"Well, that was fun." Nora turned around after the well-wishers she had been waving to on the dock were nothing but specks on the horizon.

"Indeed. But I think it will be nice to get home." Pyrrha joined in her teammates enthusiasm, but frowned seeing the faraway look on her captain. "Don't you think Jaune? Jaune?"

"Yeah, sorry Pyrrha. I heard you." The young man muttered, continuing to look at the disappearing shoreline of Anima.

"Well, don't you think it'll be nice to return to Vale?" Ren interrogated, trying to lead his despondent captain into revealing his current woe which had been plaguing the lanky blond for days. "I know that you and Lorán didn't always get along great…"

"That's an understatement." Nora snorted, picking a gob of wax out of her ear and flicking it overboard.

"It's not that." Jaune sighed and left the railing, turning around to face his teammates. "Or maybe it is." He would not yet admit that he missed the eccentric quartet. "I mean, it's just calling it 'home' somehow seems wrong."

"What do you mean?" Pyrrha asked, slightly hurt.

"Well, it's just that…" The young man scratched the back of his head, unsure if the words he was using were the right ones. "You guys are like my family. And It just seems to me that wherever you guys are is kinda like my home." He ended the declaration with a modest blush, unsure if he was being too presumptuous.

"Daawww! That's sweet Jaune!" Nora gave him his first reply as she glommed onto the tall blonde and began squeezing him like a teddy bear. She soon dragged Ren into her embrace and looked longingly at Pyrrha whom she didn't have arms enough to rope in.

The amazon chuckled and stepped into the mass of bodies, finding an empty spot on Jaune and giving him a firm, but not suffocating embrace. They broke when Nora got hungry and went to raid the galley for sugary snacks, Ren hurrying to do damage control.

"Did you really mean it?" Pyrrha asked once they were the only two remaining on deck.

"What? About you guys being like my family?" Jaune asked, having just recovered both his oxygen and his senses. "Of course! I mean, I know I have a family, but you know with that many people things can sometimes get, I don't know… impersonal?"

Pyrrha nodded, not really able to empathize, but equating it to the situation with her and her fans.

"But then why did you look so sad?"

Jaune turned downcast at the shiny-new wood planks on the vessel.

"I just feel…as if we could have done more. There are just so many people that don't get to go back home." His words were so profoundly dejected that Pyrrha felt her heart ache just listening. "So many homes that are no longer complete."

"Far fewer than if all of you had not been there." Both students looked up to see the increasingly familiar face of Oscar Ozpin.

"Headmaster? What are you doing here? I thought you were going to stay in Mistral." The man just chuckled and swirled his tea (gently working the bitter drink back into is repertoire).

"How many times need I tell you, Ms. Nikos? I am no longer the headmaster." Ozpin sidled up alongside his former students, seemingly oblivious to the intimate setting he had interrupted.

"And there are many reasons why I am here. Some day I too hope to know all of them, though I suppose I should blame Oscar's parents." He chuckled at the unimpressed looks he was receiving. "However, I am here on the ship back to Vale because there are quite a few loose ends I can only tie up in person." He looked over at Jaune who always found curiosity in the man's vague words.

"You all have done far more than what would normally be expected of you, and far more honestly than I though you capable of. Do not be so quick to take the world's problems on your shoulders."

"But if I don't, who else will?" The young lad fired back, staring pointedly at the revenant. Ozpin was not slow to catch on.

"I think you will find there are far more willing people in the world than you might first imagine." Jaune thought back to their first days in Mistral, many months ago. "Sometimes it just takes a little prodding, sometimes an example. But everywhere you go, you will find people who will fight against the status quo, and welcome others with open arms. Now then," He waltzed away from the railing, leaving the two teammates on their own.

"I suggest you two think hard about what you are going to do when you get back to Beacon. There won't be a lot of spare time before classes start, and you should make the most of what you have available."

"Wait, professor!" The stately teen turned a curious eye back to the young man who called out to him.

"Yes?"

"Um, what's the first thing you're going to do when you get back?" Jaune finished weekly, shelving his real question for some time in the future.

"Me?" Ozpin raised an eyebrow in feigned surprise. "Well, I would like to think that I might finally get my cane back!"

…

Sasuke opened his eyes in what had become an increasingly familiar state of total alertness.

