Examination: Epilogue

For as long as he could remember, Neji had been an early riser.

There was a silent glory in the early morning, a peace and solitude. In an earlier life, it had been the only time of day he'd been able to enjoy, time away from his hated clan, time away from the reminders that had fueled his baseless, retaliatory anger.

It was still a time of serenity to him.

He woke to the distant, rolling symphony of falling rain and the pallid gray light of a darker day, gray light that greeted him with a weary welcome. A minute movement shifted the mattress beside him, and he blinked and turned.

Sakura was awake, it seemed, silhouetted against the mottled glass and a turbid sky. His eyes followed the gentle curve of her spine past the angles of her shoulder blades to her tangled coral hair. The sheets draped over her legs and pooled around her waist, wrinkled and tossed from a night of fitful unrest.

He couldn't see her face as she watched the rain, knees drawn up and clutched to her bare chest, but her head moved ever so incrementally as he roused. Lost in her thoughts, her attention returned to the window and the dreary world beyond.

Neji rubbed at his aching eyes, and sat up carefully so as not to disturb her more than necessary.

Discarded funerary clothes surrounded their bed, the black feathers of crows scattered about their nest, and he could remember the day before in vivid detail.

He remembered the procession, the eulogies, the mourners. He remembered his niece and her friends, his temporary wards, saying farewell. Sakura, downcast and subdued as the realities of the world asserted themselves again. He remembered coming home, and the both of them wanting nothing more than to forget for a while.

He moved closer, uninvited, but not rejected, and ran a hand through her hair, resting it against her arm as she return ed his gaze at last. The deep wet jade of her eyes was highlighted by the glint of tears, and he worried that she'd not gone a day without crying, lately. It was a poor start to another day.

"Good morning," he said, and though she didn't reply, she let herself slip toward him, resting against his chest.

He didn't say any more, only leaning his chin against her shoulder as he coiled around her to satisfy his overwhelming urge to protect. She took one hand in both of hers, and brushed a thumb against the underside of his palm.

"Neji," she said after some time, soft and muted, barely audible beneath the persistent patter from outside.

He kept his voice even, gentle, as she played with his fingers.

"Sakura."

"What did you pray for?"

OoOoOoO

"...part of the terms with Kusagakure were to pull out our observation teams, which we pretty much have to agree to. Still, they've been so adamant about it that they've got to be up to something. Now that the exam's over, you think you've got anyone in the area that could pick up the slack?"

"Yeah, we can probably make that work. I'll guarantee it if you can swing those teams from Kusa out to the Iwa border to shore up our guys there. Your relations with them are better than ours and if they do get caught it'll be less of a problem."

"Deal," Shikamaru said, folding up the map he'd been holding over his head and tossing it aside. It landed on the bunker floor next to him in an untidy heap among the scrolls and books piled high.

Temari traced an arcane pattern on Shikamaru's chest with a pointed fingernail.

"We have the worst pillow talk, you know that?"

"My pillow is an order of battle for Kumo," he said. "It fits."

"Smartass," she said, shivering despite being draped across him. She reached past the discarded map to grab her shirt and pulled it over her head, then stood and planted her hands on her hips. "What, are you going to lie there all day? We have work to do."

"It was your idea," he said, and then winced as she whipped his pants into his face, with just enough of a flick of her wrist to make it sting. "You're shrill today."

"I'm still pissed about you and your damn shadow."

"That was more than a week ago," he muttered.

"It creeps me out," she said, and they finished dressing.

He couldn't help but watch as she put her hair back together, and dutifully supplied the ties as he leaned against the great planning table cluttered with maps and lists, and resource books thicker than his arm. When she was done, she looked up at him, and he stared back, impassive. He broke first, just a slight quirk of the lips, and she shifted to lean against the table next to him, arms crossed.

"When were you going home?"

"With the next batch of recommendations. I guess."

"They're your friends, not mine. You should be ashamed. Seriously, what would you do without me?"

Shikamaru thought about it for a long time.

