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Chapter Thirty-Two

The Mirror In The Sky

A dark, abandoned cavern in the mountains above Kyozo was suddenly given light, rocks falling to the ground as a new hole appeared in the ceiling.

"Nice work, Shino and Shino's kikai," said Kiba, poking his head in through the hole.

Dropping a long rope down the hole, the three children made their way down, jumping to the rocky ground at the end of the rope's knots. Shino shook the shells from his kikai, asking them if they were alright. They waved their feelers cheerfully, and dutifully glowed at Shino's request.

As the room lit up, the three children and Akamaru could see the remants of Gato's hasty retreat. Most of the heavy mining equipment was still there, but everything else they had hoarded was gone.

"Any traps?" Kiba asked Hinata.

"Byakugan," she said.

Looking around, she shook her head.

A few minutes of searching and rubble-clearing later, Hinata touched a chakra needle to the Kyozo tomb's door. At the urging of her chakra, it swung upon, and the children gasped as they saw what was inside.

A long tunnel led off into the darkness, but that was no surprise. Instead, they stared up above the tunnel, just ahead of the door. There was a painting of the Four-Armed Man, and one of his hands held the Knife.

It was a dagger, sharpened on one side, something like a cleaver. Its colour was deep black, with a tinge of purple running through the back part of the blade, and the blade itself dripped with red blood.

"Could he be a god?" asked Shino.

"...literally?" said Kiba in disbelief.

"Tailed Beasts are immortal and exceptionally powerful, and we know for a fact that they are sapient," said Shino. "And Chomei had never seen anything like the Hand. We might as well call the Four-Armed Man a god, regardless of philosophical implications."

Reaching inside her pack, Hinata pulled out the plank of wood from her bunk in Hisui. Through the Byakugan, she compared the two images. They were quite close, including the disconcerting spiral that the Four Armed Man had instead of a face.

"They're the same?" asked Kiba.

"Mm," Hinata said, quietly preparing herself for whatever her ancestors had kept locked away.

"Are you?" Kiba asked.

"...no," Hinata said.

She gave her adopted brother a smile, then stepped towards the Tomb door.

They followed the tunnel as it slowly curved downwards, turning at an odd angle. The walls were rocky, and pulsed with chakra the same way as the Hyuga Tomb had. The tunnel was long and straight, going on for a dozen metres, but at last it split off to a room on the right.

Peeking inside, the children saw a slightly-raised area with a bloodied sheet on it. The sheet was covered in very withered-looking vines, who feebly reached out towards the interlopers, too stiff to undulate properly.

Kiba sniffed.

"Sweet," he said.

Shino frowned.

"They're certainly interesting, but I wouldn't call them sweet," he said.

"No, literally," said Kiba. "It smells like-...I don't know. Something with sugar."

"You're right," agreed Hinata. "They...u-um..."

She poked her fingers together.

"They kind of smell like cinnamon rolls," she said.

"Don't eat the plants, Hinata," said Kiba.

"They tried to eat us," she protested.

The boys laughed, and she laughed along with them. The three all stepped away, the vines collapsing as they left, and they walked along the tunnel until they reached its end.

The walls opened up into a wide room with a low ceiling. It was hard to say how big the room was, for it was almost completely covered in bronze pots and jugs, most of which were almost as tall as the children themselves. Through the Byakugan, Hinata could see they all held a white waxy-looking substance.

In the centre of the room lay the Magatama. Like before, it send out slow, peaceful waves of chakra from a single pinprick of light, Hinata watching it closely. The waves made the flat stone walls hard to see, but the chakra itself was beautiful. Hinata watched it work for a moment, hypnotised, before pulling her eyes away to check the room around it.

It rested on a metal tripod next to a low squarish stone construction, a tiny box without a lid. The tripod beneath the Magatama connected to another curved metal piece, which dipped into the stone construction through a hole, and curved around itself in a spiral before melding back with the tripod.

Hinata pushed back against her feeling of dread.

Whatever they did, I'm not them.

Kiba stroked his chin as he looked at the nearest large pot.

"Can you guys grab my ankles?" he asked.

"Now, or more often in general?" asked Shino.

"I wanna smell what's in this thing," said Kiba. "And I don't wanna fall inside if it's dead person stuff."

With some effort, Hinata and Shino hauled him up and into the pot, dangling him inside it as he sniffed.

"Okay," said Kiba, after a moment, "done now!"

They pulled him out, and Kiba found himself back on solid ground.

"It's honey," he said.

Hinata scratched the side of her head, frowning.

"Why does it look like that?" she asked.

"Honey is an antibacterial agent, and it never truly decays," said Shino. "It just dries out. We could boil all of it in water, and it would be edible with no problems at all."

