Last chapter! Thank you to SQ and Pepper for betaing and Morne for motivation.

Shikako's hands come up to her throat, although she knows already that she's dead, that she doesn't have the focus or the time to even shift into shadow state. The blade has caught her artery and her windpipe; trying to choke out one last breath is hopeless.

"Everyone has been saying that we can't trust the Leaf," Kankurō is saying, quiet and grim, as Gelel's field of stars fills Shikako's head, as her physical body hits its knees.

She twists as she falls. She can see Sai and Sasuke's faces. She can see the way their eyes have spun into the complex patterns of the Mangekyou Sharingan.

Sai attacks Karasu, driving the puppet back, and Sasuke leaps forward, towards her, although she doesn't know what he expects to be able to do about a slit throat.

Both of them have drawn their swords, and to Shikako's surprise it's Sai who takes the forward position and attacks, not Sasuke. It's not that Shikako's version of Sai at home couldn't attack Kankurō, though Shikako's not sure who she'd bet on in that fight. But her Sai at home is... cautious. Careful. Prone to hanging back with his ink creatures when fighting against a relatively unknown or powerful opponent. Especially an opponent as likely to use poison as a Suna puppeteer.

But then, she's never seen grief or rage on her Sai's face before. Never seen him leap into a fight based on emotion, never heard him shout anything, much less her name.

Her blood fills the small, carved symbols on the floor. They press into her cheek. Dying like this is horrible, quick and slow at the same time, even with the comforting presence of Gelel pulling at her to fall back into the merger that had saved her life once before. It's just hard to let go — hard to trust that things will turn out fine if she closes her eyes and really surrenders to the field of stars.

Behind Shikako, Sai completes what sounds like a series of rapid, complex attacks against the puppet that are all neatly deflected. She can feel Kankurō controlling the puppet, dozens of chakra strings pulled rapid-fire to match Sai's blistering speed. The chakra strings are subtle, minimalist things, but in the chakra-dry air of the Dead Wastes they stick out like neon to Shikako's chakra sense, highlighted and unignorable. Gelel wicks chakra away from them in thin but frequent wisps, like it's trying to unravel the strings; the cost to Kankurō's reserves must be incredible.

Sai says, "Yatagarasu," and his sword, alight with chakra, lashes out. If Shikako hadn't been half-sunk into Gelel it might have felt like any other technique, but she can feel the way his eyes burn with power that isn't just chakra, the way everything bends around Sai's sword strikes.

Karasu is hit perfectly at the joints and seams and at the places where Kankurō's chakra strings latch onto the puppet. It bursts apart into hundreds of fragments, splintering like cheap kindling. Kankurō swears vividly and inventively; Shikako can hear the panic crawling up his throat. Kankurō must know that at this rate he'll be dead in minutes.

Then Sasuke is above Shikako, being distracting, pressing his hands to her throat. He's trying to stem the flow of blood. He's saying, "Shikako, Shikako, hold on, Sakura taught me — she showed me—"

To Shikako's surprise, Sasuke's hands light up with flickering medical chakra, a brute-forced version of the Mystic Palm technique. Sasuke's clumsy use of the jutsu wastes chakra and obviously takes an enormous amount of concentration, but he buckles down, he grits his teeth, he lets his chakra sink into her skin like she isn't already mostly dead.

It's useless, though, and Shikako is running out of time. Sasuke won't be able to fix her throat, and Sai is closing in on Kankurō now.

Sai says the name of his Mangekyou technique again, Yatagarasu, the three-legged crow. Kankurō is doomed; either he'll be painted across the temple's back wall like a Jackson Pollock or, worse, Sai will hit the Stone of Gelel that Kankurō is still clutching, inert, in one hand. Kankurō dying is preferable to Kankurō dying and the whole continent being swallowed by the backlash from the Gelel stone being broken, but Kankurō dying still isn't ideal and there's no way to be sure that Sai will think to avoid the stone. In fact, as powerful as it is, the stone may seem an extremely tempting target.

Each Yatagarasu strike is comprised of multiple movements, sword strikes and chakra bursts. Shikako can feel the Yatagarasu strike cleaving through reality already, something otherworldly and even older than Gelel reaching through the cracks, guiding Sai's sword and chakra. She can feel Sai's killing intent, enraged and frigid, rolling over the room like a thick fog.

The Mystic Palm at her throat peters out. Sasuke is crying, Shikako realizes. His tears overflow. They land on her face — the smell of blood is thick — Sai's first sword blow severs one of Kankurō's arms at the bicep —

Shikako surrenders completely to Gelel.