"Probably start smoking again," he said. She scowled.

"I thought we broke that filthy habit," she said, but he was pretty sure she knew what he'd meant.

OoOoOoO

"Peace," Neji said. "I wished them peace, wherever they go."

He'd also told them they'd had their justice. That their killer would not threaten anyone, any more. That their sacrifice was appreciated.

Sakura nodded slowly, a wet cheek brushing against his shoulder.

She turned in his arms, hidden in the shadows of the dawn and the incessant pounding of the rain, and her breath jumped with persistent sorrow even as she pressed her lips against his. She was slow and nearly hesitant, far from the crushing desperation of the kisses of the eve, and he replied in kind.

The mist rose and mingled among the buildings of the village, climbing and twisting through the morning. Neji watched them, errant spirits making their way home, as Sakura cried into the crook of his neck. He watched the mists twine together and play through the falling rain as he held her, and knowing even as he did that he would never forget what she looked like dead.

So he held her tight, pressed her close against him, and waited.

"And you?" he dared, as her plaintive mewling tapered away, fading into a drawn out sigh.

She sniffled, and he was on the verge of asking her to forget he'd asked when she finally replied.

"Truth," she said. "And forgiveness."

She didn't have to explain it wasn't for her. That much he understood, and he squeezed her to let her know.

"I hate this," she said, after another interminable silence. "I hate feeling this way, I hate having to remember. I want it to end, Neji. I want it to stop."

He kissed her forehead.

"It will," he promised. Vowed to do whatever it took, in his mind. "Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, or even the day after. But I'll be here."

He felt a miserable smile curve against his collarbone and lips that whispered a thanks against his skin. As much as she despised her circumstance, so too did he. He hated his impotence, his inability to banish her ghosts, to end the haunting.

And despite the crushing weight of it, he was buoyed by her presence in his arms, to know she was there, warm and vibrant, hurt but alive. He'd said once that he'd not needed her as much as he wanted her to be with him, to stand alongside him, but it felt like a half-truth now. It rang hollow, somehow, incomplete.

It wasn't enough any more.

Somewhere since then, she'd become more a part of him than he'd ever suspected. In the waking nightmare inflicted upon him by the Uchiha, he'd experienced an amputation most severe.

All he needed was to know she would be alright.

OoOoOoO

"I don't get it," Naruto said, as Hinata picked at his cloth draped over his shoulder with expert fingers. Behind him, Haruka straightened the robe's hem, fiddling with it until she was satisfied, which was probably going to be never, judging from the look on her face. "It's just going to get messed up again as soon as I move."

Hinata smiled. It was hard to help, he was so clueless sometimes.

"Not as messy as it is right now," she said, pulling out another pleat.

She stepped back to admire her handiwork, running her own hands down her clan kimono, a delicate work of violet silk with ivory embellishments, a storm of cranes that wound their way around her body.

"And if you'd stop fidgeting," Haruka said, "maybe it wouldn't have taken so long. There, done."

A white noon sun burned through the windows of the tower, flooding the room with light, chasing the memory of the rains that had filled the entire previous week. Haruka darted around her father and came to stand next to Hinata, and without really thinking about it, she hugged the girl close to her.

Haruka nudged her back.

"I have to go find my team," she said, "They'll be waiting to see, and I have to make sure 'Nami isn't going to do something crazy again. Love you, Dad. Can't wait to see you up there."

"You too, squirt."

"It looks good on you," Hinata said, as Haruka made her way to the door.

"Well, I think it's missing a hat," Haruka called back before she left, unable to resist.

"That's what they're all waiting for," Naruto replied, waving toward the windows and the crowd outside. He smiled for a moment, and Hinata caught the grim look in his eyes in the instant before he turned to the window.

Beyond, through the leaning rays, the carved faces of previous rulers kept watch over the village.

"Naruto?"

A muscle in his jaw pulsed.

"I still can't quite believe everything yet," he said, as Hinata stepped closer, and gently reached for his hand. "I just...I didn't think... I wanted him to see this, and if I couldn't help him, then..."

