It was a nice day.
That is a sentence not normally spoken during an apocalypse, but it was true. I really did think so.
The weather was calm, and, given the situation, it was fairly quiet outside for once. The temperature was hot, but a nice breeze blew through every minute or two.
So, yes, it was a nice day.
Watch duty was much more bearable on days like these. I could almost feel all the tension leave my body, and a sigh of content slipped past my lips. All at once I could forget about the hell that went on around us. I could forget about the weapon in my hands and the blood that went along with it. I could forget about... everything.
"Are you ready for the supply run tomorrow?"
I jerked, my little brother's sudden appearance startling me.
All at once, I was forced back into reality and forced to remember everything I had just wanted to forget.
Sighing, I gave a smile that didn't reach my eyes. "Ready as I'll ever be."
"Don't whine, everyone else goes on them. Now it's our turn."
"Yeah, yeah. So I've been told." I rolled my eyes despite Max's assurances, having heard it all before. This conversation seemed to happen every single time we were up to do a supply run.
Max pushed me playfully , nearly making me fall over. He's taller than me now, more strong, I should also add. He'd grown a lot during these terrible years. "C'mon Debbie Downer, I want to spar some more."
"Why? Wasn't yesterday's session enough?"
"Are you asking if I'm getting tired of kicking your ass? The answer is no."
"God, shut up. You're so annoying."
Max wrapped his arm around my shoulders. "I know you love me~"
"Moron," I replied with a cheesy smile.
× × ×
Murai sat on the Suna Academy's rooftop, basking in the everlasting rays of the sun. It was lunchtime, and the pink-haired boy didn't feel too inclined to spend any additional time with his peers than he needed to.
Especially now, with the two new Konohagakure additions. Murai didn't care enough about them to even remember their names, but Niijima-sama had specifically ordered that Murai keep a sharp eye on them.
One, a stocky boy with a shaved head and a gruff attitude, always had a frown on his face that intimidated most of the students. The rest just found it annoying. His name was Ibiki Morino.
The second student was a petite girl —probably the shortest in the entire class— with pale skin and long black hair with a blue hue. Her eyes were a pupil less ivory. Her name was Rika Hyūga.
Murai didn't have much recorded on their family or backgrounds, but he had a few bullet points on their skill sets.
Still, he couldn't be too bothered to focus on it entirely. Instead, he'd rather sunbathe like a cat, and read the letter he had just recently received from Kyojin.
Apparently, Kyojin had befriended a few Konoha-nin along with several of the students in the Academy that was held over there.
This... was not pleasant news, but not exactly all bad either. Murai was mostly worried that the Konoha dogs would corrupt Kyojin in one way or another. On the other hand, he thought it was great that Kyojin was evolving a bit more socially and allowing himself to open up more.
It was with the wrong people, but that would be remedied once Kyojin came back home. Where he belonged.
The pinkette sighed, allowing Kyo's letter to rest on his face and block his view of the sun. The parchment paper smelled faintly like the brunet, causing Murai's lips to twitch.
He really missed him.
× × ×
It wouldn't be a normal day for Obito if he wasn't late for something. In this case, it was a training session he had planned with Kyojin. Unfortunately, he had gotten caught up in running errands for one of the kind obāā-chans that often help him.
As he quickly made his way to their usual meeting spot, Obito began to zone out. His thoughts wandered to the strange Suna kid that he had somehow become friends with.
'Friends...' That was definitely what they were, right? Obito wasn't too familiar with having friendship with anyone.
Bakashi definitely didn't fall into the category, considering he treated Obito like the dirt beneath his feet more often than not. He'd been a bit more tolerable recently, if only because Kyo practically chews Kakashi's head off whenever the masked boy so much as gives Obito the stink eye.
Rin was hard to place, because she was Rin. Obito's heart rate picks up and he becomes one hundred percent more conscious of himself and everything he's doing whenever she is in his vicinity. However, Obito's heart also hurt a lot when he was with her. Whether it be when she was ignoring his awesome attempts to impress her, or when she would reprimand him for defending himself against Kakashi's ruthless bullying. Then, later she would be kind, and Obito would forget about everything else.
Kyojin though... He was different from both of his teammates in some ways, but also similar in others.