Last time Gelel had been so overwhelming Shikako might have lost herself without Shikamaru there to pull her back. This time — this time it's still overwhelming, still threatens to subsume her, but the field of stars is familiar. The alien slide of Gelel's power against and into her own is like the feeling of pulling her chakra in and out of her Gelel stone, but bigger and deeper.

And besides... since she was last in this position with Gelel, Shikako has met a second god. After spitting in Jashin's face, telling Gelel no will be easy.

Gelel's light floods the temple, and Shikako lets herself rise to meet the music. It sweeps her along and into the stars — Kankurō and Sai and Sasuke are all points of light, none of them as bright as Naruto or Gaara had been. When everything is vast and small at the same time, all of Land of Wind laid out plain and bare, she slides into place and becomes Gelel-and-Shikako.

Not separate. Not together. Balancing. A polite dance:

come deeper, says Gelel.

not yet, replies Shikako — and it's not as if time means anything to Gelel, not really. Later is just as good as immediately. The future will arrive soon enough.

Gelel-and-Shikako's manifestation hasn't brought Sai to a halt. He's guided by his own divine light, his technique's titular god, Yatagarasu, and as he moves deeper into each strike he stops being Sai and becomes Sai-and-Yatagarasu, the both of them bent to one task, one path, one goal.

It's beautiful, and it's going to kill Kankurō. It's already killed him, if nothing is done, because even if he were to escape Sai-and-Yatagarasu's death blow, he's bleeding quickly from an arm that's now a few inches of muscle and skin away from being a stump.

The mostly-severed arm is the one he'd used to pick up the Gelel stone. His hand still clutches the rock. Sai-and-Yatagarasu's death blow closes in, but Yatagarasu's path has definitely overlooked the presence of a minor god.

Gelel-and-Shikako pour power into the Gelel stone Kankurō is holding, a piece of reality even easier to manipulate than anything else in the Dead Wastes. They can't remove Kankurō from the path of Sai-and-Yatagarasu's death blow, it has to connect, and Kankurō definitely dies — but not for long.

Life and death happen in the Dead Wastes only on Gelel-and-Shikako's whims. They hold Kankurō's body in its death state for a split second, but they don't let his light go out; they don't let the Shinigami close. Whatever the books may say, Gelel-and-Shikako know that Kankurō is supposed to live. He has work to do.

They take Sai's sword so that he can't strike again, so that it won't interfere with fixing Kankurō's body, and with hands that are more feeling than real, Gelel-and-Shikako press Kankurō's wounds together and remind them of what it's like to be whole, and safe, and right. Don't you remember? Gelel croons to the blood and the bone. You go like this, you have a job, a duty.

The Shikako parts of Gelel-and-Shikako can remember the jittery feeling of trying to come back into her own body after being subsumed and she doesn't want to do that to Kankurō. They don't want to do that to Kankurō, although the Gelel parts don't really understand why, even as Gelel-and-Shikako sweep Kankurō away with light and sound and a particular care not to merge with him too much, not to drown him in the ebb and flow.

A light, careful touch. They settle him back into his body. He's older and a little more well-worn than the Kankurō that Gelel-and-Shikako had touched briefly last time, but not so different. Still a friend. Still important.

There are other things to fix, too. Gelel-and-Shikako politely smooths out the fabric of everything where Sai-and-Yatagarasu have upset it. They dismantle the temple, like they had before, folding the seal away and away and away beneath the earth, twisting and warping and breaking it because the physical thing hasn't mattered for literal ages but it would be dangerous to leave it laying around. In the temples place they begin to peel back layers of rock, let forth generous streams of water, call out to everything that it must wake up, must come forth and populate this place, Gelel's domain, the Garden of Life from Death.

Everything is paused, halted, completely clear and safe. Shikako-and-Gelel control everything. Yatagarasu is gone. Gelel-and-Shikako reach out with hands-that-aren't to sooth the overworked optical nerves behind Sai's eyes that are making him weep dark blood down his cheeks. They can't sooth Sasuke's tears the same way, but they can finesse his eyes the same way, and they can touch his and Sai's light. Gelel-and-Shikako can say, I'm not dead, except Gelel has no words and Shikako has no mouth.

Sai-and-Yatagarasu — they had worked differently. Yatagarasu had reached through Sai's body to affect reality. Sai had kept his corporeal form. Shikako's not interested in burning her eyes out but maybe, if they're careful, if Gelel-and-Shikako arrange things just right...