"And they covered the Hand with it," said Kiba. "Mummification?"

"Most likely," Shino said.

Moving his light-giving kikai over the jars, he held up a hand for them to stop moving, then sent them up to the ceiling. Hinata couldn't see this well, given the chakra pulsing from the Magatama, but Kiba and Shino's eyes lit up as the kikai revealed more and more above their heads.

"Hinata, turn your Byakugan off," Kiba said.

Hinata deactivated it, the waves of chakra disappeared from her vision, and she saw by Shino's kikai light.

Above their heads on the low, curved ceiling, there was a chipped and cracked painting of a long table. Figures in coarse white clothes with rope belts holding them together were kneeling together and laughing. All had long blue-black hair and golden eyes with no pupils.

Hinata gasped, her eyes flitting from one figure to the other.

"They're-"

"Hyuga," she said.

At the head of the table, there was a monstrous being with a shock of spiky white hair and a pair of horns, wearing long flowing robes and holding a dagger in one hand. He was laughing along with the humans before him, and there was a white crow with red eyes on his shoulder, apparently in some kind of hopping dance. Every figure in the painting save for the crow was holding a drinking cup, and bees floated around the scene.

"Drinking with the Reaper," Shino said. "Happiness, amongst death itself."

"Why the bees, though?" asked Kiba.

Hinata's eyes grew wide.

"Mead," she said. "I-it's mead. They're..."

She looked at the Magatama, and the stone beside it.

"They just used it to get drunk," she said, breaking out into a triumphant grin.

"See?" said Kiba.

"Mm!" said Hinata cheerfully.

Shino smiled up at the painting, watching the ancient Hyuga laugh with the god of death.

"Kamakiri didn't defeat the Reaper," he said. "He believes he has. But he's only abandoned...life. It's strange that they're together."

"They're supposed to be," said Kiba.

Shino looked at him, and he shrunk back a little.

"I mean...it hurts," Kiba said. "But...it's like with leaves on trees. They fall on the ground, and they feed the dirt. New trees. New leaves."

"You're right," Shino said. "It's...how much time you have. But people often don't get that much time. Reido died young. It's possible that we will too."

"Yeah," said Kiba. "But 'possible' isn't 'definitely'."

Shino stared up at the death god, and ancient Hyuga laughing and drinking with him.

If he is like that...at least she moved on from the world with a friendly guide.

His kikai rustled, and Shino thanked them.

"Kamakiri has to have a weakness," Hinata said. "We'll find it. A-and we'll save all of them."

Shino could see the determination in her eyes, and found the same resolution in Kiba's set jaw.

"You're right," Shino said. "We will."

Seeing that there was more, Shino moved the kikai again, following the bees away from the party to their origin. It was a painting of an island above blue waves, with a massive stone jutting out from the sands. It was rounded and had rough lines running across it; obviously not a Magatama. The bees circled around the island at a distance.

Hinata stared at the island for a long time, content in the cool, dark, dry Tomb.

At last, at her urging, the children made to leave. Pulling the kikai back to his hand, Shino kept their light as the three genin turned around to walk back up the long tunnel.

Taking her first step, Hinata sudden stopped midway through, noticing a new glimmer on the floor. It was a bronze disc, engraved with a geometric pattern of a single, staring eye.

Crouching down to pick it up, Hinata lifted the disc with her hands, then almost dropped it as she saw a sudden image appear in front of it on the floor. The eye on the back was projected onto the floor as a symbol made of light, a perfect replica, yet the opposite side of the disc was a smooth opaque mirror.

"How's it doing that?" asked Kiba. "Like...are there holes?"

"It doesn't seem like it," said Shino.

He experimentally moved his kikai around to vary the light, but the shape itself didn't change.

Reactivating her Byakugan, Hinata looked very closely at the mysterious mirror.

"It has really small holes," she said. "A-and it's kind of rippled. It's too hard to see without the Byakugan..."

She remembered the golden eyes of her ancestors.

"...without a modern Byakugan," she finished.

"You said they could only see chakra, not through regular things," said Kiba. "So it's like a two-way mirror."

"Mm," Hinata said.

"Creating the tripod and these pots would require significant metallurgical ability," said Shino. "They probably learned to make the mirrors the same way."

Hinata put the mirror down gently, and stepped back.

"We're sorry for intruding," she said, bowing. "A-and I know you've all been dead for a really really long time. But I'm proud I'm related to you."

Together, the genin left the Tomb behind, and it slept in the silence of long centuries once more.

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"Why don't I knowwwwwww?" whined Naruto, staring up at his room's ceiling.

