Archive of Our Own ^beta

Naruto’s nightmares were getting worse. Iruka stood in the bedroom doorway and gritted his teeth against the buzz of chakra emanating from the small, still figure in the bed. Naruto was curled up under the covers, frowning but otherwise deceptively peaceful. It hadn’t been a yell or a crash that had woken Iruka and brought him hurrying through, but the turn his own dreams always took when he sensed the chakra he’d first felt on the night of his parents’ death.

The seals he’d long since fixed to the walls were absorbing most of the kyuubi’s chakra, glowing faintly as they diffused it. Iruka still glanced towards the window as he crossed the room. Twice, a passing ANBU had sensed it and come running, and Iruka really didn’t want to deal with that again tonight.

Unless the ANBU in question was Kakashi, of course, who was somewhere out in the night on patrol. The nightmares seemed to happen more often when Kakashi wasn’t home, as though the beast inside the boy sensed a weakening of their defences and thrashed in its chains to try and break out.

“Naruto, honey.” Iruka switched on the bedside lamp. He touched Naruto’s shoulder, and Naruto’s eyes shot open. There was a moment when a trick of the light made the pupils look like narrow slits, and then Naruto turned up to face him and he was a normal, if frightened, nine-year-old again.

“Iruka?”

“Yeah, it’s me. You were dreaming.”

Naruto sat up, glancing around the room to search each shadow. Iruka sat on the bed beside him, and when he pulled Naruto into his arms, he felt the damp sweat on his skin. The chakra had faded when he’d woken, and although it happened every time, Iruka still felt the tight core of anxiety in his chest relax. What he feared most – what he spoke about with Kakashi in hushed voices late at night – was that one day, what woke in Naruto’s bed would not be the boy but the monster.

Naruto buried his face in Iruka’s chest, and Iruka ran soothing fingers through his hair.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked.

Naruto was silent for a moment, and then he said, voice muffled, “It was like the other ones.”

Iruka’s fingers stilled for a brief instant before he recovered himself. Each time he held out hope that this one would be a normal nightmare. A monster under the bed or a witch at the door. Fairytale dreams that any child could have.

“I was in the other place,” Naruto said against his chest. “There was a village, but the houses didn’t look like the houses in Konoha. Some of them were too big and some were really small, and the doors were the wrong shapes. And I saw things inside through the windows, but they weren’t people. Some of them were like animals but they weren’t really, they were something else. And some of them…I didn’t like them, Iruka, they were the scariest ones.”

“It’s OK,” Iruka murmured. “They aren’t real.”

“And then I ran out into the forest because I was looking for you, but there weren’t any people there either, and the trees started talking to me. And they told me to look in the river and I didn’t want to but I did. I saw my reflection, but it didn’t look like me. I was one of the monsters too.”

They hadn’t told him. Still, after all this time, they hadn’t told him about the nine-tailed fox inside him. But either a part of him was starting to wonder, or the demon itself was brushing against the edge of his mind and Naruto felt its shape.

Iruka wanted so much to protect him from this. When he and Kakashi had taken Naruto in four years ago, they’d decided he was too young at the time, and at his every birthday since they’d discussed it and always come to the same conclusion. He’s still so young, let him have one more year without knowing. Just one more. But it was getting hard to ignore the fact that the excuse was wearing thin. Perhaps the right time had already passed them by. It was so hard to know, so hard to tell whether the truth would help him or harm him.

But Iruka wouldn’t tell him tonight. If they were going to do this, it would be something they did together, as a family. He knew Kakashi would want to be here, and if he was honest with himself, he didn’t think he could bear to do it alone.

“You’re not a monster,” he said firmly, and that would always be the truth. He wanted Naruto to know that. “Don’t ever let any talking trees tell you different. You look just fine to me.” He kissed the top of Naruto’s head and felt him relax just a little.

“Can I sleep in your bed tonight?” Naruto asked. “In case the dreams come back?”

