Maybe I thought I knew what it was like to feel remorse at the deaths of the innocent.

But I soaked my hands in blood anyway.

:: ::

Itachi held himself on one of the crumbling walls of the old Uchiha Hideout. There was nothing left here—there would be nothing left here after this last fight. This was not a place Sasuke grew up remembering, or had ever gotten the chance to after Mother's corpse toppled back, life pooling around her torso and her eyes wide with acceptance and fading light. Father followed half a second after, slashed at the back, red in his hair, his body falling atop his wife's in a crude semblance of one last embrace. Even in death, they did not part.

Down past the caverned flooring amidst all the rubble and rock stood Sasuke, worn but not ragged, glaring up with blood red eyes while Itachi only ever tried to remember the times those eyes only crinkled with wide smiles.

"Power and hatred brought me here," his younger brother seethed. Lightning cracked overhead, thunder roaring in its wake. "You'll die today, Itachi, and it will be at my hand!"

The first raindrop Itachi felt landed on the left side of his forehead, ice cold against the fevered heat of his skin.

Power and hatred.

Love and death.

(What was it that Aburame-sensei had said?)

"So Uchiha-san," Aburame-sensei begins conversationally. "How long have you allowed this respiratory disease to slowly kill you?"

Nimble fingers clamp around a scarred wrist quicker than an instant and he's halfway to pushing himself off the examination table when the heavy weight of healing chakra pushes more firmly against the backs of his eyes. It's only then that he freezes, foreign warmth in his veins and insects in his skull and perhaps in his desperation to hold out just a little bit longer he manages to make his first real mistake in a long, long while.

"My apologies," the medic says in a very unapologetic tone. "It wasn't my intention to alarm you."

"Then you found it apt to introduce this topic while my life is quite literally in your hands?"

He feels the nerves behind his eyes warm and relax, inflammation settling and micro-tears knitting themselves back together. It might be the best feeling he's felt in the years his condition has slowly hollowed out his body—he settles back minutely, muscles pulled taut to the brink of snapping, and he wonders what this medic will ask for in exchange for his silence.

"I'm a medic performing my duty," Aburame-sensei answers simply. His heartbeat thrums through the tips of his fingers, even and calm, and healing chakra continues to pour out from them to soothe the damage like honey-lemon down a sore throat.

Tens of insects shift under Itachi's skin.

He releases the wrist and continues to prepare for the worst.

"Forgive me if I don't find you entirely truthful."

"You came for healing." The minty-chilled rush moves to the left side of his head and slowly begins to overtake the burning sensation he could never stave off himself. "And after meeting Kiba and Sakura weeks ago, you mean to tell me you didn't do your research before coming to me?"

A muscle twitches in one of Itachi's cheeks.

Of course.

Inuzuka Kiba, second child to the brash and ever-wild Inuzuka Tsume. The few times he'd seen her in meetings with his father were enough to prove what everyone already knew about the clan—loud, stubborn, completely loyal to a fault. Most notable for their tracking skills and their howling laughter, they were shinobi Konoha couldn't afford to lose.

Yet here Kiba was, bolder and wilder all at once with seals dangling from his ears.

"I mean, leavin' Konoha's hard when it's not even your choice to go, right?"

Itachi's eyes flicker under the muted brightness through his eyelids.

Later after their brief meeting on that open walkway he'd met with Kisame near the gates of the village to take off on their first of a short string of missions and asked,

"Do you know Hoshigaki Sakura?"

Kisame's greeting smile strains as he turns away. "I... used to. My kid, I thought she..." He tapers off, unsure, then shakes his head as he secures his hat. "If there's anythin' you wanna know, best ask her yourself." His shoulders droop. "We haven't talked much since she came back."

And then there's Aburame Shino.

"No," Itachi admits. "But you are my best option."

Aburame-sensei hums.

After nearly an hour, he pulls back his gloved fingers as the insects vacate their project's body like paint thinner down old walls, and the first breath Itachi takes doesn't stick to his chest. And when he opens his eyes, the world is clear.

Clearer, at the very least; the edges of his vision still blur and after he blinks away the spots in his eyes, he focuses on the light paneled ceiling and each clean cut edge. His gaze slowly drifts towards the eye chart tacked on the wall on the opposite side of the room. First, second, third, fourth row he could read, the fifth he has to focus more for, but—

"Much of your nerves sustained irreparable damage, but not all of it was unsalvageable," Aburame-sensei explains as he tosses his gloves in a nearby bin and twists on the faucet to wash his hands. "I recommend no more than eight hours of sharingan use a day and if that condition is met, you'll need to see me once every two weeks as a preventative measure against more permanent nerve damage." He rips a paper towel from the dispenser to his left. "If you use it the same amount you have been, however, you'll need to see me once a week instead."

He turns to a kunai pressed to his throat.

Itachi levels him with a cool gaze, eyes not as milky and breathing no longer hitched as he runs his own account of any changes to his body. Aside from the healing nothing else feels different and the session hadn't been long enough to study his eyes and chakra pathways and just for that—and only for that—he wouldn't subject the younger man to genjutsu through freshly healed eyes.

"And my lungs?" He questions.

Aburame-sensei's face remains unchanged as he crosses his arms. "My kikai have cleared out the fluid build-up, but otherwise they will continue deteriorating at the rate they have been. I give it two months until it becomes fatal if left untreated—I assume that will suffice for however long you decide to live?"

Two months. That has to be enough time.

Itachi pulls back the kunai for Aburame-sensei to simply side-step to reach for a folder and a pad of paper.

Aburame Shino: sole heir of his clan, held in high-esteem for their kekkei-genkai so unlike others that populated his old village. They're quiet, always keeping to themselves as if they're in-tune with the word 'reconnaissance' itself. At least, all except for this one who seems to have a healing skill comparable to the Godaime Hokage.

"The medication I'm prescribing to you will be to lessen any pain you may feel around your eyes in the days leading up to each healing session and to mitigate any blockage in your chest. If you have any trouble breathing after taking the latter for a week per the directions on your pill bottle, let me know and we'll find you an alternative." Aburame-sensei tears off a small piece of paper and holds it out. Itachi only hesitates for a moment when taking it. "Do you have any questions for me?"

Several. Too many, in fact. But the first one that takes over his tongue is from the pull of his own wondering,

"You would help an enemy find a peaceful death?"

Aburame-sensei tilts his head. "Enemy?" He repeats, pushing a finger against the corner of his dark glasses. "No, my enemies I can count on one hand and you would never make the list." That takes Itachi aback, somewhat, but he supposes if Inuzuka-san could pity him—he grimaces inwardly—then he shouldn't be surprised. "But what use is it for me to change your mind? My job is to heal people who both need it and want it, not to stop competent shinobi from making their own decisions."

It's... odd. Interacting with his younger brother's peers. Sasuke has always been so full of rage, Uzumaki-kun of grit, Kakashi-senpai of assurance, it's almost jarring to be met with the snapping indifference of sharpened fangs, dark circles, healing insects. He didn't think Konoha was capable of building shinobi like these in the current generation, but... Aburame-sensei looks like his father, but the way his face sometimes shadows over when he speaks couldn't have convinced anyone that he was Shibi-sama's son.

"But if my opinion could satisfy your curiosity, I'll tell you this." Aburame-sensei tucks the folder under his arm and heads for the door. "If we can't die with conviction, we'll live long with spite. Why? Well," something darkens in his face as he cracks the door open and he looks back with a flat, pointed smile, "There are too many things we still have to do."

An unrelenting storm whipped around him, dark clouds bruised against an already darkened sky as the rain pelting his skin drew him back into the moment he'd been a monster in creating. Lightning crackled high up and stayed, morphing jagged edges and pinprick ends—

But before Aburame-sensei heads off to wherever the blinking pager on his hip is sending him to, he leaves a last parting word to footnote the prescription in Itachi's hand.

"One more word of advice," Aburame-sensei says, already half turned in the hallway. "Try not to die sooner than you'd like."

—and Death came to stare him in the face. It didn't wear a black cloak or wield a scythe or bear the visage of an old friend. No, Death was the beast in the sky, the weight of his mistakes on his shoulders, the little brother he loved and lost and lost and lost.

He didn't know if there was a single thing he'd done right in this life and he didn't know when he'd become this, a standing sick-bed almost blind and struggling to breathe.

How could he begin to die sooner than he'd like if he was already dead?

When Sasuke opened his mouth in a wordless scream, it echoed in the sky through the maw of a creature made of burning lightning chakra as his own resolve began to fizzle out into the gray. There were many things he could say he didn't understand in what he knew should be his last moments, but there was one thing he knew for certain.

A small, humorless smile clung to the corner of blood-dried lips.

