A/N: Hello, this my first serious Naruto fanfic. It will centre mostly around the Ame Orphans Trio and the subsequent birth of Akatsuki, in an AU where the organization does not lose it's way and expand upon their characters. But you can tell that by the fact a (Semi-SI) OC is in place. This was meant to be a prologue, but I wanted to gather them all in one chapter. Read and enjoy. Follow/Fav/Review to motivate the author.

Purgatory is a funny place.

The boy sat at the edge of a small cave, barely fitting in by assuming the foetal position. The world outside seemed to be nothing but mountains and rain. Rubbing his hands beneath his dark blue cloak for the umpteenth time, he retreated further into himself and blew against the cloth covering his mouth for ephemeral warmth.

Seriously, I thought hell was supposed to be hot. Unless humans had been mistaken about the after-life entirely and it was heaven that was hot. He bristled as the wind tore through his thin garment; more of a rag he had picked up before breaking for shelter. And he was still confused at how his body seemed to have reverted back to a child's from a teenager's.

"Damn it, do I have to die again?" He asked himself, looking out into storm. He had drifted between sleep and consciousness more times than he could count by now. Each time he awoke weaker than before, more weary and stiff. Was this supposed to go on until he was freed of sins? Shit, he'd done a lot of those. Couldn't he get some sort of clemency? He had been good to cats.

After was seemed like days after his arrival to this desolate land, the boy spotted the first sight of something alive. Another child with blue hair, in a faded maroon shirt which cut off beneath the sleeves to black and dull blue skirt reaching her ankles.

I'm not alone! He stirred, rushing out into the drizzle and nearly forgetting he had been still for hours on end. Not even managing a step, he hit his head against the exit of the cave and almost fell face first into a puddle. He gazed at his reflection for a second, before exclaiming.

"What?!" White hair slicked down by the rain instead of his dark brown locks, skin slightly paler than his tan and eyes so black he couldn't see his pupil in place of his brown irises. His nose was smaller, and his jaw curved enough that even without the baby fat, would not belie the shape he remembered having.

Forget where I am, who I am seems more important. But then the frigid air reminded him why he had left the relative safety of his cave in the first place and made for the figure retreating further and further away from him.

"Wait!" He yelled, following on trembling limbs and wrapping his cloak around him tighter. What wouldn't he give to just have some boxers on his person, but apparently since you're born naked, you die and then wake up alive naked.

The blue-haired person craned his or her neck back to look–maybe if they've got dye they have more clothes- but didn't stop.

"I said wait please!" He tried the magic word, bare feet so frigid his toes began to burn.

"Leave me alone!" The girl (he could tell by the voice) yelled back and the boy nearly tripped over a rock. Of all the languages to speak in the after-life, why did it she have to use Japanese? They didn't even have a religious book for that as far as his knowledge went. At least he was verbally fluent, never mind the Kanji, for it had been among the one of the languages he knew.

"Sorry for scaring you! Please hold up!" He switched languages to no effect, except causing her to increase the distance between them. "At least lend me some underwear or shoes!" He yelled at the top of his lungs.

The blue-haired kid finally stopped and looked at him in what presumed to be a deer-in-the-headlights look. The boy made his way towards her, slowing down and carefully raising both hands in peace.

"I-I don't have anything!" She hiccupped, and as the boy stepped ever so slowly towards her, rocks biting the skin beneath his feet. Her eyes were red and she seemed to be trembling from something other than the cold. "I'm sorry, stop following me."

The boy paused, drops of the rain still pelting the both of them. Calm, thoughtful black eyes met frightened amber ones. She looked like a scared kitten.

Oh no brain, you know what happens when we start thinking of things in terms of cats.

"I don't have anything either. You don't want to see beneath this cloak." The boy sniffed, feeling a cold coming on. "But my name is Hoshi. How did you get here?"

He expected some sort of answer, not for her to turn tail and start running again. Cursing internally, he followed. The girl did not look back, charging ahead before another piece of uncertain terrain cause her to stumble.

"No!" She squeaked, about to fall on a rock big with an edge that could easily split her forehead open. A hand latched onto her shoulder and quickly pulled her back. Just as she turned to look at Hoshi, another gust of wind blew and her gaze, already reluctant to look at the face of saviour she had just shunned, saw something that made her want to scream. There was only so much Hoshi could do with one hand gripping her and the other holding his cloak from being blown off his shoulders.

