#let mayu be gay in peace!!!

[moonlightcookie]

i found a small series of songs from the same producer of mayu falling in love w gumi but gumi insisting shes not a lesbian 😭😭

[britishassistant]

But I Like One Piece (16)

Surprisingly, Lee wraps his head around the idea of reincarnation from another world the easiest.

“It’s like when children at the Orphanage are adopted.” He explains blithely. “The parents who take them away give them new names, so you can’t ask to visit or see how Shinpachi is doing anymore, but the person who was known as Shinpachi still exists. He just has a new life with a new name somewhere far away.”

There’s a moment of contemplative and slightly horrified silence.

“Huh.” She says. “I-I guess it is kinda like that. I am Mayu, I just...remember being someone else before that. Somewhere very, very different.”

“Mayu—” Her mother pinches the bridge of her nose. “How-how do you know that this—this other world even exists?”

Well, she’d known they’d need proof to believe her, one way or another. Hopefully this will be complex enough that it should suffice.

She takes a deep breath.

«It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the will of the fight, risin’ up to the challenge of our rival. And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night, and he’s watching us all with the eeeeeyyyyyyeee—of the tiger.»

Naruto grins. “Hey, it’s the singy thing!”

Lee gives a little round of applause. “You have a very nice voice, Mayu-chan!”

She tries not to blush and fails miserably.

Gai-sensei nods. “A most youthful tune, Mayu-chan. But do the sounds have any meaning?”

“Wait just a moment.”

All eyes turn to her father, whose head is hanging down, hair bracketing his eyes.

“Those sounds...aren’t they...”

She feels a drop of sweat slide down the back of her neck. Otou-san is the second son of a samurai clan after all; it’s no surprise that he can recognize a foreign language just by hear—

“They’re the noises you used to make when you were a little baby!!” Her father yells, pointing a dramatic finger at her.

“NO!!” She yells back, cheeks aflame. “Well, actually, yes, they kinda were, but they weren’t just baby noises!!”

Okaa-san gasps, pressing a hand to her cheek. “Dear, I can’t believe I couldn’t remember! You were so sweet, Mayu-chan, always going ‘aa dun uda’sta oo’.”

“That’s because I was trying to say «I don’t understand you»!” She groans, covering her eyes. “I didn’t understand this language back then! I just wanted to know what was going on!”

“Hey, hey, Mayu’s Tou-san,” Naruto says, eyes sparkling with mischief. “What was Mayu’s first word?”

Her father exhales and strokes his chin while looking off into the distance with a nostalgic twinkle in his eye. “Well, let’s see. She would’ve been about twenty months old or so—”

“IS NOW REALLY THE TIME FOR THIS STORY?!” She cuts in desperately. “I’m trying to prove the existence of another world by showing that I know a language that no one in this world has ever heard of and is far too insane for anyone with a brain to have made up!”

“Insane?” Says Lee, tilting his head in confusion.

“English is the pirate of languages.” She mutters darkly. “It goes around and beats up other languages and steals their words.”

“Is there anything about your past life that’s not related to pirates?!” Okaa-san asks, exasperation evident in her tone.

“I like pirates.” She says, hurt.

Her mother shoots her an unamused look. “Ketsugi Mayu...”

She holds up her hands in surrender. “Pirates were kinda mythical in my past life by the time I was alive. There were historical ones, but people romanticized them a lot. Like ninja.”

“What?! How dare they, that’s really rude, believe it!” Naruto fumes, crossing his arms. “...Kaa-san, what’s rom-an-ti-sized mean anyway?”

“It means they make up stories about them to make them seem...nicer.” Okaa-san explains. “Usually by pretending they aren’t as violent as they really are.”

“Oh.” Naruto thinks about this. “That’s dumb. Ninja are already cool, they don’t need to be nice.”

“Pirates are cooler.” She says.

“They are not—”

“Don’t start.” Her mother says in her scary week-long-ban-from-cooking voice.

“Yes Okaa-san.” They chorus.

“But wait.” Lee’s now frowning. “If the only ninja are historical, then how did countries in your past life defend themselves?”

“With armies of soldiers. Normal ones.” She replies. “ Though those might be replaced by flying robot drones by now. There used to be ninja in Japan—may still be even if only in name—but there wasn’t anything like chakra in my past life, so we developed technologically to fight each other instead. Now the world’s kinda in a stalemate peace because we’ve developed so far that the planet will become unable to support human life if we ever go all out.”

