuna spread his hands flat against the desk, examining them, looking at the wink of the ring he was using now and remembering the oath he'd given to win the approval of the Vongola Ring. "I know," he finally said, quietly. "I know you're right. And I know you can." He looked up with a wry smile. "I should have done what I was thinking about and asked you to take CEDEF, a few years ago, when my father retired."

Ricco grinned at him. "I'd still have suggested this instead. I've been thinking about it for a while."

"You're your father's son," Tsuna murmured, and smiled a little at Ricco's faint blush. "All right. I want to discuss this with a few other people, but... If you're willing, I'll be glad to have you."

Ricco nodded solemnly. "Thank you." The grin flashed again and he added, as he rose, "Boss."

Tsuna watched him leave and thought about the future fast approaching. It wasn't one he'd expected, when Reborn showed up on his doorstep or when he'd agreed to follow Federico. He'd never wanted to be the Vongola Eleventh. But this was the future, and the Family, that had come to him, and he'd found that he loved that Family too much to refuse.

"Anything," he murmured again to the waiting shades of those who'd gone before.

They followed along at his shoulder as he went to find Gokudera.

End

Archimedes' Lever - Two

Squalo bonds with Xanxus, and none too soon as Xanxus finds out some things the Ninth had kept from him. Drama with Angst and Sort-of Romance, I-4

Squalo strolled around the edges of the wedding crowd beside Xanxus, keeping an eye out for any unattended cake they could nail down. He didn't have all that much of a sweet tooth personally, but it was a way of keeping score among the kids. After all, twelve year olds couldn't rack up kills yet, or negotiations concluded in their Family's favor. "Vieri are here," he observed. "Furetto, too. Guess that means Bertoldi's dad made him stop sulking and come along." He snorted a little; as if Bertoldi had ever had a chance with Dianora Leone.

Xanxus just grunted, and Squalo grinned crookedly. Sounded like Xanxus was in a bad mood. Again. He just kept chatting. Xanxus brooded a lot; Squalo hadn't been sure what the word really meant until he'd met Xanxus, but Xanxus was practically the definition of it. He came out of it eventually, if you just stayed close.

Well, and didn't lecture, which was where the grown ups always seemed to go wrong.

"Orsini, too," he observed idly, watching Giotto and Ignacio maneuvering for the punch bowl—good luck on that.

His head snapped up at the sound Xanxus made this time, low and ugly. "Xanxus?" His friend's face was dark and hard, lips curled up a little over his teeth, and a tingle slid down Squalo's nerves at that signal of a threat or fight on the horizon. Xanxus wasn't looking at the Orsini boys, though. His eyes were fixed straight ahead where Pino Tomasso and a few of his friends had come to stand.

Oh, great.

"Wedding isn't the place to start a fight," Squalo sing-songed under his breath, not that he thought that would do a bit of good if Xanxus lost his temper. The only answer he got was a snarl. Squalo sighed and stuffed his hands in his pockets and followed along, because Xanxus wasn't turning aside a single centimeter. He never did, and Squalo liked that, no matter how many lectures from the grown ups it meant.

"Hey, Xanxus," Pino called, crossing his arms. "Didn't expect to see you here."

The only answer he got was a stony stare. He plowed on anyway.

"Doesn't seem like the kind of place you'd be comfortable." He grinned at his friends, who grinned back and nudged each other. "I mean, a wedding. Must be kind of new to you, huh?" His smile turned vicious and his voice lowered as he finished. "Since your mom never had one, did she?"

Brightness flashed around Xanxus' clenched hand, and something very dark twisted his face. Squalo felt like that twist was in his gut, too. A few heads turned out among the crowd of grown ups, but damned if Squalo was waiting for them.

A man took care of his own business.

And wiping the smirk off Pino Tomasso's face with a fist to his stomach and an elbow across his jaw was damn satisfying business. Pino spat blood and straightened up with the help of a hand under his arm, glaring at Squalo as a few more boys materialized out of the crowd at his back. Squalo could see Xanxus staring at him, from the corner of his eye, but he kept his gaze on Pino, daring him to say more. "You'll regret standing by a bastard like Xanxus," Pino told him, low and vicious, and then there weren't any more words, just fists. Squalo could hear Xanxus snarling, behind him, and the memory of how his face had looked at Pino's words drove Squalo's feet faster and his fists harder. By the time Rafaele and two of the Tomasso's men arrived to pull them apart there was only one of Pino's friends still standing.

"Honestly... can't even stay out of trouble at a wedding..." Rafaele muttered as he swiped at their faces with a wet handkerchief.

"They asked for it," Xanxus growled, twisting aside.

"Even if they did, this wasn't the place for it," Rafaele told him severely. Squalo didn't think that was entirely fair.

"You'd have done it too, if they'd said that about your mother," he pointed out.

Rafaele paused and sighed. "I see."

"Besides, I was the one who punched Pino first." Squalo grabbed the cloth away from Rafaele to clean his own face with, frowning. "And you were right."

Rafaele blinked. "Excuse me?"

"It is different, when you're fighting for... for a reason." Squalo didn't look up. "For Family." He glanced at Xanxus, who had stopped still and was looking at him very oddly. Squalo shrugged and finished wiping the blood off his chin and offered Xanxus the handkerchief.

After a moment, he took it, not quite meeting Squalo's eyes. "Yeah. Whatever."

Squalo snorted a little, and winced at the way it made his ribs hurt. He was still amused. Xanxus was really bad at the people stuff.

Rafaele was shaking his head. "The two of you," he sighed.

Squalo considered that for a moment and smiled. "Yeah," he agreed, flashing a grin at Xanxus.

Xanxus finally met his eyes and took a slow step closer.

Squalo leaned back on his un-sprained hand and gave his mentor a satisfied look. "The two of us. That was what you wanted me to do, wasn't it?"

Rafaele put a hand over his eyes and laughed helplessly.

Training with Gianni was kind of like training blindfolded, only worse, because you saw things all right, but you couldn't trust any of them. Squalo absolutely hated it, and badgered Rafaele to convince Gianni to come more often, because anything he hated that much was obviously a weakness. Today there were real obstacles among the illusions, which was a particularly nasty touch that Squalo appreciated. Or, at least, he would appreciate it as soon as his head stopped ringing.

"Urgh," he said, and rolled over on his back to see what it was he actually tripped over. A footlocker sat where none had a minute ago, and the opponent he'd been chasing after had disappeared.

No wonder the Ninth's right had was supposed to be so good at negotiations.

By the time Gianni called a halt for the day Squalo was covered in bruises and Gianni didn't have a mark on him, the bastard. Squalo grinned at him. "I'll be better when I come back."

Gianni smiled just a little, but whatever he'd been about to say slid out of Squalo's mind as one of the shadows along the wall stirred.

"Xanxus!" Squalo trotted over before his friend could slip away or do any of the other stupid things he'd been doing this whole week. "Here to train or just to watch?" he asked. Xanxus' answer was a particularly inarticulate grunt and Squalo's smile quirked. "Well, anyway, come on." He took the precaution of towing Xanxus along with him as he racked his sword and nodded to Gianni, and didn't let go until they were out in the hall. They walked together silently, and Squalo waited.

"You're really going?" Xanxus finally asked, head down, hands shoved in his pockets.

"Yeah," Squalo said quietly. "Tyr thinks it's the right time. That I need to see and fight more styles than I'll find here. Feels like he's right." He glanced up at Xanxus' dark expression. "It'll probably only be a year or so."

"Mm."

Squalo rolled his eyes silently and tried another approach. "Well, how am I supposed to be able to keep up with you, if I don't keep advancing?"

That nudged Xanxus into an equally familiar but different response, one brow lifting as he eyed Squalo. "Think a lot of yourself, don't you?"

Squalo laughed. "Wherever you go, I'm following." He grinned as Xanxus' stride hitched; Xanxus never expected things like that, it was almost too easy. "I have to be the best to keep up, right?" He looked up to find Xanxus staring at him and shook his head, jostling Xanxus' shoulder companionably with his own. "Come on, you know that by now, don't you?"

Xanxus looked away and walked on. After a few more strides he said, quietly, "You want to train a few rounds before you go?"

Squalo smiled. "Sure."

Squalo expected to be welcomed home after a year away, but Rafaele had greeted Squalo with such a fervent "Thank God you're back," that Squalo was instantly suspicious.

"What's going on?"

"It's Xanxus."

Squalo narrowed his eyes and sat down at Rafaele's kitchen table with folded arms. "Okay, what did you guys do wrong this time?"

Rafaele gave him a stern look for a moment before sighing. "All right, perhaps there's some justice in that." He poured two cups of coffee and sat down across from Squalo. "There's been some factional trouble brewing, a few of the under-bosses starting to say that Xanxus should be heir, not Federico. What we're afraid of is that they aren't moving on their own."

"Outsiders stirring up trouble?" Squalo had seen that often enough in school.

"Maybe. The Cetrulli, Gianni thinks." Rafaele took a sip of his coffee and leaned back. "The problem is that Xanxus has heard and seems to be taking to the idea."

Squalo shrugged. "Well, why wouldn't he?"

Rafaele coughed on a swallow of coffee and frowned at him. Squalo leaned back and frowned right back at him.

"Look. I follow Xanxus, okay? That doesn't mean just calming him down so he'll go along with whatever you and the Ninth think is good. If he wants to compete with Federico to be the Tenth, it's him I'll be helping."

Rafaele set his cup down carefully. "If you follow him, and intend to aid him, doesn't that include protecting him from the manipulation of outsiders? It won't serve him if the fight just breaks the Family apart for the Cetrulli to pick off. This is why the Family must come first, Squalo."

Squalo thought about that. "Yeah, okay. I guess you're right." Of course, if Xanxus still thought it was a good idea, some other month when it wouldn't just stir up trouble some other Family could take advantage of, well that would be another time.

Rafaele breathed out. "Good. Help me keep this from getting out of hand, then." His mouth quirked wryly. "You're probably the only one he'll listen to right now."

Squalo snorted and pushed himself onto his feet. "That's because none of you understand him."

At the time, even he didn't know how right he was, but they all found out six weeks and four days later. Squalo remembered that day very clearly for a very long time.

It started with an explosion.

Squalo ran for the Ninth's office, and at first everyone around was running in the same direction. The closer he got, though, the more foot soldiers were retreating just as quickly, and Squalo had to shove his way past to break out in the clear area around the office door. Which was when he could hear who was shouting.

Xanxus' voice pulled him in the door like it was a rope tied around him.

The room was a wreck. The bullet-proof glass of the window was shattered and blown out. Chairs and a table were overturned. As Squalo came in he had to duck the vase Xanxus had just hurled at the wall, and was pelted with shards as it burst.

"All this time!" Xanxus shouted, pointing at the Ninth, and Squalo could see why Gianni was standing in front of his boss looking tense; Xanxus' Flame was flickering in and out around his hands. "What the fuck, were you just laughing at the idiot who fell for it?!"

The Ninth pulled Gianni gently back, brows twisted. "Xanxus, no..."

Xanxus laughed, harsh and raw. "Telling me I was your son so your goddamned Family could use me! And all this time it's a lie, and I'm nothing!" Squalo's eyes widened, hearing that.

"No! I didn't ever mean to use you, and I never wanted it to be a lie...!"

"Shut up!" Xanxus screamed. This time it was a chair he picked up and hurled against the wall with wild strength, cracking the back and two legs off. The rage and outrage and raw fear in his voice made Squalo flinch.

"Xanxus," he called, trying to break through.

"Nothing," Xanxus grated, glaring at the old men like he didn't see them, like he hadn't heard Squalo at all. Squalo took a breath.

"Boss!"

Both the Ninth and Xanxus looked around at that, but Squalo only had eyes for Xanxus. "Boss," he said, more quietly. "What does it matter?"

"...what?" Xanxus really looked like he didn't understand the words, and Squalo told the crinkle down his spine to go away and stepped closer.

"What difference does it make?" he asked as he came to stand in front of Xanxus, holding those blank eyes with his. "You're still you. You're Xanxus. That hasn't changed. That's all that matters."

Slowly Xanxus' eyes focused on him properly. Very quietly, hoarse from screaming, he asked, "Are you telling me the truth?"

Squalo stomped down a wince at that. Man, when the Ninth fucked up, he did it in style, didn't he? "I am," he answered, flat and sure, and reached up to grip Xanxus' shoulder. He didn't move as Xanxus' own hand flashed up, though he did relax when it clamped down on his wrist, holding his hand in place.

Xanxus took a slow, shuddering breath and looked up at the Ninth. "Why?"

"Because I wanted it to be true," the old man said, and even Squalo could hear the ache in his voice. "Because it was true in my heart. Not to use you, I swear it. If you'd chosen to leave the mafia and go be a citrus farmer, I'd have still thought of you as my son."

Xanxus had that blank look again, but his voice was more normally puzzled and exasperated when he asked again, "Why?"

The Ninth sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Finally he said, quietly, "Because underneath the angry, sullen child I first met, I could see the man you might become. And I wanted very much to know him." He looked up, and Squalo glanced away, embarrassed by the raw emotion in his face. "I still want to know him."

A shudder ran through Xanxus, under Squalo's hand. "I'll... I need to... I'll just..." Xanxus spun around abruptly and stalked out the door. Without letting go of Squalo's wrist.

Squalo waved his fingers at the Ninth and Gianni in what he hoped was an It's okay, I'll handle it, stay there sort of way, and let himself be towed along, down the halls as people ducked out of their way, and back to Xanxus' rooms. Xanxus slammed the door behind them and stood for a moment, half turned away from Squalo.

"You called me 'boss'," he finally said.

Squalo shrugged. "You're the one I follow. Doesn't matter to me whether you're his blood or not. You have the Flame. You have the strength."

Xanxus looked around at him, eyes dark, still breathing fast from the fight and their retreat here. "But not the right."

Squalo smiled, crookedly. "You have the right to me."

He didn't quite realize the double meaning of what he'd said until the agitation in the set of Xanxus' shoulders, and tightness around his eyes, changed. "Do I?" He pushed Squalo back up against the closed door, grip on his wrist shifting, and asked again, lower. "Do I? Are you really mine?"

Squalo swallowed; there was hunger in the way Xanxus looked at him, and more than one kind of hunger. He thought he could answer the part that wanted a place and reminders of his worth, but the other... He'd only just started getting to grips with all this hormone stuff and still wasn't entirely sure about the whole women thing, but... this was Xanxus. And that was different. Slowly he reached up with his free hand, winding his fingers in Xanxus' jacket. "Yeah."

Xanxus' mouth covered his, hot and wet and a little awkward. Squalo didn't care, because it felt good to have Xanxus' body pressed against his; it felt right. When Xanxus' thigh slid between his legs it felt better than good.

"So," he said, breathless, "if being the Tenth is out, how about the Varia?"

Xanxus lifted his head. "With you, you mean?"

Squalo shrugged, looking up at him. "I'm yours, right?"

The tautness in Xanxus finally relaxed and he leaned against Squalo, letting out a slow breath.

"Yeah."

"He's still in there, huh?"

Squalo leaned in Xanxus' doorway, arms crossed. "Yeah."

Rafaele sighed. "I guess we have to come to him, then."

"Not yet, you don't." Rafaele blinked and Squalo glared. "Not until he's ready to talk to you." And he closed the door firmly.

"Still not yet?"

"No."

"We can't just wait on his brooding forever," Gianni said over the maid's shoulder.

Squalo took the tray of food from her and raised his brows at Gianni. "Why not?" He closed the door.

"Are they still out there?" Xanxus asked as Squalo sat on the edge of the bed.

"It is the main house," Squalo pointed out. "I don't think they're going anywhere."

Xanxus ran a hand through his hair. "Why?" He sounded at a real loss and Squalo cocked his head.

"Guess you won't know until you ask them," he said quietly.

"Okay, go get the Ninth, you can come in," Squalo told Rafaele, and ignored the things Rafaele muttered under his breath. He just went back to stand at Xanxus' shoulder.

Once the Ninth and Gianni and Rafaele had gotten themselves settled, there was a moment of uncomfortable silence. The Ninth finally broke it with a cautious, "I'm glad to see you're doing all right, my boy."

Xanxus twitched. "Quit calling me that. It's not like I'm really your son."

Squalo thought the Ninth almost flinched.

"You've been my son in my heart," the old man insisted.

Xanxus' hair was a complete mess from how often he'd been running his hands through it. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" he demanded. "You said you didn't lie to me just so you could use me, but why else would you do something like that?"

The Ninth looked down at his hands. "When I first saw you I saw a child who'd been hurt and denied far too often. I didn't want to deny you again, and you'd been told you were mine. If I was to take you in and raise you as my own, what harm in letting you, and the rest of the world, believe you were mine by blood, too? At least," he finished, quieter, "that was what I thought then. I..." he sighed. "I'm sorry."

Xanxus just stared at him, face blank. "I don't get it."

Rafaele stirred, glancing between the Ninth and Xanxus and... Squalo? "Look," he said, "Squalo doesn't care where or how you were born, does he? He follows you anyway."

Squalo's spine straightened at that and he gave his mentor a hard look. "Damn right." He glanced down at Xanxus, and settled a bit as he saw the hard line of Xanxus' shoulders relaxing a little.

"It's like that," Rafaele went on. "Timoteo doesn't care about those things either. He wants you to take a son's place in this house, regardless of whether you were born to it or not."

Xanxus' eyes on the old man were dark, now, and confused Squalo thought. "But why me?" he finally said, voice low and cracking a little, and Squalo couldn't help reaching out to close a hand on his shoulder.

The Ninth smiled, gentle and maybe just a little wobbly. "I told you that already, didn't I? I saw some of what you might become. And I think I'll like that man, and I want to know him."

A shudder ran through Xanxus, under Squalo's hand, and he bit his lip. "But I... I'm just..." He bit down harder, stopping himself.

Squalo considered the tension he could feel and made shoo-ing motions at the old men with his free hand. After a judicious look at Xanxus, Rafaele nodded and stood. As the Ninth and Gianni followed, and turned toward the door, Xanxus said, low and rough, "Come back tomorrow...?"

Squalo felt like he might need to squint in face of the Ninth's sudden smile. "Of course, my boy."

Squalo listened for the door closing before he came around to kneel between Xanxus' legs and pull him close. Xanxus' arms locked tight around him, and now Squalo could feel his whole body shaking. "Hey," he said, quietly, not adding any idiocy about was Xanxus okay, just letting him know Squalo was there. They stayed there for a long time.

TBC

Archimedes' Lever - Three

Xanxus is finally finding his place in the Family when everything is upset again. Drama, Angst, I-4

When Xanxus finally came out of his rooms the way people looked at him made him twitch. He really wanted to scream at them that it was all over, now, didn't they know he was a fake anyway? But they wouldn't have any clue what he meant.

His fa— the old man had explained it, when Squalo had, eventually, let him in.

"Even if we put it around that you're not mine by blood, half of them won't believe it," he'd said quietly. "And the other half... well. If your blood comes from the Second instead of me, it's still Vongola, and there have been times in our history when legitimacy was... made not to matter."

"And we have to deal with the situation as it is," Staffieri had added. "Simply disowning your claim and suppressing this would be no service to the Family. Or to you."

Part of him was glad they felt goddamn guilty about this, and part of him was uncomfortable about feeling glad, and most of him was pissed off about both parts.

When they got to the Varia, the looks changed, and Xanxus was glad of it. These looks were only assessing, only wondering Are you stronger than me? and he could deal with that a lot easier. He straightened his spine, and listened to Squalo pointing out this or that squad leader and listing out his strengths and weaknesses, and recalled that Squalo had been trained to lead this group.

Eventually Tyr met them, a lean graying man, one handed, who cast a dry glance over the tail of Varia members they'd picked up. "Squalo," the man said, not sounding loud but clear enough for everyone to hear, "is it true you're willing to step aside in Xanxus' favor?"

A low murmur ran around the watching crowd as Squalo raised his chin. "Of course."

Tyr ran a subtle eye over the watchers and nodded to himself. "All right, then." He beckoned to Xanxus. "Come show me what you're made of."

Xanxus shrugged. He'd expected a trial of some kind.

"The Varia's standards of training are harsher than most," Tyr noted, apparently to thin air as he led Xanxus out into open air. "Nothing is forbidden. No blow, no weapon, no technique, as long as you don't actually kill each other."

Xanxus considered that. So he couldn't shoot the man straight on with his Flame, and that was about it. Not bad. "All right."

Tyr turned fluidly and lunged straight for him, blade suddenly out.

Xanxus bared his teeth as he spun aside. Now this he understood.

Tyr was good. Maybe even a shade better than Squalo, with a sword, and Squalo had come back from his year away able to beat Martelli two out of three. Xanxus didn't have attention to spare from the fight, but still quick flashes of awareness of the watching Varia came to him: people standing silently, people hidden in the shadows of trees and buildings, the glint of sun on metal, the rising tide of whispers running under the crack and roar of his shots.

When he and Tyr stopped still, the edge of Tyr's blade against his throat and the barrel of his gun pressed to Tyr's chest, there was silence.

Tyr's expression was just as cool and dry as it had been at the start. He nodded and flicked his sword away, stepping back. "You'll do."

A low laugh ran through the crowd and the watchers unraveled at once, talking quietly, smiling, hands cutting the air demonstratively. Xanxus caught a few bits of conversation.

"Another year at least..."

"...months, maybe."

"...right now if it were for real, but..."

Tyr murmured, undervoiced, "The day you can defeat me clearly is the day they will accept you as the Varia's leader."

Well all right, that made sense. Xanxus nodded. "Okay."

"At least," Tyr added, even dryer than usual, "with the both of you here I can be fairly sure you'll give your whole attention to it. Squalo has been rather distracted this year."

Squalo gave the man a dirty look. "Some things come first." He edged closer to Xanxus.

Xanxus let a breath out. He understood this place. He could deal with it. And Squalo was right here with him. He'd have a place of his own to stand in while he tried to figure out how the hell to deal with his... He hesitated and finished the thought slowly.

His family.

Xanxus pulled out a chair and slouched comfortably down into it. "So? What's this about?" He noticed Staffieri's faintly disapproving look and traded him a half-hearted sneer. Getting the old man's Guardians to frown used to be kind of a fun game, but there wasn't as much shine to it these days.

Not that that stopped him from sitting any way he damn well wanted to.

"Tyr said you asked for my squad," he prompted, crossing his legs.

"I'm not sure it isn't overkill, but I'd rather be safe this time," the old man sighed. "More than one of our mainland holdings has been attacked this month."

Xanxus' brows rose. "I didn't hear anything about a new war."

"All of the attacks were specific hits on the under-bosses in charge there," Staffieri said quietly, folding his hands. "They were all done by the same man. He alleges to be an independent, but we doubt that very much."

Xanxus cocked his head. "So you want him taken out, or the people behind him?" He smiled thinly. "Or both?"

Staffieri glanced at the old man, and then across the table at Federico. "That is the subject of some debate."

Xanxus eyed his bro... Federico with real surprise. "You think we should go for the source?"

Federico gave the old man a rueful smile. "I'm afraid so. Less," he looked back at Xanxus sharply, "to make a clean sweep of it..."

Xanxus snorted. Yeah, he'd always been the only practical one as far as he could tell.

"...than because I don't think we can avoid it and we might as well face them on our own terms."

The old man leaned forward on his elbows and sighed. "Perhaps you're right, and we can't avoid it. But I would like to try for a little longer. We're aware of the threat now, and by answering it this way," he opened a hand at Xanxus, "we leave the door open for less explosive negotiations."

Xanxus grunted. "Guess I can wait for later, then." The old man looked a little pained and he rolled his eyes. "Tell me who I'm after, then. We'll take care of it." Staffieri slid a folder down the table to him and he flipped through it. Finally he flipped it closed with another snort. "Piece of cake."

Federico laughed a little. "Good to see you enjoying your work." He leaned over and ruffled Xanxus' hair.

Xanxus swatted at his hand indignantly. "I'm not goddamn twelve anymore, knock that the fuck off!" He would have thought his damn brother got the hint when Xanxus bit him for doing that, when he was fourteen.

Federico leaned his chin on his fist, grinning. "What? I am glad, that's all."

"Well yeah, since it doesn't involve you dying, I bet you are," Xanxus muttered.

"That too," Federico agreed.

Xanxus considered, glumly, what kind of boss Federico was likely to be to work for. Maybe, when he was in charge, he could move the Varia headquarters further away from the main house.

The old man was smiling a little.

Xanxus pushed himself up and waved at the lot of them with the folder. "We'll take care of it. I'll tell you when we're done." He stalked out while he still had some fucking dignity and went to find Squalo. Squalo was good at planning this kind of stuff.

And he made the world feel a little more real after Xanxus had had to deal with his damn family.

"It was the Cetrulli. We caught a few of them who were slow getting away from the ambush."

Xanxus felt like his brain was buzzing. He could barely make sense of Maria's words. Or maybe that was because of her voice, flat and toneless.

Federico's body was laid out laid out under sheets in front of them. The useless doctors had already gone away.

"The Cetrulli," someone said, and he realized distantly that it was him.

The Cetrulli Family had killed Federico.

They had killed his brother.

He turned his eyes from the body to his father; it felt like his neck muscles creaked, like he'd been frozen there, staring, for years.

"They're going to die," he said, as flat as Maria had been. "I'm going to kill them. Every single goddamned one of them." The more he thought about that, the more he wanted to move, to go, right now. His voice rose. "I'm going to burn their House to the ground." Nothing he was looking at made sense to him, except Federico's still body.

And the slicing edge of rage in the old man's eyes as they rose to meet his. That too.

"Yes. Take who you need and do it."

Staffieri stirred, looking up. "Timoteo..."

"I will not forgive this," the old man said, low and harsh. "He was right all along. We should have taken this war to the Cetrulli months ago. I'm done speaking to them." His voice fell to a whisper. "Let his brother avenge him in the name of our Family."

Xanxus couldn't listen to anything else. He felt like he could barely hear anything else. The Ninth said he could go, that was all he needed. He spun away, and Squalo was at his side as he stalked through the halls, snapping orders, calling not just for his own squad of the Varia but all the others too.

His guns were around his hips. People were boiling out of the house behind him. Squalo was beside him, sword in one hand. So were the old man's Sun and Storm, and Xanxus remembered that the body laid out beside Federico's had been Rizzo's son.

There was road and city and road, and then the climb through the low hills to the Cetrulli main house, and the silence of the Varia spread out around him, the faint rustle of other foot soldiers following after.

And then there was Flame.

There was rage like he hadn't felt for years, blind, red fury at the whole world. No, not the whole world—just the Cetrulli. They had taken something, stolen it, they had tried to make his world the bleak, filthy scrabble it used to be, and he was going to destroy them for it. The Flame of Wrath rose up out of the core of him, pressed diamond hard and sharper than any steel, and he fed it to his guns and fired it out, away from him.

Walls cracked and burst and he barely noticed them falling around him. Men ran through the burning halls and he shot them down as they crossed his path. There was nothing but the Flame and his rage and the screams and movement of the world fading around him.

"Xanxus. Xanxus! Boss!"

He snapped back into focus, because those were Squalo's hands on his arms, shaking him. "What?"

Squalo's mouth twisted. "It's over."

Xanxus looked around at the smoking ruins of the Cetrulli house, the litter of rubble and bodies. "Oh."

Squalo pushed him down on a reasonably flat pile of concrete, hands still firm on his shoulders. "You back with me, now?"

Xanxus had to think about it for a moment. "...yeah."

Squalo just nodded and sat down beside him and fished out a rag to start cleaning his sword with.

As the shock of coming back lifted, Xanxus leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He hurt. There was no blood of his on him and he hurt anyway. That was not, he decided, fair. He'd destroyed the ones who tried to break his world, shouldn't he not hurt any more?

Except that the part they'd broken was still gone.

The thought made him suck in a fast breath between his teeth and swallow down a raw sound in his throat. Squalo left his sword and rested a hand on his back without looking up. "Here," he said quietly.

Yes. What was his was still here.

At least... part of it. Another part, part of his... his family, wasn't, no matter how much he destroyed. All told, he'd have preferred spending all this effort before that happened; that seemed like a fairer exchange.

Xanxus scrubbed a hand over his face. "Maybe," he said, very low, "you and Martelli weren't crazy after all. What he always said about doing things for the Family."

"Yeah," Squalo said quietly. "I think he was right."

Eventually Xanxus stood up again and looked around for his squads to take them back home.

Xanxus slouched in a chair and snorted under his breath as yet another ambassador from another Family danced around trying to tell the old man that he shouldn't have smashed the whole Cetrulli Family for killing his son.

The Orsini's man glanced at him nervously. "The destruction of the entire Family..." he started, and Xanxus lost his temper and slapped a hand down on the table. He took some satisfaction in the way the man jumped.

"They touched my Family," he growled, and ignored the way Staffieri's brows quirked at his emphasis. Too bad if he didn't like it; the man wasn't his right hand, after all. "They should have goddamn well expected it, and so should the rest of you spineless little—"

"Xanxus," the old man cut in, firmly.

Xanxus snorted and leaned back, still glaring at the Orsini idiot.

"The Cetrulli took it upon themselves to assassinate my heir," the old man told the ambassador levelly. "The Vongola were well within our rights to return such a mortal blow and insult."

"Well, perhaps, but the whole House..." the Orsini man dithered.

"Then perhaps," the old man said quietly, "their allies should take the lesson to heart."

Xanxus' lips curled up as the man excused himself, looking spooked.

"Well, this has been enlivening," the old man's Outside Advisor said, sounding genuinely cheerful as he and the whole lot of the Ninth's Guardians stretched or relaxed in their chairs, ranged behind their boss.

Xanxus eyed them. "There aren't any more idiots come to complain, then?"

"That was the last of them," Martelli agreed.

"Mm." He was almost disappointed. The more he could scare the envoys, the less those Families would ever consider touching his again.

Piero chuckled. "Don't worry. You'll get to intimidate more of them at the next social gathering, I'm sure."

Xanxus paused in the act of slouching a little more. "The next what?" He scowled at his father. Hadn't everyone figured out years ago that he didn't mix with all those damn parties where he was supposed to smile and not shoot anyone?

"I wasn't going to mention that quite yet," the old man murmured, and Piero looked abashed.

"Um. Oops?"

"You are not making me go back to parties again," Xanxus stated.

"I'm afraid it's likely you'll have to," the old man said, and it didn't help at all that he sounded apologetic. "If you're going to be the new heir."

Xanxus stared at him. "That's not possible," he finally managed. "I'm not really..."

The old man held up a hand. "I said, years ago, there have been times in our past when legitimacy was made to not matter. And, in fact, there is no actual evidence that you are not legitimate."

Xanxus opened his mouth and closed it again, totally at a loss. "But... my..." His mother. The son of a whore was pretty damn illegitimate, wasn't he?

The old man stood and came around to the chair beside him, lying a hand on the rigid line of his arm. "Your mother was married. The license was among her papers. I don't know why or exactly when the man left; we don't know for sure that he's still alive. But they were married."

"But she said..." Xanxus felt like something important was upside down somewhere.

"She said you were my child, too, and she and I never met." The old man shrugged. "As for your earlier lineage... well, you do favor the Second. He had a handful of children outside his marriage, to be sure, but there was also a legitimate child who married out of the mafia, and her children are not well documented in our records."

"And more importantly than that," Martelli said, quietly, "you have taken this Family as your own and proven you will defend it."

"You're definitely the strongest of Timoteo's sons," Piero put in.

"And while you will be a bit of a change in leadership style," Staffieri observed dryly, "you have demonstrated leadership among the Varia. With more flair, it must be said, than either Enrico or Massimo."

Xanxus stared at them. "You agree with this?!"

"You're not the barbarian brat you used to be," Maria said bluntly. "You haven't even shot any of these idiot envoys, over the past few months. We agree."

Xanxus looked over at Sawada, who was looking back steadily at him. "The Family comes first, among the Vongola," the man said quietly. "You, among all the Ninth's sons now living, will do the best job of protecting the Family." He smiled suddenly, showing his teeth. "At least you will now." Sobering again, he added, "You might think of it as fulfilling the wishes of your brother Federico."

Xanxus almost flinched.

The old man patted his arm. "So I'm afraid there are parties in your future," he concluded with a tiny smile. "If it helps, you have my permission to continue intimidating the Cetrulli allies all you like."

Xanxus was quiet for a few moments. "Give me some time, okay?" he finally said. Time to actually make this make sense, which it wasn't quite doing yet.

His father smiled, a little sadly. "As much as you need, my boy. I think we all need a little time for this."

That, Xanxus decided as he rose, was an understatement. But he didn't suppose any of them had a lot of choice, now.

TBC

The Flower and the Bird and the Wind and the Moon

Pre-canon. How Fuuga came to part, and how Kazuki came to leave. Angst, Fluff, Angst, I-4

Saizou named him Prince of Terror. Kazuki never objected. It was true enough, and if some of the terror that had lodged in his bones for years seeped out to touch the people they fought, the ones who threatened even the tiny corner of life he had managed to cling to here... well, perhaps that would mean less for him which was all to the good as far as he was concerned.

It had started when he opened the door to the Beltline. What he saw there swallowed even the terror of the night of his House's death. By the time he found his way back out to the hard light of Lower Town's day, it was running in his very blood. And yet, he knew that it would take more than the strength of terror to hold back the Beltline. What that might be, he didn't know.

Two years later, he met Amano Ginji for the first time.

"I want to follow him."

"But why?" Toshiki demanded, throwing his hands out. "Why should you surrender to this Amano without even a fight?!"

Kazuki sighed softly. He barely understood it himself; how to find words for others? All he knew was that, the first time he met Amano Ginji's eyes, the band of fear and rage that had locked itself around his heart the night his family died had loosened a little. That was one of the things he didn't speak of, though, so instead he said, "He has a good future in his eyes. I want to see it."

"Kazuki!"

He opened a hand palm up. "I won't force anyone to follow where they don't wish to go. You may consider Fuuga disbanded. All of you are free to go where you wish." It wasn't as if he were anyone's leader. Not really. It would be a joke to think he was—a lord with a charred shell of a House behind him in ruins.

Juubei took a step toward him. "We'll follow you, of course. But... are you sure of this man?"

Kazuki smiled, feeling again the touch of ease Ginji's presence had brought. "Yes."

Saizou was silent, arms folded, watching him.

In the end, two stayed and two left. Kazuki tried not to dwell on how much he missed them; he'd had no right to keep them, after all.

He believed that for years.

Kazuki watched with a rather jaundiced eye as the leader of the Fire Children sneered at Ginji. The Fire Children were a large gang, but they had perhaps three or four people of significant strength among them. Everyone else were hangers on. Hyenas following behind some rather scruffy lions to snatch at their leavings.

Ginji waited for the second bombastic challenge to be done with and said again, "You're stealing from people in our territory."

The Fire Children's leader nearly stamped his foot and growled, "Who the hell cares about them?!"

At that, Ginji's face finally hardened and lines of light crackled briefly around his hands. Kazuki frowned. That wasn't necessary. Not for scum like this.

If Ginji lost his temper, though, that wouldn't matter.

Kazuki stepped forward, out of the knot of Ginji's people, to stand at his shoulder and cast a cold eye over the Fire Children. He didn't see any need to waste patience or manners on them.

A stir rustled through their crowd, and Kazuki heard his name in it.

"Kazuki... Strings... Prince..." the rustle whispered, and they edged back. Kazuki turned his head to look at the leader, letting his bells chime, and had the satisfaction of watching him edge back a step, too.

Ginji was looking over his shoulder with a rueful smile. "Kazu-chan," he said softly.

"You didn't really want to fight them, Ginji-san," Kazuki murmured, quiet but letting himself be heard. "Leave them to me." As he had rather expected, the Fire Children misinterpreted that entirely, and the whispers rustled again. "Terror... Follows him..." He smiled back at Ginji with a hint of mischief.

"Well," the Fire Children's leader tried to bluster over the noise. "Not like there's anything worth going into those streets for anyway."

Ginji rolled his eyes a bit as he turned back and Kazuki had to hold back an actual laugh. It had been a while since he'd laughed.

He'd forgotten how good it tasted.

Kazuki stood in the evening drizzle that had come on with sunset, looking up at the dark bulk that loomed above Lower Town. The Beltline. Babylon City. The answers were still there, he knew; he felt it like a weight in his senses. He hadn't been able to reach it, when he'd been younger. Could he now? Was he strong enough, now, to find the source of wrongness in this place, and why his mother had sent him here?

Arms folded around him from behind, so warm it was shocking, and the faint light that accompanied Ginji's presence nearly all the time now fell around them both. "You're getting cold, Kazu-chan," Ginji murmured.

Kazuki let his questions go on a slow sigh and leaned back against Ginji. "I know." He tipped his head back to smile at his friend and leader. "Thank you for coming to find me." And drawing him back from the dark and cold of his thoughts, the way Ginji did for him so often.

Ginji's answering smile was soft, the sadness in his eyes muted for a moment as they stood together.

Sometimes Kazuki thought he could stay forever, this way.

"I have to leave."

Kazuki stared, feeling like he'd taken one of Ginji's own blasts to the chest. Shocked and frozen and not sure whether he could even feel his heart beating. "Ginji-san..."

"Why the hell should you have to leave?" Shido demanded, disbelieving. "This isn't because of that damn punk is it?"

Ginji wouldn't look at any of them, just smiled, one of his sad smiles, the ones that could heal a heart or break it. Kazuki was starting to be afraid they'd all be broken by this one. "Not really. Midou just... showed me something," he said quietly. "I have to leave Mugenjou. If I don't..." He shook his head, and wouldn't say anything more, no matter how they pleaded with him.

Three days later, he was gone.

"I don't think I can stay." Kazuki looked out over the buildings of Lower Town, the place that had been theirs for so long he'd fooled himself it would just keep on that way. He should have known better. "With Ginji-san gone... there's no one but him I could follow."

"Then why don't you lead yourself?" Juubei demanded, behind him. "It wouldn't be that great a change, and you've led before."

"I can't do that." He wasn't fit to lead, he didn't deceive himself about that any more. If he had been, would his House have fallen? Would Toshiki and Saizou have left?

Would Ginji have gone?

"I'm not leaving here!"

Kazuki ruthlessly stifled his flinch at that. Juubei was his oldest friend, and if he wanted to walk a path apart from Kazuki now, Kazuki wouldn't stand in his way. "Whatever you want to do," he murmured.

When his only answer was the abrupt rustle as Juubei left, he leaned his forehead against the broken wall and wished just a little that he could still cry.

Three days later, he was gone.

End

A Theme in Pentatonic - Three

Saizou has been watching Kazuki and the others only from a distance, and Kazuki finally corners him and convinces him that his proper place is with them again. Drama, Porn, Angst, spoilers vol 33, I-4

Kazuki felt a stray breeze brush his cheek and sighed. Saizou seemed determined to be the most troublesome one of all for him.

Juubei had been the first to detect him shadowing them, never coming close, only watching, but never leaving them. Kazuki had tried, once or twice, to drift closer, but every time Saizou slid away. Thinking about it, Kazuki didn't suppose he was actually surprised.

Part of him had always known that Saizou felt differently about their past than he did. That Saizou wanted his clan back. He had been the one, after all, to suggest that Kazuki form a new House. Once Sakura pointed it out, Kazuki could see perfectly well what Fuuga had been. At the time, though, that knowledge had been one of the things he turned his face from.

So he also understood why Saizou held back now, why he couldn't trust the thing he most wanted. Kazuki had lived the same way for a long time. Kokuchouin had forced Saizou to plant the seed of falseness in his hope for a new clan, claimed he could save Kazuki only by betraying and defeating him, and Saizou had been burned too painfully to even try grasping hope again. Kazuki knew that mind so well it hurt.

And he would not let Saizou stay there, not even if it meant flexing his own old burns. He would be what he needed to be.

"Kazuki-san?" Makubex had paused to look back at him, smiling, eyes questioning.

"I was just contemplating the view," Kazuki murmured. "Go on ahead a bit, would you?"

Makubex stilled for a moment before smiling a bit wider. "Of course." He caught Toshiki and Juubei and drew them along with him, a quick glance bringing Sakura after, trotting out into the plaza behind the building where they lived. Kazuki wondered, ruefully, when Makubex had started looking so much like Ginji to him. They both had that vision that a leader needed. Kazuki drew a slow breath; despite Sakura's insistence, he had a hard time feeling he had any of that himself.

Perhaps, though, he could borrow some of it from their example.

He watched them. It had been his purpose for so long it came naturally now, though now he watched from the shadows. As was only fitting, really. He still wasn't sure if this was his prize or his penance, but he couldn't bring himself to stop; not even when every hand Kazuki laid on Kakei's arm, every smile he gentled for Uryuu, made Saizou's heart tug. The heart he'd given for Kazuki. To Kazuki.

That part hadn't hurt. To die for Kazuki's sake was more than he'd deserved by the end. What hurt was being alive again. Alive to see Kakei's simple confidence that Kazuki would permit his protection despite being the strongest of them all. To see the flush of pleaure on Uryuu's face whenever Kazuki asked even the simplest thing of him. To see Sakura's smile as she sat beside Kazuki and he listened to her words. The worst were the nights, the ones when he couldn't quite keep himself from seeing, from hearing the way Kazuki sighed as he stretched and relaxed into Kakei's hands, the way Uryuu gasped as he surrendered himself to Kazuki. The way Kazuki laughed as he knelt over them.

Kazuki was the prince Saizou had named him, no question. He was ally and clan lord and liege to the Eastern House. Part of Saizou told him he should be there with Kazuki, that he was heir to one of the daylight schools and belonged at his clan lord's side under the sun. But all those years as a changeling, vanquished and stolen by the shadows, answered that this was his place now and he had no right to call Kazuki his lord.

"How long were you planning to stand there watching?"

Saizou's head jerked up, startled. Kazuki stood with his back to him, head cocked, apparently watching Uryuu playing tag across the plaza with Makubex while Kakei and his sister looked on tolerantly.

"Saizou?" Kazuki murmured. "I asked you a question."

Saizou winced. He supposed he'd put this particular weapon in Kazuki's hands himself, admitting his love and loyalty in such an undeniable way. "As long as I can?" he tried anyway, hoping against all just desserts for mercy.

Kazuki's head tipped down a little. "And if I tell you that you no longer can?" he asked quietly.

It took Saizou a few moments to unlock his lungs and speak after that. "Then I will not," he said, husky, and stepped back deeper into the shadows, swallowing pain as best he could.

"Saizou." Kazuki turned at last, and the irritation in his tone made Saizou's stomach turn over. "Come here."

Saizou wavered for a moment on one foot, startled. "Kazuki...?"

"I said," Kazuki said, soft and sharp, "come here."

That tone reversed his direction before his brain caught up with the rest of him, and he stepped, halting, out into the light. Kazuki was, he reflected ruefully, nothing if not ruthless when he thought there was cause. Saizou smiled, wry and crooked, and murmured, "I am here, my Prince," acknowledging the accuracy of Kazuki's chosen approach.

Kazuki sighed, sounding rather exasperated. "I never thought you would be the most stubborn one. Do you really not trust my forgiveness? Or theirs?"

"Do I really deserve it?" Saizou shrugged. "I... don't think so."

"You gave your life to protect mine," Kazuki told him gently. "More than that. You gave your very soul, for years. What kind of leader would I be to you if I failed to acknowledge that?"

The clarity of those words, of Kazuki's vision, were like a punch to the chest. "When I said that people would fear your gentleness," Saizou said, quick and breathless, "I didn't know the half of it."

Kazuki considered him for a moment, calm as he was in the heart of battle, and when he moved the grace of battle was in each step he took toward Saizou. Like any of the fools before him, Saizou was caught by that beauty and stood unguarded as Kazuki laid his hands on Saizou's shoulders.

"If this is the only way you'll hear me, very well." The soft voice bound him like Kazuki's strings would have, unable to move. "I order you, then, to come forward and stand beside me. You gave yourself to my service long ago, and I do not release you."

Shock unstrung Saizou and he sank down to his knees, staring up at Kazuki. He knew, heir to the main house or not, that Kazuki had never wished to retake that place. He'd said it often enough, that he was no longer the lord of Fuuchouin. But for this, for him, Kazuki had laid his hand on that mantle again. Saizou bent his head, outflanked and overwhelmed, and answered low and rough, "Yes, lord."

"It's a very different House we have, here," Kazuki said gently, resting one hand on his head. "But I love it all the same, and I won't leave one of my own wandering in the dark."

Saizou pulled in a harsh breath and let it out, shaky. Gentleness and strength, yes; those were what had always bound him to Kazuki—guard against one and fall to the other, turn to the second and be utterly conquered by the first.

Willingly conquered, he had to admit.

"So, are you done lurking?" Kakei asked from behind them, perfectly casual, and Saizou snorted as he pulled himself to his feet.

"Yeah, I suppose I am..." His eyes widened. "Wait. Wait, you. Um." Shit; Kakei didn't need his eyes to spot a person, even now he had his vision back, and it was possible Saizou hadn't concealed his presence as thoroughly as he should have—had he known all this time, that Saizou was watching? Watching... everything?

Kakei looked back at him, completely bland and expressionless, and Saizou clapped a hand over his eyes. The wicked edge in Kazuki's laugh only confirmed it.

"Aw, look, he's blushing!" Uryuu grinned and elbowed him in the ribs.

"Shut up," Saizou told him, heartfelt.

"What?" If anything Uryuu's grin got wider. "I thought you liked listening to me."

Saizou made a pathetic sound. They really did intend revenge: they were going to kill him of embarrassment.

"Well!" Kazuki linked his arm through Saizou's lightly, not that he fooled himself that he'd be able to get away. "Why don't we talk about that, then?"

He was doomed, Saizou decided fatalistically as he was surrounded and chivvied off toward an apartment building he knew very well by now, listening to Kazuki's soft laugh and Uryuu's shameless suggestions and Kakei's distinctly smug silence and Sakura's fading giggles as she and Makubex strolled on.

Willingly doomed, he had to admit.

In the end, they spent more of that first night talking than anything else. They held him the whole time, hands stroking gently over his back, fingers lacing through his, but mostly they just lay and spoke of what had happened after he'd died.

He still couldn't quite take it all in. He could believe that Juubei would put himself between Kazuki and the Kokuchouin siblings, and even that he'd survived doing it. That was actually the easy part. That Kazuki had defeated Yohan, though...

He stared up at the ceiling and decided he needed coffee before thinking more about that. Easing out from between Kazuki and Toshiki he pulled his jeans back on and went looking for the kitchen.

Obviously, he thought as he watched his brain-helper brew, it was true. After all, here they all were alive and with all parts attached and everything. And without any trace of the black thread; he'd checked that, as surreptitiously as possible. Which brought it all down to this Phoenix technique Kazuki spoke of, the true heart of Fuuchouin, the hidden heart. Down to Kazuki's heart and how all-encompassing it was.

Actually, when he thought of it that way, it all made perfect sense. It was never Kazuki's power alone that made him truly terrifying. Saizou sipped his coffee and contemplated that truth. If Kazuki's mercy could gather even Yohan to him, perhaps Saizou wasn't as much of a stretch.

"Saizou?"

He looked up and had to smile. Kazuki stood in the door of the kitchen, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, holding a robe around him. Even just woken up, with his robe falling half off one shoulder, Kazuki managed to look elegant and poised. "Hey. Just thought I'd get some coffee."

"Mm, good idea." Kazuki came and stole his mug for a sip, giving him such a teasing look that Saizou laughed; he'd never seen Kazuki quite this relaxed.

"Well, all this did some good for you, at least." He brushed his fingers against the cut ends of Kazuki's hair and finally said what he'd been wanting to say ever since he'd seen it. "This wasn't necessary. It isn't as though you ever lost to me."

"At the time, I thought I had lost everything to you," Kazuki said softly, eyes darkening for a moment.

Saizou was quiet for a moment, thoughtful. "You cut your hair for the loss of your people... but not for your family?"

Kazuki's smile was crooked. "I couldn't fight for my family. But for Fuuga," he reached up to touch Saizou's cheek, "for you, I could."

"I'm honored," Saizou murmured, a bit rueful. It was true. To be Kazuki's target or his treasure, either was an honor.

"You're being foolish," Kazuki corrected in a firm tone. "Even then... even then I still believed in you."

Saizou flinched a little.

"Was I wrong to?" Kazuki demanded, holding his eyes. "It was for my sake, from first to last. Do you think I'm cruel enough to hold that against you still?"

"Of course not." Saizou ran a hand through his hair, trying to find words for why Kazuki's faith in him could still hurt. It was times like this he remembered how much younger Kazuki was.

"Then stop this nonsense," Kazuki told him and pulled him down to a kiss.

Saizou made a startled sound; even having watched them, he wasn't quite prepared for Kazuki to offer him this intimacy so easily, so quickly. His hands came up to Kazuki's hips to steady him and one found skin instead of cloth. Kazuki's robe wasn't belted, he recalled hazily. "Kazuki..." he half protested against Kazuki's mouth.

"Hmm." Kazuki drew back and looked at him with a thoughtful light in his eye. Finally he smiled in a way that made Saizou downright nervous and backed up a few steps, enough to bring him into the light from the window.

His robe was very definitely not belted.

Saizou swallowed eyes helplessly drawn to the lean, elegant lines of Kazuki's body, framed in the folds of soft, red cloth and lit by the morning sun. "Kazuki..." he tried again, husky.

Kazuki smiled, gentle and sweet and perfectly ruthless, and held out his hand. "Come here, Saizou."

Saizou gave himself up for lost. If Kazuki wanted him there was no way he'd be able to resist. He followed Kazuki those few steps and sank to his knees on the cool tile floor looking up at the beauty of him, hands sliding up Kazuki's legs to find his hips again. Kazuki looked entirely pleased, and ran his fingers through Saizou's hair.

"Yes."

Saizou didn't have any more words; instead he bent his head and closed his mouth over Kazuki's cock, shivering with the soft sound Kazuki made. He'd had dreams like this, even years ago, and scolded himself in the morning. Kazuki had been too young, and Juubei would have carved out his liver with a spoon, quite rightly.

Now Kazuki was positively purring, rocking forward into his mouth, and the slide of his cock between Saizou's lips made Saizou moan himself. His hands slid over the curve of Kazuki's rear, up the line of his back, back down to stroke his thighs, and the flex of Kazuki's fingers in his hair, the weight of him on Saizou's tongue, was making his jeans extremely tight.

He closed his eyes, just feeling the texture of Kazuki as he sucked harder, listening to the breathless gasps of pleasure above him and enjoying the knowledge that he was the one coaxing them out of Kazuki. That knowledge was enough to eclipse everything else, and so it took him a moment to process it when Kazuki's hands eased him back.

"What...?" He looked up at Kazuki, panting a little.

"I want more." Kazuki took his shoulders and tugged him up. His eyes danced as he undid Saizou's jeans and Saizou couldn't help the shiver of relief that ran through him. "Turn around," Kazuki murmured.

Saizou blinked and turned, and realized that he'd been edged right up to the kitchen table. "Um...?" Kazuki's hands settled on his shoulders and pressed him down and his breath caught. "Kazuki...!"

"Do you not want this?" Kazuki asked gently, hands stroking up and down his bare back.

"No, I... That isn't... I just didn't think..." Actually, now that he was thinking of it, Saizou's brain might just be melting. "But I mean, are you sure?" Kazuki's hands were still stroking his back, soothing, and when he glanced over his shoulder Kazuki was laughing silently.

"I'm very sure." Kazuki's hands slid down to ease Saizou's jeans down off his hips and Saizou's eyes widened as the thickness of Kazuki's cock slid between his cheeks. "See?"

Saizou shuddered, subsiding the rest of the way down to the table. "Yes," he agreed, husky. "It's just..."

"Shh." Kazuki leaned over him and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the nape of his neck, sending another shiver trailing down Saizou's spine. "You're mine. You have all of me."

That undid him, and yes, it was really no stretch at all to imagine that Kazuki's compassion had conquered Yohan too. He put his head down on his arm and said quietly, "Yes. Please."

The rustling of cloth he expected, and the warm slide of Kazuki's palms over his ass. The low click of something glass being set down, though, puzzled him enough to look around and when he saw the open jar sitting beside them on the table he just stared. "You... planned this?"

"Well, we didn't get around to it last night," Kazuki told him, bright and innocent, as slick, cool fingers stroked against him. Saizou laughed helplessly into the crook of his arm until they pressed in and his breath caught.

Kazuki was gentle about opening him up, and it wasn't until Saizou was panting again that his fingers started to move differently. The sheer fact of having Kazuki's fingers inside him was momentous enough that it took him a while to understand why those movements plucked at his nerves. The ripple of fingertips as they drew back was what Saizou finally recognized, and groaned as electric response tightened his body.

Those were the motions to control strings.

"Mm. I thought you might like that." Kazuki sounded pleased, and his fingers twisted in the gathering motion for Autumn Rains, curved at the angle that set a barrier. Every stroke and gesture was from an enclosing technique, and Saizou moaned with the rush of heat that realization brought.

"You don't need to capture me any more," he gasped, "I'm yours." Hell, he'd been Kazuki's since they met.

"Good." Kazuki's voice was low, now, and Saizou swallowed, anticipation crinkling down his nerves as Kazuki's fingers drew back. The press of Kazuki's cock, hard and big against his entrance, pulled a wanting sound out of him.

Kazuki held him steady against the table and fucked him, rode him, slow and hard, and Saizou's thoughts broke up into little bits. He remembered the brightness of Kazuki's eyes, that first meeting, and the sharpness that surfaced when they fought; Kazuki's rare ease with Fuuga, the moments when the bleakness around his mouth smoothed away; his own hunger as he watched Kazuki move, watched all the arrogance of Lower Town fall before him. Every thrust twined him tighter into the grip of that grace and strength, and it was right, it was finally what he'd wanted from the start. He moaned openly as pleasure spilled over and swept through him like the tide, fierce and hot. Kazuki's gasp fell over him like sunlight, and the sudden roughness of Kazuki's rhythm, driving into him, trailed extra ripples of pleasure down his nerves.

He made a low sound when Kazuki finally eased out of him, and Kazuki settled against his back again, arms sliding around him. "I'm so glad you're back," Kazuki murmured against his shoulder.

Saizou rested his cheek against the table, smiling for real, for the first time in far too long. "Yeah. Me too."

Even if he was recalling, belatedly, that Juubei and Toshiki were two rooms with no doors away, and that Toshiki was probably going to tease him unmercifully, and that he probably didn't really deserve all this. He was still glad.

A Theme in Pentatonic - Four

Sakura wants Saizou to stop holding back from them, and from her in particular; it takes some coaxing, but she eventually succeeds in style. Drama, Angst, Porn, spoilers vol 33, I-4

Sakura was more impressed with Saizou the more she watched, after he returned to them. He was very smooth about turning attention aside. Today he was egging Juubei and Toshiki on with a laugh to a contest of who could strike most accurately at the greatest distance. It was hard to even spot the moment when he eased himself out of the competition and stood back.

No wonder he had hidden his troubles from them so well for so long.

That wouldn't do now, though. The Kokuchouin no longer held his heartbeat and will hostage. There was no reason for this any more, and it would do him no good to continue the habit. She expected Saizou would deny he was doing it if the others confronted him directly, though, especially if it was Kazuki.

That left her. Just as well, perhaps; they had unfinished business, he and she.

Sakura slipped up beside her quarry on soft feet until she was close enough to be heard by no one else when she asked, "Why do you hold yourself apart from us, Saizou?"

He stilled, laughter dying, eyes turning dark and distant though he didn't look at her. "Is shame so hard to understand?"

"No harder than forgiveness," she pointed out. She sat down beside him on the broken wall he'd been watching Juubei and Toshiki from, hands folded in her lap, and waited. Saizou couldn't hide from her after what they'd been through, and eventually he would realize the sense of that.

"It isn't that I don't want to believe it," he finally said, quietly. "I just don't understand. I stole your bodies and bound your wills. Your very hearts! I set you against your allies. And you forgive me for that, just this easily?"

Sakura was quiet too for a little, marshaling the words she needed. "It's true. You did that. But you didn't do it for ambition or hatred. You did it to save all our lives." She looked up at his hard profile. "Toshiki thinks it was only justice, considering he did much the same to Kazuki; he's almost grateful to you. And you healed Juubei's eyes, which no other technique could have done. And above all," she laid a hand on the one he had clenched, "you didn't bind our hearts. You held them safe, inside your own." He ducked his head a little and she smiled. "Yes. How else could we have seen what was in your heart? I knew; that was why I spoke, and told Kazuki why you had done all that."

"But that doesn't make up for..." he started softly, and she cut him off, brisk.

"No. It doesn't. Nothing could. But we forgive you anyway." When he finally turned to look at her, eyes wide and defenseless behind his glasses, she let her smile turn teasing. "There's only one thing I haven't forgiven you for, out of all that. And that's the uniform."

He turned red, and she smacked him on the shoulder with the backs of her fingers.

"I thought so! It was your idea!" She'd had her suspicions when she realized the thing left her bare from hips to the bottom of her breasts.

He turned redder and looked everywhere except at her. "So, I, um, I guess now you're going to tell Juubei and I'd better get ready to be a pincushion, huh?" he asked, meekly.

Sakura sniffed. "I don't need my little brother to look after my honor or avenge my slights. I can do that myself." Now he looked genuinely alarmed, and Sakura made a thoughtful sound, head tilted as if considering the appropriate retribution. He slid off the wall onto his knees, hands clasped entreatingly.

"I'm so very sorry, I honestly am, I don't know what I was thinking. The curse seal must have been affecting my brain or I'd have never done it, I swear," he said with becoming earnestness.

Sakura gave him a cool look, ignoring the fact that her brother and Toshiki had both stopped their little game and were staring. "Well. I suppose I might let you make it up to me."

"Anything you say; anything at all," he assured her.

"Very well, then." She couldn't entirely stifle the smile that crimped the corners of her mouth. "Kiss me."

Saizou stared up at her with his mouth open.

"You did say anything," she pointed out.

"You... but... Sakura," he murmured, hushed.

She smiled softly and held out a hand to him. "I'm waiting."

He took her hand slowly, wondering eyes never leaving her face. "Yes, ma'am," he finally said, husky, and leaned up on his knees. Long fingers touched her cheek softly and she bent her head to meet him. The kiss was soft and reverent, and he ducked his head after, pressing another to her hand. She stroked his hair gently and gave her brother a steely look over his bent head.

Juubei blinked and turned back promptly to his contest with Toshiki, and Sakura relaxed, pleased.

That was that taken care of, then. She'd certainly waited long enough.

Saizou knew Sakura was getting impatient. She was too well-bred to show it openly, but they'd grown up in the same kind of houses and it was there to see in the angle of her head when he hesitated to put his arm around her, in the way she turned toward him and then looked up when he was slow to take the invitation. They both understood it.

So when he finally gathered his courage to ask, he didn't need to explain. He'd brought some fresh strawberries to the pretty, airy apartment she kept high enough up the central building of Mugenjou to catch the breeze and see the sun. He watched her easy grace as she washed them and sliced a few, and remembered that same grace turning away countless men with such indifference few of them even managed to protest before she was out of sight, and he finally had to ask.

"Why me?"

Her knife paused against the cutting board for a moment before she made the last two slices and turned to wash the blade. "Because you see all of me."

That wasn't the kind of answer he'd expected and he blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

She smiled over her shoulder as she took down a plate for the strawberries. "Most men, especially here, only see that I have curves. They don't see any more of me than that. That's boring."

Saizou looked away guiltily from the curve of her breast against her arm and cleared his throat. "I imagine so."

She didn't even seem to notice, and went on calmly. "But the men who do come close enough to know me... well. To Toshiki, I'm almost as much of a sister as I am to Juubei. And Kazuki respects my strength, he honors my council, but he doesn't look at surfaces at all." Her voice softened and turned low. "He sees deeper. And that's as it should be, but... the surface is real too." She stroked a hand down the line of her hip. "This is me, also."

Saizou had to swallow. "It is," he agreed.

She looked up at him and smiled. "That's what I mean. You look at me and see both. I like that." Her gaze fell to her fingers, which were re-arranging strawberry slices more precisely than was really necessary, and she murmured, "Do you?"

"Do I...?" Saizou's brain finally kicked in and he blinked. "Do I like it? Of course!" He'd kind of thought the thing with the uniform made that obvious—more obvious than it should have been, but people who thought they were going to die before they could be pounded for their temerity did crazy things.

He could see the breath she took before she looked up, chin lifted, and said, "Show me."

That hit the off-switch on his brain again for a few moments. When he spoke his voice was husky. "Show you? That I like it?"

She colored a little, but her eyes were level. "Yes."

He crossed the kitchen quickly, catching up her hands. "I'm sorry," he murmured ruefully against them. "I shouldn't make you doubt yourself when it's only me I'm doubting."

"Do you doubt your welcome?" she asked softly. When he shook his head she stepped closer. "Then what else matters?"

He had always known that Sakura was the one with the brains. He should, he thought, rely on them more often. The thought was distant, though; most of his attention was taken up with the faint sweetness of strawberries on her fingers.

Show, hm?

Sakura's eyes widened as he drew one of her fingers into his mouth, lapping the strawberry juice slowly off it. "Oh." Her flush deepened.

"You're beautiful, Sakura; all of you," he said softly against her fingertips. "I would be honored to show you how beautiful you are in my eyes." Conscience twitched at him and he paused. "You, ah... you really don't mind? I mean, Kazuki..."

A spark of amusement lit her smile as she looked up at him. "Kazuki-sama has a generous heart. I'm sure he won't mind sharing."

This was so manifestly true that he almost forgot she hadn't answered his actual question. "Yes, but I mean, you're sure you won't mind...?"

Her smile gentled and turned serene. "I'm part of Fuuga too, you know."

Yes, and this did seem to be the pattern of their little House. Saizou gave up and smiled back. "Okay, I'll stop asking silly questions."

"Good." She caught his hand and stepped backward, toward an open door and the corner of a bed that showed through it.

Saizou followed her.

Sakura slid out of her dress and turned her back to Saizou. "Will you undo this for me?" A glance over her shoulder showed he was blushing a little, which charmed her quite unreasonably. Saizou's diffidence could be frustrating, but she was more than willing to put up with that when it also made his fingers, undoing her bra, so light, so careful. She leaned back against the warmth of his bare chest with a soft sigh as he slid the straps down her arms.

"Sakura," he murmured against her shoulder, husky, arms closing around his waist.

She rested her head back against his shoulder so she could whisper in his ear, "One more thing to go."

His laugh puffed warm against her skin and he slid his hands obligingly down to her hips and eased her panties down. She liked it very much that Saizou knew how to laugh at all these little games. She liked it even more when his hands slid back up and over her stomach, up her ribs, to stroke her breasts slow and gentle. The touch sent enticing little shivers down her body to strike heat between her legs, and she made an approving sound.

Saizou released a shaky breath and she turned to twine her arms around him. "Shh," she murmured. "It's all right. You're one of us, Saizou; you've always been one of us, even when it hurt you so much you wanted to die from it." She held him tighter as he tensed. "We are Fuuga. Be with us." She leaned back and smiled. "Be with me."

He closed his eyes for a breath, smile turning fragile and soft. "Gladly."

She backed toward her bed, hands sliding down his arms to catch his hands and pull him after her. That made him laugh, and the tension was gone from his movement as he settled onto the bed with her and drew her close. Sakura felt like purring with satisfaction as they traded slow kisses, twined together on her rumpled sheets. The reverence of his hands on her made her breath catch and the open wonder in his eyes made her press closer, torn between offering passion and offering comfort.

When his tongue slid down her collar bone to dip between her breasts she decided passion was appropriate.

"Saizou..." She gasped as his hand stroked down her stomach, muscles shivering under his palm, and long fingers slipped delicately down between her legs.

"Sakura," he whispered against her breast, husky, fingertips easing between her folds. She moaned softly as he stroked her, light and sure, and pleasure tightened low in her stomach. He followed every shift of her body as if she'd spoken aloud, fingers now firmer, now lighter, now dipping down to tease inside her, fingers sensitive and sure.

There were definitely advantages to a lover from the Fuuchouin clan.

This lover of hers certainly knew what he was doing, and seemed determined to pleasure her. His mouth closed on her nipple and she arched, pressing up into the wet heat of his mouth. His fingers slid further into her, deep and slow, and hers flexed, digging into his back as her breath caught. She gasped out loud when he dragged his fingers back up, stroking slickly over her and rubbing slow, and her nerves tingled in response.

"Saizou." She wound a leg around his hip and pulled him down against her, catching his low laugh in a demanding kiss. "Now."

"Yes, my noble lady," he teased, and gasped when she nipped his lower lip in retaliation. "Sakura..."

She rocked her hips up, smiling to feel his hardness against her. "Now."

His agreement this time was heartfelt. She laughed softly and spread her legs wider, sighing with the pleasure of his weight over her, savoring the lean solidity of him, letting her hands wander over the line of his shoulders and down his back to feel the flex of his rear as he pressed into her. The thick, solid slide of him inside her eased the taut hunger his fingers had started and she moaned, pushing up to meet him.

He would have gone slow, but she didn't want that right now and let her whole body flex, rocking up wantonly, taking him deeper, driving their pace faster. Saizou groaned and caught her closer, body answering hers. "Sakura!" His long, driving thrusts finally answered the heat in her and she gasped as pleasure started to build again.

"All of you," she said against his shoulder, starting to pant for breath. "All of you, Saizou."

He kissed her, hot and passionate, in answer, and she tightened her arms around him, kissing back just as open and hungry. She wrapped her leg around him, grinding against him, and shivered with the first crest of pleasure. Saizou thrust deeper and she bucked against him, gasping as sensation turned bright, swept out through her and clenched her body tight. Saizou's breathless moan made her smile and she reached up to run her fingers through his hair as another wave of pleasure rippled through her. She was starting to relax when he stilled over her, gasping, shuddering, and she gathered him close again.

They lay for a while that way and she carded her fingers through the length of his hair in back, trailing down his spine.

"Thank you," he finally said, breath tickling her throat.

"Mm. Thank you too." She kissed his forehead. "You're not going to be so difficult about it next time, are you?"

His shoulders shook with a laugh. "No. I promise I won't."

"Good," she said firmly. "Because you belong to us, and I'm not having any more of this foolishness."

"Yes, ma'am," he murmured, meekly enough except that she could feel his lips curve against her shoulder.

Well, that was Saizou. And he wanted her, wanted this, after all.

His arms tightened around her and she settled against him with a pleased sigh.

Cat's Cradle - Chapter Four

When Toshi makes her choice known, Saizou has to deal with everything that's still between he and Yohan. Drama, Fluff, Angst, I-4

"You want to what?" Saizou yelped, staring at his little sister while Toshiki snatched for his coffee mug before it could hit the floor.

She lifted her chin in that way that made his stomach sink because it wasn't just stubborn. That was her "doing the right thing" expression. "I want to marry Yohan."

Saizou sat down with a thump in the nearest kitchen chair. "But you can't... I mean that's... Yohan?"

"It will stop the clan elders arguing over whether he should marry Fuuchouin or Kokuchouin blood, everyone in the clan knows me or at least knows of me, and Yohan won't have a wife who isn't a warrior," she listed off briskly. "And besides, I..." she looked down at her hands, clasped on the kitchen table, "I... want to."

"You've already agreed to this?" Saizou asked, feeling a little dazed.

"Well no. Not exactly." She reclasped her hands. "It would mean I couldn't serve as your voice any more, so I wanted to talk to you first."

Saizou scrubbed his hands over his face. "Toshi..." His little sister wanted to marry Yohan. His little sister wanted to marry Yohan. Toshiki patted his shoulder with a heartless chuckle, but he also gave Saizou back his filled coffee mug. Saizou clutched it and tried to make his brain work.

"Onii-sama, do you... really dislike him?" Toshi asked hesitantly.

Saizou took a fortifying slug of coffee. "It's more complicated than that," he muttered. "I know he's changed, Toshi, but I've seen him do horrifying things." Some of them had been done to Saizou himself.

"I know."

Saizou looked up, startled, and Toshi met his eyes levelly. "I know. He told me some of them. When I asked why Takeo-san and Akihito-san were being so stubborn about getting a Fuuchouin wife. But he has changed since then. He's..." she looked down again, cheeks pink, "he's kind. And brilliant. And he really wants to do what's best."

Saizou groaned. Under her hard-headed presentation, his sister was an idealist at heart; if those two had bonded over that it was all over except the question of what flowers she'd wear for the ceremony.

Still.

"Toshi, are you really sure about this?" he couldn't help asking.

She glared at him. "Onii-sama, you are so—"

"Toshi," Kazuki interrupted, hands sliding over Saizou's shoulders. "Let us talk this over among ourselves."

She sat back with a huff, still looking daggers at Saizou. "Oh all right."

Juubei, who Saizou could just tell was hiding amusement behind that deadpan look, pushed away from the doorway where he'd been leaning. "Ane-chan asked if you would like to visit, the next time you were in Lower Town," he offered.

As she left with him, spine almost as stiff as his, Saizou let his head drop back against Kazuki's stomach. "What the hell am I going to do?"

"You're going to stop panicking and relax," Kazuki told him.

"Easier said than done."

Toshiki turned a chair around and sat, resting his arms across the back as he regarded Saizou. "I know you've forgiven him, even if you can't actually deal with him very well," he said. "So what's got you so knotted up about this?"

"It's my sister!" Saizou waved his hands, unable to find any stronger words than that.

"And it's my brother," Kazuki murmured, arms folding around his shoulders and drawing him back again. Saizou bit his lip.

"I don't mean he'd do anything to her," he started.

"Shh." Kazuki pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "I know. It's just that they'll be very close, and they might hurt each other. And we don't want that to happen."

Saizou craned his head back to look up at Kazuki. "How are you so calm about this?"

Kazuki smiled down at him. "Because I've watched them falling in love for half a year."

Saizou opened his mouth and closed it again. "And you didn't tell me?"

"They've also been studiously avoiding admitting it, the whole time," Kazuki pointed out. "And if you'd mentioned it to Toshi before she did, who knows what would have happened?"

Toshiki rested his chin on his arms with a wry grin. "Always a step ahead."

"Because he cheats," Saizou muttered.

"Well, if you want to see for yourself, why don't you come with me, the next time she visits him?" Kazuki returned.

Toshiki laughed out loud, probably at Saizou's expression, Saizou admitted ruefully. "I yield," he sighed, and lifted one of Kazuki's hands to kiss the back.

"Good," Kazuki said comfortably. "Because it's about time you did see them for yourself."

They obviously had Kazuki's blessing already, so Saizou tried not to worry. Too much.

"Are you sure...?" Saizou asked for the sixth or so time.

"We're far from the only ones watching those two," Kazuki murmured, nodding to a Kokuchouin retainer as they slipped quietly up the stairs. "Besides Maiya, and sometimes even Takeo these days, at least half of Yohan's retainers find an excuse to keep an eye on them. Yohan won't notice us in the crowd. This should do." They emerged onto one of the second level open rooms and Kazuki knelt behind the balcony half-wall and gestured Saizou down beside him.

Peeking over, he could see Toshi and Yohan sitting on one of the garden benches below.

Toshi was teaching Yohan string figures.

"Now the little fingers go all the way over to get the thumb string." She illustrated, and Yohan followed but missed one side. "Ah, keep the tension on the string! Here." She shook her string off her fingers and helped Yohan recover his, fingers dancing over the web of his strings as she directed. Yohan was looking studiously at his hands, but he was also smiling in a way that a loop of tangled string really didn't deserve.

"There! The butterfly."

Yohan did it a few more times and regarded the figure between his hands. "The Butterfly is also your favorite form, isn't it? Your fighting pattern always comes back to it."

Toshi's mouth quirked, and her fingers flickered through three figures in quick succession. "Well, actually... the Flowing River is my favorite. Enough that Onii-sama said I needed to stop using it so much."

"Ah. The Butterfly is your reminder, then."

Toshi smiled, fingers slowing again. "Yes, exactly! It helps me to remember the indirect approaches."

Yohan tipped his head, looking at her for a long moment. "Saizou is wise. But you should use Flowing River more often, I think. To deflect and strike through the center that way is very true to the heart of you."

Toshi's fingers stilled entirely, and the two of them just sat there looking at each other, apparently oblivious to anything else in the world. Saizou slid down behind the half-wall with a quiet sigh.

"They really are totally in love, aren't they?"

"They do seem to be." Kazuki settled beside him, shoulder touching his. "I've found them training and researching and talking about philosophy and history and even gardening, but sooner or later it always seems to come down to this." He gestured at the silent, absorbed couple below them.

"I should have known the very first day," Saizou muttered. "When she hustled him for a match."

Kazuki pressed a hand over his mouth, eyes dancing. "Does it run in the family?" he asked, once his shoulders had stopped shaking with laughter.

"Seems to." Saizou shook his head, rueful.

Yohan's voice drifted up from below. "Show me another one?"

"Come on," Saizou whispered. "I don't think I can take much for of the syrup before I drown."

They had slipped down the stairs and back out through the house, all the way to the bridge on the outer path before he put a finger on what was oddest about the whole afternoon. "Yohan really didn't seem to know we were there," he said finally.