He lay back on the bed in his room, arms splayed out. Jiraiya and Tsunade had refused to train him any more that day, demanding that he rest, and for once Naruto agreed that not training was a good idea. But unfortunately, lying around meant there was nothing to distract him from Saiken's riddle, and Naruto had no idea what it was.

What falls up from grass and trees... it needs one thing that it always flees...

The boy gave another exasperated groan. It was aggravating enough that he'd only gotten to spend an hour with Squad Eight before being whisked back home. He didn't regret spending time with Hinata - in fact, whenever he thought about it he broke into a broad smile - but it would have been nice to hang out with Kiba and Shino as well. What was worse, he couldn't talk to Katsuyu either. He'd asked a few other slugs where it was a few hours ago, but they said that the giant slug was sleeping. Apparently, slugs slept for days at a time.

"You humans only do it at night?" one of the slugs had asked him, surprised.

"Yeah," said Naruto. "Not all night. Like, kinda..."

The slugs around him watched with great fascination as he counted it out on his fingers.

"...eight hours?" he said.

"Woah," said a slug. "No wonder humans get so much done!"

"Yeah, but we hafta do it every day," said Naruto. "Or we die. Besides, humans can't make acid by ourselves."

"How do you melt things?" one of the slugs asked him.

"Uh...I don't know, melting stuff's never really come up," Naruto had said, amongst the intrigued murmurs of the slugs.

On his bed, Naruto frowned, thinking hard.

Falls up from grass and trees...argh, I wanna work it out!

Saiken had clearly been alone a long time, and Naruto knew that was no good for anyone. Besides, Saiken had invented that riddle just for him, and that meant Naruto had to solve it.

Naruto sat up and looked out the window, hoping for inspiration. The sun was close to setting, sending out golden streams of light through the trees, coloured by a slight haze and the scent of someone cooking.

Swinging his legs down to the floor, Naruto pushed his feet back to stand up, touching something under his bed with the back of his left foot. Surprised at the way it felt, Naruto turned around and crouched down, reaching into the space beneath the bed.

After a few seconds of searching, Naruto pulled out his prize; a slightly dusty ball with the word 'Uzumaki' written on it in faded permanent marker.

Huh, thought Naruto. I guess it's mine now. No other Uzumakis.

He smile faded.

Naruto knew that there was a lot he didn't know, but not knowing about his clan hurt the most. His father and Seiro had never said anything about it; but then, neither was an Uzumaki. That must have been why his name was Naruto Uzumaki and not Naruto Rokkaku; his father must have wanted to keep the name alive. Regardless, Naruto wished he could have seen a picture or a book or something.

What if the Uzumaki had awesome holidays like Free Ramen Day? he thought. Or, like, maybe Uzumaki are supposed to do this big ritual every week, or something really bad happens.

He experimentally threw the ball in the air, and caught it.

I guess they could throw balls, so at least I'm good at that.

Falls up...howdoes anything fall up?

He threw the ball up again, watching it fall back down and catching it in his hands. His smile began to return as he threw it up and caught it again, then again.

Laughing to himself, Naruto realised that Jiraiya and Tsunade were right. It was worth not training sometimes. Working out how to be Hokage couldn't be his only source of entertainment, exhilaratingly confusing as that was.

Hikui and Kohaku play soccer sometimes, Naruto thought. Maybe I could ask if they want another player.

His thoughts turned to Reido, the squadmate they'd lost, and then to Itachi. Naruto remembered Itachi's callous, calm gaze as he spoke to him, denying that he or Squad Eight could do anything but fall to the Sharingan's dark jutsu. Reido followed Itachi, just as Sasuke chased after him. Maybe that hurt Hikui and Kohaku just as much as Sasuke's dismissal hurt Naruto.

He comforted himself with the knowledge that Reido didn't sound that sure, even as she tried to take him hostage, and hoped the ghost would understand before anyone got badly hurt.

She should'a talked with Hikui and Kohaku, Naruto thought. That's the difference between me and Gaara, or her, or Sasuke. Not just having people close, but saying stuff to them.

Looking out the window again, Naruto almost dropped the ball, his proud grin vanishing as he realised that it wasn't cooking he smelt. It was smoke, permeating the air outside. Stepping closer to get a better look, Naruto realised that there was a fire, off in the distance.

Dashing out of his room and then the hut itself, Naruto jumped in surprise and alarm as he watched the massive plume of smoke close to the horizon. Despite the size of it, nobody was ringing alarm bells or shouting to put it out, and the only slug Naruto could see was calmly sliding its way along the grass, paying the fire no mind at all.

"Fire!" Naruto shouted.