"Let us just find someplace safe first." Hoshi muttered, face so hot he could swear the rain was evaporating as soon as it hit.

"Konan," The girl said. "My name is Konan."

Hoshi nodded at the oddly familiar name, before wrapping his cloak securely around himself. The both set off at a more sedate pace to avoid any mishaps before reaching a small building. In the distance Hoshi could spot some buildings, but put any questions in the back of his mind.

There was no door, just a dirty, green curtain covering the entrance of what seemed like a guard post from the inside, completely bare except for some flattened cardboard boxes. There was a hole in the roof and drops of water slid down on all walls but there was a small spot for sitting that was dry.

It was a portrait of destitution if he'd ever seen one.

"You live here?" Hoshi hoped to be wrong and she shook her head to his relief. He surveyed it once more. There was nothing of comfort that showed someone ever lived here. But she had dyed her hair not too long ago, Hoshi judged, seeing that was blue all the way to the roots.

"Since mom and dad are here anymore, I can't live in the city. I promised them I would run away if there was danger."

"What danger?" Hoshi inquired. Could you still die after dying?

"W-w-what danger? The shinobi! They kill everyone! And anyone else who is hungry will beat you up and steal from you! And mom said I had to be extra careful since I'm a girl."

Hoshi blinked. Placed his hand on his forehead and slowly dragged it over his face. Had he died and gone back in time? Her clothing style and materials this building was made of didn't fit that thought if shinobi were around.

"Why would the shinobi kill everyone?"

"...Are you stupid? We're in a war!" Konan hissed, genuinely angry. Hoshi adjusted his cloak and went into thought as her eyes began to water.

Shinobi kill everyone. War. Parents not present anymore. She could be an orphan, most likely? This is too weird.

"Sorry, I needed a moment to gather my thoughts. Where are we?"

"The Village Hidden by the Rain." Konan replied quietly. Hoshi couldn't help but gape. Which otaku had been lying to her? Looking closely, Konan did resemble the one from Akatsuki...

"And it's ruled over by some idiot called Hanzo?" Hoshi sneezed. Instead of saying 'Bless you', Konan looked at him in horror.

"Did you just call him an idiot?" ...And whoever taught her to fear an anime character as Voldemort ought to be struck with a baseball bat every twenty fours at random for the rest of their lives so they could live in the same irrational fear.

"Yeah, he's from a manga anyway."

"What's a manga?"

"It's fiction. A made-up story, with made-up people or characters, which are then drawn onto paper, all in order to tell a story." Explaining that turned out to be a bad idea because Konan burst into tears.

"He's real! And his ninja do horrible things to people who are not ninjas and we're always running and there's never any food and t-they- THEY KILLED MOM AND DAD YESTERDAY!" She dropped to her knees, clamping her hands around her mouths to muffle her wails as tears poured from her eyes.

And before he knew it he was next to her, arms around her and rubbing slow circles on her back because damn it, no child deserved to be broken over wars fought by adults.

"Shh. It's okay if it hurts. It's okay to cry." And she pressed her face into his soaked shoulder, trembling. "I'm sorry I said those things."

After several minutes of sobbing, the first thing Konan said upon calming down was, "We should move. If anyone heard us they will come after us." Which deepened Hoshi's frown but he nodded and complied, loathe as he was to abandon the shelter. As they moved away from the buildings in the distance, Hoshi following Konan who seemed to know where to go, they came across a clearing that was no different from the rest of the landscape except for the carnage on the site.

Hoshi gasped, and Konan covered her mouth.

Ninjas in uniform were dead before him, the smell of blood and petrichor mixing to create a disorienting sensation that numbed his brain. Blood froze in his veins as he tried to say something, anything but literal cold, hard proof was laid before him.

Clothing too real to be a self-made cosplay, real weapons, signs of burns and unusual amounts of water along with unnatural alterations to the ground like the results of various jutsu in the animes.

"Believe me now?" Konan's voice snapped him out of his reverie and Hoshi nodded, his throat still too constricted to speak.

I'm not in the after-life, am I? Dead men and women were lying on the ground in front of him. No one could have been bothered closing their eyes, or covering those horrific expressions. Was this how he would have looked like if he was dead? Hoshi shuddered, but not from the rain.

Grey uniforms with strange mouthpieces on them, more suited for diving beneath the water, and wearing forehead protectors with four vertical lines, the symbol of the Hidden Rain. The other side of the battle had dark blue uniforms with the symbol of a Leaf on their forehead protectors.

