A/N: Yes, I'm abandoning this story (more on that at the end of this chapter).

BUT, I didn't want to leave you guys on a cliffhanger, because god knows I've suffered a ton of those over the years, so here is everything I was planning for the ending.

THE ENDING (by arc, and by character)

First: why am I giving you the ending by character and not in chronological order, which is the normal logical way? The long answer is that I'm a disorganized, kind-of-a-mess writer who loves characters. So I planned out this story by character arcs and not by, you know, actual plot. Basically, I decided on how my OCs would develop, and (attempted) to weave all those plot lines together in one story told from Mori's point of view.

At fifteen years old, when I was making ain't no rest, I really fixated on characters. I still fixate on characters, but I've gained a stronger appreciation for plot, and when I ran out of cohesive outline and ended up with a bunch of loose character threads, I kind of lost interest in writing this story.

I still love all my OCs, though, which is part of why you're getting this.

TL;DR: I ran out of plot, but I definitely didn't run out of character ideas.

THE MASSACRE

MORI

At this point of the story, Mori's actually headed into another downward obsessive spiral. It's initially sparked by his concern for Izo's mission w/ Reiko and fueled by his repressed jealousy, Basically he starts to lose sight of his own duties and fixates on solving the Massacre again — this time for Izo's sake, and not Itachi's.

Izo keeps trying to push Mori away, for both their sakes, but while Mori outwardly keeps out of the Massacre, he's mentally fixated on it so hard that when the Massacre actually takes place, he crashes the party and fucks up big time. He doesn't die and reset, but only because Izo takes a hit for him and loses his arm (again lol).

It's then that the Sandaime officially pulls Mori off the active-duty list and separates him from Team Four. Mori does some emotional manipulation that for some reason actually works on the Hokage, I was never quite able to justify this part so cut me some slack and manages to get put on 'suspension' instead.

IZO

In case it wasn't obvious, Izo's 'relationship' with Reiko was a cover for his Uchiha Rebellion investigation. I went this route for the drama and not because it was the best plan, jsyk. Reiko's got her own motivations, which I'll cover later, but basically she feeds Izo information about other anti-rebellion Uchiha in the clan, and together with Shisui they start organizing their allies into one cohesive group. Their relationship was also meant to stir up some drama about Reiko 'consorting' with an outsider in order to keep eyes off of Itachi and Shisui.

At some point, the Shisui/Danzo confrontation goes down. Izo and Itachi help Shisui fake his death for reasons I can't justify because there's a lot more people in the know than in the original timeline and therefore more support for Shisui to fall back on so he doesn't have to die. Mori tries to figure out what's going on bc he's being a mess again, and Izo lets Mori believe that Shisui's dead.

The Massacre still happens, though not because Itachi's hand was forced. Basically Danzo made a shady back-alley deal with Tobi to get rid of the Uchiha. Since Izo, Shisui, and Reiko managed to organize some of the clan members, they were able to save the children and a some other clan members.

Mori hears the news about shit going down and crashes the fight without permission or warning, fucking stuff up in the process, and it's here that Izo loses his arm.

Izo, of course, is totally pissed at Mori for 1) endangering himself and others, 2) not trusting Izo to handle the Massacre on his own, and 3) not trusting Izo enough to tell him about the Kyuubi.

(Yes, Izo knows that Mori is a doorway for the Kyuubi. The Sandaime told him basically as soon as he found out, which is part of the reason why Izo so readily will sacrifice an arm and a leg for Mori's life.)

Mori and Izo fight and end the Massacre arc on bad terms bc I love angst :3

SHISUI AND ITACHI

[Refer to Izo's description for some Massacre buildup]

They manage to save the Uchiha kids and maybe like a dozen or so clan members (have not put much thought into this, whoops). Since there's survivors, neither Itachi nor Shisui get scapegoated for the Massacre. After getting the survivors situated, Itachi and Shisui go traveling to try and track down Tobi. (And eventually the Akatsuki as well).

REIKO (This is skippable)

I actually really love Reiko's character, and I'm a little sad I didn't get to write her, so you can just get this infodump here — most of the main points were already covered so this part isn't essential to the ending, it's just her backstory.