The room, however, was not. This was not the stark laboratories of Atlas's scientific military base. Not by a long shot. It was quaint, and dare he say, homely. The furniture such as the couch he lay on were upholstered with a worn leather, and colors on the walls and floor were a palette of tranquil blues infinitely more welcoming than the antiseptic white furnishings in Atlas.

"Good morning!" That voice was familiar, and he lifted his head to see the meek Polendina waddle into the room with a disposable tray with four paper coffee cups.

"Morning." He supposed it was, the atomic clock in his head sinking up with local time. "Why am I here?"

The doctor laughed, placing his burden on the short glass table in the center of the room.

"Always straight out with it. I do wonder if you were this way before or if this is a result of the increase in efficiency? Ah well, no sense bothering you with that. You're here because we thought it might be nice to wake up in a more familiar setting rather than the examining table again! Well, isn't it?"

The man fired off questions to a Sasuke who still wasn't sure whether he was awake.

"I suppose." He scanned the room again. "I've never been here, though."

"No? Well, probably not this room specifically. I don't see why you'd ever have reason to go into the teacher's lounge, but they couldn't fit they gurney in through the doors to the dormitories, so well, there you have it…"

Sasuke sat up and was about to grumble that the man hadn't told him anything, when he managed to piece the words together. That, along with a passing recognition with both his memory and his memory banks made him recognize the room's furnishings.

"I'm in Beacon?"

"Of course. Didn't I say that?"

"No."

"Ah, oh well, in any case, Glynda said you would be more comfortable here. It was sure hard on old bones like me to travel all this distance just to patch you up, but I've dropped off enough spare parts and fuel that you should be alright on your own for the near future."

Without bothering to sit down, the man plucked two of the coffee cups and made for the door.

"You're not staying?" Sasuke asked, bemused by the old man's strange behavior.

"No, no. Much too much to do back in the lab. Don't worry. We'll be seeing you in a few months for Penny's birthday. She'll be turning five this year!"

Nothing in the vast reserves of preordained responses could make up for the abrupt visit and subsequently abrupt exit by the good doctor. Sasuke sat perplexed, even more disjointed than normal.

He tested his arms, his hands, his wrist, needing a physical assurance that he was working as well as could be expected before attempting to make a go at the coffee. It wasn't going anywhere.

He wasn't sure if he would ever fully get used to being in this state. It was still the dichotomy, that conundrum of being both familiar and so foreign. An idea which matched his very existence in this world. He made to reach for the coffee cup, something commonplace to ground him in his swirl of unrelenting thought.

There was one left to choose from.

His hand stopped short, outstretched like a tree branch. Was he malfunctioning? Had he been captured and was now being interrogated within an illusion?

A deliberate and impish slurp drew his attention to the now closed door. He closed his eyes and huffed. Grabbing the remaining paper cup, he stood up and moved to the waste-bin opposite the doorway to throw away the cardboard holder.

"No need to stand on my account." He could feel her amusement even in the trill vibrations his more delicate sensors picked up.

"I could say the same for you." He made his way back to the couch and sat, nodding for his guest to take the seat across from him.

The sly Cat Faunus smirked and glided across the room, sliding into the vacant space on the couch much to Sasuke's bewilderment, which he reserved to an understated raised eyebrow. They fell into a silence in which he nursed the sturdy paper cup with both hands, unsure what else to do or say but reassured by the innocuous gesture.

Questions burgeoning since he woke became obsolete. Now he was asking himself why she had come to see him alone.

"The others are waiting." She admitted with a rueful smile. "But I asked Polendina not to tell them when you were up. I just wanted to be alone for a while."

"Why?"

He was suspicious, fearful, and possibly even a little hurt. He was not stupid, though, and could read the underlying message being conveyed. But with everything that had happened, how could she be so focused on trivialities? How could she have devolved to being one of his fangirls?

"I know it's selfish." Blake muttered, turning inward and refusing to meet his ever-steely gaze. "I know we don't really have any reason to feel good about ourselves… but isn't that reason enough? Shouldn't we try to enjoy what little time we're given, what few opportunities we have?"

She curled her feet underneath her on the sofa, the prop-drink forgotten on the low-lying coffee table. She hugged her knees. And stared out the window so he wouldn't see her start to cry. She knew he disliked weak personalities, and at the moment she disliked herself.