He could admit whole-heartedly that he didn't like Team Eight much at all.

:: ::

Maybe I thought I knew what it meant to be a "villain."

But every day I grew to hate myself for it.

:: ::

Kankuro slowed to a stop in front of the hell gates of Amegakure.

Gods, he was starting to sound like some of those other Sunese Ambassadors and their weirdly-not-realizing-it-but-definitely-there prejudice, but he was half-way to freaking out, alright? He didn't even know how he convinced himself to make the trip out here with no back up after telling jack shit to anyone back home. Gaara thought he was off visiting the southernmost cities to further embrace and understand their country's cultures and Temari thought he was fucking around for a couple weeks because he was tired and working too hard and he needed it, but it was probably best to let them think what they wanted or they'd worry too much otherwise.

Like worrying's going to stop me from walking straight into my own damn coffin.

He sighed and glanced at the cement walkway he treaded, his feet growing heavier with every step he took. Dark choppy waters sloshed against the edges but never lapped up enough to splash him, and he never strayed from the path at the very middle. If he got swept out into a lake that wasn't supposed to roll and tide the way it was doing, who was to say he wouldn't get thrown into one of the pipes or dilapidated statues jutting out of the waves like buoys that'd rather watch you sink?

No way. Not taking that chance.

He sighed again, louder, and tried to straighten his face from under his waterproof hood.

Three weeks ago, he'd been having a normal day hunched over his desk in his workshop, fingers smudged with graphite and sawdust endlessly tinkering under long shadows of the half-finished limbs strung in lines above his head. He'd heard about a new joint design that was supposed to add more fluidity to his puppets at the cost of having them look less human, but luckily his style didn't require much humanity to begin with—

The air shifts.

Kankuro keeps his wrists pressed against the top of his desk as he continues to sand away the edges of a wooden forearm with his right hand and curls in the fingers of his left. A partially-built body creaks to his left and the pair of arms mounted on the wall to his right twist the pair of swords in their hollow grip.

A heavy exhale, beastly, brushes against of his neck and he's turned on his feet, puppets in parts shooting towards their target that forced its way past his wards because it's—

His left ring finger twitches and the swords halt mid-swing, dropping to the floor with a faint clatter.

He doesn't know what's standing in the middle of his workshop, but it's fucking enormous. One of the biggest land creatures he's ever seen stares him down with a bulk almost three times the width of his own body and enough height to scrape against the ceiling. A summons, obviously, too big and too quiet and he's not even sure what species it's supposed to be, just that it kind-of-but-not-really looked something like the deer on the Nara lands if it weren't for its sharp eyes that bled molten orange and the six antlers that sprouted from its head like, like it's this crazy mutated thing.

It's when it lowers its head that Kankuro spies the note in its mouth. Against his better judgment, he drops his arms.

"Sorry," he says. "I, uh, wasn't expecting any visitors?"

It makes no sound. Doesn't move. He's not even sure if he can see it breathing.

"... Right." He clears his throat. "If I haven't offended you too badly, would it be alright if I took that missive from you?"

That scorching blank stare feels like it's as good of an answer as he's ever going to get, so he takes one step forward, two, and reaches out palm side up to slip the perfectly crisp note from its mouth. Horizontal pupils stay locked on him as he turns the paper in his hands. It's thicker and coarser than typical missive material; cotton rag, high quality. Khadi paper is almost exclusively exported from Storm Country and remains in popular usage among all art communities, shinobi and civilian and everyone in between.

When he unfolds it, there isn't much written despite there being a hell of a lot to work with.

First, a set of four vertical lines evenly spaced and all the same lengths.

An Amegakure shinobi has managed to contact him.

Second, there's a date three weeks ahead of today followed by a time marked in Storm Country's time zone.

To ask for an ambassador's time both anonymously and unprompted is the basis of one of the worst assassination plots he's ever seen. If the note ended there he would've burnt it to ashes and passed a verbal message through the summons to tell their summoner to fuck off unless they wanted to start shit on an international scale.

But then third, and last, is a single sentence that made his brain skip a circuit.

Tell the guards you're a tourist and that you're looking for your guide.

And here he was. Fucked if he was wrong, hopeful if he wasn't.

The stone watchtowers weren't as tall as they seemed once he was close enough for the guards to bleed into position in his muggy line of sight. Five guards total all with conical hats and armed with spears spanned the entryway, but only the one in the center drew forward with a slight incline of their head and two reflective patches on the shoulders of their cloak shaped like cat's eyes.

"Namaste, traveler," they greeted with a polite smile that didn't reach their eyes. "What brings you through Heaven's Gate?"

Heaven's Gate was this unnatural lake, if Kankuro sifted through his memories correctly. He studied every report Suna had about their history and dealings with the smaller nation; they've participated in the chuunin exams, signed trade agreements with mostly civilian territories save for Kusa and Tani, tended to keep quiet and rarely ever found themselves somewhere around one of the Five Greats if they didn't have to pass through. He knew of Hanzo and his regime and that the name would always be tied to certain pursuits in the Second and Third Shinobi Wars, but with Ame's heavily isolationist policies and conflict aversion, he wasn't sure where to rank their economic standing and military power. They had to have something to back them up if they participated in the same chuunin exams he did, but then again Ame hadn't sent a single team to attend in the last two years.

Gaara's first thought had been that they'd dwindled to too small of a force to spare a team just for appearances sake. Kankuro agreed too at the start, but staring at fixed faces and dark buildings that scraped the sky, maybe they all had the wrong idea. A lower shinobi village suffering from limited forces wouldn't have practically impenetrable security measures after all, but they minded their business just enough to skirt away from the distrustful eye of the other shinobi-filled countries.

"I'm a tourist," he said after a beat. He tugged his hood back a bit, showing his face bare of the war paint that would've outed him in minutes. The three puppet scrolls on his back shifted with the slight roll of his shoulders. "And I'm looking for my guide."

Half of him still thought this was all some elaborate ruse, though he'd think he would remember if he pissed off someone enough for them to rig his death by spearing squad. Storm and Wind might share a border but Suna was too far of a journey to make a break for it and not even Konoha's Inuzuka clan would be able to sniff out his body from the swamps that dappled the country like blood clots in swollen arteries.

But the middle guard swept their eyes over him once before they tapped the end of their spear against the cement and turned to the side. The other four guards parted two left and two right all at once, each of their shoulders bolstering slitted eyes in neon greens and yellows and a glaring bright orange.

"Head west; your guide will be with the pangolins," they informed him like he was supposed to know what the hell that meant. "Welcome to Amegakure, traveler." Their head dipped. "May Tenshi-sama grant you good fortune."

A small shiver waterfalled down Kankuro's spine as he granted them a polite nod and tread careful, silent steps through the berth the guards had given him. Their eyes held him down until he was far enough through the entrance of the village that the downpour left them nothing but gray outlines when he spared a last glance over his shoulder.

So, there were angels now. He didn't think there'd be a predominant religion in this country with their population made up of refugees from all walks of life on both sides of the line, as far as he knew. A secretive melting pot locked up tighter than forbidden techniques from the First Shinobi War; suspicious, dangerous, but not technically an active threat especially when there had been a focus on tailed beasts and Akatsuki and the ever-present promise of war hanging over the heads of the upper authority—

His thoughts trailed away when he took his first look of a village that was supposed to be nothing more than cold and gray, and he stared.

Everything was so... bright?

Paper lanterns lit up the concrete walkways, warm tones from Suna red to Iwa gold strung along just high enough to barely skim his fingers if he chose to stretch them upward. Not like they needed the extra light with the sea of rainbow neon assaulting him from all sides. Under his feet, at the corner of his eye, above his head on the small umbrellas interspersed between sets of lanterns for a light cover against the rain—blue prayers, red dogs, green samurai, there wasn't a physically quicker way to absorb how much art there was to take in.

And in what he guessed was the village stood a monolith closely guarded by dark gray statues. Two others flanked the one that faced him and he wouldn't rule out a fourth one on the other side, and he cocked his head as he drank in the visage of the one he could clearly see. A demon or deity or just a woman, he couldn't say, but raindrops carved into her skin around silver pipes and red metal and half-lidded eyes, ringed purple and watching.

He kept to the side of the streets and leaned against an outside wall of a corner store lined in neon cerise and took a slip of paper out of his pocket to pretend to read it through. It was pretty lively out today and while everyone he saw donned a waterproof cloak and all sorts of reflective patches on shoulders and upper backs, not all of them cared to keep their heads covered. Maybe the rain wasn't that cold to begin with, but the region must be accustomed to dealing with lower body temperatures and had built up a decent tolerance of bacteria and viruses that loved the humidity.

"But other than that," he mumbled under his breath, "we've definitely been underestimating Ame one way or another. Good to know."