Lee stares at her, then drops his head, fists trembling in his lap.

Gai-sensei presses a hand to his shoulder. “Lee.”

She grows alarmed as tears begin to drip off of her friend’s face. Oh shit, she hadn’t meant to insult his dream. “Hey, Lee—”

“Mayu-chan.” His voice is surprisingly steady. “Did you mean everything you said? You aren’t making anything up?”

She hesitates but shakes her head, mouth twisting in consternation. “Yes. I did mean it. Lee, I’m sorry—”

Suddenly his arms shoot up in the air, fists still clenched. When he raises his head, his tears are sliding around a wide and dazzling grin.

“There’s a world of ninja without chakra.” He whispers, tone awed. “They don’t need chakra to become strong. To become ninja.”

Gai-sensei beams back and ruffles Lee’s hair into a haystack. “Of course! A youthful spirit and the willingness to work hard are what truly make a ninja!”

“And our Lee has that in spades.” Okaa-san says fondly, smoothing some of the now-haystack back into place. “You’ll be a fine ninja, I’m sure of it.”

Lee sniffs noisily. “Gai-sensei, Chie-oba-san...!”

“Yeah!” Naruto throws his arm over Lee’s shoulders. “An’ then you an’ me an’ Mayu-chan are gonna be on a kickass ninja team together, believe it!”

“I’m gonna be a pirate.” She interjects staunchly.

Naruto pouts at her for a moment, before he brightens again. “Fine then! Sakura-chan can be our third teammate, and Mayu’ll be the pirate mascot!”

“Sakura-chan?” Lee cries eagerly.

“Pirate mascot?!” She echoes indignantly.

Naruto sticks his tongue out at her triumphantly while her father and Gai-sensei turn away to muffle what sounds suspiciously like laughter.

She folds her arms and scowls at the stair in front of her while her mother pats her head consolingly.

Otou-san manages to get his chuckles under control enough to place a hand upon her and Lee’s shoulders. “We’ll always be very proud of you all, whether you’re a pirate mascot—” He fails to hide his snickering under her disapproving gaze, “—or a ninja. We just want you to be happy.”

“Jirou-oji-san!” Lee sniffs, eyes refilling with tears.

It takes another five minutes to get Lee and Gai-sensei to stop crying and hugging everyone in reach.

This is only exacerbated by the fact that her parents lose all rational sense and begin blushing and stuttering helplessly when they’re caught in Gai-sensei’s embrace.

Once everyone’s calmed down a bit, Naruto turns to her again. “So if this world was a story in your past life, does that mean you know the future, or any super cool jutsus?”

“No.” She says. “Because I never read that comic. I only ever read One Piece and argued with idiots who tried to say that that comic was better, which it obviously wasn’t.”

Her mother rolls her eyes at her as she lies, “I don’t even remember what that series was called, or any of the characters from it.”

Naruto narrows his eyes at her. “Then how’d you know you were here?” He fires back.

She stares at him as placidly as possible. He’s her best friend in this world—practically her brother in all but name. Lee is too, and Gai-sensei may as well be a third parent by this point.

She’s afraid of dying again, but she thinks that if it were for this family right here, her family, she’d face it with the kind of smile that only a D could muster.

She refuses to sentence Naruto to a miserable life of second-guessing and unearned guilt over things that he couldn’t possibly control.

Not this time.

Usopp, Nami and Robin give her the conviction to make this lie believable.

“The Hokage Monument.” She tells them smoothly. “It was in the background of almost every panel that idiots who liked the comic would try to show me. I didn’t remember where I recognized it from until I was about four years old though.”

Naruto doesn’t quite look convinced at first, but his expression becomes more accepting as he mulls it over.

Lee, bless him, just nods along trustingly.

Okaa-san tilts her head and stares at her with unnerving scrutiny.

Otou-san touches her mother’s arm, an eyebrow raised in concern, only for his wife to shake her head almost absent-mindedly.

Gai-sensei’s nose twitches.

She holds her breath.

His face breaks out into his usual beam. “I see! So the Will of Fire blazes strongly even in other worlds!”

She exhales, sending a mental thank you to the Rational Trio. “Yes. Any other questions?”

“Did you have a family in your past life?” Lee asks.