"Mm." Kazuki perched on one of the railings. "That does seem to happen a good deal; every now and then I've surprised him walking into the room when he's with her. He seems to focus on her very exclusively when they're together."

"The Beltline was a lot... quieter, today, too."

"Yohan's is the strongest will here," Kazuki said quietly.

"You're saying he quiets it for her." Saizou crossed his arms and leaned against the other railing, considering that.

"More than that. I think she quiets him enough that the effect blankets the entire Beltline. It's been getting calmer and calmer over the past few seasons. But yes, nothing in the Beltline dares approach her any more."

Saizou sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm talking myself into this, aren't I?"

"I hope so. I think they'll be good for each other." Kazuki smiled gently at Saizou. "I wouldn't have encouraged it if I'd thought otherwise." His smile quirked. "And just in time, too." He nodded back down the path to where their siblings were coming, side by side.

"They're practically holding hands," Saizou groaned.

Kazuki laughed out loud. "I had no idea you were still such a traditionalist, Saizou!"

The children were close enough to spot them, by then, and Toshi was giving Saizou a look of mingled apprehension and suspicion. "Onii-sama? What are you doing here?"

He looked at her, and the way she drew a protective step closer to Yohan, and the way Yohan turned toward her without hesitation, and heaved a long-suffering sigh. "Okay. Okay, fine. If you really want him that much, you can have him."

Toshi lit up like sunrise. "Onii-sama!" She dashed the few steps up the bridge and threw herself into his arms, nearly sending both of them over the rail.

And then, just as quickly, she skipped back to Yohan, smiling up at him. "I do! I would! I mean..." she glanced down and back up, suddenly shy. "If you want to."

Yohan was looking back and forth between Saizou and Kazuki. "Saizou?" he asked.

He didn't hesitate, though, about taking Toshi's hands in his, and Saizou snorted wryly.

"Yeah. Not that it looks like the two of you really need it, but you have my blessing."

Yohan looked back at Toshi and smiled like Saizou had never seen before, sweet and happy and young, and Saizou had to swallow tightness out of his throat for a moment.

"I would be honored if you would marry me, Toufuuin Toshi," Yohan said softly, and Toshi laughed up at him.

"I would be honored to accept."

When it looked like they might just keep standing there, staring at each other, Saizou murmured dryly, "Scaring up the family members for this ceremony is going to be a project."

Toshi looked away long enough to stick out her tongue at him, and Saizou laughed. It was good to see his sister so happy.

"Family, yes." Yohan looked up at him again. "Will you choose another to act in your place with the clan, then?"

The thought that Saizou had been trying not to look at ever since Toshi first spoke to him darted up again. He could choose another. Or he could... not. He could return to Yohan's side himself, to this smiling gentle-eyed Yohan who he was trusting with his little sister.

To Yohan, who had trapped him in service and torment for eight long years.

To Yohan, who had all the deadly grace of the Fuuchouin line and had held him with more than force alone.

Saizou's hands clenched tight, and he had to swallow before he could speak. "I... don't know. Let me consider."

Yohan nodded slowly. "Of course."

Kazuki came to Saizou and linked an arm through his. "I'll take Saizou home, then, and you two can decide how you want to announce this to Takeo."

Yohan's eyes on Saizou were still grave, but a tiny smile curled the corner of his mouth, and Toshi had a definite light of mischief in her eyes. "We'll think on that, yes," she murmured.

As Kazuki led him back toward the gates, Saizou was aware that the decision he had made today had been the easy one.

Kazuki and Toshiki and Juubei had held and comforted Saizou while he wrestled with his past, with the braid of fear and sympathy and pain that still ran taut between he and Yohan. He was grateful for them, desperately grateful for the peace and shelter that belonging to Kazuki gave him. But he knew that he couldn't live out his whole life never going beyond that shelter.

In the end, Saizou had come to Sakura for a second opinion.

Sakura sat him down in her sunlit kitchen and made tea for them both, and listened as he told her things she already knew, things she had sifted out of his heart while he held her under the curse seal, and things he was only starting to become aware of. Chief among them, of course, the knowledge that he truly did want to return to Yohan's side.

Saizou drove his fingers into his hair. "Sakura, you're the smart one around here. Tell me why I'm even considering going back?"

He didn't honestly expect her to give him an answer, but she looked at him soberly for a long moment, arms crossed over her stomach, and finally sighed.

"He betrayed you. He held leadership over you with one hand and with the other denied everything that it means to lead. But you can't forget his brilliance, or the security of being led by such a powerful spirit. It draws you back, even when you fear to be betrayed and cast aside again."

He lifted his head and stared at her shocked to his bones, shaken by the blunt truth of her words. "How... how do you know?"

She came to him and rested her hands on his shoulders. Her smile was faint and shadowed. "I recognized that expression."

The world tilted and slid sideways and suddenly he heard another name behind the "he" she'd spoken. "Sakura..." He stared at her, reaching out to gather her closer, needing to comfort the hurt hiding behind her small smile. He knew that smile and that hurt.

She leaned against him and sighed, arms folded around his shoulders. "He did come back to us. He came back and he cared for us, little by little, more and more, and now we're safe in his hands, and I've forgiven him, truly I have, I know the pain he carried that drove him away, but..." She took a deep, unsteady breath and let it out. "I recognized how you looked, just now."

Saizou rested his cheek against her stomach. "You have a great heart. I don't know if mine is that strong."

"It is," she said softly against his hair. "You just want it to make logical sense to you, too."

After a moment Saizou chuckled, ruefully. "I did say you were the smart one."

Sakura took his face in her hands to make him look up. "I believe in you," she said, steadily. "I believe that you will never betray Kazuki, by this. And I believe that you will not betray yourself, either."

Saizou closed his eyes, letting her words fill him. Sakura believed in him. He held on to that like a lifeline in a storm. "Thank you," he whispered.

She leaned down and kissed him softly. "Go see him. Find what it is you need to know."

"Far be it from me to disobey the word of our House's councilor," Saizou murmured, wry.

"Really?" She looked down at him with a tiny smile. "Well, then. Go see him tomorrow." She took his hands and pulled him up and off toward her bedroom.

Saizou stood in the door of what he thought might be Yohan's favorite room, the one that overlooked the waterfall. Both Kazuki and Toshi mentioned this room frequently. Yohan was sitting by the open screens, back to the door. Saizou wasn't in the least surprised, though, when he murmured, "Come in, Saizou."

He came silently and sat across the way from Yohan, looking out over the water too, his hands clenched on his thighs.

"I have already said I will not force your service again," Yohan said after a while. "If you object..."

"It isn't that," Saizou interrupted, tightly. "If it were, I'd just choose another to speak for me and be done with it."

Finally Yohan looked at him, quiet and clear-eyed. "What is it, then?"

Saizou dropped his head, eyes closed. "It's that I do want to return," he said, low.

"I know your heart belongs to Aniue," Yohan said tentatively, as if he were feeling his way into this tangle too. Saizou huffed half a laugh.

"That's less of a problem than I thought it might be, now that more of the clan has met Kazuki and seen how completely he's released the clan to you. No one will think there might be a conflict of clan loyalty."

"So for appearances. What of reality?" Yohan asked.

That was the perception, cutting straight to the core, that drew Saizou so. "If Kazuki should ever choose to command something of me that conflicted with your orders, it's him I would obey," he said quietly. "But Kazuki loves you. He trusts the clan to you. I believe he would not do such a thing."

After a long moment Yohan said, "You entrust yourself greatly to our hands."

A shudder raked through Saizou, and he wrapped his arms around himself. "I... want to."

The past hung in the silence between them, the pain both of them had carried, had shared in a twisted way, and the fact that Yohan had been responsible for Saizou's.

"Perhaps," Yohan said at last, "we should take wisdom from your sister."

Saizou looked at him blankly, unable to make any sense of the words.

"You have not fought me since that first time, when I defeated you." Yohan held Saizou's eyes as he started. "Perhaps it is time you did."

Saizou swallowed, years of fear clamoring that it was pointless, hopeless, that to fight Yohan would only mean destruction—that or the shame of knowing there was nothing, nothing at all, he could do against Yohan.

But there was no glint of amusement or irony in Yohan's eyes now, nothing of those years, only quiet waiting. And perhaps that was Yohan's point. Saizou took a shaking breath.

"You both have that ruthlessness, you and Kazuki," he said, husky. "All right."

"Come, then." Yohan rose and led the way back out through the house to the same training ground where Toshi had demanded a match. Now the remark about his sister's wisdom made sense. Yohan stood in the center of the space, bell gleaming between his fingers, and simply waited.

Saizou took a breath, and then another, and sent his strings flashing out in the Winter Gale.

It was a strange fight. He felt as though he were fighting himself as much as he was Yohan, fighting the drag and twitch of fear in his muscles, fighting ghosts of the past that told him to cower behind the Jade Shield and not dare strike out. He fought past that, as well as Yohan's attacks, and breathed freer with every attack, twisting aside from the Rain Shower to return it with the Blossoming Plum, blood singing every time an attack drove Yohan to step aside.

He knew Yohan was not fighting with his full power, that this was a training match and not a true battle. But the knowledge didn't hurt; it was what they'd set out to do after all, to take each other's measure on this ground, and Yohan's grace called to him the way Kazuki's had the first time they fought. He gave himself up to that grace again and let the rhythm of the match take him, moving through the forms like flying, hovering, watching for the opportunity to dive.

At last, Yohan spun his strings out into a form Saizou didn't recognize, and he tensed, wondering if Yohan would use one of the hidden techniques on him now. In a flicker of decision he chose to meet Yohan's lunge head on, seeking to entangle his strings in the Night Forest Web. Yohan's strings didn't close on him, though. Instead they drew taut just out of his range and sang.

Saizou thought he cried out; he couldn't tell. Sound and more than sound poured through him, halted him as surely as a binding but without holding him, cut through him like a knife but without touching him. He felt like it should be tearing his body apart, crushing him, but the force of it flowed through him without pause or pain.

When it released him his legs wouldn't hold him up and he stumbled down to the ground, stunned. Yohan walked back to him and Saizou took a breath and looked up. "What...?" he managed, voice rough.

"What are the four principles of our art?" Yohan asked in return.

Saizou blinked at him. "To cut, to reflect, to strike, and to bind," he answered, slowly. What was this, catechism?

"And so the signature forms of the four Houses, each one particularly and powerfully expressing one of the four principles," Yohan agreed. "But there is a fifth. It is the core and root of all the others. Resonance."

Saizou's eyes widened; that was what the unknown form had done, then. Passed the resonance of the strings into his body, far more powerfully than any technique he'd ever heard of.

"That," Yohan said softly, "was the Dance of the Yellow Dragon. I believe that it used to be the Fuuchouin succession technique, before Kachoufuugetsu—before the hidden arts were laid on the Kokuchouin—the proof that the heir had mastered the deepest root, as well as the highest reaches, of the art, and comprehended their unity and harmony." More softly still he finished, "Toufuuin Saizou, do you accept it?"

Harmony. To conquer without injury. Saizou buried his face in his hands and laughed, breathless and helpless. Yohan was Kazuki's brother after all. "Yes," he whispered at last, and looked up again, smiling, at his clan lord. "Yes."

Yohan smiled, small but pleased and bright. "I'm glad."

Saizou bent his head and let his new knowledge settle into his heart. Yohan had found a place for life instead of the death that he'd worn like an over-robe for all those years. He would care for Fuuchouin and bring it harmony, and Saizou was welcomed, not bound, at his side. It fit; it made sense; Kazuki was the Master of his House and heart, and Yohan was the Master of his clan. His honor would be safe in their hands. He let out a trembling breath, feeling himself truly relax.

Yohan touched his shoulder. "Come back inside." Now there was a hint of amusement in his eyes, but it was lighter than it had been before. "Aniue won't like it if I send you back to him in this condition."

Saizou snorted and levered himself upright. He could foresee his life getting complicated, between those two. To say nothing of what would happen when his sister mixed in.

Saizou's first meeting with the rest of Yohan's councilors wasn't particularly comfortable. He hadn't expected it to be. He remembered Seifuuin Koshijirou, after all, who seemed to feel it was his spiritual duty to never make anyone comfortable if he could help it.

"Saizou," Koshijirou greeted him, on the engawa outside the room they would meet in. "I see you've finally regrown your courage."

Saizou gave him a glittering grin. "Koshijirou. Well, you know how it is. It's astonishing what it can do to people when they actually resist instead of licking the feet of whoever presents himself."

Koshijirou laughed, apparently perfectly pleased. "It's good to have you back."

Some people, in Saizou's opinion, had really bad hobbies.

He heard the patter of running feet behind him and habit braced him by the time Maiya's weight landed on his shoulders. "Saizou!" Having failed to knock him over she swung down beside him and he blinked at her.

"Maiya-chan. You're dressed." Koshijirou snorted, and Saizou had to admit Maiya wasn't entirely dressed by a long way, but she had added a pair of prettily printed hakama to her usual, desperately scanty, outfit; by contrast she nearly looked demure.

Maiya beamed at him. "Well, now Yohan lets the weather change here, it gets cold sometimes. Besides, Toshi blushes if I'm not."

Toshi, coming behind her at a much more sedate pace, blushed demonstratively. "It's not that I want to interfere, Maiya-san, it's just..."

Maiya waved it off. "Oh, don't worry. If I need to fight, it's easy enough to get these off." She patted her thigh and Saizou heard the chime of her leg bells, apparently still in place under the fabric.

"Wasting time chattering about fashion can wait," grumbled an old man, who Saizou decided must be Seiji, as he stumped past them into the room. Maiya giggled in her most mendaciously brainless fashion and jiggled her breasts at him, and Saizou watched with interest as his neck turned red. Maiya must not like him very much; Saizou didn't discount that.

After all, the man must be completely oblivious not to have realized that they'd spend most of this meeting talking about fashion. Toshi would make sure of that.

He nodded to Maiya, gestured Toshi in ahead of him, and went to take his place at Yohan's right.

The actual marriage contract was settled quickly, despite Seiji's occasional grumpy noises, presumably at Toshi's participation; the families were already allies and more, after all. The marriage would only reconfirm Toufuuin's place within the Fuuchouin clan.

"Framing this as some kind of new alliance will only lead to further division," Saizou said firmly to Kokuchouin Gorou's suggestion, ignoring the sidelong glances of the Fuuchouin elders. "Toufuuin serves our clan lord willingly, and I won't suggest it might be otherwise."

Finally no one could think of any more clauses he needed to reject. Saizou sat back and opened a hand discreetly to his sister.

Toshi's eyes sparkled.

"Well, then, let us discuss the ceremonies themselves," she said brightly.

On mature consideration, Saizou decided thoughtfully, he wasn't entirely surprised that Maiya and Toshi were getting along. They had very similar senses of humor, under certain circumstances, and the clan elders had obviously been getting on Toshi's nerves for a while now. He was reasonably sure she didn't actually want a modern wedding with church trappings, and had only suggested it to see the colors Seiji and Akihito would turn, but she had no compunction about using the specter of it as a bargaining chip to wring out every single outfit, ornament and moment of display tradition afforded. Saizou just smiled blandly and agreed to every single demand. By the time they were done, the celebration had expanded into a week long festival, and Takeo was looking appalled at the notion that it would have to be hosted here in the Beltline.

"Your sister is a dangerous woman to cross," he murmured ruefully to Saizou as they all stood to go.

"She certainly is," he agreed with a brilliant smile.

"I wish I had known sooner that she favored Yohan-sama for herself." Takeo cast a thoughtful look over his shoulder to where Yohan and Toshi were saying temporary goodbye at great length.

Saizou snorted. "You and me both. But I think it's for the best. She loves his idealism and Yohan needs a bright heart in his life, and Kazuki doesn't actually live here."

Takeo stopped and looked at him for a long moment. "You know Yohan-sama well," he finally said.

"Yes," Saizou agreed, quiet. "I do."

Takeo smiled. "I had wondered whether your return to the clan council was wise." He bowed deeply. "Forgive me for doubting you, Master of Toufuuin."

Saizou's mouth quirked. "You didn't doubt me any more than I did. For a while there was cause. But we're both healing from it, Yohan and I. Toufuuin will be well; and so will Fuuchouin." His smile widened. "All the more after the entire clan sees Yohan, and Yohan and Kazuki together, at this circus of a wedding."

Takeo paused, brows lifting, and looked back at Toshi again, this time with open respect. "I... see." He smiled, small and rueful. "I will do my best to follow my lady's program, then."

"Usually wisest," Saizou agreed, and clapped him on the shoulder companionably.

After all, trimming Toshi down to size was his job, and he didn't intend to let it out to anyone else.

Takeo nodded to him and moved off after his fellows, and Yohan and Toshi finally emerged from the room. Saizou traded identical grins with his sister. "Go tell Maiya about your victory, then," he told her. "I'll catch up with you at the gates."

Toshi laughed and ran the other way down the engawa.

"Saizou," Yohan said quietly, looking after her. "Thank you."

Saizou shrugged. "It was her choice. I just agreed to it."

"You did—to all of it." Yohan turned that even gaze on him. "That's why I'm thanking you."

Saizou hesitated for a moment, but at last he took a slow breath and knelt down in full salute at Yohan's feet. The body memory of heart-pain from the many times he'd done this before pulled at him, but he pushed it away with the crisp cool of the fall afternoon here and now and the memory of the new Dance Yohan had shown him. "It is my duty and my honor," he said firmly.

"Saizou." There was startlement and wonder in Yohan's voice, and Saizou smiled to himself. Neither would have shown, or even existed, two years ago.

He stood and gave Yohan a brighter grin. "Of course, you realize, as your big-brother-in-law, I'm going to tease you now. That's my duty too."

Yohan looked up at him, startlement softening into a smile. "Is it? Perhaps I'll look forward to it, then."

The trust of those words kept Saizou company all the way home.

Hall of Mirrors

What might have happened between Xanxus and the Ninth, immediately after the Ring Battles. Comment-fic for Lys to the prompt: Xanxus, got to be the best. Drama, Angst, I-3, rather a lot of profanity

The old men were arguing over killing him.

"If your dog runs mad you kill it yourself." Paulo's voice was flat.

"This is my son you're talking about, not a dog." The old man managed to growl even when he still couldn't sit up without help, which might have been all heartwarming and shit except Xanxus noticed he wasn't arguing about the "mad" part.

"Boss, this can't go on." Staffieri sounded wrung out, but that was for the Ninth. Not for him.

"If we knew why he did this..."

"What do you mean, 'if we knew'?!" Rizzo cut Martelli off. "He's crazy, why the hell else would he have done any of this to the Family that took him in?"

Xanxus laughed at that. He couldn't help it. The voices on the other side of the screen went silent, wary, as if they still had cause.

He couldn't sit up without help either. Not without help to cut the straps that tied him to the hospital bed.

After a long moment of silence Martelli drew the screen back and all seven old men stood there looking at him. Well, six and one old woman, counting Purezza, though he'd only call her that if he wanted a good fight.

He actually half respected Purezza. Damn shame she hadn't been Boss.

He snorted at the way they looked at him, all sober and weighty. "What kind of morons are you, anyway?" he demanded, voice still harsh from screaming while the damn Rings turned his guts inside out. Harsh anyway, with disgust. "If I'm not the best, what am I?"

"You're my son," the old man started and Xanxus' lip curled. After all this.

"No. I'm not."

"Blood claim or not, you're the adopted son of the Vongola." Staffieri sounded impatient, but not as impatient as the look Xanxus shot at him.

"That and some hard cash will get me a coffee. Or maybe just get me run off for cluttering up the pretty shop front."

"Isn't it time you stopped living in the past?" Martelli asked quietly.

Xanxus met Martelli's eyes and spat over the side of his bed. "The past doesn't go away," he said over the sounds of outrage from the rest. "You can lie to yourself if you want, but don't fucking do it to me." He turned to stare up at the ceiling, which at least didn't mince out mealy-mouthed platitudes in face of fucking reality. "You think anyone was going to accept a whore's son if he wasn't better than everyone else? If he wasn't worth it? You think that old man can take a kid off the street and ram him into one of the biggest, strongest, wealthiest Families there is and have it all be sweetness and fucking light just because he's your precious boss and he says so?" The laughter shook him again, high and harsh, because they did still think that. He could tell.

If anyone ever asked for proof the world wasn't fair, he could point to the fact that their own stone blindness hadn't killed any of these stupid fuckers off yet.

"Your own damn Rings say otherwise," he said into the silence when he finally caught his breath. "So untie my hand and give me a knife, since you're obviously too damn cowardly to kill me yourselves."

"No," the old man said after a long moment, and Xanxus rolled his eyes. Of course not; that would actually be decisive action. God forbid. "Perhaps I was a fool. Perhaps I still am. But," he continued before Xanxus could agree wholeheartedly, "I will not permit you to weaken this Family."

Xanxus looked down at that, teeth bared. "Couldn't do it worse than you already have."

"You will continue to lead the Varia," the old man said, not answering, never answering, "because the Varia are needed. You say you must be the best or be nothing, but Sawada Tsunayoshi has shown that you are not the best." A smile, an actual fucking smile, twitched at the old man's mustache. "You appear to be second best. So it seems fitting, by your own lights, that you be second in the Family's leadership."

For one breath, incandescent rage slid through Xanxus' veins, familiar and warm, and he hovered on the edge of calling his Flame, raw as his hands were, of finally killing the whole stinking lot of them. The old man wasn't in any shape to stop him now. But that would mean an immediate fight with Sawada, with his father pitching in this time, and Xanxus wasn't recovered enough yet, himself, to win that. He slumped back against the bed, utterly disgusted. Fine. Sawada was even more pathetic than the old man, but at least he could fight when he was driven. Best to wait, recover, let the old man die and get the hell out of the way so Xanxus and Sawada could have a proper fight with no interfering Cervello this time. "For now," he said, staring at the ceiling again, and his mouth twisted into a crooked smile at the disgruntled shuffling from the other old men.

He wouldn't lie. Let everyone else wrap themselves in fluffy dreams. He knew what the world was like. Only the best lived at their own will instead of someone else's.

He would be the best.

End

A/N: I've used the Guardians from the Generations arc, because until and unless Amano coughs up some redeeming characterization, I refuse to imagine the Ninth with a passel of Guardians named after desserts.

Without Fear or Favor

Kakashi isn't blood of Uchiha, but he was permitted to keep a closely guarded clan talent. A look at the potential reasoning of the Uchiha. Drama, Angst, I-3

Kakashi had passed out on his way back to the village from his first mission as a jounin, the mission that had changed his life yet again. He'd been told, once he woke up, that Minato-sensei had used his Hiraishin to get Kakashi to his home and then the hospital before the Sharingan killed him. Because, of course, that had been the problem. The Sharingan drained chakra. Normally, a critical drain would cause the Sharingan to deactivate, but Kakashi's hadn't.

"Hatake-kun, you must let us operate to remove it!" Arakaki-sensei exhorted him, leaning over the side of his cot earnestly. "You aren't an Uchiha; your body can't handle it!"

"It was a gift." Kakashi folded his hands over his stomach, looking up at the ceiling with his own eye. The eye Obito had given him was now under a bandage with a suppression seal written on it.

Arakaki sighed and rubbed his forehead. Kakashi got that reaction from the medics a lot. "There might not be a choice, you know. The Uchiha clan has heard about this, and there's a summons waiting for you as soon as you can get out of bed again. You know they won't want their bloodline talent in the hands of someone outside their clan."

Kakashi didn't imagine they would, no. Just a week ago, he might well have accepted that. But Obito wouldn't have, hadn't, and so he wouldn't either. Not now, when he was all of Obito that was left. "When will you release me, then?"

"You're not going anywhere for at least two days." Arakaki gave him a stern look. He'd been Kakashi's attending medic before. "The north front is quiet and you're not setting foot outside these walls until I'm sure that eye isn't going to kill you!"

Kakashi nodded quietly. Two days, then. In two days, he would find a way to convince the Uchiha to respect Obito's will. He closed his eyes and sent himself down to sleep.

The Uchiha were the village's largest clan. They'd grown beyond a single compound, even one like the sprawling Aburame or Hyuuga complexes, and lived in their own district of the village.

At least half of them seemed to have something they wanted to say about Kakashi's new Sharingan.

"...far too great a risk to the boy..."

"...can't set a precedent like this! Before you know it the village would be stripping Uchiha bodies in the field!"

"...graft wasn't rejected, though, so he must be compatible; perhaps he could marry in..."

Kakashi sat in calm seiza, just off to the side of the clan head, Hideaki, and his heir, Fugaku. The long room nearly rang with the babble of Uchiha clan members shouting at each other, despite the high rafters and crowd of bodies.

"...can't control it, obviously..."

"He actually used it, within minutes of implantation! Those are some genes worth having..."

"...conflict of interest, if he's the last of his name..."

"...fact is, it's against our laws, and we don't dare let the village's law come before a clan's own control of its bloodline!"

Kakashi unfocused his eye a little, so he could watch the moment of the room as a whole. There were knots of opinion, but no consensus yet, nothing he could target yet. He would have stifled a sigh if he hadn't spent years training such revealing expressions out of himself. Instead, he sat still and watched the play of leaf shadows on the paper screens of the outside wall, and waited some more.

At last, Hideaki stood and called out, "Enough!" over the babble. It quieted slowly, and he sat back down. "I have heard your views," he said, rather dryly, and Kakashi was amused to see a number of the Uchiha flush. "Now I think I would like to hear Hatake Kakashi." Piercing black eyes caught Kakashi's, and he straightened a little. "Why did you accept the Sharingan, and why do you wish to keep it?"

"It was Obito's dying wish." Unexpectedly, Kakashi had to stop and discipline his voice to keep huskiness out of it. He continued, as formally as he knew how, hoping that would move a noble clan—no matter how much they were acting like a class full of pre-genin right at this moment. "He bequeathed it to me to protect the things he cared for. I accepted that charge, and I will not dishonor his memory by releasing it."

"Even though you can't fully control it?" Hideaki asked, sounding more curious than dismissive. "You'll have to re-train in all your techniques, both to use one eye and to use the Sharingan with a regular eye. You'll have a significant weakness, now, too. If any enemy realizes the drain the Sharingan is on you, they have only to take away your seal," he nodded at the eye-patch Kakashi had stitched a River Under Mountain seal into while he waited out the medics, "to incapacitate you."

"Closing the eye slows the drain," Kakashi said, keeping still and straight-backed. "Re-training will require an effort, but I believe my previous record indicates that it will not keep me out of the field for an unreasonable length of time."

"Hmm." Hideaki was watching him like he was a puzzle. Minato-sensei had watched him like that, sometimes, his genin year. "And what do you think Obito cared for?" he asked at last, quietly. "What have you dedicated yourself to protect in his place?"

Kakashi breathed freely for the first time in days. Hideaki-san understood. "The village. Our teammate, Rin." He spread a hand out toward the room. "His clan." He hesitated for a long moment, but the last answer tugged at him, and he had promised this to Obito also, even if he'd never said it out loud. Finally, Kakashi looked down at his hands and added, softly, "His friends."

"Uchiha Obito was a credit to us," Hideaki said gently, and Kakashi fiercely swallowed down the tightness of tears in his throat. "And Hatake Kakashi," he continued, louder, speaking to the whole clan, now, "has willingly taken up the responsibility to continue on that path. I say this is admirable, and that the codes of our clan must approve. Nevertheless, it is true that our laws say only members of Uchiha may bear the Sharingan." The listening clan members stirred, and Kakashi waited tensely to see what the price of his choice would be. Would they require a marriage? An adoption? He'd just started coming to some kind of terms with his father's legacy, he didn't want to have that covered up or taken away...

"Hatake Kakashi will be affiliated with us," Hideaki said calmly. "His name will be carried in the records of our clan. If he wishes to marry or father children outside the clan, he will require the same permissions as anyone born of our blood." A few people looked disgruntled, the ones who had been insisting most loudly that Kakashi not be allowed to keep Obito's eye at all, but most of the room was nodding, satisfied. Kakashi, on the other hand, had seen a tiny quirk at the corners of Hideaki's lips, and was waiting for what came next. "He will be carried in our records as one of us. But the fact remains that he was born to another line, and one that was long honored in our village. I say that, if it is his will, he may remain on the Hatake family register, rather than the Uchiha."

Kakashi couldn't help himself from drawing a long, shaky breath of relief at that, even as sharp exclamations burst out among the crowd. Hideaki raised his voice over them.

"Would you really have me take his name from him, when he has clearly been striving to do it honor? Is that the justice of our clan?" He frowned at his gathered clan members, most of whom subsided sheepishly. "It's decided then."

"Unconventional," Fugaku observed softly to his father, as people started to leave, talking quietly among themselves. "Some won't think it's enough."

"You'll find you can rarely make everyone happy, in any large decision," Hideaki returned, a bit wry. "We do the best we can, by the precepts of our clan."

Kakashi didn't think Fugaku entirely agreed, but he nodded quietly and slipped out after the last murmuring clan members. That left Hideaki and Kakashi, and he looked up at... well, his new clan head, he supposed. "What are my duties, as a... an affiliate of Uchiha?" he asked, wanting to offer something in return for the name Hideaki had left him.

Hideaki was watching him thoughtfully again. "Learn to use what you have inherited. Fulfill Obito's last wishes. I think, if you do that, you will make a fine clan member." His mouth quirked. "I don't think you'll need to think about marriage for some time, yet, but when you're older you should consider taking a lover from the clan once or twice; we would welcome your blood, and there are traditions we keep among ourselves you might like to learn." He stood and Kakashi followed, smoothly. "I'll assign Kazuo to tutor you in the uses of the Sharingan."

Kakashi nodded. "Yes..." he hesitated, thinking, and finally finished, "Toushu-sama." At least he thought that was what Obito would have called his clan head.

Hideaki's sharp, black eyes softened, and he laid a hand on Kakashi's shoulder. "Obito was a precious son of my clan," he said softly. "For all that his carelessness was sometimes the despair of his teachers, he delighted in the life around him, in all its beauty and detail. He would have been a very great shinobi, if he'd grown to pay as much attention to his duties as he did to good food and good company and the life of the village."

Kakashi didn't think it would serve anything for him to become careless. But appreciating the little bits of village life... perhaps he could do more of that, yes. In Obito's memory. He nodded again, quietly determined.

Hideaki patted his shoulder. "Remember that you can call on this clan as your own, now." He left Kakashi to make his own way out through the Uchiha district, freely as if he'd actually belonged there.

Kakashi had always been proud, and he never had called on the Uchiha, his second clan. But the offer had stayed with him, as a little warmth in his heart, for seventeen years.

For another seven after that, it burned as one more reminder of the things he couldn't keep.

In the end, though, when he had the chance to gift that belonging back to the last son of Uchiha, he decided he was glad to have had it.

End

Life Lessons

Knowing that you're sending twelve-year-olds into the field to fight, what do you need to teach them before they go? And what do you do when it never seems to work? Sometimes Iruka has trouble with that second one. Drama, Angst, Fluff, I-5

Warning: Discusses aftermath of trauma.

Umino Iruka loved to teach. He really did. He'd taught at the Academy for years, and with every new class he felt again the wonder of shaping Konoha's future through his students.

There were also weeks when he needed to remind himself of this strenuously to keep his hands from closing around their skinny, little necks.

"All right, everyone, settle down, Kiba tell Akamaru to let go of Ino's bag. Today we're talking about trauma-care within your team."

"Aw, we've done first aid already," Shikamaru grumbled, not quite under his breath.

"If you graduate and take on field jobs," Iruka continued, as if he hadn't heard, "there will come a time when you or one of your teammates will not be in their usual state of mind. You may have been in a fight and almost died. Your teammate may have been captured and tortured. It isn't unusual to need people you know and trust around you, after something like that."

"So, what, we're supposed to pack along a teddy bear?" Kiba muttered and Naruto snickered. Iruka gave them his second-best glare and continued when they shut up.

"Your textbooks list several chakra techniques that may, if you develop the control for them, be used to soothe your teammate until competent medical help is available. We will be practicing those today. There are also three pressure point techniques that are safe for novices. We will practice those tomorrow." Fortunately, the worst they could do to each other with those was fail; he made a mental note to ask Hinata not to demonstrate any more advanced techniques she might know from her clan's teaching to her classmates.

"Wait a minute, you mean we have to, like, let someone touch us?" Ino protested with a look of distaste at her deskmate, Chouji. A wave of sniggering and blushing swept the class and Iruka braced himself. This was exactly why he hated this unit.

"That brings us to the third option discussed in this chapter," he said, commanding himself sternly not to blush; teachers didn't blush damn it. "There will not be a practical exercise for this option, but your homework for tonight is to write three pages on the possible signs that the third option is called for or appropriate. Some people respond to some kinds of trauma or threat with a need for sexual contact. We've already discussed, earlier this year, some differences between civilian attitudes toward sex and shinobi attitudes. Among shinobi it is both acceptable and appropriate to offer that contact to your teammates if you are able and willing to do so. This chapter covers some ways to determine whether one of your teammates needs that kind of contact." The dead silence that had struck the room dissolved into squeals and whispers and exclamations. Sasuke, recipient of several rather predatory looks, drew even further in on himself than usual, and Naruto was making gagging faces with Shikamaru. Iruka soldiered grimly on.

"Recognizing the signs is extremely important, because it is equally common for a person to desire non-sexual contact with teammates after experiencing stress or trauma. No one who cannot demonstrate their knowledge of the signs listed in your textbooks will be passed for a field assignment, so pay attention to your reading and take good notes. Now." He swept them with his very best glare to silence the whispering and giggling. "Everyone open your books to page seventy-two and start copying out the first seal."

He sat down at his desk while the class settled into their usual restless order, books open, brushes moving.

"Naruto, stop trying to paint Shino's jacket and work on the seal."

"Aww..."

Sometimes moving the wrong places, but it looked like the work to fooling around ratio was about seven to three today, which was about as good as it ever got.

Ino passed a note over to Sakura and they both looked back at Sasuke and giggled, pink-cheeked.

Okay, maybe six to four. He sighed to himself. He really hated this unit. And talking about the homework tomorrow was going to be worse.

Iruka didn't lift his head from his hands when the door to the teacher's room opened and closed. Uncharacteristic inattention to surroundings, his memory recited, or unresponsiveness, especially if it appears deliberate.

"Iruka? Hey, you okay? What did the little monsters do to you today?" Shizuka's voice came closer and was punctuated by a papery thump.

"Yeah," he said, low, "it's just that time of year again. That unit, you know."

"Oh shit, I totally lost track of time! That's this month?" Her steps went to the window and the vertical blinds rattled across them.

Ensure as much privacy as possible without obstructing exit routes. "Yeah."

Her steps came back and the chair beside him scraped out. "Want to talk about it? Or just go get a drink?"

Offer verbal contact first, along with an alternative form of communication or connection if your teammate is unwilling or unable to speak.

Iruka took in a shaky breath and let it out. "They don't know. They think it's funny. Just like when we do the first aid unit, and the ones who have never broken anything laugh over the lesson on improvising splints. And next week we have to cover torture and rape recovery. Why do we try to teach them this so early?" Why did he have to go through this, trying and failing to reach them, year after year?

Shizuka sighed. "Sometimes I wonder too." She touched his wrist lightly. "You want a hand with this?"

Do not attempt to answer questions. He could nearly see the letters on the page. Initial physical contact should be at a neutral location. (Caution: this may be influenced by your teammate's specific experience.) He put his head down on his arms and laughed, rough and helpless. "You'd pass the test with flying colors," he told her, husky. So many wouldn't, not for real, not until it was real and that would be too late.

"Bad year, huh? Should I stay?" she asked him gently, "Or should I get that slacker Hatake in here for you?"

Your teammate may be unable to ask for contact. Offer several possible courses of action. Iruka bit his lip. After a moment he managed, quietly, "Door two?"

"You got it." She squeezed his shoulders as she stood. "Just wait a little." And she was gone. Shizuka was a good shinobi, and a good teacher, Iruka reflected. She cared. That was a hard quality to find sometimes, though he did his best to teach it to his students. It was always during this unit that he despaired of getting through to them. He knew that, he knew it was coming, and his failure hit him like this every year anyway.

"Yo." A warm hand fell on the back of his neck and Iruka jumped, startled out of his drifting thoughts. "You look like a wreck. Who is it this year?"

Iruka's muscles locked. Everyone knew; it would be someone. He'd fail some one of his students.

Over his head, Kakashi sighed quietly. "Come here." He put a hand under Iruka's arm and levered him up out of his chair, leading him over to the battered couch tucked in the corner for emergency naps. He thumped down onto it and pulled Iruka tight against his side.

And hooked a finger into his facemask, tugging it down.

"Kakashi-san," Iruka said, rough, looking up at him, a little of the fear in him unwinding, letting him straighten. His old commander had always trusted him, and obviously still did.

"Who is it this year?" Kakashi demanded quietly, dark gaze level.

Iruka swallowed. "Hinata," he whispered finally. "Hyuuga Hinata. If she's ever taken I don't know if there will be enough of her left to make it back. And..." he bit his lip.

Kakashi kneaded the back of his neck with a strong, calloused hand. "And?" he pressed.

"...Sasuke." Iruka closed his eyes. "I can't even say that he isn't broken already. He should be! And all the boys can think is how they want to take him down a notch and all the girls can think is how cute he looks, and..." He scrubbed his hands over his face. "Fuck."

Kakashi smiled at that, startlingly clear without his mask. "Very eloquent." He caught Iruka's chin, making Iruka meet his eye. "You can't do this for them. And that isn't your fault, or your failure."

There was no room for argument in his voice and Iruka leaned on that, trying to believe it. "I know," he said, low, "I just—" he broke off because Kakashi had pressed two fingers to his lips.

"Enough."

That was an order, and Iruka subsided. Kakashi had been his first commander after Iruka's jounin-sensei had passed him, and Iruka knew, ruefully, he'd never quite gotten over that. Kakashi knew it, too, and had no qualms about using it. "I think you need some distraction," Kakashi declared. "So, which will it be: do I get you drunk or do I take you to bed?"

Offer several possible courses of action Iruka's teacher-memory reminded him, and he had to press his head against Kakashi's shoulder while he laughed. This wasn't exactly the textbook approach, but it worked. That was what the field always had to teach his students, and it would be no different for this. "How about both," he decided.

"Taking shameless advantage," Kakashi tsked mournfully. It wasn't as effective when you could see the quirk to his lips. "Your place, then; I'm out of booze."

"Speaking of taking shameless advantage," Iruka said dryly, feeling a little more himself.

Kakashi smiled and tugged his facemask back up as he stood. "Have to keep my reputation up. Come on."

Iruka followed him out the window and over the roofs, holding on to the calm he'd regained. He'd need it for next week. But that, as Kakashi would no doubt tell him, and scold him for forgetting, was what a person's team was for. They would learn, his students. He would do what he could and life would do the rest.

And they'd all live with that, however they could.

End

It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Seven

In which Sakura insinuates herself into Hidden Sound and the dance of mutual deception and seduction commences among her, Orochimaru, and Kabuto. Also featuring the beginning of Akatsuki's plan emerging. Drama, Angst, Horror, I-5

Kabuto tapped politely on Sakura's door before looking in. "Orochimaru-sama wants to see you."

"About time." Sakura rolled up off her bed, where she'd been examining her ceiling and getting increasingly bored, and strode after him down the hallways of Sound's hidden heart.

She blended into the torch-shadows like they did, now. The one thing Orochimaru had done, in the three weeks she'd been waiting, was give her the run of Sound's outfitting supplies. Sakura suspected it was a test of sorts, but that was all right. She was done hiding what she was (and that made the best cover of all). She'd tossed her chuunin uniform into storage and chosen instead a snugly zipped leather vest, loose pants, and half gloves. All in black. She was done trying to be pretty and unthreatening, too. Orochimaru had chuckled.

Today he waited for her in one of his laboratories, smiling and cold-eyed and avid. "You've been wanting an opportunity to prove yourself. Here's a bit of research that I believe your skills might assist me with." He waved a hand at the table spread with diagram scrolls.

Sakura studied them and gave him a faintly disgusted look as she flipped them into what had to be the proper order. What was this, an exam? She ignored his smirk as she read. The heart of it was the Earth, Wind and Fire seal, but so woven into grounding channels that all its force seemed to be siphoned off. A strange approach for a technique that was supposed to tear a whole battleground into fissures and rubble. But the grounding also seemed to circle back. A feedback loop? "A power source," she finally said, slowly. "Looping the explosive energy until it's concentrated in one path. There's no outlet, though."

"Well, that's up to the subject, isn't it?" Orochimaru asked.

Sakura's world flipped over and she imagined the seal drawn on a person, not the ground. She snorted and let the scroll under her hand roll up. "I didn't come here to be your guinea pig."

"It's a technique still in development. You wouldn't be the first tester, of course," Orochimaru purred. "But I'm sure you'll wish to oversee the stages of testing and refinement."

(I can't do that, I can't...) Sakura forced down a twist of sickness and curled her lip. "I didn't come here to be your own personal torturer, either," she said and jerked her chin at Kabuto. "That's what he's for, isn't it?"

Orochimaru raised his brows. "Scruples, little kunoichi?" he murmured, and there was danger in his voice.

Sakura crossed her arms. "What you do is your business. What I do is mine. I'm here because you have something I want, and I have something you want; don't think that means I'm going to swear myself to Sound or follow your path. I've got my own." She stared back at him with all the fury of finally speaking and acting her mind, after all those years of muffling herself; she wasn't going to just accept a new blanket to throw over her own will, having finally fought free (it only made sense that she wouldn't).

"Hm." He studied her, finally smiling again. "I suppose I'll have to send you on a field assignment, then, to see what you're made of."

Sakura shrugged. "That's what I like best. Just as long as whatever goons you assign me know the difference between 'betraying Sound' and 'halfway decent strategy'." She smiled back at him, chilly. "I wouldn't like being killed by accident, and you wouldn't like how many you'd lose doing it."

He laughed low in his throat. "Very practical. How refreshing. Kabuto," he waved a hand, turning back to his diagrams, "introduce her to Sakon's new team. She can plan the trip into Earth Country."

(Sakon, only survivor of the snatch for Shizune, has one of those seals like Sasuke's.) Sakura prepared herself to show no sign of recognition as she followed Kabuto out into the halls again. Filing clerk, she reminded herself; pissed as fuck not to have known about the attack despite working for Intelligence, if they mention it.

"He seems to like you," Kabuto said conversationally. It took Sakura a moment to remember he was talking about Orochimaru, not Sakon. "I think he sees himself in you."

After the conversation they'd just had about testing (torture), that was a jab. Sakura snorted and jabbed back, as he'd surely expect her to. "What, because I finally figured out, after years of trying, that what I am is never going to be good enough for the precious Leaf? Never acceptable, no matter how good I am? Never right and normal? I suppose I can see how that would seem familiar, yes."

She could feel him stiffening beside her, just for a flash of an instant, and for that same instant his glance was dangerous. And then he smiled again and murmured, "Perhaps."

"I'm very good at what I do," she said softly, feeling for her footing in this exchange, remembering Kakashi's words about Kabuto being the real danger to her cover. She had to convince him, and that meant pushing back against him. "I hid it for years and years under sweet, soft manners. I know what can hide behind a polite smile. Kabuto-senpai."

His smile turned more genuine for another flash, dark and sharp. "Will that knowledge keep you alive?"

She shrugged one shoulder, starting to enjoy this sparring though it made her pulse run faster. "You said yourself that he sees himself in me. As long as he can get something he wants out of me, there's no reason to kill me. And," she added, gambling that a man who kept that sweet mask, even here, would have his own agenda, even here, "as long as I'm not a threat to your ends you'll enjoy me while I'm around."

Kabuto's smile was inscrutable again and he laid his hand on a door. "Perhaps. Here we are." As she walked past him into the room, he murmured, "Just remember that I did swear myself to Sound."

So. Either he was saying that he didn't actually have any agenda separate from Orochimaru's, and was genuinely loyal; or else he was saying that he was even more ruthless in pursuit of his separate agenda than she was, even to giving an oath he meant to betray. If her answer assumed either one, and the other was true, Sakura would be dead. Sakura felt a flash of the same thrill she'd felt facing Fuunotora across the sands of the Exam arena, and smiled back.

"I'll remember, senpai." And let him make what he would out of that.

Sakura didn't like Sakon, or his team. They were arrogant. They were careless. They were idiots. She found herself wishing, a little wistfully, that they really would mistake her sensible precautions for sabotage and try to kill her, so that she'd have a really good excuse to activate the trap seals she'd prepared for each of them. Unfortunately, she suspected that Orochimaru, who was mad but not stupid, had told them to just report her actions back, whatever she did.

(It nauseated her, at night, when she was falling asleep and sliding down deeper than her persona, to feel that callous urge to eliminate them and know it was at least partly real. She buried the disturbance under her persona as soon as she could, every morning.)

She'd certainly have preferred a more subtle group with which to track two of Akatsuki, who were reported to be, in turn, tracking the host of a tailed beast. Especially considering that one of those Akatsuki seemed to be Uchiha Itachi.

A field test indeed. Her lip curled. Orochimaru was subtle, even if his tools weren't.

(She wanted, so very much, to get this information back to the Leaf; another sighting of Itachi, after years of traceless silence. But she didn't dare. That would be just what Orochimaru was watching for.)

"What the hell, so we only get to watch them?" The one called Kagura lounged back against the sandy rock of their vantage point. "Boring."

"Orochimaru-sama's orders." Not that Miyu was watching anything but her knives as she sharpened them.

"You and your weird crush on the boss," Kagura muttered, turning over to take a look over the edge of the boulder again. "If we're watching, we should be closer."

"Not while Uchiha Itachi is down there," Sakura said flatly. Again.

"Like he could handle all three of us." Sakon paused and added. "Well, all four, I suppose." He gave her a smirk that said, clear as words, that he meant his brother-self as the fourth, not her.

"Don't be more of an idiot than you can help," Sakura directed, cold. "I realize that may not be much, since you apparently can't read a background briefing. Itachi has a new level of the Sharingan; one look and you'll be down for days with the after-effects. None of you are careful enough to be trusted to avoid it." Ah, it felt so good to just say that.

"Illusions," Kagura sneered.

"Physical effects," Sakura corrected. "Now shut up and watch; I think they're making their move." At least they were finally approaching the tall shinobi in the red armor they'd been tracking. They seemed to actually be talking to him. Trying to recruit him?

Apparently not, since the Rock-nin leaped back, steam suddenly spinning around him like a vortex. Itachi's partner tossed his head back as if he'd laughed and pulled his enormous sword off his back.

"So if the Uchiha is all that, why's it the sword guy going in?" Kagura demanded.

"The swordsman seems to be enjoying himself," Miyu observed, fortunately before Sakura gave in to temptation and strangled Kagura.

It was true enough that the swordsman—one of Mist's Seven Swordsmen according to the briefing—seemed to be amusing himself, fighting with broad, showy strokes whose flash didn't conceal their brutality. (Sakura remembered Zabuza with a shiver. But she could feel that glee, that enjoyment inside herself, now.) And Itachi stood quietly aside, waiting with every appearance of patience.

"Huh," Sakon commented, elbow on their concealing boulder. "That's some chakra the red one's got going."

Sakura wondered if that was what Akatsuki was after; the chakra of the tailed beasts, the greatest weapon of the hidden villages. But how did they think they could control the hosts? Surely the beast's chakra would overwhelm any brainwashing technique attempted on the host.

...or perhaps that was what Itachi was for, with his strange, new Sharingan.

(Naruto!)

Sakura watched the fight below with narrowed eyes and hoped the white knuckles of her hand gripping the rock would be taken for fear. Her breath hissed in as the host started to manifest visibly and she said to her temporary team, low and tense, "Be ready to move back."

"What, more?"

Sakura didn't even look at Kagura. "You weren't there when the One-tail got loose, were you? Stay if you want; I'll report back on how small a smear you left." Chakra was whipping around the red armor below, though the Swordsman's strange blade seemed to be keeping him clear; absorbing chakra, or deflecting it? She couldn't tell from here. Hints of a long, narrow head rose above the host.

And then Itachi stepped forward. He just stood there, unmoving, but abruptly the gathering chakra blazed, ragged and wild. And collapsed.

"What the fuck did he do?" Sakon demanded.

"I told you," Sakura said through her teeth, trying to keep her voice from shaking with the sudden knot of cold fear in her belly. "Come on," she added, as Itachi's partner hauled the tall Rock-nin over his shoulder. "We'll follow them as far as we can. But if any of you get too close and get caught, you're on your own."

"Yeah, fine," Kagura muttered, looking unsettled.

Sakura directed them out into a tracking formation and started after the two Akatsuki as soon as they were out of sight. Which took a while as the two strolled across the plain below, careless of concealment.

She would report all her suspicions to Orochimaru. And would not seek any of her message drops to Konoha. Not yet.

(Naruto! Sasuke! Oh, stay safe, be careful, don't let them catch you!)

The wind, here in Earth Country, was making her eyes tear up and she blinked to clear them.

A scream rang down the hall and in an instant Sakura had her back to the thick stone wall and a knife in hand. Another two weeks of waiting after her "test" mission had pulled her nerves tight.

"Admirable reflexes, Sakukra-san," Kabuto murmured, "but unnecessary." He looked down the hall. "Shall we see if the latest tests were successful?"

(Because of me, no, no, no...) Sakura took a slow breath. She couldn't pretend she hadn't known from the start where the power Orochimaru promised came from. She made her kunai vanish and followed Kabuto down toward where greenish light spilled out of an open door.

Inside, Orochimaru stood with folded arms, watching a man in the middle of the bare, stone room with an expression of dissatisfaction. He looked up as they came in and made a small tch of annoyance. "The Eight Gates won't do for this at all, Kabuto; I was on the right track with the first seal. If the power released is internal, there's no chance at all of limiting it." He waved a hand at the man.

Sakura swallowed hard, knowing her eyes were stretched wide. The man looked like he was on fire, crouched on the floor with heat and sweat and chakra boiling off him, shedding themselves into the visible spectrum. He made another sound, hoarse and desperate, and abruptly collapsed onto the stone. The raging heat and light around him died down and down and finally out, along with his last, faint movements.

He wasn't breathing.

Orochimaru sighed. "No, that won't do at all. But don't worry, little kunoichi," he smiled at Sakura, slow and more than a little mad. "There's always a way, if one just searches for it deep enough."

(Deep enough in nightmare, no, don't think, don't think, don't feel, anger, that's all there is) Sakura cleared her throat. "I hope so. I certainly have no interest in power that's too unstable to use."

"I assure you, I'm working diligently on it," Orochimaru murmured, watching her with dark amusement. "And for your part?"

Sakura folded her arms, looking down at them. "All right. As long as you're working on that, I'll work for you."

"Excellent!" He clapped his hands, sounding pleased. "I'm sure there will be plenty of missions that will suit you, here."

She knew it was true. (Would have to be true.) That was why she'd come here. She was shinobi, and she'd killed before. She would again. She clung to the bitter anger she'd fanned up in herself and turned her back on the body sprawled over the floor.

It was a little strange, how familiar missions made life. No matter the country, the wants of the people never seemed to change that much. Some people wanted protection, and some people wanted others gotten rid of. Someone always wanted to know what someone else was doing or saying. And all of those people came to the shinobi for help. So here she was, with a new team, lounging in the most upscale baths in Sound's capital and waiting for the mistress of the mayor to make her daily visit with her friends so that Sakura could find out where the mayor would be tonight. Even Orochimaru couldn't wring financial support out of a Daimyou without taking on some political jobs.

Kikyou slipped through the curtains and murmured, for Sakura's ears only, as she passed, "She's coming." Sakura nodded just a hair and swished her fingers under the water to send ripples toward the far corner. Kikyou waded that way and sank down into the water with a contented sigh, apparently indifferent to the two women already in the pool.

There was the one difference from her old familiar missions, though. This time, Sakura was in charge. Openly and officially, with no hidden orders to watch her.

(And so the message, finally dropped for Leaf after two and more months of waiting: the location of Hidden Sound, the tight-coded map, the warning about Akatsuki on the move, the don't-come-yet signal because he hasn't trusted her yet with the locations of more than two of the other bases. One tight roll of onion-skin paper she'd dropped blind and had to believe would be picked up.)

She liked the taste of being in control; it was a delicious contrast to her previous missions.

A drift of laughter preceded four beautiful women through the curtain.

"...and he brought the most gorgeous flowers, but I suspect it was his assistant who actually picked them out." Kotone of Kamura, the mayor's mistress waved one elegant hand, her laugh sweet and low even as she heaped scorn on her client. "I imagine the poor woman is relieved when I take up his attention."

None of the women had brought anything in with them and Sakura stretched her left arm out along the pool edge, signalling. Akemi slipped out of the pool and by the four women, bobbing her head timidly as she passed. She would check their clothing and things for any written assignations.

"So where is he taking you tonight?" one of the other women asked, coiling up her long, sleek hair.

Kotone touched a soft fingertip to her red lips. "It's a secret." She laughed as her friends protested. "Well, I'll tell you this much. It's in Fujiura territory." She slid into the water and leaned back with a full, pleased smile as her friends gasped with scandalized delight.

So it was true; the mayor was using his mistress' contacts to make deals with the city's yakuza clans. It remained to be seen whether he really thought he could replace the country's lord, as the Daimyou feared, but it was starting to look like that was the plan. Sakura closed her eyes and leaned back more comfortably, listening as Kikyou took the signal and stood. Under her lashes, she watched Kotone's gaze sharpen and follow Kikyou, and nodded to herself. Kikyou would lay a false trail, ending in perfect innocence, while Sakura and Akemi slipped into the Fujiura-run Mana restaurant to find out the details of this deal.

Everything was running smoothly, and exactly to her orders. Sakura relaxed into the water and fed her inner bitterness on satisfaction, drawing its veils more firmly around her heart to suppress worries about her message.

Yes. She liked the taste of this quite a lot.

Sakura stared at the twisted flow of stone in front of her. "This is what you call working?"

"It demonstrates that the principle is sound," Orochimaru lectured, as if this were a classroom. "Despite the subject's failure to control the process, it is, in fact, the correct process."

At least she didn't have to listen to any screaming this time. Actually, insofar as the thing still had a face, the statue (statue, not person, statue, think that) looked rather peaceful. It just wasn't human. "I've seen plenty of transformations before," she said, pushing down her flickers of queasiness and distress, "but none that ended in stone. Not unless it was a bloodline talent."

"Mm, yes. I do have samples of such things, but grafting them is always touch and go. In this case," Orochimaru flicked casual fingers at the statue, "the petrification is the result of an overflow of energy. The body can no longer withstand it and crystallizes."

"I trust," Sakura said dryly, "you can think of a way around that problem."

"In time." He looked down at her with the predatory edge she was actually getting used to. "There's a way around every problem in time, my little kunoichi."

Working with, and for, Orochimaru could be troublesome and disturbing, but it had been four months and she'd managed to get used to that. Traveling with him, on the other hand, was turning out to be unexpectedly and utterly exasperating. Orochimaru was finicky about where they stopped to sleep and would press on for extra hours to reach a town with lodgings he considered acceptable, but he was also distractable as a cat when some new thought struck and would stop them nearly midstride in a tree to write up experimental possibilities. Sakura was having downright (painful) flashbacks to Naruto in pursuit of ramen. And she could not, no matter how she protested or lectured or, eventually, in desperation, cajoled, get Orochimaru to keep to his alleged travel schedule. (So familiar, miss it so much, but not, no, never Orochimaru...)

And that wasn't even mentioning the actual route.

"How do you ever manage to visit your other bases often enough to keep them running?" she demanded as they rounded yet another switchback to a hidden gate. "It's going to take longer to get in than it does to inspect the place."

"If it bores you, I suppose I can bring Kabuto along as I usually do, instead," Orochimaru murmured, fingers flickering over the door, completing seals of unlocking.

Sakura ground down her sudden flare of alarm, checking their backtrail so he wouldn't see anything she couldn't conceal, and managed to grumble, "Why didn't you bring him this time, then?" (Have to be here, have to find all the bases.)

"Kabuto has a job of his own this month." He glanced at her sidelong, slyly. "One of the places I'm afraid I can't send you."

Spying in Konoha most likely, then. (Have to trust my cover holds.) She shrugged. "If this is what you need me for, fine. But, honestly, this is overkill."

"You'll see." He completed the seals and the door opened.

There were at least ten ninja behind it.

"Orochimaru-sama!" One of them hurried forward. "Suigetsu has escaped, please be careful!"

"Again?" Orochimaru sounded more intrigued than worried and Sakura fought the urge to roll her eyes, keeping a sharp eye on the room around them. "Show me the container. How did he get out this time?" He turned back to close the gates, head cocked at the man who'd warned him, and a silvery shimmer flashed out of the shadows, striking for his back.

Sakura was moving before she thought, following hard on her thrown kunai, watching as it went through what was attacking, driving her hands through the seals for Earth Wall even as she dove forward. She rolled and slapped a hand down to initiate the technique and breathed out as a thin wall of stone shot up just in time to intercept the attack.

And now, as the other ninja present started shouting and throwing around earth and lightning attacks, calculation actually caught up with her, murmuring in the back of her mind. (Chance to kill him, but might not, escapee, captured before, surprise attack but how often is Orochimaru really surprised? fifty-fifty chance, not good enough, defend him.)

That calculation wasn't why she'd moved.

Sakura crouched by Orochimaru, most of her waiting, poised, to defend again if necessary. But a little part of her, hidden and sheltered as long as she'd been able, was shivering. (exasperating, familiar, my team, miss it so much, acted to defend that memory, he's not them, but it feels so close...)

As the base ninja finally blasted earth through the attacker, who resolved into a half-liquid human figure, Orochimaru stepped up beside her and touched her shoulder in passing. "Well done, little kunoichi."

Satisfaction edged his voice and the base ninja nodded respectfully to her as she stood. It was the same way the people at the Sound village looked at Kabuto, Orochimaru's right hand. Trusted. Sakura took a silent breath in and deliberately pushed the wail of (not them, not the same, not!) further down inside.

(I'm shinobi. Whatever it takes. Use it.)

She followed Orochimaru into the base, alert at his back as she would be to guard any shinobi she was assigned with.

(not team!)

Her new team, she supposed.

Another month, another experiment. Whoever had given Orochimaru a science kit as a child had a lot to answer for. There was an unholy light in the man's eyes as he explained the changes he'd made since his last experimental subject had exploded all over his lab.

"Absolutely not," Sakura said flatly, stepping back from the table full of diagrams and seals. "This one draws on your control to supplement mine. The instant you let that lapse, I'm either soggy shreds or else a stone statue. An extremely strange one. You're just circling back around to the conclusion you reached with the elemental seals."

Orochimaru gave her a sour look, seeming right on the edge of pouting, and Sakura leaned her hip on the counter and snorted. "You like challenges," she reminded him. It was a lot of why she was still alive, she sometimes thought. That and his amusement at her measured insolence. "This approach is stalled; you need another. Tell me how the core of this works."

Orochimaru's brows rose. "I beg your pardon?"

Sakura sighed and rubbed a gloved hand over her face. He could be such a temperamental, pain in the ass, diva to work with; worse than Sasuke, honestly. (Want it back. Don't think about that.) "For one thing, I'm not letting you do anything to me that I don't understand. For another, I'm a damn good researcher, and I've been reading your library when you don't have any missions for me." She waved a hand at his papers. "I can already see what you're doing with the outer seals, channeling and looping the force to stabilize it. But why use a glorified explosive tag as the core in the first place?"

Now he smiled, slow and pleased. "Ah, but it isn't. The Earth, Wind and Fire seal is far more than that." He settled into a chair and crossed his legs. "Do you know the actual power source for that technique?"

Sakura cocked her head. "Isn't it the shinobi's own chakra? The warnings on it make it look that way; it draws chakra out so abruptly and in such volume that it can kill the user if they're not strong enough." That was, in essence, how every technique worked.

His smile got wider. "Oh, no. The reason the warnings call for only jounin rank to use this is because it requires that much strength to control the power source. Which is the energy of nature around us, you see. That is what kills the users."

Sakura blinked. "But... wait a minute. There are plenty of techniques that link the user with the energy of the world around them. That's the source of every elemental technique there is!" She paused in thought for a moment and added, slowly, "Though... not the power source, I suppose..."

"Precisely." Orochimaru leaned back in great good humor. "Ninja use the resonance between their personal energy and that of the natural world to form techniques. But not to power them. Because, unless the user has both great power of their own to balance the inrush, and also phenomenal control to shape what is, after all, an alien energy... well. The results can be very interesting."

Sakura reflected on what kind of thing Orochimaru found interesting and had to hold back a shudder. "And this is what you want to draw onto me, like I was some kind of really big parchment tag?" she asked. It wasn't actually a rhetorical question, considering who she was talking to.

"Ah!" Orochimaru held up a finger, eyes brightening again. "But you have the control. You will be able to shape it, once you have it. What must be supplied is a backstop, as it were. Some bracing to hold you steady against the flow and aid you in cutting it off before it runs out of balance."

"Hm." Sakura gave him a long, narrow look, and finally turned back to the diagrams, examining them with a new eye. "Are there any other techniques that use that source?" she asked absently, and looked up, startled, at the disgusted sound he made.

"The so-called 'Sage' techniques. That fool only made it work by having helpers, though, summons who could feed the energy to him. That seems to tame it a little." He smiled, very unpleasantly. "Though it also transformed the user a little bit into the form of his helpers. Very appropriate, I thought."

Sakura considered Orochimaru's sour expression, and the only person she'd ever heard referred to as a sage, and nodded to herself. Jiraiya. Interesting. "Well, then, what we need here are some 'helper' seals, isn't it? Separate seals to receive the force from Earth, Wind and Fire and feed it into a whole different channeling system. I bet I know one that would work, too." She grabbed some paper and started writing, chewing the end of the brush now and then as she thought back to how, exactly, these had gone. "Not the Summer River seal; that will contain it but not smooth or slow it at all. Channel it through the Three Gates and the Dragon at Dawn, and then smooth the output through Summer Rain."

(Seals that Tsunade had used to let Sakura channel Naruto's—no, the Nine-tail's—chakra to her. With Tsunade's work to contain the force, just maybe Sakura could trust this to be used on her.)

She smiled with tight satisfaction as she wrote the last line. "There."

Orochimaru examined her work closely, brows slowly rising. "Hmm. An unusual approach, but, as the source is external, this might work yes." He glanced at her, eyes gleaming. "It will rely wholly on your judgement, to stop the inflow before it burns you out."

Sakura raised her chin. "My control is second to none. I can do it."

(It will work, oh god it will work, this is it and it's too soon, can't delay any more, wait!, yes, can...)

"Well, then," he murmured, and she cut him off.

"After that's been tested to my satisfaction." She crossed her arms and stood firm against his burning excitement, hard and unmoving. No one was going to control her or burn her out for his own amusement. No one. That was her only concern. (Has to be.)

He looked at her for a long moment and finally laughed, low. "Very well, then." His mouth curled. "Sakura."

It jolted her. He'd never used her name to her before. Never... recognized her like that. The change struck her breathless and flustered, habitual anger easing. Whatever else Orochimaru was, he was one of the Leaf's Sannin, and he acknowledged her.

"Come." He gathered up the papers and swept out the door. "Let us see how this works." Knowledge lay dark under his smile as he looked over his shoulder at her.

(can't go there!)

(Have to go there.)

She nodded silently and followed him down the shadowy halls toward the sturdy stone testing areas.

Sakura slung her pack into the corner by her bed and stretched. This had been a long mission, though at least her subordinates were finally jumping properly when she told them what to do. Orochimaru had assigned her yet another team (not her team, remember somehow) over a month ago, and it had taken her a while to harry them into shape. She suspected Orochimaru of using her to train the less experienced shinobi of Sound, but she couldn't do a very fast job of it when he was also pulling her aside after every mission away to watch people attempt to use the seal he'd... they'd created. Attempts that had failed so far (Good, it's an excuse to wait, to build more information.), and when he asked, she'd chosen a mission over watching the latest round.

(she'd dropped the next message, they'd be ready to come when she showed herself, would brief Naruto and Sasuke to play their parts)

At any rate, the rural lord whose ambition the Daimyou of Sound had been worried about was dead, and the country's leader bound that much tighter to his "Otokage". She rolled her eyes a little over that self-bestowed title. Though Orochimaru did have the ability to match it. Not the clout, not the influence, and not the country, but the ability. No one could deny that.

"Sakura-san?" She turned to find Kabuto standing in her doorway. "Good timing! I think your procedure is ready for you."

Adrenaline spiked through her. "The seal? It's ready?"

He smiled. "The final tests went very smoothly. The subject managed to halt the power before he lost control, and showed significantly increased speed and reserves."

She took a slow breath. Power. Orochimaru's half of their bargain, she was going to have power to match almost anyone. And once the bargain was fulfilled, she'd agreed to show herself openly enough to attract Naruto's notice and bring Sasuke in his wake.

(Over half a year, this is it.)

(counted every day)

(Still don't have the last base location, but have to keep him from suspecting, have to be trusted, have to do it...)

She looked Kabuto in the eye, flushed with anticipation. "Let's do it, then."

Kabuto set down a small box on her table. "Take these before you sleep. They'll help calm your chakra in preparation for binding the seal to you."

"'Calm my chakra' hm?" She flipped open the box and eyed the two pills inside. "You're saying I have to make myself vulnerable to the imprint of the seal for it to take?"

For a breath, his eyes glinted. "I've admired the quickness of your understanding from the start, Sakura-san."

Another move in their constant sparring, always full of double and triple meanings. Did he mean she understood him? Understood Orochimaru? Understood only the surface, the technicalities?

"I'm flattered, Kabuto-senpai," she murmured. She only called him that when they spoke alone like this. Double and triple meanings.

"Only the truth." He slipped back out, closing the door softly behind him. "Sleep well, Sakura-san," drifted back through it.

She took the pills and slept deeply and walked into Kabuto's operating room the next morning with a firm step. She thought he'd probably put sedatives in there, too.

Orochimaru turned, smiling. "Ah, Sakura. There you are." His eyes were bright, but more focused than was usual when he was in the grip of experimentation and invention, which was reassuring. He'd already gotten the early, jittery excitement out of his system, apparently.

Kabuto made a reassuringly normal medical fuss around her, getting her prepared and onto his table. "I'll need to work along your spine, so if you'll lie on your stomach," he directed, draping a sheet modestly over her.

"I have watched this before," she pointed out, settling herself. Kabuto laughed, warm and comforting.

"I know; it's just medic patter. We're trained to do this, you know, to set people at ease."

"No wonder you're such a good spy," she muttered. "You were trained to lie."

Kaubto paused and she could imagine the quirk of his mouth that went with his suddenly darker tone. "Well, yes, I suppose I was." He chuckled and added, "I won't downplay how much this will hurt, then. It's chakra re-alignment, after all."

"I've noticed that, yeah."

"And have the will to pursue your strength, even so," Orochimaru murmured, and a startlingly warm hand rested on her back, almost as soothing to her nerves as that acknowledgment was to her anger. "Let us begin, then."

Sakura set her teeth into the bite-pad under her chin and closed her eyes. As ink traced over her shoulders and down her spine and wrenched harder and harder at her nerves and soul, she held tight to her purpose. She would have power, and she would never be ignored and set aside again.

(She would keep what was important to her safe.)

(love them, love them, kill him...)

As the seal sank into her, burning like fire, the screams broke loose, layers of her self running together in the unified rush of pain. Orochimaru's voice followed her down into the dark.

"Everything will be well, Sakura."

It actually helped.

And We'll Laugh About It

Takes place during Chapter Seven of Half Without Another One. While Sakura is gone her boys fret and try to distract themselves and take care of each other. Drama, Angst, Humor I-3

Sooner

The third time Naruto blew up his study room, trying to separate out the fox's chakra from his own once he'd already expressed them together, Tsunade didn't even yell. She just gave him a narrow look, hands planted on her hips, and called for Iruka-sensei.

Naruto kind of thought that was cheating.

Iruka-sensei, when he arrived, cast an experienced eye over the smoking splinters of Naruto's work table and crossed his arms in that immovably teacher-y way of his and declared, "No sparring with Sasuke-kun until you finish this exercise. Without blowing anything up."

Naruto stared at him in absolute betrayal. "That's cheating!" He pointed at Iruka-sensei, outraged. "Tsunade-baachan, that's cheating! I mean, that's just mean!"

"Naruto!" Iruka-sensei drew himself up, and Naruto wilted a little. "Do you think bandits or enemy shinobi are going to wait until you're not distracted? You need to learn control of the Nine-tails' chakra, and you need to learn how to focus on your work. Even when you're worrying."

"But..." Naruto mumbled at his feet, "it's Sakura-chan. I mean, what if something happens? How will we know?" Iruka-sensei stopped looming quite so much and reached out to rest a hand on his head.

"Sometimes we don't know," he said more gently, "and that's a painful thing to live with. But that's our job. That's what we are, Naruto."

Naruto crossed his arms tightly. He knew that. Of course he knew that. But he'd never had to do it before. Even when Sasuke had been gone, they'd know Jiraiya was with him. Wherever Sakura was, she was all by herself!

Tsunade-baachan finally pushed away from the wall where she'd been leaning and shook her head. "Go get something to eat, kid. And then you're going to come back here and do this exercise right. And then," he could totally hear the grin in her voice, "you can go out to play with Sasuke."

He straightened up and glared at her. "We're not kids."

She was grinning all right. "Glad to hear it. So you'll come back this afternoon and concentrate like a working shinobi, right?"

Naruto grumped and huffed to himself. This was blatant entrapment, was what it was. "Okay, fine. Yes." He pointed at Iruka-sensei again. "But I want ramen first!"

Iruka-sensei was trying to look stern, still, but a corner of his mouth was twitching up. "Just one bowl," he specified.

"Deal!" And he would get the exercise right, Naruto resolved as he followed Iruka-sensei down the stairs of the administrative building. Because he really, really needed to see Sasuke every day and make sure he was okay.

He kind of thought Sasuke felt the same way.

Naruto sprang out of a tree, grinning hugely as he bore straight down on Sasuke; this time he had him!

And then he squawked as a leg wrapped around his and arms snaked through his elbows, locking his knife hand. A weight that could only be Sasuke was against his back, and the illusion on the ground flickered out, and the ground itself was coming up fast. Really fast.

Thud.

It took Naruto a few moments to get enough breath back to wheeze, "Fuck."

"You really need to work something out so you're not so vulnerable to illusion," Sasuke agreed against his shoulder. He didn't sound nearly as winded. Of course, he'd had Naruto to cushion his landing. "You're not nearly as observant as S—" He cut off abruptly, and Naruto lay quietly, not fighting it as Sasuke's hold tightened. When Sasuke spoke again, his voice was rougher. "Hell, neither am I. So you need to compensate. Will your Shadow Clones be any good for this?" Finally he let Naruto go and pushed up to his feet.

"I dunno." Naruto wriggled his fingers and toes to make sure everything was still attached and rolled to his feet. "I guess if I hid one to watch... but I'd have to yell or signal to warn myself."

"Not necessarily," Kakashi-sensei spoke up from his perch on one of the training ground's huge boulders, eye fixed on his book. "You haven't noticed so far, which, I must say, says a few things about the lack of organization in your brain. But Shadow Clones return experiences to their originator when they disperse. It's one of the reasons the technique is so dangerous."

Naruto's eyes widened. "Wait, wait. So you mean... I could have had Shadow Clones do all my homework while I was out eating ramen and painting the monument?" And no one had told him?

Kakashi-sensei actually looked up from his book, and his expression was pained. "Naruto, Shadow Clones are complete copies of you. They would have blown the homework off too, and if they hadn't they would still have returned just as much boredom as you'd have experienced doing the homework yourself. Multiplied."

Naruto quailed at the thought. Okay, maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Sasuke had collapsed cross legged in the dust and had a hand over his face, shoulders shaking with stifled laughter. "You would totally have done it. Your face would have been great."

"Oh shut up." Naruto glared, but not too hard, because Sasuke wasn't laughing very often lately. "So anyway." He folded his arms with dignity and looked back at Kakashi-sensei. "If the Shadow Clone just disperses once it spots an illusion, then I would know?"

"If you were paying attention," Kakashi-sensei murmured, turning a page.

"Great!" Naruto produced about twenty, who grinned back at him and scattered through the trees. This time he'd definitely get Sasuke!

Sasuke was smirking. "This should be interesting."

Sasuke could be a total bastard, and way too smug about using his Sharingan to set illusions on all Naruto's clones at once so they all came back at once with nearly two dozen different views of Sasuke. But he gave Naruto an ice-pack for the headache afterwards, so Naruto figured he'd forgive him this time.

Besides, it kept them from thinking too hard about Sakura.

Naruto sat on Sasuke's bed and sulked as Sasuke packed. "Why do you have to go?"

Sasuke rolled a spare mesh shirt and stuffed it into his bag. "He says it's because Hidden Stone might be researching forbidden techniques, and the team that goes in has to be both as strong and as small as possible."

"So why can't I go too?" Naruto grabbed Sasuke's medical kit out of his hands to double check it himself, before it was packed.