"What are we looking for?" He asked weakly, feeling the bile rise to his throat.

"It's a very rare chance!" Konan gestured to the pouches of the corpses and then pulled on one's shirt, before pointing towards Hoshi's cloak, as she continued to rummage through the field. Taking the hint, Hoshi swallowed before doing the same.

In the end he ended up stealing clothes from a dead boy who seemed to be fourteen or fifteen, two years younger than Hoshi remembered being in the life before- he had died, he was as sure of that as the bodies before him- even though the sleeves covered his hands and he had to roll up the ends of the pants of the grey uniform.

He stole ninja sandals he'd often thought of as weird from a woman in a black uniform and greyish-purple vest, Konoha's uniform during the Second Shinobi War. The cloak he was wearing before now functioned as a sack to store whatever he could scavenge from the battle field.

He'd only managed to grab canteen of water and a pack of ration bars before steps approached him hurriedly, Konan looking at him once and him getting up to follow without question, picking up a kunai off the ground. They had been there for barely ten minutes.

"We can't be here too long." She said, remembering her parent's advice. Hoshi didn't need to be told twice. They ran away from the way they came, heading for the towers in the distance. The grey Ame-nin uniform he'd stolen was thick and prevented the water from seeping back in, so at least that was an upgrade.

Hoshi remained deep in thought, confusion raging inside his head but survival instincts kicking in. Of all the places to end up in the Naruto Universe, he ended up in Ame? Two pairs of black sandals pattered against puddles before Konan slipped into a narrow alley between two strange towers.

Hoshi shivered, settling under small rafters. He laid his cloak-turned-sack on the drier pavement. Konan had only been carrying a canteen of water. She looked longingly at Hoshi's findings, resembling a small animal even more.

"C-Can I have the papers after you're done with them?" The two ration bars were wrapped in smooth, yellow paper. Her tone caused his chest to tighten.

"Here." Hoshi held out a bar despite being hungry enough to eat half a dozen of them. Konan took it with hesitance, unwrapped the bar delicately to retrieve the paper without a trace of damage. She then held out the grey ration bar back to him.

"What." Hoshi glared, before his eyes softened. She didn't know better than to assume he was selfish like others she had probably met. "That's for you."

"But...are you sure?" The way she looked at him showed just how much kindness she had received in her life. Hoshi nodded, waving the other ration bar in his hand.

"This is mine, but you can also keep the paper from this." You deserve so much more. I'm sorry.

"...Thank you, Hoshi-san."

"You don't have to use '-san' with me, Konan-chan." He managed to say. His stomach grumbled and Konan handed him the already unwrapped bar.

"Eat this; I'll keep the other one...Hoshi-kun." It was a start. He took a bite and chewed slowly. The texture grainy and hard because of how cold it was, but it didn't taste so bland or bad, with a faint hint of apples.

"Chew slowly. If you eat slowly you won't feel so hungry later." Konan advised, sitting down. He nodded and plopped down next to her.

The finished their meal in complete silence, although Hoshi saved half of his bar. Konan uncapped the canteen and offered it to Hoshi, who flinched when he took a sip. The cold water stabbed his throat before going down.

"If we had ninjutsu we could have warmed it." Konan hugged her knees, looking wistful.

"Don't worry, small sips will be fine." At least for my core temperature, that is. He'd be lucky to catch only a cough and flu from it. "Is this how you have been getting food?"

"It is how everyone on the streets does it. We ran into that...place by coincidence. Dad told me once that shinobi have more food on one of them than a family has in Ame." She smoothed out the paper from the ration bars and began to fold it.

Hoshi watched intently, careful not to sneeze in her general direction and before long Konan turned to show him a paper crane in her hands.

"Here, this is ori, ori..." She fumbled.

"Origami. It's very nice." Hoshi whispered back. "Can you make something else, Konan-chan?" She nodded, before taking her time to fold the other paper into a rose.

"Hey, you're very talented." Hoshi took examined the rose, before placing it next to her ear. "So, what do we do now?"

"I don't know." The both looked out into the rain, knowing it was not going to stop. "Hoshi-kun, why were you so weird when I met you?" Konan asked.

"I died, and wondered if this was the after-life." Hoshi rubbed his hands.

"Died? But you're here." She cocked her head, blue bangs dripping off her forehead.

"It's a long story." He sighed. Hoshi wasn't even his name, given the fact he had not been Japanese. Then again, he didn't even look like himself. "I never expected to end up here of all places."