Iruka and Kakashi had discussed this too. Naruto was still small enough that he could fit between them in their bed, although he did tend to wriggle around in his sleep, but Kakashi thought it might be time to stop allowing it. That Naruto would become too dependent on them when he needed to learn how to handle his nightmares alone. They might, he had carefully said, be something he’d have to live with his whole life. Iruka had disagreed to the point where it had skirted the edge of an argument, not because he didn’t see Kakashi’s point but because Naruto had so little in this world that it felt unspeakably cruel to take one more comfort away from him.

Eventually he knew he would have to give in but tonight was not that night. Kakashi wasn’t here to tell him no, and Iruka didn’t have the strength to leave Naruto alone and scared in the dark, even if he was only a room away.

“Of course you can,” he said. “Come on, let’s try and get some more sleep so we won’t both be cranky at school tomorrow.”

Naruto slid off the bed and waited for Iruka in the doorway as if scared to cross the hall on his own. Iruka switched off the lamp and followed him. On the walls, the seals still glowed as they sucked the last vestiges of chakra from the air. Iruka tried not to look at them as he closed the bedroom door.

Dawn had already chased away the last of the night when Kakashi arrived home. He moved as quietly as he could through the house, removing his shoes in the hallway and then heading to Naruto’s bedroom to open the door a crack. The bed was empty. Kakashi glanced at the seals on the walls and touched a finger to one, wincing and jerking his hand away. He looked at the bed again and let out a long, slow sigh.

It was almost time for Iruka’s alarm to go off, so Kakashi made his way back to the kitchen and put some coffee on to brew while he made a start on breakfast. After a little while, he heard the sound of the bedroom door opening, and voices in the hallway. He looked up when someone entered the kitchen, and found Iruka still in pyjamas and with his hair loose around his shoulders. Kakashi held out an arm and Iruka crossed the room to lean against his side, nuzzling sleepily against Kakashi’s jaw as he finished their omelettes.

“Rough night?” Kakashi murmured, wrapping his arm around Iruka’s waist and stroking a thumb over his hip.

“No worse than usual.”

From the hallway, they heard the bathroom door open and shut, and then the faint hiss of the taps.

“I think we need to tell him,” Iruka mumbled against his neck. “These dreams…they’re getting more vivid. More detailed. I don’t know if they’re the fox’s memories or just impressions, but eventually he’s going to realise on his own. We can’t let that happen, Kakashi. I won’t let him go through that without us both there at the very moment he learns the truth.”

Kakashi nodded. He had sensed it too: that the time was growing close when they would have to withdraw their protection a little, or at least to shape it into something new. He had always thought he’d be the one to finally call the moment, that Iruka would need persuading. Yet he felt suddenly nervous in a way he hadn’t expected. He squeezed Iruka tighter, and Iruka kissed him softly on the jaw and then pulled back just enough to look him in the eye.

“This evening,” Kakashi said. “Once he’s done with school for the day. I’ll cook his favourite food for dinner and we’ll tell him then.”

“Do you think we can really help him?” Iruka asked. “Sometimes I’m scared that we’ve messed up already.”

Kakashi turned off the stove and moved the pan off the heat. He turned to give Iruka his full attention, cupping his cheeks in his palms and gently tilting his head up so he could see all the worry and love in Iruka’s eyes.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I know that we’ll see it through. He will be loved, Iruka, no matter what else happens. And maybe that will be enough.”

Iruka found his attention wandering through the whole school day. His students noticed, of course, as they always did when he was distracted, and they made his life that much harder because of it. He knew he’d been just as bad when he was their age, and he felt a sudden wave of pity for his former teachers. Two of them still worked at the Academy, and he made a mental note to ask Kakashi to bake them brownies or something as a belated apology for his own bad behaviour.

He’d almost forgotten that he had a shift at the Mission Desk that evening, and he seriously considered calling in sick. But in the end he went, going through the motions on autopilot while the afternoon dragged itself glacially into evening. By the time he was finally able to leave, the sun was low in the sky and all he wanted to do was collapse into bed.

To try and de-stress, he decided to take the long route home. They were over the halfway point in September now, and the air had bite as the shadows grew longer. Iruka zipped up his jacket and slipped his hands into his pockets as he made his way through the village centre and out into the residential streets. There were more trees lining these neighbourhoods, some of them already changing colours to fiery shades of auburn and gold.

