Nikkō had had a lot to think about during their eight hours’ running. Of course, for a brief, incredible time, she’d thought of nothing at all, just revelled in being able to fly. For that alone, for being able to see the forest scrolling underneath as if the earth had given up its claim on her, a lot could be forgiven.

It would need to be. That briefing was her last couple of months with Shika distilled. They interrupted or dismissed her suggestions without listening because they knew better. They showed off their superiority with no interest in explaining or slowing down so she could catch up. They casually insulted her intelligence and treated her as an obstacle to be worked around. They probably hadn’t been trying to bully her, but the end result was indistinguishable.

And the worst part was that she would have to forgive it. Stewing over it would get her no closer to breaking into that self-contained dynamic of theirs, and demanding apologies never earned anybody any respect. Any kind of focus on her own feelings would be not only pointless but counterproductive.

Instead, she would need a strategy. The fact was, she’d allowed herself to be pushed off balance, and kept that way, throughout the meeting. She hadn’t taken their description from Jira—the Hokage (which, incidentally, what the hell?) as the warning it was meant to be, and started out treating them as the newbies she’d expected, instead of experienced veterans with a unique and crazy but apparently effective way of doing things. By the time she’d realised her mistake, it had been too late, and then she’d only made things worse by trying to be helpful instead of switching tack completely. As always, so many options visible only in hindsight.

This was no good. The team didn’t need her (each was individually more experienced than her, and their group bond seemed practically telepathic) and they certainly didn’t want her, but if she let herself resent them, she’d have failed as a leader on the very first day. That wasn’t something she could allow to happen. Not after Jira—the Hokage had finally put her in a leadership role, and personally entrusted her with something important.

As the team settled down on top of their skytower (an overnight camp in the sky! With built-in protection against chakra hawks!), Nikkō made her decision.

“Kurosawa,” she called out. She didn’t know the rest yet, but Kurosawa at least was a sweet kid, and that was what helped convince her that the team’s behaviour had been thoughtless rather than malicious (not counting Kagome, the classic nerdy victim turned bully).

“Yes, Minami?”

Not “Captain Minami”. Not yet. But she would earn that much respect from them. Minami Nikkō did not give up after a single failure.

“Come over here,” she beckoned to Kurosawa.

She looked him in the eye. “I need a crash course in the team’s abilities, history and dynamics. I realise there’s a lot to learn, and that you’ll have to skip a bunch of classified stuff, but if I’m going to lead this team, I need to know as much about all of you as possible. Even if it takes all night.”

Kurosawa glanced back at one of the girls forlornly. Not good at hiding his feelings, this one.

“I know you probably had other plans for the evening, and I’m sorry for disrupting them, but this is for the mission,” Nikkō said firmly. “Besides, you do still owe me for that afternoon I spent teaching you Nara hand signs.”

Kurosawa nodded, and turned to face her fully. “Before that, may I introduce you to a special technique we use for communication?”

“Sure,” Nikkō quickly said. This was exactly the kind of thing she was looking for.

“It’s called the Clear Communication Technique. The idea is that you describe what you’re thinking and feeling as clearly and neutrally as possible, so that the other person can understand where you’re coming from. We all use it to manage conflict situations in particular.

“Here’s an example. I regret the way I treated you during the briefing, and would like to apologise for it. I was uncomfortable with a new leader being appointed in place of Mari-sensei, who has led our team since its formation, and with whom we all have strong personal bonds, and I essentially decided to carry on as if it hadn’t happened and your presence didn’t matter. However, regardless of the circumstances, you are our team leader, and you deserve a certain amount of respect from us.”

Which was a load of crap. Nobody deserved respect for being a team leader. Respect was something you earned with your actions and the way you presented yourself. Even Kurosawa knew it, or he wouldn’t have qualified that statement so heavily.

Still, despite being pretty feeble as apologies went, it was one apology more than she’d expected to get, and there were times when wanting to make amends was more important than how you did it.

“It’s fine,” Nikkō lied.

“Jira—the Hokage and your old leader both trusted me with this job, and there’s no way I’m going to disappoint them. So let’s do this, Kurosawa. Help me to get to know our team.”