Why was she crying? She wasn't a weak woman, not by any means. Even though she felt like she had fallen behind the others in her circle lately, she was still fiercely independent. But being independent didn't mean wanting to be alone. Was it so wrong to want a little bit of happiness for herself, to offset this anticlimax?

Silently a finger whisked away the tear which had not yet fallen. She whipped her head around to see Sasuke's robotic expression very much closer. She bore her fangs behind rosy cheeks for being caught in that moment of frailty.

"There is no denying what we want, is there?" His words were soft, contradicting his expressionless mask. "Revenge, loyalty, justice, hate, love, selfishness, generosity… they're all part of being alive."

He brought the single tear beading on the tip of his finger close to his face, looking at it with detached curiosity as it fixatedly reflected his image despite his slowly rotating finger.

"I've been selfish for a long time, and I don't really know where it has gotten me." He dropped his hand and let the tear roll off his finger on to the carpeted floor. "I've got to be honest, Blake. I don't know what I want anymore. I don't know what I'm allowed to want anymore." No matter how human he felt, there was still the knowledge that he was still lacking, both physically and mentally. "I feel… incomplete, and it has nothing to do with this body- well, little to do with it anyway."

He smirked, but there was no heart in it. He turned to face her, as she gave him her undivided attention. Both drinks long forgotten.

"The way I am is little different than the way I've always been. It's not good to be around me. I'm toxic, and chance are I'll just drag you down."

He knew that wasn't what he was supposed to say in this situation. Somewhere inside of him he knew he was supposed to be the one to support her, to meet her at least half way. The artificial part of him knew this reciprocity better than his human did, even as he ignored it trying to make up for his flaws.

Blake looked like she was going to cry again- that or castrate him. She bit down hard on her trembling lip, to the point he would have expected to see a bit of blood. But then with a wry laugh, she closed her eyes and shook her head, angry rouge replaced with a weary smile. Then she opened her eyes, and he found himself trapped in that amber gaze.

"I understand. At least, I think I do." Sasuke's body receiving so many mixed signals tried to turn away, blush, scowl, and implode on himself simultaneously. But in overloaded state just continued listening unquestioningly. "I can do as you say. I can wait until you feel you're ready. But just for now…" Her voice came back in a whisper, and she unfolded her arms and legs, holding them out in an empty embrace "… indulge me."

He moved to fill that vacant spot, body moving on autopilot. His heavy head rested against her shoulder and his body draped across hers. He wanted to apologize, for he was sure his metallic structure was painfully heavy even though he felt like he would disappear into her arms.

But she didn't complain, didn't voice a sound beyond that low humming like a purr and the gentle inhale and exhale of her breath as it traveled across his rubbery skin and buried into that manicured pelt of hair.

Sasuke thought about whether he meant it, whether he really needed to distance himself again in order to find satisfaction. He could not say if he was hurting them more by being there or going away.

But either way, he thought about her words, and the others, or rather what remained of them. He imagined their arms spread wide like tree branches waiting an eternity for him to come back. And he thought of the one that was absent, waiting for his turn with a smirk and a knowing expression.

Wait a little longer, Naruto. I have things here I have to take care of.

…..

Winter Schnee scowled as she looked upon the disaster which awaited her past the blaring yellow tape and idly chatting city police. Despite the major victory they had managed to pull off, she could find no contentment in her day to day.

Maybe it was because it hadn't been they which had done anything. Her little sister and her cohorts had managed to vanquish Salem and take down her empire pretty much single handedly. Although, they did have some help and guidance from an insufferable old Crow -Who had gone and given up the ghost before she had a chance to get even!

And here she hadn't even been able to avenge the slight made to her unit which took place during her 'vacation' in Vale. One Arthur Watts had broken in to a secure military facility in Atlas and assaulted General Ironwood had gone and gotten himself killed before they had a chance to apprehend him.

Or at least, that was what she was here to verify, along with why and how of this clusterfuck.

The explosion originated in the lab which was buried underneath a bustling apartment complex in downtown Atlas. Thankfully, most of the occupants had been out at work, or picking their kids up from school when the blast went off at 3:13 in the afternoon and caved in the brickwork building like a soufflé.

Which didn't make it any easier to ascertain a cause or whether in fact the culprit had been caught up in the explosion, as they had to unbury the crime scene first and foremost.