"Why?"

"Because I'm a bad person and was expecting some place hotter." He had died; there was no doubt about that. And he had expected hell.

Another tense silence followed, punctuated by Hoshi blowing his nose.

"You're not a bad person." Konan piped up. "No one gives food to anyone here."

"I'm from some place far away, where it is common sense to share even if you starve by yourself." Hoshi sighed. "And I don't know how I got here, so please don't ask."

Before Konan could speak further, the sound of someone sobbing reached their ears and they almost jumped out of their skins. Hoshi tightened his fingers around the kunai he had picked up.

"Should we check?" He asked, but Konan did not give any answer. The childish sobbing continued. There came a sound of someone falling in a puddle and it intensified.

"I don't know." Konan looked out the alley, the sound coming from around the corner of the wall they were leaning against.

You know, that almost sounds like a kitten mewling. Hoshi thought, before resisting the urge to facepalm. What did I say about thinking things in terms of cats?

"I'll go check it out. Stay here, unless something happens." Hoshi said before creeping on his toes and slowly making his way towards the sound. As he rounded the corner, his eyes fell upon a child in a black yukata with white trimmings, sopping red hair covering his eyes and continuously shaking.

Nagato.

"Hey, get up." He placed a hand on his shoulder. Nagato looked up, hair still covering his eyes. "Come on, you can cry later, move for now." The redhead nodded, allowing Hoshi to take his hand and lead him back to Konan.

"Hey, I found someone." Hoshi said as Konan scuttled a bit to offer them space. They fit under the cover, if barely.

"I'm Hoshi, and this is..." He trailed off, gesturing to the blue-haired girl.

"Konan." Said she and the redhead nodded, ceasing his sobs.

"N-Nagato."

"Nagato-kun, are you hungry?" Hoshi inquired and Nagato nodded. Hoshi took out his half-eaten ration bar and held it to him. "It's all we have left, but you can have it." He'd been saving it for Konan since there no idea where the next meal was coming from but, as usual, life didn't go as planned.

Nagato stared at the item, mouth open in disbelief. Hoshi took that moment to push it against his lips, feeling like he wasn't going to take it by himself anytime soon.

"Just eat. We've had our fill." He ordered, running his hand through his white hair (that was soaked again). Nagato complied, chewing the bar with such fervor that it got stuck in his throat. Konan immediately gave him water as Hoshi moved to thump the boy's back.

"T-Thank you." Nagato murmured, looking at his feet. Hoshi sat back, thinking hard. He was technically the oldest of them, which meant he must take care of them.

"Konan, where are we?" He asked.

"At a corner of the village. It's…safer than the inside." Konan replied.

"But there are people living inside?" If Konan thought that finding field full of dead people was lucky, well, he had a bone or two to pick with this village. And this world, knowing what could be achieved on an individual level. He stared at the sky, flexing his hands

"Yes but…they're shinobi there as well." Konan mumbled.

Light was fading from the sky, indicating the arrival of the night. Hoshi inhaled slowly, viewing his kunai as he held it in an ironclad grip.

What had been a reason for why died feeling so helpless; he could do it in this world. Hoshi had the chance to protect himself and those around him. It wasn't only the children in this world that had known wars, after all.

But such a time was not now. Not yet. And so the children stayed still under their fragile cover, away from the battles waged outside and the crimes that took place inside, drifting to uneven sleep with the occasional breeze rattling their bones.

Slightly unsure, Hoshi spread his arms and pulled them closer to his dry frame slowly, before they did his work for him and snuggled against the warmth provided him.

Like kittens against a cat, nestling against her fur like the cutest thing in the world. The white-haired boy knew he was defeated when he thought that thought, and sighed. Praying silently for them to survive, he closed his eyes as well.

One month later:

A month had gone by in what felt like a year. During that time Hoshi imparted whatever knowledge he knew about survival against the cold to his two charges, as he began to think of them. He wouldn't even be a legal adult in his previous world, yet here he was, just a few years short of being deemed mature enough to send out to a battlefield.

Surviving sure made it hard to keep track of time, but at least Nagato wasn't completely neglectful of what went around him even if he cried. A lot. Hoshi was sure there were babies out there who moped less than he did, but as annoying as it seemed to be it was also somewhat endearing.

Currently they were hiding surrounded by cargo boxes. Hoshi had taken the opportunity to build a ring of bricks between which he was placing the driest wooden planks he could find among the boxes.

