Three of five jonin stationed in the city lost their lives during the Battle for Yu and, after the death of the second jonin, the Frost-Cloud forces began fleeing from the city. The Steam-Leaf didn't give them chase outside the city, and those who chose to flee were allowed to leave with their lives.

The battle officially ended when the horns of victory blared, and the Steam-Leaf jonin announced the death of three enemy jonin loudly enough for the entire city to hear.

But there was more work to be done.

To ensure that Yu was truly free, the shinobi had to comb through every room in every building on every single street to ensure that there were no enemy shinobi ready to ambush them when their guard was down. It was a tedious process with all the shinobi capable of walking ordered to search the city for hidden enemies.

Thankfully, the two sensory-nin from Camp Banana made the task slightly easier.

Iori sat on a bench inside the command centre tent with a kunai in her hand. She had unknowingly carved three grooves in the bench's armrest in her worry for her team. It had been twelve hours since the battle was declared over and her team still hadn't arrived.

It was pre-arranged that the rest of the team would not leave the base until someone from the main force came to fetch them. Iori immediately supplied the location of the factory base to the appropriate people and waited for them to return with her team but nine newsless hours had passed.

It seemed that, in the chaos of the battle aftermath, the command had yet to send someone to fetch her team. Iori had offered to go fetch them herself, but the suggestion was rejected. The team had brought one radio with them to Yu, which was given to Iori so she could communicate with the main forces, but it also meant that there was no way to communicate with her team.

Her ration pack sat beside her on the bench, the food long gone cold. Despite the long day and her physical exhaustion, her appetite had been destroyed by nerves. She could only find solace in the fact that her team had not come out on their own, meaning they were still alive.

…Right?

"Genin Iori, you have been summoned," a genin finally came with the news she had been waiting for. "Your team has arrived."

Iori was on her feet as if she’d been summoned to battle and followed the genin through the temporary camp. The sky was on the verge of night. She looked at the genin guiding her and wanted to push him in the back so he would walk faster, but contained herself.

They arrived at another tent, and Iori was about to enter when the genin said, "I'm sorry for your loss."

Iori froze with her hand clutching the tent flap.

She looked at him with dread filling her from head to toe and ripped the tent flap open. She saw Anko, Daiki, and Kameko standing in the back of the tent with Toridasu. Her legs shook as she walked toward them and she was hit by a wave of weakness when she saw Rikku's body lying on the ground, covered with a white sheet up to her neck.

She couldn't look anymore and turned her back.

Tears began to fall uncontrollably, and even covering her mouth with her hand couldn't silence her sobs. She was the only one away from the team when they went after the ROOT agents—the reason she was given the communication duty was that she was the weakest among the group and would've been a liability. She was sent away for not being strong enough to help.

If she had been stronger, Rikku would've been alive. As she reeled from shock, she was hit by another thought and hastily turned with widened eyes.

Only Anko, Daiki, and Kameko were there.

"Takuma? W-Where is he?"

She looked down at the other bodies, who were all completely covered and locked onto the body beside Rikku, who was the same height as Takuma. Her heartache worsened, and she felt faint as she bent down to uncover the face when Anko pulled her up and hugged her.

"It's not him. He's alive; he's not in danger. The iryo-nin are with him; he lost a lot of blood; he'll be fine."

Relief with Takuma mixed with grief towards Rikku to the point where Iori couldn't take it anymore. She crumpled into Anko's embrace, who held her tight, and wailed without any regard.

———

.

Takuma stared at himself in the mirror inside the medical ward.

He had no colour on his face; the injuries and loss of blood had left him weak. It wasn't a new feeling—he had felt worse and weaker before. He touched the thin scar on the edge of his lips—it was his newest and most prominent scar—the first one on his face. He looked down at his right palm covered in bandages. Beneath those bandages were two bigger, grizzlier scars on both sides of his hands left from having a sword go clean through his palm.

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The iryo-nin said he was lucky he didn't break any bones in his hand. Maybe it would've been better if he broke his hand because physical pain was better—temporary—compared to the constant pain in his chest. Takuma combed his hair with his arm, which was covered in a soft cast from below the elbow because of the hairline fractures he had suffered from overloading his chakra augmentation.

Styling his hair made no difference; he looked just as miserable as before. He didn't want to leave his bed but forced himself to do so anyway because lying made him feel like he was drowning.

"Are you ready?"

Takuma turned to see Iori standing at the door of his shared room with four other injured shinobi.

She was dressed in all black like him and had a food tray in her hands. At first glance, Iori looked as usual, but he couldn't find a hint of the small smile she always had. He had spent a whole day unconscious because of his injuries, and when he was awake, he wallowed in misery on his bed with no thought about how others were processing and grieving Rikku's death.

"Yes, let's go," he replied, setting down his comb. He looked at himself in the mirror one last time and decided that it was a waste of time.