Thankfully she had the military corps of engineers at her disposal, and it was an unusually bright and sunny day in Atlas for the deconstruction work. Both of those facts giving her hope, again, despite the growing irritation with herself and others for not noticing their target had been right under their noses for so many months.

"Captain!"

A shout prevented her from degrading further into her pessimisms, and she straightened up, fixing the approaching sapper with a staunch face.

"Report, Sargent." The soiled soldier ended his salute, falling at ease and placed his weight on his rear leg and hands on the web belt holding his rescue equipment.

"It appears that we got lucky. Dr. Watts was smart enough to reinforce his lab from above with heavy-duty sound-proofing and radiation shielding. Even though the explosion collapsed the load-bearing support on one side, the ceiling stayed more or less intact and prevented the rest of the structure from destroying the other half of the lab. We were able to send a team down in to recover whatever might have survived."

"And Watts?" Winter asked with an impatient eyebrow narrowed at the far scene of white-clad figures crawling in and out of a fissure at the base of a pile of rubble.

The soldier turned back to the recovery effort, just in time to see two more engineers crawl their way out of the hole, a white-shrouded stretcher balanced ungainly between them as they clawed their way up the steep slope. An arm which was more like a jerky treat slipped loose on the side, and was quickly tucked back under the white tarp.

"… we'll be running analysis on the remains shortly."

Winter nodded, a modicum of satisfaction dulling her throbbing irritation.

"And the source?" The soldier stiffened and fumbled to remove his scroll to pull up what their technicians had uncovered.

"The blast took out the opposite side of the room we are currently excavating, so we won't know for sure for a while."

"Not good enough."

"W-well, so far we have found multiple scraps of metal belonging to a gold-titanium blend we have identified as being used in some Atlas tech. Mostly experimental stuff, though, so there isn't a whole lot of data to go off of to figure out what he might have been messing with."

Winter of course knew exactly what they expected to find, and again was somewhat relieved to be presented with this information.

"One other thing," She started out of her reverie when the soldier in front of her addressed her again with a small cough. "There was also a city-wide power outage which occurred right before reports of the blast came in. It's possible that whatever he was doing drained a whole lot of energy from the grid."

"Thank you for your opinion, Sargent. That will be all." The man gulped, before saluting smartly and quickly turning to hightail it back to the relative safety of the disaster.

There was a faint twinge of guilt for browbeating the innocent grunt in such a manner, but it was far beneath the strict propriety she knew she was necessary. They already had suspicions of what had transpired. That Watts, for whatever reason had tried to activate the machine he had stolen and gotten unintended results. But the machine as well as the theft itself were still tightly under wraps, and she couldn't have her subordinates getting nosey.

"And be sure to keep me informed, Sargent!" She called out to him as if in afterthought, though really just wanting to keep him busy as she turned tail herself and prepared for a much more important conversation.

The life-size hologram of General Ironwood sprung to life from the face of her scroll sitting on the charred pavement. Her salute was impeccable, but she still could not hide the dissatisfaction from her face.

"It's good to see you again, Winter." Ironwood gave a small smile at his subordinate's obvious frustration. "You're looking as well as ever."

"Thank you General. Likewise."

"Hmph. Don't lie to old men, it inflates their egos too much." He smirked underneath the plethora of bandages masking his face.

Winter wasn't sure if she should laugh, or feel embarrassed at being called a liar. So instead of either, she bit her cheek and related to her superior the up-to-date status of their efforts.

"I see." The man said, absently rubbing his stomach which was slowly healing. "No telling if they have found Sasuke's body, huh?"

"No sir," Once again, she couldn't help sounding defeated. "We are still excavating, but everything on the other side of the lab seems unrecoverable. I will let you know if we find anything as soon as I can, sir."

They would never find another body besides the corpse they had initially dragged from the basement wreckage which was later confirmed through dental records to be one Arthur Watts. They would never accumulate enough metal scraps to account for the entire machine which was lost, nor would they find anything else to explain what went wrong or why he chose to activate it in the first place.

No motivation and no signs of foul play being found, it wouldn't be long before the case was closed being qualified as an accident. And its secrets buried behind mountains of bureaucracy and within the dissatisfied minds of a scant few individuals.

Some would sleep better at night, knowing that one more of Salem's inner circle was accounted for. Winter was not one of them. In her mind, she had too big a debt to pay, too many failings she could not make up for. Too many things left unsaid.