"You did everything you could," she said. "More than anyone asked of you. I know you'll do the same for everyone else here, and that's what makes you great."

"Yeah?"

"Yes," she said. Naruto nodded, smile growing, on his lips and in his eyes, and she felt her heart rise in her chest. "Yes, you are. Shall we?"

OoOoOoO

The earth shook, and Sakura turned away from the ocher wave to protect her face as pulverized shore fell around her.

Quartz grains cracked between her teeth as she bit down on the end of another hard breath, and her tongue felt thick and swollen in her mouth. She made a fist with her other hand, leaned forward, and struck. Sweat stung her eyes and sand flew from her hair as she spun, stepped forward, and slammed her fist into the ground again, and again, and again.

When she had nothing left, when she could no longer feel the tips of her fingers, when she was sure she'd split the skin of her knuckles even protected in her gloves, she stepped back and tried to breathe.

Where the river had once wound its way around a sandy rise, where grasses and weeds had once started laying down roots, there was now little more than an ill-defined precipice, a steep slope that plunged onto an artificial beach.

Sakura stood in the hole she'd dug for herself, and cool, seeping water pooled around her ankles.

"You haven't come here in a long time," Neji said.

She turned, surprised. She hadn't heard him, but then she'd been making more than enough noise of her own, drowning out any sound he might have made.

"No," she said. Her legs felt a little weak, and she let herself down slowly onto what remained of the bank, wrapping her arms around exhausted knees. Neji pulled his hands from his pockets, and sat next to her. "I just really, really wanted to destroy something."

"Like your hands," he said, pointing out the obvious. She started healing the cuts and bruises, pacing herself to avoid burning out what remained of her chakra. "Sakura, I..."

"I know."

Knew he was worried. Knew he'd kept it to himself, because he couldn't help serving. Knew he'd always been forced to put himself second, and that it was in his nature.

She let her head fall against him.

"I'm okay," she said, soft, reassuring. "I promise. I just wanted to blow off some steam. I've been cooped up too long."

He watched her, bracing his chin against a palm, hiding his mouth. Only Neji could take her in, all of her, without looking away from her eyes. Who knew what went on in that head of his when he watched that way, stone-faced, scrutinizing, but she'd learned to guess.

Sakura closed her eyes, heard him exhale heavily, and snuggled against him as his hand landed on her shoulder.

She still felt betrayed.

OoOoOoO

The last thing Kiba saw before stars erupted in his eyes was his own dark reflection in the handle of his bedroom doorknob. That was less than a second before it smacked against his forehead and knocked him off of Akamaru's back, sending him sprawling across his floor. Maybe less than a second before he'd heard the knock and the muffled greeting, but it was too little too late.

He winced, shook his head, and tried to clear his vision as the lights came on.

Something heavy landed on his chest and he realized it was Akamaru trying to hide him.

"Hey, Kiba, I brought you some...what the hell are you doing down there?"

"Ow," he grunted. "Hey, Ino."

She cocked an eyebrow, and half-scowled, half-smiled as Akamaru got up apologetically and circled around her, sniffing the air.

"And here I was, thinking you'd been so good about being cooped up. Were you seriously trying to escape?"

He gave her his best impression of a puppy-dog who knows he's been caught doing something dumb. She shrugged, sighed, and knelt on one knee.

"Come on," he said. "You know it's driving me nuts in here. Hana's constantly telling me I can't do this, or that, or..."

"I don't think it's Ha..."

"Don't say it, please," he groaned. Sitting up without the help of his hands was more difficult than he was used to, but he'd been in good shape before the injury and it was surprising what one could do with core strength alone. "I have to go out at some point. I'm serious, I really am losing my mind here."

She seemed to think it over, squinting at him with something between suspicion and playfulness. Somewhere in the background, Akamaru's tail slammed against the wall.

"Okay," she said, "Just this once, you'll get your walk."