She flinches.

“Ah.” Lee’s smile is sad and understanding. “It’s okay if you didn’t—”

“I know it is.” She cuts in, grin feeling stilted. “It’s just—they weren’t anything to special. My Dad was a businessman and pretty strict. My Mum was a housewife and very spiritual. Kinda boring overall.”

Lee nods again, though he looks a little confused.

Okaa-san and Otou-san look...hurt.

She wants to hug them, but there’s a little part of her that whispers that doing so would be a betrayal. She forces herself to turn to a nicer topic.

“I did have a little brother, Harp.” She smiles to herself. “He’s a good kid, you guys would’ve loved him. He’s wizard at doing presentations and performances and things like that, really makes it easy to understand and believe what he’s saying, you know? He’s gonna be a famous actor when he grows up, or a politician, some really great speaker once—”

She freezes. “Shit.”

“Language!” Okaa-san says, but she barely hears her, knuckles white as her nails dig into her knees.

“I didn’t make a will.” She rasps. “I never made—and now they’ll get it all. They’ll take everything, and he’ll still be trapped.”

“Who will take everything?” Otou-san says, steely-eyed and serious. “Mayu, was someone you were related to threatening your family?”

She shakes her head. “Not—not threatening, exactly. S’just.” She makes an abortive movement with her hands. “Living with Mum and Dad was...not good. For me or Harp. They never got on with each other, and both of them were disappointed in us in their own way—anyway.”

“No, why were they disappointed?” Okaa-san says, eyes blazing. “I want to know what they thought was wrong with my little girl.”

“Okaa-san—” She tries to say, flattery and embarrassment warring inside her.

“Nothing’s wrong with Mayu-chan!” Lee interrupts, little chest puffed out. “She’s fine the way she is!”

“Lee—”

“Except that she does curry too spicy.” Naruto cuts in. “And argues with the Academy teachers a lot. But that’s not disappointing, believe it!”

She’s torn between the overwhelming desire to kick him in the shins and give him a great big hug.

Gai-sensei gives what, for him, counts as a discrete cough. “While I’m sure we can agree that Mayu-chan is one of the farthest things from disappointing there is, I believe you were in the process of explaining your dilemma?”

“Right.” She tries to will her cheeks to stop burning.

“Well, I had some money saved up so I could try to get Harp out—hire a good lawyer and see if, while Mum and Dad’s divorce was finalized, I could win custody so he’d get to live with me.”

“What’s divorce?” Lee asks.

“It’s when two people who are married decide they don’t want to be married anymore.” She explains. “So they go to a court of law to make it so they officially aren’t, and each person gets part of what they both owned.”

Naruto gasps, like the idea is somehow shocking to him. To be fair to him, the adults look equally scandalized, so she guesses that’s not exactly a common practice here. “You can do that?! But why? I thought married people were supposed to love each other forever.”

“Usually they do.” She says wearily. “But sometimes people fall out of love, or one person is hurt by the other, or both misunderstand the person they got married to. Dad thought a woman like my Mum would be very business-focused like he wanted. Mum thought a man like my Dad would be very spiritually enlightened like she wanted.”

Naruto looks confused but considering, so she moves on.

“Anyway, I had a lot of money saved up, but because I died without leaving anything that said how I wanted it to be used, Mum and Dad will take all of it, or at least argue over who should get the most of it in the divorce.” She clenches her fists. “And Harp’ll never see a penny.”

“Mayu-chan.” Naruto’s voice wavers slightly. “Did you not love your parents?”

For an awful moment, she’s struck by the paralyzing urge to say “No”.

Then the horror and guilt settle in her gut again like undercooked food and make her feel like she’s going to choke on bile.

“Wh—of course I loved them!” She sputters indignantly. “They were my Mum and Dad. You’ve got to love your Mum and Dad.”

“It’s okay if you didn’t!” Naruto holds up his hands placatingly. “They just don’t sound very nice! You said that they said you were a disappointment! And you didn’t want your little brother to be with them!”

He and Lee are staring at her wide-eyed, as if waiting for her to snap at them again. The same way Naruto and Kiba look around Sakura these days.