The slug, about the size of a large dog, slowed down and swivelled its eye-stalks to look at Naruto.

"Right there, there's a really huge fire!" he repeated.

"Hm?" said the slug.

With an agonisingly leisurely glance towards the fire, the slug thought for a moment, then calmly explained:

"They're back-burning."

"...what're they burning their backs for?" asked Naruto, baffled.

"What? Oh, no, not that," said the slug. "Sometimes, we purposely set part of the forest on fire, and burn it away. That way, when a real fire comes along, there's less wood to burn."

"You're gettin' rid'a stuff with a fire on purpose, just in case you maybe have a fire by accident? What the hell kinda sense does that make?!" asked Naruto.

"Oh, I haven't explained it well," said the slug. "It's like...fish."

"Fish?" said Naruto.

"Fish need water, or they'll die," said the slug. "When a river runs high, the fish can move all along it freely. But if the river is low, there are long patches of dry land, with only little puddles for the fish to swim in. They can't cross dry land, so they can only stay in the puddle."

"So...fire is like a fish, and the trees are like water?" asked Naruto. "And you're makin' dry land so the fish-fire can't get through."

"Exactly!" said the slug.

Naruto scratched the back of his head.

"Thanks!" he said. "Sorry I was yellin' before. I guess it's a good idea after all."

"You have to prepare for natural disasters," said the slug. "Unless it's something like a Tailed Beast."

"...yeah," said Naruto.

Thinking quickly, he spoke again, before the slug had a chance to move on.

"Uh...I kinda heard rumours about that," he said. "Like, there's some kinda Tailed Beast underground here?"

"You're right," said the slug. "Saiken. It was up here, for a while."

"How come he's in prison?" asked Naruto.

"The Slug Sage put it in there," said the slug. "I trust its judgement."

"What if he's not that bad?" asked Naruto.

The slug waved its eyeball stalks in surprise.

"Your village was attacked by the Nine-Tailed Fox," said the slug. "It almost destroyed you, and you Konoha humans are not weak in the slightest. Is it worth that chance?"

"Well...Orochimaru's a human, and so'm I, but I'm not like that," said Naruto.

The slug considered this.

"Yes, that's true," it said. "I suppose we're not all like Katatsu."

"Who's that?"

"It was a slug from a hundred years ago," said the slug. "It set a lot of its enemies on fire. And it killed its master in a duel, but it never explained why."

"Woah!" said Naruto.

"It was an odd choice for our first Slug Sage, but at least it didn't last long," said the slug. "Goodnight!"

"Bye," said Naruto as it slithered away.

He turned back to watch the fire in the distance, folding his arms to ward off the cold. The weather was getting colder and colder in Damp Bone Forest, and Naruto longed for his lost jacket. He was almost willing to walk towards the fire, if only to get his temperature up.

...up, Naruto thought, watching the heat coming off of the flames.

His eyes grew very wide as he realised what the answer was.

Speeding through the forest as fast as he could chakra-jump, Naruto all but leapt down the tunnel in front of the peach tree, landing in the dark room on the balls of his outstretched feet. Remembering his promise, Naruto went to light the sticks of incense when he realised he was still holding the Uzumaki ball. He stuck it under one arm and lit the incense with his free hand, watching the way the tiny flame flickered. Satisfied that his answer was right, Naruto pushed his way into the painting, closing his eyes until he found himself on solid, completely-white ground again.

He found Saiken with his head up, sniffing at the scent of incense in the air. The Tailed Beast looked down to watch Naruto ran up to him, beaming.

"Naruto," Saiken said, surprised.

"Smoke!" Naruto declared, pointing up at the Tailed Beast. "You said 'its mother', which is fire. And it needs trees and grass to make fire, but it's always falling up!"

Saiken stood a little taller.

"You're right," he said, energised by the discovery. "But...you could have told me that tomorrow."

"But I know now," said Naruto. "I'm not gonna wait. Plus, I found this!"

Naruto took the ball out from under his arm.

"Is that an egg?" asked Saiken.

"It's a ball," said Naruto.

"Oh," said Saiken. "I thought maybe you laid it, since it has your name on it."

Naruto froze in bewilderment and disgust.

"Wh-...what do you think humans do to make kids?!" he asked.

Immediately realising that any kind of explanation was only going to make things worse, Naruto quickly added:

"Forget it! I'm gonna throw this to you, so just try and catch it!"

"Why?" asked Saiken.

"Just do it, c'mon!"

With some reluctance, Saiken moved his tiny arms into a catching position. Satisfied, Naruto threw the ball up at him, and Saiken caught it.

"Okay, throw it back!" said Naruto.