"You're the best," he said, and he took her proffered hand with still-weak fingers. She yanked him upright -- before dumping him back across Akamaru's shoulders.

"What, you didn't seriously think I was going to carry you all the way, did you?"

She tried to look sweet, but it came off as maliciously pleased more than anything.

"You're really enjoying screwing with me, aren't you?"

"Only because I'm having difficulty telling you no," she said, and led Akamaru quietly out into the hallway, keeping an eye out for anyone who might stop them.

Akamaru's mouth dropped open wide, tongue lolling, and panted even though he didn't need to, laughing in the way only a dog can.

OoOoOoO

Betrayed, abandoned, confused.

"I wanted to believe it wasn't him," Sakura said, after a while. "Anything. That he was being controlled, that someone was pretending to be him, something."

She looked up at the ridge, and the elms that topped it, the same ridge from which her adopted niece had come -- and the unnamed mother that had carried her. She waited for Neji to say something, but he didn't do more than glance at her, waiting her for to finish.

Sakura sighed.

"I just...he was more broken than I thought. I don't know everything, still. Shishou doesn't know enough of the history to tell me anything useful, and everyone who does know is dead now. So what do I believe?"

"Him, probably," Neji said, after a moment's consideration. "If nothing else, a madman has no reason to lie."

"Don't call him that."

"If you have a better suggestion."

She didn't. She made a sour face and wrapped herself in her arms, hiding in the square of her elbows. For the first time, she found she couldn't cry any more. She was too drained, too exhausted. Whether it was the exertion of ruining the riverbank or simply that she had no more tears to shed, she wasn't sure.

At least the pain was fading, reduced now to a cold, dull ache.

"How does someone break like that? How does a person...decide nothing is real?"

"It could have been me," Neji said, and Sakura snapped her head up.

"That's stupid."

"It's not," he said, and the ethereal calm of his voice grew pained. "You wouldn't believe how close I came. I had...plans."

"I don't believe you."

"You don't have to. I'm lucky my delusions were broken before they got out of hand. And, quite honestly, I do have Hinata and your brother-of-sorts to thank for that. Sakura, I don't know any more than you do, but I do know hate and lies are powerful things. Too much of either, or both...would make anyone curdle."

Sakura still couldn't quite believe it, but she caught the flicker of remorse in his eyes as he turned away to stare upstream. Her own pang of guilt thrust needles into her heart -- Neji never lied, and to imply such when he was being as open as he'd ever been was not something she wanted to do again.

She reached for his face, needing to touch him, to let him know.

"I'm sorry," she said.

OoOoOoO

"There you are," Hanabi said, her small hands shifting the door panel aside. "You and Neji have been impossible to find, lately."

Hinata looked up from her reading, and folded it in her lap around a sculptured paper bookmark as her sister shut the panel behind her.

"I haven't made a secret of my whereabouts lately," she said. "And Neji is probably exactly where he has been for the last few years."

Hanabi smiled indulgently, with an additional quirk of the lips hinting at a secretive and forbidden knowledge, and folded her legs under herself opposite the heir of the Hyuuga clan. A teapot of Hinata's favorite steamed between them, issuing a content aroma into her study, and Hanabi accepted a cup.

"I'm glad things are working out for you, then. You would not believe what the elders have been saying lately. They're angrier than I've ever seen them."

"I take it you think that's a good sign."

"You could tell?" Hanabi drank, and sobered. "Hinata, I don't think it's enough. Rokudaime or no, they're going to fight anything you propose every step of the way."

Hinata felt her eyes harden. It was an unfamiliar feeling that she'd never been so acutely aware of before, but it felt right. It was sincere, unyielding, and she knew it was entirely hers.

"So will I," she said.

"I know that," Hanabi said, and looking into her eyes was like looking into Neji's on a bad day, if for only a moment. "I know that, but I think we need to do more. We need to prepare. What you're doing...that would suffice if we were merely a noble clan, Hinata."

Hinata nodded, prompting Hanabi to continue.

"I think...you and I...we've forgotten the branch house."