"Because the Elders still want to chain you to the Hokage's desk," Sasuke pointed out dryly, stowing ration bars instead.

Naruto growled as he went to rummage in Sasuke's kitchen for ingredients to make some extra warming pills; Sasuke always managed to exhaust his chakra if no one was around to watch him, and then he caught chest colds, and then he was a pain-in-the-ass patient for weeks. "They're gonna have to let me go some time," he declared, grinding dried ginger like it had the Elders' faces on it.

"Some time, probably," Sasuke agreed, checking his shuriken one by one. "But not this time." They were both quiet for a few minutes. Naruto was rolling paste into pills when Sasuke said, "I'll be back in three weeks. Even if I have to tie the old pervert up and drag him back."

Naruto cracked a grin at that mental image and relaxed a little. "Yeah. Okay." He gave Sasuke back his medical kit and met his eyes steadily. "I'll be here."

Sasuke's shoulders eased a little, too, and he nodded.

"Sasuke," Jiraiya said, exasperated, the fifth time Sasuke circled their camp, "sit down already. Everything's secure. Have a drink or something."

"You drink enough for three, let alone two," Sasuke shot back, but it was half-hearted. He knew he was more wound up than he should be. Or, at least, wound up over things that weren't their mission. Witness the way he jumped, startled, when Jiraiya's hand fell on his shoulder.

"Sit down," Jiraiya said firmly, pushing him down beside their tiny fire. "Sakura's first status-check said she was all right, and Tsunade will keep Naruto from blowing up the village while you're gone." He paused and added thoughtfully, "Probably."

"But they wouldn't tell us what her message actually said!" Sasuke burst out.

"Mm, it's always hard to have a partner in Intelligence." Jiraiya sat down beside him. "We've been doing this for a long time, though, Sasuke; you aren't the first. Intelligence has learned not to lie to a shinobi's working partners."

"Do we still count as that?" Sasuke could hear how uncertain he sounded, and bit his lip, looking away. Jiraiya's large hand rumpled his hair until he looked back around just so he could glare. Jiraiya was smiling.

"I've heard some of the things Kakashi says to them about the three of you. You count."

Sasuke took a breath, charging himself to remember that, and that Intelligence had said that Sakura's message was a 'so far so good'. "Okay." Lower, he added, "Thanks."

"Get some sleep," Jiraiya told him, more gently than usual. "We'll be home again soon. Until then, we have work to do."

Sasuke nodded silently. Hell, maybe this trip would even take his mind off things for a while.

Every now and then, not often but now and then, Sasuke was willing to admit that his infuriating and cheerfully perverted teacher really did have a certain amount of wisdom. Today he would admit it, because the first thing Jiraiya asked when they reached the gates of Konoha was, "Is Naruto on shift at the hospital, today?"

The four genin on gate duty, none of whom Sasuke knew by more than sight, looked at each other. "I... don't know?" the oldest said.

"Oh, hey, Sasuke!" Ino popped out of the gate house. "You guys are back! Yeah, Naruto's up at the hospital again."

"Again?" Sasuke asked, wary and frowning. What was Ino doing on the gate? She was Intelligence, like Sakura. Shouldn't she be out on annoyingly incommunicado and very likely dangerous missions, too?

"Yeah, again. After that first week you were gone, when he almost trashed an operating room and the Hokage made him mediate for, like, four days without stopping," Ino supplied, sauntering up to them. "Smugglers," she breathed through unmoving lips, and gave Sasuke a bright, slightly bloodthirsty smile. "So, yeah, go on, you can find him there."

Ah. That made more sense, yes. Sasuke liked it when the world made sense. He should probably repay Ino for that by playing along. He smirked at her and murmured, "Have fun babysitting the gate, then."

"You shut up!" Ino shot back, loud enough to bounce off the nearest buildings. "It's only for a little while, because we're short handed!" All four of the genin edged away, and she bared her teeth with self-evident satisfaction. The gleam in her eye told Sasuke that she probably would have a great deal of fun, just as soon as she caught her smuggler targets. That was right and proper, too, and he breathed just a little easier as he followed Jiraiya into the village.

"Go on and see Naruto," Jiraiya said quietly once they were a few streets in. "I'll report what we found to Tsunade."

"I'm perfectly capable of making a report like a decent professional," Sasuke bit back.

"I don't doubt that." Jiraiya looked down at him, eyes dark and old. "But you need to see him, and he needs to know you're back safe." His mouth quirked up at the corner, though that didn't erase the tight lines there, and he clasped Sasuke's shoulder. "More efficient this way than waiting for him to come crashing into her office in the middle of a mission report. Go."

Sasuke swallowed, feeling the shivers building up, only stilled for a moment by his teacher's firm grip; he'd felt them all the way home. "Okay."

He took to the roofs to reach the hospital, flinging himself through the air as if it could sweep away his memory. It couldn't, though, and he must have been showing the fact because as soon as he came through the hospital doors the tall, thin medic on the desk zeroed in on him and came out, moving slow and smooth and keeping his hands where Sasuke could see them. "Can you tell me where you're injured?" the man asked quietly.

Sasuke shook his head, every movement sharp with the tickle of potential laughter and potential screaming in his throat. "I'm not— There's nothing— That's not it. Just... is Naruto available?"

The medic didn't look like he entirely believed Sasuke, but he just nodded and waved at a passing orderly. "Get Naruto. Tell him there's an AFS requesting him at the front desk, no C/O. IMP is basic NNS." note

Sasuke twitched away from the man's hands as he was herded over to a chair; he was pretty sure that last bit had been some direction about what to do with him. But it had been directed to Naruto, he reassured himself, so he could pretty much depend on it being ignored. And it was only about four minutes, by his count, before Naruto burst into the waiting room like a medically scrubbed, blond whirlwind.

"Okay, so what's— Sasuke!"

Sasuke swallowed and leaned into the hands suddenly locked around his shoulders. They were bruisingly tight, but that was okay; he needed the anchor. "Naruto."

"Sasuke?" Naruto frowned. "What the hell happened? You're not actually hurt, are you? If you're hurt and you didn't say so..."

"Shut up, idiot," Sasuke ordered, relaxing into this familiarity, into the stable point of his teammate's loud impatience and concern. He lifted his hands to wrap them around Naruto's arms, staring at him. "You'd never do it," he said quietly. Naruto would never, ever countenance or perform or let be performed the operations he'd seen the results of up in Stone. And Naruto still insisted he was going to be Hokage, and, even if that didn't work out, at this rate the idiot was looking to be Konoha's top medical ninja after Tsunade. So that was all right.

"Never do...?" Naruto's question trailed off as he looked at Sasuke and his mouth tightened. Abruptly, he pulled Sasuke against him, one hand sliding up into Sasuke's hair and pressing his head down very firmly against Naruto's shoulder. "No," he said with bedrock surety. "I'd never do anything that would make you look like this. Never. So breathe, damn it."

Sasuke laughed instead, unsteadily, fingers digging into Naruto's jacket, until Naruto thumped him on the shoulder.

"I said breathe," he barked, and the startling authority in his tone made Sasuke suck in a breath and let it out. "Better. Keep doing that. Just a little at a time and pause. Little more. Little more. Now let it out. There."

Sasuke followed Naruto's directions, and felt his lungs finally relax, and his stomach too. Apparently Naruto had been learning more than chakra manipulation. He was starting to feel a little light-headed, though, and asked dryly, "Can I stop yet?"

"Well you can't stop breathing, no." But Naruto finally let him lift his head again and examined him with a critical eye. "Wanna stick around for the end of my shift?"

Sasuke looked around the entry of Konoha's hospital, its off-white tile, and alarmingly cheerful pink and yellow stripes at waist height on the walls, and the chipped edges on everything because this was, after all, the hospital of a hidden village, and shuddered. Just about the only difference was that Ishi's hospital had more green, and had slate floors. But it wouldn't happen here. He wouldn't let it, and Naruto wouldn't let it, and when she got back Sakura certainly wouldn't let it. He had to remember that. "Yeah," he finally answered, a little rough. "Yeah, that would be good."

Naruto's eyes on him were sharp for a moment, but he didn't ask, just nodded. "Okay. Come on."

Sasuke followed after him, quiet and contained, watching the reassuringly normal routine of the hospital as Leaf's medics dealt with reassuringly normal spills and scrapes and training injuries. Not here, he reminded himself. It won't happen here.

Maybe it was even a good thing Sakura was out on her own mission, right now, because otherwise she might have been the one sent to Hidden Stone. It could have been her who saw the results of one too-charming medical researcher's experiments, cared for now as best their village could manage for however long they would live. He didn't want her to ever have to see something like that. Not her, not Naruto, they shouldn't have to look horror in the face.

He knew that was a stupid thing to hope, for two other working shinobi, but he still hoped they wouldn't have to. And if it did happen, the way his gut knew it might well, if it did... well, it wasn't like Sasuke hadn't seen horror before. He'd help as best he could.

He breathed a little easier once he decided that.

Later

Naruto trudged into Sasuke's room and slumped down over his table. It hadn't been a good day.

"Told you they wouldn't tell us anything more," Sasuke said, not looking up from the shuriken he was sharpening, cross legged on his bed.

"It's been over five months," Naruto groaned.

"She said it might be a year."

Naruto shuddered. "Don't say things like that." After a moment he sighed and added, "I'm so incredibly bored."

Sasuke finally sighed and put down his shuriken. "You are such a baby. Okay, fine, if we go out on patrol, will you stop complaining?"

Naruto perked up. "Patrol? Hey, yeah, they'd let me do that!" He paused and frowned. "Will they let you do that? I mean, without the ero-sennin? 'Cause he's away for two more weeks, isn't he?" Allegedly on a mission, but Naruto had seen the look on Tsunade-baachan's face when she agreed to it and kind of figured it was another of those 'research' trips where Jiraiya would spend most of his time in bars and baths and definitely not come home before he had to.

Sasuke smirked and fished a folded piece of paper out of his sleeve, flicking it at Naruto so it bounced off his forehead. "Kakashi-sensei can come along instead."

"You sure?" Naruto eyed his teammate with some doubt, even as his fingers worked the paper open eagerly. "Kakashi-sensei's on light duty. Tsunade-baachan said so herself, and you could hear her all the way down the other end of the hall." But there it was in black and white on the paper, a six week rotation of short patrols for Uchiha, Uzumaki, and Hatake. Naruto grinned hugely. Finally, something to do.

Something he didn't have to feel guilty over being happy about, the way he'd started to with the bone-healing Tsunade had started letting him help with.

"I think he argued that, for the great Copy Nin, short patrol is light duty," Sasuke said dryly. "He's got a point, especially if he's out with both of us."

Naruto looked up at Sasuke for a long moment and smiled. "Yeah. Don't worry, I'll make sure he gets better."

Sasuke looked away with a short huff. "Not like I was worried."

Naruto gave him a tolerant look. "Yeah, yeah. Okay, then, let's go terrorize the bushes and bandits, and shit." If he couldn't take care of Sakura right now, at least the rest of his team was where he could keep an eye on them.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow as Naruto crashed out of the trees followed by four Shadow Clones carrying two bandits between them. At least he assumed the pair were bandits; they were wearing enough pieced-together armor and knives for it, as far as he could tell under the coils of rope that nearly cocooned them from neck to knee.

Naruto was grinning hugely. "There! Now I'm ahead again!"

Kakashi stifled a smile behind his mask. "Sasuke came back with one more while you were gone. The two of you are even."

Naruto pouted indignantly (all five of him) and dumped the latest catch at the end of today's line. "Then I'm going to sweep the river next! I'll get lots more than him there!"

And he was gone.

Kakashi shook his head and marked his place with a finger, regarding Naruto's most recent contribution to the safety of Konoha's roads. A man and a woman, both fairly young looking though that might just be their dazed expressions. He picked up a pebble and flicked it up to hit Shikamaru, napping on a branch above him, on the ankle. "Shikamaru, you're the recorder for the day. Get statements from these two." Since this was, after all, nominally Shikamaru's patrol sector; best to keep the paperwork in order. He went back to his book as Shikamaru grumbled his way down the tree and slouched over to run through the formalities.

Most of the bandits Naruto and Sasuke's little competition had brought in had been too shocked by the speed of their abduction to even try lying about their business before it was too late. The five ninja from other villages they'd caught so far had been sent back for Interrogation to deal with.

"Someone should have thought of this sooner," Genma murmured lazily from under his own tree, one ankle propped on the opposite knee. "It's doing them good to take out their worry on something productive. Doing the patrols good, too; everyone was getting a little worn down covering both the short and long rotations while we get back up to strength. Good to have a little break while those two take over for a bit." He accepted one of the skewers of meat and vegetables Chouji had been carefully roasting for lunch and took a satisfied bite.

"Mmm," Kakashi agreed around his own very tasty mouthful. "And now I see why this year's patrol commander is hanging around in this sector."

"I visit all the sectors sooner or later." Genma grinned and licked a bit of savory sauce from the corner of his mouth. "I just take a little longer in Shikamaru's. An Akamichi's cooking is something to take a little time over, even in the field." He eyed the day's handful of bandits critically. "You might be moving on before I do, in fact. They haven't caught nearly as many today as they were bringing in two days ago. When you get to the next sector, remind whoever you send off to cover the one you're supposed to be in to relieve Hikaru and tell her where to join back up with Shikamaru."

"I'll make sure," Kakashi promised. He didn't actually want to disrupt the regular schedules of the other patrols, after all. Not more than was therapeutic, at least. Not more than would keep his team from fretting themselves and everyone around them to bits.

Not more than could be helped. For now.

He stared at his book, unseeing though his eyes traveled slowly over the lines. Another two weeks and he'd have completed his evaluation of the shinobi currently on patrol. He already had a list of a dozen or so who could be pulled off this duty without impairing their teams too badly, without showing too clearly that the Leaf was raising strength to attack someone. Soon.

They had the location of enough bases, now, to gut Hidden Sound if they had to, and Miuhara was confident Sakura could get them the last few. Soon they would have enough people gathered to get Sakura out of Orochimaru's main base, even against resistance. He could feel the tightening of nerves that said this operation was nearing its end, approaching whatever climax it would come to.

This had all been a lot easier when he was the one in the field, not his student.

Be safe, he told Sakura silently, turning another page. Stay smart. Let me have been right to teach undercover skills to you, of all my students. As he heard the rustle of someone dragging something large through the brush, again, he gave one last silent hope to the wind to carry away.

Let her come home safe.

End

A/N: Medical jargon in more than one country is characterized by a certain morbid humor and tendency to shorten by elision or acronyms. IMP and C/O come from US hospitals and stand for "impression [of what the problem is]" and "complaint of". AFS and NNS are original to the Naruto-verse and stand for, respectively, "Another Fucking Shinobi" and "Ninja Needing Sedation". In other words, "there's a typical shinobi at the front desk saying he's perfectly fine; I think he's full of it and may be about to snap, so bring the good drugs/knockout jutsu".

Actually, of course, those are translations, localizing the jargon for English speakers. The "original" terms are probably something more like:

AFS = ImaKuShi: Imahitotsu Kuso Shinobi (ã„ã¾ãã— or ã„ã¾ç³žå¿ in writing), "another shitty shinobi".

C/O = probably not shortened, since most of the words for "complaint", for example "fuhei", are already only two syllables and two simple characters.

IMP = Me: "eye" as in "looking at it" or "eyeballing it" (ã‚ or ç›® in writing).

NNS = NiChiNyuu: Ninja Chinsezai Nyuuyotte iru (ã«ã¡ã«ã‚…ã† or å¿éŽ®å…¥ in writing), essentially "ninja needing sedation".

Personally, I suspect there's a lot of hiragana used in ninja patient records, both to keep patients from snooping and for speed. back

Up on the Angel's Shoulders

Kakashi achieves the Mangekyou Sharingan, turning to his past to do it. His past visits him while he recovers. Takes place just after Chapter Seven of Half Without Another One and "And We'll Laugh About It". Angst, Drama, Angst, Fluff, Did I Mention Angst? Also Gore, I-5

Hatake Kakashi was known and feared through the five great countries and a dozen little ones. Sharingan Kakashi. The Copy Nin. The man who copied a thousand jutsu.

What no one seemed to remember was that Kakashi had graduated as a genin at five. Had passed his chuunin exam at six. And he had been jounin at thirteen, before he ever received the Sharingan.

Of course, that forgetfulness was mostly his own doing. The Sharingan's greatest single use to him was not expanded perception, or the ability to copy others' techniques, or even intimidation value. Its greatest use was as camouflage. No one had to wonder why the man with a thousand jutsu kept winning; the answer was self evident.

It was also wrong.

Kakashi was not a collector of jutsu. He was a scholar of them. He rarely used what he had copied except as a psychological ploy. Instead he studied them, looking for patterns among them, looking for the deeper answers to why one technique succeeded and another failed, looking for the weaknesses one could point out in another. Looking for the reasons and roots of chakra itself.

Right now he was sitting on the edge of his apartment building's roof, staring into the wind and thinking about the Sharingan.

Common knowledge, if a clan secret could be called such, said the Sharingan activated under great stress or emotion. Kakashi thought he saw a much more specific pattern than that, though. Of the three activations he had seen himself, all of them had been in the field. None of them had been triggered by fear for the Uchiha's own life. No, all three had been triggered by need, an absolute, driving need to protect, not themselves, but their fellows. To protect an emotional bond of great importance.

Really, it was no wonder the First had offered the Uchiha guardianship of the village itself; it was a purpose wedded perfectly to the nature of their bloodline. It was almost the mandate of their clan—always provided the bonds of the village were ones the Uchiha cared for. Some generations that worked out better than others.

That was a conclusion Kakashi had come to years ago, though. It wasn't what brought him up to the roof today. No, what brought him up to the wind and height, seeking perspective, was something new.

Something Sasuke had brought to him earlier that day.

"Kakashi-sensei." Sasuke stood at the foot of Kakashi's tree, looking up and frowning. "You know a lot about seals, right?"

Kakashi raised a brow. Not the usual kind of question from Sasuke, who liked direct attacks and large explosions almost as much as Naruto did. He dropped lightly to the ground beside his student, head cocked. "Quite a bit, yes. Though I should warn you right now, I'm not going to help the three of you break into the library at the Hokage's Residence, or the Records room at the academy."

Sasuke gave him a faintly annoyed look, but didn't rise further to the bait. Kakashi guessed it must be serious, whatever it was. Sasuke held out a scroll. "Is there a seal on this?"

"Hm." Kakashi took the scroll and unwrapped it's tie delicately. It was an old one, the paper dry and crackling under his fingertips. "Where is this from?"

"The Naka Shrine," Sasuke said quietly, eyes fixed on the scroll, and Kakashi's hands stilled for a moment. He'd only been an affiliate of the Uchiha clan, not formally adopted; he'd never taken part in most clan rituals. But he'd at least heard of a few, and the Naka Shrine was where the deepest and oldest had been held. Records from the shrine could only be clan secrets.

The thing was, he'd never actually told Sasuke he was affiliated with Uchiha. As far as Sasuke knew, he was asking an outsider to unseal a clan record.

"Sasuke," he said softly, "what is this about?"

Sasuke shifted under his eyes, fidgeting. Kakashi waited him out. "There's... a record tablet there," his student finally muttered. "It talks about the Sharingan. Itachi told me to find it, when he... left." Sasuke swallowed hard, hands fisting for a moment. When he went on his voice was a little ragged. "It's mounted, and the mounting is a box. There were three scrolls inside. I took them out, then, but I... I never read them."

"Probably a good decision, considering everything on your hands at the time," Kakashi murmured, when it seemed like Sasuke had run aground in his explanation. "Did something change your mind?"

"Jiraiya-san," Sasuke said to his feet. "He said... I mean... He was always making me think about clan things. Really think." He half-laughed. "I hated it. But this last mission." Finally, he looked up, and his eyes were haunted. "I need to know everything. What if we did something like that man in Hidden Stone did? The Mangekyou Sharingan is bad enough! What if there's worse?!"

Kakashi rested a hand on Sasuke's shoulder. "Easy, now." He waited for his student to take a good breath and asked, "What is it about the Mangekyou Sharingan that's so bad?" The way Sasuke was talking, he didn't think it was just that Itachi used it.

Sasuke chewed on his lip for a few moments. "It's..." His eyes slid away again, but not before Kakashi caught a flash of shame in them. "It's wakened by killing your closest friend."

Kakashi sucked in a sharp breath. Now he understood why their last mission, and the absolute betrayal of Stone's shinobi by one of their own researchers, had brought this back to Sasuke's mind. He spared a moment to hope, very hard, that the fact he'd never heard of the Mangekyou before Itachi returned meant that it was an aberration, that only a very few of his second clan had ever been tempted into that kind of depravity. No wonder Sasuke was so tense. All he said, though, was, "All right, let's see what this scroll can tell us." He unrolled it carefully.

It wasn't all that long and he skimmed through it quickly. Warning followed dire warning about the method of waking the Mangekyou Sharingan that Sasuke had mentioned; a handful of names were listed, renegades who had taken this path and been executed for it. The death of both soul and chakra were cited as consequences of attaining the Mangekyou that way.

It was all curiously vague, though, and his fingers tingled faintly with each turn he unrolled.

"Hmm." Kakashi traced his fingers over the back of the scroll thoughtfully. "I think you may be right; there's probably more information hidden in here. Well, there's always the obvious thing." He nudged up his forehead protector and looked with his Sharingan.

"I tried that," Sasuke said quietly. "It didn't change anything, though."

"Mmm." Nothing was changing, no, but Kakashi's eye itched just a little, the back-of-the-eyeball itch that he'd felt sometimes trying to look through something that had a barrier seal on it.

Or something that had a very strong genjutsu shielding it.

"The curious thing about the Sharingan, you know," Kakashi said, peering closer, "is that it's an extremely localized technique. No chakra touches the object of your vision unless you deliberately turn it outward; rather, an alteration to your own chakra and eye structure changes the nature of your perception. Your own chakra control has a great deal of impact on how deeply you can perceive through the Sharingan." Sasuke was frowning at him in puzzlement and just a little annoyance at this recitation of the basics, and Kakashi's mouth quirked. "Remind me to teach you this."

He sent his hands flashing through the forty-three hand seals of the focusing technique Kazuo-san, his tutor among the Uchiha, had taught him long ago, focusing his chakra pin-point tight until his vision telescoped and the scroll's characters burned in his sight.

Burned and divided. Sentence lay over sentence, on the scroll, each one in the overlay continued by the one beneath it in the underlay.

"I learned that because my chakra isn't completely compatible with this eye," he said, jaw clenched against the disorientation of reading two layers at once. "It isn't usually taught to beginners. It burns chakra faster, but it deepens your perception." He broke the technique with a short gasp, squeezing both eyes shut for a moment to clear his head. "You should read that yourself," he said at last, "but in short it details all the consequences of awakening and using the Mangekyou Sharingan, none of which are pleasant."

Sasuke's shoulders relaxed all at once from their tight line. "Nothing else?" he asked, relieved.

Kakashi re-rolled the scroll carefully and handed it back. "Nothing else." At least, it recorded no more demons in the Uchiha past. Fortunate, that. The ones already mentioned were bad enough. Sasuke held the scroll in both hands, head bowed, and nodded.

After a moment, though, he took a deep breath and looked up, chin set and determined, shrugging out of his demons' hold. "That technique you used. Teach it to me."

Kakashi smiled, quiet and proud behind his mask. "Of course."

Kakashi drew up a foot against the edge of the roof and folded his hands around his knee. He'd told Sasuke the truth. The scroll spoke of nothing but the Mangekyou and its consequences: madness, blindness, corruption, death. But there were little turns of phrase in how those warnings were given that kept coming back to him.

The scroll spoke of those consequences following the forbidden awakening.

Was there, perhaps, another way?

Three times, he had seen the Sharingan awakened by the need to protect an emotional bond. Not always a completely friendly bond; indeed, in two out of three, the bond had been downright adversarial. But each had been powerful and deeply meaningful.

The best known way to awaken the Mangekyou Sharingan appeared to be taking just such a bond and breaking it.

Madness, yes. But that pattern suggested something more to Kakashi's scholar's eye: not only madness but conflict. The tension of opposites. In the beginning, the user killed to protect what he loved. In the end, he killed what he loved and had bloodied his hands to protect. Tension like that could tear a heart in two.

Tear it open.

That, he thought, might just be the key. Any path to the Mangekyou Sharingan must tear open the heart, right down to the core, far deeper than the first awakening. That wasn't the kind of pain any sane person would court. It was, however, a pain that came to shinobi sometimes, sought for or not. It was a pain Kakashi had known himself.

Could that knowing serve his village?

His lips quirked as he came face to face with what he was thinking. No wonder he'd sought the roof today, and not the Memorial. This wasn't a decision Obito could help him with. Obito would almost certainly have told him he was an idiot to even consider it and that he needed to spend more time healing his poor, battered heart instead of cutting it open all over again. Obito would have had a good point. But, for all his passionate attempts to keep Obito's spirit alive in his actions, Kakashi's life and heart had always been dedicated to Konoha's service. That was what had led him to war, to ANBU, to teaching, of all things, in the end.

"I've already paid this price," he murmured to the wind, to Obito's memory. "If handing over the measure I got for it will buy more strength, protection for my people... I'll do it."

Idiot, he could hear Obito chide, but the memory of his teammate smiled crookedly, the way he'd smiled at Kakashi that last day when they'd finally worked together as one. Kakashi closed his eyes and smiled back, wry. The high wind over the village kicked up in a gust for a moment, ruffling his hair and curling down the back of his neck. Kakashi bent his head, reminded of another counter in his measure, one who would surely have had his own words to say about this plan. "Yes," he agreed softly. "Your student is still as reckless as always, Minato-sensei."

The wind sighed, but gently.

Kakashi sat in the middle of his apartment, table and cushions pushed back against the wall, paper spread over the floor mats to hold the rings and radials of the seal he'd drawn around himself. There was another on the door, a barrier. He didn't want to be disturbed, and he didn't want any neighbors to be injured if he lost control. He could have requested one of the sealed rooms under Intelligence, of course, but then he'd have had to say why. He wasn't at all sure he could explain, at least not in a way that wouldn't get him bundled off at once to whoever was doing operative evaluations this year, to have his head examined.

"I never claimed to be sane to begin with," he muttered to Minato-sensei's memory, as he knelt in the middle of his seal rings. He could almost see his teacher's disapproving look as he set a cloth weapons roll in front of his knees and slowly unrolled it. This one didn't protect kunai. Instead, each section held a memento—the dark ones he hid away and never looked at.

Kakashi took a slow breath, closing both eyes for a moment. Today his forehead protector, with the muffling seals stitched and etched into the underside, lay beside him; he could already feel the hum of chakra through his Sharingan, released of all restraints. One by one, he released the restraints he normally kept on his heart as well—the light humor that hid his ferocity, the careful distance from his fellows that hid his passionate attachments, the pretty books that distracted him from the blood and shadows of his work, the cool calculation that kept at bay his wild need to act. He released them all until the core was bared, blazing free.

Love. Guard. Protect. Whatever it takes.

Slowly, flinching, he reached out to rest his fingers on the first memento, the knife his father had killed himself with. A faint sound forced itself out of his throat as he let himself feel the full weight of conflicting need and reality, of his hot need to protect and the cold memory of death and failure, of his father's body still and lifeless and a pool of blood soaking into the tatami. It hurt, like steel claws in his stomach.

He forced himself to touch the next one. A scrap of Obito's jacket, stained at the edge with blood. He'd cut the scrap away just before they left him behind, bones crushed to fragments, half his organs burst under the falling stone, eye socket empty. The empty body of the teammate who'd admired him, railed at him, challenged him, not with jutsu but with his heart—they'd left him behind, the one who'd made him understand Minato-sensei's words, the one he could have loved if he'd only known sooner! Love. Protect. They wrenched against Dead. Lost. Kakashi hunched in on himself, teeth clenched as water gathered in his wide, staring eyes.

One after another, he touched them and made himself remember. Rin's forehead protector, scratched and bent from the ambush that had killed her on a routine relief mission he hadn't been there for. A charred bit of wood from where Uchiha Hiashi, the only one he'd been willing to call his clan head, had been found, surrounded by dead Cloud-nin, both his eyes pierced by his own hand. The long lock of silky black hair that Haruko, ANBU's Swallow, had left him, her captain, along with her note of forgiveness the night she'd hunted down her own cousin unflinchingly and then walked out into the dawn and into the river to drown. An embroidered Uchiha insignia that he'd taken from the shoulder of Mai's uniform when he'd found his sometime lover dead in the streets with the rest of the clan, guts sliced open and sprayed up the wall beside her, laughing eyes empty and staring at the dark sky. With each memory, he fanned all the wild fire of his love and urge to protect as if there were still something he could do, even as he held the mementos tight and reminded himself of reality, the chill of death in their flesh when he'd found them.

Finally, the last memento was under his shaking fingers. One of the marker tags from Minato-sensei's final battle, edges torn and charred. Memory stabbed at him, of coming too late, far too late, of arriving only to see the Third straightening Minato-sensei's limbs and brushing blank, staring blue eyes closed. He'd been too late, followed too slowly when the Nine-tails turned away from the village and he'd seen flickers of Minato-sensei's chakra in the distance. He'd failed. Failed to protect his teacher, his Hokage, the one he loved and had sworn in his heart to serve with his life. The one he'd needed, above all, to guard.

Memory piled on memory, of love on love and death on death, and he clung tight to his burning need to protect over against the stony chill of failure until they both screamed in his mind and heart, shrieked and howled with all the fire and grief that was in him and the fragment of mind left sensible wondered if this was madness. Red darkness clouded his vision.

And broke.

The very air stilled and brightened around him. He could see every current of it and every dust mote, every thread of wood grain and every fiber of straw. Drawn to the snapping point between the two poles of need and reality, his chakra shifted and his Sharingan answered. Here was strength to serve his need, to break reality if need be.

The world warped around him.

The next thing Kakashi was aware of was someone banging fast and hard on his door.

"Kakashi?! Kakashi! Open this fucking door and let me in or I'll blow it in, I swear I will! What the fuck is going on?! Kakashi?"

Anko. Of course. He tried to speak, to reassure her that everything was fine and there was no need for property damage, and only managed to cough in a very raw throat. He noticed he was flat on his back, too, looking up at his ceiling. Maybe he could get up and go to the door, where he wouldn't have to speak as loudly. Yes, that was a good idea. Only he didn't seem to be able to move much. Kakashi frowned to himself, considering this dilemma.

"Kakashi!" The door burst inward, barrier seal smoking and shredding under the force of Anko's kick. She stopped short just inside, eyes widening. "Sweet demons fucking, what did you do?!" She swooped down on him, heaving him efficiently upright, hands moving fast in an ungentle damage check. Kakashi's eyes widened as he saw the mess in the middle of his room. The paper of his containment seals was shredded and there was a hole or a crater in his floor, where he'd been sitting.

The mementos were gone.

"New technique," he managed to rasp, leaning on Anko's shoulder heavily. "Stronger than expected."

"I'll say it fucking was!" Anko glared at him. "Why the hell are you experimenting with new jutsu in our apartment building and not—" Abruptly she broke off, staring at him. No. At his eye. "Kakashi-san," she said, low and sharp, "what did you do?"

He grinned wryly behind his mask. "Clan secret."

She frowned, but didn't argue. Anko always had been serious in the field. "I'm getting you down to the medics. Hospital or Intelligence?"

"Neither." As her frown turned darker, he sighed. "Shizune first." He didn't want news of this going any further than was absolutely necessary. He saw comprehension in Anko's eyes, even though her mouth was still tight and disapproving.

"Fine." She propped him roughly against his table and hunted through the shredded paper until she came up with his forehead protector. Both of them eyed the end of the band that had been cut or torn away. "Other end doesn't seem to be here," Anko observed flatly.

Kakashi smiled. "Interesting."

Anko glowered at him and clapped it over his left eye. "Tie that. I'll be right back." In the doorway, she glanced back over her shoulder and added, quietly. "You'd better know what you're doing. I don't think we can afford to lose you right now."

Kakashi knotted the band clumsily as she propped his door shut behind her. His fingers were shaking. Chakra drain, he judged, feeling the chill of his extremities—not completely incapacitating, but he was undoubtedly in for a little bed rest. Well, maybe he wouldn't argue too hard. Once Shizune and Tsunade were both done yelling at him for taking stupid risks, he figured they could all keep busy talking over this destructive or warping ability he seemed to have gained.

Part of him hoped they'd take a while yelling, though, because his heart was shaking worse than his hands. He felt wrung out, scoured, but still vibrating with an edge like a combat high. Part of him felt stricken, bruised, that those mementos had probably been destroyed. Another part of him felt settled, contented that they had been lost in this way and for this cause, as though they were a suitable price. At the same time, he felt numbed, as if he'd burned the memories out by focusing on them so hard. He still remembered; there was still pain. It was just the bloodletting edge that felt a little dulled. He didn't know whether that was a relief or a betrayal of his loved ones.

"Was it the right thing to do, sensei?" he asked thin air, softly.

In answer, the door banged open again and Tsunade herself strode through it with Anko shadowing her. "What the hell did you do to yourself this time, brat?" she demanded, hands on her hips.

The breeze from the swinging door ruffled through his hair like light fingers, and Kakashi bent his head into it for one moment, yearning with all his torn heart for the lost touch of his teacher's guidance and forgiveness. And then he looked up at his current Hokage with the most insouciant expression he could manage.

"Well, there was this scroll..."

Kakashi drifted up out of sleep to the feeling of fingers carding through his hair.

"That was an extremely foolish thing you just did," Minato-sensei said quietly.

"Mm. Had to," Kakashi murmured, sleepy but stubborn. Minato-sensei's sigh was familiar.

"You did not have to, but I don't expect you to admit that." He could nearly hear the quirk of his teacher's mouth. "Not out loud, at any rate."

Kakashi turned on his side and curled up against Minato-sensei's knee, the same way he'd hidden from and silently apologized for reprimands so long ago. So many years since he'd done it last, since he'd heard Minato-sensei's soft huff of amusement or felt gentle fingers tugging on his hair in answer. So long.

Wait.

Kakashi slowly opened his eyes and stared up at the man sitting beside him on his hospital bed. It really was Minato-sensei, long pale coat folded and crushed under his thigh, smiling a little at his shock as Kakashi leaned up on one elbow. "What..." he managed, raspy and harsh.

Familiar blue eyes were sober. "You tore your chakra, Kakashi-kun, right down to the root. The damage is echoing in both your body and spirit. Tsunade-san is wise to keep you under observation, here." A small smile, quiet but bright as anyone else's laugh. "But it does mean you'll be far more sensitive to the presence of spirits for a time, so I took the opportunity to scold you in person."

"You're... really here?" Kakashi whispered, shaky. "I'm not... I mean..." Of course, years in the field reminded him, if this was a dream or hallucination, it was perfectly capable of telling him it wasn't, so nothing was proved. In fact, he told himself sternly, bracing for the inevitable disappointment, any claim of being real should probably be taken as evidence that this was a figment of his own pain and imagination.

Minato-sensei leaned back against the wall beside Kakashi's flat hospital pillow, crossing his arms. "Define 'really'." Kakashi choked on a disbelieving laugh at that, and his teacher smiled, eyes glinting like he knew exactly what Kakashi had been thinking. "I'm as here as I've always been. And you are... not exactly dreaming."

That was not the answer he'd expect from a dream, no. It was definitely a Minato-sensei original. But then... "Why have you stayed?" Kakashi demanded. "How have you stayed?" None of the Hokage were in-shrined; the First had forbidden it, saying that no one who dirtied his hands and conscience with the things a good village leader had to do should ever be venerated.

"The Hokage Monument makes a very good shintai, actually," Minato-sensei observed lightly. "There are even offerings left there, sometimes, by those who feel too soiled to stand on purified ground in the shrines. As for why..." He looked down at Kakashi, eyes level. "Do you really have to ask that?"

Kakashi's eyes fell. "I suppose not," he said softly. The Monument. Which meant that Naruto had been clambering all over his father's actual face and painting it new and interesting colors; Kakashi wasn't sure whether that was unbearably sad or incredibly funny.

Wait. Naruto. He looked up again sharply. "Minato-sensei, if you're still here why haven't you spoken to Naruto?" Surely the village's host was spirit-touched enough to hear.

Minato-sensei slumped a little against the wall, sighing. "I wish I could. But the Nine-tails holds more than a bit of a grudge and drowns me out whenever I come too near." Sadly, he added, "I can't even really blame him."

As badly as his own heart ached tonight, Kakashi couldn't bring himself to press further against the darkness in his teacher's eyes. "I'm sorry."

Minato-sensei gave him that small, true smile again, and warmth curled through Kakashi. He'd cherished that look for as long as he'd known Minato-sensei, very nearly living from smile to smile and hoarding the reassurance and approval in them.

And then he'd lost them.

Abruptly his eyes were wet and he hastily flopped down again, turning his head a little into the pillow to blot them.

"Kakashi." Minato-sensei's fingers brushed his hair again, stroking through it gently. "I haven't left you. No matter how my most bullheaded student has infuriated or terrified me over the years, I haven't left you."

"I couldn't... I wasn't in time..." Kakashi started into his pillow, thick and choked, and his teacher's hand closed on his nape and gave him a light shake.

"Enough of that," Minato-sensei told him firmly. "It wasn't your job to save me. You didn't fail."

"But," Kakashi started, stubbornness waking again. He'd been a jounin already, surely it had been his job to support his Hokage! And then he gasped softly as Minato-sensei's hand tightened a little, strong and warm on the back of his neck.

"You did not fail." That was his Hokage's voice as well as his teacher's, and Kakashi subsided, just a little daunted, as always, by Minato-sensei's rare sternness.

"Yes, Minato-sensei," he murmured, lying quiet as that insistent absolution settled into his heart.

"Better." His teacher's hand was gentle again, stroking his hair. "Sleep now, Kakashi. Rest. Heal up from doing such a damn foolish thing."

Kakashi's cheeks were just a little hot. "Yes, Minato-sensei." He curled back up against his teacher's knee, and heard Minato-sensei's soft chuckle. Slowly his eyes did slide closed under the steady stroke of Minato-sensei's fingers through his hair.

"Remember," Minato-sensei's voice said quietly as he drifted back down. "It wasn't your fault or failure. None of it was."

When Kakashi opened his eyes again it was daylight, and there was no one sitting beside him. No sign anyone ever had been.

But his heart didn't hurt as much.

End

A/N: Looking at the scene with that record tablet, it doesn't look like there's room for much detailed information on it, even in two or three layers; I'm assuming that it's actually just the summary, what was written by the first generation to deal with the Mangekyou. Other information was added later in the form of those scrolls tucked away inside/behind the tablet.

It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Nine

Sakura has to debrief and deal with the backlash of her time at Orochimaru's side. Fortunately, Naruto and Sasuke are there for her. Once that settles, though, Tsunade has to deal with the resistance of the Elders to promoting the three of them. Drama, Angst, Fluff, I-5

"All right," Kimiko, Sakura's attending Intelligence medic, declared, handing her back her shirt. "You're clear. No seals or techniques that would turn you, no sleepers that I can find, and you're impressively healed from Heart In a Net considering that you just about ripped it out by the roots. Have I mentioned how stupid that was?"

"This is the fifth time," Sakura sighed as she ducked her head through her shirt collar.

"Remember it," Kimiko directed firmly. "Hokage-sama?"

"Mmm." Tsunade frowned at her, arms crossed. "I still don't like that new seal of yours. It could kill you far too easily. By all rights it should be named a forbidden technique."

Sakura made a face. "Do you want to try to take it off?" She really didn't look forward to that at all. Besides... well, never mind.

"No, I suppose not." Sakura tried to ignore her leap of pleasure at those words as Tsunade ran a diagnostic palm over her shoulders again. "The surgery to sink this into you was very thorough, and getting it out would be even chancier than taking off that one of Sasuke's. Besides," her lips quirked, "you don't want to let it go, do you?"

Sakura winced a little. "It's not... I mean, it's just..."

Tsunade laid a hand on her shoulder. "Sakura. It's all right to like being strong, you know. That's what makes us all keep moving forward. You've demonstrated pretty conclusively that you want that strength to protect the village. I'm not worried."

Sakura bent her head. "Thank you, Tsunade-sama," she said softly, feeling another small band of fear loosen from around her chest. She looked up with a tiny smile. "You heal hearts too, I guess."

"Ah, go on with you." Tsunade gave her a little shove. "If Kimiko's cleared you, you're ready for the fun part." Both medics gave her alarmingly cheerful and toothy smiles and chorused, "Paperwork!"

Sakura contemplated this with a sinking stomach. "...you're sure you don't want to poke at the seal a little more?"

...It was at this point that I first started acting as a mission commander for a variety of Sound ninja, both genin and chuunin. I suspected, after the first two missions with entirely different teams, that Orochimaru was using my own experience to help train the Sound-nin to a higher standard; most of them did not possess the sophistication or training one would expect from an established village and tended to rely too heavily on their martial skills alone.

Sakura put her pen down and shook out her hand vigorously. In some ways, this was an easy section, a lot easier than putting her sparring with Kabuto into words. And then, in some ways, it might be the hardest. She had liked most of her teams, at least once she'd kicked a few asses and they knew to take her seriously. She thought most of them had liked and respected her, in the end. After all, she'd helped them. She'd made the missions a success and pointed them in a professional direction.

And she'd also killed their leader. If she ever met them again, they'd be completely within their rights, under the loose accords of the villages, to kill her. They might well try.

The part that actually troubled her was that she didn't mind too much. She didn't like the thought; she'd like it a lot better if they all decided that Orochimaru had been a sucking leech of a madman and they were all better off without him! But if the Sound shinobi, many of whom had never lived in Orochimaru's personal base or seen his madness first hand, chose to blame her and seek revenge... well, that was their choice. She'd live with it.

And she could still look back and feel that she'd done a good job both ways: placing herself to kill Orochimaru after getting all the information about Sound that she could, and also doing her professional best to lead and improve the Sound shinobi under her command. She was... proud of them. Proud, even, of the skills they might be about to turn on her.

She was starting to wonder if this was what people really meant when they talked about Intelligence and twiddled a finger knowingly next to their temples.

Sakura took her chair in the incongruously bright, warm debriefing room in the basement of the Intelligence complex. She folded her arms tight over her stomach, and waited for today's first question.

"First of all, Haruno, are you sure you want Hatake Kakashi to be here for today's work?" Miuhara asked her as he pulled up his own chair on the other side of the table. "I know he was your jounin-sensei, but I have to tell you he can be pretty brutal when he's doing Intelligence work."

Sakura managed a small smile. "He could be pretty brutal as a teacher, too. I'm sure." She trusted Kakashi-sensei's judgment, and right now she felt very in need of some extra, trustable judgment. She was starting to doubt her own.

"All right then." Miuhara nodded and Kakashi-sensei propped himself quietly against the soft yellow wall just behind her shoulder and out of her sight. Typical, Sakura thought with irritated affection.

Miuhara was paging through the thick folder of her report, but it was her other debriefer, Hitomi, who asked, "So about Kabuto. You said he was acting for his own purposes all along; do you think he's going to take Sound for his own, now?"

Sakura shook her head, unhesitating. "No. I don't think he has any interest in leading or ruling, himself."

"What is he interested in, then? Research, like Orochimaru?"

Slowly, trying to put months of observations together, Sakura said, "The game. I think... I think that's all he really cares about. I think that's why he really stayed with Orochimaru, because Orochimaru played it too."

"Hmm." Miuhara frowned down at a page. "You said he defended Orochimaru without hesitation, at risk of his life, and yet was working against him the whole time."

"Yes. That's it exactly." Sakura leaned forward, chasing the thought, trying to make sense for herself as well as for them. "I think that was the challenge he set for himself. To do everything Orochimaru wanted of him, to protect him even, and still successfully betray him in the end."

Softly, Hitomi asked, "Like you did? Was that why you felt such a connection with him?"

Sakura flinched. "I..." She was quiet for a long breath, and finally whispered, "Yes."

"Was that any part in your reasoning, when you let him go?" Miuhara asked neutrally.

"No." That answer came to her quickly, surely, and she raised her head again. "No. That was plain calculation. I was running out of time, and if he could take me hostage he'd have a very strong position against Naruto and Sasuke. He offered something we wanted, too, and that tipped the balance."

Miuhara nodded. "Good. Now, you just said that Orochimaru played the game, too. In your report, you emphasized his implication, on dying, that he had never assumed you were loyal until very near the end. Can you expand on that?"

Sakura's arms tightened. "In retrospect, it's very clear," she said a little stiffly. "He probably always assumed I was an agent for Konoha. He... lured me. He showed approval for my apparent self-interest and eventually gave me a technique that is both very strong and does not control me. That seems contradictory, but all during the research process he was offering me bait. Leadership of teams; the respect of the Sound shinobi, especially as he appeared to trust me at his side; approval for every time I pushed back against him and for my planning abilities; my... my name."

"Your name?" Hitomi murmured, eyes sharp over her folded hands.

"He didn't call me by name, for a long time. It was always 'kunoichi'. But when..." she had to swallow, "when I demanded more tests on the last version of the seal, more tests on other people, because I knew it would give me more time to gather intelligence on the bases, then he called me by name."

"And if he thought all along you were an agent of Konoha," Miuhara completed her logic coolly, "it follows that he was seeking to draw you into just that position, where you would be complicit with his atrocities. And he rewarded you for it."

"Yes," Sakura whispered, arms curling tighter. "And it worked."

"How so?" Miuhara asked, perfectly calm. "Do you have any intention of performing that kind of forbidden experiment?"

"Not that," she said roughly. "But I liked it! Even knowing what he was, what he was doing, when he recognized me, I felt..." She ran out of words and clenched her hands, frustrated.

Kakashi stirred against the wall. "You created your cover out of a part of yourself you don't usually show or let run free," he said quietly. "And Orochimaru saw that part and understood it, and showed approval for it." He paused and added, lower, "And that part of you meant it when you swore loyalty to him and to Sound."

"Yes." Sakura was curled in so tightly now she was bent over her knees, hot, furious tears dripping onto the fabric of her pants.

"Do you believe you will betray the Leaf?" Hitomi asked.

"No," Sakura said, rough and tight, but sure of that at least.

"Do you believe you would have stayed with him if he had not continued to seek Uchiha Sasuke's life?" Miuhara asked, gently.

That one froze Sakura for long, tight breaths. "I... in the Net... in the Net, yes," she whispered at last, shaking, eyes fixed on her knees, wide and blind. She covered her face with her hands and shuddered, breath choking in her chest.

Warm, strong hands settled on her shoulders. "And if someone had come to release the Net for you?" Kakashi-sensei asked, matter-of-fact.

Sakura clenched her hands together and pressed them to her chest, to her heart, biting her lip hard. She remembered the way Sasuke and Naruto had taken care of her that first night, the way they still showed up every day, to walk her home from Intelligence or to train with her after dinner. She felt the sureness, down at the bottom of her heart, that had driven her hand through Orochimaru's chest, and finally she whispered, "If someone had released me... if my team had come for me... I would have come back." She looked up at Miuhara and Hitomi, sitting quiet and unjudging at the table, and took a long, trembling breath. "Yes."

Miuhara smiled. "I'm glad. Let's take a break, then. We can continue when you're ready."

Sakura nodded and stood, though she needed Kakashi-sensei's hand under her elbow for a moment to keep from falling over again, and went to wash her face.

Sasuke leaned against the tree across from the front doors of Intelligence, waiting for Sakura. Naruto had walked her home yesterday and he'd been scowling when he came to see Sasuke after. He'd said she looked like someone had dipped her in bleach and wrung her out. Sasuke had asked how Naruto knew anything about bleach, considering the condition of his apartment, and promised to wait for her today.

Whatever was going on with her, he needed to see.

So he waited, nodding silently to the occasional greetings of other shinobi as they emerged or entered. Both he and Naruto were becoming familiar sights, he supposed. Well enough; they were Sakura's team, and the other agents might as well get used to them now.

He was starting to wonder if this was exactly how Kakashi had become so fanatical about teamwork and supporting team members. Had he lost someone, or had someone lost part of themselves, for his sake?

When Sakura finally came out the doors, he straightened up frowning. Naruto was right; she looked washed out and exhausted, and he found himself hurrying to her side to put a hand under her arm. "Hey. Are you all right?" He frowned more darkly at the building she'd just come out of. "What are they doing to you?"

The smile Sakura gave him was a little shaky, but it looked true, and she put a hand on his arm. "It's okay, Sasuke. It's... well, it's not fun, I won't lie, but it's helping me. In the long run. Like training really hard," she added, when he continued frowning.

His brows rose at that. "Training, huh?" He didn't let go, but he did turn and walk quietly beside her.

"Kind of." She walked slowly, slower than he liked to see, and as they started coming into busier streets he glared people out of her way with no compunctions. Sakura barely seemed to notice, and he wasn't sure if that was good or bad. At last she said, softly, "He really messed with my head, you know. By the end. Partly because I was already under a technique to help me think and react... skewed. Like I resented you and Naruto, like we'd never come together as a real team. But also because he really was scarily good at that." She looked up at him, eyes dark. "You know."

He remembered years of solitary rage and desperation, and the few months when that desperation had been fed, tantalized with the promise of fulfillment and rest. And he shuddered. "I know."

"So, it isn't fun to talk about, and have Miuhara-san and Hitomi-san pick apart everything I did and heard and saw. But it helps. It helps me figure out how I really think and feel, so no one will be able to do that to me again. Or, at least, not so easily." Her shoulders straightened and her chin lifted a little at that, more the Sakura he knew.

"Okay. I guess I can see that." He looked down at her as they turned onto her own street. "Can we help?"

Her smile broke out like sunshine. "You already do. I promise."

They stopped at her door and he said, quietly. "You... you did this for me." Trying to find words to express his astonishment and fear and frustration, seeing the price she'd paid, he finally burst out with, "Why?"

Sakura's smile turned bright and sharp as a knife. "Because you're mine," she said, making him blink, and added, softer, "You're ours. That's all."

Theirs. Hers and Naruto's. And because of that, she would do this thing and think almost nothing of it. Sasuke shook his head, helplessly. How was he supposed to make sense out of that? Only family did things like that.

The thought echoed in his head, and he flinched from it.

Sasuke swallowed, staring down at her blindly. He had no family. His family was gone. His whole clan. He had nothing left but the madman who killed them all, and that was why... why everything. But Sakura would do this for him. Naruto, who argued with him by reflex, like breathing, Naruto would, he was certain, say the same. And look at him like he was an idiot for questioning it, into the bargain. They were...

They were his team! He shook his head violently. They were his team, that was all. That was why. Team, like Kakashi-sensei always said. (Family dies. Not family.)

"Sasuke? Hey, Sasuke?" Sakura frowned and poked him in the arm. "Did you skip lunch today or something?"

"No," he muttered, "I... I just..." He swallowed down a rush of queasiness, of almost-fear. There was nothing to be afraid of; they were his team. "Never mind." He hesitated. "Sakura..."

"Hm?" She cocked her head, eyes clear and patient.

Ignoring the sudden stares of the civilians around them, he stepped forward and gathered her up, holding her tightly. "Thank you," he whispered against her ear. "For... everything."

After a startled moment, she hugged him back, just as tight. "You're welcome. Always." She pulled back a little and smiled, softly. "And thank you, too. I don't think you know for how much."

"Maybe I know a little." He let her go, hands sliding down her arms. "So. More talking about it tomorrow?"

She made a face and nodded.

"Okay. We'll wait for you again tomorrow, then." He waited until she was safely inside before taking to the roofs to head back to his own apartment.

Sakura stood in her underwear with her hands on her hips, staring at the clothes tossed over her dresser. It was obvious once you looked at them, piled layer on layer.

She'd worn a completely different outfit every day this week. One day her old red tunic and snug shorts. Another, her actual chuunin uniform. A third her black pants from Sound and her net shirt. Yet another, a dress she barely remembered buying before she left. She'd cycled through one after another, as if her clothes could tell her who she was now, and never even realized it.

Kakashi-sensei was probably laughing.

All right. This wasn't a question she could answer by random dips into her wardrobe. It was something she had to decide. Who did she want to be? And what did that person want to wear today?

Slowly, she sorted and folded her clothes. It was easy to hang up her dresses. That hadn't ever really been her day to day style. After a moment of hesitation she folded away her red tunics and blouses also. They were bright and cheerful and... too young. Too young for how she felt now. Her hands clenched in her black Sound clothes as she folded them and she had to stop and bite her lip and remind herself of the things she'd come to understand about herself in the past week. This was part of her, yes. But only part. Still, her fingers lingered on her black leather vest. It zipped down the front, the same as many of her tunics did. She'd never quite seen that before.

She laid the vest on the bed. Perhaps... perhaps this was something she would keep. A reminder that, even as deep under as she'd gone, she'd still found a tiny connection to keep. She'd still known who she was, at the very heart.

And who she was was a shinobi of the Leaf. She knew more of what that meant, now, and she wouldn't turn away from it. This was her calling. Thoughtfully, she pulled out her Leaf uniform pants and laid them on the bed too, looking at the combination.

That might do.

She dressed, wrapping her calves snugly and pulling on her sandals, and tied her forehead protector. When she took a breath and turned to look in the mirror, she smiled. That looked like someone she knew. Like a self she knew.

There was still something, though.

After a moment's thought, she reached up and tugged at a strand of hair. It was cut at her shoulders these days. It was attractive enough, and easy to care for. But right now she was remembering when it had been even shorter, a time when that had been her mark of determination. Perhaps that would be right to have again, now. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she was just being silly or overthinking this, but... all of them had changed over time, hadn't they? Outward signs of inward changes. Naruto wore black or blue, these days, aside from the ever-orange jacket. Sasuke had slowly left off wearing his high-necked shirts and started wearing wrapped tops, that and a belt that hid more shuriken than the local weapons shop. Naruto had teased him about stealing from Tsunade-sama's closet until Sasuke had rolled his eyes and pointed out a few essential differences in fit across the chest.

Looked at that way, Sakura was actually behind on her changes. She nodded firmly to herself in the mirror and hopped out her window, heading for Ino's house. And just because she was in an impish mood, she snuck up behind Ino silently, in the flower shop, and tapped her on the shoulder. "Hey."

Ino jumped and spun, lifting the scissors she'd just been cutting ribbon with, poised to slash or stab. Sakura grinned. "Tense today?"

"Sakura!" Ino exhaled explosively, lowering the scissors. "Don't do that!" She paused and frowned. "Since when did you get that good at stealth?"

Sakura's mouth twisted. "This last mission. It was... kind of intense."

Ino's eyes darkened and she nodded silently. Ino had entered Intelligence, too; Sakura didn't have to say anything else, and Ino wouldn't press for details. Sakura inhaled, relaxing into her friend's understanding. "So, hey. I want to get a haircut; what's the best place to go to, these days?"

"Still Kitagawa's," Ino said promptly. "Thinking of a new style?"

"Yeah." Sakura smiled a little wryly, running a hand through her hair. "I just want something a little different. Shorter, I think."

"Hmm." Ino eyed her steadily for a moment. "Okay. Let me tell Tou-san, and I'll come along and introduce you."

Sakura smiled more naturally. "Thanks, Ino."

Ino escorted her through the streets, keeping just a hair ahead, passing on gossip with plenty of expansive gestures that kept the other people around them at a little distance. Ino really was pretty perceptive, Sakura reflected; she was a kind and good friend.

Of course, Ino was also an insufferable know-it-all, and, once they were at the hair-dresser's, engaged Mie-san, the senior stylist, in a long discussion over the pros and cons of different styles for Sakura's face shape and hair texture. Sakura shook her head wryly and cut in. "I just want something very short and easy to take care of," she said firmly. "Nothing I have to spend a long time on in the morning. Something that looks good even if I slept in a tree the night before and finger combed it when I got up."

"Ah, a working hairstyle." Mie-san sounded a shade disappointed, but her eyes also gleamed at the prospect of a challenge. "Well, now, let me see."

Sakura suffered herself to be washed and conditioned and turned this way and that while Mie-san muttered over her hair. Eventually the clippers came out, and there was more muttering and snipping here and there, and hand-long hanks of silky pink hair, dark with water, started to fall around the chair. Eventually there was a reassuringly small bit of blow-drying and some reassuringly basic brushing, and Mie-san whisked her towel away. "There! What do you think?"

Sakura stood and looked in the mirror. Her hair was short, a soft mop of flyaway strands with unpredictable waves and flips here and there. "Does it really do that?" she marveled, running a hand through it.

"Oh yes. Your hair has surprising body for such a fine texture, especially if you don't blow-dry it."

Sakura smiled, standing straight. She looked like someone confident. Someone who knew who she was. For the first time in a long time, longer than eight months she thought, her outside felt like it matched her inside.

She really had fallen behind on her changes.

"I like it very much," she said softly. "Thank you."

"It suits you," Ino offered, head cocked. "I wouldn't have thought it, but it does."

A style she had chosen for herself, rather than listening to what other people thought was pretty. Sakura grinned. "Yeah. It does, doesn't it?"

A summons came for her team five days later. It directed them, not to the mission room or even the Hokage's office, but a room on the ground floor of the Hokage Residence. They gathered outside it, glancing questioningly at each other, but before anyone got up the guts to suggest just going in, a vision in long pale robes came sweeping down the hall to meet them.

Sakura stared at the Hokage, and the boys stared with her. She'd never actually seen Tsunade in her formal robes before.

"Tsunade-baachan?" Naruto sounded just as startled as she felt. "Why are you all got up like that? And why did we have to wear our uniforms?"

Tsunade sighed and waved them into the room, kicking her robes out of her way as she walked. "We have a bit of a situation."

The room looked like an extremely formal version of her office, wood paneled and hung with banners, with a huge desk in front of what was nearly a throne, and sumptuous chairs set out before it. Other people were there ahead of them, and Sakura's eyes widened further as she realized that half of Tsunade's council was here—all three of the Elders. But not the ANBU or Jounin Commanders or the clan heads. So this is important, but she doesn't want to give it too much weight. Her eyes narrowed. "Tsunade-sama? Who are you receiving?"

Tsunade settled herself at the throne-desk and smiled tightly at her. "The Daimyou of Sound Country."

Sakura's breath drew in sharply, and she was glad when Naruto and Sasuke closed in at her shoulders. "Why?" Sasuke growled, sounding more like Naruto for a moment than himself.

The Elders stirred and gave the three of them dour looks, but Tsunade's mouth just quirked. "Take it easy, we're not giving Sakura up to them or anything."

Relief flooded through her, but Sakura couldn't help asking, "Why not? If it's required for the village to save face..." The Elders were giving her slightly more approving looks, now.

"Orochimaru was our criminal," Tsunade declared firmly. "Our claim on his life had priority. So." She beckoned. "Sakura, come stand here beside me and look as calm as possible. You two," she pointed to the boys, "stand at the door and make like guards and keep your mouths shut."

Only a few moments after everyone sorted themselves out, a small bell by the wall rang. "Here they come," Tsunade murmured, straightening and folding her hands on the desk before her.

The Daimyou that Shizune escorted in was accompanied by two shinobi of Sound, and Sakura had to bite her lip to keep from twitching when she recognized them. One of them was Tomita, and the look of betrayal he gave her before fixing his gaze firmly on the wall twisted her heart. There was no other way, she wanted to explain. I never wanted to hurt any of you.

But she couldn't say that here and now. Might not ever be able to say it. So she took a breath and fixed her eyes in turn on Naruto and Sasuke. She was deeply grateful to Tsunade-sama's foresight for putting them there, the reminder of why it had needed to be done in the first place.

The Daimyou barely let Tsunade get her greeting out before he interrupted. "Hokage! You have sent shinobi of the Leaf to attack my country and kill the leader of my hidden village! What do you have to say for yourself, in face of this?"

Tsunade raised her brows, and suddenly it wasn't at all hard to believe that she was older than the man in front of her. "I sent my shinobi to execute a criminal of our own village. I regret any inconvenience this may have caused you, but if you harbor such creatures I'm afraid you must be prepared for a certain amount of inconvenience." As the Daimyou drew breath to respond, she held out a hand to Shizune, who placed a folder in it. "For example," Tsunade cut over his first syllable, "in searching Orochimaru's bases for any of our citizens he may have taken, we discovered quite a few of your citizens. Some we released before they could be harmed, but some, I regret to say, had already fallen prey to Orochimaru's experiments." She laid out three large, glossy photos on her desk and pushed them across to the Daimyou with delicate fingertips, as if she didn't want to touch them too much. Sakura could guess what was in them, and didn't blame her.

The Daimyou, after one look, turned pale and pressed his sleeve over his mouth.

"Perhaps," Tsunade said softly, "you were not entirely aware of Orochimaru's propensities for this kind of thing."

"I... no, I never..." the Daimyou stammered, horrified eyes locked on the images. "Those were really...?"

"Considering that he did not limit himself to missing-nin but captured shinobi in good standing from other villages, as well," Tsunade noted coolly, "I believe you are fortunate that we got there first, and with a tightly targeted assassination rather than a general attack that might have decimated your village as a whole."

The Daimyou swallowed and rallied a bit. "Tightly targeted!" He pointed at Sakura, "That woman had her fingers in just about every Sound mission for half a year!"

Sakura felt she had the rhythm of this down by now. She tightened her clasped hands behind her and ventured to answer for herself. "My only target was Orochimaru, my lord. The other work I did, I did to the best of my ability and in good faith." She cocked her head, actually starting to enjoy this. "Are you displeased that the capital's mayor is no longer conspiring with the capital's criminals? Or that the lord of Kouzen is no longer—"

"Enough, enough," he cut her off hastily. Sakura inclined her head and continued to look politely inquiring. Beside her, Tsunade coughed into her fist, clearly fighting laughter.

The Daimyou harumphed and glowered. But after a few moments, the glare faded and he gave Sakura a more thoughtful look. "So," he said slowly. "You say that you don't wish to damage my country, or destabilize it. Wise of you, considering the border we share with Fire. But the fact remains, my hidden village is now missing a leader."

"We do regret that necessity," Tsunade-sama allowed, hands folded immovably again.

The Daimyou smiled. "Then you should have no objections to making a good-will gesture that will fix the problem." He pointed to Sakura again. "Give me her, to be the new Master of Hidden Sound."

Stunned silence held the room for a breath and Sakura had to bite her lip again to keep from squeaking with shock.

"An interesting proposal," Tsunade said at last, slowly. "I take it you were, in fact, satisfied with Sakura's work? Aside from her mission of execution, of course?"

The Daimyou flicked his fingers at the photos with distaste. "Even that would appear to have been in the country's interest."

Tsunade looked up at Sakura and said quietly, "I won't make it an order. This is too heavy a job for anyone but a volunteer; I should know. But if you wish to accept it, then you may."

A dozen thoughts spun through Sakura's mind: her pleasure at the respect of the Sound-nin, the betrayal in Tomita's eyes, the utter mess that the village and bases must be now, the potential for an alliance that would strengthen Leaf, the fact that she would have to stop thinking like that and shift her allegiance...

Her eyes fell on Naruto and Sasuke, and the spinning stopped.

She took a breath and met the Daimyou's gaze. "I'm sorry, my lord. I don't believe I could serve Sound with my whole heart." Logic, lagging behind today, finally kicked in and she added, "I'm not at all sure it would serve you best to have two Masters in a row come from the Fire Country, either. It would set a bad precedent, and I fear the shinobi of Sound would always have to doubt my true allegiance. Especially after their experiences with Orochimaru." She lifted one hand, palm up. "May I suggest, instead, appointing Naridasu Katsuhito? He is the most professional of Sound's jounin, and I believe he would do well for the village." He was certainly the one who had seemed to be hiding the most distaste for Orochimaru's 'research'. Since the Daimyou was looking disgruntled, she offered, "If you do wish to permit an alliance between Sound and Leaf, I would be entirely glad to aid in training your chuunin and genin further. I'm sure any of our trainers would be. That was..." she couldn't help glancing at Tomita, "that was my pleasure."

The Daimyou snorted, but the corner of his mouth quirked up. "You bargain well, girl, I'll say that. Very well. I'll consider Naridasu, and I'll hold Leaf to that offer of aid." If he noticed Tomita stirring beside him, he ignored it in favor of fixing Tsunade-sama with a stern look. "Next time you have evidence that one of my people is engaged in criminal activity against my own country, bring it to me before you start mounting covert operations across my border."

"If it is at all possible, of course," Tsunade-sama murmured. Which was not, Sakura noted, a yes. From the way the Daimyou harumphed some more, she thought he'd noticed that too.

"Ninja!" He stood, shaking his traveling robes into order, and swept out without another word.

Sakura let her breath out as the door closed behind him and his attendants, and leaned on the edge of the desk. Her knees were shaking.

"You handled that very well," Tsunade told her, clasping her shoulder for a moment. "Get your breath back and take your boys off before they both glare holes in me for even considering sending you away."

Sakura laughed a little. "Yes, Tsunade-sama." Another breath and she walked steadily enough across the room to where Sasuke and Naruto were indeed glaring a bit. "Hey, cut that out. I wouldn't leave Konoha." She smiled, and tugged on their sleeves. "I wouldn't leave my team."

"You'd better not." Naruto was nearly pouting at her. Sasuke just hustled them both through the door and down the hall, as if he were afraid the Hokage would change her mind.

"I won't, I won't, I promise," Sakura laughed for real, light-hearted. She could never leave this. Never.

She rocked to a stop as they emerged from the building, though. Tomita was waiting for her, leaning in the shadows of the great doors. "Tomita," she said softly.

"Did you really mean it?" he asked, not looking up from his crossed arms. "That you liked the work you did with us?"

Sakura took a slow breath, remembering the things she'd found and spoken during her debriefing last week, feeling the silent support of Naruto and Sasuke close beside her. "I meant it. Orochimaru was a menace, to my people and yours both, but Sound itself, the village and not his headquarters... you're good shinobi. If I really had been unaffiliated, I'd have been glad to stay." It was far more tangled than that, but those were the only parts she was going to explain to an outsider, even a maybe-ally. There was one more thing, though, she could give him. "I took that mission because Orochimaru threatened what was precious to me. If I had stayed," she said quietly, out of the surety in her heart, "I would have killed him for Sound's sake, in the end."

Finally, he looked up at her, and the earlier betrayal had become only the shadows in any shinobi's eyes. "I believe you." He straightened up and turned to go, and hesitated. Finally, with a quick breath, he spun back to face her and saluted her, fist to his heart, sharp and precise as he had that day on the border. "For that truth." And then he was gone in a swirl of smoke.

And Sakura turned and reached out blindly for her teammates, blinking back the wetness in her eyes as their arms wrapped around her.

"Hey, it doesn't matter what another village thinks about you, right?" Naruto asked, anxiously. "I mean, since you know we care about you."

"I'm just glad," she said, husky. "I know it was the right thing to do. I know I did well for them whenever I could. I just... it's good to know he believes me."

"You have an end to it, now," Sasuke said, quietly.

"Yes." Sakura looked up, feeling the words match the shape of the world around her. "Yes, that's it. An end. Not stopping, but... an end."

Sasuke nodded, silent.

"Hey." Naruto pulled Sasuke tighter against them. "Quit worrying. We'll get an end for you, too."

Sasuke looked aside at that, color rising just a shade on his cheekbones. Sakura and Naruto smiled at each other, pleased and complicit. "So, hey." She nudged them both. "I think we deserve a treat. How about Dangoya for tea?"

Naruto perked up. "And then we can do Ichiraku Ramen for dinner!"

"This," Sakura said trenchantly, "is why my mother has hysterics every time I talk about moving out; because she's afraid I'll start eating like you."

"Your mother," Sasuke observed with cutting accuracy, "is afraid you'll live like any other shinobi and not bother getting married, and then she won't get to orchestrate a grand wedding reception."

"Yeah," Sakura sighed. "That too. Okay, let's do ramen, so she can worry about that instead."

Not stopping, she thought as they made their way down the steps, never stopping. But finding the ends to their life threads. That was a good way to live.

The three of them could do that, together.

A week and a bit after their visit from the Sound Daimyou Tsunade sat at her regular, human-sized desk and folded her hands against her mouth, frowning into the air. "Another one."

"Nii, who holds the Two-tails. The more stable of Cloud's two hosts," Asuma confirmed. "It's all over Cloud; the whole village was in an uproar when we got there. For a while I wasn't sure they'd let us leave again, diplomatic mission or not."

"What does Akatsuki think they're doing?" she demanded, aggravated, raking a hand through her hair. "They've been mercenaries for two generations! And after this they'll never get another job from any of the great villages!"

"Could they be trying to become a village themselves?" Nara Shikaku suggested from where he leaned a hip against her windowsill. "Gain enough power to settle somewhere and hold it against their enemies?"

"That's looking like all of us, at this rate," Asuma noted dryly, teeth clicking on his senbon.

"If they have all of the tailed beasts under some form of control, they might yet stand against us all," Shikaku murmured.

Silence followed that extremely unwelcome thought.

"All of them." Tsunade tried to imagine it. "How could they possibly control all of them, though? Even if Itachi can control one host, I can't imagine any form of the Sharingan that would allow him to control more than one. Maybe they just want us not to have them."

Asuma glanced at Shikaku. "Do we have any agents in Akatsuki at all?"

"Not for about ten years, now, according to Morino and the ANBU Commander." Shikaku didn't look happy. "That was just about the time Itachi joined them; he'd have known who the agents were."

"He having been ANBU. Of course." Tsunade sighed. "We'll try again. I imagine Cloud and Rock will be too. Hopefully one of us will get someone in and find out what the hell Akatsuki thinks they're doing."

Before they found out the hard way, she hoped.

"All right, then." She rolled up onto her feet, and beckoned Shikaku after her. "Thanks, Asuma. I'm glad to know about this before this month's meeting."

She strode down the halls of the administrative building, turning over one possibility after another in her thoughts, and none of them made any kind of sense. Akatsuki couldn't possibly have the hosts they'd taken so far under control; they must have killed them and be hoping to do whatever it was they were doing before the beasts could revive. She looked up as Shizune fell in beside her, handing over a folder, and smiled a little; this was a much more cheerful thing to think about. "You got it all in order?"

Shizune nodded brisk confirmation. "All three of them have fulfilled the usual requirements. This should be easy."

"Mm." In Tsunade's experience so far, nothing was ever easy with her Council. But it should be simple anyway.

Shikaku stepped ahead of them to get the door to the meeting room where the monthly Council met and Tsunade took a breath and swept through, head high. A fast glance around the green-draped room showed the ANBU Commander and the three Elders all present, and she nodded to them. "Let's get started, ladies and gentlemen."

She listened with half an ear as Shizune reported on the arrangements for this season's chuunin exam in Hidden Valley, and Shikaku listed the jounin who had volunteered for the good-will mission to Sound. It was a shame they couldn't really send Sakura herself back, but her teammates would never let her go without them and Tsunade had bigger fish to fry with those three, right now.

"We should definitely send Yamanaka Inoichi," Utatane said, folding her thin fingers on the solid, old table. "He has experience in the Interrogation unit. He'll be able to find out how much threat Sound still is to us."

"Inoichi is certainly just the person to lead the mission," Tsunade agreed, knowing there was an edge in her voice and unable to help it. Unsure she even wanted to help it. "He has an even temper and a diplomat's manners, which is just what a good-will mission needs."

Mitokado snorted, and Tsuna reminded herself yet again that she couldn't strangle her own first councilors just because they were a couple of war-crazy old goats. Shame, that. "If calm is what you want on that mission, you should send Aburame Shibi too," the old man suggested, sarcasm clanging in every word.

Tsunade bared her teeth at him. "An excellent suggestion. His self-possession will be very valuable, and I'm sure a little quiet would be appreciated by everyone." Shizune coughed meaningfully behind her and Tsunade made herself sit back. She knew she shouldn't let these two get to her, but it had been a very long time indeed since anyone dared treat her like some raw graduate.

Danzou stirred. "If two jounin are going on this mission, that will stretch the village a little thin. Especially considering the recent Akatsuki incursions among the great nations."

Tsunade picked up the folder she'd dropped on the table, wondering one more time exactly what contacts Danzou still had among Intelligence that he always knew about the classified reports. "A very good point. Fortunately, we have three chuunin who have been nominated for promotion this quarter." She slid the topsheets across the table to the Elders and the ANBU Commander and waited.

"Completely unacceptable!" Mitokado exclaimed.

"All three of them have been properly nominated by jounin who were not their field-teacher," Shikaku pointed out a bit dryly. "All three of them have displayed mastery of high level techniques in at least two elements and completed the minimum number of B-rank and above missions."

"Haruno-kun is considered, by all those who know of her recent mission, to have displayed unusually good judgment under high-stress conditions," the ANBU Commander added quietly, hands tented under his cat mask.

"Haruno, certainly, but you can't possibly promote Uzumaki." Mitokado dropped the topsheet with an air of finality. "The kind of missions a jounin goes on are far too great a risk." He frowned and added, "And he's only displayed mastery of one element, hasn't he?"

"Wind, yes." Tsunade had her hands folded so tight her knuckles were white. "And yang chakra. The Nine-tails' chakra, to be precise."