He stuffed the paper back somewhere under his cloak before drifting back onto a main street just behind a civilian-looking couple with their hoods pooled around their necks and the rain pressing their hair close to their scalps.

"Kami-sama must be in more of a benevolent mood," front-left said as she tightened her grip around the other's bicep. "Lately His blessing has been..."

"Different," her partner finished, dark brown hair plastered against pale skin. "Things have been changing ever since Tenshi-sama's new shadow has made herself known. Quiet. But kind, I suppose."

"Of course she is. Didn't you see how excited Sou-chan was to stay for the extra classes at the School?"

They turned down another street, still conversing like it was just your usual rainy day. Kankuro kept forward, one ear towards the fading conversation and his eyes glued down onto the yoke of straw-yellow oxen trampling across the cement. Gods and angels and other shadows among them—that was a start. Religion here had more of a driven stake in the ground than his initial expectations, and it must be a hell of a celestial authority to be so prevalent that it converted through all the immigrant populations that made their way through here.

Past the oxen lay a wreath of violet flowers faintly glowing around a poem in a script he could only half-read. Dialects, and all that.

He cocked his head as his gaze ran back over the somber statues in the village center overlooking all the other buildings like sated vultures.

It wasn't odd that everything was perfectly wrapped in its secrecy and security. All shinobi villages—or all shinobi aspects of a village—would always be built on those same two ideas. How it's been, how it always will be, yada yada, but the more he ambled about to figure where to even start, the more he paid attention to the artistry underfoot. He'd seen a meadow of stars down a narrower street and both real and painted frogs hopping along the edges of the lake.

It would be a slight against his craft if he didn't consider his puppets a high form of art. They were as beautiful as they were rife with purpose with each hidden weapon and every carved detail placed after at least fifteen blueprints of thought before he committed to his carefully designed wood mastery.

So when he was awash with color despite the uniformity of gray building after gray building after pipe-stuck gray building it made him wonder; of all the thousands of splotches of neon that cover all the eye could see, could this divinity intentionally paint something, like pangolins, to stand for something more?

Kankuro pivoted on his heel and started down a street heading west, hoping that he could be onto something.

:: ::

Maybe I thought I knew what it meant to take the fall for another.

But I didn't realize the cost.

:: ::

"Are you the Hachibi's jinchuuriki?"

Killer Bee's muttered rapping tapered off as he met a group of four red-clouded cloaks at the bottom of the long set of steps that led up to his personal section in Unraikyo, the water-filled ravines Kumo used as test sites and training grounds. Destruction was nigh limitless here among the mountain ranges that sprawled across the country and with as much patrol they employed on the terrain, the few hostiles dealt with were limited to bandits and a couple low-level rogues.

"No, y'see, you got it all twisted. It's Jinchuurki-sama to you, now lemme hear you say it back unassisted."

Gyuuki sighed.

The dark-haired one narrowed his eyes, his face cold and already a touch annoyed. "I'm here to capture you."

"That's another rejection with your poor-ass direction since it's 'Please allow me to capture you, sir,' as you should've inferred from what occurs if you keep standin' as you were." He cocked his head and stroked his chin. "Ain't you a little young to be pickin' the Akatsuki to defer?"

Either way, it looked like both their sensibilities and their humor were things they lacked as they were silent slipping into formation. The white-haired one with the twin taiji swords moved to the dark-haired one's right, bulked-up and orange took the left, and the red-head with the glasses skirted directly behind them to complete what he guessed was a three-pronged attack pattern with their support in a non-combatant position.

'Whaddya think, Gyuu? Think they got a chance to get the jump on you?'

Gyuuki's exhale sent trails of smoke out his nostrils. 'Just hurry up and finish it.'

'Man, you're such a snooze.'

"Well first, listen to these tips, ya fools."

White-Hair dashed forward, both hands on unwrapped blades that crackled with lightning as he swung both down like dual warhammers.

"One, don't interrupt good conversation. It's rude and crude and no one'll look at you twice."

The ground around them shattered at the force of the blow. Wrought steel shrieked with stolen lightning and cut with the force of ten thousand swords that would bring any shinobi to their knees—any typical shinobi, anyway, but it was their own fault if they didn't know Bee was anything but. The charge was like tripping a static carpet as he grabbed both swords by the blade to suck the charge into the palms of his hands and spat it out wayside, draining the blade, tearing the earth, and running this little punk's attack to nothing.

"Nothing fatal," Sky-High intoned with a deep frown on his face. "You know we have to follow the Akatsuki's order, Suigetsu."

"Nice t'meet you, Suigetsu, can't say you don't got a heavy slice," Bee grinned, the edges of his mouth only widening when the brat before him growled with Kiri-sharp teeth. "But my second word of advice? The exchange of brains for brawn just ain't worth the price."

His grip adjusted in half a second as he ripped the sword from their wonder and flipped them so the hilts fit snug between his fingers. The gashes in his hands were already in the middle of stitching themselves closed as Suigetsu leapt back and Bulked-Up switched in for the lead.

Bee pressed the side of an open hand against his forehead like he was peering out over a vast sea. "It's like countin' fish, one, two, three, four—'cept you're all brainless little jokes and cheeky little eyesores!"

"Stop kidding around!" Bulked-Up snarled as he bolted forward.

"My bloodlust is courageous and it's got me optimistic, so I'll be swirlin' and whirlin' and hurlin' what you've never seen!" The thunderswords started to crackle but grew nowhere near the power Suigetsu pumped them full of earlier; slow and steady was all he needed, pencil thin lines of white weaving out and round the Fangs of the Mist—the Kiba swords, funnily enough—and he spun on his heel to counter Bulked-Up impending attack and nicked him deep across the cheek. "But don't feel bad 'cause 'round the ears you're still burning green."

Some guttural noise lurched from deep within his opponent's center as his left arm bubbled and writhed into an enormous gray claw, thick leathery skin stretched over bones that broke and healed and re-fitted into shape, that discoloration following up to overtake half his face that was already ripped into almost-madness.

Gyuuki's hackles immediately rose. 'Abomination.'

'Cursed,' Bee corrected.

'I do not pity the worlds of humans who go too far,' his friend hissed back. 'Victim or not, cursed or not, he's an unnatural creation.'

'This bunch is stupid, that much I can admit. Idiots, the whole lot, but these kids are just... kids.'

He shook his great head, gaze boring through the eyes of his host without the storm of constant emotion. 'This, Bee, has always been your greatest fault. Concern,' he drawled, turning up his snout, 'when it's never yours to begin with.'

This one had more tact than the last, but what he made up in strength he lost in speed, and even when one claw snatched back one half of the Kiba, it was back in Bee's possession as quick as he lost it and a solid beast-backed blow to the middle spewed blood out his mouth before he collapsed in a heap at his feet.

"Juugo!" Red-Head shouted.

Heap. Feet. Hmm.

'Bee!'

'Well if you're gonna yell at me anyway I might as well find more rhymes to spray!'

"It's obvious to me you've got no idea what you've stepped in with this subpar showing you think's first class, but here you are on your ass on metaphorical grass thinkin' your foot's not as deep as it's actually sinkin'—but in case you didn't know 'cause your first address hit low, the name's Jinchuuriki-sama, Killer Bee-sama, and that title's not for show."

He could see the sweat on their brow, at least on Suigetsu and Red-Head as he was sure they were re-evaluating just what the hell they'd gotten themselves into. The Akatsuki must be that desperate to rope kids like these to do their dirty work, but it seemed like they got their toes dipped into something a little more dangerous. Juugo, with the wind knocked out of his chest, ran around a mess of transformation seals and Suigetsu in the back didn't get those swords just handed over to him. Red-Head he was still not sure about, and their little leader, head honcho, top brass in their rat pack—

Bee twirled one of the Kiba and stuck it into the ground, leaning against the hilt as he hummed thoughtfully in their direction.

"I've got all this power to spare, you can spy it in my glow—all rough, tough, and rowdy that I can't lie through my blows. Watch it, learn it, note it real damn well 'cause it's Killer Bee-sama you're messin' with if you can't already—" A short squirt of blood filled his mouth and he frowned. "Ow. Bit my tongue."

Gyuuki dropped his head and groaned.

"Wh-What the hell's with this guy?" Red-Head muttered mostly to herself, partly to their leader at the front. "He's crazy!"

Rude.

But he couldn't say what he did next wasn't rude in return as he picked Juugo up by the scruff of his cloak and chucked him into the second heap closer to his teammates. The dark-haired one didn't even spare a downward glance as he righted his shoulder and strode forward, chin high and eyes shadowed and assured. His steps made no sound, his face drew no lines, and when he stopped, a katana slipped out of one baggy sleeve and into his grip.