She felt her back stiffen, felt her lips part with an indignant, self-righteous outrage.

"I haven't!"

"We have, Hinata. We've been isolated from them with the exception of Neji so long that we forget he is not the only one chafing under the seal. I've started talking to...well, the branch house of our family, in any case. We can help each other."

"Of...of course."

"It starts with a new seal, Hinata. Not in thirty years when the elders die off or break under you -- now," she said, and drove home the point by stabbing a finger into the table. "Even if it's just within our own family, if we start now, by the time anyone figures it out, we'll be far ahead. We won't have to do this alone."

Hinata couldn't remember the last time she'd been well and truly surprised.

OoOoOoO

Neji was looking at the sky when Sakura turned his face back towards her.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "I didn't mean to say..."

"It's alright," he said, keeping her close. "I don't like to think about it either."

She shifted in his embrace, no longer wanting to be cradled or comforted. She'd crushed the pain to an exhausted numbness under the force of her blows, shattering it between her fists and the sand, and now even that dull, conflicted apathy was draining away with the passage of the river.

Instead, she crawled into his lap, rested her head against his chest, and closed her eyes to listen to his heart.

"Then...can you tell me what it was like? I...I want to understand."

She heard him take breath, a great, heavy heave of his lungs that testified to the weight of her question.

"It was never about power," he said, at last. "Not for me. I sought it, certainly. I stole the techniques of the main house by observation and diligence, and the elders have never forgiven me. But it's not about power. It's about control."

"Control?"

"I had none. My...fate...was ordained by the clan, or so I thought. There was nothing I could do to change it, and I hated that. I assumed it was the same for everyone, even though it was never true for me."

She heard him breathe again, and thought he'd finished.

"Sakura, stop me if I cross a line, but...I think it must have been the same for the Uchiha. You told me, a long time ago, that he left seeking the power to kill his brother."

Neji paused, waiting to see if she would stop him, but she only nodded, prodding him on.

"He had no control, in his mind, or so I believe. So long as his brother existed, his existence would always be threatened. And then, for him to find that everything he'd built up -- his power, his hate -- for it to be found misguided... Even twice, given what we know about Uchiha Madara and his methods..."

"It broke him," Sakura murmured. "Then why the girl? Why Haruka's mother?"

"Control," Neji said, after a while.

"He wanted her to be me," she said, making the last connections herself, "but he couldn't trust anyone any more. Even if she'd met him and liked him beforehand...her mind rebelled against the illusion. You can't convince a person to be someone they aren't."

She was too tired to feel anything anymore.

OoOoOoO

"Oh, gods above," Ino said, answering the knock. "It's you, you actually came. Come in. Please."

"Actually," Shikamaru said, leaning against the door jamb, hands in his pockets. "Chouji's going to meet us down at the restaurant. Wanna come?"

She was ready to go faster than any other time in recent memory.

Chouji was waiting for the them by the time they got there, already throwing meat on the grill, shifting plates around to optimize the speed at which food would change from raw to edible.

"Welcome back, both of you," she said, sitting in her usual place, on the end of the bench across from Shikamaru, who sat in his usual place next to Chouji, perching his cheek on a fist. "And congratulations, Chouji. I hear your team was promoted."

Next to her was the customary empty fourth setting: chopsticks, bowl, teacup, napkin, ashtray.

"Ah, farewell to the teaching life, for now," Chouji mused, snapping his tongs to an unheard rhythm, and she let herself revel in the presence of her brothers. "And thank you. Though I hear yours had a more strenuous time of it."

She nodded, but she waved away his concern with what she thought was a dismissive indifference. Still, she could feel Shikamaru's eyes on her even though he was sitting on her blind side -- she was still getting used to it.

"Well, we're all okay," she said. "And that's what matters. So what've you been up to, Shika? It's been far too long."

She gave her head a little shake to settle her bangs over her scarred eye, and she caught the little twitch of Chouji's eyebrow that said he knew what she was doing but wasn't going to do anything about it for now.

