You all should say thanks to the person who added Boulders to an abandoned fanfiction reading list; it's very easy to get motivated to prove someone wrong.

Thanks for sticking with this!! Sorry about the shorter chapter, but I figured you guys would want something. Enjoy!!

Toph was, as it turned out, not very good at water walking.

"You suck!" Sasori shouted from the shore, loud enough that she could hear him even from where she'd meandered several feet downshore, sopping wet and absolutely pissed.

Toph tossed one of Kisame's oversized kunai at him, not bothering with a reply. She forced chakra down to the soles of her feet and stepped onto the surface of the water.

It felt all rubbery and wrong, as if she were attempting to stand atop a rice pudding. Worse still, she couldn't get any vibrations from the surface of the water, leaving her blind until she inevitably fell through, the strange buoyancy failing her.

Sasori laughed rudely from where he was still wasting time doing nothing.

"I hope you choke on a fishbone and die!" Toph yelled. She shook her arms off and tried again, swallowing down rage as the water seemed to tear apart under her weight.

Before Sasori had laid the tempting fishbate that was water-walking, Toph had been this close to chopping off both his arms. As things stood now, she was up to her shins in water, stripped down to her tank top and shorts, and absolutely soaked.

As Sasori made some annoying insult from the riverbank, Toph's fingers inched towards where USS usually rested. For now, though, the sword rested on the riverbank, swathed in her top.

"Don't you have more important things to be doing?" Toph retorted. "Like falling into a very deep hole and never coming out again?"

She got her feet under herself and wobbled a few steps like a baby liondeer. The water tension gave underneath her, but if she moved fast enough she didn't fall through.

Toph started jogging, then, when the water surged up under her heels like mud, she found herself running.

"Oi! Girl!" Sasori's voice rang out a lot further back than she remembered. Toph skidded to a stop, turning her head towards the noise, and the water gave way from under her feet.

Toph felt the water close over her head and went from logical thought processes to pure panic. She floundered a little, then a lot, trying to claw her way back to the surface. Her mouth had been half open when she fell, and now she was choking and drowning and couldn't breathe-

For a second she was back at the Serpent's Pass, floundering in both the water and the knowledge that she could die, would die, if her friends didn't shape up and stop their bickering to come rescue her.

But now it was her.

Just Toph.

Just Toph and an unalive boy who would never swim out to save her.

She gasped for air, but only found cold water.

A firm hand grabbed the back of her tank top and yanked her into the air.

Toph spluttered and gasped for air, fluid running out of her mouth and nose. Her eyes were stinging, heralding the appearance of tears.

Sasori heaved a sigh and shook her. Wet bangs smacked her in the face as her began towing her back to shore, still only holding her by her clothing. Toph reached out and grabbed his pant leg, anchoring herself more securely.

Her nose and throat were burning, her hands were shaking, and she felt like a drowned rat, coughing and shaking.

They reached the sandy shore and Toph grabbed for the dirt.

"Don't," Sasori hissed, entirely too angry for someone who hadn't almost died. "Wander out into the middle of a river if you can't swim."

Toph finished coughing up half her lungs and raised her fist in a weird way she'd felt Kakuzu do when he was in an argument with Hidan. All her fingers except one curled down, and the middle finger stood straight up.

Sasori spluttered. "What the- how did you- why don't I just take you back into the river huh? If you're so ungrateful!"

Toph ignored him and half crawled over to where her kimono lay. She shook it off and pulled it on, ignoring the way the silk clung to her wet skin.

She belted her katana into place and tried to wobble to her feet.

Key word: tried.

"What in the name of Koh is happening right now?" Toph hissed in a raspy voice.

"Chakra exhaustion," Sasori's mood seemed to do a 180 turn and his voice now seemed entirely too pleased. "You've only been water walking for an hour and you're entirely out. You must have the reserves of a first year academy student."

Toph gritted her teeth, breath still unsteady. She raised a hand threateningly, but Sasori jumped over her weak attempt and perched right on top of the rock spire.

"I literally just saved your life, you know," he reminded her.

"No you didn't. I had everything entirely under control," Toph lied. "Go away."

They both knew the truth, but after a moment of blank posturing, Sasori let her keep what little shred of dignity she had left.

"I'm going back to the house. Don't get in my way." He told her before flickering away in that shinobi way.

Toph lay alone on the riverbank. She rolled over, pulling one leg up to set her foot on the sand, and let her dripping hair splay around her head like a halo.

She set USS on her chest and held it close, curling into it a little. It felt like callouses and late nights, and Kisame-sensei's rough, scale-like skin.

It felt like home.

She let herself lay there on the sand, tired in a way she'd never been before, and let herself miss home, in all its different forms.

And maybe, just maybe, she let herself cry, a little, tiny bit.

▪︎▪︎▪︎

"That sword doesn't suit your style," Sasori remarked, sometime the next day.

"Eeh?"