-o-

​ It was nearly dawn. Despite a few meaningful looks from Akane, Hazō had been unable to extricate himself from Minami’s questioning. She’d been a voracious listener, soaking in everything he’d had to tell her about the group’s tactics and abilities (and giving him an OPSEC headache in the process), but actually showing more interest in the team’s history and relationships, which took him by surprise. Her questions had been incisive and often difficult to answer—for example, how was he supposed to explain Keiko’s circumstances without touching on clan secrets or the very personal elements of her relationship with Mari-sensei (which Hazō himself still didn’t fully understand)? To her credit, Minami did make an effort not to probe too far into private matters, though the effort was complicated by Hazō’s own uncertainty as to where the boundaries lay.

When Minami finally let him go, it was with a promise that they’d make camp earlier tomorrow, to let him get extra sleep if he needed it. Hazō had refrained from mentioning that going forty-eight hours without sleep was part of Mist’s standard Academy endurance training.

She’d also pointed out, with a smile that was much more like the Minami he remembered, that dawn was a very romantic time of day—though for once his brain had somehow come up with the same insight on its own.

“Akane,” he said softly over his girlfriend’s ear, positioned carefully to avoid reflexive retaliation from a ninja unexpectedly woken up.

“Hazō,” she yawned. “Is it time to move out already?”

“Not exactly. Come to the edge of the tower. There’s something you should see.”

She turned to follow him, and gasped.

It had been the same when Hazō first saw it. Dawn covered the entire horizon. Its radiance transformed the totality of the landscape before them into something strange and enchanted, as if they’d accidentally stepped into a parallel dimension where colour itself obeyed different laws. Part of Hazō’s mind wondered what scale of explosive he would need to reproduce this degree of illumination.

“This is the most youthful thing I’ve seen in my entire life,” Akane whispered.

Hazō couldn’t help grinning. “Welcome back, Akane.”

They turned back to watch the rising sun and, as naturally as a cloud being guided by the wind, Akane’s hand found its way into his.

​ -o-

​ After a while, Hazō had to shake himself free from the trance. They might not get very much privacy over the next few days—skytower camps had many virtues, but size wasn’t one of them—and there were things to talk about before the rest of the team woke up.

“Akane, I wanted to apologise. It’s my fault we were all kicked out of Leaf, and I’m really sorry I left you behind the way I did.”

Akane smiled. “You already apologized before you left, remember? I forgave you then. I’m not going to change my mind.”

“So you did,” Hazō said. “But it bears saying again. Also, there’s one other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve actually been in Leaf for a little while now, and…”

Akane tensed. Hazō had no idea why.

“When I came to see you, your father was there instead. He told me I couldn’t see you because I was a missing-nin.”

Akane relaxed.

“I told him I could fix that, and he didn’t believe me, but I got him to agree that if I did, you and I could be together.”

“That sounds like him,” Akane laughed. “He’s very protective, but secretly he believes in miracles as well.

"And it seems like you’ve brought us our miracle.”

Hazō beamed. “That’s right. You wouldn’t believe how long we spent debating before we came up with the plan, but in the end we gave Leaf the skywalkers, and Jiraiya is marrying Mari-sensei and adopting the rest of us as clan kids.”

“Even Kagome?” Akane suddenly asked.

Hazō hesitated. That was actually a very good question. He didn’t know how old Jiraiya was, or what the age limits on clan adoption were, but in Jiraiya’s place he would probably balk at adopting a thirtysomething (fortysomething?) missing-nin as his child. And that was before factoring in the fact that Kagome-sensei was Kagome-sensei.

On the other hand, adopting Kagome-sensei as a brother didn’t seem like much of an improvement.

“I don’t know,” Hazō admitted. “Maybe a cousin one-hundred-and-eight-times removed?”

Akane nodded. “And how’s Noburi taking the fact that Keiko is now his sister?”

Hazō blinked. “I… I don’t know.”

Akane didn’t look surprised. “You two should really talk more. You’ll regret not taking those opportunities when life suddenly takes your friends away from you.”

Hazō felt a flash of guilt. “Akane, I never wanted to leave you behind. I always meant to come back to Leaf when I could.”

“It’s OK,” Akane shook her head, “I knew you would. And things weren’t too bad here. Ino visited me in hospital. At first, I think she was feeling sorry for me, but we actually get on quite well now. She’s very youthful in her own way.”