Bee eyed the glint of silver metal before he looked back up. "So you want your very own lesson to see how far your ass gets kicked?"

Dark-Hair ignored him and tilted his head to the side when Suigetsu called out, "Shut this guy the hell up, Sasuke."

Sasuke. Uchiha Sasuke. Oho, he'd have to thank Konoha for churning out some of the most interesting kiddies he'd met in recent years.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "I intend to."

"Ah, I hate it when there's all of you out there tellin' me to keep my words shut closed," he sighed. "'Specially when it's comin' out the mouths of dumb brats who don't know who they're oppos—"

Sasuke was already in the air, katana poised in a downward swing to slice him right open.

'Rude!'

:: ::

Kiba chewed the end of his pen as he alternated between reading through the bullet points on his small notebook and watching the fight ripping up the ground on the other side of the ravine. The tree he and Akamaru had taken refuge under didn't have enough leaves to fully cover them from the mild gray sun and his unshifting position against the boulder that blocked him from anyone's initial view down from the mountain shelf they camped at promised a bitch of a sore shoulder until they packed up for Ame later in the day.

"What d'you think Sakura had to do ta' get Leader-sama ta' let us leave the village for a few days?" he asked quietly. Far below and in the distance, Bee spun fast enough to kick up a short windstorm with the seven shortswords he wielded like an absolute maniac.

Akamaru tracked the battle with pinpoint accurate eyes, his chin pressed low to the ground and his nose twitching with each short breeze that flitted by. "I don't want to think about it too much."

"Don't you want to know?"

"You know I do."

"Then—"

"She was out cold for three days due to chakra exhaustion and the only reason she got up after was because it was Tuesday and she isn't allowed to miss Tuesdays with Leader-sama." His partner's teeth clacked together. "But you noticed, right?"

He flipped a page and started another host of notes as the ringing of clashing metal nipped at his eardrums. Leader-sama hadn't approached him again after that Path confronted him at the Pillar, but he wasn't stupid—his stunt with Yugito's bijuu removal put him on a list he wouldn't be able to steal and scrub himself off of. But honestly, how the hell could this get any worse? He was already knee deep in the quicksand that was the Akatsuki's grip, and there was no point in struggling against it if Sakura never tried to in the first place.

"Which part? The fact that she looks worse every damn time we see her," Kiba's molars clamped down on the cap of his pen and he spat out the bit of plastic he'd gnawed off, "or that when she passed out on the porch, the rain stopped?"

He and Akamaru were the only ones home when it happened. Next door was empty up until the early afternoons when sensei got back from work and Shino was at another one of his irregular shifts when he glanced out the window at the sight of pink hair wandering down the street. Sakura had been cloakless, not exactly unusual much to Shino's endless exasperation, but she'd been unearthly pale. Sickly.

She only made it up the stairs to their house when she pitched forward, and he caught her before her head hit the floor.

But then, an even stranger thing happened. As her eyes fluttered shut and he panicked, halfway to sending Akamaru to get a cloak to cover her up so they could drag her to the hospital, he paused at the sight of easing rain until all that remained was damp earth and a uniform gray sky. It picked up again about half an hour later, heavy and stifling like it had been the day they first turned up at the village.

An explosion rocked the grounds, and Akamaru wrinkled his nose at the clouds of dust.

"I don't know what happens when she's with Leader-sama, and that's the one thing she'll never tell us no matter how much we ask." Bitterness leaked past the seal on his tongue as the rippling heat of tailed beast chakra choked the vicinity for kilometers around. Both of them cringed at the onslaught on their senses but didn't move. "He's killing her right in front of us and this time there isn't anything we could do. Should do. That's why I don't want to think about it."

"Akamaru—"

"Look."

The ninken's head perked up slightly as the blobs of Team Taka were swamped by the sheer size of the beast roaring in the ravine. A fully fleshed out ox-octopus hybrid rippled into its monstrous glory and blew apart short mountains like he was just tipping over stacked stones. Killer Bee was winning—of course he was winning, Sasuke might have his bloodline and Orochimaru's knowledge at his beck and call but what was he in the face of the monolith that was a jinchuu—

Pitch black fire erupted along the expanse of gray skin and burned.

Kiba flipped another page and his hand flew across the paper, gaze locked on the scene. Sakura was... Sakura was still alive and that was the most important thing right now. She paid that cost and he wasn't going to waste the few days of roaming without the shadow of an overbearing god haunting his every move.

Eight tentacle-tails lashed as they engulfed in flames and the pained screeches that tore out of the Hachibi shook rock formations and rattled the pebbles around Kiba's feet.

Okay, maybe he'd take back the thing he said about Sasuke's bloodline.

The Hachibi flailed, knocking waves of water and flying boulders and even getting one of his tails sliced off when it came too close to crashing into a battered down Team Taka, and he narrowed his eyes as he watched the appendage sink out of sight. The pen cap hung loose at the corner of his mouth as notebook pages filled with the shorthand he and pack created back when they were genin and still thought that things couldn't get any worse than they already were.

Man, that fucking hindsight.

He stuffed the tip of the pen back into its cap when the flames seemed to fade into the prone body of a de-transformed Killer Bee floating in a lake of water that filled through the cracks and crevices of the broken canyon. Akatsuki's whims and mission plans never made it to his ears and Sakura probably only heard in passing that Sasuke and his off-brand Team Seven were going to be utilized in collecting jinchuuriki after her refusal to, but members were turning up dead in quicker succession these past few months than they probably had in these past few years.

Pack would appreciate the notes when he got back. It wasn't what he was sent out for in the first place, but they should have a treat every now and then.

Kiba snapped the notebook shut as he watched Taka make their retreat with a large body slung over Sasuke's shoulder.

"Y'know, y'kinda had me for a second," he said. He turned and leaned his back against the rock he had posted up against, finally easing the pressure against his shoulder. "Woulda been real embarrassin' if you went out like that, Bee-sama."

Killer Bee sighed and draped himself against the tree, leaves rustling and a couple fluttering down around them.

"These kids got no respect, what else can I say? You've gotta teach 'em more than a lesson 'else you got pests who'll just stay." Not a damn scratch was on him. "Hope you enjoyed the show, kid, 'cause I won't grace ya' with an encore, and it won't matter to me if I hear ya' cheering for more."

Kiba raised both his hands. "Hey, I was just passin' through when Sasuke thought his balls were big enough to take you on."

"What about those notes you wrote, got quotes that float my boat?"

"They're mostly 'bout Taka, and if you think you can make somethin' outta 'em, be my guest." Kiba handed over his notebook before he reached over to fluff the fur around Akamaru's head. "I'm not tryna start anythin', honest."

Bee thumbed through the pages, giving each entry a quick once over before he handed it back. "I'd call bull on that, but you're in enough of a pickle as I see it. Would be mad stupid of you if you went and did a damn thing that'd end with your neck slit. But at the end I ain't judgin' 'cause I've seen your entries in the book; tell me somethin', were those really things y'all went out and cooked?"

What, the treason? The assaults? The murder?

He scoffed. "Not even close."

Bee whistled low. "Yeah, that's how I thought it looked."

Kiba's lip curled at the sting it still gave him to admit it. Konoha hadn't been home for a long time, but after everything it had still been so easy for Danzo to do what Hiruzen couldn't and get them kicked out of the village with the rogue designation branded on their backs to match the mice. Bastard—if he knew they were getting framed for treason he would've stolen more than just the sealing book.

"Ibunzi with you?"

He shook his head. "Nah, she couldn't make it out. We're in a... complicated spot right now, but it's better than all the other options we got, so." He shrugged and tried to make it look loose. "She'd be here if she could, though, 'specially if she knew you'd be here too."

Bee smiled a bit, pushing up the tattoo on his cheekbone. "Outta one pot and into the next, never doin' things by halves, but you've already got my respect." His smile fell when he looked back at the destruction he wrought and to the Kumo-nin that were gathering at the scene. "You know anything about the Akatsuki?"

"Some." And that wasn't a lie, not with everything Sakura still couldn't tell them. "If I ask you to not to dig too deep into them right now, is that somethin' you could do?"

"Depends on the odds and ends." Bee crossed his arms and leaned forward. "And I can't go 'round making promises that might double my trouble, ya' feel? Not when they killed my sister." The levity that usually wound around his vowels and the pep in his step leached out of him. "Not when they tore her apart for her bijuu."

A silhouette of eight tails flashed behind him before they were gone like they were never there in the first place.

For a fleeting thought, Kiba wanted to tell him Yugito was still alive. That she was slowly recovering under Shino's care and even with the beast-sized hole left in her body she hadn't died from the brutal extraction process. But if he took the risk and it ended badly, Leader-sama was going to kill Sakura faster.