Toph

"You're an overkill heavy hitter," Sasori pointed out, "but your sword isn't. That type of katana is only good for a quick hit and run. You need something like Kisame's stupid club sword."

Toph considered.

It was true that she liked to finish fights swiftly and without mercy, but USS II only did that with low leveled goons and Tobi.

It was also true that USS didn't match her usual hit them once, hard, and they're down style. It was thin and quick and sharp.

Kisame had given it to her and she loved it, but it wasn't quite her.

"What do you suggest, then?" Toph asked as soon as the silence stretched long enough for it to seem like she'd been ignoring him rather than actually considering.

He paused. Blinked.

"Get a bigger sword. Duh."

▪︎▪︎▪︎

Iruka smelled like vanilla today.

Anko smiled softly and nestled a little closer to him. He radiated heat like a bonfire. A cute, sweet bonfire.

He gave her a soft kiss and she reciprocated, channeling just a little chakra to her hand to stay on her perch.

The two of them sat on the hokage mountain, nestled in the Fourth's spiky stone hair, watching the sun set. They'd been talking on and off about random topics for almost an hour now, walking around the senic parts of Konoha before retreating to the cliff to make out in the final few minutes of daylight.

"So where are the kids at right now?" Iruka asked, glancing at her after they finished.

"The kids?" The question came up so suddenly that it didn't register for a moment.

"Sakura and Sai. Aren't they home alone together?" Iruka reiterated.

Anko's eyes widened.

"They're home alone together."

"Yeah?"

"They're home alone together!" Anko yelped. "Iruka!"

"What?"

"Sakura's going to Sakura him!"

▪︎▪︎▪︎

Sakura picked through the fridge like a starving feral raccoon. She examined a small box of half-eaten takeout, eyes glinting as she unfolded the top.

"Stealing from the Dango Lord again?"

Sakura chucked the thing of pad thai over her shoulder without looking. She burrowed deeper into the fridge, ignoring the speaker.

Sai caught the box with ease, setting it down on one of Anko's counters. "If she were not so fond of you, you would be out on the streets."

This time, the slightly moldy pizza slice flew directly at the pale boy's head.

"Same to you," Sakura snapped, finally deciding on some cold teriyaki. She freed it from the top shelf, liberated the last pair of clean chopsticks, and stalked right past Sai. "Just leave me alone."

She plopped down at the table and flipped open the giant textbook Kou-sensei had assigned to her. It was a hefty treatise on the ethics of torture during wartime, but Sakura hadn't gotten to the point where it was relevant to her training yet.

She stuffed a large bite into her mouth and squinted at the tiny print, headache from before screaming back in full force.

"Why are you reading such basic books?" Sai asked, voice sounding marginally more confused. "Are you reviewing?"

She pointed her chopsticks at him. "Don't you have somewhere to be? Liiiike, bothering Anko instead of me. Or hunting for your fellow cave bugs and begging them to take you back?"

"I am not a cave bug," Sai said.

"No, really?" Sakura's voice practically dripped with sarcasm. "I had no idea. This whole time I thought you had been kidnapped from your creepy crawler friends."

"I was removed from my fellows," Sai remarked, still standing at Sakura's side. She had to crane her neck to get a good look at him. "Although I was not kidnapped. You have to be a child to get kidnapped, and I am not."

"Riiiiight," Sakura snapped her neck back, feeling the cracking in her spine as she did so. She stuffed another mouthful of cold chicken and rice in her mouth.

A slight pause passed.

"Are you for real?" She asked around the half chewed bite.

Sai simply cocked his head at her. "The only one who says I am still a child is my brother. However, he is very sick, and no longer an exemplary shinobi, therefore, he is no longer worth listening to."

Silence.

Sakura swallowed, attempting to digest that statement. She squinted at the boy, picking a bit of chicken out of her teeth with her tongue.

"That statement was all kinds of messed up," Sakura told him flatly. "If only shinobi had important information, we'd be down two-thirds of the council of elders. And, for what it's worth, I'm sorry about your brother."

Sai blinked. Opened his mouth.

"Why are you sorry? It's not because of you. Nothing you do could change it."

Sakura felt the faint mist of what had once been the beginning of empathy dissipate faster than the Fourth Hokage.

"That doesn't mean I can't feel bad for him." Sakura shoveled slightly-cooler-than-room-temperature food into her mouth with another glare at Sai. "Anybody would. Except you. Because you lack emotions and also basic social traits."

"Why would an exemplary shinobi need those?" Sai asked, so much more monotone that Sakura almost didn't realize he'd asked her a question.

"Oho, my dear child," she set her chopsticks down, a sly grin creeping up across her face. "My sweet, sweet summer child. I shall tell you why. Please, come sit."

Sai warily sat, brow slightly wrinkled in confusion at Sakura's abrupt change in attitude.

Sakura beamed, and began his corruption.

▪︎▪︎▪︎

"What are these?" Kisame asked, picking up a thin stack of official looking papers.

"Adoption papers. For Toph."

"You guys need to stop."