Hazō didn’t know what to make of that. Akane and Yamanaka getting closer seemed like it should have implications, but he didn’t know what implications, or whether it having implications was a good thing or a bad thing.

He screwed up his courage.

“Did you and Yamanaka…”

“Not now, Hazō-sensei,” Akane said. “I know all that is important and needs talking about, but right now,” she gestured towards the rising sun, “let’s catch up, just the two of us.”

Hazō paused to digest this, but failed to come to any conclusions. He decided to change the subject.

“That reminds me. There are a few things that I don’t think your father was completely wrong about. Akane, we’re supposed to be equals, and I feel like having a master-apprentice relationship risks getting in the way of that, especially now we’re dating. Those are power dynamics that can go badly wrong, even without us noticing. Look at all the stories of people dating their superiors and ending up exploited or abused. I’m not saying I’d ever deliberately do anything like that, but I bet many of those people didn’t intend for things to get messed up either.

“Besides, we’ve got a lot to teach each other, and always will. And my judgement can get pretty questionable at times. Not at all what you want in a master, and definitely something I need you to call me out on when you notice.”

Akane was silent for a long time.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” she said. “About the Spirit of Youth, and what it really means to me. Once I was out of hospital, I spent months training with Gai-sensei and Lee and it helped me realise something.

“There are as many ways to be youthful as there are people. Your youthfulness isn’t the same as Gai-sensei’s or Lee’s, and maybe it’s not the same as mine. I do still think I can learn a lot from you, because when you tap into the Spirit of Youth you’re the most youthful person I know, but I think if I rely too much on you—or Gai-sensei or Lee—then I won’t find my own way of being youthful. And that’s something I have to do if I’m going to become more than the person I used to be.”

Hazō didn’t entirely understand, but he nodded anyway.

Akane looked slightly wistful. “I’m going to miss calling you ‘Hazō-sensei’, though. Being master and apprentice felt like something special, you know? Something just for the two of us.”

Hazō looked down at their held hands, feeling the unfamiliar warmth in his palm. This would be most definitely a good moment for that barely-existent romantic part of his brain to unleash its powers and find an elegant way of putting what he was feeling into words.

It was probably the power of the high-altitude dawn, but for once his prayers were answered.

“I don’t think our new relationship is any less unique,” he said, “or any less special.”

“You’ve earned another romance point,” Akane said mischievously. “Have you been practicing on someone while you were away?”

“What?” Hazō choked out. “No, I haven’t been practicing on anyone, well, unless you count training with Mari-sensei, I, uh, mean, you definitely shouldn’t count that because it wasn’t romantic in any way, and it now occurs to me that she and I changed to first-name basis while we were away, but that in no way means—“

Akane held up a finger.

“Sorry,” Hazō said. “I thought I was over that.”

“That’s OK. Now, I think the others are starting to wake up, so why don’t we talk about something less personal? Tell me about the adventures you’ve had since you left Leaf.”

“Well,” Hazō began, “so you know how it’s possible for a sealing failure to tear open a rift in time and space into a dimension full of terrifying monsters?”

Akane smiled fondly for some reason. “You never disappoint… Hazō. Tell me more.”

​ -o-

​ Hazō couldn’t sense Minami’s prism, but he’d watched her make the seals as she casually leaned down to adjust her sandal before moving on. Around the corner, Noburi was being a cooper’s apprentice endlessly berated by a drunken master. Minami’s Keiko-optimised plan allowed Noburi to stand by with his barrel within arm’s reach, while Akane used her passing acquaintance with Drunken Fist Style to sway in an unsteady but intimidating manner that encouraged people to leave the area in a hurry.

Kagome, naturally, was in charge of preparing the three escape routes, two of which would be heavily mined. The third would be even more heavily mined, but with sensors close to the ground so you could use a skywalker to walk over them without tipping your hand to any pursuers. Escaping into the sky would be a last resort, at least until they’d covered enough distance from the village.

Hazō met Keiko’s eyes, gave a very subtle nod, and went in.

The jeweller’s shop was finely decorated, with a sprawling carpet on the floor, an elaborately-carved dark wood desk with an enormous serpent swaying behind it, and various fine metal items, predominantly silver, lining shelves and hanging from wall hooks.

Wait.