"That cannot possibly count toward the promotion requirements," Mitokado nearly sputtered.

"What's your problem with Naruto?" Tsunade asked bluntly. "You certainly wouldn't try to tell me that my yin mastery doesn't count." Not if the old goat wanted to live to see sundown, anyway.

"He's the village's Sacrifice! His training with you has kept him in the village, and that's as it should be. The idea of sending him out like any other jounin is preposterous."

And if he were formally promoted, Tsunade reflected grimly, there would be a lot of pressure to do just that. "Sacrifice" or not. Which was the idea. "So you want me to withhold the rank that he's earned from him? Set him apart even more? Keep alienating him from the village we all hope he'll protect?"

"Tsunade," Utatane broke in. "It's not just that. In time, Uzumaki may demonstrate the ability to take on jounin level missions, but right now you can't deny that he's still very immature."

"And how will he gain maturity without experience?" Tsunade argued.

"Vital as this question is," Danzou murmured from where he'd been sitting quiet and still, "I believe the nomination of Uchiha Sasuke is even more problematic. An immature shinobi may gain experience, if you are willing to take such a risk, but will an unstable one become any more stable?"

"Both his teachers attest that Sasuke has indeed become more stable over the last two years," Shikaku answered calmly before Tsunade could get her teeth unlocked to tell Danzou exactly what she thought of his argument.

"Stable enough, though?" Danzou shook his head as if sadly. "I have no objection to Haruno, of course, but Uzumaki and Uchiha... no. They need more time. Surely there's no need to rush them into promotion and possibly unsettle their development as shinobi."

Both Mitokado and Utatane settled back and nodded firmly in agreement, and Tsunade breathed deeply to keep from screaming with frustration. Just as any jounin could nominate a chuunin for promotion, enough of the Council could block the nomination. With all three of her Elders standing firm, they were deadlocked and she couldn't very well call in the noble clans on a promotion question; that would open the door to all sorts of accusations of favoritism and factionalism. "Very well," she said through her teeth. "Shikaku. Inform Haruno of her promotion. Shizune, clear some time in my schedule tomorrow; Naruto and Sasuke deserve an explanation. And an assurance that their Hokage does not doubt them."

And on that note, the meeting broke up. Tsunade went to get some stomach soothing tea from Shizune's stock and wondered if it would be too extremely disrespectful to pray at the Senju's Touki shrine for her Elders to die peacefully in their sleep, someday very soon.

The next day, though, it wasn't just Naruto and Sasuke who came to her office at the appointed hour. Sakura was with them too. In fact, she was the one who actually marched up to Tsunade's desk while Sasuke and Naruto waited by the door. She threw her promotion letter down and crossed her arms.

"Is it true that Naruto and Sasuke were supposed to be promoted and were blocked?" she demanded, nearly glowering.

Tsunade pursed her lips and leaned back in her chair. Apparently Danzou wasn't the only one who could take advantage of the Intelligence grapevine. "I'm afraid so," she admitted. "I have every faith in them, as do the field commanders, but a majority of the council has to approve jounin promotions."

Sakura's eyes narrowed and Tsunade would be willing to bet the girl had understood exactly who was left in opposition to her partners, if the Hokage and the field commanders had no qualms. More significantly, given Tsunade's win/loss record, she thought Shizune would be willing to bet, too. "I see. Well." She snapped her hands together in the Tiger and spat pointedly at the letter, which went up in flames. "You can tell them that they can take my promotion, fold it in corners, and stick it up their asses! I'll advance with my team or not at all!" With that she whirled and strode out of the room leaving a small pile of char on top of Tsunade's desk. Naruto, grinning all over his face, swaggered out on her heels. Sasuke paused to give Tsunade a brief bow and a definite smirk before following.

When Shizune came in five minutes later, Tsunade was still laughing. "Tsunade-sama?" she asked, cautiously.

Tsunade wiped her eyes as she caught her breath again. "That girl is going to be a first councilor herself one day, you know she will." She dissolved in chuckles again. "Naruto will change Konoha when he's Hokage, all right! I don't see how he could help it with those two beside him!"

A/N: I'm positing some differences in vocabulary in how people refer to the tailed beast hosts, here. I've translated jinchuuriki as "Sacrifice". But whenever someone refers to them as "hosts", that's yadonushi, which is a considerably less dire and freighted word. I really think that friends and (sane) family would be more likely to use something like that than jinchuuriki.

As for the Council I'm constructing here, we don't even meet Danzou until part two, but he sits with the group deciding who gets to be the new Hokage; clearly Kishimoto decided he was going to be an important part of the village's governance. This begs the question of why we never saw anyone but Utatane and Mitokado taking part in governance decisions in the first half, and why we keep seeing far larger groups advising the other Kage. To reconcile all this, I invented the office of "first councilors" to serve as the Hokage's immediate advisers and widened the Hokage's Council to include the heads of the noble clans and the field commanders. I posit that there's actually a four-way balance of power (Hokage, Elders, clan heads, field commanders) and that what counts as a majority varies depending on how the "sides" are divided up on any given issue.

It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Eleven

Sasuke faces his brother again. Fortunately, Sakura and Naruto are there for him, and he finds the space in his head to do what he has to do. Involves character death. Drama, Action, Angst, I-5

Naruto and Kankurou's voices still rang off the walls when Gaara hit the floor with a dull, boneless thump.

"Well," murmured the blond Akatsuki, looking toward the broken temple door, "that was faster than we expected, hm?" He smiled very unpleasantly. "Just not fast enough." As two of the four dark robes remaining faded back into the shadows, he strolled toward them, stepping over Gaara's body and carelessly kicking it in passing.

Sasuke wasn't surprised when Naruto snarled with absolute rage and charged the man, red flickering around him.

"Naruto," Sakura shouted, sharp, "it's you he wants, don't be an idiot!"

Sasuke's vision tracked the man's hand as it dove into his pouch and a pale, grayish white bird bloomed up from it, growing large enough for the man to spring onto and ride. Not an elemental transformation but what might well be unlimited shaping of his medium, trained observation noted coolly; that was dangerous.

Sasuke snapped his hands together, fast and sure with the knife-edge perception of the Sharingan, and blew fire at the bird while the Sand team showered kunai, needles, and a loop of razor wire on the other remaining Akatsuki. At the edge of his field of vision, he saw that attack blocked with what looked like a jointed tail. The bird he was aiming for swooped up over his flame, and he took in the flicker of alarm over the blond one's face. "That stuff burns badly," he reported, flat and fast. "This is the explosives expert."

"This one is Sasori," Chiyo grated. "Leave him to us."

Gai flickered through the temple's shadows, coming up to flank the one on the bird. "The other two are gone. Let's take this one down with the passion of youth!"

The blond just laughed. "But that wouldn't be what I want." He swooped down again, fast and hard, and the bird-thing scooped up Gaara's body.

"Gaara!" Naruto leapt for him, fingers clawed. Kankurou whipped around and was nearly cut down by Sasori's tail before Fuunotora tackled him to the ground.

"You want a dead body that much, hm?" the blond taunted, and flitted right out the door. Naruto bounded after him, chakra boiling off him, and for the first time he could remember Sasuke heard Kakashi swear. Sasuke couldn't blame him at all and held on to the still, sharp judgment of the Sharingan by his bare fingertips while fear for his idiot teammate wrenched at his control.

At least Itachi didn't seem to be here.

"Chiyo-san, we'll handle this," Kakashi snapped.

"And we'll handle this one," Chiyo said grimly. "Go!"

As they bolted out the door again after Naruto, Kakashi called, "Remember the illusions in the swamp! And remember that the other two might not have actually left!"

Fear and fury jerked at Sasuke's control again, at the reminder. He forced them down, teeth gritted.

Naruto was leaping through the trees already, chakra shredding the traps in his way as he followed the bird and they followed him. The next grove wasn't lit from the right angle, though, and Sasuke barked, "Illusion!"

He exhaled with relief when Naruto landed short of it; Naruto was listening after all.

"Pit trap," Neji reported, staring deep into it. "Jump ten meters."

"Wait." Sasuke perched on his branch and looked past the illusionary clump of trees. "There's something past it..." Just a flicker of light in the wrong place, but... and then he hissed through his teeth. Naruto had already jumped. Idiot!

"Tenten," Gai called, "saturate the other side!"

"On it!" Tenten leaped straight up, above them all, and unfurled a long scroll. Weapons rained down on the place where Naruto would land in just another second.

Nothing else happened. Had he been wrong? Naruto had landed and leaped again, and Sasuke prepared to follow, worry over his teammate's loss of control clawing at him even as he kept his eyes focused, searching the other side for that hint of something askew. He was in midair when one particular patch of reeds caught his attention. What was it? What was wrong, what was he seeing? He looked closer.

"Sasuke!" Sakura hit him from the side, taking them both down in a tangle of limbs and very hard ground for someplace so wet. "What?" he gasped, winded, trying to spot that place he'd found again.

"Don't look," she commanded, catching his face in her hands and holding his eyes, hers wide and alarmed. "Look at me, not at that! It's not real, whatever you see is an illusion, that's Itachi standing there!"

For a moment the shock was so great he couldn't make sense of her words. And then he understood and squeezed his eyes shut, slamming his hands together in the release. "Kai!" he barked, as much at himself as at the illusion, turning his focus inward.

There. He had been influenced, yes. He flared his chakra hard and sharp, throwing off the pressure, and opened his eyes again. The Leaf teams had landed around him, and Itachi was standing where he'd seen a suspicious patch of reeds—suspicion that had made him focus on them. "Very clever," he grated, glaring at his brother's chest.

"Gai," Kakashi said softly, beside him, "can you deal with this one again?"

"Yes," Gai answered, serious for once. His eyes were focused on Itachi's feet. A detached part of Sasuke's mind was impressed. That was a difficult approach. The clan had always trained to watch the chest, which telegraphed more clearly, even if it was a little more dangerous, a little easier to catch the opponent's eyes that way. And Gai wasn't clan; he must have figured it out on his own.

"I'll go after Naruto, then. Be careful!" Kakashi vanished down the path of crushed grasses and shredded traps, after Naruto. Good. That was good, that someone would be there to look after Naruto.

Sakura gripped his shoulder hard. "Are you all right?" she asked, low. Sasuke took a slow breath and yanked his thoughts back into order. Naruto was going after Gaara's body, and Kakashi would take care of him. The Sand teams probably had Sasori in hand. He was here, with Sakura and Gai's team, and Itachi was in front of them. He had backup, today, to go with opportunity, and his brother was standing in front of him. Now. The time to take Itachi down was now. That was all he needed to think about.

"I'm all right," he said, settling his shoulders under her hand and focusing again.

Neji's head snapped around. "Someone's coming! Someone with a huge amount of chakra!"

"Can Akatsuki have one of their own hosts with them already?" Sakura suggested tightly.

"Not that, but... close. Closer to a host's chakra than I've ever seen." Neji turned smoothly, falling into one of his clan's defensive stances.

"Looks like you got more than just your brother," a rough voice said from the shadows of the red reeds, and another black cloak materialized out of them. "Want me to take the extra off your hands, Itachi-san?" The newcomer bared sharklike teeth that reminded Sasuke with a sharp twinge of their very first mission as a team, and the Swordsman they'd faced.

"Swordsman of the Mist," Sakura confirmed softly. "With that shape sword... Hoshigake Kisame. The strongest of his generation."

"That would be very kind of you," Itachi murmured, and Sasuke couldn't help flinching at the sound of his voice.

"Gai-sensei," Neji said, quiet and grim, "I don't think any of us but you will be able to deal with Hoshigake. And maybe not even you alone. Take Tenten and Lee. I will stand with Uchiha Sasuke until you return, as a jounin of the Leaf and as a Hyuuga."

It was a long moment before Gai rumbled, "Very well."

"We'll concentrate on wearing Itachi down, then," Sakura whispered, not moving her lips, and Sasuke felt himself relax just a little. Sakura was their strategist, the one who thought ahead; he had her help this time. And he was the striking hand of their team, after all. All he had to do was listen to her, and focus, and he would have his chance for revenge.

"All right," he agreed. "Call it."

In the moment Hoshigake's hand went up to the hilt of his massive sword, arm blocking a little of his vision, she snapped, "Scatter!" The six of them spun away, into the trees, into the reeds, into the water.

"Hmm. Well, then, perhaps we may move our discussion to a calmer and drier place," Itachi said to the air, quite serenely, and took to the trees with a bound that barely stirred his robe.

"Track," Sakura's voice directed from the tree line. Sasuke nodded to himself and made for Itachi's right, as Sakura would be making for his left, trusting Neji's Byakugan to see them and show him his spot in the middle of the V. Naruto's regular spot.

An explosion echoed over the swamp from the direction Naruto had gone, and Sasuke jerked, wavering on his landing for a breath. Naruto would be all right, he told himself fiercely. And Sasuke would keep Itachi away from his teammate. Far away. Itachi wouldn't take anyone away from him again.

Itachi led them out of the swamp and into merely damp forest, alighting in a clearing, quite calmly out in the open. They bracketed him, and Sasuke pushed down a rush of tension, waiting for Sakura's call. It was Neji stepped out of the trees first, though.

"Hyuuga," Itachi murmured, tilting his head. "Neji-kun, if I recall correctly?" His eyes changed and Sakura's voice whipped across the clearing.

"Illusion, Neji, look out!"

Neji stiffened for a long moment, and Sasuke saw Itachi's mouth start to curve. It stopped when Neji shouted and his chakra flared for one instant into visibility, hard and edged. "The Uchiha descend from the Hyuuga," Neji said, voice rough now. "We have known them from the beginning. Did you think we kept no techniques against the thing that some of you became?"

"Ah. The honor of the Hyuuga. And where is your honor now, when you stand against the inheritor of Uchiha? Is your clan not allied to mine?" Itachi inquired.

Sakura landed beside Sasuke, pulling his attention off the conversation, off his brother, off his own rising horror and fury. Once again, Sasuke found himself grateful for Kakashi's wisdom; an anchor against the storm in his heart might be his strongest weapon right now.

Neji's voice dripped with well-bred scorn. "The inheritor? You?" He snorted. "You are a renegade and traitor. None of our obligations are to you any more. They are owed now to Sasuke alone."

"Ah?" Itachi raised his brows just a shade. "Am I misinformed, then? I had thought the Third and his filthy Elders too fearful of the Uchiha's influence to allow Sasuke to take his place properly as the head of the clan. Without a clan head, without that authority to declare, I cannot be a traitor."

Sasuke jerked behind his screen of tall grass, and felt Sakura's hand close on his shoulder, tight and steadying. It was true; he had never been recognized as the head of Uchiha and... he should have been. When he graduated and had formal rank as a shinobi, if no sooner. He'd always been open about his intent to refound the clan. Why...? Sudden uncertainty shook him half out of the concentration of the Sharingan.

Neji was quiet for a moment before he shrugged. "Well, we're a little short of the formal witnesses, but such things have long been acceptable on the battlefield." He raised his voice. "Sasuke? In the name of the noble clans of Hidden Leaf, I ask: do you accept responsibility for the clan of Uchiha?"

The question shivered down Sasuke's nerves. The responsibility of the clan head. For all of Uchiha, and that meant for Itachi, too. For the dead and for the insane blood of that night. For all their past. For the whole weight of the clan. It crushed down on him like a boulder, and for a moment he couldn't breathe.

...don't have to prove every bit of their honor all by yourself...

It was Jiraiya's words, echoing in his head, that broke the weight, sudden as a lamp turning on to light a dark room. The past... the past took care of itself. His teacher had said so, said that the Uchiha ancestors carried the weight of the clan's honor for him—carried it well. He screwed his eyes shut for a breath and told over the generations in his mind, and remembered, as he did, that even the banishment of a clan head had not killed the Uchiha honor. Quite the reverse.

And now, it must be done again. Not that much of a problem, surely, if it had been done once already. His clan didn't weigh him down; they stood behind him. The understanding made his shoulders lighter and he straightened them.

He took a deep breath and called out, "I accept responsibility for my clan."

Neji smiled, and even from this angle, Sasuke could see it was thin and hard. "I serve the heir of Hyuuga directly, and I speak with her voice. The Hyuuga acknowledge Uchiha Sasuke as the new clan head of Uchiha." That stated, he fell silent, waiting. Waiting for what had, inevitably, to come next.

Sasuke bit his lip hard, felt Sakura behind him, both hands on his shoulders. Heard another explosion, more massive than the last, off in Naruto's direction and nearly broke up laughing. That was exactly the way his idiot teammate would express his support.

Anchors.

Sasuke took another breath and spoke clearly. "Uchiha Itachi, I declare you traitor to our clan, and outcast."

"Large words, from the boy who's still too weak to face me himself," Itachi murmured.

That really did make Sasuke laugh, and the faint stir of Itachi's robes as he shifted at the sound made Sasuke smile, teeth bared. "You won't catch me that way. Not again. If others help me find my strength, it's still my own strength." That, he was sure of in his heart.

Itachi sighed faintly. "I was afraid this might happen, when you were assigned to Kakashi-senpai. Ah, well. Not all traps close firmly."

The glorious irony of hearing Itachi say that at the very moment Sakura's hands were flashing through seal on seal, almost made Sasuke laugh again as the ground opened just under Itachi's feet. Fuunotora must have taught Sakura that technique at some point, he thought, light-headed.

Itachi flickered aside from the earth traps, and that was Neji's cue to strike. Really, Sasuke thought, wasn't it about time he pitched in? He didn't have to do it all himself, no, but surely it wasn't fair to make everyone else do all the work either.

That sounded alarmingly like Jiraiya, in his head, but at the moment he didn't care. He was still on the edge of dizzy laughter as he threw the wired kunai for his Lightning Dragon into Itachi's path. He and Sakura had to spring apart after he triggered it; that one showed his location clearly. But that was all right. He could feel it again, now, the anchoring solidity of his team beside him, behind him. His mind was moving again, reading Sakura's intent in the pattern of footing traps she set under Itachi, one after another. Sasuke's part was to harry Itachi from above, to sting him with distance attacks so that Neji had a chance to close and whittle away his chakra.

It wasn't going to be easy.

Itachi was fast, and half the time his kunai picked Sasuke's out of the air, and though fire techniques left the trees and ground smoldering Sasuke hadn't singed him yet. Neji had only gotten in two solid strikes, and those weren't to vital points. If Itachi's chakra was getting deranged, it wasn't obvious yet.

It was Itachi's focus that was the problem. Sasuke watched, eyes sharp again, observing the way Itachi avoided their attacks, the smoothness of his movements. They needed another distraction. And even though the idea made his stomach clench, Sasuke thought he knew what would work.

"Why?" he called out, throwing his voice a little along the edge of the clearing. "Why did you kill our clan?"

"It's our way, little brother." The bastard barely even sounded out of breath. "Surely you've read our history by now. Friend to kill friend for power."

"That's a forbidden technique!" Sasuke yelled and hurled another shuriken viciously. "It isn't our way!" No matter how many had tried, down the years. Dozens of people, attempting to gain power and make someone else pay the price. But it was listed as forbidden in the clan's own records!

"On the contrary." Itachi slipped aside from Sakura's wire trap and flickered out of her earth jutsu trap again. "It's the way of all shinobi. The villages fight each other, regardless of the damage to their own countries or to others. The villages fight themselves, and factions twist their own people in the name of victory or of rightness." He turned, eyes catching Sasuke in the trees and following him, though Sasuke avoided meeting them. "Don't you think it's interesting that both sides always proclaim themselves right, justified over and above their opponents to take whatever action they must, and so take exactly the same actions? This corruption is the one thing we all share, no matter what badge we wear." He turned a shade too far and Neji lunged, palm striking Itachi's side, not solid enough to finish him but enough to make him grunt and spin away with less grace than usual, robe flapping.

It was working, Sasuke told himself coldly. Keep going.

"So you thought you'd be a better monster than anyone else, is that it?" he called, and ducked under the illusion screen Sakura had woven into the grasses.

"Oh, no," Itachi answered, eerily calm as he met a flurry of Neji's hand strikes, losing Sasuke's track again. "I intend to destroy the entire thing: Hidden Leaf and all the other villages. Consider. The Uchiha were the police force of Konoha, and its first line of military defense at home. If they were destroyed, the village would be vulnerable." He whirled to meet Sasuke's Fire Blossom with his own, completing the spin to fend off Neji again. "Sooner or later, another village would attack it, but the Leaf wouldn't die easily. So even in victory, the other village would be wounded and easy prey in their turn. The Leaf would have died and the Sand been next, three and some years ago, if it hadn't been for the Nine-tails' young Sacrifice. If that interference is removed, all will go well."

Sasuke slid down to his knees in the grass, control shaken by sickness. Sakura landed beside him, eyes wide and horrified, hands clenched against her chest. Even Neji fell back, staring at Itachi. "You're mad," he said, husky.

"Your clan is, itself, an example of what shinobi do," Itachi noted. "Though not the worst, by any means. Ask the Elder, Shimura Danzou, what 'Root' is, when you return. If, of course, you return." He smiled faintly. "You have dropped your guard, Hyuuga Neji-kun."

His eyes changed again and Sasuke swore, groping for another shuriken, or another coil of wire as Neji went stiff again for a breath. Then another.

"That won't be enough to break his hold," Sakura muttered, and her hands flashed through the activation of her seal. The Sharingan saw it flare to life, all the wild colors of nature energy, and Sakura was gone, heel blasting into Itachi's back.

Neji fell to hands and knees as Itachi rolled to his feet again, and Sasuke dashed out to drag him clear, checking him over with the first aid Naruto had made both he and Sakura learn. Pulse was ragged, muscles spasming, and Neji's eyes couldn't quite focus. "Tsukuyomi," Sasuke gritted out, like it was a curse.

"Half," Neji gasped. "Be all right. Help Sakura."

Sasuke nodded tightly and left him in the shelter of the trees, circling back around Sakura's lightning-fast fight with Itachi. Her hands blurred, even to the Sharingan's vision, as she slammed up stone walls and slammed down the brutal weight of water. She was, he thought, faster even than Itachi. But he was only using his chakra to defend against the jutsu, lunging again and again to close with her hand to hand. Even the power of the seal couldn't give Sakura the kind of experience Itachi had at that. Again and again, he performed a block or disengage she didn't know, made her spend her chakra to counter physical attacks with an elemental technique. Sasuke flung scavenged kunai to break Itachi's form in the air, sent fire at his legs to break it on the ground, but the clock in his head was ticking inexorably down and Itachi was still going.

And then, finally, one attack got through, straight and true. Sakura's heel smashed into Itachi's ribs, and Sasuke could see it as they gave way.

And they were out of time.

Sakura's face was twisted with frustration as she broke off and swapped herself into the trees, hands weaving the deactivation as she fell to her knees beside Neji. "Okay?" she panted.

"Caught me with some of that demon illusion of his," Neji rasped. "Not the whole thing. With his ribs gone, I might be able to fight him again."

"We'll try to buy more time, then," Sakura said, mouth in a grim line. "I have a little energy; I can't use the seal again, but I can keep away from him I think. And the others should be coming soon. I hope."

"My turn to take point, then," Sasuke said, low, and Sakura squeezed his shoulder.

"Be careful," she ordered, and he smiled.

"As much as I can." The smile crept wider at the disgruntled face she made at that, and he slipped through the trees to emerge from them a third of the way around the clearing.

On the principle of further distraction, he asked, as he stepped out, "Why did you leave me alive?"

Itachi raised his brows, though Sasuke could only see the edge of that with his gaze fixed on Itachi's chest. "To take your eyes, of course," he said with an edge of patience, as though it should be obvious. "Once you've achieved the Mangekyou Sharingan, I will take your eyes and my own sight will be preserved from deterioration. I believe it's actually an effect of incompatibility," he went on as Sasuke froze in horror. "It must be a sibling's eyes, to make them compatible enough to use techniques at full strength. But the fact that they are not one's own provides just enough dampening of the chakra resonance to prevent a recurrence of blindness."

"I will never kill the friends closest to me," Sasuke whispered, barely remembering to keep his eyes on Itachi's chest.

Itachi actually sighed. "I had gathered that. It's unfortunate, especially after all my encouragement the last time we met. But luckily I believe there is another way." He smiled just a little. "A way to produce just that depth of grief and guilt that will awaken this potential in our blood. We shall see." And he sprang up, cloak whirling out as he sent a rain of shuriken spinning down toward Sasuke.

Sasuke, who could taste his own rising rage like blood in his mouth. His hands slammed into the only seal he needed these days for the Great Fireball, and he sent it howling up, blasting the shuriken aside, engulfing Itachi and rising out of the trees to burst in the sky. Itachi was smoking as he landed, but that faint smile was still here.

"Yes. I think perhaps it will work."

Sasuke bared his teeth.

Fire raged and flared against fire as they fought across the clearing, and the clearing was a good deal wider the next time they both paused, red eyes fixed across the bare-burned ground.

It was then, of course, that Naruto pelted into the space, right between them, eyes wild and teeth bared.

"Ah," Itachi murmured. "Good. I did think this one would be a surer bet than the girl."

Naruto was turning toward the voice, and Sasuke was already airborne as he yelled, "Don't look in his eyes, you idiot!" He landed nearly on Naruto's head and, as they both went sprawling, hauled him close and tumbled them both unceremoniously back toward the tree line.

"I'm watching, take a minute," Sakura rapped out as she landed beside them, eyes steady on the clearing. "Naruto, are you all right? Any injuries?"

"I'm fine," Naruto growled, struggling back up. "That blond Akatsuki is dead. We got... the body back."

Sakura pulled in a hard breath, jaw setting. "We'll see if there's anything we can do once Itachi is put away. Listen. I think he's going to try to kill one of us first, not Sasuke."

"Yeah, well good luck to him on that," Naruto spat, and suddenly the clearing was filled and overflowing with Shadow Clones, all of them with Naruto's feral, slitted eyes.

"Naruto!" Sasuke snapped, shaking his shoulder. This wasn't good. Itachi was a strategist like Sakura, no matter how insane he ultimately was. If Naruto stopped thinking and also stopped listening...

"They're not getting any more of you!" Naruto yelled, and the clones rushed forward like an avalanche falling on Itachi.

For a moment, Sasuke thought it might actually work. Naruto had gotten better at controlling the clones, and right now he had the focus of a predator. Itachi went down in a welter of claws like steel and the storm of Naruto's rage. Sasuke took a breath, starting to think...

The clearing erupted in black flame.

Sasuke shouted and wove his hands together with frantic speed, backburning around where Naruto was, in the middle of the clones, of course, the idiot...

His flames were smothered by the black ones. As if the flames themselves were being consumed. The ground blasted up around Naruto's feet to form a break, a shield, and he saw Sakura, beside him, on her knees and shaking with the drain on her chakra.

The black flames ate the earth itself and closed in. Sasuke's throat was torn with a shout that matched Sakura's, and he lunged one useless bound forward.

The flames died. In their wake was Itachi, standing beside a scorched and dazed Naruto. "Amaterasu, the fires of the underworld," he explained, quite calmly. "The final technique of our clan. Of fire itself. It will consume anything." He smiled into Sasuke's eyes, and when had Sasuke looked up? "And now your friend will die. Because of you. Only because of you, and for the sake of your power. Know this."

The words clawed at Sasuke's mind as Itachi reached under his robe and drew a sword. His fault. His doing, that his friend would die. The accusation, the knowledge, the approaching fate twisted deep into his thoughts. His friend, his teammate, the one who was always with him, thoughtlessly giving and guarding and arguing and name-calling.

You're ours. That's all.

He was theirs, and they were his, and even refusing to say the words hadn't kept this fate from coming for them. Itachi would kill his family again.

His new family. His only family. His anchor in the middle of the rage rising through him now.

No. No.

"NO!" Sasuke screamed, ripping himself free of the illusion twining around his mind. The sword was coming down. Naruto was only stirring, groggily, still stunned by the return of all those burned clones. Sakura's hands were coming together in the second hand seal of her activation, tears starting down her cheeks. She would kill herself and it still wouldn't be fast enough. There was no time; it was impossible.

He didn't give a damn.

Sasuke snatched up chakra from the bottom of his bones, from the corners of his soul. There was nothing to send it through, nothing to channel it, and he didn't care. His family would not die. Not again. He threw his hands forward, locking them at the last moment into the Bird, and screamed again as lightning blasted out. It lashed out, directed somehow and he didn't know how, but unchanneled, unshaped, grounding into the trees, nearly hitting Neji as he interrupted his lunge for Itachi to fling himself flat.

And it struck Itachi.

It threw him back from Naruto, twitching and gasping, and he lay still where he landed. Sasuke stood, panting for breath, shaking with the raw force he'd blasted out, and it was long seconds before he managed to stagger to Naruto's side. Naruto was hauling himself back to his feet, looking around dazed and shocked but with his hands still clenched. His lip curled back when he spotted Itachi, and he took a step in that direction.

Sasuke whacked him across the back of the head. "Moron!"

"Ow, hey!" Naruto covered his head with his hands and glared at Sasuke. "What the hell, jerk?! I'm trying to protect you, here!"

"Fine job you did of it!" Sasuke snapped back. "Nearly got your idiot self killed, and the demon hells only know how I got that last lightning strike to work trying to save your sorry ass!"

"Who asked you to?" Naruto demanded, now nose to nose with him.

"Who the hell had to ask?!" Sasuke yelled. "You don't ask your team for that!"

"I think," Neji interrupted them rather dryly, dirt streaked as he crawled back to his feet, "you might want to stop before you make Sakura any worse."

"Huh?" Naruto looked around, eyes wide and alarmed.

Now they weren't yelling, it was easy to hear Sakura again. She was on the ground with her face buried in her hands, laughing so hard she could barely breathe.

Okay, maybe Neji had a point. Sasuke straightened up and cleared his throat, self-conscious.

"Well," a cracked voice rasped behind them. "Perhaps you should take my eyes, instead, then."

Sasuke and Naruto stumbled as they swung back around, and Sakura gasped, flowing up to her feet again.

"What would I want them for?" Sasuke demanded, the first thing that came to mind as he flinched at the sight of his brother and tried to close his heart to the burns over Itachi's exposed skin.

Itachi actually smiled. "You may want them to face our twice-great-grandfather."

The world froze around him and Sasuke couldn't hear anything but the rush of his own blood in his ears. His own blood. Twice-great.... "Uchiha Madara is dead," he whispered. "He died after his battle with the First."

"He stays out of sight, usually. But it's his hand that guides Akatsuki." Itachi's eyes were black, Sasuke observed, distracted. This couldn't be a hallucination. "I suppose he will accomplish my goal, in the end." Itachi looked up at the sky and sighed. "He thinks the villages will submit to him. But it will simply be war. The greatest war. That will do, I suppose." He smiled up at nothing. "So?"

Sasuke walked slowly to stand over Itachi, looking down at him, at that calm, mad smile that was waiting for his answer. "The Uchiha," he started and choked on the name. Madara. A head of the clan, before he was banished. What was the Uchiha clan, after all?

You're the last Uchiha, I don't see why you can't do whatever you please and call that what Uchihas do.

Sasuke actually huffed out half a laugh as Jiraiya's voice came back to him. Old pervert thought he had an answer for everything. He looked down at Itachi, who now had his brows raised a little in his burned face.

"No."

He called Chidori into his hand, tiny but focused, and slammed it down into Itachi's chest, over his heart. One spine-cracking spasm and it was over.

Over. His revenge was accomplished. He felt no satisfaction, and wondered for a dizzy breath if he was disrespecting the memory of his clan. Or perhaps he was just too tired. He was very tired. But then he caught Neji's eye, across the clearing, and the fog in his head parted a little. Something needed to be said, after all.

He straightened his shoulders and said, firmly. "The Uchiha do not use forbidden techniques. We uphold the laws of Konoha. At need, we execute them as well."

Neji nodded back to him, soberly, accepting his judgment for the village's noble clans.

Not revenge. Protection. To protect his people, whatever the cost. That was the duty of the Uchiha.

And the Uchiha were not dead. Sasuke managed a full breath.

Naruto laid a hand on his shoulder. "Hey. It's over. Okay?"

The Uchiha weren't dead, but his brother was—the last of his family. A shudder ripped through Sasuke and he reached out blindly, more grateful than he'd ever been before for Naruto's complete lack of decorum, the immediacy with which arms went around him and pulled him tight against his teammate. Sakura's hands spread against his back, rubbing slowly up and down in the rhythm Naruto had taught them to counter shock. "This part is over," she said softly. "Now you can come home. It's all right, Sasuke. We'll take you home safe."

She had gone away, too, and come home again. She understood. And Naruto wouldn't leave him. His team would bring him home.

Home to them. His family.

Another deep breath and the choking in his throat eased, the band around his chest loosened a little. "I'm okay," he whispered against Naruto's shoulder, husky. "Okay for now."

Naruto was looking suspicious and overprotective as Sasuke straightened up, but Sakura squeezed his shoulders one last time and let him go. Neji was tying the last knots of rope around Itachi's body, preparing it for carrying. "Ready?" he asked, tactfully looking down at the rope.

"Yeah," Sakura said for all of them. "Let's go."

A/N: Kishimoto's retconning of the Uchiha history in general was almost as hideously clunky as his retconning of Itachi in particular. There are too many conflicts with prior canon, and the result is too boring. So in this story the Sage of Six Paths, and the eternal enmity of the Senju and Uchiha, and the corollary that the Uchiha are Doomed to Do It Wrong... yeah, none of that happened. The Rinnengan is its own thing, because for pity's sake not every eye-technique needs to be related. The elders, and Danzou in particular, did indeed fear the clan's power, but there were no clan-wide plans for rebellion, Itachi was not assigned to kill the clan as some kind of sick attempt at "peace", none of that happened. Itachi is insane, period. The vast majority of the Uchiha were entirely honorable, if also rather messed up, as the noble shinobi clans do tend to be. And the whole go-round with Tobi did nothing but annoy me, and feels way too much like Kishimoto wondering what the heck to do next, so I'm ignoring all that. Akatsuki knows who Madara is, and there are no minions.

It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Twelve

Gaara is revived, and Naruto and Sakura take Sasuke home to recover. Drama, Angst, Fluff, Light Porn, I-5

When they reached the stone temple again, in the late, silvery light cast up by the swamp waters, Neji dumped Itachi's body next to Hoshigake's and the now headless bird-riding Akatsuki, and they went to join the others. Sand's shinobi all stood beside Gaara on a scrubby rise of hill.

Or at least, beside his body.

Even in his own daze, Sasuke drew closer to Naruto, trying to offer a little support. Naruto had been so determined to save his friend, his fellow host.

"Is he really...?" Naruto asked, voice rough.

Chiyo sighed and sat back on her heels beside the body. "You're a healer too, Naruto-kun. You know as well as I."

"It isn't right!" Naruto's hands clenched helplessly.

"No," she said, very softly. "No, it isn't." Her hands rested on Gaara's chest in a way that plucked at Sasuke's observation, even with the Sharingan closed down. That touch wasn't the farewell or silent plea for forgiveness of a medic who had failed. He'd seen that before. She held her hands like a healer preparing for a jutsu.

"Gaara," Kankurou whispered, kneeling on the other side of the body, face twisted with grief. The grief of losing his brother.

Sasuke remembered his promise to Temari and flinched.

"Kazekage-sama," Fuunotora said softly, folded hands pressed against her mouth. "He was taken because he tried to protect us instead of escaping."

"The other villages and hosts will know, now," Sakura offered, just as soft, eyes fixed on Gaara's body. "We'll find a way to destroy Akatsuki for this. That, at least."

"There may be something more." Chiyo's words dropped into the soft sounds of grief like pebbles into a pool.

Kankurou looked up with a jerk, and Naruto flung himself down beside her, all in one moment. "What?" Naruto demanded, eyes blazing. Chiyo looked back steadily. "You have great reserves of chakra," she said. "It may be enough, if you will lend me your strength."

"Anything," Naruto promised, tautly, reaching out to her, chakra already spilling into reddish visibility around his hands.

Kankurou whispered, voice harsh, "Chiyo-baasama..."

"Hush, boy," she told him with a faint smile. "It's my choice. I was the one who got Gaara into this mess, after all." She beckoned Naruto closer. "Feed your chakra to me, Naruto-kun. Don't falter. It will be a heavy draw; this is a deep technique." Softly she added, "And a forbidden one."

Naruto froze in mid-reach, eyes even wider than before. "Forbidden...?"

She smiled, quite serene, and Sasuke's heart twisted with the utter contrast between her expression and Itachi's mad calm. Chiyo's eyes were deep and shadowed, but content. "To bring back one who is already gone, my own life must be given."

Naruto flinched back. "But—!"

Chiyo reached up and rapped him over the head with her knuckles. "You hush too," she scolded. "I said it was my choice, and it is. It's one you may face someday, too, though I will hope not. It's a choice that comes to very powerful healers in time of war, though, all too often. And war is come on us again, I can see that." She looked around at the Sand-nin standing, stunned, around her. "Understand. This is my gift to our village, that our leader may live and be strong, and we may not be deprived of his will and wisdom. I believe young Gaara has both those. Don't let the silly boy brood, clear?" She fixed a sharp eye on Kankurou and he swallowed.

"Yes, Chiyo-baasama," he said, husky.

Chiyo nodded briskly. "Good. Now, then." She raised a brow at Naruto, who was biting his lip hard. The thought prodded at Sasuke that his team wasn't just his anchor; he was theirs also, and Naruto obviously had no real idea why Chiyo had chosen this. He shook himself out of his daze and went to kneel beside Naruto. He was too tired to yell or argue, the way they normally would, so he settled for just thumping down behind Naruto and resting his forehead against Naruto's back, nearly clinging to his shoulders for balance.

"It isn't wrong," he whispered. "It isn't your fault, because you want him back. Okay? It's her choice. As a noble, she's chosen her duty to her village and clan and Kage. Help her do it."

Chiyo's mouth crooked. "You're so sharp you'll cut yourself, boy," she murmured. Sasuke arched a tired brow at her. She didn't exactly hide the signs that she was from one of the Sand's noble clans. The influence she and her brother had, the size of the compound he'd heard some Sand-nin talking about—and with access to an underground river, in this desert village—wasn't it obvious? His thoughts were wandering. He hauled them wearily back.

"You're sure?" Naruto said, low and uncertain.

Sasuke tightened his hands for a moment. If Naruto was sometimes his voice, maybe he was Naruto's history—all the things Naruto should have been taught, as the son of the Fourth, but never had been. "I'm sure," he said softly.

"Okay, then." Naruto scooted forward, and Sasuke swayed, reaching out to brace himself against the ground to keep from falling over. Hands tipped him back upright, though the hands themselves were shaking. He looked up to see Kakashi looking down at him, drawn and gray like Sasuke had never seen before. The corner of his visible eye was crinkled, but not with the usual smile lines—with something softer and sadder. This mission had wrung out a lot of hearts, he thought distantly.

He managed to straighten up a bit, at least long enough for Sakura to kneel beside him and wrap an arm around him. They watched Naruto's hands pressed over Chiyo's on Gaara's chest.

"It was a technique for puppets," Kankurou muttered, broad shoulders tight, eyes fixed on Gaara. "To give them life. But it always cost a life. Chiyo-baasama forbid it herself."

Light grew and refracted around Naruto and Chiyo's hands. Sasuke wondered what he would see if he'd been able to muster chakra for the Sharingan. Gai had come to stand with them, one shoulder under Kakashi's; their commander must have spent all his reserves, too, to be accepting support like that in public. Sasuke leaned against Sakura and blinked. Lots of public. There were... more people here than there had been.

The rise of ground before the temple was filling with new figures, one after another. Shinobi of the Sand, he realized, slowly taking in the uniforms they wore. One of them was Temari.

"Gaara!"

Kankurou caught her. "It's okay," he said, low and rough, as she tugged against his grip on her shoulders, dark, scared eyes fixed on their brother. "It's okay. Chiyo-baasama has him." His mouth twisted. "And Naruto, too."

Whispers ran through the tripled crowd as he told her what had happened, that four of Akatsuki were confirmed dead. That Sand had killed their own renegade, and Leaf theirs.

"I couldn't confine Hoshigake," Gai was saying quietly to Kakashi, behind them. "I only barely defeated him, and that took opening the seventh gate. Nothing we have available could have held him, if he'd regained awareness." For once that booming, bluff voice was hard. Dark.

"Best that you killed him, then." Kakashi's voice was cool. "We'll see if we can make out anything of their plans from what the four of them said during battle."

The light around the two healers faded and Kankurou hurried forward to catch Chiyo as she fell. Naruto looked grim and drawn, across from her, hands still resting on Gaara's chest. "I'll look out for him for you," he whispered, eyes on the old woman's body. "I promise."

From the crowd, Chiyo's brother came forward and took her from Kankurou, laying her out carefully a few steps away with some low, murmured words that Sasuke thought were probably goodbye.

Gaara stirred and breathed. By the time he opened his eyes, he was wrapped in Temari's arms as she hid tears against his shoulder. "Nee-san," he murmured, and that pulled a single, muffled sob out of her.

"Hey," Naruto told Gaara, softly, smile crooked. "Everyone was just coming to save you." He looked around at the crowd and Gaara followed his glance, eyes a bit wide. Noise broke over the crowd, sounding everywhere of relief as Gaara slowly stood with Naruto's hand under his arm.

"Our turn," Sakura murmured. "Can you stand?"

"I'm not the one who died," Sasuke muttered. "Just help me up."

So he was on his feet to offer his respects to Chiyo's spirit, as Gaara requested. That was proper. Naruto came to join his team as Gaara's siblings and people closed around their Kazekage, and Sasuke reached out and hauled him closer. "It was what she wanted. Her spirit thanks you," he murmured, leaning against Naruto.

Naruto scrubbed a rough sleeve across his eyes and muttered, "You noble types are really crazy, you know that?" He leaned back, though, and some of the prickly tension Sasuke had felt, seeing Gaara dead and tossed aside just for the sake of his beast, settled in face of Naruto's solid, living presence.

That would not happen to Naruto. Not ever. Sasuke had stopped Itachi, he'd kept his family alive, he'd do it again as often as he had to.

"...and if we have another healer around who can stop decomposition," he heard Kakashi saying off to one side, "we'll take Itachi's body back to Konoha."

Sasuke spoke without thinking. "No." He turned to face Kakashi and two of the Sand shinobi, who were all looking at him, a bit startled.

"We don't dare leave one of our advanced bloodlines just lying around," Kakashi observed, brow raised.

"Then burn him here." Certainty spilled through Sasuke with the words, and he straightened a little between Naruto and Sakura. "He chose this," waving a hand at the temple and, by implication, all of Akatsuki's works. "Let him stay here. He is banished from the clan, and his spirit is none of ours." Against his side, he felt Sakura relax, and her arm tighten around him.

"All right," Kakashi said after a long, thoughtful moment. "Naruto. Do you still have enough chakra for a sustained fire?"

Naruto glanced questioningly at Sasuke and, at his nod, patted Sasuke's shoulder and stepped forward. "Yeah."

The rest of the Leaf teams gathered around Sasuke as he watched Itachi's body burn, wild and hot. Considerably hotter than he'd expected, actually, and his mouth twitched as he caught the vindictive glare Naruto was giving the body.

"What was it Tsunade-sama said about him?" Sakura murmured with a hint of laughter in her voice, apparently having noticed too.

"A pathologically overprotective beast host, who can be counted on to follow right after any kidnapping, setting forests on fire with his chakra as he goes," Sasuke recited, having had exactly the same moment in mind.

"Not that you have a lot of room to talk, yourself," she added.

They were smiling as Naruto turned back to them, and he smiled too, some of the tight lines around his mouth relaxing again.

It was a slow journey home. They went back to Sand, first, so Naruto could make sure Gaara was all right and Kakashi could talk the Sand Council into returning Hoshigake's body to Mist intact.

"We will need good will among the great villages very badly and very soon," he'd told them bluntly, and eventually they'd agreed. Sasuke thought Kakashi-sensei really was very good at diplomatic stuff when he wanted to be—though he had no idea why it made Kakashi flinch when Sakura voiced the same thought out loud.

Kakashi and Sasuke were both still tired and had to go slowly. Lee's ankle and hand had been set but weren't fully healed. Gai had pushed himself too hard while he was still recovering from the Eight Gates and had been yelled at very firmly by an exasperated Sand medic and forbidden to run at more than half speed. Neji was trying to hide it, but he was still wincing now and then from taking even an interrupted Tsukuyomi.

And Sasuke's mind wasn't focusing the way it really should. Akatsuki was out there, and here was Leaf's host in the open and only lightly guarded. He had work to do. He had a clan to re-found. He should be focused.

Instead, little random moments replayed in his mind's eye. The expression on Gaara's face when he overheard some of the Sand girls squealing over him. Sakura's excited remarks over dinner one night about fish in the underground river. A curl of sand lifting Naruto's hand up to meet Gaara's, when they parted. The Naka priestesses dancing in the empty streets of the Uchiha compound.

He nearly stumbled over his own feet at that memory, and Naruto was instantly beside him, frowning worriedly.

"Hey, are you okay? Do you need to rest? Hey, everyone, we're taking a break now!"

"I don't need to rest," Sasuke started.

"Medic says!" Naruto snapped, glaring at him.

"Use that too often, and it isn't going to work some day when you need it," Sasuke grumbled, but the group was already alighting at the foot of a tree and he resigned himself to a break whether he needed it or not.

And maybe it was best not to be running, for a moment. He leaned back against the tree and absently accepted the water bottle Naruto pressed into his hand, and looked into the past.

He hadn't thought about the cleansing in years. The village had paid for the priests and priestesses of the Naka Shrine to cleanse the compound, after the bodies were taken away. To burn the handful of buildings that couldn't be cleansed. He had vague memories of someone talking to him about the clan's accounts, of signing something to pay for an auxiliary shrine, and for a priest to tend the murdered dead of Uchiha until their violence was appeased.

And the compound had had to be cleansed so that people... so that people would move in. He hadn't thought about that, either. Not past the decision never to visit, never to see other people living in his clan's place.

That was not, he understood in the abstract, any way for the head of a clan to act. But he didn't know if he could do any differently.

"Hey." Sakura, sitting next to him, nudged his shoulder with hers. "You doing okay?" She was looking away into the trees instead of at him, which he was glad for.

"It's... there's... something I need to think about."

"Not surprised." She gave him a little, sidelong smile. "You know we're not leaving you, right?"

Sasuke snorted. "Since the two of you have barely left me alone in the bathroom for the last three days, I kind of figured, yeah." His mouth had curved up at the corners, though, and Sakura looked satisfied.

"Just making sure."

Sasuke was quiet for a moment. "After we get home," he finally said. "Stay with me."

Her eyes darkened for a moment, and she nodded.

Sasuke closed his water bottle and stood up. "Let's get going, then."

Eventually, they got back to Konoha and Kakashi went off to make reports and Naruto bullied the hospital staff into letting them all go after a check-up. He was getting good at that, Sasuke reflected, watching him wave his arms vigorously and lecture a faintly amused-looking doctor about all the tests and observations he'd made of the team on the way back.

And then he was finally home, walking through the darkening streets of his village as the lamps lit here and there, and climbing the stairs to his apartment with his teammates beside him.

Sakura promptly spread his double futon and pushed him down onto it, settling behind him. "All right," she said firmly, strong hands kneading his shoulders. "We're home. There's no one else to see. You can let go."

"Knew it," Naruto grumbled from the kitchen nook.

"You just hush up and cook," Sakura directed.

Sasuke didn't know what he wanted to say until he heard the words, "I really loved my brother," coming out of his mouth. Sakura took in a quick breath at that and wrapped her arms around him. Sasuke was glad for that; it kept the shaking in his stomach from taking his whole body. "I loved him," he said again, slowly, painfully. "And then he turned into... that."

"Maybe something happened to him," Naruto suggested, from the direction of the stove. "Like Orochimaru tried to happen to you."

Sasuke's breath caught. He didn't often think of that, these days—of the months when he'd been going, in retrospect, slowly crazy. "Oh."

Sakura's arms stayed strong around him, stilling the shaking, and he leaned back against her, just breathing. After a long, silent moment while she rocked him gently, Sakura asked, "Sasuke, what age did your clan inherit at? I mean... if there was any kind of recognition or ritual for the heir, when did that happen?" Her voice was slow and thoughtful.

"Thirteen," Sasuke answered, automatically; another reason Orochimaru had gotten to him so easily, that year when, if he hadn't been the last one alive, he should have been acknowledged, should have taken on more responsibilities. And then he froze. Thirteen. When he'd been seven. The year that his father and Itachi had started to quarrel. The year that his brother changed.

"Sasuke?" Sakura asked softly, one hand rubbing his back steadily.

"He changed, then," Sasuke whispered, starting blindly at the wall. "He did. He and Tou-san argued. That... that was the year his best friend died." A shudder ripped through him. "For the Mangekyou Sharingan... he said...."

"Said what?"

"Itachi killed him." Sasuke tried to swallow, and found his throat too dry. "That night... when we fought... he said to go to the shrine. I found records about it. You have to kill the person closest to you."

"To achieve that second Sharingan?" Sakura asked, and he just nodded.

"Well, but hang on." Naruto came to the futon with hot mugs of ramen, of course, for all of them. Sasuke folded shaking hands around his. "Kakashi-sensei has one of those. He used it while we were chasing Deidara; that's what got him in the end. Whoa, hey!" He put a fast hand under Sasuke's cup to keep it from spilling as Sasuke jerked forward, staring at him.

"I told him," Sasuke whispered, cold tightening on his chest. "After that mission to Hidden Stone, I told him, I asked him to help me unlock the records. But he couldn't..." Please no, please not again.

Naruto's snort broke the panicked circle of his thoughts. "Of course Kakashi-sensei hasn't killed anyone!" He paused. "Well, not like that. I mean... he was in the last war. He's killed people; he's a shinobi after all. But not like that."

No. Not like that, not Kakashi-sensei, the one who had taught him how not to listen to Itachi. Sasuke slowly relaxed again and managed a sip of his broth without spilling it, limp with relief.

"So there must be some other way to achieve it, then," Sakura pointed out.

He blinked. "There... was something about that. I remember. The record of the Mangekyou, it said something about killing being the forbidden way, almost like there was more than one. But it didn't say what any others might be, so I thought it must not mean that."

"Well, it's a forbidden technique," Naruto said reasonably. "They wouldn't want to say too much."

"So we know Kakashi-sensei figured out a different way; good," Sakura said firmly. "But that timing... I think something must have happened to Itachi. Something he had to do for the ritual or something he found out, then."

"Maybe it was the clan records themselves," Sasuke said, low, looking down into his noodles. "The records that were sealed in the shrine. I didn't know about them until Itachi told me. They were secret."

"He graduated young, didn't he?" Sakura murmured. "And then went into ANBU, and he'd been a kid during the last war. I bet he was under a lot of pressure. Maybe it was just too much."

Maybe the clan had been Itachi's anchor, Sasuke thought, and maybe finding something like the Mangekyou in its history had just been too much. But a lot of people had been under heavy pressure and none of them had murdered all their relatives. So it had to be something about Itachi himself too. That was the thought that led him to mutter, "I wonder if it'll happen to me, too."

Naruto thumped his cup down by the bed. "No, it won't," he said, very definitely, and rocked forward on his knees to wrap Sasuke in his arms. "You lost everything once, and it didn't happen. Even when people were trying to make it happen, it didn't happen! And we won't let it." He leaned in and kissed Sasuke, gentle and awkward, and said, more quietly, "Okay?"

Sasuke let himself lean into them, into the rare, serious softness of Naruto's eyes holding his and Sakura's hands on his shoulders, and whispered, "Yeah. Okay." His team. His anchor. His... family. They would keep him safe from this, too.

"Good. Then finish eating," Naruto ordered, giving him the medic-look instead.

Sasuke picked up his mug of ramen, raising his brows. "This is your idea of good nutrition, as a healer, is it?"

"Hey, it's salt, sugar, and carbohydrates!" Naruto protested. "What more do you want?" He sounded indignant, but he was grinning.

Sakura leaned against his shoulder giggling, and Sasuke ate a bite of ramen and felt himself settling back into his right place.

The season was turning before Sasuke could bring himself to visit the Uchiha compound. When he did he found that it wasn't, any more.

He'd known, in theory, that part of the reason the village had paid for the cleansing of the compound from the deaths was so that people could live there again. And he'd been aware that he was, technically, the landlord of many people living on the compound's ground. But he'd never paid any attention to that. The bank had assigned a trustee to the Uchiha accounts, there was more than enough money in them when he needed some, and he'd left it at that.

Now he actually saw what the figures on those quarterly statements he'd stuffed away without reading meant.

Parts of the compound were still empty, but in other places there were people: slow extensions of the surrounding neighborhoods, or a store reopened and a clutch of houses reoccupied around it. There were people walking in the streets, talking and arguing and laughing. Live, solid people, out in the sunlight under the changing leaves.

They just weren't Uchiha.

He recognized every meter of this place, and it was all strange to him. The clash of past and present was so disorienting he had to stop now and then while Naruto or Sakura gave him their hands to grip until he could walk again.

They stayed close to him, and he caught them, once or twice, silently warning off someone whose eyes widened with recognition on seeing him. He was glad of that; if someone had asked him if he was Uchiha Sasuke, he wasn't entirely sure what he would have answered. Even his own self felt strange to him, today.

Finally they came to the river, and the Naka shrine, and Sasuke stopped and stared.

There were people here, too.

The auxiliary shrine was built on a broad walk around the side of the main hall. It was well tended; the stone was clean and the paint bright. And there were people here. A woman stood before the offertory box, hands pressed together. A young couple were waiting quietly for her to finish. Two mothers and their children stood at the gate talking, smiling, perhaps waiting for the woman who prayed.

No one was afraid. No one walked too softly. They weren't here to propitiate angry ghosts. They were here because it was the compound's shrine, here to honor the clan who had held the land they lived on.

It was so much as it should be, so right, that he had to reach out for Naruto and Sakura again, and they gathered him into their arms, quick and protective.

He took what felt like the first full breath that day and said, "I need to come back here. This... I need to be here again. Here, where it's new."

He had feared, for years, that if he set foot back in the compound the weight of memory, the weight of that night, would crush him. And, at the same time, he had feared the intrusion of others, of outsiders who would desecrate the memory of his clan and his vengeance. Instead he had found... life. Life going on and yet honoring what had been, what had been his.

That was what, finally, let the tears he'd denied for almost ten years break through.

Naruto and Sakura held him through it, warm arms around him and quiet murmurs without meaningful words. And it was Sakura who found a tea shop inside the district for them and made him sit down where he could see the people passing while Naruto got hot tea and some sesame dango for them.

"This might be a nice place to live, right around here," Sakura said softly, looking around. "One of the empty areas is near here. You could take something at the edge of that." She smiled at him over the rim of her cup. "And have room to expand."

The thought, the mental image of a house known but not too familiar, was a good one. More than that, the thought of having clan again, or at least the plans and space for one, made some cranky sense of something-off at the bottom of his heart subside.

Naruto leaned his elbows on his knees and smiled at Sasuke, sidelong. "So, hey, will you give us discount rental rates, if we move in around here?"

Sasuke couldn't help smiling, even if it did stretch the rawness of his cheeks. "You can pay me part of it in babysitting." The appalled look on Naruto's face made him laugh.

"Oh, go on, Naruto, you'd be good at it," Sakura said, ruthlessly. "And it's not like I'm going to take too much time off for it." She hesitated suddenly and added, not quite looking at either of them as her cheeks turned pink. "I mean. If you want me to. I figure I would be okay with it. Having Uchiha kids."

Sasuke's face heated, and he had to clear his throat. "I'd like that. Yeah." He had a hard time imagining anyone else, though he supposed he'd better, eventually. He doubted Sakura had any intention of retiring to play clan-mother.

"Oh well, if they're yours, I guess it's okay; I'll watch 'em," Naruto muttered, also a little red himself. They all drank their tea in flustered silence.

As the thought settled in, though, Sasuke had to admit it felt good. It felt right.

His family. This time, the thought didn't hurt.

Sasuke had barely settled on a suitable house when Sakura was recalled to work by Intelligence. Naruto wasn't at all sure he approved of this.

"I'd tell them where they can stick this assignment," she told them, driving her hands through her short hair in frustration, "but Tsunade-sama is the one who requested me. It must be important."

"Can you tell us what it is?" Sasuke asked quietly.

"It's a diplomatic mission, sort of. To Hidden Valley, to tell them about the Akatsuki base in their country so they can take care of it."

Naruto frowned. Okay, yeah, that was important. But so was their team! "Can we come with you?"

Sakura's mouth tilted and she leaned back against one of the trees of the training ground with a thump. "They might let you go, but no one is going to pass Sasuke for duty yet, and I'm not leaving him here without you to look after him."

Sasuke didn't say anything at all to that and Naruto scooted over on the log they shared to lean against him, worried. Sakura came and sat on her heels in front of Sasuke, resting her hands on his shoulders. "It's okay," she said softly. "Kakashi-sensei is leading this mission. Even if we run into any more of Akatsuki, none of the rest of them are going to go after me to get a lever on you, right?"

Sasuke relaxed a little, and Naruto's eyes widened. Was that what he'd been worried about? Sakura looked over at him meaningfully. "Take care of Sasuke while I'm gone, all right?"

Stay with him so he had at least one of them in view, Naruto was betting that meant, and nodded firmly. He could do that.

Sasuke snorted. "Shouldn't you be telling me to look after him, so he doesn't eat nothing but ramen and store bought onigiri while you're gone?"

That sounded more like their Sasuke and Naruto grinned even as he drew himself up indignantly. "Hey, I can cook!"

"Yes, you can," Sasuke answered blandly. "You just don't."

Sakura laughed and everything was okay again, even a day later when they saw her off at the gates. Sasuke got quieter again once the gates closed, though, so Naruto steered them toward a takoyaki stand just to make him roll his eyes. It worked and the food tasted great. Complete win.

"If you're going to hang around," Sasuke told him, having obviously figured that part out, "you can help me pack. With luck it'll be done by the time Sakura gets back, and she can lend a hand with moving."

"Okay," he agreed around a mouthful of dumpling, and chalked up another win at the long-suffering look Sasuke gave him for his lack of manners.

Someone had to keep Sasuke from getting too serious, after all.

Packing to move was strange. Naruto was pretty sure it violated the laws of physics, because even when there was as much boxes of stuff as there had been space to put stuff, there was still stuff left. It was also, he decided after no more than an hour, not a good thing for Sasuke to be doing when he was already in a low mood. The third time he caught Sasuke sitting there on the mats, staring at a photo or a book or a kunai, he decided it was time to take measures. Sakura had entrusted Sasuke to him, after all.

The problem was what measures, and he thought about that as he wrapped up plates and bowls, of which Sasuke had about five times as many as he did. Sasuke wouldn't agree to food again so soon. He might agree to some training, but if he'd gotten into the wrong mood that might just make him even more dark and broody, the way he got sometimes when he was seeing ghosts in place of his actual target.

Well, if those were out, there was always their other popular team activity.

Naruto grinned, tucking away the last bowl. Yeah. That should work. He closed the box, stacked it with the rest and strolled over to where Sasuke was sorting his shelves. "Hey, Sasuke?"

"What?" When Sasuke looked up, Naruto took the opening and swooped down to kiss him.

Sasuke made a startled sound, one fist closing in Naruto's shirt as if to throw him. Naruto laughed, which made the kiss a little odd for a moment, and slumped forward, letting his weight bear Sasuke back to the tatami. Sasuke growled at that, eyes lighting up properly, and rolled.

They half wrestled over the floor for a few turns, laughing and groping, until Naruto got his hand into Sasuke's pants. That made Sasuke's eyes half close, and he ground his hips down against Naruto. "Mmm."

Naruto grinned. "I win," he declared, breathless.

"Oh you do, huh?" Sasuke looked down at him thoughtfully, eyes glinting, and finally smiled. "Try this, then." He closed both hands around Naruto's face and kissed him. A different kiss than usual.

It was slow and... gentle. Coaxing. And something else, too. Sasuke's mouth moved over his carefully, and his hands cradled Naruto's face like... like Naruto was something precious he didn't want to drop. That thought made a little sound catch in the back of his throat, and Sasuke's arms wrapped around him with that same care.

"I know it sounds weird for me, of all people, to say," Sasuke murmured, resting his forehead against Naruto's. "But not everything has to be a competition."

Naruto swallowed, eyes wide. "O... okay." Slowly, he wrapped his arms around Sasuke, too, and it made his heart do turny-flippy things when Sasuke relaxed, letting Naruto take his weight.

"Itachi," Sasuke said quietly. "That... that wasn't a competition either. But I want to be better than him."

"You are!" Naruto said fiercely, holding Sasuke tighter. "You already are!"

"Mm." He could feel Sasuke smiling a little against his neck. "Not stronger yet, though."

That felt wrong to Naruto, and he thought about it. "You were in the end, though," he finally said, slowly. "You won, Sasuke. That's stronger, isn't it?"

"I couldn't block Amaterasu, though," Sasuke objected and Naruto frowned.

"So what? You won. Quit trying to find reasons for it not to count!" He pummeled Sasuke's shoulder for a moment before wrapping his arms back around him. "Besides, Sakura looked in the Intelligence records and said it sounded like that Mangekyou thing is really dangerous and makes you go blind. Is that true? You'd better not be thinking of doing that if it's true."

After a taut moment, Sasuke snorted and relaxed over him again. "Yeah, okay. I guess... I did win." He leaned up on an elbow, looking down at Naruto soberly. "And yes. The Mangekyou Sharingan leads to blindness if it's used too often. I want to find a different way."

"Well that's okay, then." Naruto settled his arms comfortably around Sasuke's waist. "We'll help."

"Yeah," Sasuke said softly. "I know you will." He slid back down to lie against Naruto and added, a bit muffled against his shoulder, "Thanks."

Naruto smiled and just held him. "Yeah."

A/N: Little changes: Kakashi has slightly better aim than in canon because I'm not going to faff around with multiple rounds against Akatsuki, and Gai's fight with Kisame goes very much the same as in canon except that it's the real thing, which means he has to open up another level to beat him. I'm thinking Sasori's fight also goes quite similarly, only Chiyo has Fuunotora and her teams instead of Sakura. Since those are all basically canon-replays, I'm not going to do them up in detail. You already know pretty much what happens.

It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Thirteen

The larger ninja world starts talking about Akatsuki, and what to do about them. Naruto is hustled off to the Island Turtle with his team, where he meets B and reaches a certain cooperation with the Nine-tails. Drama, Angst, I-5

Warning: Features a brief section of suicidal thoughts.

Kakashi slid past the Hokage's door rather warily and waved a handful of message-paper strips at her. "Latest batch from the relays; Shizune asked me to bring them up with me." He swapped himself reflexively with the coat hanger as a cup went hurtling past where his head would have been and smashed into shrapnel against the wall. "I can see why she did," he added.

Tsunade stood over her desk, clenched fists planted on it, breathing hard. "Give them here."

"You're sure about that?" But he came out of the corner and handed over the slips.

Tsunade flung herself back down in her chair hard enough to roll it back from the desk and started reading, glowering down at the paper with tight lips. "Idiot," she hissed, tossing one over her shoulder. The next one got a sour "Moron!". The third didn't rate anything more than a glare, but the fourth shot her up onto her feet again yelling, "Don't you try to patronize me you dried up old fart!"

"The other villages still aren't responding well?" he hazarded. An easy guess; the traffic of messenger birds had been heavy over the past few months and every time he saw the Hokage she seemed more pissed off.

She stalked around her office, now, glaring at anything that fell in her way. Kakashi prudently removed himself to the top of her file cabinet.

"I'm going to have to haul them in to a meeting in person," she finally growled. "Gaara is willing, of course, and I think the Mizukage is too, but that blowhard A and Oonoki, old sot that he is, are being stubborn. They don't think Akatsuki can truly threaten a strong village, because they'll never be able to control or secure the loyalty of more than one or two hosts."

"And the smaller villages?" Kakashi asked. Presumably, with enough of the small village Masters on her side, Tsunade would be able to swing even the other Kage to her course. He had a difficult time imagining that many of the Masters were truly willing to have Akatsuki running around with any tailed beasts at all.

Tsunade's lip curled. "So far, I've mostly gotten variations on 'you first'. None of them want to be caught in between if the great countries disagree badly enough over this to go back to war."

"Hard to blame them," Kakashi murmured. Tsunade just snarled.

"And then there's the Master of the Waterfall, who says that, if Akatsuki is behind this, the Leaf must have hired them! Because we're the only one whose host hasn't been attacked!" She paced another round, hands flexing ominously. "Hanzou refuses to get involved at all, the bastard. He thinks Rain can hold out no matter what Akatsuki does, and if we all reduce our strength taking Akatsuki down without him all the better!" She snatched up the sandstone paperweight from her desk and slowly crushed it to rubble in her hand, growling.

"It was already sure that Rain wouldn't get involved," Kakashi couldn't help pointing out, though he kept a cautious eye on the erstwhile paperweight. "They never go beyond their borders, these days." Which was, honestly, a nice change for everyone else.

Tsunade let the rubble fall and snorted. "He's gotten paranoid ever since that civil war in Rain. I was kind of hoping he'd bite this time, though; the leader of the other side become a member of Akatsuki, after all. But no such luck." She finally sat back down, leaning back with a sigh. "The one bright spot is the Master of Sound. He seems to have seen this coming, and his latest message offered Hidden Sound as a meeting place for us."

"Mm. About as neutral a location as possible," Kakashi agreed. A new village with no axes to grind and no history of war with anyone but Leaf, and as close to centrally located as possible. It disturbed him just a little that he was starting to know all these things off-hand.

"Exactly. And if A and Oonoki know that Gaara and Terumii and I are all going, they'll come too just out of suspicion."

"Not the most productive mindset for negotiations," Kakashi murmured.

"No, it's not. Which is why," she fixed him with a sharp eye, "you and Nara Shikaku are coming with me as aides and bodyguards."

Kakashi froze and then tried to pretend he hadn't. "Taking the Jounin Commander makes sense," he said as casually as he could, "but wouldn't someone like Jiraiya-san be more impressive as your other attendant?" Someone who was not him. He'd figured out exactly what administrative job she thought he'd be good for, once she started sending him around as her personal representative, and he'd been doing his damndest to deflect her from the idea.

"Jiraiya is out looking for more of Akatsuki's bases and hideouts. And quit playing dumb," she told him sternly. "I won't live long enough to see Naruto come off active duty and learn the rest of this job, and I've come to the sad conclusion that there's no one else qualified. It's going to have to be you in this chair after me. Live with it."

"The jounin have to confirm the Hokage," Kakashi said a little desperately. He couldn't do this; he knew himself, he knew how deeply he bonded to his teams even when he tried not to, taking on the entire village would kill him. "Are you really sure they'll—"

"They approve of you more than anyone else," she cut him off. "Shikaku won't have it; I asked. Jiraiya's refused it twice and he'll probably be dead before me the way he lives, and I won't see it go to Danzou."

That shut him up. He'd been trying, for years, to get proof of what he was sure Danzou was doing, and the thought of that man in charge of his village sent a sharp prickle of rage down his nerves. Even taking on a commander's responsibility for the whole village, crushing as he knew it would be, was better than that. "Yes, Hokage-sama," he gave in at last, voice low.

"Better." She waved a hand at him. "Go tell Shikaku to start packing while I get the messages ready."

Kakashi nodded quietly and slipped out, trying not to feel like doom had come to hover over his shoulder.

A couple of weeks later, Kakashi watched five Kage and ten attendants all trying to keep an eye on each other as the Master of Hidden Sound led them up a flight of wide, spiraling tower stairs. At least, he reflected, this meeting promised some amusement. They finally emerged at the top of the tower and he raised interested brows. There was a curving hall of red stone, with narrow windows in the outer wall at regular intervals, and a single door in front of them. Naridasu turned to his gathered guests.

"This room has only one door, and the tower below it is solid stone for two floors. We are high enough to see any attempt at attack or eavesdropping coming. Given that security, I believe this meeting will be," he paused judiciously and finally decided on, "least chaotic if only the Kage are present, and your attendants stand guard in the hall here."

There was a silent moment, full of sidelong looks and suspicious frowns, before Gaara spoke up. "That will be quite acceptable." He nodded briefly to Temari and Kankurou, and paced forward to the door of the meeting room. He paused on the threshold to look over his shoulder with bland inquiry.

Kakashi smirked just a little. Gaara was learning how to play politics very quickly; he was impressed.

"It seems reasonable, yes," Terumii, the Mizukage, murmured, and waved off the muttered protests of her older attendant.

"Fine," the Raikage growled, stomping forward, and Tsunade sauntered after him, nearly grinning.

Oonoki of Hidden Rock stumped after them, muttering complaints about stairs and his back and insolent young whippersnappers, completely ignoring his attendants. The young woman who had come with him rolled her eyes.

"Well," the older of the two from Cloud said slowly, as the door closed. "I suppose we should spread out and each take an approach to watch, then."

No one moved. Kakashi sighed to himself; he hoped Tsunade knew what she was getting herself into, trying to pull together some international cooperation. It wasn't looking like an easy job. So, since it was unfortunately clear that he wasn't going to be able to escape politics much longer himself, he supposed he'd better start doing something to make it work.

He raised his forehead protector to show his Sharingan.

A frisson of tension swept the group.

Slowly, Kakashi reached into a pocket of his vest.

Hands dropped to hidden weapons or slid toward scrolls. The older of the Mist nin flicked up his own eye patch to reveal a Byakugan. The younger of the Cloud nin slid his hands together into the Ram, expression grim.

Kakashi pulled out the latest Icha Icha book and flipped it open. He smiled sunnily at the chokes of absolute disbelief and the way a few stances wobbled. "Well! Clearly, the pair from Mist should take the stairs, as the Byakugan will see even an approach that's cloaked in illusion." He nodded cheerfully to the young Cloud nin, who was looking outraged, and the elder, who was looking thoughtful and had a hand on the younger's shoulder. "And since illusion appears to be one of your specialties, perhaps Cloud should take the opposite approach, so we're as well covered as possible by the sensing specialists."

Everyone was staring, except for Temari who was looking grudgingly impressed.

"Can't take you anywhere," Shikaku muttered, through the hand he'd clapped over his face.

Kakashi flipped pages to find his place and started strolling along the curve of the hall. "We'll take the left, if that's agreeable."

"Hatake Kakashi," Temari said, in a tone that suggested that was all the comment needed, and clapped Kankurou on the shoulder. "Sand will take the right."

After a moment of vibrating conflict, the young woman from Rock hissed something annoyed, and probably very rude, under her breath and stomped off after Temari, dragging the large young man who was her partner along. Kakashi nodded with approval. With a Sharingan on the left, it was the right that should have the extra pair to watch. If that girl was who he thought she was, Rock would be well served when she eventually took over as Tsuchikage. He settled his back against the wall of the meeting room, noting with satisfaction that he could see both Mist and Cloud teams from the corners of his eyes, and turned a page.

Shikaku slumped against the wall next to him. "May the Hokage live for a hundred years," he said, low and fervent, "because I don't want to be the one who has to pick up after you, when you take over."

Some bass roaring reverberated through the wall, followed by Tsunade's more piercing shout of, "You never hired them because you were doing the dirty work with your own hands, now sit down and shut up and listen!"

"You sure I'd be worse than Tsunade-hime?" Kakashi asked, delicately turning another page. Shikaku gave the book a dour look.

"Yes, Kakashi-kun, I'm very sure. Don't think that's going to stop me from approving you, though, no matter how cack-brained you try to act."

Well, the Nara clan was known for their intelligence, after all. Kakashi sighed and tucked the book away, giving up his pretense of frivolousness. That reflex of concealment was one he might just have to break, now, anyway—at least among his own people. Instead, he amused himself trying to follow the progression of the Kage's arguments by the things that were shouted loudly enough to be heard through the stone walls.

The howl of "Madara!" was more than one person, he thought. So Tsunade had decided to tell them of Itachi's words, unconfirmed though they were.

A shattering crunch followed by a softer but sustained impact against the wall was, he thought, most likely the Raikage breaking something and the Mizukage taking exception.

It was only a guess, but he thought that Tsunade's shriek of "Absolutely not!" was most likely in response to a proposal that the two remaining hosts be killed to keep their beasts out of Akatsuki's hands. At least, it was followed by a cracked shout of "You're naive!" from the Tsuchikage, and everything Kakashi knew of the old man suggested the kind of ruthlessness that would think killing the hosts was perfectly reasonable.

Those shouts were followed, though, by a long period of someone speaking low and steady. Either Gaara or Terumii, Kakashi thought.

It wasn't long after that that the door opened again, and all of the attendants gathered quickly back to their Kage. The Raikage was frowning, but that was nothing unusual. The Mizukage looked relieved, as did Tsunade herself; negotiations must have succeeded well enough to go on with. The Kazekage looked as calm as ever, but the Tsuchikage was watching him with thoughtful eyes that weren't as hard as they had been when they all went in. Kakashi wondered what Gaara had said to the others, to put that expression on the face of a hard-bitten old shinobi like Oonoki.