It wasn’t all that late, but it was the hour when most people were home for dinner or still out at bars and restaurants, and the streets were mostly empty. Iruka kept his pace slow, trying not to think of the conversation to come, but he couldn’t help himself. He wondered if Kakashi was waiting impatiently for him even now but didn’t let himself hurry. He needed this short break to let the tension out of his shoulders. They would only get the chance to do this once, and he didn’t want to ruin it by being so stressed and exhausted from work that he couldn’t give Naruto the support he needed or the comfort he deserved.

The sun had finally vanished below the horizon and the sky was darkening rapidly. Around him, the streetlamps were beginning to flicker on. Except one, on the corner of the street, and the space beneath it seemed darker than the remaining wisps of daylight should have allowed. As Iruka approached, his gaze caught on it, drawn by the aberration in the pattern of light and shade.

There was a shrine beneath the dark streetlamp. It was set back a little from the road, a square wooden box with latticed walls to house the god, and a sloping roof like a temple’s. There was an offering placed before it: two peaches, no longer fresh, their skin darkened by brown patches, and when Iruka passed out of the light of the last lit streetlamp, he thought he caught the scent of them, at the point where sweetness turns to rot.

Leaves skittered down the street as Iruka passed by the shrine, and the breeze found its way down the neck of his jacket, making him shiver. Behind him, he heard the quiet sound of bells tinkling. He stopped walking and glanced back over his shoulder.

There was no one there. For a moment, he gazed down the empty street in silence, and then it came again: the sound of small bells, like the kind a shrine maiden might shake at a temple ceremony. Iruka’s gaze drifted back to the shrine. He couldn’t see any bells. The darkness was rapidly drawing in, and he couldn’t see much of anything.

Yet, now that he looked closer, wasn’t there a larger shadow behind the shrine? Something there that hadn’t been there just moments before? Iruka dropped a hand down to the knife at his belt and drew it softly, never taking his eyes off the darker spot.

“Is somebody there?” he asked, and his voice came out low.

And then the thing in the shadows – about the size a person, yet very much not like a person – reached out a hand and whispered a familiar name.

Iruka was late. Kakashi glanced at the clock again, increasingly restless. He’d already made dinner, hoping that Iruka would make it home before they ate, and when Iruka hadn’t appeared, he’d set a plate of leftovers on the counter, fully expecting him to burst in at any moment. After dinner, he’d helped Naruto with his homework, but they’d both been distracted. It was an hour past the time when Iruka should have been home, and Kakashi was starting to worry.

“Where do you think he is?” Naruto asked. He’d put all his homework away but had stayed in the lounge instead of running off to play in his room, and Kakashi knew he was worried too. He was trying his best not to let his own feelings show on his face so as not to frighten Naruto more. His mask would have come in handy right now, but he never wore it at home and putting it on would have been an admission that something was wrong.

“Something probably came up at work,” he said. “I’m sure he’ll be home any second to tell us all about it.”

“You said he’d be home any second an hour ago,” Naruto said. “Should we go look for him?”

Kakashi had been seriously considering that option himself, but he didn’t want to take Naruto with him, just in case something had happened. It was probably nothing – it wasn’t like Iruka was out on a mission, he’d be safe inside the village walls. And yet Kakashi had lived too much of his life on the edge of danger not to fear the worst.

“Maybe I’ll go and –” he started, when there was a thump at the door.

He and Naruto both turned to look out into the hallway. The noise had been strange; not quite a knock, but with a purposeful firmness. It came again, and this time there was a scrabbling too, like something with claws was trying to get in.

“What’s that?” Naruto asked. He had stood up and was standing tensely as though poised to bolt for his room.

“I’ll go check it out,” Kakashi said. “Wait here.”

He moved silently through the flat towards the front door. He never carried a weapon on him at home – Naruto was far too boisterous and accidents could happen – but it had been a long time since he’d needed a weapon to defend himself. He tugged up his mask as he passed through the hallway but kept his sharingan uncovered. The thing outside clawed at the door again, and Kakashi pressed his good eye to the peep hole. There were lights on the walkway outside the flats but he couldn’t see anyone there. Whatever it was, it was too low down. An animal? But one with intent.