They become Shikako-and-Gelel, and their feet touch the floor. Their hands flex and grasp. They can grab Sasuke's hands (tacky with blood — gross — best to just get rid of that —) and pull him to his feet.

"I'm okay," Shikako-and-Gelel say. "It's okay." Shikako-and-Gelel hug Sasuke tight. They press their face into Sasuke's shoulder. "Thank you," they say, and then they turn to Sai, who's already close, and yank him into the hug as well.

Sai shudders and shakes. Sai falls apart, so Shikako-and-Gelel help him hold together.

"You died," Sasuke states blankly into the air above Shikako-and-Gelel's head.

"It's a bad habit of mine," Shikako-and-Gelel agree.

Sasuke's hands tighten into fists in the back of their shirt — they have a shirt again, it came with the body, clothes are important — and he says, "I felt it."

"I'm sorry," Shikako-and-Gelel say awkwardly. It feels inadequate, like always. And also —

Instead of joining in on the conversation, Sai is looking at Kankurō, who's on his knees and speechless.

Shikako-and-Gelel can feel his terror as easily as they can feel Sasuke's body heat. They can feel his resignation. They smile at him.

"It was a misunderstanding," they assure Kankurō — but that's not enough.

Sai has broken from the impromptu hug. He has Sasuke's sword, picked up off the ground at some point. "He killed you," Sai says flatly. "He should pay." Yatagarasu is spinning his eyes again.

Shikako struggles for words; Gelel twists hard at the air far above their heads. With a crack of thunder, it begins to rain.

Right. There are words for this. Good words. They say: "In the course of justice none of us should see salvation."

Sai turns back. Hair plastered to his face he looks at them — this whole time he's seemed so much older, but he's not, really. He's not old at all, and he's still cracked through with fault lines, and his face is pale when he says, "The quality of mercy is — is not strained, it..." and then seems to fumble for more words.

Shikako-and-Gelel complete the rest for Sai — not the whole poem, just as much as Shikako had told the others during the invasion. Just enough to make sure Kankurō and Sasuke can follow along. Just enough to teach the lesson again.

Did the native Shikako translate the entire poem? Does Shikako even really want to know?

Better to think about anything else. Better to think about Kankurō, still on his knees but at least not quite so terrified. Better to break away from Sasuke and Sai and go to give Kankurō a hand up.

"You said this was a weapon," Kankurō tells them, sounding fairly numb with shock. Maybe they didn't do a very good job putting him back in his skin after all.

"Anything is a weapon," Shikako-and-Gelel remind him. He's a ninja, he should know that. "I'm just trying to get home... and do some landscaping, I guess."

"But you had — you had something for me to do." Kankurō makes a vague gesture. "I don't remember what — and if it's against Suna, you should just kill me, because I would never—"

It's better to just show him. Shikako-and-Gelel reach out and gently, gently press into his head the knowledge that Gaara will be Kazekage. Should be Kazekage. Must be. It's not an order, he's not compelled, it's only... a connection. A way to share the knowledge.

"You don't even know him," Kankurō chokes out as he's flooded with her certainty that Sabaku no Gaara will be Godaime Kazekage and save Sand from itself.

"He's my friend," Shikako-and-Gelel correct. They can remember — and they accidentally show Kankurō — the feeling of the sword sliding through her chest, watching Gaara protect his siblings, the way it had felt to soothe Shukaku, the comforting feeling of Gaara's sand catching her mid-air and delivering her safely back to the ground.

It's the last that seems to really knock the breath out of Kankurō. The trust. The absolutely certainty. It's important that he understand.

They know a version of Gaara. They know that any version of Gaara will only be what Sand makes of him. Gaara — Gaara is all the way back at the border and she can feel him, backing restlessly on the roof of the Sand outpost, alone and tense and aimless. He should be Kazekage already —

I want to go home, Shikako thinks, because that's the deepest, most important thought she has at the moment, and it's connected to all sorts of feelings Gelel can't fathom, the last true outpost of just Shikako, no Gelel added. Wanting to stay, that had been a harder position to keep, because it wasn't like being swallowed by Gelel would be dying, exactly. But going home, that was specific. Going home was something Shikako could only do if Gelel let her go.

home? Gelel wonders. It could probably riffle through Shikako's entire being like browsing a magazine, but instead it stretches out and out and out, looking for "home" for Shikako, waiting for her to point it out.

But Shikako can't, not even when its awareness brushes over this universe's Konoha. There's something there, in the Uchiha district: two small areas that Gelel can only brush the edges of, two small areas that feel as immediately recognizably Shikako as Shikako's own hands. Incense burns in both, smoke curling lazily through the air, and Shikako can twist and pull the air there to guide the smoke into unusual shapes. They're shrines, Shikako thinks, but she shies away from the logical conclusion that follows.