She takes a deep breath and tries to make her voice softer, gentler. “I’m sorry for yelling. It’s just, sometimes, you can love someone and know when they’re not very good at something, or in a position that they and other people aren’t happy they’re in. I did love my Mum and Dad, but they are the last people in that world I’d trust with a kid. It wasn’t their fault, but I thought if I could get Harp out, let him grow up happy—”

She shakes her head, worrying the scar on her lower lip.

She’d promised him she’d get him out.

She’d promised.

“How old were you?” Her father asks, voice low. “When...?”

She can’t bring herself to look at him, but he sounds weary down to his very bones.

“I was twenty years old.” She says to the stair in front of her.

“Is that.” Her mother hesitates for a moment. “Is that an old age to die at? Among the people of that world.”

She makes a face. “Nah. I’d been an adult for two years in the eyes of the law, but most people in my past life could expect to live until their lates eighties or nineties before dying of natural causes.”

She hears Gai-sensei whisper “late eighties or nineties” to himself in a tone filled with something like wonder.

It’s that wonder which spurs her to look up and say, “In fact, if you manage to live to your hundredth birthday, the Queen sends you a card wishing you a happy birthday and congratulating you. I had a friend whose great grandma got one.”

Only Gai-sensei looks as amazed by this information as she’d hoped they’d all be. Lee’s trying to muster up the same enthusiasm as their teacher, but he can’t quite. Naruto looks more confused than anything.

Otou-san and Okaa-san are just staring at her like they don’t recognize her.

It hurts too much to hold their gaze.

“How’d you die?” Naruto asks. “Were you fighting a bad guy?”

She rubs the back of her neck. “Not really. A man broke into the flat. I grabbed a knife. He freaked out and his gun went off. He said it was an accident.”

She hisses the last word with all the venom it deserves.

She doesn’t understand anymore why the One Piece anime tried to censor Belle-mere’s death by changing it from a headshot to a bullet to the chest.

A headshot is quick and painless, at least.

She’s so caught up in her own memories that she doesn’t hear her father’s question. “Pardon?”

“What was your name?” Otou-san’s voice is soft and understanding, even though his eyes are pitying.

“...The girl who died was called Tamara Kaur. Her friends called her Tammy or Tim-Tam for short.” She says, a mournful grin on her face. “My name is Ketsugi Mayu. I’ll be in your care, if you’ll have me.”

The quiet that follows this statement, half joke and half plea, is enough to make whatever hopes she was still desperately clinging to crumble like a sandcastle in the face of the tide.

There aren’t many more questions after that.

Aside from the pointed conversation that began with “so if the person Naruto mentioned really was a comic character, then who was the home invader?” and ended with her exasperated mother asking “What do you mean, you ‘accidentally created divinity’?”

She winces. “Kinda that? I just, I was praying to them for normal stuff, and then that day I prayed for help with cutting the lamb and ended up with an entire meal I didn’t remember cooking.”

Okaa-san stares at her for a long moment before burying her head in her hands. She makes a noise Mayu thinks might be a sob.

Otou-san pats her back awkwardly and shoots her what she thinks is meant to be a reassuring smile. “Your Kaa-san’s fine. She just...needs a moment.”

“So it was Sanji?” Naruto whispers to her.

She nods rapidly.

Naruto’s face splits into a grin so wide his eyes almost close. “Awesome.”

“I know.” She whispers back, hardly able to keep from smiling herself.

Okaa-san sends her to turn off all the taps and hang her clothes back up upstairs.

She supposes she has wasted enough water for one day.

She blinks in the mid-afternoon sun when she opens the door to her bedroom, ignoring the masks that are all but pressed against the shut window more out of habit at this point.

She feels too drained to even feel alarmed by their proximity to her home. Talking about her Mum and Dad always did that to her, even when she was in the same world as them.

A phantom hunger pang pierces her stomach.

She shudders at the memory. Oh Luffy, she hopes Harp got out quickly, that he didn’t have to grow up on meals that were either pigswill or denied to him entirely.

He’d be...what, eighteen, nineteen by now?

Reading about Sanji and the adventures of the Straw Hats used to help her get through those punishments.

She sends a prayer to them now that Harp didn’t have to learn how to do that himself.

Otou-san, Okaa-san, and Gai-sensei are discussing something in low, serious voices when she comes back downstairs.

They quiet down for a bit when she steps between Lee and Naruto to get to the kitchen.

When she returns to the hallway, Gai-sensei pats her shoulder with a little too much force, shooting her a megawatt beam and a thumbs up.