Glancing back to make sure Naruto hadn’t followed, Kakashi curled his hand around the handle and yanked the door open.

Pakkun fell forwards, practically onto Kakashi’s feet.

“About time,” he grouched as he picked himself up. “What took you so long? We don’t have all night, you know.”

“Pakkun?” Kakashi stared at him. “How did you get here? I didn’t summon you.”

“It’s a long story and we don’t have much time,” Pakkun said, pushing his way between Kakashi’s legs and trotting into the hallway.

“Kakashi?” Naruto poked his head around the lounge doorway, gripping the frame until he spotted Pakkun, and then his fingers relaxed. “Pakkun! I thought you were a monster!”

“There might be monsters out there yet,” Pakkun said. “Close the door, boss, and if anything else knocks tonight, don’t let them in.”

Kakashi glanced back out into the night as he shut the door, but there was nothing out of the usual. Only the empty roads and the electric glow of the streetlamps.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Iruka’s gone,” Pakkun said.

A cold, sharp feeling stole between Kakashi’s ribs like the blade of a knife.

“Gone where?” Naruto asked. “When’s he coming back?”

If something had happened to Iruka, Kakashi couldn’t let Naruto find out like this. Not until he knew what the damage was and how it could be fixed.

“Naruto, could you go to your room?” he asked.

Naruto drew himself up indignantly, but Pakkun interrupted before he could start an argument.

“He’s been taken,” he said. “I don’t know who by, but I know where they’ve gone. You need to bring him back, boss, before the dawn. If he’s still trapped there after tonight, there’ll be nothing you can do.”

Kakashi glanced at Naruto again, but Naruto had planted himself stubbornly in the lounge doorway and trying to move him would involve a lot of kicking and screaming and, more importantly, wasted time.

“Tell me everything,” he said.

Pakkun settled himself on the floor, sitting on his haunches.

“I’ve told you before about where summons come from,” he said. “Where we live when we’re not being called through our contracts with shinobi. You remember?”

It had been a long time since they’d spoken about it, but Kakashi remembered. He’d been a very curious child, and some of his first questions to his ninken pack had been about their lives apart from him. Where they came from and where they went. Some of his questions had gone unanswered, and some of the answers he hadn’t understood, but he’d learnt enough to satisfy him.

“Another world,” he said. “It sits alongside this one in space and time, parallel to us.”

“Not quite parallel,” Pakkun corrected him. “At least, not for most of the year. Think of it like the moon and the sun. They’re both in the sky, sometimes at the same time, but they rarely line up to form an eclipse.”

“You know the sun and the moon are a lot further apart than they look, right?”

Pakkun gave him a very sarcastic look.

“My point,” he said, “is that twice a year, your world and mine have an eclipse, where they perfectly line up. When the day and the night are of equal length, it’s much easier to pass from one world to the other. Not so easy that just anyone can slip through, but there are doorways, and if you know where they are, you can find your way through without needing to be summoned.”

Kakashi had been waiting for this story to line up with Iruka, and he suddenly had a very bad feeling.

“You’re saying Iruka stepped through a doorway?” he asked. “You said someone took him.”

“It’s been known for humans to stumble upon doorways and end up in our world,” Pakkun said. “But that’s not what happened this time. Someone saw Iruka in the Whispering Forest, and he wasn’t alone. Rumours spread quickly when a human is spotted in our lands, especially one who smells like the nine-tailed fox.”

Kakashi glanced at Naruto. He couldn’t help it.

“The nine-tailed fox?” Naruto asked, frowning. “Isn’t that the monster that attacked the village years and years ago? Why would Iruka smell like him?”

Pakkun shot Kakashi a reproachful look but didn’t reply.

“That doesn’t matter,” Kakashi said, because he sure as hell wasn’t having that conversation right now. “Can I pass through one of these doorways? Can you take me to him?”

