Turtle Island was enormous. As the group moved deeper inland, the great black spikes thinned and eventually gave way to dense forest.
It was difficult to imagine that behind that outer wall of spikes, something like this could exist. A vast, sprawling forest, growing on the shell of a living creature.
Ancient trees several meters thick rose on all sides, their roots buried in centuries of accumulated soil. Thick vines draped from branch to branch, and moss blanketed nearly every surface. It felt less like a shinobi outpost and more like a primeval wilderness that had simply decided to go unnoticed.
Motoi was still taking it all in when danger dropped out of nowhere.
A roar split the air.
The trees ahead shook violently, something large enough to send them swaying crashing through the undergrowth toward them.
Motoi pulled a kunai from his pouch and dropped into a defensive stance.
Then it burst into the open: a gorilla, standing at least ten meters tall, a solid wall of black muscle barreling toward them with trees snapping in its wake like dry twigs.
Nagasawa stepped in front of Motoi and held up a hand. "Relax. No danger."
Nozawa and the rest of the rotation team hadn't moved either. They stood with the casual ease of men who had seen this exact scene many times before.
The gorilla skidded to a stop roughly ten meters out. Its feet carved twin furrows into the earth before it finally lurched to a halt, sending a billowing cloud of dust rolling over the group.
Motoi coughed into his sleeve.
Then the gorilla reached out its right hand and grabbed him.
He tensed on instinct, but Nagasawa had just told him there was no danger, so he forced himself not to resist as the enormous fingers closed around him. Being hoisted off the ground was still deeply unsettling regardless.
A moment later, a smaller figure appeared, perched on top of the gorilla's head. Sunglasses. A small notebook held open in one hand, a pencil moving across the page.
Killer Bee.
"I'll leave Bee-sama to you, Motoi," Nagasawa called from below, his voice already growing distant.
The gorilla had already grabbed a vine as thick as a tree trunk and was swinging deeper into the forest, carrying Motoi along with it.
Up on the gorilla's broad head, a second shinobi sat beside Killer Bee, the two of them talking with easy enthusiasm. Both looked to be around fifteen or sixteen.
Motoi, still held in the gorilla's fist, looked out at the beasts moving through the trees alongside them. Several were well over ten meters tall. He didn't know what half of them were.
"Why does the village keep creatures like these out here?"
Killer Bee tilted his head and answered in a loose, rhythmic cadence. "The strong ones get trained as summoning beasts, yo. The weaker ones make good training partners, help you sharpen your skills in this place." He reached down and patted the gorilla's head. "And this one right here? That's Captain Gorilla. He's my guy."
At the sound of his name, Captain Gorilla let out a roar that rolled through the trees like thunder. Killer Bee stood up on the gorilla's head, grabbed a fistful of fur to steady himself, and roared back.
Motoi stared.
After a moment, Bee settled back down and turned to look at him properly.
"Brother still won't let me leave?"
The wind was cutting at this height, enough to make Bee's hair stream back from his face. His tone was light, but the question wasn't.
Motoi understood. No matter how safe Turtle Island was, it wasn't home. There was no village here, no familiar faces, no one to train with or talk to. And Killer Bee was not the kind of person who could stay still.
"The Fourth Raikage-sama is thinking about your safety," Motoi said.
"I know that." Bee pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. "But I heard that after I left, the village got hit two more times?"
"It did." Motoi didn't see any point in softening it. "The Two-Tails Jinchuriki was lost. The scroll containing the Three-Tails was taken as well. Raikage-sama believes there's a force out there systematically pursuing the Tailed Beasts. That's why he won't allow you to return."
Killer Bee went quiet.
He had been carrying something heavy for a while now. The feeling that he hadn't been strong enough. During the Third Great Ninja War, he hadn't contributed much. Afterward, he'd been unable to stop Hayashi, and the village had paid for it. Now Kumogakure was facing another crisis, and he was sitting on an island in the middle of the ocean, out of reach, unable to do anything for his brother.
Motoi recognized the look. He reached over and put a hand on Bee's shoulder.
"Don't let it eat at you. You're fifteen years old, Bee. Stopping the Fourth Hokage was never something you were going to do. What happened to the village isn't on you."
It was true, all of it. But knowing something and feeling it were different things, and Bee was fifteen, no matter how far ahead of most fifteen-year-olds he was.
"If I'd been stronger back then," Bee said quietly, "maybe..."
"Then get stronger." Motoi said it plainly, cutting through the self-reproach before it could spiral further. "You know that's the answer. You and I, we grew up together, but we're not the same. I don't have your talent, Bee. I never did. So don't waste what you have sitting here feeling guilty. Train. Get to where no one can touch you. That's the only thing that actually helps your brother."
Bee rubbed a hand over his face and said nothing.
Motoi exhaled slowly. This was going to take some patience.
They rode in silence for a while as Captain Gorilla carried them deeper into the island. Eventually, Killer Bee pointed ahead through a break in the trees.
"That's where I stay."
Motoi looked.
Wedged between several of the largest trees he had seen yet was a structure unlike anything he had encountered, a building shaped like a massive creature. Reddish-brown hide. A bull's head at one end. Eight tentacle-like extensions forming the rear. If not for the windows cut into its sides and the open mouth serving as a door, he might have genuinely mistaken it for a living thing.
Captain Gorilla set them down on the roof. Bee turned and bumped his fist against the gorilla's knuckle.
"Head back for now, Captain. I'll find you later tonight."
The gorilla rumbled approvingly, then lumbered back toward the trees.
The two of them made their way along the ridgeline of the building until they reached the highest point, then sat down without ceremony and looked up at the open sky.
"How's Brother been?" Bee asked.
"Mostly fine," Motoi said. "His temper's the same as always. The village took a lot of damage, but the defensive perimeter's been reinforced. It won't be as easy to breach again."
"Good." Bee nodded slowly. "And you? How are things between you and the Eight-Tails?"
Bee was quiet for a moment. "The same, I guess," he said, with a slight curl of his lip.
He had been the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki since he was very young. The relationship between them had always been its own strange thing, not exactly friendship, but not simple coexistence either. The Eight-Tails complained about his rapping constantly. It always listened anyway.
Bee had never hated the Eight-Tails.
But something had shifted between them recently. He knew it, and he was pretty sure the Eight-Tails knew it too.
It had started after Hayashi released the Three-Tails inside Kumogakure. Watching a Tailed Beast tear through his village, seeing firsthand the kind of destruction one could cause, something in how Bee related to the Eight-Tails had grown complicated. A feeling he hadn't quite sorted out.
The Eight-Tails was many things, but oblivious wasn't one of them.
Whether it had fully registered the change or was simply waiting for Bee to work through it, the closeness between them wasn't what it had been. Something sat in the space between them now, unnamed and unresolved.
More than distant. Not yet whole.
And that gap was the reason Killer Bee still hadn't become a complete Jinchuriki.
=≠=
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