“Do not worry, Jirou-san, Chie-san! I am certain that there will be no cause for concern for yourselves or Mayu-chan!”

Otou-san heaves a sigh. “We have every faith in you. It’s just—”

Okaa-san lays a hand on Gai-sensei’s arm. “Please, Gai.”

He solemnly takes her hand in one of his own, reaching out to grab her father’s arm with the other. “Everything will be as it always is. I swear it to you.”

The adults’ eyes seem to glisten as they stare at each other.

She glances at Naruto and Lee, eyebrow raised.

Naruto gives a quizzical shrug. Lee’s almost vibrating as he stares at their parents, eyes wide.

She hates to break up the moment, but there’s an elephant in the room that needs addressing.

She coughs a little. “Um, Okaa-sama, Otou-sama?”

Her parents look over at her, shoulders stiffening.

She worries the scar on her lower lip. “I, ah, just wanted to say, that if you need some time to-to process what I’ve told you, and you don’t want me a-around for it, I can get out of the house, go somewhere else for as long as you need me to—”

Otou-san and Okaa-san stare at her, expressions of pure horror on their faces.

Shit, has she really overstepped by that much? “O-or if you don’t want me to come back, I could always try to find o-other living arrangements for myself—”

“YOU FOOL!”

The slap to the back of her head isn’t nearly as painful as most of the blows she’s weathered during training, but the sheer surprise of the attack has her clutching it and looking up in bewilderment.

Gai-sensei looks madder than she’s ever seen him.

“...Or I could leave the village entirely?” She meekly suggests, unsure of what to say to appease her teacher’s anger.

“And when did anyone ever say they wanted you to leave?!” Gai-sensei booms.

What?

She blinks in confusion. “But I’m not who you thought I was, I have—”

“Are you Ketsugi Mayu?” Her mother asks, voice drier than an over-baked cake.

“Yes—”

“And do you enjoying cooking and feeding people?” Okaa-san walks towards her and leans down.

“Well, yes, but—”

“And you have an obsession with pirates that leads you to act without thinking a lot?” Her mother reaches out and grabs her cheeks.

“It’s not an obsession—” She feebly tries to argue through pursed lips.

“Then you are my daughter.” Okaa-san says. “And you are going to stay right here where I can see you, and we are going to lay down some ground rules about contacting strange deities, do you hear me young lady?!”

She’s so alarmed by the sight of angry tears gathering in her mother’s eyes that she just nods her head as best as she can in this grip.

Okaa-san lets out a little sob and then she’s being enveloped in a crushing hug by both of her parents.

Otou-san murmurs, “Our family stays together, damn what anyone may think. Even if we have enemies on all sides, the Ketsugi clan will weather any blows. Didn’t we already tell you that?”

Then she feels Lee and Naruto’s little arms squeezing her from behind, and the gentle weight that means Gai-sensei has joined the hug too.

“Please don’t go Mayu.” Naruto says, sounding small and scared. “Please.”

She can’t help it when she starts bawling like a little kid again.

[britishassistant]

But I Like One Piece (4)

Somehow it gets worse after that.

It’s hard enough living with the realization that she’s been reborn with an entirely new circulatory system that parasitizes energy from her training and studying and doesn’t like her.

But then the teacher begins making noises about learning to mold this system to their wills.

Like trying to harness the weird unnatural force for its powers isn’t going to end horror movie style.

Especially since they’re using those dumb hand signs to do so.

She feels a little bad for disparaging it, since Naruto’s trying so hard to form them properly.

But most of them look like they’d dislocate her fingers if she wasn’t careful, her mind recalling videos of howling children who tried a little too hard to copy their favorite show and were left with fingers that dangled the wrong way.

She can’t risk damaging her tools again.

“Ketsugi.” The teacher says. “Demonstrate the Ox sign for the class.”

She cautiously twists her fingers, then drops them when something twinges. “Can't do it.”

“Of course you can, if you bother to try. The Ox sign.” The teacher snaps.

“But these aren’t necessary, right?” She pushes.“They just make using ch-chakra easier. A handicap.”

The teacher sighs. “They’re a tool, not a handicap, which you would know if you were paying attention to the lesson. Form the signs, Rat through Serpent.”

“I’m not doing them.” She snaps. “It’s embarrassing as a human being!”

There’s a moment of silence as what she said sinks in.

