Has anyone ever seen Konoha at four in the morning? Sora has.
It couldn't have been later than four, maybe earlier, when Teju hammered on his door hard enough to rattle the frame. Sora pulled on clothes half-asleep, got dragged by the arm toward the training grounds, and stared out at the pitch-black sky with no idea what was happening to him.
Autumn mornings were cold. Cold wind, cold ground, cold everything.
Three questions occupied the entirety of his mental capacity: who was he, where was he, and why in the world was he awake. Teju was already throwing punches at the air, grunting and huffing through warm-up drills. Sora watched him and felt like an idiot.
Whoever wants to be the strongest in the world can have it. I want to go back to sleep. But it was autumn, and there wasn't even a dry patch of ground worth sitting on.
An eternity passed before the sky finally paled at the horizon.
He didn't mention last night. Teju definitely wouldn't want to hear it.
Kurenai arrived early too, which was a surprise.
Teju didn't look at her. Kurenai fidgeted, her expression stiff and uncomfortable. Konoha was a small village. Whatever had happened last night, she already knew by morning.
Sora threw his voice loud and casual. "Kurenai, you have no idea. This maniac dragged me out here at four in the morning. Teju, aren't you hungry? Don't you think the least you could do is go buy me breakfast?"
Teju fled to buy breakfast like a man granted a reprieve.
"Kurenai. You know everything?"
"I know." Her voice was small. "Last night, a Sarutobi jonin visited my father. He brought it up like it was a funny story. Sora, I feel awful. I feel like this is all my fault."
She looked close to tears.
"It's not your fault. None of it. If you want to do right by Teju, act like nothing happened. We've all had enough of things we can't control. We're still a squad. We're still friends."
"I don't have any special feelings for Teju, and I don't like Asuma either. When I first heard the Hokage's son was interested in me, I was flattered. I hadn't decided anything about it. It was just... vanity, I guess. But how could he let his family do that to Teju? I can't stand Asuma right now. I don't want to see him." The words tumbled out, raw and miserable. A few days out of the Academy and everything had already gone sideways. She didn't understand how things that had been fine could fall apart so fast.
"It'll be okay, Kurenai. Teju's tough. He'll get through it."
"Would it have been better if you two weren't on a squad with me?"
"Don't talk like that. We're a squad. We're going to fight together for a long time, survive this war together, and we're friends. Teju and I are neighbors. That's fate. Being teammates, that's fate too. Without you, what's the point of this squad? I'm not spending every day staring at Akimichi-sensei and Teju's big round faces."
Teju came back with food. He hesitated for a long moment, then held a portion out to Kurenai. She took it. The three of them ate and worked hard at pretending nothing had changed.
But Teju never watched Kurenai walk away again.
Akimichi-sensei kept his word. He crammed battlefield knowledge into them at a brutal pace, showing up for half the day and rushing off to his own duties. The big man probably hadn't even noticed that his students weren't the same kids he'd left behind a few days ago.
Teju threw himself into training with a focus that bordered on punishing. He looked thinner. Every morning he hauled Sora out of bed before dawn, and they didn't come home until the streets were dark. Kurenai started going out of her way to talk to both of them, and the three grew closer through sheer hours of shared work.
Asuma was busy too, in his own way. He spent days circling the village, trying to track Kurenai down and apologize. She refused to acknowledge him.
He had no idea what his careless words had set in motion. He didn't yet understand the weight the name Sarutobi carried in Konoha.
He also didn't understand that the person who deserved the apology most was Teju.
Asuma vanished for two days. When he resurfaced, it was at the training grounds, watching the three of them from a distance. He looked like he wanted to say something but couldn't find the opening.
Sora took pity on him. He walked over and led Asuma away from the field.
"Kazeki-san, I found out what happened to Tejuno-san. I confronted my elders about it. I told them what they did was wrong."
"Asuma-san, before we go any further, I have a question." Sora had no interest in dragging this out. "Why didn't you ask your family to put you on the same squad as Kurenai during team assignments?"
"I did," Asuma said quickly. "My elders wouldn't allow it. Kurenai is a Genjutsu-type, not physically strong. In a squad, she'd need protection. They said they couldn't put two people who needed constant covering on the same team."
Two people who need protecting. "So a squad can't have two members who require constant defense. I see." Sora had suspected as much.
"I personally requested Akimichi Yoshimaru-sama as her squad leader. He has the best defensive record of any instructor this year. It was the best I could do."
"Asuma-san, if you try to have Kurenai transferred off the squad, then we'll have nothing more to do with each other. Though I doubt Yuhi Shinku-sama would agree to it anyway. If she stays, Teju and I will protect her. We're teammates and friends."
"Thank you. And thank Tejuno too." Asuma said it like the matter was settled.
Nobody asked you to thank us. Sora kept his face neutral. "Don't mention it. One more thing. Our squad trains together. I'd appreciate it if you didn't interrupt that."
"Understood." Asuma lowered his head and left.
Sora walked back to find Teju and Kurenai both looking subdued. He decided that dealing with children's emotional lives was exhausting. He was turning into a motormouth, and it was entirely their fault.
"All right! Listen up, you aspiring legends!" He clapped his hands together, cranking up the energy. "What we need right now is discipline. Packed schedules. Wall-to-wall training. Not hand-wringing over feelings. Not shivering in existential dread. Training!"
The two of them stared at him.
"This is over. Done. The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed on the battlefield. And when the war's over, we'll march up to the Third's office and fight him. Make him apologize. How about that?"
They looked at him like he'd lost his mind. Sora privately agreed that spending too much time around children was eroding his intelligence at an alarming rate.
But it worked. For the first time in days, laughter echoed across the training field.
Kurenai's Genjutsu was landing now, her casting speed noticeably faster. Yuhi Shinku himself came by the training ground once, observed the three of them, and left with words of approval.
Teju's Taijutsu and trapwork had sharpened considerably, though his progress on the storage seal remained slow.
Sora was improving fastest of all. The more advanced the material, the more his edge showed. It was the same principle as grade school: when the tests only went up to a hundred, every kid scored a hundred. Once the difficulty climbed, the gaps widened. He grasped whatever Akimichi-sensei taught on the first pass, and after the big man left for the day, Sora became the squad's teacher.