“You can cross through,” Pakkun said. “With the help of a guide. Not me. I don’t know the ways between the worlds, but luckily I know someone who does. She guided me here to tell you, and she’s waiting for you outside. You’ve met her before.”

Kakashi had met quite a few summons in his time, so he merely nodded.

“You should leave now,” Pakkun said. “The doorways will only stay open until dawn. If you or Iruka is still on the other side after sunrise, there won’t be an easy way back. There might not be any way back.”

“I want to come too,” Naruto piped up.

“Absolutely not,” Kakashi said.

He could already see that Naruto was gearing up for an argument. He had that look in his eye that Kakashi liked to joke he’d inherited from Iruka: that fierce stubbornness that Kakashi enjoyed when it was pointed at other people but not so much when it was turned on him.

He crossed the hallway and crouched so that he was closer to being on Naruto’s level.

“Iruka’s been taken somewhere dangerous,” he said. “I know you want to save him, and I know he’d appreciate the thought, but he wouldn’t want you to put yourself in danger for him.”

“But you’re going,” Naruto said. “And you won’t let me get hurt. I want to help!”

It was touching how much faith Naruto had in him. Kakashi ruffled his hair.

“It’s not your job to protect us,” he said. “It’s our job to protect you. That’s what parents are for.”

He still felt strange referring to himself as Naruto’s parent. They hadn’t been able to legally adopt him – there were too many political ramifications and the council had been dead set against it – but the legality was the part that mattered least. In all practical measures, the three of them were a family, and Kakashi took that responsibility as seriously as if Naruto had been his own blood.

Naruto’s stubborn pout had melted away into something more vulnerable.

“But Pakkun said you might not come back,” he said. “If you and Iruka both get stuck somewhere else then you won’t come home.”

Kakashi pulled him into a hug, and Naruto gripped at him as though he could meld them together.

“Of course we’ll come home,” Kakashi said softly. “I’ll find Iruka and I’ll bring him back, and by the time you wake up tomorrow we’ll be in the kitchen making you breakfast.”

“Do you promise?” Naruto asked, voice muffled by Kakashi’s shoulder.

Kakashi could feel Pakkun fixing that reproachful stare on him again, but he ignored it. He’d used to be a person who never made promises unless he was sure he could keep them, but he’d learnt over the years that sometimes hope was more important than anything else. He couldn’t let Naruto worry all night. If they didn’t make it back – and Kakashi would do everything in his power to make sure that didn’t happen – then let that be a problem only once it had happened. It didn’t have to be tonight’s dread.

“I promise,” he said, giving Naruto one final squeeze. “Will you be OK here if I leave Pakkun with you?”

Ideally he’d have called in a friend to babysit, but he didn’t have time. Naruto reluctantly extricated himself from Kakashi’s arms and nodded, putting on a brave face that Kakashi thought might be one he’d picked up from Iruka too. Or maybe from him.

“I’ll be OK,” Naruto said. “I want pancakes for breakfast. With strawberries. And lots and lots of syrup.”

“Only if you brush your teeth really well,” Kakashi said. “Now go get ready for bed. I want to have a quick word with Pakkun and tell him all the babysitter rules.”

Once Naruto had disappeared into his bedroom, Kakashi hunkered down beside Pakkun and lowered his voice.

“He has nightmares,” he said. “Don’t be alarmed if you feel the fox’s chakra. It happens a lot these days, but he’s harmless. If you do need someone though, for whatever reason, take him to Tenzou or Gai. Just those two – no one else.”

“And if you’re not back by dawn?” Pakkun asked.

Kakashi closed his eye, trying not to think about the expression on Naruto’s face if he broke his promise.

“Tenzou or Gai,” he said firmly. “They’ll take care of him until we get back. We will get back,” he added firmly. “Even if it takes until the spring equinox. The doors won’t stay shut forever.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Pakkun said.

There was a dark shape waiting for Kakashi on the street outside. He noticed a shadow where a shadow shouldn’t be, and then it slipped out into the light, each movement as graceful as water. It was a wolf, large with dark fur and green eyes, which flashed as the streetlights caught them. Kakashi sucked in a breath and cursed Pakkun for not warning him.