"Eat first," she walked to his bed and put the tray down.

Takuma gazed at the plate of fruits and porridge.

He had no appetite but understood that nutrients were necessary for his recovery, so he forced the meal down—he also didn't want to say no to Iori. He couldn't taste anything—the porridge was already bland, but he couldn't even taste the sweetness from the fruits.

"How are you feeling?" he asked as they walked together to their destination.

"Terrible, awful—I don't know," Iori said, turning her face away from him. "I couldn't sleep last night... I just wanted to run away from here," she scoffed, "like that would do anything."

Takuma had been fortunate enough to be unconscious from his injuries. A part of him still wanted to be unconscious so he wouldn't have to completely accept the truth that she was gone—but he knew that he would regret it forever if he didn't participate.

The two arrived at the tent being used as the morgue and found the rest of the team waiting for them. They were also dressed in black, which intensified their dark expressions of sorrow, grief, anger, and pain. Every Hidden Leaf shinobi in the city was gathered there, all dressed in black.

"How's your body?" Anko asked.

Takuma shrugged. His entire body hurt; whatever the iryo-nin gave him wasn't working—but he was grateful for it. The physical pain helped to dull the pain in his chest.

"Let's go then," she said.

The inside of the tent was filled with the bodies of the shinobi who had died in battle. The tent itself was managed by the Hidden Leaf and only held the corpses of Hidden Leaf shinobi—the Hidden Steam had their own morgue. When a shinobi died on the field, and their bodies couldn't be transported back home, they were given the shinobi's funeral, which was always cremation.

Takuma gazed at the bodies of the dead—just like all those months ago in the Gojiro Gold Mines, he didn't feel much about the death of people who were on the same side as him—his comrades.

Death was part of the job.

Those ready to kill were always prepared to be killed and while he appreciated their sacrifice he wouldn’t lose any sleep over their deaths. That way of thinking was cold, jaded, cruel, and perhaps even inhumane—but that didn't change the fact that their deaths didn’t make him feel anything. They were just strangers who had died doing their jobs.

But then he laid eyes on Rikku and felt that someone had stabbed him in the heart. She was a shinobi, just like everyone else, but her death was the only thing that mattered in this tent of corpses.

It confused him.

Was he supposed to pat himself on the back because feeling anything about her death was proof that he was still somewhat of a normal human?

A deep sense of self-loathing bubbled inside of him—a harsh hatred toward himself—of how much of a piece of shit he was to make her death about himself. He had once thought that he had improved as a person in his new life—he was more competent, he had matured and was better equipped to handle life. He believed that he was a better person—that was an utter falsity—his past self was better and would most definitely reject the person he was becoming.

Takuma curled his lip. His body felt like it was withering from the inside.

Rikku was laid on a wooden platform bed for transportation to the cremation. Team-9 acted as pallbearers and picked her up. Anko tried to talk Takuma out of it because of his injuries, but he refused to listen and put his shoulder underneath the wooden plank with the rest of the team.

The funeral site was the same for both Leaf and Steam shinobi. The funeral pyres were already prepared beforehand, and hundreds of shinobi were already there to bid farewell to their dead comrades. The atmosphere was dull and grim as the team set down Rikku on a pyre chosen by Kameko, who rejected three other pyres that she didn't like, wanting the best for Rikku.

"Say your last words," Anko said to the team. Starting with her, the team went to Rikku's side one at a time and whispered their last words to her. Everyone shed tears, smiled, frowned, and grew angry as they said their final goodbyes to her.

When it was Takuma's turn, he knelt beside the pyre and whispered into Rikku's ear.

"... I don't know what to say to you... I don't want to die, but I know it should've been me and not you. It was a mistake to go after him like I did. It was perhaps my biggest mistake, and I'll never be able to make it up to you. You were my best sparring partner; you fought hard even in practice, which I appreciated. You were blunt and sometimes rude—but I loved that straightforward personality of yours, it was so easy to talk to you and... I'll miss that dearly."

Takuma paused as he felt something catch in his throat. He cleared his throat and rubbed the corner of his eye to gather himself before continuing.

"The bastard ended up escaping, but I managed to take one of his arms. I hope you'll be satisfied with that for now... I'll catch him one day and kill him—I promise you that. If I don't accomplish anything else in this life, I promise you that the bastard will die. I don't care what I have to do, but one day, I'm going to find him, I'll kill him, and I'll make it hurt.... So you rest in peace, and I'll send him up so that you can beat the shit out of him yourself."

Takuma leaned down to kiss her on her forehead. As he rose from her body, he noticed a glistening bead sliding down the bridge of her nose and realised he had unknowingly shed tears. He wiped the tear off her face and gazed at her resting body for a moment longer, swallowing hard.

"Goodbye, Rikku."