The serpent, somewhat taller than Hazō, and coloured in very telling red and yellow, hissed provocatively, displaying razor-sharp fangs. Hazō’s hand went to his kunai pouch.

“Bitey!” A low-pitched voice snapped from the depths of the shop. “Don’t be greedy. It hasn’t been two weeks since you ate those burglars.”

The serpent shrank back a little.

The owner of the voice, a stooped old man with a finely-combed long grey beard and proportional lack of hair, ponderously made his way to the front desk, leaning on a cane.

“Would you believe I thought I was buying a bird egg?” he asked Keiko wryly.

Keiko shook her head mutely.

“Well, I don’t regret it for one second! Bitey here is like family to me, and as long as the local gangs don’t learn from their mistakes, I don’t even have to worry about feeding him!”

Bitey eyed Hazō meaningfully, as if to say, “Give me an excuse, morsel”.

Hazō decided that not having a staring context with an oversized chakra predator was the better part of valour.

“That’s an impressive piece,” he observed instead, pointing at a particularly hideous ivory statuette (which unambiguously depicted a fertility god, and from which Keiko was averting her eyes). “My master has one just like it.”

“I carved it myself,” the jeweller said with a calculating look. “What do you think of its distinctive feature?”

“That is what I was referring to,” Hazō gave Jiraiya’s countersign, willing himself to keep a straight face.

The jeweller nodded and beckoned them to the back, leaving Bitey in charge of the store.

“What can I do for you possibly young folk?” he asked.

“We have a message straight from the top,” Hazō said, handing over the letter.

The old man studied the seal for a few seconds, then opened the letter with a letter-opener that looked like it had seen service as a cavalry weapon. Assuming Yumehara was right about cavalry existing in the ancient past.

“Hmm… hmm… I see… how can a man in his position have such awful writing…”

The old man looked up. “Well? Why are you still here? I have work to do. Lots of work, thanks to that slave-driver.”

“Actually, sir,” Hazō said, “we were wondering if you needed any assistance before we moved on. We can’t stay long, but if you have any messages of your own to send, or problems that could be solved with the application of short-term muscle…”

The old man brightened up. “Well, why didn’t you say so before? I’ve never known my colleagues to include such fine possibly young folk as yourselves. It so happens that there is one thing…”

“We are unable to commit to any course of action in advance,” Keiko said, “but we will review your request and provide you with a swift response.”

“Good, good,” the old man chuckled. “Finally… See, I’ve been having a lot of trouble with a pest called Shirakawa. He wants to rise up in this here local criminal hierarchy, and he thinks the best way to do that is to rob this poor innocent elder’s shop. Only he’s too smart to get his own hands dirty, so he recruits poor sods that are down on their luck and gets them to break in instead.

“Now, normally I wouldn’t mind, since I have Bitey here, but word is Shirakawa's saving up to hire a ninja. Figures this place has more than enough in it to cover the expense, and he’s not wrong. I can’t be having with ninja in my shop. Troublemakers, the lot of them. But since you possibly upstanding young people seem to be an exception, maybe you’ll do an old man a good turn and deal with Shirakawa for me? I’d like him brought here alive if you can swing it, or freshly dead if you can’t.”

“I trust you will be able to provide adequate remuneration in exchange for services rendered outside the ordinary course of duty?”

The jeweller sighed. “You’re a sharp one. Well, if you put it that way… I do happen to have some snake venom that’s of no use to me, but just right to trade with possibly murderous types like you. No prizes for guessing where I get it from. Good deal for you. Had a scholar tell me it’s probably full of chakra, though what that means I neither know nor care.”

“What information can you provide about this Shirakawa?”

“Tall bloke, black hair down to here, got a scar under his nose almost like a moustache. Talks big but has no balls—that’s figuratively, as far as I know, so don’t use it to identify him. His gang hangs out in the riverside warehouses.”

Hazō memorised the description. “We’ll be back tomorrow. If we don’t return, please assume we’ve been forced to deny your request due to the urgency of our mission.”

“They all leave,” the old man said, “and never come back. Women especially. But that’s all right, as long as I have Bitey.

“While you’re here, fancy buying your lady friend a sign of affection? Or maybe buy that awful statuette so the big man has to come up with a different code? I can offer you a fellow professional discount. Double if it's the statuette.”