"Yeah, that's fair." He sighed and scratched the back of his head. "I'm not askin' ya' t'not go after 'em, it's just that we're in a tiny mess. Real small. Nothin' that's gonna end up with us dead—" yet— "but we don't wanna make it worse."

Bee's gaze searched him for a moment, flitting from him to Akamaru to him again. They briefly turned back down the ravine and Kiba followed him, spying the increase of bodies surveying the area. In a few minutes, they'd be fanning out to scout for Taka or anyone else that could've been involved. Time to bounce.

"I wish the world was kinder to you."

A startled laugh burst out of Kiba's lips before he could hold it back and he looked back to the Kumo-nin, brow quirked and fangs poking out in his amusement.

"Yeah, sure." Another laugh escaped under his breath as he gathered the rest of his things, (and he missed the pitying gaze Killer Bee laid gently over the back of his shoulders). "Ain't that a fuckin' idea."

:: ::

Maybe I thought I knew what it meant to love someone.

But I couldn't separate my love from my duty.

:: ::

Pangolins were pretty small things. Scaly, soft edges, claws tucked to their fronts as they waddled around on their short hind legs. Saffron-neon ones peered at rock piles and skipped around porches and turned in circles to play out simple patterns all over the residential district he found himself in.

Kankuro looked up and over his shoulder at the statue facing west. He knew this one this time; a Gashadokuro loomed, dark metal bone, crooked pipes winding ribs, sockets scraped deathless and keen.

Water slipped past his gaze like through shuttered blinds as he turned back to the neat houses scattered on all sides. Most were private, kept apart by pitch green foliage and larger rocks smoothed round by pouring rain and covered by moss that patched their surfaces. Empty, too—but he guessed that was normal for a neighborhood like this. With the fair distance between homes, specific workmanship, and near-soulless streets, he'd bet on being led to an elite block where no lower than jounin tended to live unless they had other relations.

He needed to find out what—who—he was looking for quick unless he wanted to end up a pincushion full of kunai for wandering around a little too long, so he took long strides past every house, careful not to pass each one more than twice, on the lookout for anything meant to grab his attention. In the first stretch there was nothing. In the second he started to worry when there was nothing but the few trinkets and decoration that added quiet flair to house fronts. And in the third, he seriously began considering cutting his losses and putting as much distance between him and this village because he was an idiot for even coming out here—

A pair of attached townhouses sat on the edge of the neighborhood, lush ferns and elephant's ear hugging close against the dark stone walls of the unit. A couple chairs angled towards each other on the lifted, covered porch with a small side table tucked between them by the door to the right. Normal. Nothing out of place.

But, then on the stairs to the left was another angel not unlike the other depictions he'd been seeing in all of Ame's abstractions. The statue stood no taller than his knee, perched on that second step with wings curled over her shoulders as she bowed her head to cover the puddle of rain drops that pooled in her cupped hands.

Crimson horns sprouted from her head in the exact shape and distinction as the ones that burst out of his Kuroari puppet's head.

Ah, fuck, he thought as he walked it's direction. I'm gonna die, aren't I?

His hesitation only lasted a few seconds at the base of the three stone steps up to the porch before he lifted his foot. One, two, and the statue promptly dissipated—genjutsu, shit, he was pretty bad at those—and still he raised his hand to knock and before his knuckles rap wood, it pulled open on its own and his other hand shot under his cloak to loosen one of the scrolls on his back just in case—

"Gods fucking dammit, holy shit," he sighed explosively as he braced his hands on his knees, the metallic tang of downpour filling his nose and, for the first time since stepping into this village, clearing his head. "You pulled this shit just so you could laugh at me, huh?"

Sakura's mouth twitched from her spot in the doorway, still just as tall as when he saw her last. "Ambassadors are renowned for their mental agility; it's part of why they're chosen for the position. I didn't know if I was fully convinced about Suna's."

"Fuck you," Kankuro sniffed as he walked into the house. "Thanks for scaring the shit out of me with your summons, by the way. Tall and scary; can't say it doesn't suit you."

She closed the door behind him and he took advantage of her half-caught attention to rove over her profile and see she looked kind of... awful. Sure she was pale and that wasn't anything new, but it was more wan than cold and her hair now ran a darker pink than the flower she was named after. There were piercings in her ear but no more new scars he could see, and he shrugged off his cloak and shook off the excess water before hanging it on one of the black metal coat hooks on the wall.

"Make yourself comfortable." Sakura gestured to the living room and to the backless benches swathed in cushions the same hues as the lights strung up in the commercial district, though more muted and mingled with sepia browns. He sat on the bench tucked under the front-facing window and beside a soft-knitted blanket folded neatly on the arm. It was forest green with noticeable kinks every few rows. "Tea?"

"Or something stronger." Kankuro spied the soft gray skylight and the small indoor courtyard of ivy and lotus, and with it the small etchings of seals he didn't know the purpose of, but recognized as Inuzuka's style. "You know, rogues usually run around for a couple years before they find a way to settle down like this, but I guess you guys did leave a political clusterfuck back in Konoha. I mean, assault, attempted murder, actual murder, highly classified theft?" He snorted. "What, one solid murder wasn't good enough?"

Her back was to him as he watched her drift around the kitchen. Shit, how many months had it been since Temari showed him the updated international bingo book with a wary eye and a fat nose over his shoulder after she told him that Konoha, astoundingly, had brand new entries? He was pretty sure all she knew was that he and Sakura were at least acquaintances and were as friendly as they could be when he'd been part of the forces meant to burn her home to ash.

(But then she went from stranger to tourist guide to friend in such quick succession that it left his head spinning and before he knew it, he was making prosthetics for someone who'd been betraying her village for longer than he'd known her.)

"As if we'd be so sloppy."

He waved her off. "No need to tell me twice. Too much evidence got left behind and with what I know you're actually capable of? Nah, couldn't be you." Once, they faked a battle in the middle of a siege when they both were genin—if she wanted to kill a career chuunin, they would've never been able to find the body. "How high up did the frame job go?"

She glanced over her shoulder, a dark flash compounded by dark eye bags, before she opened a drawer for a pair of tea spoons.

He whistled. "Living up to unlucky."

"Don't we all live to please," she noted dryly.

He snorted again. At least she hadn't lost her sense of humor.

"Not that I hate to see you doing alright, but why contact me now?" He asked. Sakura nudged a cushion out from under the low coffee table and set two mugs of tea next to the small angel statuette poised in the center, an origami flower in her hair. His voice lowered. "You need help?"

She took a seat on the floor cushion, steam curling low over the bottom half of her face. "No, but... thanks."

He nodded. "Just wanted some company, then?"

"The company isn't too bad." She drew in a long sip of her drink. "But the most important thing I wanted to do was talk."

"Talk," Kankuro repeated. He slid off the bench, pulled out a cushion of his own, and re-settled himself at the low table across from her. Strong notes of cinnamon and clove wafted up from his mug. "Sure, let's talk. But if you ever need anything specific..." He let the sentence hang as he lifted the mug close to his face, something pepperminty he couldn't quite place tickling the tip of his nose. "Tea?"

He sipped and immediately scrunched his face.

"Or something stronger," she responded lightly.

"That's fucking something alright." Chai and whiskey, he should've thought about that sooner. He drew in another long sip. "So."

Sakura always had a plan even if a lot of the time he wasn't privy to all the details, and he trusted her because it was either that or living in blissful ignorance from all the fucked up politics of their shinobi world. He expected her to pull out some blueprint or objective list she was ready to walk him through but... at first he was sure he was seeing wrong when the first thing she did was stare down at the table as if she was avoiding his eye.

He patiently waited, and stared, and took note of how she might look even worse closer up. The rigid strength in her shoulders coiled taut like it was far past the point of snapping as she leaned heavily on her right arm, the left unwrapped and partially hidden by the edge of the table.

Her eyes finally flickered up after a few moments. "What I want to talk about will make you upset," she admitted. "But I'm asking you to hear me out until the end. Do you trust me enough for that?"

"Well, yeah," Kankuro answered slowly. The bottom of his mug tapped soundlessly against a coaster. "You sent me a summons I've never seen before, no name, no query, no instructions, and I followed because I figured it couldn't be anyone but you." He rested his forearms on the table. "How's that for trust?"

A ghost of a smile brushed her face and the tiniest bit of muscle unwound at the base of her neck, but still she was tuned like a string instrument primed to pluck. But then it was gone as quick as it came, and she folded both hands in her lap.

"What do you think of Amegakure?"

Well that was a loaded question if he ever heard of one.