Sasuke would himself not bemoan the lack of answers. As far as he was concerned, everything turned out for the best. There was only one of him in that world, and that was the way it should stay.

….

"I don't need your pity."

The behemoth of a man rolled his eyes as he prodded the small fire with the fractured remains of a blood-red katana, much to her ire. He set it next to him and began to absently skin the pile of rabbits on his other side using the broken tip of the same sword which had leather wrapped around the base to use as a handle.

"And I'd appreciate it if you'd stop using my sword as a kitchen knife."

He stopped what he was doing to stare at her silently with a single raised eyebrow, a touch of amusement lit up behind those dull brown eyes.

"Not much of a sword anymore." He grunted, resuming the meal preparation. "And I'm not much one for pity, either. Then again, I'm not one to leave an injured woman alone and unattended in the middle of the snow."

He finished the first rabbit and took up the other half of the sword again, skewering it and placing it on the fire with casual ease.

"It if makes you feel better, consider the sword payment for helping you out."

"It doesn't."

"Well then, that's too bad, Raven Branwen." He scowled and scuffed his boot against the ground, truly frustrated with his obstinate guest. "You're just going to have to live with it for now."

"Well see about that." She sat up painfully from the bed of animal skins she lay on, determined to show more strength than she knew she had right then. "Don't think I'll just lie back complacently while you offer me up to your mistress. I know who you are too, Hazel Rainart."

When he turned his face away from her, she could not see the pained glower and so was left to the implication that she had guessed correctly, which only furthered her desire to escape.

"She's gone." His hollow voice cracked along with the fire. "But you can feel that, can't you?"

Raven paused, searching her body for anything else besides pain. It was worse than looking for a needle in a haystack, rather the absence, the empty space where the needle should have been. She found it as a cold void in her heart.

"How did you…"

"You feel that, too." He dropped the next rabbit he was working on into the wicker basket.

"What exactly am I supposed to feel again?" She winced, shifting her weight off the jagged stones which were poking up through the furs.

"How should I know?" He scoffed. "Men can't be Maidens."

Raven froze at his words. But the moment of surprise didn't last long. She had, in fact, been expecting this, though quite what she would do with it, she didn't exactly know.

She looked at her calloused hand attached to a bandaged wrist. Twisted the stiff appendage in the flickering firelight. She glanced over to the rabbit slowly roasting on the fire, and suddenly the sizzling flesh was darkened with a flash of crackling electricity.

Hazel glowered at her as he pulled the morsel off its spit, smoking carcass still steaming in his hands. He winced at the heat before he threw it at Raven who caught it deftly.

"That one's yours, now."

"Thanks." She tore a hunk off ravenously, uncaring, and perhaps even a bit enticed by the charcoaled flesh which was seared over juicy flesh bleeding into her parched mouth.

"You know, I guess I do feel something." She spoke after a moment of contemplation and silence whilst she ate.

"What, exactly?" Hazel asked, genuinely curious to understand this side of magic.

Raven smiled bitterly.

"Like shit."

…

The little girl drunk in the pretty pink ball with wide, hungry eyes, anticipating the frozen treat which cried sugary sweat in the hot summer day. Just as she was about to catch one of those errant drops on her outstretched tongue, the whole sphere escaped from its crisp waffle cone and splattered on the dusty concrete with a resounding plop.

The girl wailed in abject disappointment for the loss of her treat.

She was old enough to have heard, and to understand the adage about not crying over spilt milk. She might have even begun to understand it in those underdeveloped neurons in her head. But in that particular instance of utter distress, all growing forms of maturity went out the window.

It wasn't like she didn't know that she would have the chance to taste the frozen treat again during her lifetime, or even during that particular summer for that matter. Hell, there was even a small chance that if she told her mom what happened, her mother might believe her and take pity to buy her a replacement.

But for children life was that instant. In the moment of loss, there was no logic in that prepubescent mind. Things didn't change much when they grew up, either.

She continued her histrionic bawling until there came a soft tapping on her shoulder. She ignored it, or perhaps couldn't feel it in that soul-crushing regret which was part of the natural bi-polar behavior for every child her age.

The tapping became an irritated prod, and while she did not stop crying, the girl did turn to see who was trying to disturb her in her self-pity. She came face to face with a near identical copy to her lost cone, this one staring at her with its slightly lopsided stripes of white and brown as well as the iconic rosy pink.