They're not home, and that's what matters. They're not home and Gelel needs to understand that. Words would be incapable of explaining, so the only thing to do is to sink deeper into Gelel, until her memories of home, and Jashin, and being so very terribly lost are Gelel's feelings. Until they're both adrift, and staving off grief with the thought of moving forward, and Gelel can perfectly capture the feeling of the seal Shikako had laid with her tear and everything that had gone into it.

home, Shikako thinks.

home, Gelel agrees.

Shikako forgets to say goodbye.

A door opens, a door shuts. There's light and song and when it's over she's laying in a meadow and she can't hear Gelel anymore — she's alone in her own skin, alone in her surroundings. She can't sense anyone nearby, only the faint starlight pinpricks of animals. Birds sing in the trees.

Shikako's neck is covered in blood, her new Nara shirt soaked with it at the collar. She pulls out water and a cloth to clean up with and a new shirt and changes before she even looks around. There's a new scar on her throat, thin and careful and deadly — at least Kankurō keeps his puppet's blades sharp.

She doesn't know where she is.

Not the Garden, not anywhere near Land of Wind — the trees around her are evergreen pines. Land of Hot Springs, maybe, because that would make the most sense, but she has to look for a settlement, she has to be sure. She searches mostly south, because she's definitely farther north than Konoha's climate.

A few miles on, she feels natural chakra in the ground building up for almost an hour and a half, then suddenly release when she's almost gotten to the source. A geyser of boiling water flings itself into the air to the south, ten stories tall. When it settles, the natural energy begins building again.

There's a small shrine settled around the geyser. The style of the shrine is a traditional style favored in the northeast Land of Fire, in Land of Hot Springs, and up into Land of Frost. Given the geyser, Shikako can be confident that going south will mean hitting the northern border of Land of Fire sooner or later, but she stops for directions even still.

It would be good to figure out what the date is. It seems to still be summer, not quite into the worst of the dry season, but how long has she been missing? How difficult will reintegration be? It's doubtful that the shrine will have any news of the Konoha-Cloud conflict, but they'll know more than they think they do.

The shrine is staffed by a single shrine maiden whose energy melds with the geyser's so completely that Shikako would have missed her if not for her life energy. The miko is wary, tense — seems to find something off about Shikako, maybe can tell that she's a foreign ninja — but answers questions easily.

When Shikako casually inquires about the date, the miko gives her an answer using an old-fashioned calendar. It's annoying to convert it in her head, but rural villages and, yes, shrines still use it — the Fire Temple had used the same calendar system, unchanging from hundreds of years before Konoha had been founded.

It's only August, only a bare month after Shikako left for her mission with Aoba. It feels so much longer — but it hasn't even been that long for Shikako. Shikamaru is now several weeks older than her.

Shikako asks some more leading questions, but the miko doesn't know anything about a recent upset at a local temple, and only seems to get more and more uncomfortable. Better for Shikako to cut her losses; she doesn't dare press for information about the Village Hidden in the Hot Springs. It had been an S-Rank mission, after all. An S-Rank mission that Shikako is technically still on.

Time to just head for Konoha and find out how bad the damage is when she gets there.

She expects a border patrol to stop her but... there's no one. There's no border patrol — there's no border, no road. She searches the area where she and Aoba had crossed, where she remembers the curve of the land and the shape of the crest of a nearby hill, but the road they'd taken is just a dirt track, a game trail. It's not even wide enough for a wagon.

Shikako doesn't know where the outposts should be here and anyway... she wants to put it off. She heads straight for Konoha.

The mountain's face is blank, just a cliff. The valley is empty — the river doesn't even run a recognizable course. There's an oxbow where there shouldn't be, a gentle curve where it should run straight.

Konoha isn't here. She's not home.

Next up is Lone Wolf, but I'm afraid I just can't stand the thought of posting another long work on , so it's only going to be up on AO3, I hope you all understand!

And speaking of AO3, maybe you're interested in the Dreaming of Sunshine Exchange I'm running. It's a low-minimum secret santa fanwork exchange for podfic, meta, fanfiction, and fanart based on DoS! As of posting this there's about two days of nominations left (Don't know what that means? Don't worry, there's an FAQ!) and then sign ups will be running March 23rd-30th. I would love to have lot of people join. It requires an AO3 account, but we can definitely get you an invite if you need one. More info on the dreamingofsunshine dreamwidth!