“Hello, Kakashi,” she said when she reached him, her voice low and smooth. It was familiar in the most painful of ways.

“Chiharu,” Kakashi said. “It’s been a long time.”

He hadn’t seen her since the day his father had died and their contract had been rendered null and void. His memories of that day were patchy at best, but he remembered her standing in the doorway to the dojo, not letting him through. She hadn’t been able to fully block his view of the blood and the body, but she had driven him away from the door, back into the house, with so much force he might have been frightened if he hadn’t been so numb. He had always wondered if Sakumo’s last request had been for her to stay with him that day or whether she’d taken it upon herself to curl up with him in the quiet house and let him cry into her fur.

She had left that evening, after he’d fallen asleep, and he’d never had the chance to ask. He didn’t take it now.

“Pakkun said you knew where Iruka was,” he said instead. He didn’t want to talk about his father; it would only be a distraction.

Chiharu took the hint, or maybe she wasn’t keen to discuss her late master either.

“I know which door he stepped through,” she said. “And I can scent out the trail he left on the other side. If you’ll allow me to, I’ll help you find him.”

“I’d be very grateful for any help you can give me,” Kakashi said.

She inclined her head and then turned and loped along the street, setting a fast pace. Kakashi followed, mindless of the chill night air. A startled group of teenagers shrieked at a corner as they spotted a wolf, and Kakashi heard their loud voices as he left them behind.

There wasn’t much to see when they reached their destination. Kakashi didn’t know what he’d been expecting – what was an interdimensional doorway supposed to look like anyway? – but when Chiharu stopped on a residential street, there was nothing amiss. The only anomaly was one of the streetlights, which was still dark, but Kakashi wouldn’t have thought anything of it if Chiharu hadn’t stopped right beneath it and turned to him.

“Here,” she said. “If you cross the space behind the shrine from right to left, you’ll step into our world.”

Kakashi stepped up to the small roadside shrine. It was nothing special; there were a few shrines like this in the village, so that locals could make offerings without having to visit the temple. It was mostly shinobi who used them: ANBU and higher-ranked field shinobi who didn’t have time to celebrate holidays or who wanted to make offerings at strange hours when the temple was shut. Kakashi himself had sometimes sent a short prayer at the side of the road before leaving on a mission.

“I don’t see anything,” he said as he peered at the space behind it. There was a narrow gap between the shrine and the wall, wide enough for a thin person to squeeze through. On the other side he could see the same street, with nothing to suggest a passage to another world.

“Take a look with your other eye,” Chiharu suggested.

Kakashi opened his sharingan eye and looked again. He could still see only the wall and the shrine and the street, but now there was a strange shimmer in the air, like a heat haze. It seemed to catch the light…but the light from where? This corner of the street was dark, and yet he was sure he could see dust motes glittering as they drifted through the air behind the shrine.

“How do I pass through?” Kakashi asked.

“Step forwards.”

“It’s as simple as that?”

“Only for tonight. Go on; I’ll follow you through.”

If anyone else had told him he’d find another world by squeezing through this tiny gap, Kakashi would have thought it was a strange practical joke. But he trusted Chiharu, so he turned sideways and sucked in his stomach and stuck a foot cautiously into the shimmering air to step between worlds.

There was a strange moment where he felt soft grass beneath one foot and hard stone beneath the other, and then he moved his second foot and the shrine was gone and he was standing in a forest.

Kakashi stood blinking at the trees, sure he had somehow missed the moment when one scene had become the other. It had happened so smoothly that he had no memory of the transition. One moment he had been scraping past the wall and the next he was standing on a forest floor strewn with golden leaves, the scent of moss and damp earth in his lungs.

There were lights here too. Paper lanterns hung from the branches, casting a warm orange glow of flickering candleflame. A paper charm hung from each one with something written on each, although Kakashi couldn’t make out the words. Prayers, perhaps. He turned in a slow circle, and in every direction for as far as he could see, every tree was hung with lanterns. It would have felt festive except that there was no one here to appreciate them. The forest was quiet apart from the susurrus of the leaves as a breeze stole through them, too high for it to disturb the lanterns, which hung still in the cool night air.

