Despite Mari-sensei’s casual approach to the situation, Hazou couldn’t bring himself to just go back to sleep. “...sensei, don’t take this the wrong way, but exactly how close did that thing get?” He asked cautiously.

“Hmm?” Kagome responded absentmindedly, refilling his pouches with explosive discs.

Steeling himself, Hazou pressed on. “Sensei, how can we check whether one of us got… lupchanzed… before you drove that thing off?” Horror dawned at the back of his mind as he realized what it would mean if Kagome were to have been infected.

The older man whirled on him instantly, eyes wide. Before Hazou could react, Kagome started shouting excitedly. "Finally! Finally, someone who doesn't tell me I'm crazy and takes things seriously! You'd look in my orifices, of course. See if there's any slime, or chew marks, or blood pouring out of the hole as it ate its way to my brain to puppet me like a stinking meat suit. Or you could just notice how I haven't started running or blown you up or attacked you with my poison stink-breath for asking that. Well, I mean, I suppose if it was a SMART lupchanz it might be saying this to keep you off-balance. But it isn't. Because there isn't one in me." He nodded in satisfaction.

“The next person to say a single damned word gets to find out how easy it is to use skywalkers without legs,” came a growl from Mari-sensei’s bedroll.

-o-​

“Hazou? Hazou!”

“Mmmr. Grm. Agh. Whaaaat? G’way squid, don’ wan’ none lupchanzen….” he grumbled, trying to roll over.

“Shh.” It was Keiko. “Just... just look.”

Hazou pried one eye open. She was gesturing off to the east. He looked. The clouds lining the bottom of the sky were painted a ferocious red, and as they watched, a wave of light swept over the land below them as the sun crept just above the horizon.

“It’s so-- so--” Keiko stopped, completely lost for words.

“Yeah,” Hazou agreed, “I understand completely.” They shared a few more seconds of reverent silence before he gestured at the still-sleeping forms of the rest of the team. “Think they’d want to see?”

-o-​

They had set up sky-camp at sunset on their third day out of Snow, and Kagome-sensei had finally lost it.

“Hehe. Heheheee hehehehe. HeeeeehehehehehehahaaaaAAA!”

“Kagome, stop that, you’re scaring the young folks,” Mari-sensei admonished. “Which, for the record, includes me. You sound like Hazou during a sealing idea brainstorm. What’s up?”

“That’s Leaf!” he answered, gesticulating off to one side of the platform. In the distance, Hazou could just barely make out what looked like a candlelight against the darkness of the forest. “We could go spit on ‘em if we wanted, and they’d be none the wiser!”

“None the wiser? I’d let Yagura set me up on a blind date before I’d bet against Jiraiya having skytowers set up over Leaf 24/7 at this point. I’m honestly a little relieved we didn’t see any of them coming over the border.”

“Probably trying to keep ‘em as quiet as he can, that sneaky stinker. Try to steal my apprentice’s seals, huh? Look how far that got you, Toad-stinker! Kurosawa of the Ten-Thousand Face-On-Fire-Stupid Seal Ideas kicked your swampy butt!” Kagome yelled into the wind.

“Speaking of skytowers, sensei,” interjected Keiko. “It might be prudent to avoid being within line of sight once it’s light.”

Mari-sensei sighed. “Right as usual. Unfortunately. Okay, that means no third watch. Hazou and Kagome, you’re on first and second for that racket last night.”

Hazou felt oddly fine with that. He didn’t think he’d have been able to get to sleep quickly regardless, busy as he was wondering whether any of the light from below was coming out of Akane’s window.

-o-​ -o-​

Four days post-squid, the team finally decided they were far enough south of the Wind-Tea-Sea shipping lanes that they could afford to descend and take up residence on one of the hundreds of nameless islands that dotted the Nanmen Sea.

If he was being honest, Hazou found it a little bit nerve wracking to only be able to see for a couple miles at most in any given direction, but everybody was eager to spend an evening beside a fire again. Not to mention the opportunity for proper baths, the lack of which had been increasingly problematic as the trip wore on and the genin rotated between running along and being carried.

Once Kagome had just finished putting up preliminary defenses around their humble fortress and everyone had freshened up, Mari-sensei called everyone out onto the beach in front of a roaring bonfire.

“A year ago today,” she began, “we were running for our lives, beat to shit and dragging a Leaf-missing nin we weren’t totally sure we could trust along with us.”

“I was sure!” Hazou interjected.

“Love is blind,” she said, waving him off absentmindedly. “Point is, we were pretty bad off, and to get fixed up, we got dragged to a petty, sadistic, snaggle-toothed hag who hasn’t so much as giggled for longer than all of us have been on this earth combined. And tonight, we are celebrating the man whose skills mean that we will never have to speak to that deeply unpleasant woman ever again!”

Noburi stood and gave several overdramatic bows while the team cheered and clapped.

“Noburi,” Mari-sensei continued, “I thought, now that you’ve graduated your apprenticeship and are therefore officially a man, it would be only fitting to pass on to you the wisdom of one of the greats.”