“Mizuki-sensei, why does Ketsugi-san look so smug?”

“Because she’s about to serve detention Uchiha.” The teacher growls. “Ketsugi, out in the hallway, now!”

She pouts as she holds the water buckets. They’re not even that heavy after training with Gai-sensei.

And so what if she was smug? She got to say Nico Robin’s line, she deserves to feel proud for that.

“It’s embarrassing as a human being.” She whispers to herself and can barely stifle slightly hysterical giggles.

Naruto and Kiba end up in detention with her after school.

Somehow they managed to turn the teacher’s white hair orange enough to rival Nami’s. It’s almost the same length too, making her snicker.

She thinks of her own hair, now below her chin. It’s too fine and straight to pull off Nami's look. She pouts down at her fingers.

“What is your family symbol anyways?” Kiba says, cracking his knuckles and shaking his fingers out. They’ve been cycling through the dumb signs for the past twenty minutes.

She peeks down at her shirt where there’s a little embroidered grey pelican with its wings raised to almost form a circle and a red tomoe where its beak meets its breast.

“It’s a pelican.” She says. “A sea bird. Their beak can hold lots of water, like a bucket.”

“Oh.” He fidgets, scratching the markings on his face. Akamaru barks. “Is that why it’s your family symbol? Carrying water?”

“Ah, no.” She gestures towards it as covertly as she can. “There’s this idea from a long time ago that pelicans babies are nursed on blood. So the pelican stabs itself with its beak so it can feed its babies. It’s a metaphor for something, like self-sacrifice, I think. I’m pretty sure they don’t do that in the wild.”

Kiba “hmms” and a frown creases Naruto’s face, but he doesn’t say anything for the rest of the afternoon, and that evening he’s back to normal.

She wonders if she should’ve questioned it.

One day a little under half of their class is gone.

She looks around. “Where is everyone?”

“You mean you don’t know?” Ino gasps, looking vaguely ill. Her skin’s pale and there’s bags under her eyes.

She and Naruto glance at one another. She shakes her head.

The blonde leans in close, voice dropping to a whisper. “The entire Uchiha clan was killed last night. Massacred.”

She blinked, looking around at the empty seats. Then it hits her. “What?! Even the—”

Ino shrugged, rubbing her arms. “I don’t know. They haven’t reported any survivors. J-just that the clan compound was—w-was—”

The blonde began trembling violently, breath coming in harsh gasps. Her eyes widen and she slips an arm around Ino’s shoulders, frantically gesturing to Naruto who looks like he’s confronting a bomb instead of a panicking girl.

Between them they got Ino sitting down and nibbling half-heartedly on an orange slice. Shikamaru, Kiba and Choji are in just as bad shape. Chouji is chewing his thumb so hard he makes it bleed, while Shika jumps at the slightest sound. Kiba’s just curled around Akamaru.

Nobody talks much that day.

Eventually the teacher throws his hands up and tells them all to go home early.

All the other civilian kids leave immediately in twos and threes. The clan kids stay seated.

Ino laughs hollowly when Sakura asks what’s taking her so long. Chouji won’t stop trembling. The quiet boy in the back buzzes restlessly. Kiba even lets out a whimper.

She exchanges glances with Sakura and Naruto.

They’re scared stiff.

Naruto stands up, and goes to where his stalker and the quiet boy sit at the back of the room. “Hey,” He says, “Wanna walk home with Mayu-chan an’ Sakura-chan an’ Ino an’ Shika an’ Chouji an’ Dogbreath and me?”

He sounds out of breath once he’s finished.

“U-um,” The stalker stutters. The quiet boy says, “That will not be necessary. Why? Because...”

“Oh come off it and walk with us.” She snaps. “We’ll hold hands and everything. Safety in numbers, right Shikamaru?”

He scoffs, but stares intensely at a spot on the wall. She can practically see the cogs turning in his head.

“Okay.” He says. “Here’s how we’ll do this.”

They run into Lee on the way out, but he gets incorporated into their weird-dodechahedron-chain-thing easily enough.

He and Naruto are at the front, laughing and talking like nothing’s wrong. Naruto holds Kiba and his stalker’s hands, while Lee holds the quiet boy’s and Shikamaru’s.

The clan kids make up a mass in the middle. Kiba (after much grumbling) holds the quiet boy’s other hand, while the stalker holds Ino’s and Shikamaru grasps Chouji’s hand.