Saiken did so, Naruto catching it in both hands.

"Good!" he declared, and he threw it back at the slug again.

Saiken caught and returned it, and Naruto threw it back again. Once he was convinced that the slug knew the rhythm, Naruto punched the ball in mid-air, spiking it back towards Saiken. Saiken kept catching and throwing until he realised what Naruto was doing, and began spiking it himself. Sometimes with their heads or chests, the pair pushed the ball back and forth, keeping it in the air.

"What is this for?" asked Saiken.

"Nothin'!" said Naruto happily, and Saiken laughed.

At last, after a long game of keep-up, Naruto fell to the white grassy ground. The ball landed next to him, and Naruto reached out with his hand to stop it from rolling away.

"Do humans do this a lot?" asked Saiken.

"Yeah," said Naruto, smiling. "You like it?"

"I do," said Saiken. "Which is weird, because there's nothing to solve."

He stared at the ball beneath him.

"It doesn't really have an answer," he said, puzzling the game out. "The ball always lands. On your side or mine, the outcome is the same."

"Yeah," Naruto agreed. "But that doesn't matter. It's about all the cool stuff you do when you're keepin' the ball up."

"You seem tired," said Saiken.

"I've done a lotta stuff today," said Naruto, staring up at the white expanse of sky. "When I went through the Fourth Hokage's kunai. Helped out my friends."

He tilted his head and grinned broadly at Saiken.

"It's good, right?" he said, quietly.

"...it must be," Saiken said in a soft tone.

He stared off into space for a moment before saying, in a louder voice:

"You should probably go back to Jiraiya and Tsunade, and sleep."

"Yeah," said Naruto. "I guess you're not tired, since you're a Tailed Beast."

"I don't sleep, if that's what you mean," said Saiken.

Naruto sat up, looking at the slug.

"...what?" asked Saiken.

Reaching over, Naruto grabbed the ball and threw it to Saiken. Saiken spiked it back, and Naruto gave a good-natured huff.

"No, stupid, this time you're gonna keep it!"

"Keep?" said Saiken. "It's your ball."

"Yeah, and you can hold onto it," said Naruto. "Throw it up and catch it by yourself."

"What does that do?" asked Saiken.

"Like...helps you think, and stuff," said Naruto. "Same as what happens when you throw it to your friends."

Saiken gripped the ball in one of his tiny hands, feeling it.

"Thankyou, Naruto," he said.

Naruto stood up, and stretched.

"See you tomorrow," he said.

The boy turned and ran out of the painting, leaving Saiken alone.

With some curiosity as to what would happen, the slug threw the ball by himself, and it neatly landed into his waiting hands.

"Hm," Saiken said with growing cheer, despite the scent of incense disappearing.

He threw the ball up again.

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In a place far to the east of the Land of Bluffs, on the outskirts of the desert, a Void symbol on a high rocky outcrop glowed. The moon was up, but the sun was only just disappearing behind the horizon, the shining bodies bathing the scene in their light.

With a final burst of chakra, three children, a dog and a Tailed Beast came out of the Void symbol, the disappearing sun behind them. Getting their bearings, the children looked to the east, and found themselves staring out the stone-covered sands of the desert's end. Off in the distance, they could see low-lying trees with flecks of green, and there was the scent of salt in the air.

"Close to the coast," said Kiba, smelling the air. "Thanks, Chomei."

"Will you be alright?" asked Chomei. "You said the Land of Sound was close."

"Gato will pass this way in their ships," said Shino. "We'll wait until it's darker, then travel along the coastline."

"Plus, we're pretty good at sneaking," said Kiba.

"So you are," Chomei said.

The children sat down on the rocky sand, staring back at the west as the sun set. Chomei stood and stared at them, wondering if he should leave. Hinata gave an encouraging smile, then nodded down at the ground beside them. After a moment's hesitation, Chomei sat there, staring at the myriad hues of the sky as night fell before him.

"Could I ask you three a question?" he asked.

"Sure," said Kiba.

"You're all third-instars," said Chomei. "That means you were first-instars, not that long ago. How did you get made?"

The children all made wincing faces, and Shino coughed.

"Ah...we can try to answer..." he said, shifting awkwardly.

"Well, I know you need at least two people to make more humans, and the two people are called 'parents'," said Chomei. "I always thought parents had to be a man and a woman, but I heard Michiko and Yuka say that since they're together now, they'd get a cat-"

"That's different," Kiba quickly interrupted. "They're not...making the cat. They're adopting it."

"Adopting?" said Chomei.

Shino considered how to explain the concept.

"Sometimes a man and a woman make a baby," he said.

"The really small humans that cry a lot?" asked Chomei.