Tsunade beckoned him. "We're going to sequester Naruto and Cloud's Killer Bee under a multi-national guard while all of us work on flushing out Akatsuki in our own countries. I think the smaller countries will be willing to participate, now, with Sound to lead the way." She scowled. "And Hanzou will damn well keep them out of Rain if I have to go bend the old bastard's ear about it in person. At any rate, I want you to find people for our part of the hosts' guard."

"How many?" Kakashi asked, already tallying in his head who he could truly trust with Naruto's safety. It couldn't be just anyone, even now. He wondered if he could convince Jiraiya to command the detachment.

"At least a dozen from each of the great nations," the Raikage rumbled. He nodded at the older of the Cloud attendants. "Darui, you'll lead ours. Take Samui and her team, too. Keep my brother safe." Darui nodded soberly.

The Mizukage had a hand on her younger attendant's arm. "Choujuurou, I'll want both you and Suigetsu to go; try to keep him out of trouble." The boy looked dubious, and Kakashi wondered whether this Suigetsu was another of the Swordsmen; all the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist tended to be a little wild. Maybe it was the tooth filing that did it to them.

The Tsuchikage was already stumping toward the stairs. "Kurotsuchi! Akatsuchi! Hurry up, we're going. And Kurotsuchi, fetch your father when we get home. He's going to be in charge of our unit." He gave her a beady look. "You're going too." The girl groaned and he glared. "And don't complain! You're not the one having to take creaky old hips down these damn stairs again..." His complaints trailed down the spiral stairwell.

"Temari," Gaara said quietly. "For everything Naruto's done for us... keep him safe." Temari drew herself up and saluted sharply.

"So where are we putting them?" Shikaku asked as Tsunade followed Oonoki down the stairs.

Tsunade's mouth quirked. "Well. I suppose you could say they're taking a cruise."

Naruto stared around the dark, wooded crags of the island, wide eyed. "This is really a turtle?"

"Indeed. I'd heard of it," Jiraiya said behind him, "but never visited. Outsiders have never been welcome. Fascinating."

The old pervert was showing his true colors, Naruto thought, with an affectionate glance. For all he acted like he didn't have a thought in his head but the next drink and the next pair of boobs, there was a lot more to him. Even Sasuke admitted that, though it just seemed to make him that much more pissed off over the pervy act. He was giving Jiraiya That Look this very moment—the frustrated one that hinted he might try to strangle the man with his own ponytail.

"The encampment is this way," their guide, Motoi, said meaningfully, and Naruto sighed and trailed along with everyone else, gawking around as they went. This was one huge turtle.

"What did I just step in?" Ino's voice echoed up the line of Leaf shinobi.

"Please be careful of the island's wildlife while you're here," Motoi added blandly.

"Big animals all around, huh?" Naruto asked, with perfect innocence, and grinned when Sakura had to stifle giggles.

"Very big," Motoi agreed. "B-sama has tamed them, and they seem to accept the encampment for his sake, but they're normally quite savage. Do be careful."

B was the other host, wasn't he? Naruto walked on, thinking about that. Maybe he could make friends with B, the way he had with Gaara.

Even that possibility couldn't distract him from the island itself for long, though. There were even buildings on this turtle! About a hundred shinobi, from what he could see, were scattered around the narrow valley they were led down, going in and out of a clutch of weathered, moss grown stone buildings.

"A temple?" Sakura wondered, at his shoulder. "Look at the approaches." She pointed to a wide, paved way heading off into the crags.

"It was part of a temple complex, once," Motoi agreed. "It's well hidden, defensible, and close to the best concealment for the hosts."

"A fine choice," Kakashi-sensei murmured, not taking his nose out of his book as he paced along at Jiraiya's side. Naruto exchanged glances with Sakura and Sasuke, and they all rolled their eyes a little over their teacher's personal security blanket. He'd been using it a lot more, lately, and Naruto was starting to wonder if something was actually wrong.

Well, aside from Akatsuki and all that. Besides that. Something personal, maybe. Mission stuff never bothered Kakashi-sensei this much.

Motoi showed them to their very own building. "We thought it wise to give the different nations separate quarters."

"Yes," Kakashi-sensei sighed, finally snapping his book closed. "I'm sure it will be just a joy to integrate this group." He raised his voice. "Everyone find rooms and settle in! Don't make trouble, and don't let anyone provoke you into making trouble. We're here to complete a mission. Remember it."

Naruto nodded to himself. Personal, definitely. As soon as he was doing mission stuff, Kakashi-sensei was just fine, if a little scary at times.

"Be quick about it, you three," Kakashi-sensei added as Naruto and his team filed past. "You and I will be going with Jiraiya-san to meet the other people in charge of this effort."

They threw their packs into an empty second floor room and, as they hurried down again to join Kakashi-sensei, Naruto heard Ino arguing with Kiba about who should take the rooms beside it, and Iruka-san's aggravated voice raised over both of them, telling them to knock it off. The fifth member of Ino's Intelligence team, the lean pale guy, smiled wide and cheery as he stood aside for them on the stairs, apparently oblivious to Ino's temper; maybe he was used to it already.

"It's too bad Shikamaru and Chouji stayed in the village," Sakura muttered. "I mean, I'm glad for Ino that she was put in charge of the unit from Intelligence, but she's a lot calmer when they're both around."

"She is?" Naruto asked, skeptical, dodging aside for Genma-san and the pack-loaded chuunin he was directing into the first floor rooms. He'd never noticed Ino being calm about anything, ever. Sakura's mouth quirked.

"Deep down."

They emerged into the misty chill of the valley again, and Kakashi nodded, pushing away from the wall. "Good, that's all of us. Let's go."

Naruto looked around some more as they trailed after Kakashi-sensei and Jiraiya across the cracked, grass-grown plaza toward the last building before that broad avenue and stairs out of the valley.

"There's always some friction when shinobi from different villages try to work together," Kakashi-sensei told them as they detoured around a woman with the Mist insignia and a man with Cloud's, up in each other's faces and arguing about the best way to keep watch for an attack from the air. "So I'll repeat this. Keep your tempers. Don't provoke anyone and don't let yourselves be provoked." For a moment, the cool, businesslike tone left his voice and he glanced over his shoulder at them with a rueful tilt to his eyebrow. "And when someone does lose his temper, I expect the other two to sit on him. Or her."

"Not a problem," Sasuke murmured.

"Hey, who said it would be me getting sat on?" Naruto bridled. As if Sasuke actually had any better of a temper than he did.

"Who said anything about that? I just said it wouldn't be a problem." Naruto growled at the bland look on Sasuke's face, and Kakashi sighed, and Jiraiya laughed, and they were all satisfyingly relaxed when they went into what Naruto guessed was the headquarters building around here. The low, square building turned out to be pretty much one big room with boringly blank, windowless walls and a huge oval table made of black stone. The camp chairs looked flimsy, circled around it.

There were a bunch of people already there. Checking forehead protectors and insignia, it looked like two from each of the five great nations plus Sound, Grass, and Valley. He waved cheerfully at Temari, who rolled her eyes in response even as a corner of her mouth twitched. Cloud had an extra three people, sitting a little back from the big table. One of them must be the host of the Eight-tails, he figured, wondering who it was. The huge guy? One of the two young shinobi, about his own age? That might be kind of cool.

"Hatake Kakashi, of the Leaf," Kakashi-san was introducing himself, distracting Naruto. "Jiraiya-sama, of the Leaf's Sannin. Our host, Uzumaki Naruto, and his teammates Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke. Pleased."

"We're all here, then," the dark, serious looking Cloud guy said, only to be interrupted when one of the two from Mist sat bolt upright and pointed at Sakura.

"Ah! Wall!"

Naruto was pretty sure everyone was blinking along with him at that one. Sakura sure was. "I beg your pardon?" she asked.

"At that Sound lab! I almost had that snake bastard and you stopped me!" He frowned. "Wait a minute, if you're Leaf..."

Sakura's mouth tightened, and Naruto edged closer to lean his shoulder against hers. "Orochimaru was a Leaf renegade," Sakura said quietly. "I was there to execute him."

The Mist guy crossed his arms with an exasperated huff that blew his silvery bangs out of his eyes. "Well then why did you stop me?"

Naruto could feel the shift as Sakura's spine straightened and she answered coolly, "Your chance of success was too low. You'd been captured, so he knew at least some of your abilities and weaknesses. He appeared inattentive, but that was almost always a ruse with him. There were ten other shinobi present who would support him. I calculated you had less than a fifty percent chance of success, whereas defending him at that point would considerably increase my later chances of killing him."

The Mist guy was a little wide-eyed by the time she was done, and the red-haired girl from Cloud whistled. "That's pretty cold," she said.

"It's good strategy," countered the sharp-eyed, dark-haired girl with the Rock insignia, with an approving look at Sakura.

The guy from Mist eyed Sakura thoughtfully. "So, did it work?"

Sakura twitched against his shoulder and Naruto was pretty sure she was forcing herself not to look at the two from Sound. The guy they'd met before, Tomita, he just looked serious, but the woman with him was definitely glaring. Sakura took a deep breath. "I drove my hand through his spine and saw the body burned," she said flatly. "Will you accept that as restitution for your capture?"

The first part of that had made Naruto suck in a quick breath, because Sakura wasn't the type to boast about her kills, but the second part made it all make sense. And the straight line of Tomita's shoulders softened as he listened to Sakura offering her kill to shield Sound from repercussions.

"Huh." The Mist guy smiled, mouth full of sharp teeth. "Yeah, I guess I will."

Naruto snuck a sidelong look at Sakura, smiling. She nodded back just a little, relaxing against him. He and Sasuke shared a satisfied glance behind her. Yes, their teammate was just that awesome, and thoughtful, and caring. And scary, but Naruto thought it was probably okay if the other villages appreciated that part too.

"As I was saying," the Cloud leader said quite calmly, "perhaps introductions are in order. I'm Darui. This is my second in command, Samui," he gestured at the pale woman beside him, "and her team Karui and Omoi," that was the two younger Cloud nin, "who are particularly assigned as bodyguards to B, the host of the Eight-tails." The really big guy leaned back in his chair, which creaked.

Naruto tried to keep track of everyone as they went around the table, even though he kept getting distracted by watching B out of the corner of his eye. Tomita from Sound, he knew, and the glaring woman was Karin. The sharp girl from Rock was Kurotsuchi, and her father Kitsuchi was in charge of the Rock contingent. Haruto of Grass looked like the serious type, while his lieutenant, Souta, was lounging in his seat watching everyone lazily. Temari had come from Sand, and she'd brought Baki, the scary half-veil guy. Hidden Valley had sent a brother and sister from the Yasumori clan, Takuma and Yuzuki; Sasuke murmured that that clan was supposed to be really good with Wood techniques. The Mist guy who knew Sakura was Suigetsu, and the other one, who seemed to be really shy, was Choujuurou. They were both part of the Seven Swordsmen, apparently, and Naruto still wondered what was up with the filed teeth thing.

When everyone had been introduced, it was Darui, again, who said, "We need to choose someone to lead this mission. There are too many of us to try to command by consensus."

Silence fell while everyone at the table looked warily around at each other. Naruto nearly groaned out loud; it was going to take forever to get anywhere at this rate. Well, fine, if it wasn't obvious to anyone else...

He kicked the seat of Jiraiya's chair, providentially placed right in front of him. "Hey, ero-sennin. It had better be you hadn't it?"

Jiraiya looked around to glower fearsomely at him. "Naruto!" Naruto just crossed his arms and glared back.

"What? It's true!"

"Why him?" the red-haired Cloud girl, Karui, demanded.

"He's the oldest here, isn't he?" Naruto waved his hands; why wasn't this obvious? "And that means he's got the most experience, and he's survived all of it! And that's kind of the point of us being here, isn't it?"

After a quiet moment, Samui murmured, "He does make a good point."

"Sand knows things to the credit of Jiraiya," Temari allowed, though she added, "if he's being serious."

"And will he?" Kitsuchi wanted to know, leaning his stout elbows on the table. "Will he take on this kind of responsibility? Jiraiya of the Leaf is known to have left his village some time ago. He doesn't even wear Leaf's insignia any more."

Yuzuki stirred beside her brother. "Perhaps that would be well, in a situation like this. Perhaps we need someone whose first loyalty is not to a specific village. The River Country also knows of Jiraiya-san. He has never acted against Leaf's interests, but on his travels he has always been willing to lend his strength to the other villages and countries in time of trouble."

Jiraiya finally left off glowering at Naruto and sat back with a sigh. "Leaf is still my home village. But it's true that the dictates I try to follow are those of Mount Myouboku."

"Hatake-san," Choujuurou of the Mist said quietly, looking down at his folded hands on the table. "Will you vouch for the ability and dedication of Jiraiya-san?"

Kakashi-sensei was quiet for a long moment. "Jiraiya-san has both great knowledge and great wisdom," he said at last. "No matter how much he sometimes pretends he doesn't." Naruto and Sasuke caught each other's eye, and Naruto grinned at the look of grudging agreement on Sasuke's face. "If he accepts leadership of this mission, he will lead it well and, I think, impartially."

"Hey, wait a minute, why are you asking him?" Suigetsu wanted to know, poking Choujuurou in the ribs. He stopped and drew back, though, when Choujuurou looked up. He didn't look shy at all, now.

"Hatake-san was the one who sent Kisame-senpai's body and sword back to us," Choujuurou said, low. "Intact. The Mist will accept his judgment, in this." He gave Jiraiya a level look. "Will you accept it, Jiraiya-san?"

Jiraiya's mouth quirked up at one corner. "It's always the quiet ones," he murmured, and straightened. "If this command group can reach a unanimous decision, I will accept it."

Temari shrugged. "Mist and Leaf seem to agree. So does Sand." She raised a brow at the two from Valley, and Yuzuki nodded.

"Hatake Kakashi is Haruno-san's teacher," Tomita observed. "And we have cause to trust her judgment, as Mist has cause to trust Hatake-san's. Sound will accept her teacher's judgment as well."

Kitsuchi was watching Kakashi-sensei, who had gotten very still, looking amused. "You didn't really think no one had noticed, did you Kakashi? Your judgment was what carried more than one engagement in the Leaf's favor. Considering that, Rock agrees also."

"Good enough," Souta of the Grass drawled, and nudged his commander. "Haruto-san?"

"If my intelligence specialist agrees, then Grass accepts Jiraiya-san as well," Haruto said calmly, ignoring the annoyed look Souta gave him. Naruto figured Souta hadn't wanted anyone to know his specialty; Intelligence people tended to be like that, if Ino was anything to go by.

Everyone looked at Cloud. Darui considered Jiraiya for a long breath.

"Jiraiya-san," he finally said, "it's known that you have a close relationship with Leaf's host. Can you tell me with surety that you'll guard B as closely as you will Naruto?"

"I will," Jiraiya answered without hesitation, assurance ringing in every word, and Naruto smiled a little. Just like Kakashi-sensei had a particular tone he used when he was being serious about mission stuff, Jiraiya spoke like this sometimes and you just believed him.

Darui nodded. "Then Cloud agrees, also. Jiraiya will command this mission."

"If you can give me a similar assurance," Jiraiya shot back immediately, "I would like you to act as second in command, Darui-kun."

Darui smiled just a little at that, and gave Naruto a long look. "Yes," he finally agreed. "I will defend Naruto of the Leaf as if he were our own."

"All right, then." Jiraiya glanced over at Kakashi-sensei. "Kakashi, you're in charge of the Leaf contingent. Tell Genma he's your second." Kakashi nodded silently and Jiraiya turned back to the rest of them. "If I'm to plan well for this mission, I need to know the abilities of the people you've brought."

Naruto tried to pay attention, but it was hard to be all that interested in lists. His attention kept wandering to the Cloud host, B. Sakura had gotten all the gossip available on Cloud's host from Intelligence, before they left, and she'd said whoever it was was supposed to be one of the few hosts who completely controlled the power of the beast sealed inside him. Naruto had to wonder what that would be like.

"...well supplied with sensors and scouts, then," Jiraiya was saying, when Naruto tuned in again, hands folded loosely under his chin as he thought. "I'll want everyone's input on how to best place the rest of our people for defense, if we're discovered. Before that, though, Motoi mentioned that there was a place on this island where the hosts could be completely undetected?"

B finally spoke up. "The Tailed Beast temple. Chakra doesn't pass its walls, either in or out."

"That may be very useful for keeping the two of you from Akatsuki, if they find the island in the first place," Jiraiya said approvingly. "If they can't sense you at all, they may be convinced this encampment is a decoy." Naruto sat up straight at that.

"Hey, hey, wait a minute," he protested. "You can't just stuff us in a temple if there's trouble! I mean, I'm not just going to hide while everyone else is fighting!"

"You're their target," Jiraiya told him inflexibly, so level and serious that Naruto knew, with a sinking feeling, he really meant it. "And we will not permit them to take you. If that means hiding, you'll do it."

"But—!"

Sakura laid a hand on his shoulder. "Naruto," she said gently. "I know you're worried. You want the people you care for to be safe, even if you have to put yourself in danger to make sure of that, right?"

He crossed his arms, vindicated, and nodded firmly. "Yeah!" At least someone understood.

And then he yelped as Sakura grabbed the front of his shirt in her fist and dragged him up nose to nose with her. "Then what the hell makes you think we feel any differently?!" she yelled.

Naruto blinked at her, ears ringing. "Oh. Um." He rubbed the back of his head, sheepish; he hadn't quite thought of it like that. "Right." He glanced around the table, face getting a little hot. Darui-san was looking amused, Temari wryly approving, and Tomita looked downright nostalgic. Sakura sniffed and dropped him back into his seat. She didn't quite dust her hands, but Naruto thought she might as well have. He took a breath and rallied. "But! Itachi is gone, so whoever comes can't just put that eye thing on us. They have to beat us first, right? So, so!" Naruto just about bounced; this was important. "So if you guys are defeated because we weren't there to fight with you, we'll have a worse chance of winning by ourselves!" He folded his arms again. "So we totally should fight with everyone else."

"And what if it's Madara himself who comes after you?" Jiraiya asked sharply.

Naruto scowled, but he supposed that was a point. "If it's Madara, I'll hide," he agreed. "But if it's anyone else, I'll fight too!"

Jiraiya opened his mouth and closed it again. "Hm."

B stirred. "You really going to be that much good to the fight?" he asked, leaning his protesting chair back on two legs. "How much of the Nine-tails' chakra can you draw, anyway?"

Naruto lifted his chin. "Enough to give a jounin a complete chakra transfusion," he said challengingly. A soft murmur of surprise rustled around the table and he sat back, satisfied.

B snorted. "That's nothing compared to what the Nine-tails has on tap."

Naruto bristled. "Fine, then! Show me!" B cocked his head and Naruto jumped up, pointing at him. "You're supposed to be able to access all of the Eight-tails. So show me how! And I'll do it! Because I'm not leaving my friends to fight alone!" He jammed his fists on his hips, glaring. "The fox already agreed to pay me rent. I bet I can get him to do this too!"

B's chair wobbled on two legs for a moment and his brows vanished under his forehead protector. "Rent?" After a long moment, he laughed. "You're a feisty one. I kind of like that. All right, kid; let's see if you can do it."

"Well," Jiraiya said dryly, "that much seems to have been decided. Have fun. Let us know how it's going."

Naruto grinned at him and gave him Gai-san's thumbs up sign, which made Sasuke groan faintly and Kakashi-sensei twitch. "You bet!"

B stretched up out of his chair, just as huge as he looked sitting down, and clapped his hands on Omoi's and Karui's shoulders. "Come on, you two. You can keep an eye on us." Sakura and Sasuke promptly stood too, at Naruto's back.

Karui gave them all a smirk. "You'll never be able to do it."

"Just watch me," Naruto told her, and strode out of the building after B.

"These are the Falls of Truth," B said over the low thunder of falling water that filled the little clearing. "The temple is behind it. To reach the temple, though, you have to face yourself first."

Naruto puzzled at that for a moment and finally tilted his head at B and just asked, "Huh?"

"Sit there," B pointed to a flat stone at the foot of the falls, "and meditate on the water. You'll have to pass whatever appears out of the falls, to get to the temple."

Was this where some of the giant animals would come in? Naruto shrugged. "Okay then." He took a step toward the river, focusing his chakra for water walking, only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

"Naruto," Sasuke said quietly, "while you're doing this... remember us. Okay?"

Naruto blinked. "Well of course I'll remember you. You're right here."

Sasuke gave him an exasperated look. "That wasn't what I meant. It's... look, just..." he finally huffed out a breath, pulled Naruto around, and kissed him.

Naruto made a startled sound, but this... this was one of the special kisses, the ones that were slow and coaxing and like Naruto was the only thing Sasuke was thinking of in the whole world. So Naruto mentally tossed over his shoulder all the questions about why now and leaned into it. It made him feel like he was special when Sasuke kissed him like this, and Sakura was warm against his back, arms wrapped around them both. Sakura would protect them from everything; she always did.

"Don't get too knotted up inside your own head, okay?" Sasuke said softly, when he finally drew back. "Remember this."

"Okay," Naruto agreed, husky.

Both Karui and Omoi had their brows raised when Sakura and Sasuke let him go, but B was wearing a tilted little smile. "Good guess," he told Sasuke, and added to Naruto, "Well, go on, then."

Naruto thought maybe he could have walked on water without any chakra at all, after that. But staring at the falls was boring. He shifted on the rock and sighed and stared some more.

And... was there a shadow in the water? He swore he could see his reflection, only the water had to be too rough for that...

The reflection solidified and himself stepped out of the waterfall.

It was definitely himself. Himself with the still, distant look on his face that Naruto never, ever, ever showed anyone else. What good would it do, after all, for anyone to know when he felt that way? That face was wet from the waterfall. Wait, no...

Wet with tears, running down from those dark, empty eyes without stopping.

"They don't think you exist," himself said quietly. "They look at you and don't see you. Only the Nine-tails. You don't exist at all."

The words were like a fist against a broken bone. "That's not true!" Naruto burst out.

"Sometimes they see the Fourth's son, now," his own voice said, his own face, looking straight at him. "But who's that? You never knew him, except that he's the one who chose this life for you. Does that really make his son something good? No. Just another empty form."

"But I'm not," Naruto wavered, remembering the times he'd wondered how his dad could do this to his own son, and he grabbed reflexively at his oldest shield. "I'm not! And it doesn't matter! I'm going to be a hero!"

"Only until you fail," himself said, soft and flat. "Like you did with Gaara. Too late. Not good enough. Then they'll all say it's no surprise, won't they? Because you're nothing, after all."

Naruto wrapped his arms around him, suddenly cold in the blowing droplets from the falls. People would say that, yes. He could hear them, like he'd heard them for eighteen years, cold words spit at his back, and even his face, whenever he tried to succeed. They piled up like rocks on his shoulders until he was hunched down under the weight.

"How will you live, then?" himself asked. "Without anyone who really sees you at all. Wouldn't it be better not to? The Nine-tails will die too, that way. Akatsuki won't get it. There will be time for someone who actually chooses this to step up to be a host. Isn't that what your father should have done?" He took a step closer. "And if you kill the fox that way, maybe then they'll finally say you were a hero."

"I won't!" Naruto yelled, putting his hands over his ears. His own eyes were burning, now. "I won't, I won't let them win! I'm better than that! I am!"

"Who says so?" himself asked, so disinterested Naruto could tell he thought it was impossible.

"Sakura says," he shot back, "and..." He stopped and blinked. "And... Sasuke. Sasuke said..."

Don't get too knotted up inside your own head, okay?

"And, and Shikamaru said," Naruto whispered, remembering.

We'll keep ours safe.

"And Hinata," Naruto said softly. "And Kiba, and Chouji..."

Naruto-kun...

Naruto!

Hey, Naruto...

He remembered faces smiling at him. "And Gaara said I'd helped." He felt again the little roughness of sand, swirling around his hand and lifting it to meet Gaara's and clasp hands good-bye like friends. "And that ero-sennin said it would help if I fought beside everyone. Even though he didn't want to!"

"Are they really telling the truth, though?" himself wanted to know. He was very close now, and the emptiness in his eyes was everything that had terrified Naruto when he woke up alone at night for years and years. But...

"Sasuke and Sakura love me," he said, and knew it was true. And in knowing, himself got a little see-through for a moment. Naruto took a deep breath. He knew what this was, now. "All that... that's from the past. It's not now. Now is different." He could feel the warmth of Sakura's arms around him, of Sasuke's mouth on his, and he smiled even if it was wobbly, holding tight to them. "Now is different."

"How do you know for sure? What if it's just a lie? What if it goes away?" himself whispered, and Naruto had to laugh out loud even though his own eyes were wet with that fear, too.

"I know because of this," he said, husky, and reached out to wrap his arms around himself, just like Sakura had for him. And kissed himself, gentle and careful, the way Sasuke did for him.

Everything blurred through the water on his lashes, and when he blinked them clear he was looking at the waterfall and himself was gone. He looked around hastily, and found Sasuke and Sakura on the river shore along with B and Karui and Omoi. Naruto scrubbed a sleeve over his face and sucked in a deep breath and stood up. He felt... light.

Also a little dizzy, and he wobbled as he stepped back off the water and onto land.

B put a hand on his shoulder to steady him, looking down at him with a cocked brow. "So?"

"Well... I'm pretty sure I dealt with what I found, yeah." Naruto's smile got a little crooked for a second, and B's matched it. Yeah, B was a host too, after all; he probably knew.

"Good. That was the easy part."

Naruto thought about that. He guessed he could believe it; the falls had hurt some, but he'd already known all that stuff wasn't true any more. He'd just needed to, well, to tell himself.

Still...

"Can we get something to eat first, then?" he asked.

He didn't know why everyone seemed to find that so funny. It was a perfectly natural question.

The next morning, after a good breakfast, the six of them went back to the temple, all the way inside this time. It felt really weird, not being able to sense anyone's chakra but theirs. The wall carvings were kind of cool, though, with lots of tentacles.

"All right," B told him, once they were inside the inner building, arms crossed. "You've talked to the Nine-tails before, right? So you need to do that again. The more you talk, the more reasonable he'll get. Probably."

"Probably?" Sakura asked, wary.

"Well." B scratched his head. "See, thing is, the tailed beasts don't normally have much in the way of human thought. Or speech. They get that from us, the hosts. The more we talk, the more of our kind of sensible the beasts get. But Eight-tails, he says that Nine-tails is kind of an ornery bastard all the time, so he might stay pissed off longer."

"Huh." Naruto thought about that. It made sense. The Nine-tails did seem to spend most of his time really pissed off. "So I'll just keep talking until he settles down. I can do that. Um." He glanced around at them and cleared his throat. "So. Um."

"Naruto," Sasuke asked, eyeing him suspiciously, "do you actually know how to do this?"

"Of course I do!" Naruto drew himself up, indignant. And then deflated again. "Except, um. The times I've done it before I've kind of been about to die."

Sasuke buried his face in his hands with a groan. "I knew it."

B snorted a laugh. "You're something else, kid."

"There is another time you're close, though," Sakura said slowly. "When you're really upset about one of us. When someone you care about is in danger. That's when the Nine-tails' chakra gets visible and..." she hesitated and finished, eyes narrow, "when you don't seem to hear words any more. The Nine-tails must be really close, then."

"So if I think about how much I need this, to protect all of you," Naruto started, perking up. He could totally do that, and it would be a lot easier than getting one of them to throw him off the falls for something.

"That's a dangerous way to do it," B rumbled. "It might just send you out of control."

Abruptly, Sasuke swung around, back to all of them.

"Sasuke?" Naruto asked, worried, reaching out a hand to him.

"If it's necessary," Sasuke said to the floor, tight and stifled, "I can get you back. But that will probably piss the fox off twice as much, so try not to need it, okay?"

"O...kay?" Naruto hazarded, not sure exactly what was going on behind that except that something sure was.

B stirred, where he was leaning against the stone steps of the little inner pyramid. "Uchiha," he said, like the answer to a question. Sasuke twitched, and Naruto scowled at B. "The records from the founding say Madara was the first one to bind the Nine-tails—and not by sealing it."

"I'm not him," Sasuke said, flat and hard. "But a powerful Sharingan can control the beasts, especially if a host isn't helping them resist."

"But the fox would be even more pissed off to be reminded," Naruto worked it out. "Yeah, I guess I'd be pissed off too." He came and jostled Sasuke gently. "Don't worry. I won't let him get loose." So his teammate wouldn't have to do anything like what Madara did.

Sasuke huffed a soft laugh at that, finally looking around. "Yeah. If you're going to be stubborn about it, I won't worry. You're more pig-headed than an elemental demon fox any day."

"Of course I am." Naruto smiled, satisfied, and climbed up the stairs briskly to sit on the platform at the top of them. "Okay, here I go."

He closed his eyes and thought about the village. About Tsunade-baachan and the ero-sennin. About Kakashi-sensei and Iruka-san. About his year-mates, sitting around a grill table and fighting over yakiniku and bragging about their latest missions. About the hospital, and the way the other medics and the doctors smiled when he came in for a shift. About the kid whose hand he'd held through a tooth extraction, and the man whose bone he'd set and bonded because he had to take a mission in a week to pay for a new baby on the way, and the screaming panic inside him when he'd attended the birth and had to stop a hemorrhage, and how everyone in the room had cried when they knew the mother and baby would both pull through.

He thought about Sasuke and Sakura.

He thought about Akatsuki. About Gaara's lifeless body and what it had cost to bring him home again. About what Akatsuki would do to everyone between him and them, if he didn't find the power he needed to stop them.

He opened his eyes and glared at the Nine-tail's cage. "Hey! Fox! I need to talk to you!"

An earth-shaking growl rumbled through the hall he was standing in, vibrating the water underfoot. "So, it's you again, brat. What do you want this time?"

"I need your power!" And then he remembered that he was supposed to be talking, and probably cooperating, and coughed. "Um. Please."

The fox stepped forward out of the dark and curled a lip up, showing one massive fang. "You're in no danger. Why should I?"

"Shows what you know," Naruto muttered. "Look, if I can't fight with all your power, then Akatsuki is probably going to get us in the end, and you'll be stuck with Madara and whatever he's—"

"Madara!" The fox reared up behind his bars, roaring so loud the walls vibrated and Naruto's ears hurt. "Show me where he is, and this time I'll devour him!"

Naruto folded his arms and snorted. "And he'll just do that eye thing on you, and you'll be stuck again."

A whole lot of really big teeth were bared right at him as the fox growled.

"But Sasuke said that a host can help you resist that," Naruto offered, determined not to edge backwards.

Nine-tails stopped growling, ears cocked. "Just so you can keep me bound to your own purposes instead," he said suspiciously. "Like three generations of your damn village before you." He spat with disgust, which was actually kind of impressive to see, coming from something that size.

Naruto opened his mouth and slowly closed it again, thinking. "I don't really know what my purposes are supposed to be," he said at last. "I mean, I know what I want. I want to protect the people who are important to me. And I want the village to acknowledge me, but, um," he smiled, remembering the falls, "people kind of do that already. So it's mostly just protecting. And, since you're here, and it's kind of about you this time, yeah I want your help. But usually? Hell, I can protect people with my own strength." He looked up at the huge, red eyes above him. "If there's something more I'm supposed to be doing with you, no one ever told me." He shrugged, jamming his hands in his pockets. "So screw that."

The fox blinked at him.

Naruto scratched his nose thoughtfully. "Do you have, um, 'purposes'?" he asked. "I mean... there must be things you want to do, too." He'd never really thought about that before. Wow, it must kind of suck to be stuck inside someone else and not be able to do what you needed to.

Honestly, no wonder the fox was pissed off.

"I destroy corruption," the Nine-tails said after a long, silent moment. "That's the nature of my being, the nature of all the tailed beasts. I am a spirit of the pure world, and I burn away what becomes twisted."

"Corruption?" Naruto scrunched up his mouth, trying to puzzle that out. He really doubted the fox meant garbage heaps, or at least if it did he was going to laugh really hard. Maybe less literal. Like gambling and stuff? Only maybe bigger and more serious... "Oh!" His eyes opened wide and he snapped his fingers, pleased with his insight. "Like Madara!"

The fox snarled like stone tearing apart. Naruto took that for a yes.

"Well, that's easy, then! We can do that."

"We can what?" the Nine-tails asked, as if it really hadn't understood a word he'd said. Naruto came closer to the bars, looking up at him seriously.

"I mean it. Taking out the people like Madara, who are hurting everyone and... I guess you'd say corrupting the world. I'm good with that." He cocked his head. "It's what I came here to ask for help with!"

The fox actually drew back from the bars. "You say that now, because he attacks you. But if it were someone in your own village, you'd think different. Even sealed away, I could smell the corruption of that creature Orochimaru. But did that damn woman listen to me? Ha!"

"I would have listened," Naruto pointed out. "I mean, it was my own teammate, Sakura, who killed Orochimaru."

The fox settled back on his haunches, and his growl turned approving. "The girl you're so foolish for? A suitable end. She's touched by the chakra of the world herself, now."

"I'd have been a lot happier if you'd spoken up and we could have taken Orochimaru out ourselves," Naruto grumbled, crossing his arms. "That was a really hard mission for Sakura; it really hurt her!"

The fox's tails flicked out like shrugging, but its eyes were fixed on him. "Do you truly think you can do this? Be the hands and vessel of a great spirit? Burn out the world's rot?"

"I'm not saying I'm going to just let you rampage off whenever the hell you feel like it," Naruto snapped. "You don't get it all your own way! You're here and you have your own thing, and I'll help with that whenever we can, but I'm here too! If I help you, you have to help me. Not to destroy—to protect!"

The fox curled up his lip to show a fang again, disdainful. "Mouthy brat, aren't you?"

"So maybe I get it from you," Naruto grumbled back. He wasn't sure this talking thing was really going to work.

But that, of all the things he'd said, made the fox throw up its head and laugh like the rush and leap of a fire. "You claim you're kin to me? Bargain like it, then!" he declared, and in one stride he was right up at the bars, nose to enormous nose with Naruto. "You will let me watch the world through you. You will hear and heed when I tell you that there is corruption that must be destroyed. I will lend you all my power to do that. And if you do those things, I will also lend it for the protection of your 'important people'."

Naruto looked the Nine-tails in the eyes. Or eye, since he could really only meet one at a time, this close. "I'll let you watch," he agreed. "And I'll help with the corruption thing as long as we can do it without destroying anything else." He ignored the low growl at that. "And you can get words and thoughts from me, so you can understand why that's important."

The fox blinked and drew back a bit. "Hmph," he said at last, and the force of that snort plastered Naruto's clothes against him for a moment. "I suppose that will do for now. And," he added, as he faded back into the darkness past the bars, "we'll see who influences who."

"Stubborn damn fox," Naruto grumbled and opened his eyes on the temple again. His butt was cold from sitting on stone; he must have been 'gone' a while, this time. Five pairs of eyes were fixed on him, and he grinned back. "He agreed."

Sasuke and Sakura both relaxed, which made him notice how tense they'd been, and he rubbed the back of his head and gave them an apologetic look.

"Well, let's see it, then," B told him, waving him down off the steps.

"Sure thing!" Naruto bounced up, excited by the idea of getting to spar with this kind of stuff. He suddenly wobbled with his foot on the first step, though. His eyes widened. "Hey!"

"Naruto?" Sakura and Sasuke were up the steps beside him in a flash, Sasuke's eyes red and Sakura's hands hovering in the first seal of her activation.

Naruto barely noticed, busy glowering at thin air. "The 'damn woman' who didn't listen... He was talking about my mom! That damn fox was insulting my mom!" He brandished a fist in the air, yelling at the flicker of fire he could feel in the back of his head. "Don't you say one bad word about my mom, damn it!"

A faint chuckle threaded through the temple, or maybe it was just his mind, and for half a breath a handful of tails brushed forward around him sending Sakura and Sasuke jumping back. Naruto crossed his arms and scowled ferociously. He was totally not letting the fox off the hook for this one, no matter how much power or how many tails it waved at him.

"Well," B broke the silence in the temple. "This'll be interesting."

In the inner space where the demon fox curled behind his bars, the seal tag closing those gates shifted ever so slightly.

A/N: Sorry folks, there will be no hip-hop rhymes for B here. I suck at rhyming, and not in an in-character sort of way. My rationale is that, in this universe, B only rhymes at opponents in battle or with people he really likes and trusts, and a dicey international mission doesn't fit either yet. As for the Nine-tails, the second half painted him as a lot more vicious and toxic than the first half, and I like the first half better; he even seems to have a bit of a soft spot for Naruto in the first half, insofar as an arrogant, pissed off elemental demon can. So I'm sticking with that characterization.

It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Fourteen

Naruto is figuring out how to work with the Nine-tails, but Akatsuki is getting bolder. Shikamaru brings them word of the attack on Fire Country and when the new Akatsuki team finds the Island Turtle Jiraiya is the next to pay for facing them. Drama, Action, Angst, I-5

Naruto bounced on his toes in the middle of the rocky clearing B had said he could practice in without tripping over the Island's animals. He was having So. Much. Fun.

Grinning idiot, the fox muttered in the back of his head. Naruto ignored that; Nine-tails spent a lot of time saying things like that to him lately.

"Hey, hey, ero-sennin," he grinned. "I bet I can do that move you told me not to do, now."

"Naruto," Jiraiya said warningly, starting to get up from his spot under a tree where he had agreed to watch over Naruto's training when Kakashi-sensei insisted he needed a break. And a drink. But Naruto was sure he could do this one.

He grabbed two clones into being and held out a hand for the Rasengan and concentrated. This was the hard part. As he fed in chakra, one of the clones transformed it to the Wind nature and the other... he grinned wider.

Are you crazy, you idiot? the fox barked, and Naruto felt the hasty rush of the Nine-tails' power to his arm, shielding him from his own creation.

This will work, he said back, silently the way he'd learned to after a couple of caustic comments from the Nine-tails about babbling Leaf brats.

Only because I'm using half of my power to keep your fool arm in once piece! The fox actually yelped as Naruto pulled a little more power to hold the re-shaped Rasengan's form. There's nothing left for anything else if you still want to power that damn thing. You're completely vulnerable!

"That," Naruto said out loud, through his teeth, "is what a team is for!" He turned and hurled the Rasenshuriken at the peak of the crag behind him. It held form and struck in an explosion of pulverized rock, and he punched the air in triumph. "Yes!"

"What," Jiraiya demanded, frozen halfway to his feet and staring at Naruto narrowly, "did you do?"

Naruto grinned some more. "Well, see, if Nine-tails gives me his chakra, I get a lot more than I do just through the seal normally. So there's enough to protect my arm and still form a Wind Rasengan into a throwing shape!"

Jiraiya frowned. "That has to take a great deal of chakra to accomplish."

"That's what he said too," Naruto agreed. "He says there isn't any left over. But, like I told him, that's what a team is for. So I can still use that if I have to."

Jiraiya sighed, and rubbed his forehead. "Maybe it was a mistake to let Kakashi have the three of you for so long," he muttered.

Naruto smiled up at him. "Nah, it was just right. Because we're going to need our teamwork now, aren't we?"

Jiraiya stood the rest of the way, only to lean back against the tree with a thump. "Not unlikely." His mouth quirked. "You really do remind me a lot of her, sometimes." When Naruto blinked he clarified, "Tsunade. Best healer you ever saw, and absolutely terrifying in the field. The things she would come up with! There was this one time, up at the border of River and Sky. We'd retreated so she could take care of my broken ribs and lung, and a flanking group of Rain-nin just about tripped over us." He took a long drink. "Idiot woman wouldn't let go of me since she was in the middle of healing, so she electrified herself. Anyone who touched her got their neural signals scrambled like an egg, and she actually magnetized her damn knife with the current, so it drew all the shuriken and kunai." He sighed. "Of course, that strained even her control and reserves, and she nearly passed out when she finished with me. Try not to imitate that part."

Naruto nodded, wide-eyed. She'd never told him that story.

Jiraiya clapped Naruto's shoulder in passing as he turned them both back toward the encampment, "You're right, used with a team to support you it should work. I think, since it's your idea, you should be the one to explain it to Sakura and Sasuke."

Naruto swallowed hard. "Oh."

Perfectly concealed in the shifting shadows of the trees, the one who was currently called Sai watched them go and looked back thoughtfully at the broken rubble Naruto's strike had left. That had been a remarkably powerful attack. He could understand why Danzou-sama had assigned him to keep watch on the Nine-tails and its vessel.

Not that he really needed to understand, of course.

With a flicker, the shadows were empty again.

Another day, another training session. This time, Sakura had insisted very firmly that she and Sasuke were coming along. If he was going to need them to cover him, they would all practice together.

By the time she got to that part, Naruto's ears had been ringing hard enough from the rest of her reaction that he'd agreed meekly. Of course, that meant that the fox spent a lot of his time growling sidelong at Sasuke. Naruto couldn't decide whether that was better or worse than having the fox telling him off for sloppy technique.

Sakura flashed over the rocks, playing opponent for this round, nearly glowing the the power of her seal, and her fist punched right through Naruto's half-formed Rasengan. He yelped as Sasuke dove in front of him, driving Sakura back for an instant with a burst of flame.

"Where's your concentration today?" Sasuke demanded, rounding on him. "That was pathetic."

The fox actually whined.

Naruto sighed. "Nine-tails keeps glaring at you; it's distracting. Though it is kind of funny when you both get pissy about my technique and he gets all pained about having to agree with an Uchiha," he added reflectively.

Mouthy brat, the fox snapped.

"What?" Naruto asked, looking aside so the other two would know who he was talking to. "It's totally true."

Sasuke sighed. "Would it help if I swore to him that I would never try to bind him unless it was to save you?"

No, the Nine-tails answered sharply. That was how I wound up sealed in the first place. Damn humans.

"I think that would just mean he growls at you because you're like Mito-san, instead of because you're like Madara," Naruto relayed, mouth quirking. "He just likes throwing tantrums."

BRAT! the fox howled, and Naruto snickered.

"I'm glad to see the two of you are getting along so well," Sasuke said, a bit dryly. "If it's distracting you, though, we'd better work on it some more. I don't want to think about what he'll be saying if we ever do come up against Madara."

"Bet Naruto would pick up some new names to call his opponents," Sakura put in, obviously amused by the whole thing. "Come on, then. One more time. Sasuke's turn to attack." She tugged up her gloves and set herself beside Naruto.

Naruto took a deep breath and formed a new Wind Rasengan, readying himself to hold it against Sasuke's Fire techniques. He was getting faster at forming them, no question, but pushing in enough of the Nine-tails' chakra without bursting the sphere—that was the trick.

The sun slanted down the high blue sky as they worked, one Rasengan after another holding or bursting. It was hours before both Sasuke and the fox were grudgingly satisfied. Naruto collapsed to sprawl out on the thin turf. "I don't know why you don't like him better," he panted at the fox. "You think way too alike."

"Well no wonder you tease the Nine-tails so much, then," Sakura laughed, sitting next to him a lot more gracefully. She had a lot more endurance these days, and activated and deactivated her seal like breathing. Naruto was kind of envious; he wished he could do it that easily with the Nine-tails' chakra.

"He'd better understand that it's just teasing," Sasuke muttered darkly, handing the water bottle over to Naruto. Naruto smiled up at him, with the warm feeling in his chest that Sasuke's little moments of protectiveness always gave him. And maybe the fox was worn out by all his growling or something, because he seemed to settle, too.

They rested in quiet for a while, but it wasn't long before Sakura cocked her head. "Listen. Is someone coming?"

Sure enough, Iruka-san appeared through the trees, from the direction of the encampment. "There's a messenger from Konoha coming!" he called to them, waving. "Do you want to be there to see who it is?"

Naruto bounced up to his feet at that. "Yeah!" They had messenger birds pretty regularly, but they hadn't had a person since they all got to the island and it started moving. Personally, he was dying for some gossip from home.

Most of the Leaf contingent was gathered at the shore to see who'd come, and almost as many people from the other nations. Naruto supposed this was a pretty boring assignment, so far, for people who weren't figuring out to how fight with a crotchety old fox growling in their ears.

The blue-sailed boat running up the island's flank was one of the Lightning Country's, and Naruto could see the sailors hustling around the deck already but he couldn't see anyone he knew with them. He managed not to sigh, but he did slump a little, only to be nudged by Sasuke.

"The passengers will stay out of the way until landing," Sasuke said quietly. "I learned that fast, traveling with Jiraiya."

Naruto perked up again. "Oh." He grinned a little and leaned against Sasuke's shoulder in silent thanks.

Sure enough, as the boat eased up against the rocky inlet, more heads appeared and Ino squealed. "Shikamaru! It's Shikamaru and Chouji!"

Watching her light up, Naruto wondered if Sakura was really right, and Ino would be easier to deal with now her real team was here. He sure hoped so. He bet her Intelligence team hoped so too. Everyone crowded down toward the boat as Shikamaru and Chouji climbed up to the shore.

"Shikamaru?" Ino whispered, stopping short. Naruto's head snapped up and around to stare at her. She sounded afraid.

Abruptly, Ino was elbowing ruthlessly through the small crowd, shoving other ninja out of her path with no regard for rank. She caught Shikamaru's shoulders. "What is it? What happened?"

Everyone quieted at that, and Shikamaru's voice was clear in the silence, though he didn't raise it.

"Two of Akatsuki were in the Fire Country. They attacked the Fire Temple before we found them. Asuma-san..." Shikamaru closed his eyes. "Asuma-san was killed."

Ino made a small, sharp sound, biting her lip hard enough to turn it white.

"Raidou-san's team joined us," Shikamaru went on steadily. "We picked up Mitarashi-san's team when we reported in, and Hyuuga Tokuma located the Akatsuki pair when they came back toward the village again. That time, we stopped them."

"Jiraiya-san should hear about this," Kakashi-sensei said quietly, coming to rest a hand on Shikamaru's shoulder. Shikamaru just nodded and caught Ino's hand when she started to protest.

"I'll be there after I've reported." Their eyes held for a long moment, and Ino nodded like he'd said something more.

"C'mon, Chouji," she said briskly. "I'll get you guys settled in the Leaf building."

The crowd broke up and followed slowly in Kakashi-sensei and Shikamaru's wake back toward the encampment. Naruto's team closed up around Ino and Chouji, along with Kiba, Hinata, and Shino, silent support for their yearmates.

"Shikamaru's still really torn up," Chouji was saying as they climbed. "He almost scared me, when he was setting up the ambush for Hidan, the one who killed Asuma-sensei. But, you know, I think what really hurts is that he can't do more for Kurenai-san."

Ino winced. "Fuck. Is she...?"

"She's pretty broken up," Chouji said softly, looking down at the path.

"Kurenai-sensei," Hinata whispered, hand pressed against her lips.

"What?" Naruto asked her, worried by all this cryptic concern. "Is there something wrong with Kurenai-san?"

"Kurenai-sensei is going to have a child," she said softly. "By Asuma-san."

Naruto's eyes widened. "Oh shit." Unwanted information cascaded through his brain, about pregnancy and stress and all the really bad things that a shinobi's usual coping methods could do to a developing baby. "She's got a good doctor, right?" he asked anxiously. "I mean, she's got someone who knows what they're doing, right? They're not going to let her drink too much or spar till she falls down or anything stupid like usual, right?"

All seven of them stared at him for a blank moment before Sakura and then Ino started laughing, and Kiba rolled his eyes. "Who was it decided Naruto should be a medic, again?" he asked thin air. "I think you mean 'stupid like you'."

Naruto planted his fists on his hips and glared. "I'm serious! There are, like, lectures on all the crazy stuff shinobi do and how you have to remind them not to if they're pregnant!"

"Kurenai-sensei is more sensible than that," Shino remarked.

"And I asked Neji-niisan to look after her, when we had to leave," Hinata added, reassuring.

"Well all right, then." Naruto tried to put hospital horror stories out of his mind while they found a room for Chouji and Shikamaru, and settled down to wait for Shikamaru to return.

It didn't take long. Ino pulled him down onto the bedroll between her and Chouji almost before he was all the way through the door, and Naruto couldn't say she was wrong. Shikamaru looked older, today. Harder and darker. Naruto felt the Nine-tails stir inside him.

"Chouji and I will be part of Raidou-san's team, for now," Shikamaru said quietly. "We'll keep looking for Akatsuki's bases in Fire Country." He looked up at Naruto and there was fire in those dark eyes, the kind of fire Naruto was a lot more used to seeing in Sasuke's. "They won't get past us."

Naruto clenched a fist, frustrated. "We should stop hiding, me and B. They'll come to us, if we stop hiding, and then this wouldn't have happened!"

For a moment Shikamaru seemed to waver, and then he closed his eyes with a sigh. "Yes, it probably would," he said, low. "Unless we'd had information beforehand about what those zombie freaks could do. The one who killed Asuma-san couldn't die. I mean really couldn't die. And his ritual meant every wound to him happened to his opponent too."

Sakura pressed a hand to her mouth. "Shit," she hissed though it.

A corner of Shikamaru's mouth twitched up in a grim not-smile. "Yeah. I didn't see it fast enough."

Ino smacked him on the shoulder, hard. "You stop that! It wasn't your fault!" She paused and glanced over at Naruto. "It wasn't anyone's fault but Akatsuki's," she finished, soft and steady. "So you shut up too, Naruto. We're not going to hang you out for bait."

"Asuma-san," Hinata whispered, voice shaky, and leaned into Kiba when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. More firmly she repeated, "Asuma-san's memory does honor to his clan. We shouldn't... shouldn't take that away."

Naruto scrunched up his face, trying to work that out. "Huh?" he finally asked.

A breath of a laugh escaped Shikamaru, though he still looked down at his hands. "Yeah. Even if we're not part of a noble clan... we're still shinobi of the Leaf." He looked up at last. "We took down two of Akatsuki and only lost two lives. We did that without risking them getting their hands on our host. We did it to protect our village and country—the lives in our care." He took a slow, trembling breath. "Including our village's children. Asuma-san died to keep those things safe—not happily, but willingly." He smiled, a little crookedly, at Naruto. "You need to let other people do that too, you know; it's not just you."

Naruto opened his mouth to protest, and closed it again slowly. If Asuma-san had felt the same way he did, about protecting precious things... he looked down, swallowing against the ball of sadness and pride swirling inside him like one of his own Rasengan. "Yeah," he said, husky. "That's... that's something that should be honored. You're right, Hinata."

"It will be," Sasuke said, resting a hand on Naruto's shoulder. "Like the others who have gone before."

Hinata nodded against Kiba's shoulder. "He left this in our hands. Now it's our turn," she said softly.

That hot spark of fury flickered in Shikamaru's eyes again for a moment. "Yes. It is."

"When we get back," Chouji spoke up firmly, laying one big hand on Shikamaru's back, and Shikamaru smiled at him, rueful and sidelong.

"Yeah, I hear you." He stretched his arms up and let out a breath and looked a little more his usual self as he asked Ino, "So, how's your Intelligence team here doing?"

"Oh my god, never speak of them to me, ever!" Ino waved her hands wildly. "Sato and Tanaka broke up right before we started this mission, and they'll barely even speak to each other unless there's actually a blade coming at one of them. And then there's Sai, who makes Naruto look well-socialized!"

Kiba blinked. "Wow." Naruto growled and Shino quietly drew Hinata against his own side, clearing the way for Naruto to jump on Kiba and scuffle.

Ino pointed at them. "That! He's even worse than that!"

Everyone was laughing a little by the time Naruto finished knuckling Kiba's head and sat back down with his own team, and he congratulated himself on a job well done. Ino looked satisfied, too, and he figured she'd had the same thing in mind as he had. It wasn't long before they all broke up to their own rooms to sleep, and he hoped they might just all manage to get to sleep, now.

On the mainland, a lean man with hypnotically ringed eyes lifted his hand from the head of a slumped Cloud ninja. Slowly, his eyes focused again. "They're on Cloud's Island Turtle, out on the sea. They'll be moving constantly."

The silent-footed woman beside him cupped her hands, staring into them for a moment. When she parted them a flock of paper birds fluttered up into the sky and swooped east, toward the coast. "Don't worry, Nagato. We'll find them."

Being in the temple really weirded Naruto out, but it was the only place where he could practice full transformation. At least, the only place he could practice it without totally freaking out the whole encampment, so the temple it was.

Not that he had much to freak anyone out with, so far.

"This is ridiculous." Naruto lashed the fan of furry tails trailing behind him.

That's my pride you're waving around, Nine-tails snapped. Have a little respect, brat!

"No, no," B waved a hand. "It's a good sign that you can manifest all the tails. That's the last step before a full transformation."

Naruto sighed. At least he was getting somewhere. Even if Sakura had really, truly lost her mind, when he started working on this, and said the tails were cute. Cute! As if! The Nine-tails had hunkered down inside him in a disgusted huff after that one, and he hadn't been able to get a damn thing more done that day.

"You're gonna need time for this." B leaned against the temple wall, large arms folded. "It takes a lot of trust to really transform, and you and the Nine-tails haven't been talking for long."

Naruto scowled and kicked a stone stair; he knew it was probably true, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

Omoi, sitting cross-legged at B's feet, looked up at that, completely solemn. "Hey, you should be careful. I mean, what if you accidentally kicked a secret switch and set off the self-destruct for the temple and then that set off an avalanche down into the valley..."

Karui rolled her eyes and promptly put him in a headlock. Naruto grinned a little as Omoi flailed theatrically; she sure was easy to wind up. He could see why Omoi did it so much.

"Stop complaining, Naruto," Sasuke called from the steps off to the other side. "Just work on your Rasengan while you've got the tails out."

Naruto sighed. "Yeah, yeah, fine." He supposed practice was good even if it wasn't quite full power yet. And, in a way, the tails were a bonus. He chewed on his tongue with concentration, arching two of the tails forward to press against the chakra gathering in his palm.

As long as he had the tails, he didn't need clones to do this. That part was kind of cool.

He had just completed a Rasenshuriken with his tails when the temple door slammed open. One of the Sand genin stood in it, panting. "Akatsuki," he gasped, "they're here! Commander Jiraiya is down!"

The Rasenshuriken came undone in a clap like thunder as Naruto sprinted for the door, jumping straight over the Sand-nin. He barely noticed Sakura and Sasuke coming up on either side or his forgotten tails streaming behind him as he streaked down the path toward the encampment, heart in his mouth. The crags and trees around them were alive with blasts and crashes, and Naruto wondered for a flashing moment whether Akatsuki had somehow had way more people than they'd all thought.

Leaping down the last steps on the temple path, Naruto looked around wildly, head whipping back and forth as he searched through the chaos for Jiraiya.

"There!" Sasuke snapped, red eyes narrow and sharp, pointing to the cracked wall of the building the Mist shinobi had taken over.

A body with long white hair lay at the base of the wall.

Naruto pounded over and threw himself down, only vaguely aware of Sakura spinning around to guard his back, of Darui standing on the broken wall and barking orders, of B coming behind them, of Sasuke on his knees on the other side of Jiraiya with wide, haunted eyes, hands reaching out helplessly. Jiraiya was barely breathing, each faint breath caught short. Broken ribs, then. Internal bleeding probably. Heat under Naruto's fingertips as he ran them delicately over Jiraiya's skull warned of bleeding there too, sluggish now because Jiraiya had almost no blood left. His throat was half crushed. And...

Naruto bared his teeth, hands pausing over Jiraiya's stomach.

"B," Darui was saying, voice hard, as Naruto looked up, "there are giant animals all over the island. Can you get the native animals after them without killing us too?"

"On it," B rumbled, running past them without breaking stride.

"Darui-san," Naruto said, low. "I'm going to try something. Don't stop me."

Darui frowned down at him. "What are you going to do?"

Naruto's hands were already lighting up with chakra as he reached down, down, crying out in wordless demand to Nine-tails. "I'm going to heal him."

Sakura knelt down beside them with her back to the wall. "Get me Hinata," she snapped, "and we can cover him."

"Like I would stop a healing?" Darui muttered before yelling for someone to find Hyuuga Hinata. Naruto shut all of that out. Sakura and Sasuke would take care of it; he trusted them. He had to, because what he was about to try wasn't actually possible. Jiraiya had a broken spine. Nerve injuries could sometimes be fixed, especially if the nerves were intact and just not signaling, or signaling wrong. A spinal cord that was physically torn couldn't be. It wasn't possible.

Well, neither was reviving someone who was dead.

He was going to do it anyway.

He focused down and down again, tighter than he'd ever done before. His hands were glowing with the fine patterning of chakra that made the base for Mystic Palms. The bleeding was stopping, and new blood was generating fast. Good. Jiraiya would live long enough for him to do this, though he'd be a while recovering the body mass being eaten up by this healing. Naruto reached deeper into himself, and felt the fox's agreement, casual but ungrudging. Naruto gritted his teeth as that wild chakra rushed through him, sharp-edged, fighting to hold it, to work it...

His tails reached forward.

As they fanned and wrapped over Jiraiya, the raging pressure, the ragged pain of handling so much fox chakra smoothed out. Naruto rested his forehead on Jiraiya's chest, dizzy and panting, vision starting to go fractured and dark with the clash of alien and familiar as he molded chakra with his tails, wove it finer and finer, until he could string it between the snapped ends of spinal nerves, teasing them back together. Slowly, slowly, and he was gasping for air now, human hands fisted in Jiraiya's shirt as the signals of human and fox body warred up and down his own spine. The torn nerve ends crept closer, closer as he poured all his power into this most delicate of work, chakra scattering out of his control around the edges.

He was losing too much energy for the work he was accomplishing. The pace of healing was too slow. This would take too much to finish, more than he had. But he couldn't stop now, he couldn't, he wouldn't! Jiraiya had been one of the first to believe in him, to trust him and teach him, been the one to pass on the things his parents couldn't. His teacher and Sasuke's, one of the people who had helped put Sasuke back together. Naruto didn't care how much it cost him. He would find a way!

His own strength was giving out, but the fox's strength was still raging through him, threatening to overwhelm him, and there were still gaping canyons of micrometers to go, and he screamed, half at the fox and half at Jiraiya and mostly at the universe to let this work. The fox snorted, in his head, and the inhuman chakra he shaped steadied for five precious heartbeats more.

And it was done.

Naruto collapsed over Jiraiya, breath sobbing in his lungs. You owe me one, idiot kit, whispered in the back of his battered-feeling brain, and a laugh wracked his body. Yeah, he agreed.

"It's done!" he heard someone cry, and hands slapped down on his back, steadying his faltering heartbeat, easing his clenched lungs. Two more hands lifted his shoulders up and another set traced lightly over his chest, down his arms, pressing sharply here and there. He could feel that easing the tremble of his overextended chakra and opened his eyes wearily to smile at Hinata. She smiled back, tremulous though her hands were steady.

"...absolute idiot," the medic behind him was saying through his teeth. "Miraculous fucking moron, I can't believe you did that, what kind of absolute brainless wonder..."

Naruto sat up mostly under his own power as his chakra and the fox's settled slowly back into balance. "I'm okay," he said, breathless.

"You are insane," the medic snapped, and Naruto craned his head around to see that it was the blue-haired senior medic from Mist. "And the Hokage is insane too, to teach you something that dangerous!" He sat back on his heels with a long sigh, finally lifting his hands from Naruto's back. "But you do seem to be recovering; that's some amazing vitality you have. If we get our beasts back, perhaps I'll suggest to the Mizukage that we should train one as a medic." He scooted around Naruto and checked Jiraiya. "He'll be all right too, I think."

Jiraiya stirred and Sasuke's hands, which Naruto finally recognized as the ones holding him upright, tightened hard on his shoulders. Sasuke was looking down at his teacher with fear lurking at the back of his eyes. Jiraiya coughed painfully and pried his eyes open to squint up at them. "Need a drink," he husked.

Sasuke inhaled alarmingly and Naruto ducked on reflex. "Shut up you absolute idiot!" Sasuke's voice echoed off the buildings. "You nearly died! Stay where you are and recover like you have more than two brain cells under all that hair!"

Naruto grinned down at Jiraiya as the man's eyes started to dance, sunken as they were. "What, don't I even get a pretty nurse?" Jiraiya asked in a pitiful tone, only slightly marred by the lingering hitch in his breathing.

"No," Sasuke said, very definitely.

Naruto was snickering and the Mist medic was rolling his eyes and Hinata was edging away cautiously when the second in command for Sound came skidding around the corner. "Darui sent me back. Where's the casualty?" she barked.

"Karin-san." The Mist-nin brightened. "Perfect." He waved a hand at Jiraiya. "The Commander needs to be on his feet again, and he's still missing a lot of blood and all his stamina. Can you do it?"

Karin snorted, throwing back one of her loose sleeves as she strode to Jiraiya's side. "Of course I can. Out of the way, you." She hip-checked Naruto aside and held out her bared arm to Jiraiya while Naruto sputtered. "Bite me," she ordered brusquely.

Jiraiya blinked. "This is a bit sudden, isn't it? No dinner first, no drinks even?"

Karin turned nearly the color of her own hair. "Shut up and bite me, you old pervert," she yelled, "before I smack you into next week!"

The Mist medic drew the rest of them back, around the corner into the overgrown stone plaza between buildings. "Karin-san can heal very bad injuries very quickly, this way," he murmured. "Best to let her get on with it."

Naruto snickered. She did seem to have the right bedside manner for someone dealing with the ero-sennin. "Okay, so..." he looked around, wobbling only slightly. "Hey, wait, where'd Darui-san go?"

"He left about the time your tails caught fire," Sakura said dryly. "He said he'd try to decoy Akatsuki long enough for you to come out of it. He didn't seem too happy at the time."

"I did warn him what I was doing," Naruto mumbled.

"No, you really didn't. But that's okay." She gave him a beady eye. "It is okay, right? You're recovered? You're not holding out on the team strategist or anything?"

Naruto held up his hands hastily. "I promise not! It's gonna hurt if I have to shape too much chakra soon, but Hinata and, um," he stopped and looked at the Mist-nin guiltily.

"Maeda Kazuki," the man supplied, mouth quirked.

"Hinata and Maeda-san got me stable and all," Naruto finished. "So as soon as Jiraiya-san is better, we can go find these Akatsuki guys and kick ass."

"No need to find us," a hoarse, quiet voice said from above them, and Naruto spun around, heart tripping, to see a man in one of those damn red cloud robes standing on top of the command building and looking down at them.

Or rather... at him.

To the Silver Night Sky

After one possible end to canon, Frau discovers that Ghosts tend to get stuck in Tenkai for a while. On the bright side, this means Gido is still around. Adorableness ensues. Also a good deal of sex. Drama, Fluff, Angst, Porn, I-4

In Frau's considered opinion, Heaven sucked.

He'd been here for most of a day, as near as he could tell, stalking around endless gardens. It was like someone had turned Labrador loose and told him to knock himself out.

He was trying not to think about Labrador, or Castor, or anyone else, but the flowers made it kind of hard to avoid Labrador-thoughts.

And there were people here. Other souls, he guessed. But none of them had approached him, he didn't recognize anyone, and he really wasn't in the mood to chat up distracted looking strangers. The melodious birdsong was getting on his nerves, too. His hands felt too light, without his scythe.

But Zehel was gone, now, and the scythe with him. He could feel that much, that stunning weight lifted from the center of his soul. It should probably feel like freedom, but right at the moment it felt more like failure.

He finally slumped down onto the lip of a fountain, hands dangling between his knees. He was dead. Teito wasn't. He was pretty sure Castor and Labrador weren't. That was good.

What the fuck did he do now though?

"Here you are. Been looking all over for you, brat."

Frau jerked like he'd just touched a live wire; that was kind of what it felt like. He knew that voice, or he had a long time ago. Slowly he looked up, hands closing tight on his knees.

There was a man standing in the entrance to this garden, elbow propped up on the ornamental gate. Tall and lean and powerful with black hair and a wry smile with a cigarette dangling from one corner of it. Frau had to swallow twice before he could speak.

"Gido?"

"Large as life," the man said easily. "Figured I should come find you. Give you a chance to get the yelling over with early."

"Yelling?" Frau echoed, husky. Slowly he stood up, almost stumbling as he stepped forward.

Gido lifted his brows. "I was figuring, yeah. For having died. For dropping Zehel in your lap." He blew out a stream of smoke, looking thoughtful. "Damned if I know who's going to take it up now; I don't even know who else is alive, from our House. So, yeah. You can go ahead and yell." Frau just stared at him, completely at a loss, brain spinning with memories he'd tried to put away to keep old pain from eating him hollow. "Or maybe not," Gido finally said quietly. He dropped his cigarette and stepped on it, and held out a hand. "C'mere, kid."

He dragged Frau close, and oh god he was warm, warm, and solid when Frau wrapped his arms around him. Frau was shaking, throat tight, and something alarmingly close to a sob ripped out of him when Gido's hand settled on his head and ruffled his hair like he used to. Frau buried his head in Gido's shoulder, level with his own now, just to make it all even stranger. "You fucking idiot," he gasped, raggedly, swept up in old pain that swamped the new. "You should have run! Why the hell didn't you run when they came?!"

"Ah, there's the yelling." Gido sounded amused, a little indulgent, so familiar it nearly broke Frau. Gido sighed, settling a hand on the back of Frau's neck. "If I'd run, I wouldn't have been me," he said simply. And then he shook Frau gently. "And don't try to tell me you'd have done any differently if it had been you in charge of the ship. You never ran when you were shepherding Tiashe around the Empire with the entire military on your trail."

Frau lifted his head and glared. "That was different! That was to keep Verloren from awakening, and he was Pandora's Box and I was Zehel for fuck's sake! There was no way out of it."

Gido gave him that faint smile with the steel edge that meant he wasn't going to let Frau bullshit on this one. "And you wouldn't have run even if there had been a way."

Frau's eyes fell under that piercing look. Gido snorted softly. "We can't watch all the time, but I've kept an eye on you when I could, Frau." He chuckled. "Might even have said a few prayers for Bastien, after he picked you up."

Frau flinched.

"Frau." Gido's hand tightened on his shoulder. "Don't let the end of that make you forget everything that came before. He loved you. And you saved him." Quietly he added, "I'm grateful to him for looking after the last of my crew." And then he pulled Frau's head down to his shoulder again, which was good, because more tears were forcing their way out. Frau had forgotten how easily Gido could undo him, how clearly this man had always seen him.

They ended up sitting in one of the mossy nooks by the fountain, boots and coats getting a little tangled up because Frau couldn't quite bring himself to let go. Gido just smiled and settled Frau against his shoulder. Eventually Frau cleared his throat. "So. You stayed up here?"

"Mm." Gido ruffled his fingers absently through Frau's hair. "Yeah, about that. Most souls can turn right around, if that's what they want, but those who have been Ghosts... well, it takes a while to wash that out for most of us. Asyl, the Zehel before me, she's almost ready to go back down I think."

Frau shot upright and stared at him. "I'm stuck here?!"

Gido's smile tilted ruefully. "Figured that was the next bit you'd yell about, yeah."

"But... but... Teito!"

"He's got Mikhail plus the master of Raphael to help him, doesn't he?" The smile spread into a grin. "She reminds me of Magdalena, a little. Only scarier."

"But...!"

"And every last one of the God Houses owes him, and knows it," Gido added. "Last I saw, it looked like the Oaks, in particular, were on his side."

"But...!"

Gido gave Frau a level look. "Frau. You protected him. You kept him alive. You were why he remembered a lot about love. But your part down there is done for now. And," he added practically, "it would be anyway, even if you could turn right around. You really want to wait to grow up again, all antsy and not remembering why?"

Frau let himself fall back against Gido's shoulder with a deliberate thud. "You don't have to have an answer for everything right away, you know," he grumbled.

Gido laughed, wrapping an arm more firmly around him. "What else was I supposed to spend my own time here doing, besides thinking? Well," he allowed, softening, "that and missing you."

Frau ducked his head a little, feeling very young again and a little flustered to hear that from his mentor and leader.

Gido's hand slipped down his neck, thumb running over his choker. "So you kept this, huh?"

And that reminded Frau sharply that he really wasn't all that young any more, because the brush of Gido's fingers over his throat sent a shot of heat right down his spine. Gido's brows rose at the faint sound Frau couldn't quite keep back. His fingers traced over the line of the choker again, slower this time and more deliberate. Frau's chin lifted helplessly as another husky sound caught in his throat.

Gido's mouth quirked up at one corner and Frau swallowed a little nervously. Gido was a good man, a kind one, and Frau's personal model for honor and compassion. But there was no denying he also had a wicked sense of humor. "Gido..."

"Well, that's certainly one way to get you settled down, here." Gido bent his head and dragged his tongue up the line of Frau's throat. The slow, wet warmth made Frau gasp, hand fisting tight in Gido's coat. His head was tipped back again, and he couldn't remember doing that but he wasn't going to complain when Gido was tracking open-mouthed kisses back down his throat and over his chest... and when the hell had Gido gotten Frau's coat undone?

"Gido..." he tried again, though it came out husky and breathless as Gido eased him down against the sun-warmed moss and settled his weight over him.

"Yeah?" Gido asked, leaning on his elbows while he carded his fingers through Frau's hair.

Frau wet his lips, looking up at him. He couldn't deny that he'd had a few dreams that went kind of like this, and when he finally spoke what he said was, "Lose the coat?"

Gido laughed. "That's my Frau."

Frau closed his eyes. "Always," he admitted, softly. At that, Gido's hands closed around his face and Gido kissed him, slow and gentle.

One benefit of dressing the way they both did was that it took less time to get out of. The boots took the longest, because by that time Gido had gone back to nipping and sucking on Frau's throat which made fireworks run right down his spine to his cock and distracted him thoroughly from the buckles. When they were finally both bare, Frau pressed close, winding himself around Gido and drinking in his slow kisses as Gido's hands stroked soothingly down his back. They were so familiar, those hands, that touch, just... not quite this way around. It stunned Frau to realize he'd even shaped his behavior in bed after his captain, his hero, and done it without Gido ever touching him like this before. He had to bury his head against Gido's shoulder and laugh for a while over that. "Always," he whispered again, and Gido's arms tightened around him hard and strong.

"I'm proud of you," he said quietly against Frau's hair. When Frau pressed closer with a soft sound, he set his fingers under Frau's chin and lifted it, kissing him slow and deep. "So proud of you." He ran a hand slowly down Frau's body. "You never left us behind. You kept the laws of your people in your heart all your life." He wrapped a hand around Frau's cock and stroked him, strong and sure. "Don't ever believe you failed us Frau. You never did."

Frau was shaking in the curve of Gido's arm, wide eyed and shocked by the warmth of Gido's words twining around the hot pleasure of his touch. "Gido...!" He was clinging to Gido's shoulders, overwhelmed like he never had been with any other lover. Gido smiled down at him, that very same smile he'd given Frau when Gido had first accepted him on board, and Frau arched up against him, moaning as he came completely undone. Heat tore through him, and Frau shuddered with it, trusting himself blindly to the hands that held him and worked him through it.

When he finally stilled, panting against Gido's shoulder, Gido stroked his hair back and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "I've wanted to tell you that for a long time," he murmured.

Frau stirred and smiled up at him. He'd wanted to hear that for a long time; he hadn't realized quite how much. "Thank you."

Gido gathered him a little closer, and held him quietly as Frau lay against him in the boneless warmth of the garden. Eventually the faint sound of Gido's heartbeat eased Frau into a doze.

When Frau woke up again, for a second he didn't remember where he was.

And then he did. Teito, Castor, Labrador, no...

Arms tightened around him when he flinched, and a strong hand slid up his back to knead his neck. "Easy, Frau. Easy."

"Gido." At least that part was real too.

"Right here." There was a grin in Gido's voice as he added, "Done with your beauty nap?"

Frau growled and gave him a shove, which just made Gido laugh.

"Well, in that case, maybe you want to get cleaned up?" Gido sat up and brushed at the flower petals stuck to his chest. "The flowers do kind of get everywhere," he muttered.

"Is there actually such a thing as a shower around here?" Frau wanted to know, rather skeptical. "I haven't seen a damn thing but gardens, fountains, and more gardens since I got here."

Gido's smile curled up in a way that made Frau instantly wary. "I'm sure we can find something that will work."

When he led Frau, through a few more gardens, to what apparently passed for a bath in Heaven, Frau had to just stare for a while. "This place is fucking nuts," he finally stated.

"It's Heaven, it goes a little overboard sometimes," Gido said easily, tossing his boots under one of the benches.

"A little?!"

They were standing at the edge of an insane cross between a fountain, a hot spring, and a reception hall. There were pools and pillars, steam and miniature waterfalls, basins of soap and towels and jars and bottles and (of course) flowers scattered all over.

"Quit being such a wuss and come scrub off," Gido ordered, wading into a pool with water spilling down from a spout shaped like a fucking dragon's mouth, and that was just disturbing. Frau glared, but followed after him.

"Who thought all this up?" he grumbled, ducking under the spout for a moment. He picked up a sponge a little dubiously, but that, at least, seemed to just be a normal sponge.

"You get used to it."

Frau paused, staring at the falling water for a moment, because Gido's voice seemed softer than it needed to be. "Gido—"

Arms wrapped around him from behind, pulling him back against Gido's chest. "You'll never get clean at this rate," Gido murmured in his ear. "Want some help?" A soapy cloth, rough and nubbly under the suds, ran down his chest.

