Naruto's final choice for a movie was Revenge of the Blind Swordswoman, which had lots of blood on the cover and no fewer than three people with swords. "I like swords," he confided as he clambered onto the half-made bed, while Ryouma crouched to turn the TV on. "Kakashi's got one. It came with his uniform. He showed me." His stare itched on Ryouma's spine. "How come you don't have one?"

"Left it inside a giant bug," Ryouma said. "I've gotta ask the Quartermaster for a new one." He slid the tape inside the machine and straightened again, wincing at the healing pull in his thigh. "What d'you think my odds are?"

"How much giant?" Naruto asked skeptically.

"Sixty meters long, maybe?" It'd seemed mountain-sized itself, rearing up, but it couldn't have been more than ten meters tall at its spine; Katsuko had leapt onto its back without assistance, and he'd only needed a boost. The oozing black head they'd brought back was bigger than his room, at any rate.

And very, very classified. Ryouma jerked a guilty glance at the boy sitting on his bed. "And that's why you don't go in the Forest of Death until you're old enough not to get eaten," he said. "Which snacks did you want?"

"All of them," Naruto said rapturously. He bounced while the title cards played and Ryouma fetched an armload of the over-sugared, less-perishable packaged snacks he generally kept on hand for those days when his blood sugar was too low for cooking. By the time he'd laid out a generous selection, and fetched Naruto another juice-box, Yukiko was selecting the pattern for her wedding-day kimono, and Naruto was glued to the screen.

He wasn't a bad movie-watching companion. Asked a lot of questions, sure, but not too many, and he'd accept a mysterious "Wait and see" and hunker down scowling at the screen, as if by sheer force of will he could move the blood-drenched plot along. He tended to yell commands at the characters, but Ryouma did that too. Together they shouted for Yukiko not to trust her fiancé, didn't she know he was plotting to kill her entire family at the wedding, look out he's got a knife!

Someone passing in the hall yelled at them to shut up. Ryouma gave the open doorway a cheerful, bandaged finger, and stole one of Naruto's prawn crisps.

Yukiko survived the slaughter of her clan, but she was left for dead under her father's corpse with a slash across her eyes that rendered her blind. "Like Kakashi-niisan," Naruto whispered. "Is that what happened to him?"

Ryouma glanced warily down at the small boy huddled beside him on the bed, round chin resting on scraped knees, skinny arms wrapped around his legs. "What's he told you?"

"Says it was a present from a friend." Naruto pulled his gaze away from the screen and squinted up at Ryouma's dark eyes. "Not from you."

"Ah," Ryouma said, "no." He pointed at the screen. "Look, it's Evil Bastard!"

"You said a bad word." Naruto hugged himself in glee.

And now the Hokage would probably have Ryouma's head for teaching his son to swear. At least he hadn't let Naruto choose the film with the naked women on the front. Fortunately, Naruto had been rather more interested in the giant snake one of them was wearing coiled around all her strategic bits.

A wandering hermit stumbled across the deserted shambles of the wedding venue and discovered Yukiko weeping blood over her father's corpse. "Jiraiya-ojiisan!" Naruto declared, delighted. "He's got a wart!"

Sandals scuffed at the threshold, a moment before Kakashi inquired, "Jiraiya did what?"

Ryouma looked around. Kakashi was stepping out of his sandals in the doorway, holding several covered cafeteria take-out dishes carefully clear. He looked far more comfortable in dark pants and a soft, long-sleeved red tee-shirt. The black cloth mask vanished below the shirt collar, though the faintest ridge beneath the soft fabric over his collarbones hinted at its hem. A strip of black cloth bound around his head in place of the customized hitai'ate hid his Sharingan. His silvery-grey hair fell over his face in a damp curtain; he jerked his head up, tossing it impatiently back.