"Thank you, Aomori," Mari said with a polite bow. "We appreciate the time you've taken to escort us."

Aomori grunted. "Whatever." He looked pointedly at the border. "Dunno when the next patrol is coming by. You sure you don't want to just take the trade road?"

The look Aomori gave Mari, and the dead stare that the grouchy Leaf ninja's teammates gave Team Uplift, made Yuu's fingers itch for his ringboxes. Amazingly enough they had been returned to him when Jiraiya kicked the team out of Konoha. It would be so easy to slip them on, raise his hand—

But he didn't. Jiraiya had assigned Aomori to escort them; Yuu was pretty sure that the Leaf ninja wasn't really going to attack, no matter what it looked like and no matter how rude he was. He actually felt a small glow of pride for figuring that out—maybe this people stuff wasn't so hard after all!

"We'd prefer to be a little more discreet," Mari said, dimpling. "Your point about the patrols is well-taken, though. We'll get out of your hair. Come on, folks. Time's a-wastin'." She turned her back on the Leaf team (!!) and loped off across the border into Waterfalls, headed for the town of Hiratawa a few miles to the north of the border. The kids followed along silently; Yuu glowered at Aomori and his team before trailing after, and he made sure to keep one hand up so that he could see them in the mirror he'd palmed. Sure, they'd been told to let the team go, but that didn't necessarily mean they would.

In the actual event, they did. Five minutes later Fire was a fading memory behind them and there was no sign of pursuit, so Yuu tucked the mirror away and gave his full attention to the area around them.

Mari had started bending their course north and east the minute they were out of sight of the Fire team. Going to Hiratawa made sense—it was a good place to resupply, there would be work available, and there would be plenty of informational resources available for anyone who wanted to learn how the rest of the world was acting or plan what their next move would be. That had been the team's consensus during the discussion over the last few days.

Everyone involved had known perfectly well that they weren't going there. Those conversations were purely for the benefit of the stinking watchers that were almost certainly keeping a stinking cheating eye and an ear on the team. And, of course, the watchers probably knew that it was a lie. Yuu had wondered how many layers deep Mari would play; would she say she was leading them to Hiratawa in order to throw the watchers off the scent, then lead them somewhere else? Would she say she was leading them to Hiratawa in order to throw the watchers off the scent, then actually go to Hiratawa because the watchers were expecting that be the only place the team wouldn't go? Would she...well, there were a lot of potential levels.

No, she was leading them back to Iron.

The team made it through to Iron undisturbed; perhaps the kami were feeling merciful or perhaps it was a combination of luck, skill, and careful application of Hazou's Border Crossing SOP list. A list that Yuu heartily approved of.

Mari was clearly in a hurry to get gone; she drove the team hard, letting them stop only briefly to rest and refill their chakra from Noburi's barrel. They had left the gates of Konoha when the sun was barely above the horizon and they didn't stop until after it got too dark to see.

"Cold camp," she said quietly. "Do your business, eat a ration pack, go to sleep. We've got things to talk about, but I want to be somewhere reasonably safe before we do. Two watches; Kagome, you're first. Wake me at midnight and I'll watch until dawn."

"But—"

"No arguments. I'll be a little short on sleep but I can manage fine for a day or two."

Yuu glared at her but he obeyed. Well, mostly. He might have waited until a couple hours after midnight.

o-o-o-o

Even with nigh-unlimited chakra to keep themselves going, it was a tired and footsore group that broke out of the treeline on the eastern coast of Iron late the following afternoon.

Mari looked around, hands on hips, and nodded. "Seems good to me. Kagome, any objections?"

Yuu surveyed the area thoughtfully. The beach was grey sand, but nice and fine; it would be dense and hard to tunnel through for any dirt sharks that might come along. They were at the center of a small, U-shaped cove with reefs farther out, so there shouldn't be too many critters in the water. The terrain was lumpy enough that there were plenty of small dells back in the forest to pitch camp in. Ordinarily that would be an invitation to camping in a puddle, but with Hazou's Multiple Earth Wall to create a dry platform they'd be okay, and they could roof the dell over into an artificial cave like they had before. The underbrush would provide plenty of places to set traps...yes, this was good. Oh, and there was a stream nearby that would make a decent source of drinking water. That was a nice bonus.

"Not awful," he said. He'd been trying to confine himself to the fewest possible words; the team's issues hung suspended over them all like thunderclouds about to burst open and he didn't want to be the one who triggered the storm.