"Gido," Frau muttered, face a little hot. "For fuck's sake, I'm not a little kid."

"Mm, you know, I noticed that." Gido's hand, covered by the cloth, slid between Frau's legs, over his cock, to cup his balls gently.

"Fuck." Frau leaned back against Gido, breath suddenly short again. Gido just laughed, softly.

"Turn around, I'll get your back."

Frau thought that was backward, but he turned around anyway, and understood when Gido pulled Frau up tight against him. The cloth did scrub over his back, though, and Frau gave in and bent his head, laughing against Gido's shoulder. Slowly he ran his hands, and the sponge, over Gido's back in turn, tracing long, lean muscle and bone. They really were built a lot alike. Not surprising, he supposed, for two of the same House, no matter how wild and scattered that House was. He wondered who would be Zehel now, and whether they would get along with Castor and Labrador. Whether Zehel would protect Teito and that little firebrand Ouka, and their personal Oak, Hakuren.

"You're thinking too much," Gido said against his ear, and Frau gasped as the cloth slid down to rub slow and hard between his cheeks.

Frau leaned against him, hands splayed against Gido's back, and moaned as a finger pressed into him, wrapped in the wet roughness of the cloth. The sensation, the soft-and-rough texture pushing inside him, turned his legs shaky, and he was glad when Gido eased them both down to their knees in the heat of the water. "Stop worrying about the world," Gido murmured to him. "You're done with that responsibility for now."

"But everyone," Frau started, only to gasp as Gido gathered him closer and worked his fingers deeper into him.

"You love them," Gido whispered against his ear. "You saved them. You served them well, and now it's time to trust them, Frau."

Frau wrapped his arms around Gido's chest, panting against his shoulder. "I do," he insisted, ragged as Gido worked the cloth slowly in his ass.

"Then miss them," Gido told him gently. "But don't fear for them." He drew his hand and the cloth back, and Frau slumped against him, breathless.

"Will it really be all right?" he asked, low, and Gido took his face in both hands, dripping warm water as he lifted Frau's head to meet his eyes.

"It will be all right," he answered with such absolute certainty that Frau couldn't help but believe him. Frau nodded a little, accepting his leader's judgement, and Gido kissed him warm and easy. "Come on."

Frau was still just a little shaky around the knees, which Gido, predictably, took as an opportunity to draw him close again as they dried off. "Notice you kept this too," Gido murmured, leaning in to close his teeth lightly on the ear cuff Frau had inherited and tug gently.

Frau leaned against him with a soft moan, eyes half closed. "Fuck, Gido..."

"Well of course; you didn't think we were done yet, did you?" There was a definite gleam in Gido's eyes, and Frau thought about the way Gido had just cleaned him and had to swallow.

"Why?" he finally asked, quietly. Gido didn't pretend not to understand, just smiled and ruffled his fingers through Frau's drying hair.

"Because you need the distraction." His teeth flashed in a grin. "And because you've grown up very nicely." His hands slid down Frau's back to grip his ass and pull him in tighter, and Frau went because, really, he was pretty damn willing to be distracted now and figure out what he was being distracted from later. Teito had put his finger right on the truth, that one night; Gido had been like a god to Frau. Frau had loved Bastien, but it was Gido he'd dreamed about. Being bent over on his knees under Gido, in a muddle of velvety grass and wet towels, had him light-headed and panting even before long, strong fingers spread his ass.

When Gido's tongue dragged slowly over his entrance, response tightened so hard through Frau that he thought he might come from this alone. Gido was taking his time, tongue circling lazily, wet and hot and soft, until Frau was gasping against the towels and pushing back against Gido's hands. When he finally pushed his tongue into Frau, opening him up, Frau could only clutch at the grass and moan. It was good, soft and strong and hot, but it also made him hungry for more.

"Gido," he gasped, pushing back against him and shivering when Gido's hands tightened to hold him still.

"Mm." Slow thumbs worked circles over his ass. "More already?" Gido purred, teasing.

"Fuck yes, please." Frau made a low, wanting sound in his throat as Gido's cock pushed into him, hard and slow and slick with something. Probably from one of the goddamn bottles and jars around here, and oh god, ten years from now would Frau know what was in all of them too? He didn't want to think about that.

Fortunately, there were better things to concentrate on.

"Gido, fuck me," he half begged and half ordered, rocking back into the slow slide of Gido's cock. Gido laughed.

"Demanding, aren't you?" But his grip on Frau's hips shifted and he thrust into Frau so hard Frau saw stars.

"Yes," he moaned as Gido took him at his word and fucked him hard and sure. Gido was not a small man, and the burn of being stretched and filled by him ran down Frau's nerves sweet and hot. It was here and now and perfect, even if here was a bunch of fucking impossible gardens and he'd thought now was too late. It was hope, ground into his skin with every thrust, every stroke of Gido's hands down his ribs, that he'd come back to this, to this man, and maybe that meant the rest of his life and love wasn't gone forever either.

"It's all right, Frau." Gido's voice was husky and breathless, now. "It's all right. Let go." His hand wrapped around Frau's cock, strong and sure, and he drove into Frau's ass hard enough to lift him up off his knees. "Let go. You know I'll catch you."

The words raced through him like lightning, bright and wild, an explosion when they hit the building fire of body-pleasure. Frau cried out with the shock of it as sweetness scythed through him, so sharp it almost cut. It wrung his body out like a rag until he could barely breathe, only shudder with the force of it, of his response to Gido's care. Gido's low, vibrant moan answered him, deep as a kiss, and Frau gasped as Gido thrust hard into him and stilled.

"Fuck," Gido sighed, finally, and Frau could only make a wordless noise of agreement. He collapsed on the towels as Gido drew back and let him down, ass throbbing very pleasantly. The brush of Gido's lips over the back of his neck made him bend his head, shivering softly. Gido's hand stroked down his back, gentle.

"Too bad you weren't that quick to follow my orders back on the Aegis," he teased lightly.

Frau stirred and turned his head to look up at him, mouth quirking. "I always obeyed you."

Gido snorted and reached over to fish two cigarettes out of his coat pocket, offering one to Frau. "Bullshit."

Frau stole his lighter and sucked in a slow breath of smoke. "It's true," he insisted as Gido snatched the lighter back and cuffed him lightly. "I yelled at you and argued with you and called you every name I ever learned, when you were being stupid. But I never disobeyed you, once you actually gave an order."

Gido looked down at him for a long moment. "Yeah," he finally said softly, fingers sliding through Frau's hair. "I know." When he pulled Frau close again, Frau went willingly, content for a while to just soak up the warmth of being here, of being with Gido once again.

He figured they'd probably get around to the yelling again in time, but for now this was much better.

Eventually, after another couple cigarettes and another dunk in the crazed baths, they finally got around to getting dressed again. Frau thought about that for a while, leaning against Gido's knees. Gido was sprawled back on the marble edge of a fountain, which made a handy bench Frau supposed, but Frau had settled on the much softer grass at his feet. It had been a while since he'd been fucked that hard, after all. Besides, this meant Gido was combing his fingers slowly through Frau's hair, and Frau kind of wanted that comfort while he thought.

He thought he might know what Gido had been doing for the last few hours, and his guess warmed him and, at the same time, scared him that Gido had thought it was necessary. What had gone on right after he died, that Gido thought he needed to be braced or cushioned against it? Only one way to find out.

"So," he said quietly. "Am I calm enough, now? For you to let me see whatever it is that lets us watch the mortal world? To see what's happened to them?"

Gido's hand in his hair paused for a moment. "You always were sharp," Gido murmured. "Look at me."

Frau raised his head from Gido's knee and looked up to meet his eyes, dark and steady and serious. "Do you think you're ready?" Gido asked. "To see the people you love, ones you probably won't see in person for a long time?"

Frau remembered Gido asking him, in exactly that voice, if he was coming along, when he agreed to let Frau fly with him. He remembered that had been the last time he'd seen Magdalena. And then he had to close his eyes for a second and swallow hard.

"This was the first thing you taught me," he finally said, husky. "To gain something, you usually have to give something else up." And then he laughed, a little unsteady but true, remembering something else. "Well, maybe the second thing." He opened his eyes again and looked up at Gido with a tilted smile. "The first was If no one else will reach out their hand, I will. If it's important enough... you do it anyway."

The light of Gido's slow smile, the open pride in it, in him, made Frau glance aside, face a little hot. It was a small calm in his heart, though—a little place to stand and rest. He had done what needed to be done, what he knew was right, and he'd found one of his homes again on the other side of that choice.

"If you want to see it, I'll show you," Gido said, softly. Frau nodded silently and Gido stood, tugging Frau up with him.

As they walked through yet more of the endless gardens, Gido explained quietly. "There's a lake. We're pretty sure it's what the Lord of Heaven uses to keep an eye on the mortal world, but other souls can influence it around the edges, too. If the ones you want to see are present enough in your heart and mind, the lake will show them to you." His mouth twisted, eyes fixed ahead of them. "It's a mixed blessing, if it's a blessing at all. It nearly destroyed Kreuz. The last Vertrag," he added, glancing over at Frau. "Tiashe's guardian. What happened to the kid was... well. It was pretty bitter, even for those of us who'd only met the kid once. Kreuz was Tiashe's second dad; he nearly tore his soul apart, watching what those Barsburg bastards did to him and not being able to do a thing about it." He sighed and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "In the end, Gala grew some mary-flower and made him sleep. These gardens listen a little to the blood of Profe, even when they're not Ghosts any more. Good thing, too. He's doing better these days, at least." Gido smiled over at him. "Helped when you and the kid met up."

Frau could understand, now, exactly why Gido had wanted to make sure Frau was settled down before showing him this lake, even if he was tempted to call the man an overprotective old hen. But then the bits of information rearranged themselves in his head and his feet froze to the ground.

"Frau?" Gido looked back over his shoulder, brows raised.

"So, um. Kreuz. Has been watching again, huh?" Frau swallowed. "Just how much has 'Teito's second dad' been watching?"

Gido blinked once or twice before it seemed to click for him too and he threw his head back and laughed, open and rich. "Oh, don't worry." That would have been more reassuring if Gido hadn't been snickering. "He thinks the two of you are cute. Got downright doting about it whenever Tiashe started bossing you around in bed."

"He did not..." Frau glared as Gido broke up laughing again. Gido just slung an arm around his shoulders.

"Yeah, kid, he really did. It was cute."

Frau let himself be towed along, growling under his breath.

The lake, he had to admit, was a little unnerving, when they got there. There were other people gathered here and there around the edge, and the looks on their faces made Frau's nerves tighten. The first thing he thought, seeing them, was Kor. All too many of them wore the expression of someone listening to a Kor. "Gido," he said, tight and quiet.

"A mixed blessing," Gido answered, low, not looking at him. "Ghosts aren't the only souls that can get stuck, here."

That tone, that not-look, were a warning Frau recognized from the Aegis. There was, perhaps, someone listening that they shouldn't speak too freely in front of. Some things were constants, whether in the celestial world or the mortal one. Considering they'd all figured it had been a celestial messenger that had really convinced the Pope to make Teito Pandora's Box, it wasn't all that surprising. Frau nodded, disarmingly casual, and knelt at the edge of the water.

The lapping wavelets stilled, smooth as glass, and Frau's breath caught to see Teito reflected there. He'd thought he would have to do more. But no, there was Teito, sitting with Hakuren and Ouka around a small round table stacked with paper and cluttered with carafes and glasses, as Kururu chased Mikage from chair back to chair back. Frau didn't realize how tight his fingers had closed on the grass of the shore until Gido's hands settled on his shoulders and squeezed.

He watched the three of them trade lists and portfolios around, listened to Ouka's opinion of this noble and Hakuren's thoughts on that priest and Teito's quiet remarks on some general, soft and clear as if they were in the next room. It hurt, like a fist closed around his heart, to see them, so clear and so distant. And it soothed too, to watch them, safe and alive and obviously planning to take over the world though none of them would probably put it that way.

And then Hakuren said, without looking up from his file, "A message came from Castor-sama today. They're safe back at the cathedral."

Teito flinched.

"Teito," Ouka said softly, reaching across to catch one of his hands.

"I'm all right," he said hastily. "It's fine."

Hakuren threw his folder on the table and glared at him. "You are not. When are you going to take your own advice and let yourself mourn for him?"

"We don't have time." Teito didn't sound very sure, though, and he was clinging to Ouka's hand.

"The world isn't falling apart this instant," Hakuren said firmly. "We have time." He pushed his chair back and came to kneel beside Teito's, hand on his shoulder. More gently, he added, "I miss Frau-sama too."

As if the name had been all it needed to unlock Teito's resistance, he slumped back in his chair with a stifled sound of grief, curling in on himself. Hakuren promptly pulled him out of the chair and into his arms, and Ouka came around the table to wind her arms around both of them.

"You loved him," she said softly, stroking Teito's hair as he shuddered. "And he was a good man. It's all right."

"So dark without him," Teito whispered roughly against Hakuren's shoulder, and Hakuren's arms tightened hard.

"Open your eyes," Hakuren ordered, rather husky himself. "Some of the light he showed you was your own, Teito, don't ever doubt that. Don't you dare."

Some muttering answered that, out of which Frau could only hear bossy. "Miss him," Teito added, a little more audibly. Ouka rested her cheek against his hair.

"You should miss him," she said softly. "When someone leaves, of course we miss them. It hurts less, with time, but we always miss them." She took a deep breath. "But that's just the proof that your heart and your light are alive. And that means you can keep on loving people, and they can help you when it hurts."

Teito broke down for real, then, shaking in their arms, and Frau watched them, eyes burning, as Hakuren and Ouka sat on the floor and held him through it. Mikage joined them to burrow against Teito's cheek and make anxious chirps at him, and when Teito finally lifted his head it was Mikage who got a damp smile. "Thanks," Teito said quietly, scrubbing a sleeve over his face. Hakuren tsked at him and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, and Teito rolled his eyes, and Ouka giggled, and they all relaxed a little.

Teito straightened and stretched slowly, and accepted a glass of water Hakuren poured him. "So." He glanced up reluctantly at the table full of paper. "Who should we be supporting for Field Marshal?"

"I think it will have to be Myers," Ouka said practically, tucking her skirts in around her knees and staying beside him. "He's the only one willing to even think about releasing the Raggs Kingdom slaves, even now we're betrothed."

Frau drew back from the water, softly as if they could hear him in turn, and their image faded, still arguing. The last thing he saw was Hakuren's hand brushing Teito's hair protectively. "Idiot," he whispered, husky. "The light was all your own."

"Who's the idiot, again?" Gido's voice startled him, and he squawked a bit when Gido pulled him in close and Frau more or less collapsed against him. He was shaking, he realized, tremors like a bone-deep chill. Gido's hand closed on the nape of his neck, strong and warm, kneading a little of the shaking out. "I swear, each of you brats is just as bad as each other."

"What... what do you mean?" Frau asked, pressing his forehead against Gido's shoulder and trying to catch his breath.

"I mean," Gido told him dryly, "that both of you have souls that burn so pure it's amazing you don't blind innocent onlookers; and neither of you seem to believe it."

The words brought back the brilliance of Teito's soul, the taste of it on his tongue, the warmth of it that promised to call Frau back from any darkness, and loss clawed at Frau all over again. Gido held him close and quiet as Frau's hands twisted tight in his coat, and Frau's breath caught and heaved with the pain.

"Listen to the girl's wisdom, Frau," Gido murmured to him. "And know that you'll see Tiashe again."

"But he won't stay, and I can't leave." That thought hurt almost as badly as losing Teito already had—it was going to happen again, and there was nothing he could do...

Gido sighed. "Idiot." He rapped Frau briskly over the head. "What did I just say about your soul?"

"But..." Frau pushed upright against him, staring. "You said the Ghosts..."

"Are stuck here for a while. But unless he dies unimaginably young for a master of the Eye of Mikhail, you'll be ready to go back with him." He smiled and ruffled Frau's hair. "Do try to remember why you're the only one of us who could handle that damn scythe. I'm not the foreseer among us, but I'll tell you this much of your future: Zehel's mark will be burned from your soul in plenty of time."

Frau leaned back into the shelter of Gido's assurance, shaken worse than ever by the thought that he might find Teito again, as he'd found Gido. "Thank you," he whispered. He didn't like to think about what might have happened to him at this lake if he hadn't had Gido to ground him and guide him through it.

"None needed," Gido told him gently. "Come on, then." He stood, urging Frau up with him. "Let's find you a place to stay."

"Is it going to be as insane as the baths?" Frau asked, casting a suspicious eye around at the unrelentingly out-doorsy landscape. Gido snorted.

"Not that bad. Most people aren't here long enough to need anything, and a lot of the ones who stay aren't in any shape to notice," he didn't look back at the captive souls by the lake, but Frau shivered anyway, "so there are only a few of us who use it. We're back in a corner by the woods."

It took a while to get anywhere near the woods, but eventually they came into sight of some very tall walls and spires. Walls which, as they got closer, formed a building very like the sector seven Cathedral—arched walkways here, open courtyards there, pillared halls leading inward. Gido chuckled as Frau craned his head back, taking in the complexity of it. "There's no record of which came first, this or the Cathedral, but we think it was probably this."

He led Frau inward. There were none of the distracted souls Frau had seen in the rest of the gardens, here. Instead they passed a handful of people who felt just a little familiar. A light haired man with Castor's nose looked up from a book and smiled as they passed his rooms. A slight, beautiful woman with Labrador's eyes waved to them from an enclosed courtyard and fountain. A man with the gold hair of the Oaks winked at them over the shoulder of a tall man with Teito's faint accent strong in his vowels, who was contemplating a chess board set between them.

"Welcome home," Gido said quietly, setting a hand on Frau's shoulder to guide him through another arch and into a wide room with a few heavy chairs, a table and shelves, a deep bed. It was so much like the bedrooms in the cathedral that Frau's breath caught.

"I was going to say this will take some getting used to," he said, looking around at the smooth, pale stone walls. "But maybe less than I was thinking."

"Usually," Gido agreed, leaning in the arch of Frau's new doorway. "You're not alone here, Frau. We're all in this together."

Frau rested a hand on the wall by his bed nook. It had half a dozen pillows, and a stack of silky, folded blankets at the foot. That silent welcome and the knowing eyes of the ex-Ghosts they'd passed settled around him, warm and steady, and he took a long, slow breath. For the first time since he'd arrived in Heaven, he felt like he had a stable place to stand.

Maybe he'd make it until his other loved ones came back to him after all.

Which reminded him of the one he'd found here, all unexpected, and he cocked his head at Gido thoughtfully. "So, hey."

Gido's brows rose as Frau strolled back over to him. "Hm?"

"You said you wanted to get me settled, here, when you found me earlier." Frau reached out to rest a hand on Gido's chest, smiling to feel the beating heart under his hand. "Think you might help me get used to the new place?" He tilted his head at the bed.

Gido laughed and reached out without moving from his casual lean against the door to pull Frau up against him. "I really did miss you, brat," he said, resting his forehead against Frau's, eyes warm. "It'll be my pleasure."

"Well, then." Frau relaxed against him with a soft sigh, finding the words easy at last.

"I'm home."

End

It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Seventeen

Most of the Konoha contingent ingathers to deal with Sai's attack on Naruto and its implications. In the wake of this, Naruto proposes his new plan to Tsunade. Drama, Angst, I-4

The only reason Sakura didn't kill Sai immediately was that Ino got in her way.

"Interrogation," Ino reminded her, clipped, as she pulled her garrote tight around Sai's throat and nodded to Chouji, who slowly took his weight off Sai's back.

Sakura snarled softly, aware that her lip was curled up off her teeth and not bothering to lower it. How dare he. After they'd survived the Akatsuki attack, after Naruto had finally woken up again, how dare one of their own people turn on him like this!

"Easy, there," B rumbled from behind her, where Sasuke was guarding Naruto. "Not saying it's a good reason, but maybe he had family in the last attack by the Nine-tails? Wouldn't be surprised if it came out now, after a full manifestation."

Sai looked up at them, perfectly blank, as if he didn't even feel Ino's garrote. "Family?"

Or as if he didn't understand the words. Quiet rippled out through the dining hall again, cutting through the soft scrapes of people starting to pick up their chairs. Quiet, especially, from the Mist-nin.

"I hadn't heard Leaf did that kind of thing," Ushio, Mist's senior chuunin, said, eyes shifting between Sai and the rest of the Leaf-nin.

"We don't," Shikamaru answered, frowning. "At least not that I've ever heard before."

"Omoi went for the Commander and Kakashi-san," Karui said, golden eyes dark. "Guess we'll know soon."

"Naruto!" The dining hall door slammed open and the entire command group spilled through, Jiraiya in the lead.

"Speak of him and he appears," Sasuke murmured, and Sakura let the dry humor in his voice calm her, reassure her that it was all right, because otherwise Sasuke wouldn't sound that calm. She straightened slowly and stepped back to Naruto's side; it didn't escape her notice that several of the shinobi around them sighed with relief as she did.

Okay, so maybe she was a little more on edge than usual.

"I'm okay!" Naruto piped up from behind his human bulwark. "Sasuke saw him coming and Sakura kicked his knees out and he missed completely and everyone piled on."

Jiraiya blew out a long breath and nodded to the knot of people around Sai. "Thank you all." He frowned at the restrained and weirdly calm Sai. "Anyone have any idea why?"

"I'm afraid I probably do," Kakashi-sensei murmured, stepping through the crowd to come and crouch in front of Sai. Quietly enough that only the nearest people heard it, he asked, "Are you a member of Root?"

Sai just looked back at him, silent and blank, and Sakura frowned. She'd heard of Root, but it had been disbanded years ago. If he had been Root, though... that meant he was ANBU.

"Nearly as good as a yes," Kakashi-sensei sighed, standing, and turned to Jiraiya. "Commander. I'm afraid this is likely to get deep into matters of Konoha politics. Can we get some privacy?"

Jiraiya's mouth tightened, lines deepening on either side. After a long moment he nodded. "Very well. But if anything you find out has any bearing on this mission, I will expect you to report it to the command group." At Kakashi-sensei's nod he jerked a thumb at the door. "Take him back to the Leaf quarters, then. No one will interrupt."

Good, Sakura thought coldly.

Ino got Sai onto his feet with an efficient heave and aimed him out the door, garrote still snug. The rest of them stayed close all the way back to their own building and bent suspicious looks on the rest of Ino's team, who piled down the stairs, talking over each other to find out what had happened.

"He's a traitor," Ino said bluntly, and watched the stunned expressions on the faces of other four for a long moment before nodding, apparently satisfied. "We're going to use the inner room on the second floor. Watch the exits."

Genma-san was watching from the top of the stairs, eyes dark. He exchanged a long look with Kakashi-sensei and bowed his head wearily.

"If we're lucky, this will be the break," Kakashi-sensei answered, as if Genma-san had said something, and the other man nodded.

"Hyuuga's team has perimeter watch this shift," he said quietly. "Should I keep them away when they get back in?"

"No, send them up. We need witnesses, if this is what I think it is, and the heir to Hyuuga, the favorite grandson of the Inuzuka matriarch, and the first cousin of the Aburame heir would be hard to disappear."

Sakura swallowed her startlement at that, suddenly aware that, whatever Kakashi-sensei suspected, it must go far beyond one crazy ANBU.

Kakashi-sensei waved Sasuke and Naruto, and Shikamaru and Chouji, back against the walls of the room they brought Sai to, the one that Ino's team had been sleeping in. "The first thing you all need to understand is that there are questions Sai will be unable to answer." He glanced at Sai, now sitting calmly in a chair with Ino behind him. "Will you show them why?"

Sai shrugged and stuck out his tongue, and Sakura pulled in a hard breath at the mark on it. "A mission seal?" That meant someone had sent Sai to do this. She frowned. "Do you still have the keys to ANBU seals, Kakashi-sensei?"

"In fact, I do," he murmured. "But I don't have the key to this one."

A chill stroked down Sakura's spine. Was he implying that Sai had been suborned by outsiders? Or... by insiders?

Kakashi-sensei met her eyes and nodded just a fraction. "There's other information he can give, but first we need to make sure he isn't going to die in the middle of this."

Sakura bit her lip and nodded silently. Bit by bit, she and Kakashi and Ino searched Sai for poisons or death seals under Kakashi-sensei's quiet direction. Sakura's stomach felt shaky by the time they were done, and not just because it was a hard thing to do to a fellow Konoha shinobi. It was also Sai himself; they might have been handling a doll for all his response or expression.

"Last thing," Kakashi-sensei started as he closed cuffs back around Sai's hands and stood, only to look up as Hinata, Kiba, and Shino piled through the door. "Ah, good timing. Hinata, can you check Sai for any implanted devices or techniques that might cause his death?"

Kiba shut the mouth he'd already opened, eyes wide. Shino rested a hand on Hinata's shoulder for a moment before nudging Kiba back against the wall like everyone else. Hinata, after an uncertain breath, nodded. "Yes, Kakashi-san." She engaged her Byakugan and examined Sai closely for a few moments. "Nothing that would cause death," she reported steadily, "but he carries a paralyzing seal in his mouth."

"That one we knew of. Thank you." Kakashi-sensei looked around at them and sighed. "I had hoped this could be resolved without involving your generation, but it appears not. What we know for sure is that Sai attempted to kill Naruto in the dining hall this afternoon, and that he carries an irregular mission seal which will very likely prevent him from speaking about who sent him or why. We are here to find out whatever else we can." Meeting Sai's blank gaze directly, he added, "I believe I know the answers to who and why already, in any case."

Ino frowned. "Then why...?"

Kakashi leaned against another chair, arms crossed. "What if I told you that I believe Sai was assigned this mission by one of our village Elders? And that this Elder leads a proscribed group, of which Sai is a part, answering only to him and carrying out whatever secret operations he decides?"

"I would say that was speculation and hearsay," Shikamaru said quietly, from where he stood directly behind Sai. "At least, that's what I'd say if I was an Elder."

Sakura thought Kakashi smiled behind his mask, and that it probably wasn't a happy smile. "Precisely. What is not speculation is that someone sent Sai to do this, someone with the ability to place that seal on him. And that the records of the Intelligence division show that, not too very long ago, there was a subdivision of ANBU called Root which was under the sole control of Shimura Danzou. Sai's membership is similarly a matter of record. And Danzou-san has, more than once, said publicly that he does not trust the Hokage to take all the measures necessary to guard the village properly. Either the Third or the Fifth."

"That's a stronger case, yeah," Shikamaru allowed, eyes fixed on Kakashi-sensei. Sakura, watching, caught a faint settling in Sai's posture and had to look down to hide a moment of realization and admiration for her teacher's deft touch. He was setting Sai up to cooperate with them, to think there was already no reason not to. "Well," Shikamaru continued, voice perfectly casual, "if Sai can't talk, maybe the things he packed can." Sakura caught his glance at her and picked it up.

"Let's see, then," she said coolly, kneeling by Sai's bedroll to sort briskly through his things. Weapons, mostly, including his drawing supplies, and... hm. She sat back on her heels, holding what looked like a picture book between her hands, watching Sai out of the corner of her eye. He didn't tense, but something changed in the set of his brows, like the tiniest flicker of a frown. She paged through the book slowly, wondering if it was some manner of code. It read in two different directions. Two different mission plans? But the center pages were blank. She frowned over that, considering. Two boys, fighting the same things from two different directions, and... well, they should meet in the middle, except that they didn't. One of the boys looked a bit like Sai.

Abruptly, she remembered the way the Mist-nin had looked at them, in the dining hall, and the things they had heard from Zabuza and Kakashi-sensei, years ago. Two boys...

"Did you know him?" she asked, turning to Sai to show him the side of the book with the other boy. Softer, she added, "Did you fight him? Is that what happened, in those blank pages?"

"That's what happened," Sai confirmed, face blank as ever. But his voice was a little tighter, now.

"Who was he?" she asked, watching him. Yes, there was definitely more tension around his eyes now.

Sai looked down at the book in her hands for a long moment and finally shrugged. "My brother."

Sakura's stomach twisted, despite every attempt at discipline and calm, and she closed her eyes as the pattern clicked together in her mind's eye. "You were trained together. Right up until the day you had to fight him. To the death." It wasn't a question. Kiba and Naruto choked, and Hinata made a distressed sound. Sakura opened her eyes and looked at Sai as steadily as she could. He looked back, expressionless. Or almost. It didn't take Shikamaru's nod to know this was something they might use as a lever, here, but the thought of using such a tragedy as a lever—again, after the way Danzou had obviously used it once—sickened her. She hoped with all her heart Kakashi-sensei had another way in mind.

On an impulse, she leaned forward and laid the book in Sai's lap. "This is yours," she said, quietly.

Slowly, his fingers wrapped around it.

"No wonder the Third outlawed it," Naruto said, low and rough.

Over the sounds of agreement, around the room, Kakashi-sensei's voice was level and calm. "The organization known as Root was officially dissolved, yes. But it was never suppressed. Remember that."

"What are you saying?" Naruto started low, but his voice was picking up volume by the syllable. "The old guy would never have let anything like that happen, not if he knew!"

A little to Sakura's surprise, it was Hinata who answered. "The kind of responsibility the Hokage has can lead people to do... things they don't like." She was twisting her fingers together, but her soft words were steady. "The Third was also the one who refused to confirm Sasuke-san in his place as the head of Uchiha. It had to be him, because the other noble clans didn't oppose it."

"The Third acted however he felt was needed to protect the village and the people in it," Kakashi-sensei agreed, quiet, almost hypnotic. "And Danzou has always said he acted for the same principle. I suspect that's why he uses that seal, hm?" He cocked his head at Sai, casual and understanding.

"It's best if our missions are sealed," Sai said, still looking down at the book. "We have done things to protect the village that would be considered questionable."

Questionable even by the standards of ANBU meant something a little more extreme than most of the others would assume, and Sakura exchanged a quick, grim look with Ino.

"So, Danzou is trying to make himself a second Hokage, is he?" Ino asked, contempt in every word. "With his very own ANBU that reports just to him. I suppose corruption and ambition are always with us."

"It can't just be that!" Sakura started up on her knees to play the opposite part, supporting Kakashi-sensei's lead. She glared at Ino, which came easily given how often they fought. "If the Third knew, then they really must be doing what's right for the village!"

"What's right?" Ino's brows and voice both went up in disbelief. "Try to remember that it's your own teammate who just nearly got killed!"

Sakura flinched back. "That... but..." She stared at Sai as if torn, and, right on cue, Kakashi came forward again, resting a hand on her shoulder as he crouched down in front of Sai.

"You can't speak of it," he said quietly. "But perhaps you can at least indicate if my guesses are right. I think Danzou probably sent you along to make sure Naruto didn't fall into Akatsuki's hands. You were to strike if he did?"

After a thoughtful moment, Sai nodded silently. Sakura bit her lip harder, which had the useful side effect of hiding her surge of exultation at this break.

"And if one of the other villages tried to take him?" Kakashi went on. Another nod answered that. "But neither of those happened. So there must be a third condition. Something to do with the Nine-tails and the seal, I imagine."

Sai nodded again, quiet calmly.

"But the seal didn't break!" Sakura leaned forward, pleadingly, resting a hand as if by accident on the book in Sai's lap, the reminder of her sympathy (a true sympathy, even if she was using it as a tool now). "The Nine-tails didn't escape, Naruto is still in control! So why...?"

"If the seal changed at all?" Kakashi-sensei asked softly. Sai smiled his alarming smile as if pleased that they'd finally gotten it and nodded again.

Sakura leaned back again, frowning. "But it's a double seal, so the Nine-tails would still be under control even if it were changed or damaged. Why give an order like that?"

Kakashi-san sighed. "Because Danzou's ideas of what will protect the village are very rigid and very strict. And not what would make good policy as a Hokage. Since the Third died, Danzou's decisions have been untempered by any larger view. The Fifth has had no proof of what he was doing, not something she could convince her whole Council with."

Until now, at least, and that made Sakura very, very happy. She was going to see that old man die for this, one way or another. The attack on her teammate had clearly been his doing, and it had come close enough to send adrenaline sizzling down her nerves every time she thought about it. And while part of her still howled to kill Sai now just to be on the safe side, a growing part was just as enraged over what had been done to him.

Kakashi-sensei stood silently and rested a hand on Sai's head. "Questionable things must sometimes be done, to protect what we care for," he said. "But Danzou forced you to kill what you cared for, didn't he? I suspect he did it to make you unable to care. How, then, could you possibly judge for yourself what is necessary and what isn't?"

Sai blinked up at him. "I don't need to judge. Only act."

Sakura swallowed, and reached abruptly for Naruto and Sasuke, to reassure herself they were still there, still her anchor, her reason for fighting. To assure herself that she had something to hold her back from the pure, uncaring edge she could hear in Sai's words—the edge she remembered hearing, whispering to her soft and tempting, in Orochimaru's voice, telling her not to let herself be held back by sentiment. Someone had said that to Sai until he had believed it. Their hands closed on hers, and the three of them clung together.

"If only one person judges, and yet his judgments become the action of many, the result is madness." Kakashi-sensei slid his hand down to Sai's shoulder, gripping it tightly. "You had no way of learning this, I know, but try to listen now. That's why we have a council, to advise the Hokage. That's why the Hokage and the Elders and the division commanders and the noble clans are all involved. So that no one person can act beyond their individual strength without convincing others that they are right. Danzou never convinced you. He only shaped and conditioned you. That's anathema to what our village is. Even ANBU leaves its operatives their own will and judgment." Kakashi-sensei's voice turned dark and cold for a moment. "For breaking that faith with all of you, I will bring him down."

Sai had a faint frown now. A puzzled one. "I don't understand."

Sakura shuddered. Of course he didn't. Having to kill his own brother, a brother he'd probably loved... she would have done her best to turn off her heart, too!

A brother he'd probably loved...

Sakura straightened, assumptions suddenly shifting. "Sai," she said, husky. "That book. What did you mean to draw in the middle? It couldn't have been the two of you fighting each other. You couldn't have known that was coming." She felt Sasuke shiver against her, and wrapped her arm around him.

Sai blinked slowly. "I... don't remember." He looked down at the book, distant and curious.

"Maybe," Naruto had to stop and clear his throat to get the roughness out of his voice, "maybe you were going to draw the two of you fighting together. Instead of against each other. I mean, if he was your brother and you grew up training together."

Sasuke flinched and Sakura tugged him into the middle, so she and Naruto could both hold him. When she looked back at Sai, he was staring at the book with more expression than she'd seen yet—something dark and hurt, and still a little wondering. "Together," he murmured. "That was... yes. I wanted to give it to him, once we both passed our final trials for fieldwork."

Hinata made a quick, pained sound, muffled behind her clasped hands; her team had closed in around her, too.

"For him and for you," Kakashi-sensei said, very soft and cold as ice, "I will bring Danzou down. Fight for the village your brother would have wanted to live in, if you continue to fight."

Sai actually seemed comforted by that deadly tone and lowered his eyes. "Yes, Kakashi-senpai," he said, meekly.

Sakura watched Kakashi-sensei take a long breath. "This mission has failed," he continued, more briskly. "Will you attempt to keep carrying it out, if you're released?"

Sai shook his head. "I wasn't told to complete it at all costs, and I could only complete it at the cost of my life, now."

Kakashi-sensei nodded to Ino, who unwound her garrote and turned at once to her team, to be gathered into Chouji's arms while Shikamaru watched Kakashi-sensei with dark eyes. Kakashi-sensei undid the cuffs and stood back with a sigh. "I don't think there's anything that needs to be reported to our mission's command. But when Tsunade-sama gets here, I imagine she'll want to hear it all. It may alter how we continue this mission, too. Everyone get as much rest as you can." He swept a stern eye around the room. "Don't speak of this with anyone else."

A murmur of agreement went around the room, and Sakura was very glad to be released. She wanted their own room, and her team with her, and to sit and shake for a while. She'd taken part in a few interrogations, but never of someone from her own village before! "Come on," she whispered to Sasuke and Naruto, tugging Naruto along when he looked back at Sai, hesitating. "Let Kakashi-sensei take care of it for now."

Naruto nodded reluctantly, and followed, and was perfectly willing to wrap her and Sasuke up and fuss over them for a while. Sakura huddled with Sasuke, on their piled bedrolls, and thought about this comfort that was so readily hers, and thought about Sai and his brother, and put her head down on Naruto's shoulder while she cried.

Kakashi knew his voice was too hard, as he finished his report to Tsunade. Too serious. Too demanding. But he'd felt like he had fire under his skin for a day and a night, now, waiting for her to arrive so he could give her the proof, finally, of Danzou's actions. The proof that was sitting in his room across the valley, waiting with inhuman calm, exactly like a weapon sitting in its rack.

"Send me home," he finished, harsh. "Send me home with this, and assign me to eliminate him. All of ANBU will understand why it was me, and that he died by the same sword he lived by."

Tsunade didn't look up from her hands, clasped on the black oval table of the command HQ room. "And then how am I different from him, Kakashi?"

He slashed his hand across the words, violently. "You don't ask that about Akatsuki! How is what Danzou's done any less of an attack on the village?"

Her hands tightened. "And if I have one of my Council killed out of hand, how will the village feel any safer for that?!" She finally looked up, mouth sick and set in a pale face. "No. It will be in Council, with a public record. Danzou will be heard. He's mad enough to take pride in what he's done, if it comes to that."

"Playing publicity games with your people's lives, Tsunade-hime?" Kakashi asked very softly.

She stood up slowly, and for a breath he wondered if he'd let fury drive him too far. But when she came to him she only closed her hands on his shoulders, strong and steady. "Their lives were already played with. All we can do is try to set them straight again and hope. I know it hurts you," she whispered. "I know you want to do something now to fix it. I know. But we have to care for everyone, as best we can, and that's never as easy as killing off the threat. Never."

He bent his head, shuddering under the weight of that. "Wasn't there anyone else you could have chosen?" he asked, very close to pleading.

She lifted a hand to touch his cheek. "It's because of this that I chose you," she told him, terribly gentle. "Because you love them. Because it hurts. I'm sorry."

There would be a day, Kakashi saw with abrupt clarity, when he would have to do this to Naruto. And that thought felt so much like a dagger under his ribs that he reached out and pulled Tsunade close, holding her tight, the way he would one of his own team. He'd been ANBU, and he understood cruel necessity, but she was a healer; it had to be half killing her to do this to him. "I'll survive," he assured her, low and rough. "And I won't kill Danzou until you say I can. Well. Not unless he attacks first."

She snorted against his chest, half laughter and half her usual annoyance. "Oh, that's reassuring." She pushed him away and reached up to muss his hair, grinning at his elaborate indignation, and they both eased away from the pain of the moment. "Well, I suppose the first thing I need to do is take a look at Naruto's seal and see what my idiot student has gone and done this time."

As if his name had summoned him, or, far more likely, as if Naruto's patience had finally run out, Naruto himself barged through the door before the last word was all the way out of her mouth.

"Tsunade-baachan! You have to help me heal the Nine-tails!" he declared.

Tsunade stared at him for a long moment before pointing to a chair. "Sit." When Naruto had thumped down into the chair with bad grace, she hitched a hip up onto the table and crossed her arms. "Now. Try that again, starting at the beginning this time." Kakashi faded back to lean against the wall and watch.

Naruto propped his elbows aggressively on the table. "Okay, so. When my dad sealed the Nine-tails into me, he also cut away half the fox's chakra. His yin chakra. And he's really pissed off about it," here Naruto waved his arms widely as if to indicate the size of the temper in question, "and I don't blame him! And it was the Ten Stems Twelve Branches seal, so I know we can't get his chakra back, but we can heal him can't we? Help him regenerate it?"

Tsunade opened and closed her mouth twice before she managed to say, "Okay, one," she held up a finger, "yes it is sometimes possible to heal a wound to chakra, especially if the body is still intact. I have no idea how that would be complicated by working on an elemental spirit who doesn't have his own body right this moment. But before that there is two," another finger, with some emphasis, "which is, what the hell are you thinking, trying to strengthen a spirit that will take you over and burn you out if it gets much stronger?!" She planted her fist on her hip and glared at him.

He glared right back. "He won't do that! We have a deal." He crossed his arms stubbornly, chin jutted out.

"A little more beginning might have been helpful," Kakashi put in before they could get any deeper into their deadlock. "Naruto appears to have reached a truce, and possibly even a friendship with the Nine-tails."

Naruto winced as if at a sudden noise and wiggled a finger in one ear. "Thanks, Kakashi-sensei. That was loud. He says he's totally not friends with some idiot human kit."

"Rather like Naruto's relationship with Sasuke, really," Kakashi added blandly, with just a tiny bit of malice aforethought. Naruto and his new friend had been the cause of enough stress this week, he felt he deserved the indulgence.

Naruto glowered at him, though the corners of his mouth were twitching. "Kakashi-sensei, that wasn't very nice. You made him howl."

Kakashi spread his hands innocently.

"Let me get this straight," Tsunade said, a little muffled past the hand pinching the bridge of her nose. "The scourge of our village, the terror of many a person's nightmares, the most appallingly powerful of all the tailed beasts... and Naruto has made buddies with it." She slid back down into her chair and buried her face in her hands. "I'm not even surprised, you know." She heaved in a deep breath and looked up to fix an eye on Naruto. "And you want to heal your friend."

"It's the right thing to do," Naruto insisted. "He didn't choose to attack us. He got injured in a fight that wasn't his fault, and we were the ones who did it!"

"There were a lot of people injured in that fight, and we can't fix all of them either, Naruto," she told him quietly.

Naruto looked back at her, not angry now but very serious, and answered just as quietly. "Sensei."

That was all he said, but everything was in that one word. Her responsibility as the one who had taught him to heal as well as fight. His belief in the principles she'd given him. His faith that she would stand by those principles now and do the right thing. Kakashi was impressed; Naruto truly had matured lately, and he had to wonder how much the demon fox might be responsible for that.

Tsunade locked eyes with her student for a long moment. Finally she folded her hands and spoke soft and level. "Think about this, and answer me truthfully. If the Nine-tails is healed, can you still remain yourself?"

Naruto got the inward look he'd developed recently, the one Kakashi was starting to suspect indicated a conversation with his resident spirit. "No," he murmured finally, "no, you're right. Okay." He looked up at Tsunade. "I'll still be me. Yes. We really do have a deal, and he's, um, kind of pissed off that everyone seems to be doubting his word. But you know... I'm not exactly the me I was before I graduated. Or before I was teamed with Sasuke and Sakura. Or before you taught me. It'll be like that. He and I can talk, now. We really are getting to be friends." He paused and added pointedly, glancing just a little aside, "No matter how much he growls and yells about insolent mortal spawn with no respect."

Kakashi straightened up against the wall abruptly, catching something he hadn't before. "Naruto," he said, cautious, "when you talk about your deal with the Nine-tails... do you mean that the two of you have a contract now?"

Naruto blinked and paused, head cocked. "He says," he reported a bit wryly, "that he's not some damn animal summons, but that the essential principle is not entirely dissimilar, though I shouldn't go getting a swelled head about it."

Kakashi had to admit, through a bit of a daze, that Naruto's verbatim quotes of the Nine-tails really did sound a bit like a much older and even more irritable Sasuke.

"It's a promise between us," Naruto added, smiling. "We'll both keep it. Which means," he added, looking pugnaciously at Tsunade again, "that I'm going to heal him!"

Tsunade looked just as shocked as Kakashi felt. "If it's a contract..." she murmured, and trailed off. After a moment, though she shook herself and straightened. "If it's a contract, of course you have to abide by it." She nodded just over Naruto's shoulder, the same direction he glanced when talking to the Nine-tails. "I apologize for misunderstanding the weight of this bond."

Naruto cocked his head again and then turned red. "I, um. I think maybe I won't say what he just said? Especially the part about your grandmother. Eheh." He rubbed the back of his head. "He, um, well in general he says thanks."

Tsunade glowered and muttered something under her breath. "All right, fine. But this is going to have to wait, because I can't stay here as long as the research for this would take. I have to get Sai back to the village and deal with Danzou."

"Then we'll come home now and I can get started while you take care of that," Naruto said firmly.

"You are not coming out of this mission's protection," Tsunade snapped.

"They already found us, though!" Naruto protested. "And it's an island, we're sitting ducks!"

"Naruto!" They were leaning over the table, nearly nose to nose, when someone cleared his throat.

"If we aren't intruding on the debriefing, Hokage," Darui said, leaning in the doorway, "the mission command team actually has some thoughts about that."

Tsunade threw herself back in her chair. "Yes, everyone might as well add their bright ideas," she said a bit sourly.

Kakashi took it as a comment on the general temperament of village leaders that everyone filed in without minding her ire in the least.

"Naruto makes a reasonable point," Darui started, when everyone was seated around the great oval table with Naruto scowling beside Tsunade. "The greatest strength of the Island Turtle, for the purposes of this mission, was concealment. If that's breached, and it seems likely it was, then it might be better to surround our hosts with their own people again while we search for Madara. The strength of Akatsuki is now considerably reduced, after all."

"We've seen better cooperation here than I would have imagined," Yuzuki put in, "and I truly believe that will have benefits for a long time to come. But each village always knows any of the others may be an opponent at any time. Everyone feels more secure in their own place. That is also an advantage."

Tsunade nodded slowly. "It's true that two Akatsuki teams have been removed since this mission started. Madara and perhaps one supporter are all that's left. I suppose there's a good case to be made for a home ground advantage, now." She folded her hands under her chin. "Would you all have this mission separate again, then?"

"Sand is the ally of Leaf," Temari said, chin lifted. "We will send support to your village, to defend Naruto, if you'll have it."

Tsunade smiled warmly and Naruto's scowl was slipping away, replaced by a tiny grin. "That will be welcome."

"I believe the Mizukage would be willing to send the Swordsmen to aid both Leaf and Cloud," Choujuurou put in, lifting his hand a bit shyly.

"I have no idea whether my father will permit it, or the Raikage accept it for that matter," Kitsuchi said a bit dryly, "but I will put forward the idea of sending Rock's aid to Cloud, as well. Many of our people have been favorably impressed with B-san, on this mission."

Tomita of Sound stirred, looking up from his folded hands. "When Orochimaru died, we took some of his network intact. Sound will search for word of Madara among the smaller countries."

Tsunade was nearly glowing. "Thank you," she said, looking around the table and spreading her hands as if to encompass them all. "Thank you all. I am honored by your willingness to aid us in this time, and I'm sure the Raikage will be as well." She pursed her lips thoughtfully and added, "Once he's done shouting, of course." She smiled at them again, edged and bloodthirsty now. "Together, we will put an end to Madara."

A soft rumble of agreement ran around the room. It was heartening, and yet, for Kakashi, also frightening. He saw how she did this, how she moved them, and he knew it was because she offered them her own trust. Her own heart. She was Naruto's teacher, no question. Someday, he would need to do this too, and the thought was both tempting and terrifying, because he knew that he could. If he dared.

Someday wasn't yet, though, and he turned his thoughts, with some relief, to the simpler task of ordering and withdrawing the Leaf contingent. She was still his Hokage, one of the Legendary Three, the leader and shield of Konoha. There was comfort in that, even as they prepared to heal one of Konoha's worst nightmares and face down another long thought dead and gone.

A/N: Canon says that Shin died of disease before he and Sai fought, but that isn't nearly as narratively useful. Since the poor schmuck's dead in any case, I'm going to say he and Sai were, in fact, set against each other as planned. It makes Sai's complete asocial feralness that much more believable.

It's Just That Any One of Us Is Half Without Another One Is You - Chapter Nineteen

Kakashi takes Sai under his wing and Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura help Sai start to find his emotional feet. Just in time for Madara to make his move on Konoha. Drama, Angst, I-4

"Where is the man?!" Tsunade pounded a fist on her desk, which creaked in protest even through Shizune had gotten it reinforced with metal and stone supports. Kakashi couldn't really blame her.

"He's letting us wear ourselves out," he said from his perch atop her filing cabinet, out of the way of any shrapnel. "We've found a few Akatsuki bases in nearly every country, but I doubt we've found them all. He'll stay hidden in one until we're exhausted and he's ready."

"And this is Uchiha Madara," Jiraiya added, stretching out his long legs and slumping further down into Tsunade's guest chair. "The Hyuuga can't be everywhere, there aren't enough of them strong enough to see through that grade of illusion." His mouth quirked in wry acknowledgement of Tsunade's anger. "At least this delay is giving Naruto time to re-learn his techniques."

Tsunade sat back in her chair looking sour. "Yes, and that's another thing."

Kakashi grinned a bit behind his mask. "He's still nagging you to let him manifest?" He'd been witness to one of Naruto's pitches to be allowed to try, three weeks ago, and Naruto had already been waving his arms and ranting at that one.

"He's a medic himself!" Tsunade sounded aggrieved. "He should know perfectly well that a patient's chakra must be allowed to reach equilibrium after major surgery."

"Besides, which," Jiraiya murmured, "it would cause chaos and panic throughout the village if he did it here."

Tsunade sighed. "That too. The two old goats made much of that."

"Yes. I don't think I'm their favorite any more, either, after not stopping you or telling them what you planned." Jiraiya cocked a brow at Tsunade. "You must have been keeping your temper with them a lot better than I'd thought, if they could think for one instant than I or anyone else could stop you once you've made a decision."

"I've been attempting to compromise reasonably between the governing factions of the village." Tsunade frowned, hands tracing over the cracked surface of her desk. "I don't want to become what too many clan heads and Elders are, thinking that having power means they must be right."

"You aren't them," Kakashi said quietly. "You're Tsunade of the Leaf. We follow you because you've always cared for what's right." And sometimes the pride and terror of thinking that he might, just might, be able to live up to that legacy himself stopped his breath.

Tsunade met his eyes with a crooked smile. "I'd apologize for the weight of that, that I'll leave to you," she said gently, "because I know damn well how heavy it is. But I'd be lying; I'll do my best to make it even heavier, because that's my duty."

Kakashi bent his head. "I know." She'd spent years running away from that weight, just like he had, and it hadn't done either of them a bit of good in the end. Hopefully, they'd do better against Madara than against their own demons.

Whenever he finally got around to showing up.

In a wide, rounded, stone room underneath Fire country's eastern lakes, a black and white body stepped out of the wall.

"Well?" asked the dim figure sitting quietly away from the single lamp.

The back and white head shook. "The boy's been working his way up to complex techniques again, but he hasn't manifested so much as a tail, much less the whole fox."

Red eyes narrowed in the shadows. "How unusually cautious. I would like to be sure the demon is in top shape before I extract it. I suppose we might go fetch the Eight-tails first, but I don't want to miss a good chance at the real prize. Perhaps it's time to provide some... extra motivation." Teeth flashed for a moment. "I can spare you enough chakra to create, perhaps, six full clones."

Both the black and white sides of the face split into a smile.

The duties of a jounin were always irregular. A mission here, a season of teaching there, administrative jobs tucked in whenever a body was recovering from some injury, and sometimes political duties when someone retired from the field. Kakashi had known all of that, and though he'd done his best for years to stave off the political duties he'd never expected to avoid everything.

What he hadn't expected was to be doing all of them at once.

He watched over Naruto's re-training whenever Jiraiya-san wasn't available. Shikaku-san had started insisting that Kakashi sit in on mission application hearings. He appeared to be one of Tsunade-san's new de facto first councilors since she was nearly at knife-points with Mitokado and Utatane over Naruto. And here he was with an escort mission, of sorts, albeit a self-assigned one.

But he'd be damned before he let Sai go talk with Danzou alone.

He slouched along beside the boy, hands stuffed in his pockets, and caught the eye of the outer perimeter guard hidden in the garden a few houses down from Danzou's apartment building. She nodded and let them pass.

"ANBU was tasked to guard Danzou-san, even though you might not have found all of Root's members yet?" Sai asked, and Kakashi reminded himself wryly that this was the ANBU genius of the younger generation he was walking beside. Of course Sai had noticed.

"Would you tell us if you recognized a Root member we haven't found?" he asked in return.

Sai gave him a look whose very blankness clearly suggested that even respected senpai could be complete morons, and touched his lips. Kakashi chuckled. "Exactly." Until they found the key for that seal, they couldn't release mission information about Danzou to Sai, including information about who guarded him.

Sai cocked his head. "Ah. You think the seal may have another element?" A compulsion, of course, or else why worry what information he had. The blank, dark eyes turned considering. "I do not know."

Because he had never disobeyed Danzou.

Kakashi liked talking with Sai. It kept him sharp and in practice with field speech, where the most important things were left unsaid. It also kept his rage with Danzou fresh, which was its own kind of advantage when going to speak to the old snake.

The inner perimeter, currently the doorman, let them through and Kakashi led the way up to Danzou's apartment. He rapped his knuckles on the plain wood door and, after a long moment of waiting, was bidden to enter.

Danzou was sitting in a straight chair by the windows without, Kakashi was pleased to see, his over-robe and its stock of nasty surprises and pre-drawn seals. He didn't think Danzou would bother to attack him, but he still didn't know what Sai planned to do here today; if anything turned explosive, he'd rather not have Danzou's full array of weapons to deal with. Danzou's plain, white kimono showed his withered right arm more clearly than usual; Kakashi wondered if the man was brazen enough to try to play on the sympathies of his guards with that old injury, despite what all of ANBU knew was still deadly skill.

"Sai," Danzou greeted the boy, without any apparent surprise. "What is the status of Root?"

"All members are accounted for," Sai answered promptly, automatically, "and are under evaluation by—" here he stumbled, eyes suddenly shifting between Danzou and Kakashi. "By the Hokage's command," he finished slowly.

"Under which," Kakashi noted dryly, leaning against the wall with crossed arms, "you have no right to command any of them. Including Sai."

Danzou's fingers flicked as if to brush that aside. "And how, without me to require the report, could you be sure everyone was accounted for?"

"Nor is that information you should have, now." Kakashi gave Danzou an affable, eye-crinkling smile. If Danzou really wanted to convince him that little security breach had been some kind of helpful gesture, he shouldn't be fishing for whether or not the rest of ANBU had found a way to identify Root.

Danzou shrugged his whole shoulder, looking careless. "As you wish. What is the purpose for this visit, then?"

Kakashi opened his hand at Sai, who took a few more steps away from the door, into the clear center of the room. "I wanted to ask," the boy started, expressionless and hesitant both, somehow, "why you ordered me to kill Naruto."

Danzou's brow rose. "I gave orders to keep him out of enemy hands, or to stop the demon if the seal began to fail." He made it sound so reasonable that Kakashi had to stop his fist from clenching.

"No," Sai said quietly. "You are the greatest master of seal techniques in ANBU, possibly in the whole village. You could not be ignorant of the nature of Naruto's seal. You ordered me to kill him if there was any change; but the seal was bound to change if Naruto ever gained full command of the demon fox, is that not correct?"

Kakashi straightened just a fraction, stifling a grin as Danzou's shoulders turned stiffer. The problem with training an operative like Sai, of course, was that he never stopped noticing things.

"Why did you consider that such a dangerous possibility?" Sai went on, hands folded behind him as if he were reporting and not interrogating. "You always said that Root serves to defend the village. What was the danger, there?"

Danzou's face settled into hard lines and his left hand closed tight on his knee. "What danger? You're too young to have seen it, but I was there when the demon fox freed itself from the grip of a woman better trained and more experienced than that boy. Hiruzen kept him ignorant and trusted to his heart." Danzou's short laugh of disbelief was harsh. "The demon is too dangerous. It will escape him eventually, and there will be more of this," he twitched his scarred right arm, showing how stiff and strengthless it was even after the best efforts of the Leaf's healers, "and the village cannot afford that!"

"The village?" Kakashi murmured, "or Shimura Danzou?"

"The shinobi are the village's strength," the old man said firmly, and Kakashi's eye narrowed.

"Then why are you so willing to sacrifice individuals?" he asked, soft and dangerous. "Individuals who aren't you, at least."

"Everyone has their role to play, Kakashi-kun." Danzou settled back in his chair.

Kakashi wasn't sure whether he was more impressed with Danzou's relentless ability to shift the ground of any argument to his favor, or more appalled by the man's self-centeredness and the growing suspicion that Danzou had lost track of reality and honestly believed all his own shifting, contradictory statements from moment to moment.

"Danzou-sama," Sai said into the silent tension between the two men, and they both turned to look at him. "If you still commanded me, what mission would you give me next?"

The faintest smile hovered at the corners of Danzou's mouth, and it was Kakashi's turn to stiffen; just what contingencies, he wondered coldly, had Danzou thought to condition or compel his people to?

"I would say that you should finish the mission you were already given." Danzou watched both of them with a hooded eye. "The threat to the village has not been removed yet."

Not yet, no, Kakashi thought, careful of his breathing to conceal his rage; but it would be soon even if he had to kill Danzou without sanction. And then he raised a brow as Sai turned to him.

"Kakashi-san. If all goes as the Hokage wishes, you will command ANBU soon. Under these circumstances, what order would you give me?"

Kakashi actually blinked, and a slow smile tugged at his mouth. Sai was testing them. Raised to follow his orders without question, no matter what they were, still the boy was feeling his way toward judging his superiors. He wanted very badly to smirk at Danzou, but Sai deserved an answer first.

"Hmm. I'd also say to go on as you have been, if for somewhat different reasons." Danzou's ever so faint snarl warmed his heart, and he beamed at Sai behind his mask. "As far as mission orders," he continued, more seriously, "I would hesitate to send you out again before I was sure you were fit to judge your orders and choose how to carry them out."

"A shinobi has no need of such judgment," Danzou snapped. "Not until they are experienced enough to step back from the field and give orders themselves."

Kakashi didn't look away from Sai. "Shinobi are the weapons of their villages. Their nations. Their employers. True enough. But a shinobi without the will to evaluate orders, and even modify them if field conditions demand it, is a blade without a sheath. And members of ANBU are ground to a sharper edge than any others. That's what you've been waving around your own village, Danzou."

"Your sentimentality is your great failing, Kakashi-kun," Danzou growled.

Sai hadn't looked away from him, and Kakashi smiled at the shadows of thought shifting behind those dark eyes. "From your perspective, I have no doubt that's true. But that's also why I was chosen by the Fifth." The unspoken and why you were not rang in the quiet air of the apartment. Danzou's good arm tensed, and Kakashi got a foot under himself, ready to move if he had to.

Slowly, Sai nodded. "I believe I know what I need to." He turned again and bowed to Danzou. "Danzou-sama."

Danzou sat back, good hand spread against his leg again. "Take that one with you when you go, then." He jerked his chin at Kakashi.

Sai went promptly to the door and held it open, looking over his shoulder. "Kakashi-san?"

Kakashi let himself be ushered out and watched Sai from the corner of his eye as they made their way back down three flights of well-lit stairs and out to the street. It was two blocks before Sai spoke.

"I do not believe there is a compulsion element to the seal," he said, quite casual, "but you should come with me to see Naruto, to be sure."

Kakashi whistled. Sai might have been trained never to question or think about his orders, but he had a quick mind, that was clear. No one without one could have come up so speedily with a plan to test the seal for compulsion. No one who didn't want to be able to question would have tested it by asking for orders he intended to disobey, or attempt to.

No one who wasn't ANBU to the bone would have used himself as the test material in so dangerous a trial so unflinchingly.

Kakashi nodded to himself; he thought he knew where Sai stood, now. "I'll come, yes," he agreed. "Hopefully I'll even get to you before Sakura, if there turns out to be a compulsion after all."

"That would be helpful," Sai agreed, with no trace of understanding the joke, dark as it was. Kakashi sighed to himself. They would have to work on Sai's sense of humor.

Naruto flopped over in the scrubby grass of the eighth training ground with his arms thrown out. "That's six Rasengan in a row," he panted, "while channeling chakra to Sakura and avoiding those fucking Chidori Senbon. Can I manifest now?"

You have the patience of a bird, the fox rumbled, sounding amused. A small one. In spring.

The fox was getting a lot more mellow, now he was healed, but Naruto wasn't completely sure this was an improvement, at least as far as the smart remarks went.

"I think you and the Nine-tails are both stable," Jiraiya said from where he was lounging against a tree with a jug of sake, overseeing Sakura's work on some of his sage techniques, "but Tsunade will have to check you over to be sure. You know she'll skin us both if I tell you you can try before she's had a look." He wagged a finger at Sasuke. "And you! Stop resting on past accomplishments! It's about time you started working on some new applications; you perfected Chidori Senbon over a year ago."

Sasuke gave his teacher a bored look from where he was sitting cross-legged in the grass. "What, like this?" His hands, which Naruto suddenly realized had been stealthily forming the Boar and the Monkey in his lap, flicked out and a net of fire burned toward Jiraiya. The old pervert yelped, dropping his jug as his hands clapped into the Snake and a wall of earth surged up to block the net. Sasuke leaned back on his hands, smirking.

"That's a decent start, I suppose, yes," Jiraiya said thoughtfully from behind his wall.

Sakura came to haul Naruto out of the grass, laughing breathlessly. "You should have known you wouldn't catch Sasuke out like that, Jiraiya-sama."

The old man was smiling as he dismissed the wall. "I suppose I should."

Sasuke looked aside, just a little flushed at the compliment, and Naruto grinned. "You two are so cute," he cooed, eyes dancing wickedly.

"Cute?!" Both Sasuke and Jiraiya protested, but it was Sasuke's hands that were flashing up into the Tiger, and Naruto prepared to dodge, laughing.

"Guys," Sakura's voice cut through the horseplay, suddenly level. "Heads up."

Naruto and Sasuke spun to flank her, alert, and Naruto blinked when he saw the two coming towards them. "Sakura, that's just Kakashi-sensei and... oh." Okay, no wonder Sakura was tense. The other one was definitely Sai.

"Mm." Sasuke touched Sakura's shoulder and stepped back to cover them both.

"Guuuys," Naruto groaned. He didn't usually have any problem at all with how protective his team was, but this was silly. Kakashi-sensei wouldn't bring Sai around if he was dangerous!

"It's our job, Naruto, quit complaining," Sakura ordered coolly, and he gave up. That was her mission voice, and there was no arguing with it.

Kakashi-sensei ambled up, hands in his pockets, so elaborately casual that even Naruto gave him a suspicious look. A Kakashi that casual was a Kakashi who was up to something, most likely some kind of object lesson. The only question was, who for? The old pervert seemed to have the same question, because he went to meet them and exchanged a few quiet words with Kakashi-sensei. He didn't look entirely happy as he glanced back at Naruto and his team, but he sighed and waved three fingers at them before turning and strolling back toward the village with his sake jug dangling from one fist.

"All clear sign," Sasuke murmured from behind them.

"Hm." Sakura didn't sound entirely convinced, and Naruto sighed.

"Ah, good," Kakashi-sensei said as he came into ear shot. "You're all here."

As if that were a cue, Sai stepped forward, smiling his weird smile. "Naruto-kun. I wanted to apologize."

The fox growled as soon as Sai spoke, and Naruto couldn't help wincing himself. There was something wrong about Sai's voice, his smile; Naruto could actually feel it, like a pebble in his sandal or something.

Corruption, the fox said in his head, crackling like fire. Rot. Twisting. This is what I live to destroy.

Well you can't kill him, Naruto answered sharply. It's not his fault!

Sai was watching him, head cocked. "Naruto-kun?"

Naruto winced again, helplessly. "You... you don't have to do that, you know. The smiling. I mean... you don't have to."

No one moved at all for one moment and then the alarming smile slid off Sai's face like it had been wiped away with a sponge. What was left was a little unnerving; even shinobi weren't often that still, just watching like that, but at least it didn't make him twitch inside. The feeling of the Nine-tails calmed a little, too, the pressure of his growl easing. Even Sakura eased back off her toes a bit. Naruto breathed a sigh of relief.

"That makes you uncomfortable?" Sai asked, sounding a little curious even if he didn't look it much.

"Well it was a little weird already, but since Nine-tails got better we're... not closer, I mean he's still kind of a jerk, but I sense some of the things he does. And when you smile like that it's just wrong. You don't want to. You don't mean it. It's..." Naruto rubbed a hand through his hair, looking for a different word and finally sighed. "Yeah, okay, he's right. It's twisted."

"And yet neither of you seem to feel that way when Sai isn't bothering with emotion at all," Kakashi-sensei murmured, eye sharp on them both. "Interesting."

Naruto thought about it. Now he was kind of curious himself. "It's... he feels a little... cold," he said at last, slowly. "But it's not bad. Just cold." It actually felt a little the way Sakura did, beside him right now, focused like a burning glass on Sai.

"Very interesting." Kakashi-sensei glanced over at Sai. "Well?"

Sai reached up to touch his tantou, and Sakura's tension cranked back up a notch. "I feel no compulsion to attack. I believe we may conclude the seal is a restraint only."

Sakura pulled in a breath like the hiss of a snake, and whirled on Kakashi-sensei. "You tested this using Naruto and Sai without telling us...?!" Her hands hovered, ready to form seals, and Naruto had a queasy feeling she would go straight for her activation.

"Um, Sakura-chan..."

"Sakura," Kakashi-sensei cut in firmly. "Stand down. That's an order."

Her eyes narrowed, but slowly she lowered her hands. "Tell me why," she said, low and hard.

"Sai chose to test this on himself, knowing that if there was a compulsion, and if I couldn't subdue him first, you and Sasuke would kill him. Think about that."

If anything her glare intensified. "Kakashi-sensei..." she grated through her teeth.

Sai had been standing quite calmly and without reaching for a weapon all through this, and Naruto shivered. "How can you do that?" he asked softly. "How can you be so calm about something like that?"

Sai shrugged one shoulder a fraction. "ANBU is the sword of Konoha," he said, perfectly tranquil. "Whatever is required, we will do. It was necessary to test this." He slanted a glance at Sakura. "Anger is not necessary."

Sakura rounded on him. "You think I want to kill one of my own village?" she yelled at him, eyes blazing. "Anger is damn well necessary, over something like this! We should have been warned! There should have been more controls, to keep both of you safe during the test!"

Sai blinked and cocked his head at her. "You are angry... because I was in danger? I was the threat."

"You're a shinobi of the Leaf, you absolute moron!" Sakura's hands were flexing like she was about to wrap them around his neck and shake him. "You're loyal to this village! You deserve to be protected too! And I'm really damn angry that you weren't!"

Sai looked even more puzzled and Naruto was torn between laughing and yelling a little himself. "Look, you've already been hurt, and that really sucks," he put in. "None of us would be happy with the idea of hurting you more, especially if it's not your fault."

"Distress over another's pain," Sai murmured. "This is what is called empathy?"

The fox flinched and whined, and Naruto didn't blame him at all. The cold was getting more noticeable.

The grass rustled as Sasuke came back up beside them, sliding a handful of shuriken back into his pouch, eyes level on Sai. "You know what it is," he said, quiet and confident. "When your brother was in pain, you were distressed."

Sai jerked a little, as if he'd started to step back and stopped himself. "Shin," he whispered, eyes suddenly distant. "I don't..."

"You were," Sasuke insisted. "Otherwise, you wouldn't have tried so hard to make it stop."

"Oh," Naruto said, eyes widening. Now he got it. "That... was that why?" Heat gathered in his chest, burning and growing, and the fox's growl resonated through it. This time he welcomed it, because his own fury was in there too. "That was why Danzou made them fight?" To hurt Sai so badly he'd freeze himself to stop the pain?

Sai wasn't tranquil any more. His face was drawn and his arms were pulled in tight. "Shin." The cold deepened.

Naruto couldn't stand it any longer. He stepped forward and grabbed Sai's forearms. "You don't have to do that!" he burst out. "It won't happen again. I won't let it!"

Sai stared at him for a long moment. "You're very like him," he finally said quietly. "I remember... he said things like that, too."

"If you remember," Kakashi-sensei finally spoke up again, "then he is still with you. That's why we remember, and care, even when it hurts."

Sai turned his head to look up at Kakashi-sensei, though his arms still hung without resistance in Naruto's hold. "Is it worth it?" The thoughtless innocence of the question made Naruto's anger with Danzou burn hotter, even though the fox was slowly settling again.

Kakashi-sensei looked down at Sai gravely. "Yes, it is."

Sai bowed his head. "I see." He looked back at Naruto for a breath, considering, and finally smiled. It was small and faint, but real.

Naruto grinned back with vast relief as the sense of coldness eased. "There we go," he said softly. "See? It's okay."

"Perhaps," Sai murmured.

Sasuke stepped forward and rested a hand on Sai's shoulder for a moment, nodding. Sakura clasped the other shoulder hard and shook Sai just a little. "Not every moment is a mission," she told him, a bit husky. "When it isn't, that's when you relax so you don't go crazy, okay?"

Sai looked at her for a long, thoughtful moment, and finally nodded. "I suppose I can try."

Naruto thought maybe Kakashi-sensei's lesson today had been for all of them.

Danzou sat at his window, watching the people passing in the street below as dusk softened the shapes of the village's roofs, and turned plans over in his head. There had been no commotion in the village today, so he had to assume that Sai had been unable to complete his mission. Again. There was an outside possibility that the boy really had broken his conditioning sufficiently to refuse the mission, but he considered that very unlikely. Root's training had taken very completely with Sai, doubly so once the turning point of killing his "brother" had passed. Most likely, then, Kakashi had stopped Sai.

For all Kakashi had been silent in Council, as befit a mere potential Hokage candidate, Danzou knew perfectly well whose hand had truly driven his downfall. Contrary to his lazy airs, Kakashi was hot blooded; it was little wonder he'd left ANBU, in the end. Perhaps Danzou should have tried harder to acquire Kakashi for Root when he'd been orphaned, though ten years old was late to start that training. For a while, Danzou had thought it didn't matter—that Kakashi would live for nothing but the village and abide purely by the Code, whether he was formally of Root or no. Namikaze Minato had much to answer for, not only for failing to destroy the Nine-tails but for turning one of Konoha's most powerful shinobi away from his right path. One bare year as Kakashi's jounin-sensei and his hooks had been set, pulling the boy further and further from his duty. It was uncanny.

And Namikaze's brat clearly had some of the same nature, in addition to his mother's temper. Why could no one but him see the danger that posed?

"Brooding again, Shimura-kun?"

Danzou jerked up out of his chair in shock. No one should be able to enter this room without his knowledge! Not through the seals he'd placed on every wall, on the ceiling and floor, on the door and each window. But there was another standing there in the center of his floor mats, arms folded, wearing a mocking smile. The seamed and wrinkled face was only vaguely familiar, but there was no mistaking the man's eyes, red even in shadow, and marked with three black curls. It took long seconds for Danzou to believe the only possible conclusion, to even consider the idea, but there was only one man of the Uchiha who could be this old and still alive.

"You're dead," were the words that came out of his mouth, nevertheless, in his shock. "The First killed you."

Uchiha Madara spread black gloved hands, indicating his solid and living body in its loose, night-blue clothing. "As you can see, he did not. Indeed, I like to think that I won that day. After all," he smiled bright and terrible in the dimness, "I'm still here and Hashirama is not."

Danzou took a slow breath and straightened up. "Not for long." His outer robe, with all its seals and tags, was hanging across the room, but he was not helpless.

Madara waved his fingers. "Not so quickly, Shimura-kun. After all, you're now in my position too, aren't you? Thrown away by those you tried to warn. Exiled from the place you should have. Ignored by those you should lead."

"I am no traitor," Danzou snapped, trying to think whether he could convert the barrier seal under the floor mats to a binding seal quickly enough to catch a shinobi of Madara's power.

"Is it treachery to wish to lead your own people?" Madara purred. "You have more experience and wisdom than the Senju chit that leads now, surely."

Danzou's stomach was sinking; he remembered Madara's crushing strength, and none of the seals he had to hand, or the techniques he could perform without preparation would hold or kill him. The most he could do was probably to raise an alarm, and if the man had gotten in here undetected, that might not be enough.

At least not if he attacked here and now.

"What are you suggesting?" he finally asked, harshly. "You've tried more than once to destroy this village, and now you expect me to believe you'll leave anything for me to actually lead?"

"I'm willing to make reasonable bargains," Madara murmured, pacing toward him and turning to circle him. The skin between Danzou's shoulder blades crawled, and he held himself fiercely still. "If you aid me in capturing the Nine-tails, I will undertake to leave the village in your hands. Intact. As long," he stopped in front of Danzou, red eyes boring into his, "as you make no move against me in the future." He smiled. "Don't you want the demon fox to go away, Shimura-kun? Hasn't that been the idea all this time?"

Madara must be used to dealing with madmen, if he thought that kind of logic would work. But if he was used to his blandishments working, perhaps it would give Danzou enough time. "What do you want?" he asked, low.

"Why, nothing you wouldn't already be doing, if you only had the opportunity!" Madara swung away from him, spreading his arms as if to indicate his generosity. "Kill Tsunade. And the Hatake pup. Use that Root of yours to cut the Sacrifice out of the herd so I can take the Nine-tails. And then you can be seen to drive me off, and the village will be yours."

True temptation welled up in Danzou's heart for a moment. For the price of two lives, the very two who were leading the village astray, he could have Konoha and protect it properly.

If only Madara could be counted on to keep his bargain, he might really have done it.

"You'll need to get me out of here without raising any alarm," he said slowly.

"Nothing is easier," Madara said softly, turning to face him again with that gleaming smile. "Come along, then, Shimura-kun."