She and Sakura take the rear, holding hands and not doing as good a job as Lee and Naruto at pretending everything’s fine. Sakura’s also holding Ino’s other hand and she’s holding Chouji’s.

People stare at them as they walk, barely tripping each other up.

Some snigger, but more look pitying.

She spots a couple of masks following them at a distance and tightens her grip on Sakura and Chouji.

They go to the compound that’s farthest from the village proper first and work their way in.

The quiet boy’s father has glasses like his son, and thanks them with a low buzz for returning “Shino”.

Kiba’s mum gives him a noogie and her dog calls them “good kids” gruffly.

The stalker is welcomed by an attendant who calls her “Hinata-sama”, flicks cold eyes over them and shuts the door in their faces.

Ino’s mum is almost in hysterics and she can’t stop hugging and kissing her daughter.

Chouji’s dad looks on the verge of tears, and he calls them brave for looking after his son.

Shikamaru’s mum keeps it better together, but her voice cracks when she thanks them.

When she closes the door on them, Mayu, Naruto, Lee and Sakura all look at each other, pensive and grave. The four “civilians” with no compounds to hide in.

Not that the compound saved the Uchiha.

“Wanna go cook something at my place?” She asks.

Her parents return with Gai-sensei and a pink-haired man and a blonde woman who introduce themselves as Kizashi and Mebuki Haruno.

They hug their daughter for a long time.

Lee looks longingly at the scene, so Gai-sensei slaps him on the shoulder and challenges him to run 100 times around their garden on his hands. Otou-sama eagerly asks if he can join in, which Gai-sensei enthusiastically agrees with.

Otou-sama repeatedly falls on his face, but he looks like he’s having fun.

She checks to see if the meat is done, then calls out that the food she, Naruto, Sakura and Lee have prepared is ready.

Naruto grabs the extra chairs while Sakura balances a pitcher of ice water and the hot plate and Lee brings out covered dishes of thinly sliced vegetables and rice.

It’s too hot for hot pot really, and they’re all sweltering as they crowd round the dining table Gai-sensei and Kizashi lugged outside, but at the same time it feels like the heat of the dish could almost burn away the horrors that happened today, warm and mild flavors grounding them in the idea of home and family and making it seem ridiculous that such things could be violated.

Her mother brings out bottles of sake, and she can tell by the way Mebuki Haruno whistles that it’s good stuff.

She uncorks one bottle and pours a dish out for everyone, even the children.

Then her father uncorks the other and holds it up in one hand, his sake dish in the other.

“To the Uchiha. May their memory be honored, may they find justice, and may their spirits be at peace in the next life.”

“To the Uchiha.” They chorus, and he pours the bottle out into the grass as they drink.

She’s never had the tongue for alcohol so it doesn’t taste very nice. From the way Naruto’s sticking his tongue out, Sakura’s hacking, and Lee’s pulling a face, they think the same.

Luffy, I know this isn’t really your thing. She thinks. But maybe get Robin or Nami or Brook to help you out. Please, please get those poor souls somewhere they’ll be happy and free. And knock the fucker who did a Buster Call on them out with a gomu gomu no bazooka.

She tosses back the rest of the sake with that silent prayer.

Naruto leans into her side, resting his head on her shoulder, so she rests her head atop his. Okaa-sama sits down on his other side, taking his hand and carding her free one through Mayu’s hair. Otou-sama brackets them on the other side, throwing an arm over their shoulders and drawing them all together, a bit squashed, and adds his hand to the pile.

They watch the sun set and mourn the lives lost.

Nobody goes home that night.

The masks don’t even come for Naruto.

They end up spread out around the living room, futons and bedding haphazardly laid out.

She wakes up in the early morning with Naruto spreadeagled beside her on the floor, one foot in her father’s stomach and her mother curled up behind her and—

The mask that hurt her standing over them.

She tenses weakly, eyes frantically darting around. Her father is at their feet, so he’ll have to go over them to save her, giving the mask enough time to slit her throat.

Gai-sensei is sitting in her mother’s armchair, head thrown back and snoring while Lee is curled up on his lap. He won’t get to her in time either.

Kizashi is squashed on the couch, with Mebuki blocking him in. Sakura is on the coffee table for some reason, cuddling a paperweight. She can’t drag them into this.