"That lake? Fucked up," he said, throwing an arm to rest on the seat of the bench as he leaned back with a sigh. "I live in a desert that's got nothing but sand and the last thing I need is to get myself taken out by a haunted-ass body of water." A short laugh puffed out of her. "But everything else is... beautiful, honestly. I've never seen neon paint used like that. Water-activated, if I had to guess? And with how much it rains, it's not a bad idea when you've got no sun to lose." He thought back to the depictions of angels he'd seen and how they all only seemed to have one face. "But the way Ame utilizes it is pretty ingenious. Art and practicality all rolled into one—did your leader implement it? If they did, we've seriously been underestimating how much power's really here."

Sakura lost even the faintest trace of her softness.

"... Yeah," she agreed after a beat. "Leader-sama is... He has plans for everything, it seems."

Kankuro glanced toward the windows when the downpour suddenly grew harsher. "Right, this leader you got." He took a short sip of his drink before placing it back down on the table. "What's he like? He's got to be someone halfway decent if this is where you decided to stay away from Konoha."

"Every village has its secrets, and Leader-sama's identity is one of Ame's best kept."

"Last I heard it was Hanzo, but he's not in the picture anymore, is he?"

"No, Hanzo was killed years ago by the leader of the Akatsuki."

Akatsuki.

Kankuro's grip tightened around his cup.

He won't lie, if Gaara had been taken a few years prior he would've half-heartedly poked around the surrounding cities for any sign of him and given up before reaching the borders. Gaara from a few years ago deserved to die with wooden shards in his throat and organs ruptured from the force of the beast ripping out of him—but like he said, only past Gaara who would kill over a wrong look needed that sort of treatment.

He was better now, thankfully, with his drive to better Suna through the power the Kage hat brought. All the Akatsuki had to offer was their greedy lust for power without a care for—

He paused, a pooling dread beckoning at him like wading into the water without knowing you were in the middle of a rip current.

"Who took over once Hanzo was overthrown?" He asked.

Sakura sighed and shut her eyes, and the skin on his knuckles stretched so tightly over the bone when he gripped the edge of the table that he wouldn't have been surprised if they split and bled.

"The Akatsuki are in control here?" He hissed. His gaze darted across the table's surface as his mind raced, heart rattling against the cage in his chest. There was one main entrance in and out of the village surrounded by a lake that could swallow him whole—they could make it out of here, probably, not unscathed but alive enough to lose their tails in the swamps and pull through until they crossed the border— "Alright, get your things and tell Kiba and Shino to meet us at the blue rain prayer painted on the bakery on that street the woman monolith is facing. You guys've probably run into it a few times, right?"

"Kankuro."

"You're right, too open," he grimaced. When his eyes landed on his cooling cup, he threw the rest of it back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Shit, how'd you manage to get me in? Paid off the guards?"

"Kankuro," she repeated.

"Yeah?" He raised his head. "You got another idea? Great, one-sided spitballs never really flesh out their full potential."

"There's no spitballing about leaving because there's no leaving," she told him quietly. Her hand held up when he opened his mouth. "You said you would listen."

Heavy drops plinked against the glass, echoing in his ears like pebbles chucked into aluminum pots.

"That was before you told me the Akatsuki's at our backs and could find out about us at any second." But something wormed just at the back of his head—a gap in the paragraph, a missing puzzle piece, something he wasn't getting though it was supposed to be another neon sign on rain wet streets. "You're too calm about this. Why the hell are you so calm?!"

She sighed and drew a hand across her eyes. "When they'd chased us out of Konoha, they probably thought we had no back-up plan. At least, no plan we could've used within the circumstances of how we were framed. Tenzo-san was dying, Kurenai-sensei we later found out had another situation we couldn't ignore, and so we laid out our options: Kumo for their help, Suna for yours, or Ame." She paused, then added lowly. "For Akatsuki's."

Everything tilted a degree to the left.

"You," his brows furrowed and his heart paced to a faster beat, "turned to the Akatsuki?"

"My... father—"

"They killed my brother," he growled. "And you're in this cushy fucking townhouse in the middle of a village overrun by fucking maniacs who want to bend the world to their will with power that isn't theirs to fuck with—"

"I don't agree with any part of them."

A bitter scoff slipped out his mouth. "Oh, don't you?'

"You know I was the one who killed Akasuna no Sasori," she said, and shit, his muscles moved on their own when they unwound in his neck as his teeth ground and he kept his tight grip against the edge of the table. "I took you to the battlefield to sample his poisons and help you scrounge for puppet parts. Do you think I would've done any of that if I was on their side?"

His arms came up in a tight knot over his chest, fingers finally twitching away the chakra lines attached to his scrolls.

"Fine. You wanted to talk, so talk," he grit out. "But if this explanation doesn't blow me out the fucking water, you'll have something worse than the Akatsuki hanging over your head."

Sakura nodded wearily before she drew in a deep breath and started from the very beginning.

"My father is Hoshigaki Kisame," she said. Kankuro's face went white. "And when I was seven, he let Konoha steal me away."

:: ::

Maybe I thought I knew what it meant to surrender myself to become a demon.

But how was I to know that it would kill me so painfully slow?

:: ::

Konan couldn't help but watch her.

Subtlety had flown out the window when they found themselves in close proximity more often than not and, well, she would have liked to think there would be nothing to hide between them anymore. She mourned the little girl she lost and embraced the shinobi that little girl had become, all of Kakuzu's hardened skin and Kisame's bloodlust and her own patented brand of cooled composure—

She refocused her gaze on Sakura, seated at the main desk of the Ameonna offices and she went back and forth between double-checking treasury reports to be submitted and grading the assignments due from her optional study hall class at the School.

The optional class tended to fluctuate between five to ten students every semester and was often referred to as remedial classes despite being much more than that. Amegakure's curriculum rooted itself in advanced theories and academia, hence the large percentage of their shinobi specializing in stealth and reconnaissance. Their research and development departments had also undertaken a steady evolution in synthetic poisons and medicines, the former more aptly, and if they kept up this pace over the next few years those who encroached on their country would be devastated by the concoctions they were too far behind in understanding.

But everything had their drawbacks, and this one manifested in a lack of suitable teachers.

Subconsciously, her mind had then turned to Sakura. While exceedingly proficient in dealing with matters on the Pillar's scale, she had yet to find an enthusiasm in her work. There was no fault in admitting there was no joy in the job, and Konan thought she'd made that clear and expected the inevitable request for a different position.

But weeks passed, and nothing. Sakura completed all her duties with a bowed head and a marked proficiency.

And that simply wouldn't do.

Konan only ever had two wishes for Sakura: to be happy, and to be safe. As an active agent within Akatsuki safety was merely relative, and thus there was little she could do for that cause. But happiness? Workable.

So she assigned Sakura to the teaching position and worried the seams of a paper rabbit between her fingers as she patiently waited for the results of her first week. Perhaps there would be awkwardness. A settling-in period. Worst case, she would never be assigned an education position regardless of all her exemplary knowledge.

But as it turned out, Konan wasted her concern. The stack of assignments currently at Sakura's arm pushed thirty-five sheets and growing, albeit confused accounts had begun to flutter through the shinobi community about the new young sensei who spoke to her students with the same even tone and cold inflection as she did with those of the upper ranks, yet received the utmost attention from a class so big they needed to pull extra chairs into the room. The students adored her despite her blunt disposition, and the board could say nothing about the patient teachings of a sixteen year old refugee.

Konan had witnessed the girl's wit and skill and brutal violence. It nearly brought her to tears to see that her kindness had never left her.

She uncrossed her legs from her chair on the other side of the office and moved seats to the corner of the desk. Sakura didn't look up from her work, red pen flying over short answers and rows of numbers and back again. Kisame never could sit still at a desk—writing reports was one of his greatest weaknesses and having to read anything for longer than an hour could be trusted to bore him half to death.

His daughter, however.

His beautiful, tired, not-so-little girl.

"Have I done something wrong?" She questioned softly. Scarred fingers paused over their current paper. "I would like to believe that I have not overstepped my bounds, but if I have, I would like to apologize."

Pink hair fell forward, shadowing its owner's face. "You haven't."

"No?"

"You've done everything in your power to help us since we got here. You've given us shelter, power, freedom—or at least, as much freedom Leader-sama deems fit." Her head remained bowed, the piercings in her ear dark against the pale of her skin. "You've been good to us. Sorry, I... should've thanked you sooner."

Konan's expression eased around the edges as she reached forward to brush away those free slips of hair so she could see what could possibly be going through that head of hers, but the moment her fingers stretched just a centimeter away, Sakura's shoulders tensed and her fingers twitched and she draw to the side to put as much distance between her and the hand as she could without leaping out of her seat.

A frown accompanied a reluctant retreat.

"So if that's not the problem, then what is?" Konan asked as gently as her minute heartbreak. "Why will you not look me in the eye outside of taking orders from me?"