Reiko has a niece named Airi who she is fiercely protective of. Airi is a prodigy, much like Itachi, but Airi's never wanted to be a ninja and Reiko does everything she can to shield her from the eyes of the generically evil Uchiha elders. She's against the clan coup because she knows that, if the Uchiha were successful, Airi would almost certainly get found out and forced into becoming a ninja.

Reiko's specifically a parallel to the way I've written Shisui and also a foil — she's stone faced, serious, and has no sense of humor, but she also understands the way Shisui tries to shield Itachi from the worst of what ninja life has to offer. She actually doesn't like or respect Shisui that much because he highkey failed at keeping Itachi out of things, but she'll work with him to get security for her niece.

Reiko and Izo were friends and were never into each other, obviously, but Reiko ends up dying during the Massacre fight (due to Mori fucking up a plan and distracting her) and her death is another reason why Izo is so pissed at Mori at the end of this arc.

TEAM FOUR

The kiddos' arcs in this part are pretty much par for the course genin team shenanigans — it's supposed to be tense and mildly frustrating smokescreen for what's going on behind the scenes.

Also, both Chie and Issei have had their drama, so it's Riku's turn now.

Riku's always been one of the stronger members of Team Four and emotionally stable lol, so his arc is him struggling with some ninjutsu and kinda hitting a rut with training. He's got some normal genin insecurities about this, but there's also some added pressure because, ever since Issei's and Chie's fight, he sort of ended up as the leader of their trio. And since he's a quiet, anxious, bookworm, this new position is freaking him out, and this sudden rut in his training is amplifying that feeling. Mori's supposed to be helping with this, but he's completely distracted by Izo by Massacre nonsense so there was going to be frustration and conflict between them, here. Here's where my outline started falling apart so that's why this is so vague and awful.

One last thing — that purchase Chie made and was so secretive about was a birthday gift for Mori. After the Massacre, Mori has to tell Team Four that he's (hopefully temporarily) being fired as their sensei. Chie gives him his birthday gift before he can break the news. It's a new low.

But anyway, Mori tells them that he pulled some pretty big shit and broke some rules, and he can't be their sensei for a while, leaving the kiddos reeling.

THE INTERLUDE

I actually thought about this part in detail, mostly because I was excited to write in other characters' perspectives. There were going to be three chapters from three different perspectives (if you can guess why these three characters in particular were chosen, you can have bragging rights.)

AYA'S INTERLUDE

In which there was a quick runthrough of previous events through Aya's eyes. Mostly it's her being concerned for Mori, but also having her own theories about him (Izo was not the only one to catch Mori's weird gestures and subtle personality changes over the years). We catch up to the present day, when Mori has to explain to her why he's been fired as Team Four's sensei and why she has to step into his place.

It ends with Mori telling everything to Aya and Yuko — the Massacre, the time travel, the Kyuubi, everything.

KENJI'S INTERLUDE

This chapter was going to start setting up the Iruka and Mizuki drama that I wanted to tackle in the final arc. If I'm going to be honest, this plot thread was the one I had the most trouble weaving in because I thought about it a lot but never really found a way to make it relevant, oops. Props to teen me for getting this far, though.

But basically, it's Kenji's friend drama, with Mizuki being so obviously evil except no one really notices, and setting the stage for the final act.

CHIE'S INTERLUDE

This chapter has a lot of time jumps because it's bridging the Massacre and the final act. It starts off about two years after the Massacre. Mori is just starting to be allowed to be a jounin sensei again (with supervision).

What follows are some small slices over the years about Chie coping with the fact that her beloved, idolized sensei wasn't as infallible as she thought he was. There's a bit of a role reversal, here, where Issei is the one defending Mori bc he secretly appreciates Mori's training and his honesty about getting fired, and Chie is the one who is super pissed and lashing out bc she feels betrayed. It's Mori relearning the team-dynamics told from Chie's perspective, and it ends with Chie accepting him back as her sensei (even if she doesn't idolize him the way she used to).

The chapter ends five years after the Massacre (and a year before canon). Team Four is pretty much ready for the Chuunin Exams, but Mori tells them that (due to his awful track record with being responsible) the Sandaime only gave him one shot to take his teams to the Exams — after that, he's officially no longer their jounin sensei.

Mori tells Team Four that the only way he'd sign them up for the Exams is that if all of them were absolutely sure, and they have individual conversations so Mori can get honest opinions. When Mori talks with Chie on her own, she admits that she still has doubts. Later, Mori announces that they won't be attending the exams that year (this is unwritten, but Issei and Riku also had doubts about this, too).