The girl blinked away tears which fled with the voraciousness of curiosity. She stared at the Neapolitan ice cream floating there with bemused wonderment and equally stupefied expression which was comical with the undignified red hue adorning her puffy cheeks.

The ice cream didn't laugh, though, and the one holding it just growled as it took the girl's chubby little fingers without permission and wrapped them around the fragile cone. Making sure she wasn't about to drop it in confused shock, the dessert's previous owner nodded to herself before letting go and quickly turned around before she changed her mind.

She didn't wait around for a garbled thanks, or even to see the child's expression shift from utter despair to unrestrained joy. Her good deed had been done for the day.

"That was awfully nice of you, Neo." The young woman with the same theme as the ice cream she had just bequeathed, stuck her tongue out at her green-haired companion.

Or should she say brunette? The simple hair dye seemed enough disguise for the still at large criminal. That along with the mismatched second-hand prosthetics and black cloth covering her right eye and disfigured part of her face made for a completely different image than the crude mugshot plastered over wanted posters strewn about the city.

In fact, Neo didn't say anything, as usual. She was still a little miffed at being ignored by the press and police alike, who seemed to have forgotten about her. That, and the fact that she had just given away her first ice cream in months. And for her, with the little amount of income coming in, likely the only one for the rest of that summer.

"Oh, quite sulking. Here." Emerald pressed her own frozen treat at the petulant young woman who stared skeptically at it, her gaze drifting up the rusty bronze arm, similar to the former natural skin color, and to the woman's expectant face. "Well?"

Neo frowned deeply, lips pursed in a way that reminded Emerald of the little girl Neo had done the same thing for.

"Come on, it's not poisoned you know. I just had a single lick." Neo glared at her lopsided smirk before snatching the cone from its delicate perch, expertly making sure not to make the same novice mistake and drop the precious comestible.

Emerald wanted to roll her eye and bask in the brief moment of moral victory, toying with the idea of pinching a dollar or two to buy herself a replacement. But before she could even consider whether her robotic hands were up to the task of pickpocketing, she saw Neo doing something over her hunched back. Emerald poked her head over her shoulder just as the diminutive woman shoved something her way, forcing her to back off and appraise the abrupt offering.

The half-serving of ice cream stared back at her judgmentally. Could dairy even be judgmental? It certainly appeared to be, the jagged half-sphere listing pitiably to the side in its holster making Emerald sweat as much as the rapidly melting confection. Still, she took it with a small chuckle as Neo marched on ahead, her half of the cone defensively held in both hands.

"Now I see why you keep me around…" She shook her head as she stiffly walked to catch up.

Neo once again turned around and stuck her tongue out at the older woman, chocolate staining the corners of her mouth.

"Love you, too."

…..

"I wish you could have met him. He was… one of a kind…"

Ruby smiled sorrowfully down at the granite stela as if waiting for an answer. The summer's sunset painting her unhooded face in Martian hues as the cool breeze rolled in off the ocean and tussled her obsidian hair.

It had been so long since she had visited her mother's gravestone, and all that time apart she had been thinking of what she might say. Now that she was there, she couldn't find the words.

She could be a storyteller. She could relate her adventures verbatim, embellishing them with enthusiastic hand gestures and imbuing them with more vivid detail than there had even existed. But to describe a person was so much more. There were thousands of those kinds of stories within a single lifetime, more than truth, they actually happened.

The gravestone and the one next to it stared back at her unsympathetically.

"Don't give me that, Uncle Qrow." She stared down accusingly at the fresh granite engraving in the shape of a cross, still not forgiving her role model for abandoning her so suddenly. "I know you two didn't always get along, but the least you could do is be nice to one another now." She looked back to her mother's time-worn rock.

"I'm sure you two would have gotten along. He's a lot like you, a lot like me." Her hands wrung with discomfort. "I-I don't know how else to describe him to you. I could say that he was always happy, and always kind, generous and selfless, but that wouldn't be entirely true." Ruby laughed and kicked at the same stone which had been there the last time around, time kind to its crystalline shimmer.