Mari nodded. "Done. Noburi and Hazou, spam clones. Kagome, you and Hazou are going to find us a spot no more than a hundred yards back in the woods; make a cave, then start setting up defenses. The rest of us and the clones will gather up dirt to cover the cave over and see about transplanting a couple of bushes to hide the entrance. Let's move, people." A quick series of handseals later and seven Inoue Maris were traipsing into the woods, carefully scooping a handful of dirt from here and a handful from there into leather bags.

Yuu turned back to the woods, his doofus apprentice silently falling into step beside him. They would talk later; for now, there were defenses to create. He smiled slightly as they went, making a mental bet with himself that Mari would work them into the ground and then once again have them make a cold camp and go to bed with no talking.

o-o-o-o

In the actual event, Yuu lost his mental bet: Mari allowed them to have a fire in the purpose-built firepit inside their artificial cave. It was small, but it was cheery and served to make the place feel more like a home than a temporary camp in the wilderness. She did work them into the ground, though, and allowed no talking beyond 'pass the salt.'

o-o-o-o

Hazou awoke to find sun streaming in the narrow entrance of their new camp. Inoue-sensei was sitting against the wall by the entryway, arms wrapped around tucked-up knees as she stared thoughtfully out past the invisible Force Wall that was angled across the opening at waist height.

He sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and looking around. It was late for a ninja start to the day; easily ten o'clock by the light. Four hundred miles and a hard day's labor had left him, and probably the rest of the team, tired and sore. Also, starving; he felt like an animal was trying to claw its way out of his belly.

He looked around carefully; aside from himself and Inoue-sensei everyone was still asleep, although Kagome-sensei seemed to be more dozing than sleeping.

Carefully, he opened up the pack that he'd been using as a pillow and rummaged around until he found one of the ration packs that they'd bought in Konoha. He was about to bite in when a quiet hiss from the doorway stopped him. Inoue-sensei was shaking her head and waving him over.

With a sigh he rewrapped the food and set it on his bedroll, stealthing to the doorway and crouching down by Inoue-sensei.

"I want us all to eat together, hot breakfast," she murmured. "Go out and gather firewood, set up a fire down on the beach. We'll eat there. You can deactivate the Force Wall."

He made himself nod briskly, carefully keeping the disappointment off his face. He was ravenous, but given how badly he had screwed up back in Konoha this was not the time to do anything other than follow orders efficiently and cheerfully.

He wasn't sure how much firewood they would need so he just kept gathering more and more, wrapping it in a blanket so that he could throw the whole mass into one or another of his storage scrolls. Once he judged he had enough he took it down to the beach and unsealed it all. It turned out he'd gathered more than intended, as he had the better part of a cord of wood. Shrugging, he dug a firepit in the sand, only to find that water filled his hole almost immediately. He raised a MEW platform instead, as well as raising a few more small MEWs around the perimeter to serve as seats. Cycling a log in and out of one of the macerator seals gave him a pile of sawdust and splinters that made good tinder. The fire started with no effort and stayed relatively smokeless as he took pains to feed it with small bits that would burn clean and fast.

"Not bad," Inoue-sensei said, giving him an approving look as she ghosted out of the woods with the rest of the team behind her. Hazou nodded his thanks, but didn't say anything. Sensei was out of ways to stall, which meant The Conversation was about to happen. The one he'd been dreading. The one about just how badly he had fouled up.

He was sure that it wouldn't end up with him dead; that was what would have happened back in Mist, but the rules were different here. Given that Inoue-sensei had allowed him to tag along with the group as they traveled it probably wouldn't mean his banishment either. That still left a wide array of awful possibilites.

Noburi opened his mouth to say something, but Inoue-sensei raised a hand. "Eat first. We'll talk after everyone is full."

Unfortunately, it didn't take long for everyone to stuff themselves full of hot food from Kagome-sensei's storage scrolls. Hazou forced himself to start on the bowl of stew he'd been handed, but set it aside half-empty. As hungry as he had been, his stomach felt like a rope that had been knotted and then soaked in water until it shrank into an impregnable ball. The looks that the rest of the team kept shooting his way just made it worse.

Inoue-sensei looked around the fire to see that everyone had either scraped their bowls clean (Keiko, efficiently; Kagome, wolfishly), or was only poking at the remaining food while glaring sourly at Hazou. With a carefully-masked sigh she kicked it off.

"Hazou: attention to orders," she commanded. The genin snapped to his feet with the reflexive obedience beaten into every Academy recruit, standing with feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind his back, and eyes locked on the horizon.