While Obito would hesitate to really call Kakashi or Rin his friends... Obito found himself resolute in the fact he would never hesitate like that when it came to Kyojin.
'Yeah,' Obito smiled to himself, 'Kyo-kun is definitely my friend.' Then he snorted, the memory of their first meeting chiming through his head. 'Even if he's a total brat sometimes.'
× × ×
Kakashi was diligently training when he sensed a new chakra signature approaching the training grounds. It was one he was all too familiar with by now, despite doing his best not to get used to the stranger that had practically forced himself into his team's training regime.
With a frown, Kakashi stopped his katas and turned to glare at the entrance of the training grounds, wanting his displeased expression to be the first thing Kyojin would see.
As Kyojin joined Kakashi on the training grounds, the brunet didn't look the least bit surprised to see him there. Kakashi would have been shocked if he did at this point, it was clear to him that Kyojin was also a sensor— the boy didn't do a very good job at hiding it, and, honestly, Kakashi wasn't even sure he tried to.
Instead of greeting him with some kind of snark, Kyojin merely rolled his eyes and proceeded to act like Kakashi wasn't there. The silver-haired boy failed to bite back a scoff before returning back to his own training. He tried to focus on his movements, but couldn't help but glance over to the spot Kyojin had settled at.
Kyojin had somehow, in those few seconds, made himself completely at home. Kakashi had to do a double take when he first glanced over, because surrounding Kyojin were various scrolls and notebooks. They likely all came from a storage scroll, because no way did that scrawny looking runt carry all of that (nevertheless fit it) in his bag.
'DId he come here to study?' Kakashi rolled his eyes, before turning back to his own training. 'So annoying.'
By the looks of it, Kyojin looked like he was preparing to be there for a while. He hadn't budged— just sitting there, writing notes and making... seals? Not once had he glanced up, so Kakashi had the impression he was thoroughly into whatever it was that he was doing.
'Whatever, if he wants to waste his time reading on the training grounds then that's his problem.' Kakashi found himself going back to his training even more irritated than before. 'At least do some stretches, stupid. There's more to being a ninja than studying.'
Kakashi abruptly stopped his movements, which had now become aggressive. 'I'll look like an idiot if he flunks his graduation exam, when I'm the one that told Minato-sensei he'd probably do better in the advanced classes...'
He wasn't exactly sure why he had been the one to speak up on Kyojin's behalf. Maybe he saw a little bit of himself in the other boy, and could understand his frustration in being held back. Maybe he kind of wanted Kyojin to hurry and graduate, so he could be a proper rival.
Well, whatever the reason. Kakashi was getting thoroughly fed up with Kyojin's antics. Surely, he was acting carefree on purpose to get on Kakashi's nerves.
"Hey," Kakashi snapped, already marching over to the Suna child. Kyojin didn't seem too concerned with the mini-genius angrily approaching him. In fact, he seemed to have expected it.
"Yes?" Kyojin finally answered when Kakashi made no move to leave. Plus, he was blocking the sun from his view.
"What do you think you're doing? This is a training ground. You're supposed to train here. Go study at the library."
Kyojin's "not impressed" expression remained on his face. Again, he seemed to have expected Kakashi to say this. Which irritated the silver-haired boy more, because how could someone be able to predict his behavior? Being predictable definitely wasn't a ninja-like trait to have.
With a sigh, Kyojin put away the notebook he was writing in and stood up to meet Kakashi's glare. Kakashi was expecting the boy to get irritated with him, maybe say something along the lines of "well let's spar then, since you want me to train so bad". For some reason, he felt a little excited at the idea of getting to spar with Kyojin— his skillset was vastly different from his teammates, and Kakashi liked being able to see the progress of Kyojin's training whenever they fought.
"I'm waiting."
'Wait. What?' Kakashi's thoughts are forced to halt.
Kyojin apparently could read Kakashi's expression despite half of his face being covered, and let out a heavy sigh as he was forced to repeat himself. "I said that I'm waiting. For Obito. We're supposed to be training right now, but he's always late so I figured I could get some work done."
'Oh.' Kakashi remained silent, but Kyojin continued to impress by reading his mind, of course.