"And it wouldn't be fair. We both had a rough life. Somehow, he didn't let that bother him, and he made the best of it. Not that he was totally perfect." She scratched her cheek, slightly embarrassed by the admission. "He also slipped up, made mistakes and was kind of a dork too now that I think about it…" She waved her hands in frenetic denial. "N-not that that's a bad thing, or that I have any room to talk, heh, heh, heh." She rubbed the back of her head as she spiraled further downwards in her mired self-talk.

"I don't mean to say these things to make him sound bad. In fact, they made him so much better because he was a real-life person, and not some kind of imaginary friend or super-hero. Oh, Mom," Ruby sighed and kneeled in front of the unflinching tablet. "It just seems like I'm trying to justify him to you. Maybe I'm trying to make sense of it myself. I know you only want what's best for your little girl. But I just hope you can understand me when I say…

"I-I think I loved him."

The waves crashed far below, and suddenly despite the slowly dying heat of the summer's day, Ruby felt cold. And alone. Yang and her dad were waiting for her back home, but now that big house just felt empty.

"That was pretty nice."

She felt some of the warmth return to her from deep inside her chest, and she cupped her hands on her stomach.

"You heard that, huh?"

"Of course. I know you can't see my face right now, but believe me I'm smiling. I really do appreciate it." Somehow, Ruby could feel the amusement rolling off like static electricity. "It'd be nice if you'd quit referring to me in the past tense, though. Felt too much like a Eulogy."

Ruby tittered, and the sensation bounded back, redoubling the lifting feeling it conveyed.

"Well, I think it's only right, don't you?" She traced the lines which still lay etched underneath her black velvet corset. "When you come back, you'll be a different person. You'll be both of you, and more." Admiration, and even a little jealousy crept in with that final thought.

There was no response for a while, and for that moment, Ruby wondered if the past week had been only her descent into insanity, and talking to herself just the latest culmination of her neurosis. She was relieved when the voice finally did come back, though it was far more solemn than before, and the weakness brought back that same winter's chill.

"If…when, that happens. Will you still feel the same way?"

"Nope!" She could feel the weight drop in her stomach, and for once, laughed gayly as she imagined her companion sulking somewhere in her gut.

"Of course It'll be different." She spoke with a soft smile, the dead forgotten as she clung on to the vestiges of the living. "We'll both be different. But I think that's okay, don't you? After all, we have to grow up some time."

She looked back to the graves one last time, the gem-like flash as the sun finally dipped below the horizon.

"No, it's better than okay. It'll be great. A new adventure, for all of us." Ruby turned away from the past, both recent and ancient, facing towards the dark woods which bore her future.

"Will you…" She whispered tentatively, seeing the growing shadows shift before her. "Will you, walk it with me?"

"Of course. I made a promise, didn't I?" The response came back unhesitatingly. "You should know the answer by now, I mean, how much closer can we get?"

Ruby felt herself smile and absently gave the seal one last pat, before embarking on her way back.

She saw her footprint in the well-worn path leading off towards faintly twinkling lights beyond. But then her feet veered her into the untrod tall grass, still wet, untouched by the sun's rays. Her heart seeking out the path less traveled.

"I'll always be by your side, Ruby." His voice fetched gently, looking for comfort in his own darkness.

"I know."

…

Despite waking up on jagged volcanic rocks like a bed of nails digging into his back, and the constant mist of ice-cold water on his face rousing him from a solid sleep, he couldn't shake the innate feeling of contentment pervading through his core.

Why this feeling? What was the last thing he remembered, anyway? Snippets, brief flashes of a forest scene which reminded him of home and the subtly smiling black-haired beauty were the only thing flooding through his pounding head. This left him with a nostalgic longing that was both heartwarming and painful. Every time he tried to recall more, a splitting migraine like an ice-cream headache drove him to shut his eyes and concentrate only on the incessant drops running down his face until the only roar in his ears was the waterfall cascading in the background.

He groaned, attempting to sit up before realizing this would be a futile effort. Instead, he rolled onto his stomach and tried to push himself up, wondering when he had gotten so weak. Once he got his knees underneath him, ignoring the rocks like razor-blades digging into his knees, he opened his eyes.

In the darkness, he couldn't see where metal plate began and ended. If he could tear his eyes away from the symbol in the middle, he might have been able to tell, but that strange pointed swirl became the entire focus of his mind and body in those laborious minutes that followed. The eccentric engraving became the spiral of his entire universe.