"Back in Leaf you demonstrated critically bad judgement," she said calmly. "For the next two weeks you will be doing all chores around the camp. In addition to cooking and cleanup you make repairs to everyone's clothing and gear. You will ensure that there is always plenty of fresh water and firewood. You will need to do most of that after dark, however, since during the day you will be acting as personal servant to the rest of the team.

"More immediately, however, your teammates are going to take turns explaining your error and their feelings about you. You will make respectful eye contact with whomever is speaking. You will remain silent while they are talking. You will not, I say again not, defend yourself against physical attacks. Are we clear?"

"Clear, sensei!" He had to force the words out through a throat that was suddenly dryer than Suna.

"Good." She turned to the rest of the group. "Hazou's stupid mistake nearly killed us all. He cost us the best situation we could possibly have asked for—assets to Jiraiya and guests of Leaf. We were under the protection of the most powerful village in the world. We had access to their supplies, their books, their jutsu trainers, and so much more. All of that: gone. The friendships we were starting to make with clan hairs and elite jounin: gone. The medic training that Noburi was receiving from one of the best med-nin in the world: gone. Our access to Akane and the chance to see her get better: gone. All because Hazou threatened a Konoha doctor and disrespected our benefactor—who, by the way, was a Sannin and one of the most powerful ninja alive—to his face.

"All of you have done an excellent job of putting your feelings on hold and focusing on the mission until we could get to safety, but now is your chance to express yourself. Say everything that you want to say, curse as much as you like. Feel free to spit on him or punch him. No maiming, no weapons, no jutsu, but you can put the boot in as much as you want. No time limit, take as long as you like."

Hazou watched, wide-eyed and on the edge of panic as his teacher surveyed the rest of the team before finally nodding to Keiko. "Keiko, you start."

Keiko considered the jounin for a moment, then rose and moved to stand in front of Hazou, studying him without speaking. Hazou struggled to maintain eye contact as he'd been ordered and forced himself not to shrink away from the utterly expressionless mask that was his teammate's face.

Seconds dragged by as she studied him silently. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. A minute. Finally she spoke.

"For the past two days I have been very angry with you, but Inoue-sensei has said most of what I feel." She paused, considering him again. "However, when I set my emotions aside and examine the situation logically I notice something of importance: I do not believe that you consciously rehearsed those words. I believe that they were said in the heat of the moment when you were stressed and afraid, and that you spoke without thinking. I did the same back in Hot Springs, and then I fled the group for over a week. When I returned, you forgave me immediately and were glad to see me, although I am still not completely certain why. Your mistake had larger consequences than mine; I endangered my own standing in the team and my relationships with the five of you, whereas you came very close to getting all of us killed and, as Inoue-sensei stated, you did cut us off from enormous resources."

Hazou's mouth tried to open and spill out all of the apologies that were backed up in his guts and struggling to get out, but he forced himself to stay silent. Inoue-sensei had been clear that he wasn't to speak until the other person was completely finished.

"A moment ago," Keiko continued, "I said that I was not completely certain why you were so quick to forgive me when I returned from the Summon Realm. I spoke imprecisely. Emotionally I have trouble accepting your forgiveness, but intellectually I know that it was due in large part to the fact that we are teammates and friends.

"I am not accustomed to having friends. I got along with most of the other students in the Academy, but we were not close. I was close with my sister, but friends must be peers and I was never her peer. The members of this team are the first friends I have ever had. You have stood beside me in combat. You have helped me grow as a ninja and as a person. You have forgiven me time and again for my social awkwardness, and you forgave me for my stupidity in Hot Springs. Your lapse in judgement was of epic proportions, but I am not willing to lose you as a friend. I choose to forgive you."

One of the many, many knots in Hazou's stomach untied itself. "Thank you, Keiko."

"I am still angry with you, though."

Hazou blinked and cocked his head, studying her face minutely. Was that a tiny trace of a smile on the corner of her lips? Was she serious, or was she...no...maybe? Was she actually teasing him? No, definitely not. She was definitely serious.

"I can understand that," he said. "Please let me know if there's anything I can do to make things better between us."

"Don't insult any more Sannin." If there had been hint of a smile before it was gone now.

"I won't."

Keiko eyed him for another moment, then turned and sat down again.

"Noburi, your turn," Inoue-sensei said, not looking up from the small branches that she was carefully feeding into the fire.

