The world was a watercolor painting left out in the rain.
I sat on the edge of the futon, blinking. My glasses were folded on the low table next to me, useless. When I put them on, the sharp edges of the frames warred with the fuzziness of my actual retinas, creating a migraine that felt like a nail being driven into my temple.
The sound of rain on the roof was muffled and heavy—thump-thump-thump—like a heartbeat pressing against the building.
So, I sat in the blur.
My vision was... essentially 20/60. Shapes were distinct enough to recognize, but details were gone. Faces were smudges of skin tone.
The tatami mat was rough under my fingers, smelling of dried reeds and old dust.
Expressions were guesswork.
"Here," a voice said.
A pale shape moved into my peripheral vision. A hand extended, holding a steaming ceramic cup.
Neji.
I flinched slightly. I couldn't help it. The last time he had touched me—when he tried to heal me in the cave—his chakra had recoiled like he'd touched a live wire.
Steam rose from the cup he held, a grey smudge spiraling upward, carrying the bitter, medicinal scent of mugwort.
Neji didn't pull back, but he didn't move closer either. He held the cup at arm's length, his posture stiff.
"It is herbal," Neji said, his voice flat. "For the headache. It will not interact with your... condition."
"Thanks," I mumbled, taking the cup. Our fingers didn't brush. He made sure of it.
He sat down across from me, his white robes pristine even in the dim light of the inn.
The floorboards creaked under his weight—squeeeak—a protest that sounded excessively loud in the quiet room.
I couldn't see his eyes clearly—just the pale expanse where the iris should be—but I could feel his gaze. It felt heavy. Analytical.
Neji was usually dismissive of me. Or condescending. But tonight, his chakra felt... turbulent.
He knew. He knew my power had rejected him specifically. He knew it had resonated with the Caged Bird Seal on his forehead. To a branch member, a power that commands obedience isn't a gift. It's a threat.
"Does it hurt?" Neji asked.
"The eye?" I took a sip. The tea tasted like dirt and mint.
The warmth of the tea seeped into my fingers, chasing away the bone-deep chill that had lingered since the rift.
"Yeah. It throbs."
"Not the eye," Neji corrected quietly. "The command."
I lowered the cup.
"Neji, I didn't mean to—"
"Don't," he cut me off. He stood up, adjusting his sleeves. "You are clearly connected to the clan's history. Perhaps an offshoot. Perhaps something older. It explains your... affinity."
He wasn't asking. He was categorizing. He was putting me in a box labeled 'Dangerous Authority' so he could figure out how to survive me.
"Leave her alone, Hyūga," Ino's voice snapped from the doorway.
Ino marched in, a blur of blonde and purple. She placed herself physically between me and Neji, crossing her arms.
Her perfume—something sweet and floral like hyacinths—cut through the medicinal smell of the tea.
"She's half-blind and exhausted," Ino hissed. "Stop interrogating her. Go stare at a wall or something."
Neji looked at Ino. He looked at me.
"I was merely ensuring she remained stable," Neji said coolly. "If she loses control again, it endangers the mission."
"She's not a bomb!" Ino shouted.
"She is," Neji countered. "We all are."
He turned and walked out, sliding the shoji screen shut with a controlled click.
The sudden silence after the door closed was thick, hanging in the air like humidity.
Ino huffed, sitting down next to me and aggressively fluffing my pillow.
The pillow made a soft whump-whump sound as she beat it into submission.
"Jerk. He's such a robot."
"He's scared," Naruto said.
I turned. I hadn't realized Naruto was in the corner. He was a smudge of orange against the dark wood wall.
"Scared?" Ino scoffed. "Neji? Please. He thinks he's better than everyone."
"Nah," Naruto said, his voice unusually thoughtful. He picked at a loose thread on his pants. "I watched him with Hinata for years. When he looks at Hinata... he looks angry. Like he wants to smash something because she exists."
Naruto looked at the door where Neji had vanished.
"But with Sylvie? He isn't angry. He's... careful. Like he's checking for traps."
Outside, a dog barked once, sharp and lonely, echoing through the wet streets.
I stared at the orange smudge.
Neji Hyūga, afraid of me, I thought, touching my bandaged eye. Because I accidentally gave him an order.
It wasn't a comforting thought. It was lonely.
"I just want to go home," I whispered into my tea.
"We're going," Naruto said, shifting closer. "Tomorrow. We walk until we see the gates."
The storm was breaking.
The heavy, punishing sheets of rain that had hammered them all the way from the border were tapering off, replaced by a cold, miserable drizzle that smelled of wet pine and dying thunder.
Water dripped from the eaves in a steady, rhythmic cadence—plip... plip... plip—marking time in the darkness.
Jiraiya stood under the eaves of the Kōchi inn, leaning against the rough wooden wall. He watched the clouds scudding across the sky, looking for the moon.
The wood of the inn wall was damp and slick against his back, soaking through his mesh armor.