"Not much," Shikamaru said, and Chouji was already handing out the bits and pieces that had achieved perfection on the grill. "Still trying to keep myself sane."

"Still seeing that girl?"

Shikamaru rolled his eyes.

"Calling her a girl might be a bit generous," he said, but he smirked anyway. He turned to Chouji. "Don't say it."

Chouji shrugged, and started in on his meat.

They bickered, all of them. Chouji sniped at her being underweight, she harangued Shikamaru about the relationship he wasn't supposed to have, and he inquired as to Chouji's wife, who let slip her newfound association with Kiba.

"...finally," he tagged on the end.

"Wait, what?" she said, jabbing chopsticks at him -- but she finally felt like she'd come home.

OoOoOoO

They watched the sun set beyond the hill and the limit of the trees, surrounded by the curve of a stream Neji was sure Sakura had forgotten. Beneath the steady trickle of water, he could hear her breathe in slow, deep breaths, and it was a blessing to hear her calm again, without the aching agony of the shattered sobs that had developed a habit of breaking her stride in recent days.

"I'm done, Neji," she said, as he rested his chin on her shoulder. Small hands lifted to clasp his where they rested on her opposite collarbone. Overhead, the a few bright stars winked into being, born between the clouds.

"Done what?"

"Done," she said, half-absent, fixated on those first stars. Her hands were warm against his knuckles, even through her gloves, and he wondered if they still ached. "Done with this. I miss you, Neji. I miss talking to you, I miss all the stupid things I do around you. I miss feeling like I'm supposed to."

She turned to him, only peripherally aware of her tongue moving across her lower lip, offering him an invitation he didn't hesitate to accept.

For the first time in a while, it didn't feel rushed, didn't feel desperate. For the first time in a while, she felt something besides sorrow or the blank numbness that had filled the days. For the first time in a while, Neji didn't feel like an escape so much as a destination, and Sakura closed her eyes and drank from him.

"I miss loving you," she said, stopping to breathe.

"I wasn't aware you stopped," he said, and she gave him a sideways glance. He killed it by kissing her again.

He brushed hair away from her face, tucked it behind her ear.

"I've been foolish, haven't I?"

"How so?"

She almost didn't want to bring it up, knowing it would ruin the moment they'd cultivated together, but it was the last step.

"It's been...what, fifteen years? Since I last even talked to him. I thought...I thought I'd been able to put it all behind me, thought I'd done a better job of it than Naruto did, but I didn't, did I? I never really let go. Not completely."

She felt herself sigh, and the bindings around Neji's forehead against hers.

"Maybe so."

His breath was a warm balm compared to the stiffening breeze, and she felt herself shiver as the first fireflies winked on and began their nightly rites. Sakura worked her fingers and pulled off her gloves, and her hands were still a little red and sore.

"Neji? Take me home."

OoOoOoO

"I still can't believe you talked me into this, Sakura."

Ino dropped another box on the landing, before flattening herself against the wall of the stairway to make room for Sakura and her load.

"Oh, come on," Sakura said. "It's not like Shishou didn't teach you most of what you know."

"Hey, I didn't say I don't appreciate it. And I would say she only taught me some of what I know. Since I'm more versatile than you are."

"Fine," Sakura said, following her down the stairs. "Then I'll just say the exercise is good for you. Pig."

Ino rolled her eyes.

"Don't start that again," she said, pointing a warning finger. "You know you don't want me playing this game with you."

"Have it your way," Sakura said, and shrugged. "Hey, last boxes."

"You can have the heavy one this time."

"I have been taking the heavy ones."

"As if."

They nearly made it to the small apartment above the empty storefront when a third woman in a black dress blocked their way, hands on her hips.

"You know you're going to blow her cover if you keep this up," Shizune said, taking Sakura's box and moving it deeper into the room. Ino pushed hers into Sakura's arms the instant they were empty. "You know she probably won't do a great job of taking care of it herself."