Noburi stood up, brushing the sand off the seat of his pants and glowering at Hazou.

"Inoue-sensei said it, but I'll say it again: you are an idiot. We had it all—we were becoming friends with important people, I was studying under a doctor who may have been as good as Lady Tsunade herself, we were safe from Mist and random hunters and everything. We were sleeping in warm beds with running water and hot tubs. We had Jiraiya as a patron, you moron! Jiraiya! Of the Sannin! What kind of a stupid, incompetent, ridiculous, thoughtless, idiotic moron screws that up? How stupid do you have to be to threaten a Leaf doctor in front of the Leaf spymaster and a bunch of ANBU? What were you thinking?!"

Hazou flinched away from the anger in his friend's voice. (Were they still friends? Would Noburi forgive him for ruining his apprenticeship?) He forced himself to stay silent; it was obvious that Noburi wasn't done.

Noburi scrubbed both hands across his face as though to drive out the aggravation. He sighed, deflating. "I know you didn't do it deliberately, man, but seriously...do you have any idea just how badly you fucked this up for me? Everything's so fucking easy for you, you've gotten basically everything you wanted since we left the swamp. You convinced us all to get behind this insane plan of yours to make the world bright and happy for all the little boys and girls and butterflies. You talked Kagome into teaching you sealing. You just keep getting better and better at taijutsu with that fucking cheating bloodline of yours. Inoue-sensei lets you do most of the planning for the team, and your plans are usually good. Why did you have to pick this particular time to screw the pooch? My med-nin training is the one thing I have that's really mine and not just because of my bloodline. I got a few dribs and drabs of training from Hashimoto-sensei between rounds of her telling me I was useless and incompetent because I couldn't remember all the alternate names for aconite, or all the symptoms of blood fever. Doctor Yakushi was a better medic and a better teacher. The hospital in Leaf had equipment I didn't even know existed, all the supplies you could want, fresh corpses to dissect, and probably every medical book that's ever been written. Being a medic is the one thing that I really, really want and I had it. It was right there, and you totally screwed me out of it because you couldn't keep your fucking mouth closed, you jackass."

Noburi glared at him, then looked down at the ground and kicked grouchily at the sand.

"You want to know the worst part?" the former medical student said. "I am so unbelievably fucking pissed with you that I cannot even find the words for it, but the worst part is: so what? So what that I'm pissed, what am I going to do about it? We've already lost Akane; we can't afford to lose anyone else, so I'm stuck with you. We're going to be sleeping in the same damn cave and eating around the same damn fire. I'm going to have to look at your stupid face every single day, and every time I do I'm going to remember what you cost me. And I can either stay pissed off and let it poison everything, or I can cope and deal and let it go."

Hazou swallowed nervously, forcing himself to meet Noburi's angry-yet-tired eyes.

Noburi sighed. "And yeah, Inoue-sensei says I can beat on you if I want to, and I know you'll stand there and take it because you're Kurosawa motherfucking Hazou, the great and stoic ninja. What would that accomplish, though? Would it make you not have fucked everything sideways? Nope. That's already happened. Would it make me feel better? ...Probably. The kids in the Academy used to insult me and beat on me just to make themselves feel better, and it seemed to work for them. I hated those kids, though, and I don't want to be one of them." He seemed to see something in Hazou's expression because he hastened to add, "Oh, don't get me wrong—I would just love to smack you a few times. The Leaf anatomy books had colored sections to show the perfect targets for taijutsu or weapon, and when I look at you I keep thinking 'oooh, mandibular condyle, yeah.'"

Hazou took a breath and braced himself.

Noburi rolled his eys. "Oh, relax your sphincter, Mr. MEW. I'm not going to hit you." He sighed. "I mean sure, it's tempting. It wouldn't really do any good, would it? I already know you're sorry and that you recognize what a fucking idiot you were, and that blah blah blah. Punching you might make me feel better for a little while, but then I'd have to remember that I'd actually chosen to be one of those kids and I'm...not quite ready to do that.

"So, yeah. Fine. I forgive you or whatever." He turned and slouched back to his place by the fire, not giving Hazou a chance to reply. He didn't so much 'sit' as 'drop dejectedly to the sand', and immediately grabbed a stick with which to poke the logs just so he could see the shower of sparks go up as he very pointedly ignored Hazou.

"Kagome," Inoue-sensei said, tipping her head towards Hazou.