"Mm," said Hinata.

"But then they suck at being parents or they die or whatever, so they're not helping the baby," said Kiba. "Adopting is when new people come in and help the kid grow up. And they're parents, just as much as the creator-parents. Sometimes more."

Chomei looked up at the moon.

"That's a really good idea," he said, with soft melancholy. "Humans would come up with that."

Shino's kikai rustled to him, and he took a moment to reassure them before turning to Chomei.

"Chomei," he said, with what he hoped was a gentle tone. "Do you not have parents?"

"I don't know," said Chomei, looking down from the moon. "I don't remember anyone who looked like me."

"But you remember how you...started?" Kiba asked.

"Yes," said Chomei. "I was falling."

He breathed in slowly, staring up at the evening sky ahead.

"It was dark around me," he said. "I must have started very high up, because it was a long time before I hit the ground. My wings hadn't grown yet, so I couldn't stop myself. I just fell. When I landed, once I realised where I was, I was alone. But then I looked up."

He nodded to the moon.

"Seeing the moon made me calm down," he said. "I could watch it and understand myself. I could feel what I was, with my feet and my pincers and eyes, and everything inside me. I didn't want to run screaming anymore."

"I thought it was just mine, for a while; that I was the only person who understood the moon. But I could hear humans, and I'd see them up on mountains, laughing and talking. They'd make poems about the moon. And I worked out that it wasn't just me. The moon does that to everybody. It's like a mirror for your soul."

Roused from their calm attention by Chomei's last sentence, the children of Squad Eight gave each other looks of surprise and intrigue.

"Chomei...could you say that last part again?" Shino asked.

"A...mirror for your soul?" Chomei repeated.

Hinata poked her fingers together.

"Chomei," she said, "There's a story humans tell. A-actually, it's a lot of stories, about one person. He was called the Sage of the Lost Eye."

"I don't know that name," Chomei said, shaking his head. "Why did they call him that?"

"His eye is the moon," Kiba said.

Chomei looked from Kiba to the moon, then back again.

"...was he really really really tall?" Chomei asked.

"Stories are not especially literally accurate," said Shino. "But what you said about a mirror...that is very close to something from one of his stories. Perhaps the first story about him. The reason why he lost the eye."

Shino and Hinata looked to Kiba.

"You...so, I should do it?" Kiba asked.

"W-we can help if you want," said Hinata.

"Sure," said Kiba.

Scooting himself forward, Kiba turned around to speak to the others, the setting sun behind him. Akamaru sat in his lap, resting his head on Kiba's knee.

"Okay," Kiba said.

He smiled for a moment, then began.

"A long time ago, before ninja were ninja, there was a boy that scared everybody he met."

Rubbing the side of his face, he continued:

"Now, he was a weird-lookin' guy from the start. His hair was white as snow, all spiky and sharp. He had two horns at the top of his head, like an oni. But weirdest of all was his left eye. There was no pupil for him to see through, and it was shiny and bright, like a mirror.

Anybody who saw that eye could see themselves. Not just what they looked like, but who they were. They could see all their chakra and their soul, and that scared most people. But the boy thought it was funny how it freaked everyone out, so he'd go around everywhere, staring and staring. They kept turning away, so he kept on walking.

But no matter how much he wandered the world, he never crossed a river. 'Cos back before mirrors, and except for his eye, running water was how you saw your reflection. He didn't wanna know what he made everyone else see.

And he started to wonder if it wasn't so fun, being alone all the time. If nobody likes you for long enough, sooner or later, you only like yourself. And then, not even that."

Kiba glanced at Hinata and Shino, and the three shared smiles.

"Back in his time, there were only the stars at night," Kiba said. "So every night, when the home fires went out, the world was really dark. And when it got darkest, and everyone was asleep, a monster came out from the shadows."

Kiba leaned forward.

"It had a thousand arms and a thousand eyes, and it watched people's dreams to know what they could be. It'd come and get you when you were dead to the world, and it'd drag you off into its cave."

He looked back at Hinata and Shino.

"You guys know what happened next?" he asked them.

"The monster ate them just as they woke," said Shino.

"When Anko told me, it had chains up on its roof," Hinata interjected.

"...Anko told you this one?" asked Kiba.

"Anko told you any bedtime stories at all?" asked Shino.

"When we were in the Academy, I heard people talking about things from stories," said Hinata. "I'd never heard them. My mother was already gone, and...Hiashi didn't do things like that. So I asked Anko if she could tell me, and she did."

"Is Anko someone who adopted you?" asked Chomei.

Hinata poked her fingers together, beaming as she thought of her older sister.

"Kind of," she said.