Sakura put down her pen.

"Because I don't know what to do when you act like you love me."

She looked up then, green eyes hesitant, a stark splash of color against the dark circles above her cheekbones. They'd been heavier than usual, bearing a dragging weight of something Konan didn't know, and she swore it had only gotten worse since that strange day the rain felt warmer.

"I have always loved you," she said. Maybe she hadn't realized it at first all those years ago when half her light walked as a corpse on the streets and the other sequestered in darkness and metal, both withering away and endlessly undying, but, "I loved you since I first held you. Since the moment I decided to shield you from the rain."

Sakura drew in a shaky breath. "I didn't know for sure." She glanced away as her right hand came up to rub against the bandage on her left bicep. "I didn't know at all. You took care of me, but I was never enough."

Oh.

Then,

Remorse wrapped around her shoulders like a freshly laundered fleece blanket still warm from the dryer.

A child doesn't understand the consequences that came from the turning of the earth. They don't understand why rivers run, why flowers grow, why there are bad people in the world, why peace didn't exist.

Born with rain overhead and bloodlust in her veins, Sakura's first breath signed her away to a future she wasn't allowed to choose. From her first steps she was taught to run, from her first words she was taught her codes, from her first time she could hold a kunai in her hand she was taught to aim and never miss.

It wasn't about being enough, it was about staying alive.

But four year old Sakura wasn't thinking of that, was she? No, she must have been not thinking about her bleeding knuckles while the other children her age were out catching frogs around the lake.

She reached out her hand again, slowly, but stopped further than when Sakura first pulled away. "May I?"

Konan couldn't help but watch her.

She was met with cautious eyes examining her hand like it was a new weapon and God—part of her being no matter how cadaverous—how had she not seen it before? There was no shortage of love in little Sakura's life—Kisame might have been young and confused all that time, but he did nothing to show he didn't deserve her. He tucked her in every night with a kiss on her hair and the tail ends of a story in her ears; he learned to cook healthier meals, braved textbooks to homeschool her properly, never, ever lied.

He was a good father to her, but that was part of the problem.

As good of a father as he was, he wasn't quite as good at hiding that from the many eyes of God. Nagato saw too much softness in the way she was raised and Konan was inclined to agree, but.

But.

Sakura nodded once, slowly, and Konan tucked those loose strands behind her ear before gently cradling her face as her thumb ghosted over the bruises cut deep above her cheeks.

"I wish I could have shown you how much I loved you," Konan whispered and, to her faintest resignation, she felt the backs of her eyes begin to burn. "I wish I could have hugged you and twirled you around and taken you to get kulfi after those harsher training sessions because it was the very least you deserved."

Sakura froze, wide-eyed and brows knotted.

"But I had two choices: make you exemplary, or watch you suffocate in a cloak I never wanted you to wear." A small, sad smile painted Konan's lips. "I couldn't let you die, so you had to be strong." Her hand pressed more firmly into Sakura's cheek, solid and real and warm despite it all. "And I'm so, so sorry that I couldn't be the one to keep you safe."

Even if she did—does—agree with Nagato, he never spared the time to comb through bright pink hair after it tangled through her naps; he never listened when she talked about how many water striders she counted on her way to the training grounds under the lake; he never sewed the holes in her clothes after every training session while she fell asleep on the rug by the couch, too worn from her injuries but too enraptured in trying to learn the sewing herself. But if Nagato did comb, did listen, did sew—

"I didn't want to, but I needed to. And I know that's not a suitable excuse." She pressed a kiss atop her not-so-little girl's forehead before gently pulling her close. Wound tight, unmoving, barely breathing, Sakura didn't jerk back. "I have always loved you, and so I understand that you may never forgive me for what I've done." What we've done, a traitorous part of her hissed. "But regardless of what you decide, I will always be your angel-mother."

Sakura trembled and grasped the front of that clouded cloak almost on instinct, holding her face snug against her collarbone.

"May the rain adore you," Konan murmured, a single tear slipping down from the corner of her eye. "And may this blessing I bestow upon you, Hoshigaki Sakura, help you far off the path of your sorrows."

(But if Nagato did comb, did listen, did sew, he also would've hated a small part of himself for what they'd made her become.)

:: ::

Maybe I thought I knew what it meant to change from who I once was.

But I wish I changed for the better.

:: ::

Three months passed.

Kurenai's tongue poked out the corner of her mouth as she leveled her gaze and measured out a full cup of fresh mango puree for her cake. It was going to be one of the best cakes she'd ever made, she was sure of it. It would be dense but moist and every bite would have perfectly cut cubes of mango, and the frosting—she'd never used cardamom in frosting before, but one of the other volunteers at the International Outreach Center had been insistent.

She dusted off some stray flour down her apron, fingers mindful of the gentle swell of her stomach as she turned to grab the bowl of dry ingredients from the other side of the counter. She was barely starting to show, and it hasn't yet kept her from going about her days volunteering, worrying about her other kids, baking cakes.

Kurenai briefly turned again to stick a spoonful of peanut butter in her mouth.

The kids had their own lives, of course. Quiet wasn't quite their style despite what the rest of Konoha judged them to be, and everything she'd seen since their untimely move to the village had helped her put together how they'd managed to thrive in Kumo even with the word prisoner permanently defined in the bands on their skin.

Kiba didn't have an official job here, exactly, but it wasn't like he was at a loss of anything to do. The books that ended up on her coffee table would only interest visitors if they cared about advanced sealing theoreticals and there had been more than one argument over dinner about how tall was "too tall" for the third full notebook tower over in their house.

Shino rolls his eye, paler than she's ever known him to be. "Get a bookshelf. Why? It would literally solve this problem."

"I have'ta build the fuckin' bookshelf if I do!"

"If you don't get a bookshelf," Sakura says over her fifth mug of black tea that afternoon. The bags under her eyes haven't lightened in weeks, "I'll get you a foot up your ass."

Akamaru barks something teasing, she's sure, and it sends his partner sideways into Shino's lap.

"Sensei," he whines. His fangs always seem to be out these days. "You're letting them bully me!"

Kurenai laughs and resists the urge to smack a kiss to each of their heads.

And last time she'd popped over next door to drop off food, piles of sealing paper and brushes of all sizes made their own piles around the living room and tucked in stair corners all the way up to the second floor.

She turned to check the oven and frowned when it had yet to be set to preheat. She always forgot.

Kiba visited a few times a week, always for Sunday night team dinners and the other times for a change of scenery while black ink stained his fingers and there wasn't a day she wouldn't welcome the company. Sakura, though, typically only showed for team dinners and Kurenai didn't need any explanation to know that wasn't her fault.

She saw it in the way the girl lingered as long as she could those nights, always offering to clear off the table and helping with the dishes as she listened to Kiba's new ideas and Shino's work stories and Kurenai's own encounters when a new group stopped by the IOC, but she could never stay too long. Gone in the early morning and long stretches of late nights, the boys said she took most of her rare breaks at Kakuzu's apartment (now hers) and that if she wanted to find her, that was a good place to look.

"She says she's there because it's closer to the Pillar, but that may be an excuse," Shino told her once. "Why? Because she misses him in her own way, we think."

Kurenai hesitated over the bowls for a moment before she mixed everything together and poured them out into the different baking pans she had spread out.

Kakuzu. Tenshi-sama. Leader. Hoshigaki Kisame.

The oven beeped behind her and she slid the pans inside.

For an Akatsuki-controlled village, the actual Akatsuki sightings were few and far between. She'd only seen Tenshi-sama once or twice since their first meeting and Leader-sama she'd never seen at all, though she'd been told that the best case scenario was that him and all his different faces would leave her be. Kakuzu she only did meet the one time before news of his death met her ears, and Hoshigaki-san? He did come by every now and again, always alone and always when Sakura wasn't home.

Her hands tightened around a dish towel before she pulled it off the holder and began to wipe down the countertops, sliding dishes into the sink and slipping all the ingredients back into their rightful places.

"What you're thinking about must be very serious."

Kurenai's shoulders eased up as she spun towards the dining table. "The amount of frosting I'm making needs very serious considerations. How thick of a layer should I put on the cake? Should I make extra in case you kids want to eat some straight from the bowl?"

"That's terribly unhealthy." The stare Shino leveled through his dark glasses pulled a light laugh out of her as she reached into the fridge for a bottle of mango juice. To keep up with the day's theme, of course. "Your consideration should end at the cake."

"You're no fun."