The room around them twisted impossibly, spinning and sinking on the still point of Madara's right eye, and then everything went dark.

A/N: No, Danzou and Madara did not meet during the Third War, in this continuity. No, Madara doesn't wear a mask. Tobi = Madara was either the clumsiest Author Had A Better Idea ever or else the most ridiculous character detour ever, and in either case I deeply dislike that design choice. So Madara gets a face, here. As for Tobi =/= Madara... that was the most pointless "twist" imaginable, and I hereby ignore it entirely. Tobi doesn't exist, in this continuity, Madara does. Also, implanted Sharingan has been done, so Danzou's arm and eye were plain old stricken in the Nine-tails' attack and his abilities are his own.

Taste of Steel

However guilty he thinks he should feel, Hijikata can't be anything but pleased by what Okita has become. Whatever second thoughts Hijikata might be having, Okita can't be other than what he is. Porn, Character Sketch, Angst, I-4

Axandra has translated this work into Russian.

"Why won't you allow Tetsu-kun to have a katana? Why won't you let him decide for himself?"

"Are you brainless? He's just a brat of fifteen."

"Nine years. I was nine years old. So that's how it is. You don't want him to end up like me, do you."

Souji didn't leave when they reached Hijikata's rooms, only opened the outer screen and stood there in the night breeze. Hijikata sat and emptied his pipe and repacked it, mouth tight; what, after all, could he say at this late date?

"Do you hate what I am so much?"

The question was soft, the tone wistful, but it still struck him like a cut from behind. "No!" he snapped, and then took a breath. "Don't be a fool, Souji. I know whose the responsibility is," he said more evenly. "It was my hand that brought this to you."

Souji spun away from the open screens, as lightly as if he were fighting, and took two steps across the room to sink to his knees in front of Hijikata. In the dimness, two pale hands closed around one of his, clenched on the stem of his pipe.

"Yes. It was." The whisper of Souji's hair sliding over his shoulders as he bent his head was scarcely louder than his voice. "They've called you the demon more than once. Am I not the demon's child?"

Hijikata closed his eyes for a breath and then let it out. "Yes," he said, low, sliding his other hand over Souji's shoulder and up under his hair. "You are." The other things he had done for the sake and in the name of the shogunate, he had made his peace with; they might stain and damn him forever, but that was the choice he'd made when he placed himself in Matsudaira's service. This, though. This was a choice he'd made for another, before Souji's spirit was grown to understanding. The sword, his sword, had consumed Souji's soul until he was an unthinking weapon in Hijikata's hands. And content to be so. It didn't help to have Tetsu always before Hijikata's eyes, these days, reminding him of how a real child thought and felt. Or to see Souji reaching out for companionship, seeing no reason why Tetsunosuke should not become what he was.

Souji was looking up at him now, and even moonlight showed the falseness of his smile. "Do you wish for me to leave this way of life?"

The false smile flicked away in a gasp, and Hijikata realized his grip had tightened fiercely on Souji's nape. His voice was lower than usual when he said again, "Don't be a fool."

This time, Souji's smile was sweet and brilliant. "Yes, Hijikata-san."

Hijikata snorted with rueful amusement, at both of them really. He set his pipe aside and pulled Souji closer, one hand finding his waist to tug loose his obi. He accepted the heat that ran through him at the way Souji sighed, the way slim, strong arms wound around his shoulders and Souji's mouth opened under his. If Souji was too much like him he knew exactly why it was, and perhaps it had been fate after all. The troop might whisper of his unbendable will, but he didn't think there had ever been a time when he could have refused this—Souji's pliancy, lying against his chest, or the pureness of Souji's response to Hijikata's hand on the sleek skin of his hip and back.

"Hijikata-san," Souji whispered, and there was a plea in it that he couldn't fail to answer. He kissed Souji deeper, intent, until he was flushed, skin heated under Hijikata's fingers.

"Demon child," he murmured back, and closed his eyes as Souji pressed closer with a breathless sound. Souji was his. His sword; his mirror. Without conscience.

But hadn't Hijikata found his conscience again, in another's spirit and voice? He could only pray that the same would come to Souji in time.

Because he would never give this up.

He tumbled Souji down to the tatami where he lay laughing softly, kimono spread out around him in disarray. "Hijikata-san," Souji said, voice dancing over the syllables of his name, light and confident again as he stretched out his arms. He made a satisfied sound as Hijikata came to them, covering Souji and pulling him tight against the length of Hijikata's body.

Hijikata had never once been able to question that this was Souji's desire as well as his own. It was the one hint of cleanliness in this polluted life they led, and he cherished it, cradled Souji's eagerness against him and tasted it, kiss after slow, hard kiss, until Souji was rubbing against him, gasping with every wanton flex of his body, hands pushing Hijikata's kimono open as they spread against his chest. "Hijikata-san...!"

Hijikata smiled and tipped Souji's chin up with his thumb, kissing down his neck, open mouthed. Subtle tension threaded Souji's body at that; even in bed, even with him, Souji was a warrior. And that made his yielding sweeter. Hijikata bit down on Souji's throat, firm enough to mark, and heat tightened his stomach at the sharpness of Souji's gasp, the way his body pulled taut and trembled, needing to respond, to defend, even as Souji held himself back from it, left himself open only for Hijikata.

He could never refuse this.

"You're mine," he whispered to Souji as he turned him over, and Souji pressed his forehead against his folded arms, panting as he lifted his ass.

"Yes, Hijikata-san."

The salve Hijikata fished out of his wall cubby was cool as he spread it over his cock, and Souji twitched as Hijikata drew slick fingers between his cheeks. The little sound of want he made nearly snapped Hijikata's control, and he wrapped his hands around Souji's hips and murmured, "Now."

Souji moaned openly as Hijikata pushed into him, hands flexing against the tatami, catching in the muddle of their clothing. He was trembling again, and Hijikata held him firmly, pressed deeper into the tight heat of him slowly, until Souji gasped and the tension flowed out of his body.

"Please." Souji's voice was low, husky, sensual as even a good fight didn't make it, and a growl caught in Hijikata's throat. He answered with his body instead, driving deep, hard thrusts into Souji's ass again and again, faster and harder as Souji moaned under him. Hot pleasure gripped him tighter and tighter, and when Souji shifted, one hand reaching between his legs, the heat blinded him. He buried himself hard in Souji, gasping as pleasure shook him, holding Souji tight against him even as Souji gasped and bucked in turn.

The stillness of the evening slowly descended on them both again.

Finally Hijikata drew back, pressing a kiss to Souji's neck. "Stay tonight," he said quietly.

Souji turned on his side, pushing his hair back to smile up as Hijikata, languid and sated. "Always."

Hijikata paused, looking down at his lover, his sword, and finally nodded. Souji's smile turned contented, and when Hijikata had spread the futon, he snuggled close, as unabashed as ever.

Hijikata held him and watched faint night shadows move over the ceiling. He would not disavow anything he had done. He would not deny his love for what Souji was. However it troubled his conscience, his spirit rejoiced in Souji's reflection. He loved the demon child with all the fierceness and pain of his heart.

There would not be another.

End

Strong as Freesia

After the finals of the Winter cup, Kuroko finds Aomine waiting for him. They finally have a long-overdue discussion about what happened in their third year. Implied spoilers for anime-only fans. Drama with Minor Angst, I-3

Kuroko Tetsuya walked the last bit of his way home alone, after Kagami turned off onto his own street, letting the quiet settle over him. As the echoes of his team's voices, of exultation and disbelief and, really, quite a lot of screaming died away, they left one thing behind.

They had won.

He had won. Not alone, of course, but... that had been his point all along. It was Tetsuya's game, and the team he had chosen, that had won through to the end. And it felt good, it felt... warm. Not like the icy, isolated victories of his third year. No, this reminded him of something further backâ€”their second year, when Kise had just joined them and Aomine still laughed and bounced gleefully at winning, when Midorima's calm had still had a little humor in it and Murasakibara's temper had still had a playful edge. When Akashi still smiled at them like he really saw who was in front of him.

Tetsuya tipped his head back and looked up at the sky, past the intermittent glow of his neighborhood's streetlights and door lamps. It didn't hurt as much to think about that time, now.

When he turned in at his house and saw who was waiting, though, perched on the low front wall with his breath showing white in the chill air, it was still a shock.

"Aomine-kun."

"Tetsu." He didn't say anything more, and after a long moment Tetsuya moved to unlock the door.

"Come in. Please excuse the mess."

Aomine kicked his shoes off in the entry, glancing around the dark lower floor. "Your mom isn't home yet?"

"She's traveling for work, this week." Tetsu hung his jacket neatly, reaching out by reflex to take Aomine's before he could toss it over the shoe rack. Then he had to take a slow breath before he could go on. "She sent me a good luck message earlier today."

Aomine's mouth tilted up on one side. "Yeah, that's oba-san." He wandered through to the living room and stood at the wide front window while Tetsuya busied himself with pouring them both water in the kitchen. Aomine didn't like tea, even on cold nights.

"Congratulations," Aomine called from the next room. "It was a good game."

Tetsuya paused in the doorway, glasses in his hands, watching Aomine across the room. "Do you really think so?"

"Oh come on." Aomine hunched his shoulders a little, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. "I always liked your game." He leaned one shoulder against the window frame, still looking out. "That's why I got so pissed off when you left."

Tetsuya set the glasses down on the low table a bit harder than he'd meant to, water splashing up against the sides. "You were the one who left first," he answered shortly. He sat down on the couch, closing his hands on his knees, as Aomine finally turned away from the window looking startled.

"I didn't go anywhere! You were the one who vanished after the final match and dropped your resignation off without seeing a single one of us!"

"I'm surprised you noticed." Tetsuya could hear his own voice turning sharp and didn't bother to stop it. "You spent most of that year acting like I wasn't there on the court at all. Even this year... you kept saying I was your shadow, but it was like you'd forgotten how to see me until we played at the Winter Cup." And now, now after all this, Aomine wanted to scold him for leaving? He looked back at his old partner flatly, mouth tight.

Aomine hesitated that that, and finally sighed, coming to thump down cross-legged on the floor by the couch. "Sorry," he said, low, reaching out to curl long fingers around one of the glasses, though he didn't drink, just ran his fingertips through the condensation on the sides. "I just... I couldn't, Tetsu. That whole year, it was like... like there was nothing under me any more and I was falling. Everyone just gave up, and there was nothing there, nothing to stand on or lean against, everything I loved best just gone! And when we played together... our game together is so strong, Tetsu, it just made it worse." He took a drink and set the glass back down with a restless clack. "I hated the way you left, but I was almost glad when the rest of the team split up. Where else was I going to get a decent game any more?" He propped an elbow on the cushion beside Tetsuya, still looking down. "And even then... I figured once I'd actually played them seriously, they'd give up too, you know? Like everyone else did, and that would be it."

One part of Tetsuya's mind turned that over, thinking that now Aomine's distant look during the preliminary matches in the spring, and his harshness during the the winter match, made much more sense. He'd expected Tetsuya and Kagami to give up, too, and he'd been angry over it. The bigger part of him, though, was buzzing, whiting out into the slow rise of memory and anger.

Aomine still hadn't seen. Hadn't understood what he'd done, that last year at Teikou.

"You didn't give up, though," Aomine went on, quieter. "Kise either." He flashed a lopsided grin up at Tetsuya. "I'm glad."

"No," Tetsuya said softly, "we never gave up. But you did."

Aomine blinked up at him, eyes widening a little. "What?"

"You gave up on me. You gave up on our team. You gave up on the game." Tetsuya looked down at his old partner, recognizing his alarm at Tetsuya's anger and not caring. "I was there to lean against. So was our team, until you turned away from them. And you turned away from me just like your opponents turned away from you. The one thing I loved most, Aomine-kun, the game I could play as part of that team. Gone, just like you said." Feeling that simmering hurt and frustration well up again, he drove home the point with brutal bluntness. "You gave up, and you took that away from me, and you left me behind in the same place you were trying to escape. You climbed over me, trying to get out, and pushed me down deeper, and didn't even notice."

Aomine was pale by the time he was done, one hand clenched on the edge of the couch so tight Tetsuya wondered distantly whether the fabric would tear. "I... did that to you?" he whispered. "Really?"

Tetsuya nodded silently, waiting.

"I..." A shudder ran through Aomine, and he bent his head abruptly, pressing his forehead against Tetsuya's leg. "I... Tetsu..." Tetsuya could see his throat move as he swallowed convulsively, see the gleam of his eyes, wide open and staring blindly at nothing. "I'm sorry," he finally choked. "I'm sorry, Tetsu. I never..."

Tetsuya felt a little shaky himself. His mother had told him, years ago when his parents first separated, that he could let anger drive him but never rule him. He hadn't known until now, he thought, what she'd meant.

He'd hurt, yes. For a long time. But he didn't want to hurt Aomine in return; he wanted his friend back. That was what he'd fought for all this year. So he took another breath to loosen the tightness in his chest, and rested his hand on Aomine's back. "It's better now," he said more gently. "I found a team and a partner. You came back. You saw me on the court, again. It's all right now. Just don't go away like that again."

Slowly Aomine quieted, shaking tension easing back out of his shoulders and neck under Tetsuya's hand. Finally he said, low, "You brought me back. You and Kagami." A soft snort of laughter, a little pained. "He didn't give up, either. Maybe he really is stronger, some ways at least."

"Mmm." Tetsuya rubbed his fingers over the line of Aomine's shoulder. "I knew better, this time, how to keep him away from the edge." How to hold his partner steady in the storm of talent and challenge and pride and frustration and eagerness that was tournament season. After a long, quiet moment, he finally added. "I bet this wasn't why you came to see me tonight, though." He felt Aomine wince under his hand.

"I... I was remembering. Sometimes, after a game, I'd go home with you. And we'd wind down from the match, and if your mom was here she'd listen and cheer us on, and sometimes, if it was still early, we'd go find a court and play around." He was quiet for a long moment, and Tetsuya waited for him. Finally he said, very low, "I'd like to play with you again, some time."

That warm feeling of a happy victory bloomed through Tetsuya again, easing the last edge of his anger, and he smiled. "Yes. I'd like that too."

Aomine finally lifted his head, eyes dark. "Even though?"

Even though he'd done such a painful thing to Tetsuya. The very thing that had driven Aomine to such wildness.

Tetsuya thought about it, letting his hand rest where it was. "Yes," he said finally, very sure. "Even though."

Aomine leaned against his knees, not speaking, but relief was in every line of his body. Tetsuya finally leaned forward for his water glass, to take a drink. He felt wrung out, inside, and very in need of it. As he settled back, Aomine folded his arms on Tetsuya's knees and rested his chin on them. "Kagami too, you think?" he asked, speculatively.

Tetsuya regarded his friend tolerantly. "Yes, you can play Kagami-kun too."

Aomine grinned up at him, with a shadow of his old, confiding air. "You're gonna regret saying we could."

Tetsuya took a composed sip of his water. "If our coach and captain agree, of course," he specified. Aomine gave him a sulky look and he added, "Momoi-san too."

"Okay, I'll be good about it, I give up, I give up!" Aomine declared dramatically, throwing himself back to sprawl over the couch cushion beside Tetsuya. "Except not, of course," he added.

A familiar bubble of laughter burst in Tetsuya's chest. "I know."

Aomine smiled up at him, upside down and crooked. "Tetsu... I didn't say it earlier, but... thanks."

Tetsuya rested a hand on his shoulder again, and they sat together quietly for a long moment.

"So, hey, what's to eat around here?" Aomine finally asked.

"You sound just like Kagami-kun," Tetsuya told him, straight-faced. The resulting protests took them most of the way through the the instant noodles that Tetsuya made, and that Aomine ate two thirds of.

He supposed there was some justice in Aomine's indignation. Kagami would have eaten at least three quarters of it. On the other hand, he'd probably have done the cooking himself, and made something besides just noodles.

Tetsuya watched his friend across the small kitchen table, drinking in all the little things he remembered: the wide gestures and the way Aomine talked through a mouthful of food and the flicker of light in his eyes, still fitful but getting stronger again as they talked over Seirin's match against Rakuzan. This was what he had fought for, and the fight had brought him a new team, good senpai, a new partner, and finally his old partner back again. This had turned out to be a good road.

He would keep going down it.

End

A/N: In hanakotoba, freesia indicate immaturity or childishness, but also the purity of innocence.

This Moment to Arise - Preparations

Momoi knows that the problems between Aomine and Kuroko and Kagami have to be ironed out before they start the Interhigh preliminaries, and she has a plan. That doesn't make it easy, though. Drama, Angst, I-3

Momoi Satsuki liked Seirin. They were a challenge, and she liked a challenge to her skills just as much as any of the boys did. Seirin had a coach she could talk with about skin care and cute mascot animals, and Riko-san blushed kind of adorably whenever Satsuki teased her over the captain. (Who totally was her boyfriend, even if neither of them admitted it.) And their captain paid close attention to her, listened to her analysis of what teams were strongest, asked her to scout upcoming competition.

The results of her first scouting expedition after she'd gotten ahold of the Tokyo preliminary bracket, had made him look pained. Her tentative solution had made him look downright dyspeptic. He'd agreed to her plan, though, and she liked the feeling of that trust.

"Gather up!" Hyuuga-san called across the gym, as the club filtered in from the locker room. "Briefing time for the Interhigh preliminaries!"

All the boys perked up and promptly gathered around, watching her attentively, and Satsuki sparkled at them just a little, enjoying the thread of excitement and tension in the air. It was the start of tournament season, and Seirin was about to put her analysis and their skills to the test. "The preliminary bracket is oddly shaped for us, this year," she started, tapping a finger on the edge of her clipboard. "For the most part, we shouldn't have trouble until we get to the final match of our block, where we'll most likely face Shinsenkan. Our very first match, though, has something unexpected." She turned the board around to show them her stats sheet on Shinkyou's new player. "Shinkyou has a foreign student playing this season. Papa Mbaye Siki of Senegal."

There was a moment of silence.

"...Momoi-chan, are those figures real?" Koganei-senpai finally asked weakly.

"Two hundred centimeters," she confirmed. "His arms add almost another meter."

"He won't even have to jump for the basket," Izuki-senpai said, appalled.

"Which is why Mitobe-san will be the key of the defense," Satsuki agreed, and smiled a little as all the second-years relaxed. She liked this about Seirin, too, that they knew each other's strengths and trusted each other so well. "If he manages to break away from Mitobe-san, the second line of defense will be Kagami-kun, to block the shot, or Aomine-kun to steal the ball. Be ready, you two."

Those two exchanged curled lips over Tetsu-kun's head and Satsuki exchanged a resigned look with Riko-kantoku. They'd talked about the edginess between Kagamin and Dai-chan, and about how to bring the boys around. Riko-kantoku had made even worse faces than Hyuuga-san over Satsuki's plan, but in the end she'd agreed also. It was Satsuki, after all, who knew Dai-chan and Tetsu-kun the best, and could project their responses most accurately.

The trust warmed her, but the responsibility made adrenaline tingle through her veins.

"Offense will actually have much the same problem," she went on. "Siki-san is tall enough to block many of Aomine-kun's shots, and even Hyuuga-san's, and catch Kagami-kun's dunks if he just stays under the basket. We have to count on Shikyou's coach and captain spotting that. So!" She clasped her board to her chest and smiled sweetly at Kagamin and Dai-chan. "The two of you will need to work as a pair. Whoever doesn't have the ball will need to screen whoever does and keep Siki-san away from the basket. Let Tetsu-kun decide who takes the ball," she added warningly as Kagamin and Dai-chan eyed each other with an instant flare of competitiveness. She swore it was spinal reflex for both of them. "He has a better sense of the flow of the game than either of you will probably ever have."

Tetsu-kun nodded calm agreement, completely ignoring the way both his current partners shifted their glowers to him. Satsuki stifled a sigh. She couldn't exactly blame Tetsu-kun for using Kagamin to make Dai-chan jealous. It seemed to be the only way to get Dai-chan's attention at all, lately. But the unspoken competition over Tetsu-kun was starting to get serious. It had been heating up ever since the Kaijou game, when Tetsu-kun had come off the court with that little smile on his face, head cocked up to listen to Kagamin with the tolerant affection Tetsu-kun always showed his partners—and no one but his partners. He didn't look like that at anyone who didn't understand and value his style, who couldn't play with him. By that measure, Kagamin was overtaking Dai-chan fast, and Satsuki thought Dai-chan knew it even if Kagamin maybe didn't quite yet. He'd certainly noticed the fresh edge on Dai-chan's jibes at him, though. The tension was starting to interfere with their play.

Which was why the next thing she said was, "In order to help the two of you work as a team, you're going to be spending time together outside training. You'll go for late dinner together every night after practice, from now on, along with Tetsu-kun and me."

"What?!"

Satsuki wondered ruefully if she should consider it progress that they yelped that in perfect unison.

"I am damn well notâ€”" Dai-chan started, heatedly, and Satsuki gave him her sweetest smile and cut him off.

"Dai-chan," she lilted, and he shut up at once, eyeing her warily. He knew what that tone meant, and had ever since they were seven and she'd hit him over the head with a toy train when he wouldn't stop stealing her barrettes.

"We don't really need..." Kagamin tried in turn, looking appealingly at Riko-kantoku. She gave him a gleaming smile back.

"Quadruple drills?" she suggested, and Kagamin gulped and shut up too.

Satsuki wasn't particularly surprised, though, that that evening's Battle of the Bento was especially fierce. Dai-chan came away with skinned knuckles but also with three of Kagamin's meatballs while Kagamin clutched the remainder to his chest and held his chopsticks like he'd stab the next hand that came close. She'd have to remember to make Dai-chan buy Kagamin an extra hamburger tonight.

Tetsu-kun nibbled on the last of his vegetables and watched Dai-chan smirk over his spoils with a distance in his eyes that Satsuki didn't like. They weren't doing this a moment too soon. In fact, she was starting to hope they weren't too late. If Tetsu-kun ever really did turn away from Dai-chan to partner with Kagamin alone, she didn't want to think what that would do to Dai-chan.

Or to Tetsu-kun.

Dai-chan leaned his chin in his hands, watching with some fascination as Kagamin decimated a tray full of hamburgers. "How have you not exploded yet, seriously?" He reached over to poke at Kagamin's stomach, and Satsuki slapped his hand.

"Be nice," she ordered sternly. "This is a team bonding exercise. Besides, it's your fault if Kagamin is extra hungry tonight."

"I've always stolen my teammates food," Dai-chan defended himself. "So if the point is team bonding then you shouldn't stop me."

"The point is for you and Kagami-kun to work together and support each other," Tetsu-kun put in while Satsuki was making frustrated sounds over Dai-chan's personal version of logic. "Maybe you should just ask if Kagami-kun will make extra for you."

Kagamin paused in the process of inhaling another burger and glared at both Tetsu-kun and Dai-chan. "Like hell I will."

Dai-chan leaned back in his chair, hooking an arm over the back, mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. "Yeah, seriously Tetsu, that was kind of obvious."

Tetsu-kun took another sip of the shake he'd been working on, eyes level on Dai-chan, and Satsuki winced. She'd seen that look too often in the past week, and it wasn't one Tetsu-kun gave people he was happy with.

"Then it looks like the way you usually act with teammates doesn't work very well."

Dai-chan's face darkened. "Tetsu..."

"Stop," Satsuki said flatly, and sighed when all three of them looked at her. This was exactly why she'd made sure Tetsu-kun came along; they needed to get all the problems out in the open before they blew up, and these problems were rooted too far in the past for their new captain or coach to deal with easily. So it was down to her. "Tetsu-kun. I know you're angry over what happened last year. You have a right to be. But it's affecting your teamwork with Dai-chan badly enough that I'm not sure we can actually put the two of you in as partners in a demanding game. Is that what you want?" She clasped her hands tight, under the table, hoping the answer was still 'no'.

"Oh for god's sake, Tetsu," Dai-chan exploded before Tetsu-kun could answer. "I told you, didn't I? Yes, you're right! You're the one in the right! But I can't do it, I can't play all out, not when it just makes people give up!" He jerked his head away to scowl out the window.

"Then don't," Tetsu-kun told him, soft and harsh. "If you want to break your own game, fine. Do it. But don't break mine!"

Satsuki was biting her lip hard, fingers wound white-knuckled around each other; she'd seen the problem and she'd brought them here, and now the very most she could do to help was to nudge them. The rest, they had to do for themselves. It was the one thing she hated about her own speciality. "Is that why you've been working more with Kagamin, Tetsu-kun?"

"Of course." Tetsu-kun set his cup down and sat back with sharp, precise movements. "Kagami-kun trusts me. Aomine-kun doesn't."

Dai-chan jerked back at that, eyes wide, and whatever he'd been about to say cut off. Kagamin made a startled sound, one hand full of hamburger still halfway to his mouth where he'd stopped short to stare at the sudden argument.

"What... what do you mean I don't trust you?" Dai-chan asked, half laughing and unsettled. "You're my shadow, of course I trust you. Our combination is still tighter than what you have with Kagami."

"That's practice, not trust," Tetsu-kun said sharply. "You play on your own and just assume I'll follow, if you think about it at all. You don't care any more what choices I might make for the game. If we were in a tight situation again, you'd do what you did last year and keep the ball yourself instead of trusting me with it."

"So you'd rather play with him?" Dai-chan demanded, pointing at Kagamin, who was watching them intently, now, like they were a question he couldn't quite remember the answer to. "If I'm not trusting you enough, then he's leaning on you too much! He won't be able to advance, that way, and then where are you? You're a shadow, Tetsu; to be strong you need a strong light. He won't make you strong enough!"

Finally, Kagamin spoke up. "Don't go making decisions for other people. How strong I can get is up to me. And how strong Kuroko can get is up to him." He finished off his burger and folded his arms, eyeing them.

Tetsu-kun's shoulders fell a little out of their fiercely straight line. "That's why," he said quietly, looking up at Dai-chan. "Didn't you think that, too, when you told me I should stay in the club, in middle school?" He looked down at the table, jaw tight. "I want my partner back, Aomine-kun. But I'm your partner, not your equipment."

Dai-chan opened his mouth and closed it again, eyes dark. Finally, he pushed up from the table and stalked out the doors, head down.

"You okay with just letting him go?" Kagamin asked, dubious.

Satsuki had to take a deep breath to keep her voice from shaking, but she was smiling. "Yes. I think so. When Dai-chan stalks off in a huff like that, it usually means you got him to think and now he wants to do it in private."

"Hm." Kagamin made another burger disappear. "Seems like it's their teamwork you want to work on, not his and mine."

Satsuki pulled herself together and shook a finger at him. "We'll get to yours, don't worry. The two of you really do need to figure out how to work together, or what use is it to the team to have both of you around?" She shot a look at Tetsu-kun, who was staring at his half-melted shake and not drinking. "But it's true that a lot of the problems between you come out of the problems between Tetsu-kun and Dai-chan."

Tetsu-kun looked up at her, brows pinched in a little, and she reached over to rest her hand on his. "I think he heard you, this time, Tetsu-kun. It'll be all right."

Kagamin snorted, standing up with his empty tray. "So that's why you've been pushing us against each other." He looked down at Tetsu-kun, steadily. "You could have just said so, instead of hoping I'd rub off on him or something." He went back to the counter for another five burgers while Tetsu-kun winced faintly.

When he came back, he dumped a fresh shake in front of Tetsu-kun and wouldn't look at either of them while he finished off the rest of his snack. Tetsu-kun watched him for a long moment, eyes just that bit wider than usual that meant he was startled, and finally took the shake. "Thank you," he said, low, sipping quietly.

"Mm," Kagami acknowledged around a full mouth, still not looking at them.

Satsuki was starting to think that they'd all gotten luckier than they deserved, finding Kagamin at Seirin.

Dai-chan stalked through practice the next day, silent and preoccupied, constantly watching Tetsu-kun out of the corner of his eye.

"Do I need to keep those two separated?" Riko-kantoku asked quietly.

Satsuki shook her head. "No, I think we actually got somewhere. Let Aomine-kun play with Tetsu-kun in today's mini-game, and we'll know for sure."

Riko-kantoku patted her shoulder. "Good work. I'll see to it."

Sure enough, Riko-kantoku had a quiet word with Hyuuga-san, and when they divided up players for a mini-game Dai-chan and Tetsu-kun were on the same team. Satsuki watched Tetsu-kun stop in front of Dai-chan, looking up at him without speaking. After a long moment, Dai-chan closed his eyes and nodded. They turned away to their positions, still without speaking, and Satsuki noted ruefully how wary Tsuchida and Furihata seemed of their current teammates. She couldn't entirely blame them; there'd practically been a storm cloud hanging over Dai-chan's head all day. She was having to restrain herself strenuously from biting her nails, or possibly her clipboard, waiting for this game to start.

When they did, her breath caught.

Dai-chan moved like she hadn't seen him move in over a year. Like he and Tetsu-kun were thinking the same thoughts, breathing the same breath. Tetsu-kun didn't need to signal, barely needed to glance at Dai-chan, for Dai-chan to be in motion. Again and again, he hit the perfect mark to receive Tetsu-kun's passes, so cleanly no one could break the route. Again and again, Tetsu-kun sent the perfect pass to match Dai-chan's movement. At the end of twenty minutes, the score was fifty to thirty, in favor of Dai-chan and Tetsu-kun's side.

When they all finished tossing their numbers back in the basket, Tetsu-kun stopped and stood looking at Dai-chan with a smile on his face, faint and true, and Dai-chan smiled back, a little tilted. He held out his fist casually, and after a very still moment Tetsu reached out and touched it with his own, light as though he thought it was an illusion that might burst on contact. Satsuki thought about how long it had been since the last time she had seen them do that, and had to swallow hard to get the lump out of her throat, and nearly lost it anyway when Riko-san wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Shh, it's okay," Riko-san told her softly. "They're okay, now, aren't they?" Satsuki nodded wordlessly, blinking back tears.

"Aomine, you asshole," Kagamin panted, swiping back sweat-soaked hair. "You've been holding out on me." Dai-chan started to smirk, and then both he and Kagamin yelped as Hyuuga-san fetched them brisk, matching swats across the back of the head.

"Okay," he snapped, giving Dai-chan a hard look, "what the hell kind of play was that? I have never seen anyone hog the ball that badly in my life!"

Tetsu-kun looked abashed and bobbed a bow. "I apologize, senpai. I should have paid more attention to that."

Dai-chan looked back and forth between them, utterly blank. "Why should you? I mean, there's no one else here strong enough to deal with him," he jerked his thumb at Kagamin, "obviously you'd get the ball to me. What?" he added, as everyone stared at him.

Tetsu-kun sighed, shoulders slumping a bit, even though his smile still hovered around the corners of his mouth. Hyuuga-san just rubbed his forehead and muttered under his breath, "Why did I let that guy talk me into running this team, again?" He stabbed a finger at Dai-chan. "We are going to talk about why there are other players on a team. Later. Right now, we have shooting drills to get through; everyone get to it!"

Dai-chan gave their captain a baffled look and shrugged at Tetsu-kun before going to fetch them both balls from the bin.

Satsuki couldn't help herself. She turned and buried her head against Riko-san's shoulder, giggling helplessly and as silently as she could manage. Riko-san patted her back with a rueful sigh. "I guess we still have a ways to go, huh?"

Satsuki finally got a hold of herself and straightened up, brushing back her hair and smiling encouragingly for her coach. "Yes, but at least it's a start. If we can get him to work with Kagamin, that will be another step."

Listening to the conversation over late dinner that night, though, Satsuki thought that it might be kind of a big step from Kagamin to everyone else.

"I mean!" Dai-chan gestured vigorously with his cup of soda. "It's just the plain truth, isn't it? It's not like I'm saying they're totally weak, but none of them is up to our level. I think Hyuuga-senpai is the only one who even starts to come close."

She smacked his shoulder with the back of her hand. "Quit being such a snob, Dai-chan. Hyuuga-senpai would probably have been first-string at Teikou."

"Yeah, but there's first-string, and then there's us, is all I'm saying." He shrugged and sucked on his straw.

"And every single one of you is annoying as all fuck." Kagamin unwrapped another burger, giving Dai-chan a dark look. "Kise isn't as bad, and Kuroko's fine when he's not scaring the life out of you for fun, but it's been too damn long since you lost, is what."

Satsuki winced as Dai-chan's face turned still and distant. "No one can beat me," he stated, flat and harsh. "No one but myself."

"Aomine-kun," Tetsu-kun said quietly, with a shadow of something entreating in the way he looked at his partner. Dai-chan sighed and shook the moment off.

"I know, Tetsu, but facts are facts. The best I can hope for is people like him," he flicked his fingers at Kagamin, "who are at least a little entertaining and don't give up too fast." Kagamin growled around a mouthful of food, and Dai-chan smirked at him, humor restored. "So quit letting Tetsu pull your nuts out of the fire for you; it'll make you soft."

"Kagami-kun is my partner also." Tetsu-kun's tone made Dai-chan hold up his hands in surrender and Kagamin settle back in his chair, though his glare still promised the argument wasn't over yet. Just postponed. Satsuki quite deliberately sparkled at them and leaned her chin delicately on her laced hands.

"You can be so commanding when you want to be, Tetsu-kun."

That, at least, got Dai-chan and Kagamin snickering together, and the amused glance Tetsu-kun gave her over his shake suggested he knew why she'd said it. But Satsuki couldn't help worrying that it wouldn't be enough. They only had four days left before the first match of preliminaries, and Kagamin and Dai-chan were still treating each other far more like rivals than like teammates.

Although...

Satsuki gave Tetsu-kun a considering look; he had already set them on track to competing with each other. She didn't think Kagamin understood all of why, yet, but she did. She knew already that Kagamin could grow strong enough to make it work, to make Dai-chan respect him and break through that bleak core in his game. He was closing in on Dai-chan already, and all her projections said he could do it. That was yet to happen, though. Maybe, for now, instead of trying to make them work together the best thing to do was to make use of their competition.

Four days later, Riko-kantoku winced a little as Kagamin nearly ran Siki down trying to slam in another dunk. Not because Seirin was behind in points, which they weren't. No, it was because Kagamin was two baskets behind Dai-chan in their personal contest. "Are you sure this was a good idea, Satsuki-chan?"

"I'm afraid it's the best we're going to get for now," Satsuki murmured, watching the second-years and weighing her captain's fast eroding patience. Hyuuga-san was going to smack both of them any moment now, unless... yes, Izuki-senpai saw it too and sent the ball to the outside to let both the team's aces settle down a bit. Satsuki sighed. "I'll keep working on it."

"We'll all keep working on it," Riko-san corrected firmly. "If both of them were raised by wolves before now, it's up to us to civilize them."

Satsuki smiled down at her coach, sweet and warm with the unaccustomed feeling of a senpai's support. "Yes, Kantoku."

She really did like being at Seirin very much.

A/N: So, here's the thing. Fujimaki's Interhigh tournament brackets are incredibly screwed up. The only preliminary we see, for Interhigh, is prefect-level. This is made very clear by the fact that Kaijou, the Kanagawa champions, do not appear in the preliminary finals. Kanagawa is a prefect of the Kantou region, just like Tokyo is, and if the preliminary had been regional (as Kiyoshi suggests it is much later in the series by calling it the Kantou tournament) then Kaijou would have been in the finals. So, apparently the regional preliminary doesn't exist, fine, whatever. But on top of that, Fujimaki puts two of the three Kings into the same block of preliminaries. This is completely counter to usual practice in any kind of preliminary elimination; three schools as widely geographically divided as those are shown to be should not be in the same block. Over and above that, though, these three are said to always be the three who win the preliminary finals, which means they must never have shared a block before or one of them would have eliminated the other before the finals. In short, Fujimaki decided that Drama > Logic. Fine, whatever, but I'm a little allergic to that kind of thing, and hereby declare that the three Kings are each in a different block, and that Shinsenkan is the only one in Seirin's block. The preliminary finals will, therefore, feature Seirin, Seihou, Shuutoku, and Touou.

This Moment to Arise - Stumbles

Kuroko gets a chance to play the way he wants to, again, with Aomine against Kaijou. When he has to play without his partners against Touou, though, he finds himself hitting a wall. Drama, Action, Angst, I-3

Tetsuya was starting to feel that it was somehow fate: if one of his partners wasn't sulking, the other would be. Kagami had been sulking for a solid week, in fact, starting from the moment the doctor had informed him he had put micro-tears in the muscle of his calves and strictly forbidden him from playing for two weeks. He wasn't even allowed to practice, only to do very gentle stretches up on the stage, glowering at thin air under the coach's stern eye. Like the other end of a see-saw coming up, Aomine had become cheerful again. In fact, he was grinning as they lined up to board the train out to the arena hosting this year's Interhigh tournament.

Aomine would be the only ace who got to play against Kaijou, for their first round.

He was so cheerful he was nearly whistling, and he took the seat next to Kagami's, most likely so that he could keep waving his cheerfulness in Kagami's face. Tetsuya rolled his eyes a little and took a seat against the back of theirs so he didn't have to watch it. They were like a couple of little kids sometimes.

Momoi settled next to him, humming to herself, which was a better sign. "You're confident?" he asked quietly.

She smiled, the distant, calculating smile she wore during matches. "Ki-chan is always the hardest to predict because his progress depends so much on who else he's played recently. But Dai-chan is back in condition, now, and he'll be playing his best since it's against Ki-chan." Her smile turned rueful as Kagami and Aomine's muttered exchange devolved into a brief wrestling match, behind them. "And Kagamin and Dai-chan still distract each other sometimes, when they play together. Maybe it's best, for this match, that it's only Dai-chan." She leaned against his shoulder. "And you."

He gave her the tiny smile that only his teammates ever seemed to learned how to spot. "And you."

On the way to a match, she was in a serious enough mood to not indulge in any over-the-top public affection, and just looked back at him, eyes sparkling with the wicked edge of her own determination. "Of course."

This year's venue was down the coast, a town that catered to beach-goers, and a brisk breeze off the water blew through the open streets and snapped the pennons that marched up the steps to the arena. Tetsuya breathed it in, tasting the electric edge in the atmosphere. Knots of other students in school uniforms ignored the gathering crowd around them, aware only of each other. Everyone was here to win, and everyone knew they might lose, and the eyes of the players were bright with that tension every time glances crossed.

Tetsuya loved this. He loved the uncertainty and need and excitement. He knew exactly what it was that drove Kagami against Tetsuya's old team. He knew what it was that Aomine missed so desperately it turned his eyes dark and dull. And even though he'd ignored Akashi's plans and orders for the two of them, and followed his own judgement instead, he hoped that Aomine would find what he needed again today, facing Kise as an opponent. Aomine was smiling, which he really hadn't, yet, through all the preliminaries. There was a manic edge in that smile that made Tetsuya's spine crinkle, though. He thought he wasn't the only one to notice, because Kagami watched Aomine from the corner of his eye as the team got changed, not sulky any more but frowning just a little.

"All right," Hyuuga-san called, waving them to gather close. "We've played Kaijou once, but don't let that make you overconfident. I doubt they were going all out, not in a practice match, and Kasamatsu knows what we can do, now. Stay sharp." He nodded as everyone chorused agreement, and then reached up to wrap a hand around the back of Aomine's neck. "Except for you," he added. "You need to calm down." He shook Aomine a little, holding his rather startled gaze. "Kaijou isn't running away, and you don't need to hunt them down for pity's sake. Breathe."

Tetsuya was actually the one who followed that order, breathing out as one thread of tension uncoiled down his back. He had been right, so right, to bring Aomine to Seirin.

Even if Aomine was currently looking at their captain with that manic edge fading back into shadows. "They probably will, after this," he said, low and so matter-of-fact it made something twist in Tetsuya's chest.

Out of that tight twist, he said, "Kise-kun never runs away. Especially not from you."

Aomine hesitated, and finally lowered his chin. "Yeah. He doesn't."

Hyuuga-san shook his head at them, mouth quirked. "And now the we've had the moment of brooding that seems absolutely required for you two, get out on the damn court and play!" He gave Aomine a little push.

"Yes, Captain," Tetsuya agreed blandly over Aomine's indignant sound, and gave his partner a much firmer shove toward the door with a hand in the small of his back. Aomine pouted at him but went, and Kagami followed after them, rolling his eyes. Fortunately it only took a few steps for Aomine to remember that Kise was waiting for them, and then he picked up his pace.

Momoi touched Tetsuya's shoulder, just before the team went out onto the court. "Tetsu-kun. Are you all right with this, too?" She glanced over at Kaijou, at Kise, who was already smiling that sharp little smile he wore when he let the rest of the world fall away and just played. The one he only ever wore when he played Aomine. Tetsuya watched Aomine's smile start to sharpen in answer and sighed softly.

"Being unnoticed is my specialty, Momoi-san."

She bit her lip at that, and he touched her hand lightly, shaking his head. He couldn't say he didn't mind; sometimes he got really tired of it. But the fact remained, this was his specialty. His strength. So he stepped out onto the court in Aomine's shadow, and took what amusement he could in watching Aomine and Kise exchange jabs, and didn't interject to mention that, even if Kise could beat Aomine this time, Kaijou would not defeat Seirin.

Because Tetsuya was here, also.

Kaijou clearly intended to test that, though. Kise got the ball at once, and only Aomine's raw speed struck the ball out of his hands and into Hyuuga-san's for the first basket. Just as Momoi has predicted, Kasamatsu-san gave Kise the ball again, and Hyuuga-san growled audibly when his own three-point form was repeated. Aomine was there again to deflect it, and Mitobe-senpai got the rebound, but Kasamatsu-san stole the ball from Izuki-senpai as soon as he went to pass it and took a basket of his own with beautiful speed and precision.

"Don't think we're nice enough to just let you take control of the game," Kasamatsu-san told Izuki-senpai with a tight smile.

Tetsuya nodded to himself, watching. Momoi was right; Kaijou believed that Kise could stop Aomine, and were covering for him while he tried.

They might be right.

He watched Aomine and Kise bare their teeth at each other and scuffle back and forth with cuts almost too fast to follow. He could hear Izuki-senpai's hiss of indrawn breath when Kise leaped to block Aomine's shot cleanly. Kise was developing his game fast, at Kaijou, maybe even faster than he had at Teikou. And he had a team prepared to support him, a team led by someone who made Momoi's eyes burn brighter when she talked about his strength and how to oppose him.

But that was all right, because the more Kise and Aomine drew the eye, the stronger Tetsuya's own counter-move would be.

Tetsuya flexed his knees, watching his marker out of the corner of his eye. They'd chosen the hyperactive one, the one who went up for all the rebounds. This one would respond fast when he lost sight of Tetsuya. He hadn't been part of the practice game, though, and would be surprised the first time he experienced it. As soon as Aomine closed again to mark Kise, Tetsuya took the moment of distraction when his own marker glanced at his captain for direction to fade to the side, behind, around, each step smooth and easy, sliding one step ahead of the path of the other player's gaze as he jerked around, looking for Tetsuya. Who, of course, was now in exactly the opposite direction, closing on Kasamatsu-san. He caught up just as Kasamatsu-san spun to the side to evade Izuki-senpai, and tapped the ball out of his hands, sending it singing back down the court to Mitobe-senpai to take the next basket.

"I'm sorry," he murmured in answer to Kasamatsu-san's ferocious glare, "but we're not nice enough to let you have control of the game, either."

Kasamatsu-san snorted, eyes glinting as he straightened. "Uppity first-year brats everywhere," he declared, and spun back to re-deploy his team.

Tetsuya bent his head for a breath, storing up the satisfaction of having such a strong player count him in with Kise and Aomine, to hold back the bitter edge of watching Kise and Aomine focus on nothing but each other. Of watching Aomine forget, again, that he had a partner on this court. He'd known it would probably happen, after all.

By the end of the first quarter, Kaijou was ahead and his senpai were getting tense. But Tetsuya could see Aomine's focus tightening on the challenge Kise presented. When Aomine stood back up from the bench, the weight of his focus was heavy in the air, and Kagami snorted softly, leaning back on his hands. "Nothing to worry about, huh?" he asked.

Aomine didn't look around. "Of course not."

Tetsuya looked over at Momoi, questioning, and, at her nod, sat back down himself.

"Tsuchida," Kantoku called, "you're in. Make sure you get the rebounds, because that Hayakawa they've put in for the tournament games has way too good a record at that. Watch everyone's backs!"

Beside Tetsuya, Kagami made a startled sound, looking down at Tetsuya with raised brows. "But aren't you more of an advantage than him, while the misdirection lasts? Why are they pulling you out already?"

"Because Dai-chan is getting serious," Momoi said softly, behind them. "If we need to bring Tetsu-kun in at the end, he's going to need all the rest he can get now, to keep up with how fast Dai-chan will be going by then."

Kagami looked a little skeptical, but turned back to the court, elbows on his knees as he watched the game start up again.

By half-time, he wasn't looking skeptical any more. Aomine was moving faster and faster, pushing against every advance Kise made, sliding around him like water, blocking his shots. Most of Kaijou's baskets were coming from Kasamatsu-san, now, while Seirin had both Hyuuga-san and Aomine making points. They were pulling ahead.

"All right," Kantoku said, hands on her hips as she stood in front of the bench. "This is the breaking point. Either they'll go with Kise or they won't. Aomine-kun, will you be ready, if Kise can really complete his copy of you?"

Aomine's lips peeled back from his teeth, and his eyes were fixed on the empty court. "Of course I will."

Riko-kantoku sighed and leaned forward to grab him by the ear. "You will not enter the Zone, understand? You're back in reasonable condition, but that would put too much strain on your body, still. Now use your brain to actually think and answer me: if Kise can complete his copy of your techniques, can you still deal with him?"

"Ow, shit, okay already!" Aomine rubbed his ear, nearly pouting up at their couch. "Yeah, I'll be okay; Kise isn't as fast as me."

Kantoku raised an eyebrow at Momoi, and her shoulders straightened in response to Momoi's firm nod. "All right, then, no player changes yet. You all know the strategy, if they don't go with Kise: Mitobe will join in to double mark Kasamatsu. Now get out there and play!"

When play started again, it was tense. Kaijou was pushing hard, but Kise always passed the ball when it came to him. "You were right," Kantoku murmured to Momoi. "Look at how Kise-kun is always on Aomine-kun. He's not just marking tightly, is he?"

"No," Momoi agreed softly, clipboard clasped tight to her chest. "He's going to try it."

"Will it really work, even if he sees it?" Kagami wanted to know, glancing up at her. "I mean, Aomine's kind of a freak, just physically; can Kise copy his moves?"

Riko-kantoku hummed absently, eyes on the game. "Kise's physical condition is at least as good, and his potential is equal to Aomine-kun's. He might not have quite the edge of speed, but he comes very close." She glowered down at Kagami in a forbidding manner. "You're still working up to that level, and you'll be working harder as soon as your legs are healed, believe me."

Kagami snorted, apparently unconcerned by the 'triple drills' glint in her eyes. "Of course. That's why I'm still with Seirin."

Momoi caught Tetsuya's eye and they smiled at each other, wry and tilted. Kagami really was a great deal like Aomine used to be.

And Aomine was looking a little more like himself, as he watched Kise watching him, teeth glinting in a sharp, eager smile every time Kise broke away to try one of Aomine's moves against another player. He started up on his toes every time that happened, and his return baskets came fast and hard. "Aomine-kun wants Kise-kun to do it," Tetsuya noted, quietly.

"Well of course he does," Kagami answered, at the same moment Koganei-senpai said, "Aomine is weird." Koganei-senpai grinned a little, and added, "Kagami, too."

"It is not weird," Kagami insisted, indignant. "I'm not saying he's not an asshole, but he just wants a game worth playing, that's not weird." And then he frowned at Momoi and Tetsuya. "Why are you laughing?"

Momoi wiped her eyes, still giggling. "This is why Dai-chan loves Kagamin."

Tetsuya smiled faintly out at the court while Kagami turned red and sputtered. The shift in Aomine's stance pulled him forward on the bench, though. Aomine had been making more and more daring formless shotsâ€”daring for anyone who wasn't Aomine, at leastâ€”but he'd just fallen completely out of stance, ball in one hand, other hand planted on his hip. He slung the ball over Kise, careless and hard, and it smacked off the backboard and through the net, leaving silence behind it. They could hear him on the bench when he said, "Quit screwing around, Kise. If you don't hurry up it'll all be over. I'm not patient enough to wait until you're all ready."

Hyuuga-san dragged a hand over his face. "Aomine, you little brat..."

Kasamatsu-san barked a laugh. "You think that matters? Who the hell cares about your patience?" The throw-in smacked into his hands and he spun free of Izuki-senpai, and sent a three-point shot sailing through the hoop. "Know your place, first-year. You're not the only player on this court!"

Tetsuya shivered a little, watching. Kaijou seemed to take those words as inspiration, tightening up their defense even more. The next time Hyuuga-san shot, Moriyama was there to block it. The team pulled in around Kise, guarding the score unwaveringly while he prepared. And Tetsuya saw the moment Kise understood what his team was doing, saw the tiny, true smile that curved his lips before he sank into a taut, familiar stance, facing Aomine.

And broke past him like lightning.

The whole bench were on their feet as Aomine gave chase, Momoi shouting a warning just as his feet left the ground that bit too forcefully, driving him into Kise's back. And Kise completed the shot with a hook behind both of them that sank through the net as though rolling downhill.

"He did it!" Kagami yelled, pounding on Tetsuya's shoulder, wonder and excitement in his voice just as though it wasn't the opponent's ace he was talking about.

"Yes," Tetsuya agreed, fingers curling tight. Aomine was standing under the basket, blank and shocked by the actual experience of being passed, but the blankness was slowly fading into a burning focus Tetsuya hadn't seen in over a year. It made his chest tighten, seeing it again, but there was a chill settling around him as well. This was what Aomine wanted, needed, but would he forget the progress they'd made this year, now he had it? Would he forget Tetsuya completely again?

The next ball was stolen when Tsuchida-senpai passed it back to Hyuuga-san, and Kise cut past Aomine again only to have Aomine slap the ball out of his hands, right at the hoop, so hard it landed in the stands.

The other first-years were making shocked sounds, but Tetsuya just nodded to himself. This was more like Aomine, far more like him than all the lazy slouching and drawled complaints of the past year. Aomine blazed through the Kaijou team and faded back almost parallel to the floor to make his shot over Kise's block.

"He really likes that one," Kagami grumbled, and Tetsuya smiled a little. Kagami had been on the receiving end of that move more than once, to be sure. It was one of the things that made him think Kagami might be the answer for both Aomine and himself.

Kise's next shot was the one Aomine had just used, and the ball went in just as smoothly.

Momoi whistled softly. "Ki-chan really has done it. He isn't as fast, but he's adjusted his movement for that. His change of pace has just as much impact, and his flexibility is already equal." She frowned. "Riko-kantoku, this might be a problem."

"Mm." Kantoku shot a glance at the scoreboard, where Seirin was only two points ahead. "I was hoping to have more of a lead, yes, but... Kaijou is a very strong team, under Kasamatsu-san. Kuroko. Make sure you're warmed up."

Tetsuya nodded quietly. "Yes, Kantoku." He started stretching his legs out, eyes steady on the flow of the game. Or, perhaps, the rocking of the game, back and forth between Kise and Aomine, basket after basket. They raced furiously after each other, up and down the court, teeth bared, burning fiercer than Tetsuya had ever seen them, before.

Of course, there was a reason he'd never seen them stretched all-out against each other.

There were only a few minutes left to go in the last quarter when Kise faltered and the whole court froze, watching his ball circle the rim, around and around, before it finally fell in.

"That's it," Riko-kantoku snapped, and signaled for a time-out. As the players came in, she clapped Tsuchida-senpai on the shoulder. "All right, Kise-kun's finally reaching the limit of his endurance. We're putting Kuroko-kun in. Aomine." She latched onto his ear again, hauling him down eye to eye. "You and Kuroko will double-team Kise to get the ball away from him or past him. We need to open up the lead, because Kaijou won't just let us go." She nodded toward the other bench, where, sure enough, the Kaijou players were gathered around Kasamatsu-san, still focused and intent.

"Not like you have to tell me," Aomine complained, rubbing his ear, and then he slanted a sharp, wild grin at Tetsuya. "You ready?"

The tightness in Tetsuya's chest loosened all at once, and he smiled back, tugging his wrist-warmers to settle them just as he liked. "Of course."

He was better than all right. He wanted to laugh. He felt relief sparkling through his veins. This was the partner he remembered.

And when they stepped onto the court, it was the combination he remembered, his partner's casual, perfect awareness of him as Tetsuya slid into the path of the ball and struck it back towards Aomine, turning his movement jagged and unpredictable. They shook Kise loose once, twice, and Kise caught them the third time but faltered again, stumbling on his landing from blocking Aomine's shot. Tetsuya caught the wild-flying ball, spun, sent it scorching back to his partner, and Aomine slammed it home. It was hot, fast, incredible play, and Tetsuya gloried in it. Kaijou wasn't giving way against it, though. Kasamatsu-san stole the ball back for a three-pointer, hauling Seirin's lead back down to three points, and Aomine bared his teeth.

"Full court, Tetsu," he breathed. "You can do it for me, can't you?" And he was gone without waiting for an answer, sprinting down the court toward Kaijou's basket.

That was all right. Aomine obviously knew what the answer was already. Tetsuya stepped over the boundary line, took the ball, and whirled the weight of it around himself until he could fire it back down the court, hard and heavy.

"Kurokocchi!" Kise yelled, and he was already nearly on top of Aomine; he'd known it was coming, too. Despite the danger of having the last ball they'd have time for stolen, Tetsuya smiled a little. Aomine. Kise. They both knew what he could do.

It was such a good feeling to have again.

Both Aomine and Kise went up, Aomine to dunk and Kise to block it, struggling against each other, each with a hand on the ball. For a long second, they seemed to hang there, perfectly balanced against each other, but then the balance tipped, broke, and Kise's hand slipped as Aomine slammed the ball into the net.

The buzzer sounded.

Tetsuya's mouth tightened as Kise stumbled again on landing and went down. Playing so hard against each other, the way they'd never been permitted to do before... he wasn't surprised. Nor was he surprised when Aomine hesitated, standing over Kise, hand twitching uncertainly at his side. In that hesitation, it was Kise's new captain who shouldered past Aomine and bent over Kise to give him a hand up. To lift him, when his legs gave out. Aomine turned away quietly to meet Tetsuya and the rest of his own team.

"You sure you don't want to say anything?" Hyuuga-san asked, mopping his face as they went to line up. "I mean, it's not like you have to forget you knew each other, even if you're opponents, now."

"There's nothing the winner can say to the loser that would do any good," Aomine said, low, and Tetsuya stepped up to his partner's side, brushing his shoulder in passing.

He'd always wondered if maybe Aomine hadn't really thought through the consequences of splitting the team the way Akashi had demanded (and Tetsuya had re-interpreted for his own purposes). If Aomine really did keep winning, he would have to face his teammates after they'd taken a true loss at his hands. He'd have to see Kise's face twisted with the tears he was trying, for once, to hold back, and see someone else's hand ruffling Kise's hair, steadying him. It wasn't in Aomine's nature to think ahead like that, not like it was in Tetsuya's. Tetsuya met Kasamatsu-san's eyes as Kaijou's captain supported Kise to face them, and bowed soberly.

He had known this was coming, and resolved himself to it months ago. It still hurt a little.

It wasn't until they were leaving, until Aomine stubbed his toe on the stairs down from the arena and almost tripped, and Kantoku's voice sharpened with concern, that he realized there were implications he hadn't thought through enough either. Or maybe just hadn't believed. When Kantoku and Aomine came back from the hospital, though, Kantoku's face set and Aomine's dark, he felt the true weight of those implications land like a rock in the pit of his stomach. A chill ran through him, like a cloud had crossed the sun and cut off the light.

"A week and a half off the court," Kantoku told them, flat and grim.

"Are we going to use Kagami next week, then?" Hyuuga-san asked.

Riko-kantoku's hands clenched hard for a moment. "No," she ground out.

Kagami jerked upright from where he'd been leaning against the stage. "But...!"

"I said no!" Kantoku barked, rounding on him. "The doctor said two weeks, and it will be two weeks! I'm not letting anyone who's injured set foot on the court!"

Kagami stepped back, eyes a little wide, hands raised, and Hyuuga-san rested a hand on Kantoku's shoulder for a moment. "We'll deal with it," he said firmly.

Tetsuya took a slow breath and held on to the firmness of his captain's words, to steady himself. They would deal with it. As a team.

Even if it was a team that didn't include either of his partners.

Both Tetsuya's partners were sulking when the team got to the Interhigh venue a week later. At least they were doing it quietly now, since Riko-kantoku had shown no tolerance for whining and actually made Koganei-senpai bring her a paper fan to smack both Kagami and Aomine with whenever they complained out loud. Momoi had looked enchanted with the idea, and it had been a lighter moment in the middle of the week's frantic training toward today's match.
Momoi was looking a lot more serious, now, as she did last-minute briefing while everyone got changed. "...so all of Touou's players are strong, this year, and they have a real reputation for individual play, but you absolutely must keep your eye on their captain. Imayoshi-san is unquestionably the one who's shaped Touou's recent play style, and all of my sources agree that he's frighteningly good at grasping the one thing you least want him to figure out." She flipped her notes closed and finished, "Tetsu-kun. If he targets anyone, it's most likely to be you."

Tetsuya shrugged to settle his shirt over his shoulders. "There's nothing to do but deal with it, if it happens."

A hand landed on his head, ruffling his hair firmly. "Quit stealing my lines," Hyuuga-san told him. "You can panic a little if you want to, you know. All four of you are way too calm to be first-years."

"Yes, Captain," Tetsuya agreed, calmly. All his senpai rolled their eyes, which amused him; someone, some time, had taught his current team how to tell when someone was teasing with a straight face. He wondered who it had been.

"All right, people," Hyuuga-san said, louder. "Don't lose your focus just because there isn't a Miracle on the other side. Let's go!"

It was so familiar, stepping out under the weight of the lights, week after week, to meet whoever faced them. Familiar and also not, because this time, every time, victory was uncertain. The uncertainly pulled Tetsuya's nerves tight and made his breath faster.

It was part of what he played for.

Touou's captain, Imayoshi, smiled as he shook Hyuuga-san's hand, running an eye over the team. "Leaving both your aces on the bench? That's a little overconfident, don't you think?" Without changing his pleasant expression in the slightest, he added, "Or maybe just careless. I suppose you're still a young captain. Perhaps you'll learn, today, to take better care of them for the winter."

Tetsuya could almost see the moment Hyuuga-san's temper, always chancy during a game, snapped. He smiled back at Imayoshi, toothy. "I don't need some snake-eyed bastard on the other side telling me that." He turned on his heel and stalked to his position, glaring the shortest Touou player out of his way, and barked at his team, "Let's go!"

Imayoshi actually clutched a hand to his chest. "So cruel!" Tetsuya saw the way he looked after Hyuuga-san, though. Measuring. Calculating. Perfectly cool. A little shiver went through him. Momoi had been exactly on target, as usual; this was their most dangerous opponent.

Indeed, even though Momoi had warned them to be on guard, Imayoshi still managed to intercept the tip-off and, when Hyuuga-san blocked him, passed the ball too high for Tetsuya to catch. It went to Touou's outside shooter and left his hands again almost as fast as the one of Tetsuya's own redirections. The first basket was Touou's, and it was a three-pointer. Tetsuya's team exchanged grim looks. This was going to be every bit as hard as Momoi and Riko-kantoku had projected.

Touou was fast and strong. The center who guarded their net on defense wrestled with Tsuchida-senpai for every ball. Their shooting guard looked even slighter than Tetsuya, but he shot fast enough that, even warned, Hyuuga-san had to fight to block even some of his balls. Their captain, their point guard, had a sharp eye for the flow of the game and always sent the ball toward a weak spotâ€”the extra moment Izuki-senpai needed to get turned around, the instant Hyuuga-san was distracted by the threat of a pass to Sakurai, the opening behind Mitobe-senpai's back the moment he stepped forward to screen.

Tetsuya took a breath and sank himself into that flow also, hearing the murmur of Momoi's analysis in the back of his head. Their center had good accuracy up close but not at any distance; when he was away from the net, he always passed. Tetsuya slid into the path of the ball and turned it toward Hyuuga-san's hands. Touou's shooting guard was blindingly fast but that meant he never had as firm a grip on the ball as another player might. Tetsuya faded away from his marker and sprinted to strike the ball out of Sakurai's hands. He could feel his team settling around him, settling in for a long fight, but always poised to receive the ball. Poised because Tetsuya was on the court, and they expected it of him, trusted him to intervene. Part of him basked in that feeling, in the reliance of his team.

But part of him was aware of Imayoshi's eyes catching him, over and over again, like an unexpected hand dropping onto his shoulder from behind.

Still, they were holding on. By the middle of the second quarter, when the rest of Touou started being able to find him, too, Seirin was eight points ahead. Tetsuya tagged Koganei-senpai at the side-lines and dropped onto the bench between Aomine and Kagami, breathing hard.

"I will never get how you can be so calm in the middle of such a hot game," Kagami told him, shaking his head.

"Tetsu? Calm?" Aomine stared at Kagami like he was crazy. "Tetsu's never calm, he just doesn't actually, you know, yell about things."

Tetsuya huffed into the towel he was scrubbing over his face. "I can't keep track of the game if I'm one of the ones yelling," he pointed out, hanging it around his neck and reaching for his water. It was true; he had to pay close attention to what was happening to keep up with everyone else, to be in the right place for his passes. However much passion he brought to the game, he had to observe everything carefully, even himself.

He knew that wasn't how his partners played. But he wasn't like his partners. He wondered, sometimes, what it would be like to play hot and thoughtless the way they did. He knew it wasn't how his game, his strength, would ever work, but sometimes he wondered.

The second-years were playing pretty hot, themselves, now, pushing to keep Seirin's lead. Touou was pushing back, though, and Momoi made an annoyed sound between her teeth as Imayoshi feinted around Izuki-senpai and faded back for another three-pointer. "That man is entirely too good at faking opponents out," she declared, clearly offended that even her scouting beforehand wasn't quite enough of an edge to close Imayoshi down.

"He's the one who's making their individual plays work, too," Kantoku agreed, mouth a little tight. "We'll just have to tighten up our own coordination to stop them."

Aomine had been watching the game with his elbows on his knees, head cocked a little as Kantoku moved down the bench a little, tracking play with a frown of concentration. "There's something a little weird about Seirin that way, don't you think?" He glanced over at Tetsuya and then back at Momoi. "About the second-years. I mean, they're tight, yeah. Really tight. But, being as tight as that, shouldn't they be able to make more advanced plays?"

Tetsuya made a thoughtful noise, considering his senpai's play. Touou's center back-cut around Mitobe-senpai. Hyuuga-san wasn't quite close enough to interfere properly, and the center threw one of those ferocious passes to their shooting guard. "Mmm." He had to agree; even knowing Seirin wasn't a defensive team, he'd have expected someone as experienced as Hyuuga-san to catch that.

Momoi was nibbling her lower lip. "It's..." She hesitated, which was uncharacteristic enough to make Tetsuya brows rise.

"Shut up, Aomine." Kantoku didn't look away from the court. "I know already, you don't have to rub it in."

"It isn't your fault, Kantoku," Momoi said softly, while Aomine was blinking.

"No, but it's my responsibility, now." Their coach took a slow breath and glanced down the bench at the suddenly questioning looks of every first-year on it. "I'm this team's coach, yes, but my experience is in training, not strategy. Our strategist is... away right now." Her hand clenched on her knee, and her voice fell. "Just a little longer. If we can just hold on a little longer; he's almost ready to come back."

Tetsuya tucked this new information away; it sounded like their team would be bolstered even more than he'd thought, if they could just win this round. He looked back at the game, focusing like he was out there himself, watching the pattern of the second-years' plays. This was where he put his own fire, where almost no one ever really saw it, into his focus on his team and opponents. This was what he had to strengthen, to support, to make shineâ€”the absolute solidity of Hyuuga-san's outside shots, Mitobe-senpai's steady judgement under the basket, Izuki-senpai's grasp of position.

He could do it.

The second-years were wringing wet and panting when they came in for half-time, and fell on Mitobe-senpai's honeyed lemons like wolves. Tetsuya was absently grateful that Kagami had brought a batch of his own, and offered them around to the first-years. Even, reluctantly, Aomine, though they got into a brief wrestling match over it when Aomine smirked and tried to take four at once.

"You know, I'm not even sure I'm joking about Dai-chan liking Kagamin," Momoi said to Tetsuya, not all that quietly. "He acts just like a little boy pulling a little girl's hair because he likes her."

That had the effect Tetsuya had no doubt she'd intended, as both Aomine and Kagami broke off fighting with each other to protest. He smiled back, faintly, at her tiny grin, but most of his attention was still on the game—on what he'd seen, and how he'd need to play in the last quarter.

It was, he thought, a good thing he had stayed focused, because when they got to the fourth quarter, Seirin was down twelve points. Kuroko took a breath as he stepped out under the lights of the court and slid straight into the game as though he'd never left; in a way, after all, he hadn't. He shadowed Izuki-senpai, following the quick signals of his glances to take the ball at unexpected angles and relay it to its true target. He stole passes to Touou's Sakurai and fired them to Mitobe-senpai instead, in the moment no one was watching. He could hear the shouts from Seirin's bench, hear the enthusiasm of both his partners. And he could feel his team shifting around him, pushing into a higher gear.

This was what he lived for, this feeling, this triumph of his game, of the strength he gave his teammates, over the opposing team. When the score turned over again, he thought the lightness of the moment might lift him off his feet.

When Imayoshi stepped up to mark him, he felt a chill cut through that glow.

"Will you listen to that?" Touou's captain said, conversationally, waving a hand at the stands. "'Can we stop Seirin's energy' indeed. You think they'd know better." Imayoshi smiled, slow and predatory. "Did you know? There are some things you can only see in a mirror."

Tetsuya frowned to himself and waited for the ball to go to Izuki-senpai, for Imayoshi's attention to split so he could fade away and cut free. But Imayoshi stayed on him, close up, close enough to...

...close enough to watch his eyes.

Tetsuya pulled in a hard breath. Every time he glanced at Izuki-senpai, Imayoshi looked away from him. Looked at Izuki-senpai, too.

...only see in a mirror.

It happened again when Tetsuya tried to move to relay a pass between Hyuuga-san and Mitobe-senpai. Again, when he went to screen Hyuuga-san's next outside shot. He couldn't shake Imayoshi off, and the clock was ticking down. The score turned over in Touou's favor. Again in Seirin's favor. And Tetsuya didn't have anything to do with any of it. He was blocked at every pass, and he could feel the team stumbling; it was worse than if he hadn't been on the court at all, because they kept starting to rely on him and having to pull up short.

"It's a double-edged sword, isn't it?" Imayoshi murmured, still smiling. "The way you strengthen them. The way they rely on you. Very double-edged indeed."

Tetsuya's mouth tightened hard, and he met Imayoshi's eyes, direct and intent. This time, he didn't look away, stayed focused on his opponent and just moved. He had to hope Izuki-senpai would see and understand. And, sure enough, there was a flicker of movement at the corner of his eye, and Tetsuya spun away at the last moment to reach for the ball coming toward them.

Imayoshi's hand slid in front of his, and he cut between them, fading back and back and finally going up for a three-pointer neither Izuki-senpai nor Tetsuya were in place to block. The ball arched through the air, slow and high, over the heads of the frozen players, and swished through the basket, giving Touou a two-point lead.

The final buzzer sounded.

Imayoshi looked back at Tetsuya again. "It was obvious they'd rely on you at the last," he said, almost gently. "Seirin is a young team, and your strength conceals your weaknesses. Too bad, hm?" He turned away toward his team.

Cold slid through Tetsuya like a knife. Was he actually bad for his team, when Aomine or Kagami couldn't be on the court? Had he led them to overestimate him, just because he wanted so badly to be acknowledged as a useful player? He went through line-up and the retreat to the changing room in a chill fog of wondering what he could possibly do now.

Everyone was silent in the wake of their loss, and the silence plucked at Tetsuya's nerves. He was almost grateful for the metallic bang when Aomine punched one of the lockers.

"What the fuck good is it being a genius and all that shit, when I can't use it?!"

Momoi roused at that, though her voice was quiet. "Dai-chan, you know why. None of you are developed enough to use your full strength for too long."

Aomine growled.

"Don't be silly, Satsuki-chan." Aida-kantoku stood briskly from testing Hyuuga-san's calves and ankles, and put her hands on her hips. "Now that I have a better gauge for just how much strain it does put on you, you bet your ass you're going to be training to use your full strength for a full match, Aomine-kun."

Aomine blinked at her like she'd suddenly turned on all the lights in a dim room. "...I am?"

"Of course you are!"

"But Riko-kantoku," Momoi started, half hopeful and half alarmed.

Kantoku waved an impatient hand. "In middle-school, of course their bodies couldn't sustain that kind of play for long! And it would have been crazy to try to train them up to it while they were still growing. But now..." she eyed Aomine thoughtfully, "now, I think you have all but an inch or two of your height, and that's the important part. Now that your muscles and tendons aren't constantly under the strain of growing longer, we can take all that effort and energy and pain and put it toward your training." She gave Aomine a sunny, ruthless smile, and he grinned back the way Tetsuya hadn't seen in a while, bright and excited.

Tetsuya started a little when that smile was turned on him.

"Hear that, Tetsu?" Aomine reached out and mussed his hair, through Tetsuya's towel. "I won't leave you alone out there again. You'll have all the light you need."

Tetsuya stilled, caught between relief and a twist of fear. This was what he'd wanted, what he'd worked for, but was it really enough? For the first time, he doubted it. Aomine promised him light. As much light as he needed, to play the way he always had. Enough light to bring out his strength.

Enough light to conceal his weakness?

Kagami's snort broke the circle of his thoughts. "What makes you think someone like Kuroko, the one who hauled your ass to Seirin and dragged your head out of it too, will be satisfied with stopping there?" He tied his shoe with a rather ferocious jerk, set both feet firmly on the floor, and braced his hands on his knees, elbows stuck out aggressively. "We need to be stronger, yeah. So Kuroko can rely on us, the same way we rely on him."

"I told you you rely on him too heavily," Aomine jibed at Kagami. "I, on the other hand, have the perfect balance already."

Momoi coughed meaningfully into her fist, and Aomine added, "Back again."

"Oh, nice save." Kagami applauded sarcastically, and Aomine jumped him, and their corner dissolved into wrestling again. The second-years groaned and rolled their eyes, and the whole room lightened a little.

Tetsuya just sat, not quite seeing what was in front of him, while Kagami's words rolled through his head. Kagami, his other partner, thought he wouldn't stop with the goal he'd just barely regained. Thought he'd keep going, keep building up his game. The idea unfolded slowly, like a flower opening up, until his chest felt full and tight with it. To be more, to want more... could he? Could he really? The memory of a hundred quiet moments of irritation or resignation, playing as Teikou's shadow, came back to him.

Hadn't he always wanted more?

Tetsuya took a long, shaky breath, feeling like he was looking up after staring at the ground for so long he'd forgotten there was anything else to see.

"Tetsu-kun?" Momoi's hand was on his shoulder, and she was looking down at him with a shade of worry behind her smile. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes." Tetsuya shook himself and looked up at her. "I think Kagami-kun is right," he told her. "I... I need to be more, too. Will you help me?"

Her eyes turned wide and surprised. He supposed that wasn't something she'd been in the habit of thinking, either. The surprise melted slowly into familiar determination, though. "Tetsu-kun. Of course I will." She smiled, bright and fierce, the way she hadn't since they'd come off the court today. "I'm Seirin's analyst, aren't I? I'll find a way."

Tetsuya nodded back firmly, feeling that determination settle into his thoughts and bones, heavy but comfortable. Yes. They'd find a way around his weaknesses, until his team could rely on him without danger.

He wouldn't let his game end like this.

The new thoughts tugged at him, as Seirin gathered themselves up and started for home. He'd thought he came to Seirin, and brought Aomine with him, to prove the worth of the way he played the game. He had a team, here, that needed him and knew how he strengthened them. He had a team that wouldn't let Aomine molder in apathy, that demanded he train properly and play properly. There was even Kagami, to spur Aomine out of his slump, to remind him that there were other strong players, to show him how a decent partner acted.

He'd thought that was all he wanted.

But when Kagami had spoken, so confident that Tetsuya wouldn't be content with just that, wanting had flared up instantly. So instantly that Tetsuya knew it had to have been lying in his heart all this time, waiting for a spark. It had taken Kagami to make him see, to make him remember his old hopes from before Akashi had found him and told him his strength was a shadow's strength, from before he'd gotten used to shadow victories.

Maybe it wasn't just Aomine that Kagami could show how to play again. And when Tetsuya remembered how deliberately he'd set out to use Kagami to make Aomine jealous enough to wake up, he wondered, with a twinge of guilt, whether it wasn't just Aomine that needed Kagami to show him how to play again.

When he and Kagami waved good night to Aomine and Momoi, and parted ways at the station, his thoughts finally spilled over into words.

"I'm sorry."

Kagami glanced down at him, brows raised. "What for?"