"What are you doing, Hoshi-san?" Nagato asked as he handed another small stick to Hoshi, who was assembling them within the small brick enclosure.

"Trying to make a fire." Hoshi answered, dragging up the collar of his shirt and blowing in it to warm his mouth.

"A f-f-fire? How?" Konan managed to overhear as she returned from her task of finding dry material. She ended up bringing a collapsed cardboard box, careful to not drop it on any wet spot on the floor. The building was damp enough that green algae infested numerous nooks and crannies.

"Magic." Hoshi smirked a bit, enjoying their starry-eyed look before getting to work. Using the kunai he'd be taking extra care of (and occasionally using it to threaten people into handing over half of what edibles they had by posing as a ninja) he began to cut into the wood, exposing dry splinters.

Then he chipped away at the stick which had sparked the idea – pardon the pun- in the first place, ridding it of wet bark and placing it perpendicular to the plank, driving it in before rubbing it between his hands as fast as he could to generate friction.

"Finally." Hoshi blew softly on the sparks as a small fire started after two hours. He stretched his fingers, still paying attention the flame. Three times it had winked out, but this time it looked like it would stay.

For their part, Konan and Nagato had watched with rapt attention despite how much he had failed along the way. Transfixed by the growing flame, they huddled around it.

"Thank you, Hoshi-kun." Konan spoke quietly. Nagato sniffled, before hurriedly wiping his eyes. "Thank you very much."

"You don't have to thank me so much." Hoshi gave a wry smile. "I just wish I could do more for you."

Two weeks later:

"You fucking brat!" The ninja yelled, kicking Hoshi hard enough that he went flying. There was definitely a foot-shaped bruise on his chest. "Say that again."

The teenager was at least a foot taller than Hoshi, wore a vertically striped seaweed-colored shirt and black trousers. His dirty blonde hair was pushed back by a headpiece that also had a metal plate with Ame's symbol, and seemed attached to the breathing mask on his face.

Hoshi tried to get up but the ninja pushed him down again, stomping on him. Today was not his day, asking a ninja politely for some morsel was a mistake. A ninja he was mentally calling Mr. Bumble. He wasn't exactly Oliver Twist, but then again Bumble didn't know how to wield a kunai.

Konan and Nagato hadn't eaten for three days and were crying when he left them. Even if Hoshi couldn't get them something to eat, at least he ought to be able to go back to them.

"I-I'm sorry shinobi-sama." He croaked, deciding to go for some bullshit groveling. He hadn't revealed his kunai yet, which was hidden in his sleeve and tied securely to his wrist with a strip of cloth.

"Please forgive me." He continued, for he didn't have the reflexes to go for a successful strike. Rather he himself lives than the try so the other boy died.

His act was cut short by a stone sailing past the Ame-nin's head. The aim had been good, but the blonde rolled his eyes as he shifted so that the rock missed by a few inches.

Hoshi turned to try and look at the new arrival but the foot moved from his chest and stomped on his throat, making the white-haired boy see stars and hack up blood.

"Hey, get lost!" The newcomer yelled and Hoshi caught a flash of orange hair with a beige shirt. So the last one finally shows up, huh? He thought.

Yahiko strode forward, brown eyes burning with anger. "If you have that much time to pick on someone weaker than you, why don't you go kill some shitty ninja from some other village?"

"Heh. Aren't you a fucking philosopher?" The ninja turned to him, clearly mocking. His tone incensed Yahiko, who drew his hands from the pockets of his brown pants, and hefting two more rocks as he charged at the masked teen.

The ninja snorted as he shifted to deal with Yahiko, dodging the first rock gracefully and as he maneuvered around the second he felt the pitiful kid from beneath him punch his thigh, but the pain that followed intensified greatly.

And Yahiko stopped short at the sight of the boy, whom both of them had dismissed from the fight driving a kunai into the leg that held him down.

Hoshi jerked his weapon out and the wound sprouted blood before it began to fall on his own grey shirt. Had he not instinctively cover his face the incoming foot would have broken his nose.

"You little shit! You're fucking with the wrong-" Another stone cut him short and he turned to Yahiko. "And you, just you wait-" The ninja, who by now seemed to be a genin at most was interrupted again by Hoshi driving his kunai through his Achilles tendon through the part of his heel exposed by his black ninja sandal.

As the ninja toppled, unable to place any weight on Hoshi further, the boy crawled out from beneath his, pulling at his kunai and catching it in his hand again. Yahiko took the opportunity to make a grab from him run, leaving a cursing and bleeding teenager in their wake.