Flick. Hiss.
A lighter flared nearby.
Asuma stood a few feet away, cupping his hands around a cigarette. The smoke drifted into the damp air, mixing with the scent of the rain. The tobacco smoke hung low and blue in the humid air, clinging to their clothes like a second skin.
Anko was crouched on the railing, chewing on a senbon, staring into the dark woods.
She spat a splinter of the senbon onto the ground—ptoo—the tiny sound swallowed by the rain.
The door slid open. Kakashi stepped out.
He looked tired. His vest was still damp, his silver hair matted down. He didn't pull out his book. He just stood there, hands in his pockets.
"Brats finally sleeping?" Anko asked without turning.
"Naruto and Choji are," Kakashi murmured. "The girls are... settling."
He moved to stand next to Anko, but kept a respectful distance. Anko narrowed her eyes at him, then went back to watching the trees.
Kakashi reached up and scratched the back of his head. It was a nervous tic Jiraiya had seen since the boy was a genin.
"I didn't see it," Kakashi said softly.
"See what?" Asuma asked, exhaling a plume of smoke. "The eye?"
"The potential," Kakashi corrected. "I've been so focused on Sasuke. On the Curse Mark. On... stopping him from becoming..."
He didn't finish the sentence. Becoming Itachi, Jiraiya finished for him.
"I failed one brother," Kakashi said, his visible eye staring at a puddle. "I was so terrified of failing the other that I forgot I had two other students. Sylvie's dojutsu... her medical skills... I treated them as convenient background noise. I was supposed to be their sensei. All of them."
"We all have blind spots, Kakashi," Asuma said, his voice gravelly.
Thunder rumbled far to the north, a low growl that vibrated in Jiraiya's chest.
Asuma tapped the ash from his cigarette.
"I wasn't in the village when my father died," Asuma said. "I was playing monk at the Fire Temple. I thought I was finding myself. Meanwhile, Orochimaru was plotting to kill the man who taught us all."
Asuma looked at his burning cigarette.
"I couldn't stop him. I couldn't save the Old Man. That shame? It doesn't go away. But I use it. I look at Ino, Shikamaru, Choji... and I tell myself: 'Not this time.' That's the only way the guilt works for you instead of against you."
Asuma's lighter clicked shut—snick—the sound final and decisive.
Jiraiya listened. The rain dripped from the eaves—plip, plip, plip.
He thought of a cave in the Rain Country. He thought of three orphans he had taught to fish, thinking that would be enough to save them from a world that wanted to drown them.
"We're a pathetic bunch, aren't we?" Anko laughed, though there was no humor in it. "I let my sensei turn me into a guinea pig. You let yours get murdered. And Kakashi here is haunted by ghosts that aren't even dead yet."
Anko hopped down, her boots landing with a wet splash in a puddle, spraying muddy water onto the porch.
She hopped off the railing, landing silently.
"But the kids," Anko said, jabbing a thumb toward the inn. "They're still breathing. We got them out of the desert. We stopped the crazy knights and their leader. That counts for something."
Jiraiya pushed himself off the wall. He walked to the edge of the overhang, letting the drizzle hit his face.
"Nagato," Jiraiya said.
The other three looked at him.
"I had a student once. A boy with eyes like Sylvie's. Eyes that shouldn't exist," Jiraiya said quietly. "I thought I was saving him by teaching him to fight. I thought I was giving him a future."
He looked up at the break in the clouds. A sliver of the moon peeked through—pale, distant, and cold.
"I don't know if I saved him," Jiraiya admitted. "I don't know if he's alive or dead. But I know that if I hadn't tried... he would have died in the mud a long time ago."
He turned to Kakashi.
"You feel guilty because you care, Kakashi. That's good. It means you aren't him."
Kakashi looked up, his eye widening slightly.
"We aren't forcing our dreams on them," Jiraiya continued, his voice firm. "We're just holding the umbrella until they're big enough to hold it themselves. We connect to them through the hope that they won't make our mistakes."
He looked at the dark windows of the inn, where the next generation was sleeping.
"Saving one life means not saving another," Jiraiya said, the old adage tasting bitter on his tongue. "It's the ninja way. But sometimes..."
He smiled, a sad, crooked expression that crinkled the red lines on his cheeks.
"...sometimes, all it takes to save people from a terrible fate is one person willing to do something about it. Even if that person is a screw-up like us."
Asuma chuckled, dropping his cigarette and crushing it under his heel. The embers hissed and died in the wet wood—tsss—extinguishing the last bit of warmth in the circle.
"To screw-ups, then." Asuma said.
"To screw-ups," Kakashi agreed.
Jiraiya looked back at the moon, unveiled briefly through the fog.
Sleep well, Sylvie, he thought. The world is going to get a lot bigger soon. And I need to be ready to catch you when you fall.
The moonlight faded over the Jōnin as the clouds rolled on into the midnight.