"It's not as though I can't hear you," Tsunade said, scowling at all three of her former students from the middle of an empty room. "I think I'll do just fine, thank you very much. Now come on, we still have work to do."

Ever the lazy taskmaster, Sakura thought to herself, because it wasn't as though Tsunade herself had put in all that much effort. Hell, Shizune had been the one to locate the residence, not to mention sorting out the details.

But, even if the old woman couldn't stand the way she looked naturally, Sakura couldn't help but wonder if that sort of indolence was the key to aging gracefully. Even without the illusion that had hid her true face for years -- and Sakura was still getting used to the wrinkles and the somewhat more sunken eyes, the shifts in her cheekbones and the new shape of her jaw -- Tsunade was no wicked old crone.

"Oh, hey," Ino said, breaking open one of the unmarked boxes of prototype creams Tsunade had brought along with her, "what's all this? Can I have one?"

Sakura laughed.

OoOoOoO

From the way Haruka was dragging her feet, Neji was fairly certain she was about as close to collapse as she'd ever been. Still, he kept an even pace next to her, and was somewhat gratified to see she was still trying to keep up, and besides which they were already nearly there.

"So, uh," she said, between heavy breaths, "why is Dad meeting us at your place again?"

"For dinner. We don't want to be late."

Haruka glared at him.

"I'd be able to move faster if Kiyoka didn't just beat the hell out of me."

"It was Nanami who did that, Haruka."

"Fine, both of them," she said, and it was certain from her tone that she was still annoyed at the least. "You didn't tell me they'd both be in on it, Uncle."

Neji let her be until he was certain she thought he was ignoring her, until she'd turned her face away to huff as they made their way from street to street.

"The enemy won't tell you when their reinforcements arrive, either," he said. "A lesson you had better learn. Kiyoka only used fifteen percent of her kikaichu."

"That's probably all she needed given what Nanami did."

"That is exactly all she needed. She is becoming quite good at evaluating what amount of force will suffice. You, on the other hand, are getting sloppier by the day. This is what I am hoping to correct."

Haruka bristled, her shoulders hunching together, and he could see the fabric of her pockets stretch as she made hidden fists. He suppressed a desire to laugh, and stopped for a moment, turning around. She drew up short behind him.

"You've made not inconsiderable progress with your eyes, Haruka. It's a gift, much like mine. However, while they can show you much, and while they do give you an advantage over those without them, you've begun to neglect your other senses. Only last week you learned that you can see through clones, and Nanami exploited that, offering you two clones to ignore, and a rather well crafted genjutsu of herself. You chased it around while she conferred with Kiyoka -- admittedly, at my instruction -- all the while ignoring that it made no footsteps."

"Point taken," Haruka said, grudgingly.

"Good."

He had no doubt she'd stew in her failure and continue to be angry at him for a few days, but if he'd learned anything about the girl, it was that she did take these lectures seriously. She was the new face of a clan resurrected and renamed, and a part of his family.

She, and the Uzumaki clan, would learn to do things right, if he had anything to do with it.

OoOoOoO

Hinata found who she was looking for at the edge of the woods, near the broad expanse of a meadow patterned with a glorious multitude of mid-summer blooms. She stopped and smiled, petting Akamaru as he ran up to her, and she let him lead her over to where Kiba was doing crunches in the shade.

"Hey," he shouted, and she waved back, waiting until she was within earshot.

"How are you both?"

"Getting better," he said, sitting up and leaning forward. The scars were hideous, but he wore them well. "Still can't run, but I can walk pretty far without help. This is the first day I've gotten out here without Ino. Pity she's busy today, Akamaru's been helping her get used to having a blind spot."

"I'm glad to hear that."

"So what's up? You wanna sit?"

Hinata shook her head.

"I won't be able to stay long, I'm sorry. I had a favor to ask you."

"Sure, anything," he said, and despite the disparity in skull structure, both he and Akamaru wore the same grins. It was infectious. "Let me guess, something to do with your wedding."