She’s not strong like the Monster Trio. Hell, she can’t even hold a candle to the Coward Trio. There’s no way she’ll be able to take the mask and live to tell the tale. She’ll barely scratch him.

The mask looks at her. She curls a hand around Naruto’s arm protectively and glares back.

He raises a single finger the mouth of the mask and bursts into a flurry of leaves.

She can’t go back to sleep after that.

They’re in the morning paper.

Not as the front page headline. No, that’s reserved for a picture of a little boy that’s so much like the anime stills that used to be bandied about in flame wars of her past life, with the headline UCHIHA ITACHI CONFIRMED KILLER above it and the phrase SEVEN YEAR OLD SOLE SURVIVOR OF MASSACRE underneath.

They are halfway down the second page though. There’s a grainy photograph of their hand-holding escort, taken so as to obscure Naruto as much as possible behind Lee.

It doesn’t quite work, because you can see his hair and ear, and his hands holding Hinata and Kiba, the Uzumaki spiral clearly visible on his shirtsleeve.

Naruto eagerly points this out, and bragging about how “We’re famous now, believe it!”

The caption under it reads: Clan and civilian children draw together in historic show of solidarity. Whoever writes for the paper likes alliteration too much for anyone’s good.

Her father peers at it. “That’s quite a scary face you’re making there Mayu-chan.”

She says nothing and eats her rice quickly while her mother gives Otou-sama a Look.

It’s not her fault she was glaring at the masks when the photo was taken.

Everyone’s talking about the photo in class too.

Ino’s even signing copies of it.

At least she’s feeling better. The others seem to back to a semblance of normality too.

All except the stalker. She keeps stealing quick, furtive glances at Naruto, before gazing sadly back down at her hands.

Ino notices her staring and nudges her. “I heard Hinata’s dad blew a gasket at the picture. Said she’s not allowed to associate with Naruto anymore.” She says conspiratorially.

She winces. For a moment she’d been so caught up in the sense of communal mourning, she’d forgotten she lived in a world where Naruto was a pariah.

“Anything we can do?” She murmurs to Ino.

The blonde purses her lips, tapping her chin, but Sakura, with bags under bloodshot eyes from drinking a bit too much and sleeping on a table, is the one who answers. “Have her sit on the girl’s side of the table. That the way she’s close to Naruto without associating.”

“Sakura, that’s brilliant!” Ino gushes.

Instead of blushing and modestly denying the praise like usual, Sakura presses her face into the desk and mumbles, “Fuck yeah I am, shannaro.”

She cracks up at the expression on Ino’s face.

Naruto invites Shino to sit with him as well to disguise their intentions.

He accepts, but seems a little on edge with all the noise, curling in on himself a little whenever Ino or Kiba or Naruto go a little loud in the volume department.

It’s not his fault; some people just don’t do as well with noisy gatherings like this.

Hinata’s perked up a lot though, so there’s that.

She tries to follow Ino’s efforts to make Hinata feel included, but her mind keeps going back to the headline picture.

She knows about him vaguely. She used to participate in many arguments by claiming that Roronoa Zoro would definitely kick his pasty little arse seven ways to Sunday, magic eye or no.

There were enough pictures and videos of him and Naruto fighting online that she knew they were enemies, even if she didn’t know the whys or hows.

She knows his brother killed his clan, and the flame wars over whether this was justified would always take over the thread.

Sitting here with under half the class gone, dark-haired kids whose names she should’ve made more effort to remember, it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it. But she digresses.

The image of the little lost boy staring at the camera like he can’t understand what’s happening to him returns to haunt her. Naruto used to look like that, when he went home covered in rotted produce and belly growling.

Sanji preserve her, but she’s a sap.

“Will the Uchiha go hungry now?” She asks herself, pushing a grain of rice around.

There’s a silence.

When she looks up, the rest of the table is staring at her. Some inquisitive, some suddenly calculating, one despairing.

Naruto groans, startlingly loud. “I’m not sharing my lunch with him, believe it. You can make him food, but I’m not gonna sit with him.”

“I don’t want to either.” She says honestly, and bites into her red bean bun as those around her stare in bemusement.

Naruto suddenly grins, bright and vicious. “You’re so weird, Mayu-chan.” He crows, biting into his own bun.

She shrugs. Well, he’s not wrong.