Kagome didn't move from where he lounged by the fire. Lips pursed in thought, he studied Hazou for even longer than Keiko had. By the time his teacher finally spoke Hazou was bathed in sweat.

"Before I met you, I was pretty happy in the woods," Kagome-sensei said. "Mostly, anyway. Been there fifteen years, hadn't seen any really serious danger in fourteen. Pretty lonely, but no stinking ninja had put me in a cell lined with explosive seals, or threatened to shove a raiton ball through my face. So, yeah. Lonely, but safe." He shrugged one shoulder dismissively. "Then you lot show up." His voice rose into a parody of Hazou's. "'I want to learn sealing, Kagome-sensei.' 'I brought you some mushroom soup and gyoza and chocolate, Kagome-sensei.' 'Show me how to make explosives, Kagome-sensei.' 'The villagers actually like you, Kagome-sensei.'" He snorted. "You even talked me into leaving my nice safe woods. You didn't really know much about how the world works...hadn't even heard of the scorch squads." He paused, lips pursed in sour thought. "When I heard about 'em the thought made me sick. When you heard about 'em, you decided to fix the world."

Hazou kept his eyes on his teacher's as Kagome's unfocused, wandering back into memory for long seconds.

"Not even thirteen, but you were looking out for the team. Making suggestions about where we should go, what people should train that they would like and would be good for the team. Some really stupid ideas, but some good ones. You listen when we tell you that you're being an idiot, and you usually don't do the same stupid thing twice." He sniffed. "Usually. Still can't remember that letting a tertiary node come within three resonance modes of a five-spoke converter with a left-handed—"

Inoue-sensei coughed and the sealmaster cut himself off.

"Um...yeah. I was...um...oh, right. Anyway. You usually don't make the same mistake twice.

"You were the one who brought Akane into the group, too. Good kid, Akane. Best of us. Bright, cheerful, smart. World needs more like her, and she thought you were worth following." His eyes went wide and he shook his head. "Dating, though?! Dating?! How did you even— I mean, that's just—"

Inoue-sensei coughed and the sealmaster cut himself off.

"Right. Anyway. Yeah, Akane. And Leaf. And that stinker Jiraiya."

"Not your fault that the stinker blackmailed us into going after Arikada. Not Akane's fault that she got hit with that worm. After that, what were we going to do, not go to the stinking home of the stinking cheating Leaf stinkers?" He sniffed derisively. "And once we're there, what else did we think was going to happen? Of course they were going to find something to get pissed off about, just so they could put lupchanz in our ears and still keep their squeaky-clean image."

He nodded approvingly to Keiko. "Good job convincing His Stinkiness not to put lupchanz in our ears, or even just kill us," he said. "You always find the right words. Wish I could do that."

Keiko blinked, mouth gaping open in shock. "I don't...what...but...?"

Kagome gave her a shrug. "Alley in Rice, made two separate groups of stinkers back down. Sounded pretty right to me. Jiraiya of the Three Stinkers, made him let us go. Sounds pretty right to me. All that clear communication stuff you do. Can't do that. Never find the right words. You do, though."

Kagome left a gobsmacked Keiko and turned his attention back to Hazou. "So, yeah. Good kid. Kinda young, kinda stupid sometimes. Not most times, just some." His hands rubbing back and forth as he unconsciously fondled the explosive ringboxes that he had apparently donned without anyone, including himself, noticing.

"Real bad time to be stupid. Real bad. Still, the Big Stinker could have decided to let it go, chose not to. Politics, schmolitics; he's strong enough that if anyone stopped liking him he could just squish them. Still a stupid thing to say to him, but I doubt you'll do it again."

He paused long enough that Hazou began to open his mouth to say thank you—although for what he wasn't quite sure, since Kagome-sensei's ramble hadn't seemed to move towards, much less reach, any sort of definitive point.

"So, yeah," Kagome-sensei suddenly resumed. "Pretty much entirely your fault, but also Jiraiya's fault. Really stupid of you. Don't do it again." He paused, clearly thinking, then nodded to himself. "So, s'there any more of that honeybread?" He sat up and swiped his hand around the inside of the stone pot which had earlier contained a small honeyloaf, then leaned back in the sand, happily licking the goopy sweet off his fingers.

Inoue-sensei chuckled. "Relax, Hazou," she said. "I left some tea on my bedroll in the cave; go fetch it and make me some."

"Yeah!" Noburi said, his eyes lighting up. "And hop on one foot the whole way!"

Hazou sighed and hopped off to the cave. It was going to be a long two weeks.