She handed him what was clearly a book, wrapped in decorative paper Hazou remembered from Leaf’s bookstore. Noburi unwrapped it with gusto. By the firelight, Hazou could make out the title: “The Great Sage Jiraiya’s 101 Seduction ‘Just the Tips’”.

Noburi looked askance at Mari-sensei. “I hope you haven’t disqualified yourself from any more betting pools.”

“Who, me? Never,” she said, grinning.

Noburi glanced suspiciously back at the book and froze. “...with detailed annotations on anatomical plausibility, pro tips, useful guidelines etc. by Inoue Mari?”

Hazou and Mari-sensei promptly lost their composure entirely. Keiko was staring at the tome in horrified fascination, and Kagome was busily looking at everything except the book.

“Op- op- open it ahahahaha,” Mari-sensei managed to get out.

Obediently, Noburi opened the front cover and then visibly restrained himself from throwing his first birthday gift into the sand. He turned it so everyone could see. “She made it into a box. It’s a scalpel kit. A damn nice one from the look of it, but I’m not sure if I should be relieved or disappointed.”

“Disappointed, for sure,” Mari-sensei said, wiping away a tear before making a lightning-fast dash behind Noburi to wrap him up in a reverse bear-hug. “Don’t worry, I promise to get you a copy to make up for it next time we’re in Leaf.”

“Still don’t see why anybody’d want to hang around those sneaking cheating stinkers any longer than they had to,” Kagome grumbled. “Speaking of sneaking, I’ve got something too.” From behind his log he pulled a thin, single-strap, almost tube-shaped leather pack with a double set of strings at its neck. “Waterproof, double layered for padding. Extra ties at the top? Close, tie, fold over, tie again, nothing getting out.” He pointed to the back. “Extra pocket, already got a bunch of misterators in there for replenishing the supply. Next time you need to go sneaking through some stinking clan-nin’s territory, you fill it with water, slip it under your shirt, don’t need to carry the barrel and get recognized.” He waved a finger admonishingly. “Only half full. Squishy, so you can roll if you need to, eh?”

Noburi took it and marvelled at the craftsmanship for a moment before raising a skeptical eyebrow at Kagome for a long second.

“Oh, and the strap is lined with directional explosives on the inside,” the sealmaster added as an afterthought.

“Thaaat’s what I was waiting for,” Noburi said, laughing. “For a second I was worried a lupchanz really had gotten you!”

Thankfully, before that remark could sink in, Keiko stepped up, with another book. This one was smaller, and roughly bound in leather similar to Kagome’s water pouch.

“Noburi, I understand that, at least before finishing your training with Hashimoto, your research efforts were stymied by unfamiliarity with the methods involved. In an attempt to remedy that, I have assembled a summary of certain advanced mathematics known to the Mori which deal with methods of estimating the impact of interventions and new practices. Despite my best efforts, I can think of no way that sharing it with you might plausibly lead to the destruction of the Mori, and so I hope it will serve as readily as a research aid as it did in managing economic enterprises.”

“So what you’re saying is, I’m forbidden from teaching any of this to Hazou?” Noburi asked.

“That is precisely what I’m saying.”

“Hey!” objected Hazou. “I’m not so sure I want to give you my gift now!”

“Wait, you have one?” Noburi asked. “I kind of assumed you were just going to do dogeza and apologize for having been so busy with trivialities like revolutionizing ninja combat and giving us the power of flight.”

“Hey, who did all the real work for that, huh?” Kagome butted in. “Unappreciative stinkers. Think you don’t have to respect your elders anymore just because you’re fourteen whole years old?”

“You’re right of course, sensei,” Hazou admitted, “but you’re right too, Noburi, I have been kind of obsessed with my own projects. Which kind of makes this an even better fit, symbolically, as a to try to express how much I appreciate you, as a teammate and a friend. And so...” He produced a roll of paper with a flourish, and handed it over.

“Is this just going to be a list of reasons I’m awesome?” Noburi asked, unrolling it, before beginning to read off the beautiful calligraphy. “This certificate hereby confers upon Wakahisa Noburi the titles of Chief Medic-Nin and Chief Mad Scientist of Team Uplift, and entitles him to the direction over a sealing research project of his personal choice and interest, conducted by the soon-to-be legendary sealmaster Kurosawa Hazou, subject to the veto of the hopefully-never-famous-for-opsec-reasons sealmaster Kagome. So mote it be.” He looked up at Hazou. “I get a sealing minion?”

“You get a sealing minion, Chief Scientist Wakahisa.”

“That’s Chief Mad Scientist to you, minion!” Noburi cackled.

“And now that you’ve all had your birthdays,” chimed Mari-sensei “I can finally justify bringing out this!”

Somehow, she had managed to unseal and fill a quintet of sake saucers without anyone noticing.

“Noburi, a toast?” Mari-sensei urged, handing them out.

He chewed his lip contemplatively before looking over to Hazou and raising his. “To a world where everyone gets to see the sunrise.”