The journey back to Konoha took three full days.
It wasn't that they couldn't travel faster. There were too many wounded.
Shuo was one of them, but he flatly refused to lie on a stretcher, stiffening his neck as he said, "It's embarrassing."
Yet barely a kilometer into the journey, his face turned white as paper, and his steps grew unsteady.
In the end, Sai lost patience, hoisted him up, and dumped him onto a stretcher. His tone was cold and hard. "Another word, and I'll gag you."
Shuo blinked and said nothing more, lying there obediently with a candy secretly tucked in his mouth.
Rin walked beside the stretcher, looking rather pale herself. Having just emerged from the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, she was so weak that even a few steps left her breathless.
Obito stayed beside her the entire way without speaking, simply keeping her quiet company, his eyes glued to her as though terrified she might disappear the next second.
Kakashi walked on Rin's other side. The three walked abreast, a little space between them, yet an indescribable bond connected them, just as it had back in Team 7. They said little, but understood one another.
Minato led the way. As he walked, he suddenly smiled.
"What are you smiling about?" Shuo asked, craning his head from the stretcher.
Minato shook his head, a hint of nostalgia in his voice. "Nothing. Just remembering the old days."
Back when Team 7 had first formed, Obito, Kakashi, and Rin had been three half-grown children, bickering and competing every day, forever talking about becoming Hokage, their eyes full of light.
He didn't follow that thought into what happened afterward. He didn't dare. Looking up at the sky, he changed the subject. "We're almost there. Hang in there a