After ten minutes of going over, under and many sides of streets they reached a place with no people. Both sides of the street were open and another escape was present through an alley in front of them.

Hoshi looked around and from the signs on the empty stores and destroyed furniture laid out in front of them deduced that it used to be some collection of food shops.

"Thank you." He said to Yahiko, rubbing his throat. The other boy smiled brightly, even if they were breathing with hands on their knees.

"It was nothing. And hey, you were awesome as hell! Where did you get that kunai from?" Yahiko fired off rapidly.

"Long story." Hoshi replied. "Know any place I can get food? You don't look good enough from me to steal from."

Yahiko gave the other boy a long look, like he'd grown another head, before backing away a bit warily.

"Why am I not good enough?"

"First of all, I steal out of necessity; I'm not trash. And second of all, my friends haven't had a meal in days and I'm desperate. I'd kill a rat if I could find one." Though they were probably present in sewers and would leave them dead from all the bacteria they carried.

Yahiko pondered over this information, before nodding. Hoshi held up his hands in a gesture of peace as he took a step forward.

"I know a way to get something to eat now that there are two of us. You in?" He held out his hand.

"I'm in. My name is Hoshi." Hoshi received it and they both shook.

"I'm Yahiko. There are streams of water that run to a lake below the village. We might catch some fish in them." Yahiko revealed. "But the water flows really fast and the lake itself is taken over by the ninjas."

"Don't tell me you think we can spear them on a kunai in a stream in the rain." Hoshi tried to say as a joke but smacked his palm against his forehead when Yahiko gave a sheepish smile.

"Hey, that's just one idea. I've seen people kick fish out of streams!"

"Were those people also walking on water?"

"Well…" Yahiko quieted down and they trudged in silence. "We'll figure something out."

After quite a lot of thinking and scavenging, they managed to find a ruined table-cloth among trash. There was no shortage of water to wash it at the stream, though it froze the digits of their hands.

The two of them waded between knee-high water and held the cloth between them, nearly four feet wide, a few inches above the surface of the water and the rest below, their hands holding each corner.

"One, two, three!" On Yahiko's call they lifted it up, bringing the ends together and catching nothing on the first try. Fortune seemed to smile on them and as the next try they managed to make a catch.

Many were small, silver fishes no longer than their fingers, but one foot long specimen thrashed violently and was immediately impaled by Hoshi, his kunai going straight through its body. Yahiko cheered.

"Let's drop this on the bank first. Then we can come back for more- ACHOO!" Yahiko hastily rubbed his nose. They scampered out of the water, legs nearly frozen. The reality of the situation soon hit Hoshi.

"We'll lose our feet if we stay here any longer. Follow me." As he spoke he weeded out the small fishes, throwing them back in the stream until he was left with just three, one of which was their great catch and other two as big as his hand.

Hoshi nearly dropped their haul when Yahiko was about to step on something that glinted near the ground. Grabbing the orange-haired kid roughly, the older (at least mentally) of the two pulled him back and pointed to the trap. Now aware, they spoke not a single word and did their best to get the hell out of there.

Hoshi led the way back, chastising Yahiko to not look paranoid around people unless that itself attracts someone they didn't want to run into. They reached the warehouse, and after climbing on a barrel placed below a narrow window they squeezed in, Hoshi wincing from his injuries.

Holding up a hand to stop Yahiko, Hoshi rapped his knuckles against a cargo box in their secret pattern. The response came soon in the form of another pattern.

"It's clear." Hoshi turned to his stunned partner before leading him to his other two friends. Yahiko was surprised at the sight of the blue-haired girl and red-haired boy, both of them failing to hold in their tears, huddled next to a fire.

"Konan-chan, Nagato-kun." Hoshi called gently, "Sorry I took so long. This is Yahiko. We caught fish!"

Konan looked up and gave up a watery smile. Nagato intensified his sobbing.

"Hey, don't cry! You're a man!" Yahiko began to scold him as Hoshi sat near the flame. There was warmth, they finally had a decent meal, and the trio was together.

Truly, the start of a beautiful friendship. Hoshi thought to himself, smiling wryly. Come to think of it, the first time he was seeing them smile was now eating slightly burnt saltwater fish that only had its own seasoning, chatting with each other.

Maybe he'd finally done something right. And with his knowledge of the coming future before him, he still had things to do.