"You shouldn't even be consuming more than thirty grams of free sugar a day. Why? Because in order to maintain the best conditions for the baby—"

"—I should follow the dietary restrictions in the month-to-month plan you've set up and updated with each of my appointments with maternity care," Kurenai finished mildly as she placed the bottle in front of him at the dinner table. Stacks of files and hastily scribbled notes spread out and over the glass surface. He'd always been a dedicated medic since coming here—a running theme from their time in Kumo, she heard—and her resentment for Konoha ticked up a couple more notches. Ten years ago she never thought she would've been capable of this sort of deep seated hatred; five years ago, even, she would've banished the notion before it fleshed out and would've blamed it on some fevered nonsense.

Four years ago, three genin and a ninken too inquisitive for their own good changed her life. Now, she felt nothing when she drew a kunai over the scratched metal of her hitai-ate and left it to hang on a coat hook in the entryway.

Shino cleared his throat, but was otherwise unabashed. "I know I... worry."

After everything they've been through, she'd be more concerned if he didn't.

"And you know it doesn't bother me." She patted his hand as she settled in the chair across from him. "Do you have a long shift tonight?"

"A ten hour starting this evening, but I won't be able to stop for the rest of the week. Why not? I will be busy attending a select few patients and conducting some of my own research."

Tenzo's one of them, she thought as she idly caressed her stomach. Still stable, still healing, still unconscious—whoever tried to kill him would have known Shino would be trying to save him, but believed him to fail. Kurenai held onto an unshakeable faith that he wouldn't. The second patient under his direct care was someone from the kids' Kumo days; Yugito Nii, jinchuuriki, survivor of a jutsu she'd never heard of because of Kiba's mastery of seals.

Kiba said he felt eyes in his back since then, and he swore it felt like they left circles, circling circles imprinted in his skin. Sakura had pursed her lips at that and settled into a thoughtful silence the rest of their time together that day.

"I should go and get ready," Shino said with a small sigh. He lifted his glasses enough to rub at his eyes, and she frowned at the light gray bags beneath them. "I'm sorry I couldn't stay longer."

She waved off his apologies and stood to help him collect his things. "You visited. That's enough for me," she smiled. Once all of his files and papers had coalesced back into a single stack, she clipped them all together and placed that and the unopened bottle in his arms. "But you will come by sometime this week to eat some of this cake. That's non-negotiable."

He nodded once. "Of course."

"Be sure to let Kiba and Sakura know that order extends to them too. End of the week, remember, that's how long the cake will be good before it starts to get crusty."

"Kiba will eat anything. Why? He's a walking garbage disposal who never complains."

"Weren't you just lecturing me about being healthy?"

"It wasn't a lecture, only a reminder," he said as he slipped his files in a waterproof case and tucked it under his arm. Kurenai followed him out to the foyer. "And Kiba will need more than either before he finally starts listening to me about dessert."

He shouldered on his pitch black cloak over his scrubs and flipped his hood over his head. The holographic green moths swarming his right shoulder glimmered as he opened the front door, only the screen door separating him from the heavy rain's cool humidity.

"Take care, sensei," he bid, the juice bottle tucked in an inner pocket of his cloak. "I'll see you soon."

And he was off into the downpour, another decorated cloak in streets swathed in billowing color.

It felt like it was just yesterday she stood in the Hokage's office, hands clasped behind her back and taking every ounce of her self-control to keep up her professional mask; she was a newly minted jounin receiving the assignment of her first genin team. What were they going to be like? What was she going to teach them first? Would they all get along? Would they like her?

The memory faded and settled into an old heap at the back of her mind. She shook her head and stepped out onto the porch to collect the empty pitcher and the couple of glasses from the night before, and when she raised her head back up there was another passing through this residential street. Tall, broad, and now an infrequent visitor to the house attached to hers.

"Shino was here not two minutes ago," she said in greeting. "You just missed him."

Hoshigaki Kisame peered at her through the white cloth strips swinging down from the lip of his conical hat.

"Guess my timing's better, then." He slowed to a stop at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the porch and made no move to get any closer than that. "You've been doin' okay?"

"It's only been a couple weeks since you've been here last—not a lot of time for things to change around here." She raised a brow. "If it's Sakura you're wondering about, she's usually around the Pillar or doing some paperwork at Kakuzu-san's old place." He grimaced and glanced to the side, and her brow rose further. "Of course, it seems you already knew that."

The more she talked to Kisame, the more she couldn't understand him. She'd met him once—the real him—when he and Uchiha Itachi invaded Konoha to get their hands on the Kyuubi and he'd been nothing but ruthless. Bloodthirsty. The brand of shinobi who relished in the fight, ones who couldn't hold back wide grins in the face of strong opponents because the bigger chance there was to lose, the sweeter the end would be if they didn't.

(Stony green eyes flashed in her mind's eye before she gently shooed them away.)

This Kisame, however, she couldn't imagine having blood staining his teeth. Outside the battlefield he was nothing but mild and polite with an interesting upbeat in his step if she ignored his penchant for melancholic silences.

But the most difficult puzzle to piece together was just how much he cared. He loved Sakura; loved her so much that he didn't care that she noticed how often he came by, how often he watched her from a distance, how often he watched the boys from a distance with the same exact eyes Shibi and Tsume had for their own.

And those three days Sakura had spent in bed completely dead to the world and hooked up to an IV drip in the room next to Tenzo's, Kurenai knew he'd been there too. When Shino was out on his shift and Kiba tucked himself on the chair in the corner with Akamaru under his feet, he'd been there in the seat by the door. Quiet. Always gone before anyone else could see him.

"I'm baking a cake," she said. Kisame blinked. "It has a few more minutes in the oven and I still have to make the frosting, but it shouldn't take too long to put everything together." She hummed. The cake would take some time to cool, but. "You should stay for a slice. Or if you can't, take one home with you."

He hesitated, his mouth pulling down in a considering frown. "I..." He paused for a moment, and then sighed, a small smile on his face so reminiscent of the ones his daughter gave to her pack. "What flavor?"

"Mango."

"Damn, how can I say no to that?"

:: ::

Obito watched Kisame walk away from the twin townhouses, a small tupperware of cake sheltered in his hands.

"What do you think? Will his attachments be a liability?"

"Let him have them," Obito dismissed as he retreated back into the shadows. "As long as the girl and her team are alive, he won't do anything to get in the way."

"And the girl herself?"

He thought about how sometimes the rain shifted and how different it felt when God wasn't the one sending it down.

"Nagato's problem," he said. "What trouble could she cause with the noose he's holding around her neck?"

:: ::

Maybe I thought I knew what it meant to be alone again.

But I'd always been alone from the start.

:: ::

Waves. Shadows. Unfocused, dull.

"Heart rate steadying, bleeding staunched. Full stability should be reached over the course of the next forty-eight hours."

Softer, beneath him. Heat, above him. Off-centered, darkness.

Why?

"I know we didn't get ta' see the whole thing, but you gotta admit how cool it looked when he got his ass kicked by—"

"His ass wasn't kicked, it was decimated."

"If you two won't behave—"

A scent of antiseptic. A prick of a sterile needle. He was here, somewhere... where was here?

"There was nothing on the battlefield. I searched, cleared up what needed to be, submitted my report to Leader-sama." A pause. "The only organic matter around was blood, some viscera. Nothing whole."

A low woof.

"'magine it'd be hard ta' find a couple'a eyeballs layin' around."

"They wouldn't have sustained their quality regardless. Why? The organs were already severely damaged prior to their detachment and with the hours spent off-ice in a contaminated area, I suspect even if we had found them, the kekkai genkai would have already leached out with the remaining chakra residue."

Darkness. Empty.

And then a light pressure on his shoulder.

"I'd rather you not feel the pain of the early healing process, so after I can confirm the extent of your possible head trauma, you'll be sedated. We can discuss your options when you wake next."

A flipped paper, pen scratches on a clipboard. There were four other signatures in the room outside his own. None of them are suppressed, but he supposed that if they cared enough to speak freely then the walls he couldn't see were painted top to bottom in a thick layer of seals.

He hummed, a rough rasp against his throat. "Of course, Aburame-sensei."

Another few scratches.

"Let's start with a basic question. Can you tell me your name?"

Muted aches rattled around every rib and he knew there would be dark bruises down his left leg, blacked and purpled over torn sinews. His arms were probably littered with fractures and the fact that there wasn't a hint of light in his vision should have alarmed him to some, but he couldn't bring himself to care at the moment. He was alive, despite his best efforts, and now... Now he wasn't quite sure what to do with that.

But he hoped that at least Sasuke would be happy.

"My... name is Uchiha Itachi."

And one of my regrets is how I'm going to let the world remember that name.

::

Hey guys! Sorry it's been so long, life's been pretty busy as of late and  I can't promise chapters will come out sooner, but I'm hoping I won't have to make you guys wait as long as you have for this. Thank you so much for your patience! <3

And we end on fanart by cherrycoke1818 on instagram