He knew that symbol. Knew it like he knew the back of his hand, like he knew the familiar tug on his face of a displeased scowl.

Yet he couldn't place it. Like he had only seen it long ago, in a dream where forgotten upon waking, only to come face-to-face with it again. Like destiny.

Unable to maintain his position on elbows and knees, he sat up slowly, careful not to totter backwards into the river which was surely roaring behind him. His shadow no longer covering the strangely familiar symbol, he was able to see that it was but a small metal plate attached to a tattered blue cloth, and not the entirety of his existence like he surmised.

Though even this he doubted as he scooped it up instinctually, placing it in his lap while he looked up to the heavens.

The clear night sky was out in full form, light from stars thousands of years away prickling his bare-chest and grounding him more than the earth under his feet. This was his world, so much larger than what could fit underneath a piece of cloth.

Yet, it was missing something.

It was less the muted sound, and more the guttural instinct which let him know someone had arrived. He paid them no heed as he knew they were not what he was looking for.

"Sasuke…" the name invoked a pang of recollection in his mind which bred to more headaches which he forcibly repressed, not tearing his eyes away from the heavenly expanse above providing him an outlet.

"Kakashi…" His dry mouth answered for him, even before the memories came flooding back through the gap hammered open in his skull.

"Where's Naruto, Sasuke?"

"I don't…" Naruto. That was something that was missing. Where was he? More importantly, where was this person recently named Sasuke, and why weren't the two together like a portmanteau of people?

"He chased after you." The man he knew as Kakashi padded gently over to him, though he could hear the ravaged desperation in the man's voice. "He found you. You fought." These weren't questions. Sasuke supposed that they were the truth. "What happened. Where is he?"

"He's back there." The answer came to him, though for the life of him he couldn't remember where 'back there' was. Back in Konoha? Back in Wave? Back there on that trail chasing after his foolishness?

Kakashi was silent for a while, stopping just before Sasuke's sitting form. He could feel the man looming over him, staring at him with his one beady eye and unreadable mask. He could see the imaginary gears churning in the man's mind as he looked upon his remaining male student, the other nowhere to be found in that terminus.

"What happened?" He asked again, and this time Sasuke heard it.

"Something… miraculous." He laughed emptily, shaking his head. "Insane."

It had all been a dream. It had to be. He had killed Naruto with that last attack, a move so powerful the boy had simply disintegrated. He was only just waking up now after a lengthy slumber in which restless fever dreams had plagued his mind relentlessly, fueled by the malignant mark bestowed up him by the Snake-Sanin. He rubbed his shoulder with the hand that wasn't clutching the headband.

"The curse mark…" He heard Kakashi gasp behind him, and he froze, knowing already that it was gone.

"Mm."

"When did-how did…?"

"I told you," Sasuke chuckled, struggling to stand up. Kakashi caught him before he tumbled into the raging current. "Something miraculous."

Supporting him under his elbow, Kakashi had no choice but to nod dumbly, still not sure what to make of this disturbed but passive Sasuke, who was a far cry from the boy they knew had gone rogue not 24 hours before.

Then there was the choice of what to do now. Sasuke was obviously in no position to retaliate if he were to capture him now. That was the whole point of the mission, to bring the hotheaded boy back to the village. But then there was also the absence of his blond student. He couldn't just head back and abandon him, could he? That wouldn't feel much like a victorious mission.

"Don't worry about the idiot." Sasuke mumbled as Kakashi placed him in his arms, the half-naked boy curling into the veteran ninja's flak vest. "I'm sure he's fine."

The masked shinobi couldn't help but be skeptical, despite the surety of those mumbled words as their creator drifted off to sleep like a pet sheep.

In truth, he didn't know what to believe anymore. He had come there expecting the worse. Preparing himself to see both of his students locked in tangles of guilt and gore. In a way, this was more unsettling. What would he tell the Hokage? What would he tell all of Naruto's friends when he got back? These questions, which weighed heavily on his mind, passed unobtrusively over the stoically content Sasuke as he rested in unmolested slumber.

Kakashi sighed, resigning himself to the fact that some answers would just have to wait.

"Whatever it was you hoped to gain, whatever it was you were seeking by going along with that snake, I hope you found it, Sasuke." The gray-haired man muttered as he leapt off into the forests of the night.

"Yeah, I think I did…"

…