THE EXAMS

(Like I said, the plot fell apart. Sorry this part is super vague — I had an ending in mind but no middle, whoops.)

This arc takes place in the months just-before-canon, in other words, months before Naruto Ch. 1.

This is a year after Chie's Interlude, and we start off with Team Four finally taking off to attend the Chuunin Exams in some other country, with some other people, I dunno. I hate writing tournament arcs so I actually have zero idea of what was going to happen here despite the fact that Team Four's Chuunin Exams were going to be a significant part of this section. They were going to pass, though. Happy fun times for all.

Mori and Team Four wrap up their Chunnin Exams and arrive back at Konoha — only, when they get back, Mori sees that Naruto has painted the Hokage Mountain and immediately realizes it's Kyuubi Day.

Mori freaks out and tries to run to the forest to hopefully stop whatever happened to Naruto to release the Kyuubi, but on the way there, he's stopped by Izo.

(After their fight at the end of The Massacre, Izo and Mori actually haven't spoken in any friendly capacity for a long time. Initially they were just too mad, but time went by and it's one of those situtations where neither of them want to make the first move. Also because every time Mori sees Izo, he sees Izo's missing arm and immediately feels a rush of guilt, so Mori's been avoiding him.)

It's a bit of an awkward encounter, but Mori fills Izo in on the important bits (the Kyuubi is supposed to break out today, this is the day I originally died) and together they run off to the forest to hopefully stop what happens.

What they find, though, is Iruka shouting at Mizuki and protecting Naruto, and they end up not having to interfere at all.

(I'm sure many of you have guessed already — the reason why the Kyuubi got out in Mori's original timeline was because Iruka died during this encounter.)

Mori, of course, is still tense and majorly confused because he didn't even get directly involved in this event? What happened to prevent the Kyuubi's breakout?

(Here's where we learn that Mori's role as Iruka's senpai, sparring with Iruka over the years, and keeping him sharp on his Academy Three jutsu was just enough training to let Iruka survive the encounter. I love this plot point, because I wanted to showcase how actions have consequences (but in a good way this time), except it didn't age very well because I was too ambitious and tried to juggle so many plot threads that I lowkey forgot about this one. I'd hoped to make Iruka's presence a bit more prevalent so this part wouldn't seem like an asspull, but it didn't turn out that way, unfortunately.)

Izo and Mori finally end up having a real conversation for the first time in forever, mostly just awkward apologies from both sides. Izo shares the aforementioned theory on Iruka's survival. Mori admits that he's kind of surprised that he survived past this day. They reconnect and click right back together in their old patterns, and hold hands because they're the endgame couple, in case that wasn't clear.

[I had originally planned for Mori to end up reconciling with the Sandaime, and eventually leaving behind field duty to become an Academy sensei, but that was a plotline for a much more skilled writer because while the Sandaime is fun, he is hard to write. I wanted to mesh the 'badass shinobi' and 'kindly grandfather' aspects of his character together, but I think I swung too hard in one direction and then couldn't justify the other, oops.]

A/N: Aaaaaaand that's a wrap, folks.

Many of you have probably seen this coming, but yeah, this is me officially abandoning this story. I started writing this story when I was fifteen and a junior in high school. Now I'm in my third year of college and I'm really not the same person I was when I started. I've tried many times to pick this up and finish another chapter, but writing this has become a chore, and, well. Fanfiction is supposed to be a fun hobby. I don't want you guys to read mediocre, passionless writing, and I also want to enjoy myself. BUT, y'all deserve an ending, so I wrote this out for you guys.

ain't no rest will always hold a special place in my heart — it's the longest piece of writing I've ever written. And obviously, I love my OCs to bits even if it's hard to write them these days, and I'm honestly still so surprised and impossibly flattered to hear that you guys enjoy them too.

Thank you so much to anyone who has favorited, followed, kudos'd, bookmarked, and commented over the years — your support really kept me going for these last few chapters, and it's why I finally scraped together enough motivation to finish this off, even if it's not in the form I had intended. I still get excited when I see those notification emails. I read every one of your comments (even if I haven't been replying to them lately). I wouldn't have made it this far without you. You're all such lovely people, and I'm honored that you chose to read this story. Truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.