"Yeah, so are you done?" Kyojin went to sit back and resume his work, but paused as an idea seemed to strike him. Kakashi waited patiently to see where this would go, because clearly he wasn't as good at reading Kyojin as Kyojin was at reading him. "Actually... Maybe you can help with this. I'm studying the flora native to the Land of Fire..."
Kyojin began to explain exactly what he had been working on this entire time, before Kakashi had "rudely interrupted him" as Kyojin had put it.
With a sigh, Kakashi unceremoniously plopped down and drummed his fingers against his knees. "Fine," he said, as if Kyojin had been begging ruthlessly for his help the entire time.
× × ×
Sasori calmly put down the letter Kyojin had sent him, before standing up and hurling several kunai at the wall. Cracks formed around the weapons, and if Sasori wasn't currently trying to calm himself down, he'd probably be flinching at the thought of Chiyo seeing what he had done and attempting to murder him.
Too bad, though. As Kyojin's letter had definitely set him off.
'I knew this was a bad idea. We should have never allowed him to go.' Sasori sighed haggardly, staring hard at the kunai in the wall. 'Befriending Konoha-nin is one thing, but a Hatake? Kyo you idiot...'
Closing his eyes and heaving one more sigh, Sasori yanked his weapons from the wall and sank back down onto his bed. This letter was just another thing to add to his endless list of concerns. At the top would always be Kyojin's wellbeing and livelihood. Though right beneath that currently sat the war.
Not the war that had just seemed to have ended. Not the one that had left his parents dead. This was a new war; a different one. These battles were something that had been going on for some time now, but only recently had it finally been officially declared as another World War. Sunagakure had unfortunately been roped into the Third Shinobi World War due to being allies with Konohagakure. It was almost funny how the people who were just tearing each other apart were now working together to fight a different, but somewhat the same, threat.
Sasori always scoffed when it came to aiding any Konoha-nin, but as a shinobi of Suna, he didn't really have any other choice. He wondered if Kyojin knew about what was going on outside of the village walls; how sheltered did Konoha keep their civilians? Surely, if something was going on his new ninja friends wouldn't be around as often anymore. If things got too bad, would the children from Sunagakure (most importantly: Kyojin) be forced to stay in Konohagakure due to safety precautions?
Sasori frowned, that would definitely be a problem. War be damned, he wasn't going to just allow his little brother to be separated from him like that.
A million plans were rushing through his head. Ways to get in and out of Sunagakure and travel safely to Konoha as fast as he could, because there was no way he would let Kyojin stay away from home when there was a war, and something could happen—
"Heyo~!" Sasori's extremely detailed plans came to an abrupt halt. "What's up, Sasori-chan?"
Sasori frowned at the honorific, as he always did when Komushi said it. Not in the mood to refute it, Sasori stared at the cracks in his wall. "Just... thinking. Why are you here?"
"Hah? Can't a guy come and visit his friend once in a while?!"
"He can, but usually said guy has only shown up recently to borrow poisons," Sasori said with a raised eyebrow. Komushi stuck his tongue out before sighing and plopping down onto the redhead's bed. Sasori grunted at the movement, and, if he had poor reflexes, he would have probably been thrown to the floor.
"Fine," Komushi groaned. "You got me there, I admit. This time though, I really just came to visit. Things have been pretty hectic lately outside the village." He glanced at Sasori from the corner of his eyes. "There's been rumors that there's gonna be another war. Have you heard anything?"
Sasori knew that Komushi already knew that he knew. As confusing as it sounded, it was fact.
"A little, but nothing concrete or official," Sasori answered simply.
"Mah, whatever..." Komushi frowned before jumping back up, "Well, I'll get out of your hair then. Just wanted to stop by before my next mission. It's another border-patrol one." He stuck out his tongue in distate. "Blegh."
Sasori smirked. "Be careful. This is probably the calm before the storm."
Komushi grinned, waving him off as he began to exit the room. "Nah, it'll be fine. Border-patrol missions are always super boring. See ya when I get back!"
Sasori shook his head. That boy was gonna land himself into some trouble one day if he wasn't more careful.
× × ×
(author's note) hehe nothing ominous about that last part :)) SO big fat filler chapter for you guys, since i thought some more interludes would be nice since kyo is away from suna and we can't really see what everyone else is up to. hope you enjoy the chapter! see ya next month