"So...chains?" said Kiba.

"The monster could breathe fire, and it ate metal," said Hinata. "So it could pull up rocks and bite down on them, a-and it'd make chains with the heat in its mouth. The monster would tie up the people it caught, and it would hang them from the roof. You wouldn't wake up until it climbed up to get you. A-and then..."

She mimed grabbing something, and shoved it into her mouth, chewing.

"Okay, that is way better than what my mom always said!" said Kiba.

Hinata smiled and shrugged, proud of Anko.

"Why are your parents telling you stories about getting chained up and eaten immediately before you go to sleep?" asked Chomei. "Humans are weird."

"Hey, it's not over yet," said Kiba.

"Sorry," said Chomei. "Go on."

"Anyway," Kiba said, "people got scared of the monster. They didn't wanna sleep anymore. But the more they stayed up, the more scared they got, and it got worse and worse for the boy with the shining eye. Nobody would even talk to him anymore, 'cos they could see what they were with the monster around, and it was even worse than before.

"So the boy lay down in the middle of a desert at night, and he shut his mirror eye," Kiba said, shutting one eye and pointing to the eyelid.

"The monster came up to him, dredging up sand with his thousands of feet, every eye swivelling, 'round and around. He was gonna pick up the boy and take him back home when the boy called out:

'Hey, quit it! Can't you tell I'm only half asleep?'

'Who the hell spends the night half asleep?' asked the monster.

'Half-A-League is my name,' said the boy.

He stood up, still with his mirror-eye shut.

'I can eat half a forest, drink half a river and jump half a league,' said the boy, 'but I get very, very tired from doing so much of everything. So I always have to be half asleep.'

'Half asleep is asleep still!' said the monster. 'I can eat a whole forest, drink a whole river, and jump a whole league, and I never need sleep for any of it!'

'I don't believe you,' said the boy.

'What?!' said the monster. 'Then I don't believe anything you've said! But we can prove which of us is the liar. You must eat half a forest, drink half a river and jump half a league. And if you can't finish any one of those three, you must jump inside my mouth freely!'

'I accept,' said the boy. 'But, if do I eat half a forest, drink half a river and jump half a league, you must watch over me as I sleep.'

'Agreed!' said the monster.

They set off into the wilderness, and they walked for hours and hours.

'The forest!' declared the monster. 'I'm hungry. You eat half a forest, and I'll swallow one whole!'

'Alright,' said the boy. 'Shall I go first, or-'

'I'll go first!' said the monster.

With a dash and a crunch and a whole bunch'a chewing, the monster ate every tree and twig in the forest, and he left nothing behind at all.

'There!' said the monster. 'Now you must try.'

'But I can't,' said the boy. 'You ate all of it.'

The monster growled and howled in rage, for even though he had eaten the entire forest, he was still very hungry, and the boy had tricked him out of his real food.

'The river!' said the monster. 'You must drink half the river, or I'll swallow you up!'

So they travelled down to the wildest, widest, fastest river in the world, and the boy and the monster stood at its banks. The boy didn't want to see his reflection, so he kept looking up with his one open eye.

'Drink!' shouted the monster.

'But please, you are my guest,' said the boy. 'Don't you want to go first?'

'Don't cheat me, you bastard!' growled the monster. 'Drink, or you'll jump in my mouth and thank me for it!'

The boy could hear the rumbling of the monster's belly, so he shut his good eye and knelt down to the water, and started to drink. Pretty soon after, he started laughing and sighing, and the monster stomped up.

'What is it?!' said the monster."

Kiba dropped the angry suspicious face of the monster, and adopted shut eyes, a sly smile and two stretched-out arms as the boy answered.

"'It's just, this water is actually great,' said the boy. 'It's a shame there won't be that much of it for you, me being so small and you being so big...'

'Out of the way!' snapped the monster.

So he pushed the boy back from the edge of the river, and drank all of it up in three big gulps. Ug! Ug! Ug!"

Kiba slammed his hand down on his leg.

"And the river-stones and the tall weeds were as dry as the desert around 'em.

'Haha!' said the monster, grinning as he licked his chops. 'There's no river to drink from, so you can't drink half of it! And you had a good chance, so there's no way you can say I cheated you!'

The boy opened his eye, and pointed across to the bottom of the river bank, where there was a tiny puddle. He stepped over there and crouched down before it, too shallow to see his reflection, and he drunk up the puddle 'til it was half gone.

'I think that counts,' said the boy, sure to keep his shining eye shut.

Now, by this time the monster was really pissed, and he would'a eaten the kid even if the boy didn't jump in his mouth. But the monster had given his word to the boy, and giving your word mattered even more back then.