"I used you for my own ends, to make Aomine-kun remember how to be a partner. And even so, you still have that much faith in me."

"What, that?" Kagami snorted, stuffing his hands further into his pockets. "Don't worry so much about it. Everyone plays for their own reasons; it's not like you made me play the way I do. That's just me." He gave Tetsuya a sidelong look. "As for you, are you going to tell me you will let it end like this? Your game? Seirin's game?"

Tetsuya's response to the mere question straightened his spine in a rush of hot denial. "Of course not," he said firmly.

Kagami was grinning a little. "Thought not."

"Being smug makes you look like Aomine-kun," Tetsuya observed, and smiled just a tiny bit as Kagami's vociferous objections echoed off the yard walls around them.

He walked on through the warm spring night, dwelling on the old, faint taste of playing for himself.

Not the Direction of Gravity

Al stumbles over the clue to finding his brother that he was looking for, in a way he didn't expect. (Continued after a seven year hiatus, I recommend re-reading the first two stories in the arc.) Drama with Angst and Philosophy, I-3

Al

"Alphonse! Get out of this house and take a walk!"

Al looked up from his desk, blinking. "But... I'm studying..."

Sensei put her hands on her hips. "I know. You have bags under your eyes I could pack for vacation in, and the last time we sparred I wasn't even breathing hard." She pointed a commanding finger at the door. "Out!"

"But..." Al glanced out the window, protests taking on a faint note of desperation. "It's about to rain!"

She folded her arms and just loomed. Al sighed and marked his place with his pencil. "Yes, Sensei. It'll probably do me good, right?"

Her mouth twitched and she put a hand on his head, half ruffle and half swat, as he passed her. "And quit stealing my lines."

Al picked an easy path, down by the lakeshore under the trees where the light rain wouldn't get him too wet. Sensei was probably right. His brain felt so full it might spill if he moved too fast, and his thoughts jostled against each other. He was pretty good at modern alchemical codes, but he'd been reading much older texts, and if you went back far enough it was as much philosophy as science and every statement seemed to mean at least three different things at once. Probably more, actually, but he had threes on the brain; it was Trismegistus' fault. And Salmon's. Mercury meant spirit meant animal, and where did that get him?

He toed a stone in the path, not kicking it, just rocking it in its bed of dampening dirt. Now that he was actually outside and didn't have a book in his hands, he wanted to do something physical. A swim would be nice; the sound of the lake's wavelets against the shore was soothing and tempting. He held out a hand and watched a few raindrops patter down onto his palm, thoughtfully.

Well... since he was going to get wet anyway...

Al stripped down to his undershorts and hung his clothes on the branch of a maple that looked dry underneath. He shivered a little as he waded in; it wasn't full summer yet, and the water wasn't exactly warm. He was laughing under his breath though. He didn't act on impulse too often, usually he had to be the sensible one.

Maybe now he could see why Nii-san spent so much time grinning.

He sighed softly and launched himself out into the water, stroking toward the huge boulder some glacier had left halfway to the middle of the lake. He would see his brother again. He would. A few years was nothing; he could keep looking a lot longer than that. Apparently, he already had once.

His breath felt like it was filling his lungs all the way up again by the time he reached the rock. He turned over and rested his head in a hollow and floated, looking up at the sky under his lashes. The rain made it look like the sky was coming down to meet him.

Well, after all, the dusty old philosophers and the shiny new scientists both agreed that all the world was one, in the end.

He wriggled his toes in the water, reminding himself that he wasn't studying right now. Maybe it would help divert him if he paid more attention to sensations. He took a moment to do so and chuckled. It felt very strange, once he noticed. The rain speckled down on part of him, busy and distracting, while the rest of him was underwater and barely felt the occassional current or the passing of a wave.

Come to think of it, his brain felt an awful lot like that. Al let his eyes drift half shut. Odd that thoughts could have sensation, too. But there was definitely a much-less-jostling part in there, underneath.

The more he thought about how the quiet part felt, the quieter everything got. Thoughts drifted instead of jostled. Symbols floated instead of flickered. The circled dot, for the sun, for the Eye, and for gold, and that made sense since "gold" meant inclusion. The inside of a circle. All the stages in one, destruction and creation together and that was life, wasn't it? The process of living was alchemy. Everything became something else from moment to moment, but somehow it was all still there. That was life.

And life was perfection. Always perfecting everything, refining until each thing was itself.

Sensei knew that. Al smiled, in the floating stillness, with the satisfaction of that thought.

Maybe Nii-san did too. Those last lines in his notes: "The Gate is in every living heart". Living. Yes. And it all connected, because the circled dot was also the Eye, and Nii-san had drawn the eye in his first notes about the Gate, hadn't he?

The simple circled dot in Al's head gained more lines, a curve above and below, and a glory radiating around it. It wasn't sketched anymore, though.

He looked closer.

It was... carved.

He reached out to run his fingers over the texture, which was weirdly slick and sharp, and another line appeared, running straight down the middle. He realized that the eye was carved on a slab, and the slab was really two slabs. It was... a door.

It cracked open.

Al jerked and floundered wildly for a moment before he was sure his head was really above water. He clutched the rock, panting a little while the adrenaline burn died back to a sizzle in his blood.
Had he just fallen asleep out here? In the water? He was lucky he hadn't drowned!

Wait, no, he'd been thinking something. Something big. Al chewed on his lip, trying to remember, but all he could catch hold of were fragments of ideas about gold and circles and life. He pounded his fist, lightly, on the stone, annoyed. "Damn damn damn damn damn!"

Finally he let it go and pulled in a deep, calming breath. He'd have to try to catch hold of it again tonight, as he was falling asleep, and hope he could hold on to enough to write it down. For now, he'd just work off his annoyance by swimming back to shore, and maybe not mention this to Sensei. If she knew he'd 'wasted' his exercise time thinking, she might get more direct about making sure he got more physical activity.

Izumi

Izumi scrambled out of bed, ignoring Sig's grunt as she planted a hand on his stomach for leverage.

Al had screamed.

She strode down the hall and threw open his door, eyes sweeping the room for any threat. But there was only Alphonse, bolt upright in bed, eyes huge and dark and staring at nothing. She came and took his shoulders gently. "Al? Al, wake up. It's all right."

She hoped she wasn't lying.

His hands closed on her arms hard enough to bruise. "Empty," he gasped, sounding like he'd been running for miles, and maybe for his life. "It echoed. Inside me was empty and it echoed!"

Izumi slid further onto the bed and cuddled Al as if he weren't almost as tall as she was. As if she could enfold and protect him. Her lips were pale and tight as she stared over his head into the darkness. "It's all right," she murmured again. "You're here. It's now. There's no echo now, right?"

The desperate tension in him unwound just a little, and he started shaking against her. "I... yes. I mean, no. I mean..."

"Shhhh." Izumi stroked his hair, sifting her fingers through the springy strands. She had almost hoped she was wrong about what he meant, but no such luck. She sighed, resting her cheek against the top of his head, rocking him a little as the shaking grew worse and the shoulder of her nightgown started getting wet.

He'd found it. Or it had found him. And in the morning she'd have to try to figure out how. Try to find some way to keep the idiot boy from diving head-first into the Gate after his stolen memories and destroying himself with his own brilliance.

Again.

But for tonight they could both pretend that she could protect him, and that everything would be all right. And if the world could spare them both just a little kindness, maybe he could sleep out the night safe in her arms.

End

This was written on 9/24/06. Yes, I know. Yes, it took me this long to give in and admit I wasn't going to finish the arc, and post what I have.

The Simple and the Subtle - Chapter Two

Gil does his best to make restitution and finds himself being drawn out by Al. Drama, I-3

Gil had not been surprised when Alphonse mentioned nightmares. The boy had died, been hauled back by his heels and bound to a suit of armor, tramped all over the country running after the false hope of the Stone, been transmuted into the Stone, and finally sacrificed those years of love and effort to be returned to true life. Nightmares were surely to be expected. He hadn't quite expected his new houseguest to start up in the middle of the night, screaming, though.

He certainly hadn't expected it to happen every night.

That wasn't quite true, of course. Two nights, even three, in a week, Alphonse slept quietly. The others, well Gil was twice over glad he had no near neighbors here at the edge of the city and that doors and windows were shuttered tight now winter was on them.

He did wonder, once or twice, whether his teacher had known about this, and thought it proper for Gil to deal with.

Either way, it was fair enough resititution for the part he'd played. He leaned up on one arm, half awake, to reach across the space between their makeshift beds and shake Alphonse's shoulder as he started to thrash around. Alphonse came awake with a harsh gasp, eyes wide and staring before he fell back against his blankets.

"Ah. Gil-san. Sorry."

"Mm, don't worry," Gil mumbled, settling back into sleep already.

He barely remembered it in the morning, until Alphonse looked up from staring into his tea. "It really seems like there should be two circles on the Gate, not eleven."

It must, Gil decided, have been a dream of the Gate itself, last night, then, for Alphonse to break into philosophy at the breakfast table. Usually he waited and beleaguered the older men at the temple, in the evening.

Still, he probably owed Alphonse this help too. "Why?" he prodded.

"Well it's only one step away from this world; there don't seem to be any others in between."

Gil considered that while Alphonse wolfed down his toast. "I don't think distance to divinity works in a straight line like that."

"Oh." Alphonse blinked and laughed a bit self-consciously. "Of course." He rubbed a hand through his hair. "I suppose I've been drawing arrays for too long; it's hard to shake the habit of geometry."

"Most habits are hard to shake," Gil agreed quietly. The habit of revenge; the habit of wrongheadedness; the habit of solitude; they were all hard to shake.

Though Alphonse was making an impression on that last one, and Gil suspected that had been his teacher's real purpose in lodging Alphonse here.

"Well, I can think about that more later," Alphonse said with that alarming determination of his, draining his tea. "What is there to do today?"

"Walls. There's a new load of stone in."

Alphonse brightened, and Gil raised a brow at this rather odd response to the prospect of hauling stone blocks in the desert sun and stingingly dry winter air. "Good! I think the house frame is cracking in the east corner, I heard it last night, and I knew you wouldn't want me to strengthen it."

"Thank you," Gil muttered, surprised all over again by Alphonse's restraint; he hadn't used a single flicker of alchemy since he'd come to New Ishvar. Of course, Gil probably shouldn't be surprised. Alphonse had never had his brother's brash edge.

Or, at least, didn't have it in the same way.

As they walked through the outskirts to collect the first pallet of cut stone, Gil watched smiles come out everywhere in answer to Alphonse's.

"Al-kun, you'll come play with Rick and Leo later won't you?"

"Alphonse-kun, I'll have that book for you tonight!"

"Al, you and Gil will stop with us for dinner, won't you?"

"If Gil-san agrees," Alphonse returned, laughing. Gil snorted softly.

"You can go without me."

"Yes, but Eli-san invited both of us," Alphonse told him, firm and scolding. "You should accept more often, Gil-san."

Gil's mouth tightened. "I have no right."

Alphonse stopped in the middle of the street-to-be with his hands on his hips and glared. "Why not?"

Gil glowered down at his houseguest, though it never seemed to have quite the effect on Alphonse that it did on anyone else. "The price for what I have done is exile. I knew that from the start. I will pay it," he bit out.

"Even when no one is asking you to?"

"Some things aren't required by other people."

"No, they're just required by your stubbornness," Alphonse snapped, sounding thoroughly exasperated. "Gil-san--"

"Enough."

After a moment Alphonse sighed. "We should fetch the stone."

Gil nodded agreement to that, at least, and ignored Al's muttering about how well the blocks would match certain heads. He was starting to wonder whether Alphonse had gotten this way because of Edward or whether Edward had gotten that way because of Alphonse.

It was two loads later before Alphonse said anything that wasn't to do with hauling and stacking.

"Gil-san, may I ask you something?"

Gil made a noncommital grunt, hoping Alphonse wasn't going to badger him more about dinner invitations.

"Will you tell me how I met you?" Alphonse looked up as Gil's hands froze over the mortar he was mixing. "You know so much about me, but I don't even remember your name from the things people have told me about those years."

Gil could feel his jaw tightening.

"How did we meet, that you don't want to tell me?" Al asked quietly.

Gil bowed his head over his hands. Alphonse had left off asking for so long, he'd hoped to not be asked at all. He should have known better. Sooner or later, it would have to be said. Gil took a slow breath. "You didn't know my name, then," he said, voice low. "You called me Scar."

The broken beam Alphonse had been using to lever the stones up clattered to the ground. His eyes were wide, when Gil looked up. A flicker of dark amusement tugged the corner of Gil's mouth up. "I suppose that transmutation gave both of us our lives back. I don't know that it did either of us a favor." He looked away, not wanting to watch the shock in Alphonse's face any more. "You've done more than enough work here, Alphonse," he gestured at the half-laid walls, mouth twisting with the double edge of his words, "if you want to go think for a while."

"I... I'll... yes, for a while." Alphonse tidied his tools with a blank stare that didn't see them, and walked away toward the temple, steps slow and halting.

Gil rested his forehead against a stone, eyes closed. He'd thought he already knew where he stood with the world. He hadn't thought it would hurt so much to see that shock in someone's eyes--to know it would unfold into fear or disgust.

It was only, he told himself sternly, what he should expect; it flowed naturally from his own actions and choices.

When he had made those choices, it hadn't seemed like such a high price as it did now.

It didn't take long before Amos showed up.

Gil's shoulders tightened, but his teacher only picked up the lever Al had dropped and helped to lay the last row of stone. It wasn't until Gil had poured them both a drink of water that Amos spoke.

"Well, it doesn't seem that you think Al-kun's life is unclean."

Gil flinched. "Of course it isn't," he muttered. "He isn't one of us, to live by our laws. Besides, his brother chose freely to make that sacrifice for him." Unlike the men Gil had killed to form the Stone. Not that he felt sorry for those soldiers, he thought stubbornly; they'd made their choices too. But the fact remained. "Alphonse wasn't the one who killed and used the lives to live."

Amos took a drink and leaned back against Gil's new wall thoughtfully. "No, he didn't. Instead he took those lives and used them to bring his brother back from death." He tipped his head at Gil. "You still don't think that was wrong?"

"It..." Gil's thoughts stumbled. "The killing was already done," he said at last.

His teacher's silence was eloquent of the inadequacy of this answer.

"At least those lives and deaths meant something in the end!" Gil finally burst out. "At least they did something worthwhile!"

Amos smiled at him. "So they did."

Gil's eyes widened. "But I'm... I'm not..." Not worthwhile, not worthy.

His teacher patted his shoulder, heaving himself to his feet. "Well, perhaps I'll give young Al a bit longer to work on it, then."

As Gil watched Amos walk back into the city he thought about the enthusiasm with which Alphonse threw himself into rebuilding Ishvar and the raw determination of his search for answers among the books of old and new learning and the stubbornness he already showed in trying to draw Gil out. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that his teacher had a ruthless streak.

It was late when Alphonse came back, and Gil watched his face warily, in the lamplight.

Al just smiled and set two loaves of bread and a travel-bruised pomegranate on the table. "We're running out of bread so I stopped at Sarah-san's. She said to take the fruit, too."

"That was kind of her." Gil fetched cups of water for them, waiting for the rest of it. He was sure there was more.

"Gil-san," Alphonse said, softly, as he peeled the pomegranate, "will you tell me what happened?" He looked up, honey-colored eyes dark. "No one else was there."

And so no one else could tell it. No one else could explain the dreams, if Alphonse had dreamed about it. Gil set down his bread; he doubted he'd be able to eat through this. "I had planned to lure soldiers into Lior and create the Stone with their lives. For the sake of all the citizens who had been killed, the people of Lior were willing to let me do it. You and your brother stumbled into the middle of it, though. You and one other. The Alchemist who did this," he gestured to the scar across his face, "and you were too close. When he tried to kill you, by transforming you and breaking your blood seal... I made you the focus of the Stone's creation instead, to preserve you."

He watched Alphonse's fingers, breaking the pomegranate seeds into smaller and smaller clusters, as he spoke. He didn't want to watch Al's face, and perhaps that was more cowardice, but he didn't think he could finish if he was looking Alphonse in the eye. Alphonse's eyes were far too expressive.

"After it was done," he finished, "I was left with a whole body and the empty desert and nothing else. I..." his hands clasped hard around his cup, "I had thought to make the Stone for revenge; to carry out a destiny. But it seemed to me, then, that whatever there was of my old destiny had passed to you." He was silent for a moment before adding, voice low, "It was then that I realized how heavy I had made it. I'm sorry."

"Yes. So am I. But I'm glad, too."

Gil finally looked up from Alphonse's fingers, stained a little red with the seeds' juice, to see his housemate looking reflective and not shocked or disgusted at all.

"I wish those soldiers hadn't died," Alphonse said, softly. "But you saved my life. And what you did saved my brother's life, too. And I can't help being glad for that." Alphonse looked directly at Gil and smiled, eyes clear. "I wish you hadn't. Thank you, Gil-san."

Gil felt himself settle into stillness with those words. It was not forgiveness Alphonse offered. It was more real than that. "So do I," he said, quietly. "And you're welcome." His own sincerity surprised him.

Alphonse pushed a wooden plate with half the pomegranate seeds on it across the table. "I suppose I should tell you what came next. I only really know it from what other people have said, but I know Nii-san and I ran for it."

Gil listened and ate the sweet, crunchy seeds one by one. It was late by the time Al finished, and Gil felt tired--more than tired, wrung out.

He also felt more at peace than he had for a long time.

He turned over new thoughts, as they cleaned up. "You and your brother succeeded in your search, last time," he said, finally. "But the cost was one I think you wouldn't pay again."

Alphonse nodded firmly as he swept away the fresh stone chips in the bedroom and unrolled his bed. "The Stone isn't the right way. I know that, at least."

"Knowledge might be, though," Gil offered, knowing that he would once have denounced any outsider seeking the old knowledge of his people. "You are... welcome here for as long as you search." He started to unroll his own bedding and hesitated. He'd long since moved his bed across the room, next to Alphonse's, the easier to wake him from nightmares.

Alphonse smiled up at him, smoothing his bedroll, and it struck Gil that that was what he had wanted, why he had spoken: to see Alphonse's hope, undamaged. That hope seemed... very important. "Thank you for that, too, Gil-san." Alphonse helped unroll Gil's bedding the rest of the way and patted it briskly into place beside his.

Gil lay down silently, accepting Alphonse's wordless assurance that it was well.

He was surprised to wake the next morning from a sleep unbroken by nightmares. He had expected telling over some of the ugliest parts of Alphonse's lost past to call to those memories.

Then again, perhaps it had. Alphonse slept quietly, but his arms were wrapped tightly around one of Gil's and he refused to let go. After a few gentle tugs, Gil gave in and turned on his side to settle Alphonse against him more comfortably until the boy woke. His mouth tugged up helplessly into a faint smile as Alphonse relaxed with a sigh and moved closer.

Gil lay and watched the light grow slowly outside the window, thinking back to another life when his older brother had read him to sleep on stormy nights and stayed with him, safe and warm.

He was smiling for real by the time Al woke and stared at him with wonder in the morning sun.

A/N: Those who are wondering how on earth Scar can be here should read Long Enough.

Long, Like Memory

Four moments when Miyuki actually thinks about his hair, often to keep from thinking about something else. Drama with Angst and mild UST, I-3

His mother always combed his hair for school.

"Kazuya! Breakfast!"

He thumped down the stairs, dragging his book bag behind him by one strap. "Coming!" He scrambled up into his chair at the table, across from his dad who had the morning paper folded beside his plate, and grinned up at his mother as she set his smaller plate in front of him. Her eyes danced when she laughed.

"Oh, Kazuya." Cool fingers smoothed back his hair, which he'd splashed water on this morning to try to make it lie down flat. It had... kind of worked. "Hold still for a moment, sweetheart."

He stuffed a piece of toast in his mouth first, but then held obediently still while the comb tugged gently through his hair, smoothing the top down and the sides back so they didn't fluff out. He could never figure out how she did it. Even his dad couldn't do it; the time he'd tried, when Kaa-san had been too tired out to get up one morning, Kazuya's hair had stuck up all over, and they'd both had exactly the same helpless look in the mirror, and his mother had laughed and laughed when he'd gone to say goodbye before leaving, even though it made her cough.

So he sat still every morning while she combed his hair and finished with a pat. "There you go! Eat up, now, so you have energy for the whole day."

Kazuya promptly shoveled rice into his mouth. "Thank you, Kaa-san!"

"Swallow before talking," his dad directed, completing the final morning step with a shake of his head and a tiny quirk at the corner of his mouth. It got a little bigger when Kazuya swallowed and smiled back at him, wide and happy.

Kazuya liked mornings.

(He never did figure out how his mother had made his hair so neat, and eventually he stopped trying. Maybe it really was the pat that did it.)

The first time Kazuya put on a catcher's skull-cap, it flattened his hair right into his eyes.

"You're going to need to push your hair back as you put it on," the coach said, and Kazuya could hear the laugh the man was holding down under the faint wobble in his voice.

A few tries to swipe his hair back fast enough to get the helmet over it and the coach was coughing unconvincingly into his fist, so Kazuya relieved the poor guy by laughing himself. "I'll practice at home!" he promised, reaching for his water bottle. Water was pretty much the only way he'd ever gotten his hair to lie down, even a little.

He ignored the stares on the train home. The older kids had already had a good laugh over how his hair was sticking up, after practice. At home, he carefully followed the directions in his mother's old cookbook to make dinner the way she couldn't any more, standing on the step-stool and pinning faintly stained and heat-stiffened pages under two cups. After eating, he carefully wrapped his dad's portion for when he finally came in from the workshop. And then he took the odd, brim-less helmet upstairs to practice in front of the bathroom mirror. The helmet was a lot heavier than his cloth cap, and he couldn't duck into it quite the same way. His forehead was a little scraped up by the time he thought he had the hang of it. But that was okay. He'd learned how to doctor his own scrapes lately, and he thought he was getting pretty good at it.

After a few months of having the catcher's mask get caught in the hair sticking out the sides of the skull-cap, he asked Fukuda-san, the barber, if he could make the sides shorter and answered the man's jovial comments about growing up and paying attention to his looks with a wide grin. It kept most people from wanting any more of an answer. Frankly, he thought the way Fukuda-san trimmed and fussily shaped the hair in front of his ears looked a little silly, but it did get rid of the clumps over his ears when he was wearing the catcher's equipment, so that was fine.

(He only thought once about how brightly his mother would have laughed to see, and then he made himself not think about that again.)

"You should do something with your hair," Kuramochi said out of the blue on afternoon, as they waited for the math teacher. He had turned around in his chair and was squinting rather judgmentally at Kazuya's hair. Which, admittedly, was probably sticking up a bit from where Kazuya had his fingers shoved into it while he leaned his head on one hand and tried not to fall asleep. Batting angles and distances were doodled in the margins of his notebook around last week's far more boring details on how to calculate the missing angle of a quadrilateral.

"Mm." He turned the area equation around to calculate diameter and made a face. What good was this to know, anyway? What really mattered was the angle and spin of the ball as it came in...

"Seriously, you look like an upside-down mop most days," Kuramochi prodded, and Kazuya finally slouched back in his seat with a snort.

"You're the last one I want to hear that from, Hair Cream-san."

"Hey!" Kuramochi ducked the class rep's dirty look and hissed, "I do not use hair cream!"

"Not anymore," Miyuki agreed sunnily, and stifled a laugh at Kuramochi's growl. The guy should know better than to play this game with Kazuya, especially considering the photographic evidence passed around by Kuramochi's third-year roommate and foresightfully secured by Kazuya. "Besides," he added, more to the point, "why should I bother when I spend all my time with my hair mashed down under one helmet or another?"

"There are some times we're not playing," Kuramochi said, but only half-heartedly and Kazuya didn't dignify it with an answer. They both knew that time boiled down to class hours and not much else. It was one reason Kazuya was at Seidou, after all.

The math teacher finally slid the door open and the class rep called "Stand!" Under the scrape of chairs and shuffle of feet, Kuramochi muttered, "You look like a little kid, still, as long as no one can see your eyes. It's just weird."

Kazuya was distantly glad that Kuramochi was sitting in front of him, and not behind. He had sharp eyes, and might have wondered about Kazuya's stillness before Kazuya could get it under control again.

(He hadn't even tried to comb his hair back for almost four years. Three years, ten months, and twenty-three days, actually, but who was counting?)

The first-years were gathered around one corner of their usual table, whispering over something, and Miyuki craned his neck for a look as he went past with his dinner tray. It was always good to know what they were up to, especially given Sawamura's moments of amusingly bizarre behavior. Kazuya knew there was no way on earth the boy had been raised in a dojo, but sometimes Sawamura acted like he wanted to have been, or had maybe been raised on the movie set of one. There were really times that Sawamura's dramatics reminded him of Mei, and he was saving up that observation to tell them both, so he could see what kind of fits they both pitched over it.

"...he looks so young!" Haruichi was saying.

"Well, it is from when he was in middle school," Kanemaru pointed out, but trailed off at the end as if he too were struck by the apparent youth of whoever they were talking about.

"And he was amazing even then!" Sawamura sounded vastly enthused, but Kazuya didn't put much weight on that. Sawamura usually sounded enthused over whatever he was talking about, including dorm chores. More usefully, his expansive gesturing made several other first-years duck and Kazuya caught a glimpse of the old paper they were gathered around. There was a large picture of Chris-senpai on the front of the section, looking very much as Kazuya remembered him from two years ago. He smiled a little to himself and strolled on. No harm in a little hero-worship now and then; if it weren't Chris it would probably have been one of this year's MVPs or something.

"What are the first-years up to?" Kuramochi asked as Kazuya sat down across from him.

Kazuya cast a quick eye over the third-year tables to make sure Chris wasn't there yet before he smirked and said, clearly enough to carry to the first-years, "They're discussing how cute Chris-senpai was in middle school."

Sawamura's outraged protest rose over the snickering, and even Kuramochi's cackle, and Kazuya took a composed bite of his dinner. Every now and then he wondered if maybe getting a rise out of Sawamura was beneath him as too easy, but the kid's reactions were great. It was like sugar candyâ€”no nutritional value at all but still tasty. It was probably a doubly good thing Kazuya had turned Mei down, now he thought about it; he'd have gotten metaphorical cavities for sure, in a battery with Mei, who rose to the bait just as easily.

Chris' entrance provoked another flurry, this time to hide the newspaper, and Kazuya snickered some more.

As dinner conversation turned to classes and practice, though, the image of a younger Chris stuck in the back of his head. Chris-senpai was actually looking a lot more like he had back then, now; aiming Sawamura at him had definitely been a good idea. The memory of Chris from their middle school match, of all that sun-bright talent and brilliant game-making, was so clear in Kazuya's mind that it was actually startling to look up and see Chris pass their table, taller and broader, still with that shining presence but more dignified now, all his edges sleek and tucked-in.

The thought that Chris-senpai was the only one Kazuya would trust to comb his hair back, smooth and neat like it used to be, was so unexpected, sneaking past the things Kazuya didn't let himself think about, that its arrival was like a shock up his spine.

He must have shown it somehow, because Chris-senpai paused and glanced down at him, questioning. "Miyuki-kun? Is something wrong?"

Kazuya shook himself and grinned up at Chris. "Nope, all good!"

Chris' eyes held his for a suspended, breathless moment before he nodded quietly and moved on to the third-years' tables.

"Guess the first-years aren't the only ones with crushes, huh?" Kuramochi asked, grinning wickedly.

Kazuya rolled his eyes and flicked his hand dismissively. "Like anyone in this whole club, yeah." He swallowed another bite and gave Kuramochi a toothy smile. "Not always on Chris-senpai, of course."

Kuramochi glared, but they'd been holding Chris-senpai and Kominato-senpai over each other's heads for more than a year and Kazuya knew neither of them would actually rat the other out. In his more honest moments he admitted, ruefully, that they were both obvious enough there was probably no point in doing so. They were probably lucky the senpai remembered their own little crushes and were relatively kind about such things, for values of "kind" that could be "not very" in Kominato's case, and sometimes he really did wonder about Kuramochi's taste. Youthful days of high school in a sports dorm, he supposed. It probably made them all a little crazy.

So he kicked Kuramochi lightly under the table and said, "Anyway, about batters for fall, has Zono noticed anyone new who's a good contact hitter, besides Toujou?"

Kuramochi scowled at his rice. "Not really, and that's going to be a pain. Asou might be a decent power hitter if he doesn't drop out during summer training, but it's going to be a weaker line-up at this rate..."

They traded names around mouthfuls of stew, and badgered Zono for more when he came back from getting seconds, and Kazuya settled back into dealing with things he knew were possible.

(He took the thought of Chris-senpai's fingers moving through his hair and closed it carefully up in a mental box, and put the box on a mental shelf beside his mother's.)

(Just because he didn't think about some things didn't mean he forgot them.)

End

The Wandering Fire

Shen Wei's ten thousand years of watching Kunlun's lives and, eventually, finding his own. Character Study, Drama, Angst (lots of angst), I-5

So, about the Changes arc. I loved the Guardian drama, but the backstory and cosmology of the novel appealed to me mightily. I mean, really; gods and demons, ten thousand years of angst, who could resist? And when I went to think about it, the two actually fit together reasonably well, if you tinker both ends a bit. So this arc is a fusion of the drama and novel.

A fusion isn't quite like a crossover. Instead of, for example, Inu Yasha and company being dropped into the Cowboy Bebop world, a fusion means that Inu Yasha is Spike. So here we have a novel!Shen Wei who is, or becomes, drama!Shen Wei. Part of the fun is, of course, getting him from point A to point B, and the question this arc asks is: what might happen to make the novel backstory lead to the drama canon events? And what would happen next, especially to Zhao Yunlan?

To find out, forget the drama preamble, and read on.

When his love chose to release his final hold on the world, to make way for the new growth of mortal life and the spirits that life created, Shen Wei watched it happen. He watched, and did nothing to stop it, nothing to deny Kunlun's choice. But at the end of that choice, he made one of his own. He caught Kunlun's soul before it could unravel and brought it to Shen Nong.

He didn't like the price Shen Nong demanded from him, before agreeing to give Kunlun's soul to the cycle of reincarnation. To be guardian to the humans and the shadow of death to his own kind was a harsh task. He agreed to it, though, because one of those humans would be Kunlun.

And so Shen Wei watched most of Shen Nongâ€™s being shift, flow the way the material existence of gods so easily flowed, into another form. That form was an immaterial shape of potential and life-brightness rather than physical being but it still spoke to him of a wheel, an endless turning. He watched that turning catch up two souls, Kunlun and Shen Nong, both now shorn of the weight of memory and power that would mark a god, and buried his face in his hands, shaking with relief and pain both.

It was done.

Kunlun would live, if not as himself and not as Shen Weiâ€™s any more. He would move through the world as a human, terrifyingly fragile and brief, but he would live.

Live again and again, with no memory of Shen Wei.

The voraciousness at the core of Shen Weiâ€™s nature raged over that, screamed at him to seek out something to break, some power to conquer and consume that might change what was. For the first time in many centuries, he was tempted to listen. Yet, at the same time, Kunlun's parting gift, the part of Kunlunâ€™s own nature that heâ€™d poured into Shen Wei, soothed the rage a little, gentled it until Shen Wei could tell it was actually grief. Perhaps it was even what had moved Shen Nong to agree to their bargain, in the end.

Or perhaps it had just been the possibility of seeing all ghosts finally destroyed, if the seal between realms was ever broken again.

Shen Wei sighed and straightened. Whatever Shen Nongâ€™s motive, heâ€™d agreed. A bargain between gods, even if one of them was only half a god, impressed itself on the material of their very beings. Now the integrity of that seal was his to ensure. He would follow that imperative that was now half of his nature.

But first, he would follow the spark of Kunlunâ€™s soul and see where he found life again.

For quite a while Shen Wei found no difficulty in fulfilling his bargain to contain his people while also keeping an eye on Kunlunâ€™s soul. Considered frankly, few ghosts had any particular ability with planning ahead; most would seek the nearest source of power or life-warmth to attack and devour. If that source was another ghost, without the generative capability of a god or human or shape-changer, that would be cause for rage but not for plotting an escape from their realm. Shen Wei merely needed to keep a distant eye on the seal between realms, and visit now and then to check it in detail.

It wasnâ€™t until Kunlun was reborn in Shuâ€™s great inland city that Shen Wei realized he might need to do more than that. The city was far enough from the gateway and itâ€™s ancient marker tree that even he had trouble seeing that far without time slipping forward or back in his sight. Still, it wasnâ€™t too difficult to craft alarms to leave at the gate. That much use of his power drew down his ability to shield his nature and kept him further from humans than heâ€™d have preferred, but if he was careful to conceal and contain himself he could still come close enough to listen to Kunlunâ€™s current incarnation debate cosmology with his fellow priest-administrators.

â€œ...really reasonable that none of the gods could have stopped a mere flood from causing such widespread devastation as the Second Chronicle speaks of? Even Beiling could handle a flood.â€

â€œBeiling, the king who drowned and returned to life?â€ Kunlun asked dryly. â€œWho was selected by Duyu himself to watch over the people precisely because he proved to have power enough over water to handle a flood? It wouldnâ€™t surprise me at all if the Chronicle is true.â€

Shen Wei wondered, sometimes, just how much or little Kunlun truly remembered of his past existence, to be so certain the legends were true. Shen Nong had said he would remember nothing, could remember nothing lest the weight of his soul be too great for the still-fragile inertia of reincarnation to hold. But Shen Wei still wondered, sometimes.

By the time Yu of Xia started his ambitious canal project, Shen Wei had stopped wondering if Kunlun remembered and started wondering if humans in general had somehow managed to imprint a universal urge to be prepared in the re-event of catastrophic flooding.

If so, he didn't suppose he could blame them, but to Shen Wei the changing moods of the landâ€™s rivers would always remind him of Kunlun. Their summer ferocity, that surge that swept over the land and altered it, reminded him just as intensely as the calmer, nurturing flow of autumn. He loved them both.

He wondered if it was irony that Kunlun was here, heaving shovel-fulls of dirt alongside the rest of his team of canal diggers, working to tame one of his own wild rivers. Yet he knew, watching Kunlun straighten and scrub a dirt-smeared hand across his forehead, laughing at some joke from one of his men, that Kunlun had liked the wildness in humans, too, and probably would have enjoyed watching the contest between the two, no matter which triumphed.

He wished he could do more than watch, himself. That he could be down there with them, with Kunlun. That he could lay his hands on those bare shoulders, lean against Kunlun, listen to what made him laugh. The ache of that wishing grew until he thought it might cut off his breath completely.

Shen Wei watched Kunlun, a soldier this life, climb the shallow hill behind his current encampment and sprawl in the tall grass, leaning back on his hands to look up at the clear arch of the sky overhead. It was the time of evening that Kunlun had called the blue hour—after sunset but before full dark, when the sky was a sweep of shifting blue, trees and mountains stark black against it as the strongest stars began to shine.

Kunlun had always said this hour reminded him of Shen Wei himself. Dark, yes, but beautiful and changeable, all shapes knife-edged sharp but with the sky softening behind them for this brief time. Kunlun wouldn't be thinking about that right now, though. Couldn't remember it, because Shen Wei had chosen Kunlun's life over his memory, over preserving those memories as all Kunlun would be. He didn't regret doing it, but seeing Kunlun be so much himself, still, hurt like a blade slicing down Shen Wei's heart, over and over and over.

Shen Wei drew concealment tighter around him and watched over the encampment as blue slid away into blackness.

It was a handful of rebirths after that that Shen Wei first lost track of Kunlun, who had died while Shen Wei was examining the seal between realms. That was when it came home to him just how widely humans had spread themselves. It was possible that the ghost who managed to thread past the seal and take up Shen Wei's time tracking him down didn't entirely deserve to bear the full weight of Shen Wei's frustration, but if it served to deter others of his kind from trying his patience, Shen Wei would consider it a net gain.

It took him a ridiculously long time to remember that he carried a spark of Kunlun's soul with him, considering that his fingers found that bead of golden warmth at least twice a day, for comfort. By the time he'd followed the whisper of connection all the way north into the mountains of Yan, he was determined to do whatever was necessary to keep his watch over the seal without leaving Kunlun. He'd followed Kunlun's soul through another rebirth, this time in the capital of Luoyi (and hadn't the capital been further west just a bit ago? couldn't humans ever hold still?) before he finished the beacon that would connect his awareness to the sacred tree that marked the gateway between realms. It took significant power to keep up, more than his simple beacons had, but it wasn't as though he needed his power for anything else, these days.

The first time Shen Wei heard the phrase â€˜The Mandate of Heavenâ€™ he was hard-pressed not to laugh out loud. Heâ€™d never observed any mandate to guide or restrain living creatures. Gods and ghosts and humans and beasts, they all sought their own way and then had to deal with the consequences, and the heavens said nothing about it that heâ€™d ever heard.

â€œThe true nature of the Mandate must be care,â€ Kunlun expounded enthusiastically, and probably a little drunkenly, to two of his fellow scholars. â€œItâ€™s when care for the land and people fail that Heaven withdraws its approval, thatâ€™s demonstrated time and again!â€

"No, no!" one of his at least as drunk companions complained, waving his cup. "Clearly the law is the true core of the Mandate! Care must follow the path of the law, otherwise it's blind and you'll have no balance at all."

"Only," Kunlun leaned back with a sidelong smirk at their third member, "if you let care be tainted by personal concerns."

"Which is the only natural approach, and not a corruption at all," the third man huffed.

Shen Wei leaned against the wall in his shadowed corner, arms crossed, smiling a little to himself. At least it was entertaining to listen to. Kunlun still had all of his gift for bringing the most unlikely of conversants together.

When the great states the humans had scraped back together proceeded to spend a solid couple centuries warring with each other, Shen Wei was entirely unsurprised. Neither was he surprised when the constant tide of wars sweeping back and forth, flaring all kinds of passions higher, tempted more of his kind to dare the gateway between realms. The spell he'd left to warn him of such tugged at his attention more and more over those years, and he was grateful that Kunlun's soul seemed to have settled into mercantile pursuits for a while, with only occasional forays into politics. It was easier on Shen Wei's nerves, that way.

Kunlun's idea of useful politics was often a little... unconventional. If he didn't have money on hand to use as a lever, he'd probably resort to direct action. Again.

Shen Wei wasn't sure he was ready to watch over another life of dashing banditry, yet.

Shen Wei sat beside the bed (the deathbed), curled tight in on himself, head buried in his knees.

Two years.

One moment of carelessness, letting Kunlun, letting San, realize he was present, and he hadn't been able to leave again. And for that weakness, San had died. He was human; he'd only been able to survive Shen Wei's presence at his side, in his bed, for two brief years.

And, like a fool, he'd promised to await San's, Kunlun's, return. How could he keep that promise, when it would mean Kunlun's death? Death because of him?

If only Shen Wei's nature could be sealed away, the way his people were sealed. Half of his nature was a god's nature, wasn't it? Kunlun's own nature, his last gift, taken in and made Shen Wei's own. If only there was a way to lock away the half that was ghost. He would do it, in a heartbeat, if it would prevent this grief happening ever again, prevent Kunlun dying for Shen Wei's weakness, the next time it overcame his better sense.

He knew he would never, could never, deny Kunlun, no matter what shape or name or life he wore. This would happen again, the next time their paths crossed, unless he stayed away entirely or...

His link to the gateway tugged at his attention, a flash of vision of the sacred tree Nuwa had planted to mark the gate, and Shen Wei uncoiled upright, eyes wide.

The tree.

None of the first gods lived as themselves, any longer, but the tree touched by Nuwa's hand still lived and grew. It had its own spirit; Shen Wei had felt it, when he'd set his watch-guard spell. The tree had its own share of a god's nature. And Shen Wei knew, from the working out of his bargain with Shen Nong, that deals made between gods branded themselves deep into the world. If the tree's spirit consented to help, could they perhaps create a bargain that would seal Shen Wei's ghost nature while he was in this realm? Could they, perhaps, even transmute Shen Wei's power into something that would protect humans?

The breath of hope finally unlocked Shen Wei's bleak, frozen despair, melted it back into grief, and he turned to bury the tears that stormed through him in the bed he and San had shared, fingers fisting tight in the blankets. "I will wait for you," he promised again, hoarse, when they'd finally eased. "But it can't be here." He pushed himself up to his feet, scrubbing his palms over his face, and took a deep breath.

He would try.

It took nearly thirty years. The life of trees was slow, and the kind of working Shen Wei asked for was not a small matter. It built gradually between them, not a bargain spoken once and bound in that moment, but a repeating cycle, year on year, that circled between them again and again. Again and again, Shen Wei agreed and offered; again and again, the tree accepted his power, drank it and changed it, like sunlight into sap. And as the last year drew down into the darkness of winter, Shen Wei felt the bargain crystalize between them, gain matter and reality in the world. The shape of it flickered, now a wood tile, now a pressed sheet, now stamped metal. Finally, as it dropped into Shen Wei's outstretched hands, it settled into a scroll of wood slats. Marked on the outside, as though burned there, was a single word.

Guardian.

Shen Wei smiled faintly, resting his hand on the tree. "Thank you."

The leaves above him rustled without any breeze.

Their bargain hadn't taken all of his power as a ghost. He was, after all, his people's ruler—the strongest among them. But about half was sealed away and siphoned off, now, he thought. It should allow the other half of his nature to dominate, in this realm at least, and to restrain the relentless void of a ghost's nature from consuming whatever lives of humans or shape-changers he came close to. If the human in question was the holder of the bargain's physical token, then the thing would be certain. In time, this bargain might even affect all ghosts, through him. Shen Wei straightened and lifted a hand to lay his fingertips against his pendant, listening for the whisper of Kunlun's new life.

He arrived just in time for the wedding.

Shen Wei kept himself wrapped deep in concealment as he watched Kunlun and his bride depart from the banquet, watched the wistfulness in Kunlun's eyes as he glanced around, as if looking for someone absent. He watched Kunlun pat his bride's hand, and smile kindly, if distantly, and then Shen Wei went to find the nearest bottle of plum liquor and drink himself unconscious.

When the pain in his heart had died down enough that he could face consciousness for more than an hour at a time, again, he asked among the Crow tribe to see if any of the Cat tribe had survived. Not entirely to his surprise, the Crows told him Da Qing himself was still alive; at another time, he might have been amused by their apparent glee that the dark Envoy had some business with the cat. He laid the Guardian scroll in Da Qing's hands, told him where Kunlun was starting married life, and retreated to the gateway between realms.

For years, the quiet presence of the sacred tree was the only company his freshly torn heart could endure.

It was whispers of the brutality of a budding empire that drew Shen Wei away from the peaceful company of the sacred tree again, and out into the world to follow the faint voice of his pendant until he found Kunlun's soul again.

Not to stay. Not to get close enough to be caught again; that would still be dangerous, regardless of the locks he'd put on his own power, and he wasn't quite fool enough to court that kind of pain twice. But if Kunlun was in danger, in this sudden festival of military conquest and consolidation, there were still things Shen Wei could do.

Somehow, he wasn't surprised to find Kunlun among the ranks of the new scholar-officials, still speaking on the nature of benevolence, if more quietly this life.

For all that Kunlun favored peace, he'd always had a talent for finding trouble. Just look at Shen Wei, himself.

The next time Shen Wei visited his own realm, he was honestly surprised by what he found.

"Bureaucracy? Really?" he asked, as he was shown through an already growing library of laws and precedents. Admittedly, some of those laws were his own dictates, as he saw paging through a volume or two.

"We may be creatures of chaos, but exactly for that reason we always seek form. It's one of the things we take, when we consume human life, is it not?" The one who was now calling himself only Regent paced beside him and cocked a sharp eye up at him. "And even through we are sealed away from the human realm, we are not separate. Every time one of your people looks up, we see the light of the Lamp. It was created to comfort and guide, for all that it's also a prison to us."

"And every time someone sneaks past it," Shen Wei added, dryly, "they bring back a new piece of human form to imitate." The Regent spread his hands, noncommittally, and Shen Wei stifled a sigh. He'd known he was sacrificing some control, when he chose to guard the seal largely from the other side, but someone had to be in the human realm to do so and he certainly didn't trust anyone else with that.

"Very well. But what's this about choosing a Lord?"

"Never one that could supersede you, of course." The Regent bowed deeply, and Shen We suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Clearly, the Regent had absorbed some human court manners, and likely the notion of politicking that went with them. "But laws need a final judge, do they not?" He led the way back out into the high ceilinged central hall, and gestured to the broad, elaborately carved throne at one end. "And, as you see..."

The throne had a feel of embedded power that Shen Wei recognized from the token of his bargain with the sacred tree, though on a smaller scale. He skimmed his fingers close to the seat, testing the feel of it, and jerked back. "This is—!"

"What is necessary to preserve impartiality," the Regent finished, quite evenly. "Is that not ideal? The one who wishes to take this throne will serve the needs of our realm."

Would be bound to serve, every bit of will and desire bound to the execution of those growing volumes of laws, until death. "I think you've learned a little too much from humans, lately," Shen Wei said, low and sharp.

The Regent looked back at him, calm. "Would anything less hold one of our kind to such a task?"

Shen Wei's mouth tightened. He knew the nature of ghosts; it was still half of his own nature, after all. His people were rapacious and violent, even in their hunger for some stabilizing, ordering force to form around. Those who were even capable of desiring peace were still rare, even after thousands of years of the Lamp's slow influence.

It was the reason he had never yet destroyed the Regent.

"Very well," he said, at last. "But be sure that those who seek this Lordship know the terms of it before they choose."

Unmistakeable satisfaction flashed over the Regent's face as he bowed again. "As you command, my Lord Envoy."

Staying near, but not too near, to Kunlun's incarnations was even more frustrating than watching over him from hiding close by had been, which Shen Wei hadn't previously thought was possible. To distract himself, he started listening to the local scholars and priests again. It passed the time, and watching the concept of family be re-worked to support imperial rule honestly amused him.

Really, it was no wonder his people mirrored humans so closely whenever there was contact between them. Humans had their own share of the world's darker elements, and sometimes the generative properties of their souls only went to fuel that.

It was on one of his visits to the Imperial University that Shen Wei first heard another amusing trend in philosophy.

"Of course the legends aren't literal." The mid-rank scholar he'd been listening in on gave his student a withering look. "The gods named in our legends represent universal principles. Their tales are a moral guide to be unraveled, not some kind of engineering map of creation."

Shen Wei couldn't help but wonder, wryly, just what kind of moral guide he was supposed to be, then.

After the long peace of the empire, the bloodshed that followed came as a shock, even to Shen Wei. Kunlun lost three lives in the span of little more than half a century, and frantic worry drew Shen Wei to follow his soul more closely again.

The farmer in the central plains died.

The soldier in the east died.

The small town scholar's son in the north died, and that time Shen Wei couldn't stand it any longer, tried to intervene, but he could only hold off so many unless he wanted to break his oaths, shatter his promises to Kunlun and the tree both, draw all of his power back into himself and give himself up to the side of his nature that could call down the death of a whole battlefield.

He did consider it.

In the end his memory of Kunlun, and his word, held. Barely. He took them both back to the sacred tree and left the humans to their own devices. He didn't think he could do anything else without breaking.

Even the whisper of Kunlun's soul fire in his pendant was faint and sad.

The humans were building a city around the sacred tree.

A city.

Over the gateway to the underworld.

Shen Wei wasn't sure whether to be impressed or to despair.

Actually, from the things he overheard among the architects and engineers, he suspected the humans were building everywhere. It seemed the centuries of strife he'd been trying not to think too hard on had finally eased, given way again to an empire of trade and construction. And also foolishness, but perhaps he should take human forgetfulness as a compliment of sorts. He had kept his part of the bargain well enough that they didn't know, any more, to fear this place.

At least, he reflected, ducking out of the tent where they kept the maps, it looked as though they planned an open space around the sacred tree. Nevertheless, he was going to have to stay in this region far more constantly than he had before. With the warmth of human lives so temptingly close to the seal, more ghosts would attempt to find their way past it.

Shen Wei drew concealment closer around him as a party of cheerfully drunk workers passed in the darkness. Perhaps it was for the best. If it kept him away from Kunlun's human lives... perhaps it was for the best.

Perhaps Shen Wei had never truly been meant to be anything but a threat of death in the shadows.

Shen Wei watched from a corner of study belonging to the senior Dragon City physician, nearly vibrating with conflicting impulses.

He should have known. He should have known this would happen. He hadn't gotten to Wan Jun in time, and this was the result. Two senior physicians and their apprentices, all clustered around a table with a dead ghost on it, exclaiming over the results of their examination.

"The temperature hasn't changed at all, in death!" The older physician sounded nearly rapturous with the medical puzzle before him. "We absolutely must examine the thyroid."

"And the structure of the eyes! Did you see how they changed color?" His younger colleague was nearly bouncing with excitement. Shen Wei rubbed his forehead and wondered whether it would really be that great a breach of his bargain if he killed them both himself.

The casual disrespect for the body of one of his own was... all right, not actually surprising. Kunlun had spent a few lives as a physician and, whatever the era, outside the presence of friends or family of the deceased, physicians with bodies in front of them tended to be either excited over something interesting to study or else furious over what they saw as a personal failure. So should he try to discourage or enable this? Would a medical study of his people arm humans better to be of at least a little assistance capturing trespassers, or would it tempt them to foolish trespass themselves?

"Do you think he might have been taking medicinal compounds to achieve this?" the youngest of the apprentices asked, looking up from the scroll where he was keeping notes.

Shen Wei stifled a snort of amusement. Perhaps he'd wait and see whether any of their conclusions even approached the truth, before deciding what to do about it.

Shen Wei stood at the back of the Yashou tribesâ€™ meeting and listened to their increasingly heated debate.

"We need some kind of help with this. There are too many of them for us alone!" the normally composed Snake Elder insisted.

The Crow Elder folded his arms, unconvinced. "Help from the humans would only be more trouble in the long run. You wouldn't even have suggested it if you hadn't taken a human lover, Fu You."

The Flower Elder waved her hands between them, looking exasperated. "Please leave off about that, already. Just because she refused you, xiao-Ding..."

"My relationship with a human only means that I am more aware of their resources than you are," Fu You said, tight and controlled. "Lay down your pride and think! If we oppose a dozen Dixingren alone, we'll lose some of our people. If we invite help from those who have it to give, we have a far better chance of all surviving this."

"I don't disagree, but the way they've found into our world is in Yashou territory." The Flower Elder wrapped her arms around herself, as if chilled. "If this keeps happening, we will take the brunt of whatever damage is done each time. Humans can't help us with that."

Fu You folded her hands on the table between them. "There is one who deals with such things, is there not? Your own people have seen him, Zhu Mei."

"Their Black-cloaked Envoy," the Flower Elder murmured, frowning. "True enough, but how could we contact him?"

Despite his own intense annoyance with the current problem, Shen Wei smiled at the perfect cue and relaxed the concealment he'd kept folded around himself to let the chill of his presence curl outward. "There is no need; I am here."

The Crow Elder shot to his feet, and even Zhu Mei stiffed, though she rose with the slow care of someone feeling her age in her bones. Fu You, on the other hand, didn't even start. "I thought you might be, Honorable Envoy."

Shen Wei was impressed, which didn't happen often. "Indeed. Trespassers in your world are my care, and I have failed to contain this incursion."

"Whatever your power, there is only the one of you." Fu You sat straight, watching him with dark, level eyes. "If we can hold off these trespassers, as you call them, can you close this breach they have made within our territory?"

"I can. It was why I came tonight." He withdrew the branch he'd spent weeks separating from the sacred tree without killing the wood, and held it out on his palm. "Once I have done so, I would entrust the key that will lock that door to the Yashou, if the Elders can agree to keep it."

A quick exchange of glances, including one blistering glare from Zhu Mei, and all three of them nodded, though reluctantly in the case of the Crow Elder. "Fu You will speak and act for all the tribes, in this," Zhu Mei said, firmly.

"Then when the passage is locked, I will entrust this to her." Shen Wei hesitated. There were actually fewer than ten trespassers, by his estimate, but they included at least three of the strongest among his kind, short of himself. "I have no wish to interfere in the Yashou's governance decisions, but I strongly suggest you do find allies in this. I expect sealing the passage to take at least a full turn of the moon, and those who broke in include several who are very dangerous."

Fu You lifted her chin and didn't even glance at her fellow Elders. "We will find what strength and allies we need." The Crow Elder's mouth was a tight line, but he bent his head and didn't gainsay her.

Shen Wei really was quite impressed.

The bigger Dragon City got, the more sympathy Shen Wei had with Kunlun's old solitary tendencies. He hadn't viscerally understood why Kunlun preferred to seclude himself, back then, though he certainly hadn't protested the opportunity to have the one who'd given his existence meaning all to himself. Now he thought he understood a little better.

Humans got into everything.

Shen Wei was finding it harder and harder to conceal his presence, or to keep even his restrained power from affecting the people of the city. There had been two cases he knew of, and probably more he didn't, of people sickening simply because his proximity had drained their life before he'd realized that the young idiots had chosen the grove his home was in—on the edge of the Snake tribe's local territory, no less—as a trysting spot! He'd considered spreading rumors that the grove was haunted, only to find there already were such rumors and that it hadn't stopped anyone. He couldn't abandon the city without missing those people, and even beasts, of his realm that managed to sneak around the seal, but something clearly had to be done.

If humans were sane creatures, he reflected rather darkly as he stalked through the back streets of the city, he might simply cease to conceal his presence and rely on the harsh chill of it to hold them at a distance. Other creatures had at least that much sense, as the sudden silence of the city's dogs at his passing demonstrated. It might even work on the majority of humans.

"Hey! Who's there?" a man's voice called from the door of one of the wine houses as he passed.

Unfortunately for Shen Wei, his bargain encompassed all of them, including those who were too bold for their own health. He slipped down a darker alley, trusting his robes to blend with the shadows there. He was too annoyed to bother with more.

A yank on those robes jerked him to a halt.

"Hey!"

Shen Wei rounded on the fool who dared to lay hands on him, power flaring outward, dark and furious.

The man who had followed him cowered back with a panicked yelp, eyes wide and staring in the darkness, and Shen Wei stopped and hauled his power back in, closing his eyes for a breath. He hated his own people's fear of him, even when it was what let him rule them, let him keep his word. He wasn't any more fond of humans' fear, no matter how short his temper this evening.

"Go," he told the man, low. He didn't have to say it twice; the man scrambled back toward the faint torchlight of the road without a word. Shen Wei sighed and turned to walk on, slower now.

The city wasn't going anywhere, and he could hardly rely on humans suddenly becoming sensible. He needed a way to move among humans without harming them. An innocuous disguise that would pass without notice, without challenges that might stir his temper. That, and some way to keep his power turned inward, limit it in ways even his bargain with the sacred tree didn't. This would all be much easier if more of his nature were Kunlun's, were fluid to his will and intent, the way the gods' forms were.

Shen Wei paused in mid-stride, struck by that thought. Easier, yes, but wasn't that half his nature already, by Kunlun's gift? Could he re-shape that part of him, fold it around the ghost half of his nature? He smiled and touched his pendant, letting himself really listen to the whisper of Kunlun's soul-fire for the first time in centuries. Kunlun, who had liked humans because of their troublesome nature, not in spite of it.

It was worth an attempt.

A little trial and error, and another forty years spent in concealment waiting for the inconveniently observant councilman Lei Min to die, demonstrated that Shen Wei could spend most of his time in his human form. Dragon City had enough trade passing through that an allegedly itinerant scholar or artisan choosing to settle down there wasn't unusual. As long as he didn't choose the same profession or the same district to live in two generations in a row, no one remarked, and he'd certainly seen enough trades, shadowing Kunlun's lives, that he had a considerable store of knowledge to choose his own lives from.

What he hadn't expected was how comfortable it was.

The cool quiet of his current workroom soothed both his human and his deeper senses, and it was easy to lose himself in the scent of medicinal ingredients and the rhythm of preparing them. One final pass with the pestle wheel, and the sound told him the licorice root was ready to measure out. It didn't take any long, drawn-out planning or violent action or make his heart catch in his throat over a risk to one he loved. It was simple. Straightforward. Easy. The weight of the Guardian token's binding even felt lighter, in this form, with his power folded underneath as it was.

A polite tap on the doorframe made him look up with a faint smile. Sure enough, it was young Li, the eldest apprentice in Dragon City's tiny branch school of medicine. "Mr. Shen? Dr. Huang asks—"

"Yes, yes." He waved toward the shelf by the door, where a paper parcel waited. "I prepared it earlier this morning." The open relief on her face made him chuckle. Huang was the most irascible, as well as the most senior, physician of the school, and Li was an earnest young woman who often took his snapping and barking to heart. She snatched up the parcel, bobbed a grateful bow to him, and hurried out.

Perhaps next time someone asked the city's new apothecary to take an apprentice, he'd consider it.

Shen Wei sat in a quiet corner of his favorite tea house, staring down at the cup between his fingers, and thought fast.

The thing he'd been half waiting for, for centuries, had finally happened. One of his people had talked just a little too much, before Shen Wei had caught her, to humans who'd survived the experience. The volume of medical records and case encounters that resided in the city's Records office had been growing bit by small bit over the years, but never with any conclusions that would present a threat to either ghosts or humans. Now that had changed. A report had been added suggesting that his people lived underground, probably underneath Dragon City itself, which was close enough to the truth to get untold numbers of humans in trouble.

Archeology, he decided. He'd need to be a scholar of archeology for his next 'life'. It was starting to be popular, and therefore well-funded, thanks to the imperial court's recent fad for relics of ancient kingdoms. As an archeologist, he could 'discover' a treaty stipulating separation of his people from humans. With official documentation, especially one with the imprimatur of one of the ancient kingdoms so beloved of the current government, it shouldn't be too hard to steer local law enforcement around to keep people from getting too curious for their own good. Especially if he appeared in his own person, to confirm the alleged treaty. Ma Gui, of the Dragon City guards, had already made a bit of a hobby of investigating rumors of Shen Wei's people; he'd make a suitable local contact.

Shen Wei took a slow breath, and a sip of his tea, finally settling back on his bench. That should work. He might need to intimidate a few physicians to keep from being interrogated about the source of his people's abilities, but it should work.

Perhaps, he thought with another slow sip, he'd better wear a mask when he appeared.

A bare generation later, he heard the name Dixing for the first time and had to laugh, if a bit harshly. It suited well enough, given his people were created from the darkest elements of the earth. Dixingren.

So be it.

Shen Wei sat with his back against the sacred tree, arms braced over his knees, and let his head hang down.

That way he didn't need to look at the smoke rising from the city.

He'd forgotten how much this hurt. In the long years since he'd made himself turn away from Kunlun's side, since he'd confined himself to the whisper of Kunlun's soul-fire under his fingers and the knowledge that his love would always live again, he'd let himself forget how much it hurt to lose human companions to violence and upheaval rather than simple age. Dragon City wasn't one of the great urban centers, wasn't home to any branch of the imperial court or regional governors. The last two ruling clans had brought only peace to the city Shen Wei watched over. The greatest threats had been a scant handful of ghosts who found their way past the seal.

He'd let himself forget that humans had their own share of his people's nature within them, had violence and destruction in their core, as well.

A shift in the wind brought the smell of smoke to him again, by turns harsh with the household goods that burned in the wreckage of buildings and queasily rich with the scent of bodies that burned there as well. Shen Wei's hands flinched into fists, and his next breath shook in his lungs. He didn't look up.

There was nothing he could do. All his bargains were to guard humans from ghosts, not from other humans. To guard humans from ghosts, including himself. To keep his bargains, he must do nothing.

He hoped, bitterly, that Shen Nong appreciated this result of the bargain he'd demanded.

Shen Wei listened to the whispers through his open outer screens and smiled as he painted the last tree in the landscape commission he'd been working on this week. He didn't usually think of himself as an artist, but the fashion lately was stylized enough for a steady hand and good eye to stand in for inspiration. There was enough demand to make a viable career, even in the still-small rebuilt city, especially since his favorite occupation of scholarship was not in demand. Rather the reverse, lately.

And the city's children loved to watch him.

He laid aside his brushes, chuckling under his breath at the faint scramble behind him as today's audience hid behind the azaleas that edged his veranda. He made his way out to the pump and carefully kept his back to the little sounds of interest as he washed his brushes and palette.

This 'life' might be one where he took an apprentice. He usually didn't. Anyone that close was the most likely to notice his odd absences, and the times he forgot to let his human form age. But if he wanted to encourage stability, in the city, and reduce the temptation for his people to dare the seal... well, he could do worse than help one of the little ones watching him on their way to a livelihood. For all his power, sometimes the only things he could change were small ones.

Sometimes he wondered if this was the real reason the first gods had chosen to leave the world.

Shen Wei's visits to his own realm had been more frequent, of late. The more he tried to make small places of peace, in his human form and lives, the more he found himself trying to do the same among his own people. Trying to support the few—still so few, but slowly growing in number—who had found little pieces of love, or beauty, or care within them. The girl who lived in the neighborhood nearest the wastelands, who played flute in her open window, music that seemed to calm the passers-by. The archivist he always made a moment to speak with, when he was in the Palace, who mentioned sidelong which cases might need or deserve a touch of the Envoy's intervention. The tea house run by the couple who had never strayed from each other's sides, for centuries, that he left off his formal robes to visit. They were the ones who had taken bits of light, whether from humans or from the distant comfort of the Lamp itself, and nurtured rather than merely devouring them. They were the ones who gave him some faint hope he wouldn't have to spend all of eternity being the threat of a bared blade to his own kind.

Sometimes, though, he had to admit that his people's tendency to adopt every passing trend from humans took him a bit aback.

"Are you saying our own people think the seal is a matter of treaty, now?" he asked, staring at the Regent where they'd stopped short in one of the Palace's halls. "Do they not remember their own lives and beginnings?"

"The greatness of your power blinds you, my Lord Envoy." The man gestured them on down the hall with an obsequious bow at odds with the sharpness of his glance. "You forget that many of our kind, especially those of lesser power, spend most of their capacity for order on keeping their physical forms; they have none to spare for things such as long memory. Many have already taken on that new human name for us—Dixingren, isn't it?" He sniffed, waving his fingers as if to brush away something inconsequential. "If they think themselves some kind of mortal creature, well it will be true enough should they dare the seal between realms won't it?"

Shen Wei's mouth tightened. "Yes. It will." He still held to that. And for a ghost, death meant utter destruction.

The Regent nodded, perfectly agreeable and without a hint of mercy in his cold eyes. "Then all is well. And if the Palace archives keep a copy of this 'treaty', then it's one more thing to give them pause before they attempt it."

"I suppose so," Shen Wei acknowledged, low, and paced on through the halls in silence.

The city's university had been re-built in the new style, and was finally large enough again for Shen Wei to return to his favorite occupation of scholarship without creating many ripples. And just in time, it seemed; the newest school of thought, with its focus on explicit evidence, offered hours of entertainment.

"Obviously, Xu Min's emphasis on the process of learning aligns him with the School of the Heart..."

"But surely you noted," Shen Wei dropped into Feng Gang's pause for breath, "that in his second chapter he refers repeatedly to essential principles." The pause got longer, and he smiled at Feng with an inviting tilt of his head.

"Well," the old blowhard drew himself up, and Shen Wei's smile got a touch wider, "perhaps, but if you read closely, young man, I believe you will observe that Xu frames his concept of principles as static ideals rather than creations of dynamic tension."

"Clearly you have studied him closely." Shen Wei waited for Feng to settle back and start to look smug, and then added casually, "You do not feel, then, that Xu's concept of principles runs counter to the mind as the source of reason?"

A little whisper of interest ran through the room and Feng immediately puffed up again. Shen Wei leaned back and folded his hands, looking just as politely interested as possible.

Hours of entertainment.

The next time Shen Wei circled back around to a medical career, he found the profession had made another of its periodic leaps in knowledge while he was away. There had even been a scholar who'd written on the possible physiological roots of his people's powers, as observed over the centuries in Dragon City, though this was stored right next to several more volumes of disdainful dismissal of the 'legendary' Dixing race. Shen Wei indulged in a quiet laugh over those, as he browsed the additions to the university library.

The new study that truly startled him, though, was the one that held his people must have come to this world from another one entirely. Which, given the separation of realms, wasn't actually all that far off except for the alleged means of transportation.

Which was a spaceship.

Shen Wei had no idea what expression was on his face as he stared at the text in his hands, but it caused a passing student to glance at the title and then laugh.

"Oh, you found Zhang Tao! He's actually getting more of a following, you know; his archeological studies are first rate." The boy waved at the open book. "Even that would be decent circumstantial evidence, at least, if the species he was talking about were actually real."

"Indeed." Shen Wei shook his head, and set the book aside. "I was actually looking for Professor Sun's text on cell biology."

The boy instantly looked sympathetic, which amused him; students were the same whatever the era. "Two shelves over. Good luck; Professor Sun is a real stickler for details and evidence!"

Having spent several 'lives' leading scholarly disputants in circles based entirely on available evidence, Shen Wei just smiled. "I'll be sure to study carefully for him, then."

At first, he thought the rumors of change and unrest were simply another tiresome round of the humans outgrowing another ruling clan (or party as they were calling it now), and he merely kept an eye out for sudden changes in news or fashion that might follow.

When the news that came was of yet more widespread war, and whispers of weapons that might break the very heavens again, he started to prepare a close to his current 'life'. If whispers were even close to truth, the seal between realms might be at risk again. He remembered the chaos and upheaval, the last time the seal broke—the seas upending into land, the air and earth twisting to change places as the fabric of the world itself strained and tore. If it happened again... well, he would keep his bargain and his duty, even if it meant the death of his whole people and most likely of himself too.

But if it happened, he would seek out Kunlun, before he went.

This time, though, it wasn't the fabric of the world that tore. It was the fabric of human lives and minds.

The waves of madness that swept the land shocked him the way no war or simple destruction before them had, shocked him with the way rage and fear twisted together, fired by the generative power of human souls to a reaping edge even his own people's nature could hardly match. He abandoned any thought of keeping a human life or form and clung to the gateway, to the anchoring presence of the sacred tree, fighting for years at a time to damp the resonance of fear and hunger and desperation that consumed the land.

Let his people taste that, and no threat of his would stop them from besieging the seal.

When the taste of madness finally ebbed from the very air, and Shen Wei dared to leave the gate again, he found Dragon City still there. Many of its people looked very like he felt, though—like people who had lived through catastrophe, dazed and uncertain whether the ground under their feet was reliable. A quiet visit to the municipal library revealed an alarming breadth of destruction behind the neat shelves and now far fewer cases. Even if it had been some time since he'd bothered to read them, it was still a shock to see that the history texts had largely disappeared, replaced by slim new volumes purporting a history he barely recognized. The 'treaty' was among the missing documents, and Shen Wei was surprised at his own sense of loss, considering he'd forged the thing himself, centuries ago.

He'd meant to start thinking about a suitable new 'life', but that night he pulled concealment around his true form and retreated to the sacred tree. That presence, at least, was still constant. That night it felt as though the tree leaned into him as much as he did against it, and he reached up to pat the trunk. The madness of the recent years couldn't have been much easier on something of the tree's nature than it had been on him.

The slow, vibrant life of the tree nudged at his thoughts, a gentle press that felt like his own sorrow, threaded with a sip of bright comfort. The feeling slowly shaped itself into an image—the scroll he'd held in his hands, long ago, the token of the bargain between them. Shen Wei smiled faintly.

"Yes," he answered, voice soft in the darkness. "We are still here. Our bargain still holds."

Gradually the image hovering at the edge of his thoughts changed, flattened into a heavy sheet of pressed paper, characters stark and black, seals in red marching along the bottom. Shen Wei blinked at the words, in his mind's eye. They were the same words he'd composed for the 'treaty'. A feeling of offering and comfort curled through his perception, like a new leaf unfolding, and he laughed out loud for the first time in what might be decades.

"That would certainly be a lot harder to burn than mere paper, wouldn't it? If I find who holds it now, can we change it?"

The image of the treaty strengthened sharply in his mind, wrapped around with a hint of smugness like incense lingering on the paper.

"You've done it already?" he asked, softly, astonished that the ancient life he'd bargained with so long ago would reach out with such immediate kindness to him.

Leaves rustled over his head, and he reached out carefully with the side of his nature that protected, touching the tree's own life with his gratitude. This one thing would not be lost. It was a small thing, but it helped.

Remembering what else had helped, the last time the city had been razed, he looked thoughtfully toward the quarter where the university still stood. Perhaps, when he went forth again in his human form, he would return there—not simply as a scholar, this time, but as a teacher. Perhaps, that way, he could make a small place of peace for the young ones, again.

First, though, he should visit his own realm, and try to calm whatever echos of the humans' madness had leaked through.

Shen Wei stared up at a dark sky, dark and flat as a stone ceiling, heart cold within him.

The light of the Lamp, the whisper of Kunlun's presence and the brilliance of his sacrifice, was gone.

"The disruption was immense," the Regent complained, at his shoulder. "I'm too old to deal with this nonsense." He backed a step as Shen Wei's furious gaze fell on him, holding up his hands. "It affected all of us, my Lord Envoy, is all I mean to say. Many lost what form and memory they'd managed to hold and fell on each other again, like our first days of existence, consuming each other to regain power and shape. You will see many new faces, and almost all have had to start over, to absorb thought and history from the echoes of the human realm that seep down to us here.

Shen Wei stilled, cold turning sharp in his chest. "And my brother?"

"The Pillar held." The Regent fidgeted as Shen Wei stared at him, flat and demanding. "With, perhaps, some mild wear. His voice should not reach beyond the wastes, though."

Shen Wei took a slow breath for calm. "I see." Lower, hating it but unable to see any other way to keep his bargains, he added, "Do whatever is necessary to keep what peace and stability we may. I will seek the Lamp. And the other Holy Tools, in case they can show the way to it. If you know who, of our people, might manage to live among humans for a time without breaking, tell me now."

That would not, he was grimly certain, be an easy charge. But he didn't see that he had a great deal of choice. The longer his realm remained dark, the worse things would get.

The Ministry's new Special Investigations Division was more dangerous and prone to snap judgements than the tiny Office of Dixing Affairs Shen Wei had encouraged into existence long ago, but at least they were just as dedicated to containing the occasional trespasser. With a little extra emphasis on the non-interference clauses of the 'treaty', he could work with that. He was less certain about the Institute, also Ministry sponsored, that his erstwhile mentor Professor Zhou kept trying to convince him to join, but if that was going to cause problems, well he'd deal with them when they happened.

Between the current dead-end of the search for the Lamp and the constant, low-level unrest of his people under their dark sky, he had plenty of problems already.

Today, though, he would set all that aside for a few hours. Today was his first day of teaching a class of his own in this life, and he was already smiling when he opened the door to his classroom.

"Good afternoon, Professor!" his students chorused, most of them already answering his smile, and he let himself relax in the simple brightness of their interest. He laid his notes out on his lectern and glanced around the room, nodding approval for all the pens already poised.

"Good afternoon. Today we'll be discussing a brief history of the biological sciences..."

Epilogue

Shen Wei stood with his hands and forehead pressed against the sacred tree, uncaring of the roughness of bark against his skin. He held nothing in his mind but his need and his hope. Need for a weapon, a trap strong enough to hold his twin brother, whose power had always matched his. Hope for aid, for permission, for blessing.

The rustle of the tree's leaves was sharp and unsettled.

"I know," he whispered, eyes closed against the pain of that knowing. "I know this will probably mean my death. My dissolution. But Ye Zun's madness will kill me just as surely, injured as I am now, me and everything I love."

He had been a fool to think that he could use one of the Holy Tools as a human might. Had he let himself forget, in the years of living human-like lives that he had no generative core to his being, that it wouldnâ€™t be merely years of life he gave up? The Dial had done exactly as they'd asked, broken off part of his being to heal Yunlan, and unless Shen Wei wished to shatter all his oaths and bargains in one blow and find a living being whose energies he could consume, he was now at a serious disadvantage.

If he could use his remaining being to conceal a power inimical to ghosts, though...

Grief shook him harshly, grief he'd felt ever since he made this decision. It took him a moment to realize it wasn't just his own, this time.

"Forgive me." He reached out to the tree with as much of the divine side of his being as he could, unbalanced as he was by what the Dial had reft away. "I'm abandoning our charge, our bargain, and yet I have the selfishness to beg the gift of its power."

The image of their bargain's physical token settled into his mind, soft as a leaf falling, and Shen Wei's breath caught short at the ease of that permission. "Thank you," he whispered, voice choked tight.

Slowly, as the night wore on, he matched his remaining power with the tree's, just as they had to create the bargain, and together they drew the token of it back. Like an endless breath in, like winding gleaming thread back into a spool, they drew the token back and fed it into Shen Wei's being until he felt the pressure of that bright power running through every vein, pushing against the part of his nature that was ghost. Pushing so hard he finally called his sword to him and nicked his wrist to release some of the pressure twined so tightly with his blood.

Comfort brushed over his heart—comfort and trust, and he closed his eyes, leaning against the tree.

He could only hope he had earned enough of Zhao Yunlan's trust, as well, to see this through to the end.

End