She blushed, and brushed her hair with her fingers, playing with the ends.

"Yes. Well, it's my clan, of course. As always. They're insisting on a family wedding -- because they know of course Naruto has no family, besides Haruka. And I'm sure Neji and Sakura will go over. So of course my side will be full, and his empty. It's a sort of indirect insult, so..."

Kiba leaned his head to one side and cracked his neck.

"...so really, you're asking me if I can think of a way to totally mess this up. You're basically asking me to ruin your wedding."

She nodded. Kiba always knew, somehow, exactly the best way to put something, without fancy words, without thinking about it. He just was.

"Okay, well. Where I come from, the definition of family's a bit looser. I'd consider Haruka family because I've been running with her for like a year and a half now. So yeah, call me his cousin or something. Plus her team mates. And if they show up, the Aburames are going to have to. So that's Shino's family and mine. And then I'm sure the Nakamura's are going to want to come, too."

He thought about it a bit longer, but she was sure he was faking it.

"Can I bring a date? Because if I do that, she's going to bring her team mates or their families or both. It'll be a riot. No, seriously, there is going to be a riot."

Hinata laughed. He wasn't near finished yet.

"I think that would be appropriate."

OoOoOoO

Hanabi was the last to leave, and Sakura and Neji waited as she got her shoes on and found her jacket in the closet. She laid a hand on the door knob, and turned with a little more levity than she'd had arriving with Hinata and the others earlier in the evening.

"I think this'll work, Neji," she said, hope tinging her voice. "I really think it will."

"I hope so," Sakura said, squeezing his arm. "I do."

Hanabi bid them both good night, and left them to the task of cleaning up.

There was surprisingly little evidence that their apartment was now the birthplace of a conspiracy. No messy paper afterbirth, no attendant tall-backed chairs, none of the melodramatic props or the silly pomposity of cliche. Just an invisible flood of new ideas, possible paths, and, in the centre of their dining table, next to a roughly carved granite flower, a napkin sketch of a seal, annotated in Naruto's haphazard hand.

Neji picked it up and stared at it. It was more complex than it looked at first glance, and once completed, would look identical to the mark currently inscribed on his forehead.

"Hard to believe he could come up with something this complete on the first attempt," he said, and Sakura snuck up behind him, wrapping an arm around his waist.

"You're jealous that he can do something you can't."

"It's not my fault only the midwives and elders are permitted to learn anything about seals."

"Doesn't change the fact that you're jealous."

He was, actually, a bit more jealous of the ensuing, unborn generations than of Naruto's prowess with the technique. They'd wear a juuin, all of them, but one that freed them from the main house. They'd be banded birds, uncaged. Unrestricted.

"I'm glad Hanabi thought of this," he said, after a while, still staring at the planned seal. "Asking our midwife to get involved. She's new, after all. One of our generation."

"I'm surprised you didn't."

"Not really. I've been so preoccupied with avoiding the elders, with getting out and getting away I've isolated myself from the family as well. You know I'm not that good with people."

"We wouldn't be here if that were really true. You're terse, I suppose. But you'll make a good father."

He stopped, and frowned. Sakura stuck out her tongue.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

OoOoOoO

a/n: that should be all the loose ends tied up.

I did deliberately leave some things vague, such as Sasuke's relationship with the unnamed woman of the prologue, which some people have commented on. My personal conception of those events is what Sakura states in the epilogue; unable to trust anyone and unable to go home, he builds his own reality.

Someone else mentioned they were impressed I'd managed to hack all this out despite the chapters with Madara only coming out a few weeks ago, and I'd like to disabuse them of the notion that I can write that quickly. Well, I can if someone lights a fire under me, but in truth this has been in progress for considerably longer than that, and I only made a few tweaks to Sasuke's fractured dialogue as those chapters came out. After a while the manga went right off the deep end, so I gave up and appended the AU tag.

In any case, I thank you all for reading. Feedback is always welcome, and any further questions -- if you want them answered -- will probably find me if you use the e-mail link in my profile.