'Prove you can jump half a league!' said the monster. 'I'll jump twice that much, then I'll crunch you to pieces!'

'I agree,' said the boy, 'but we need a good marker. The tallest mountain in the world.'

So they went to the tallest mountain in the world, and stood half a league away from it. The boy was okay here - way more than the first two - 'cos he really could jump half a league if he wanted.

"Land on the snow or you lose,' said the monster.

The snow was high up, and the boy wasn't sure. But he'd given his word, so he jumped. He landed on one foot, just on the white, exactly a half-league and not an inch more.

The monster growled, and he gnashed his teeth, and he threw away his word. He jumped straight for the boy, and he opened his mouth, roaring and staring with all thousand eyes.

Now, the boy was as quick as a bolt of lightning, so he jumped off the mountain as the monster got on. But the monster jumped way too hard at the mountain, so he slammed right into it, head-first. The whole world shook, and the stars above tilted, and the seas went high with tidal waves!"

Kiba demonstrated such a wave with his arm.

"BRRRCHHWWWW!" he declared.

Shino and Hinata silent.

Kiba glared at them good-naturedly.

"...help!" he commanded.

"Fwommmm," said Shino, making a wave motion with his arm.

"Vwwwwww," said Hinata, pushing out with both her hands.

Kiba decided that that was better, and continued the story:

"When the monster got up, all bloody and sore, the boy was still there.

'Now, you must watch over me while I sleep,' he said. 'I'll rest my other half. Goodnight!'

So he shut his good eye and opened his shining one.

And the monster was so big and had so many eyes, and his mouth was so wide and his teeth were so sharp, and his belly was roaring with hunger so loud, that the monster was even more scared than the humans, now he could see what he really was.

So he threw up the river and threw up the trees, and he threw up the people he'd eaten - with their chains - and he threw up everything he'd ever put in his mouth, 'til he was all but a head on legs. He ran off real fast, when he saw the sun rising, and he never got seen by a human again.

And the boy never wanted a monster that big and that hungry coming 'round again, so he pulled out his shining eye from his head. He threw it real hard off into the horizon, just as the sun was poking up from the other way. And his eye caught the sunlight 'til it lit up the sky. Just a little, but enough to make sense. He called it the moon, and the name stuck.

The people in villages didn't mind him anymore, 'cos he'd saved them all from the monster. And he looked up at his moon every night from then on, and he crossed every river he saw. 'Cos you're never that bad, once you work out how not to be."

000000

Naganori stood alone in the desert, deep in the dead of night.

He had long since left his sand-body behind, and his corpse lay beneath a mound of earth, buried alongside his sword. His soul walked unadorned, invisible and close to intangible, only a cold whisper in the midst of a sea of heat. He had watched Chomei talk and celebrate with his old town's people, and he had seen the three ninja children leave, heading northeast as the sun set.

Across the dunes ahead of him, the Reaper came.

He rose up from the warped air of a mirage, his white robes billowing as he floated. He held a dagger in his mouth, and his clawed hands dangled a little behind him as he moved towards the emperor, shimmering from haze and his own enigmatic nature. The emperor moved towards the death god as well, not wanting to keep him waiting any longer.

The pair met in a low part of the desert, surrounded by curving walls of sand. The emperor knew that the very tall spirit could see him simply by the way he stared down at him with his blank eyes. He wondered if the god would cut him with the dagger, and he tensed as the Reaper took the dagger from between his teeth.

"Naganori," the Reaper said.

Stunned, Naganori's mouth fell open.

"You're...you...you speak?" he managed to stammer out.

"The names of the dead are mine," said the Reaper.

"Am I?" asked Naganori, staring at the fangs of the spirit.

The Reaper shook his head.

"I'll be punished," the Emperor assumed.

The Reaper glanced at the desert around them, then stared Naganori in the eyes. Naganori understood, and collected himself.

"Please," he said.

Reaching forward, the claws of the Reaper touched the cold presence of Naganori's soul, and the edge of the dagger pressed against him. The former emperor felt warm, and the world around him grew softer and softer. It was like falling asleep. He'd missed that sensation.

Naganori smiled and nodded his thanks, and he was gone.

Now that there was nobody to frighten, the Reaper let himself grin. Not every soul was so polite to him.

Letting his long arms dangle, the Reaper turned to move up a hill, gently scattering the grains of sand beneath him. Realising how steep it was, he reached up to his left shoulder with his free hand, but he found nothing to steady on his shoulder, and nobody to secure him in the long journey from ghost to ghost.

Returning to his silent wistfulness, the Reaper put his free hand down, and stuck the dagger back between his teeth.

He had a long way to go yet.

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