“Where are we?” he asked.

Chiharu was standing by his side. He hadn’t noticed her appear; she had simply been there when he’d looked down. There was no sign of the door they’d passed through.

“This is the Whispering Forest,” Chiharu said. “We should move on. This isn’t a good place for a human to linger.”

She slipped through the trees, her nose lowered to follow Iruka’s scent. Kakashi followed her, though his eyes were still raised to the lanterns. They were moving much slower now, but Kakashi clamped down on his urgency and didn’t rush her, letting her work.

“Why is this called the Whispering Forest?” he asked, to distract himself as much to sate his curiosity.

But even as he asked, he heard the answer. The soft sounds he’d taken for the rustling of the leaves took on a different tone as they passed under each tree. There were voices up there, so quiet he couldn’t make out the words. Kakashi faltered, craning his neck up to peer into the branches, but if there were people up there then they were high above the lanterns, in the shadows beyond the candlelight.

“Who’s there?” he asked loudly.

There was no pause or change in the whispering. No movement, and not even the sense that invisible eyes had fallen on him. Kakashi felt oddly like a ghost, moving through a room of people entirely ignored.

Chiharu had also stopped and had turned back to look at him. Kakashi couldn’t read the expression on her face.

“They can’t hear you,” she said softly. “They’re only voices. Nothing more.”

“But where are they coming from?”

Kakashi approached one of the trees, ready to climb up and solve the mystery for himself, but he paused at the base of the trunk, his gaze caught on one of the lanterns. It was hanging from a low branch, only a few inches above his head, and he was finally able to read what was written on the paper charm.

Murakami Reiko

It was a name. And now he was so close, Kakashi could hear one of the voices more clearly than the others. It was still too quiet for him to pick out the words, but he was sure the voice was coming from the lantern. He reached up to touch it but stopped with his fingers still inches from the paper. The idea of touching it felt wrong, like reaching out to caress a stranger.

“We should go,” Chiharu said.

Kakashi hesitated for a moment longer before letting his hand fall back to his side. He nodded, and when Chiharu started walking again, he fell into step beside her.

“In our world, we have stories about where our summons live,” he said. “People say that your world – this world – is where humans go after we die.”

“I’ve heard those stories,” Chiharu said.

“On Obon each year, we welcome back the spirits of the dead for the summer festival. And when it’s time for them to leave the living world, we guide their way back to the Land of the Dead with lanterns just like these. We float them down the river to light the path back home.”

Chiharu didn’t raise her head from the ground. Around them, the lanterns stretched beyond the reach of sight, an uncountable number, each with a name and a voice.

“Is my father here?” Kakashi whispered.

Chiharu stopped and looked up at him. Even in her inhuman eyes, Kakashi thought he saw his own old pain reflected back at him.

“We have stories about the dead as well,” she said. “And stories about these woods. Of lost mourners who roam among the trees, forgetting to eat or rest until they lie down among the roots and never rise again. The dead are beyond us, Kakashi. What would you do if you found your father’s name on a lantern? How would that change your loss?”

“I know that nothing can bring him back,” Kakashi said. “But if I could hear his voice…” He trailed off, not sure what good it would do but knowing only that he wanted, desperately, to hear his father’s voice one last time.

“It would drive you mad,” Chiharu said softly. “To listen and not be heard. Whatever the dead say to each other, it is not for the living to hear. I miss Sakumo too, but he’s gone, Kakashi. Don’t reduce him to a whisper in the dark. Let him live in your memories, where he will always be himself.”

She came up to his side and pressed herself against his leg, a warm, comforting presence. Kakashi closed his eyes and tilted back his head, drawing in a deep breath and letting it slowly out.

“I don’t have many memories of him,” he said. “Maybe sometime, after tonight, you can tell me a few stories about him.”

“I have plenty of those,” Chiharu said. “I should have visited sooner. Forgive me, his death was hard for me too.”

Kakashi reached down and ran a hand along her fur.

“You’re always welcome in my house,” he said. “Thank you for helping me. Tonight and back then.”

Chiharu let him stroke her for a moment longer and then moved away, finding the trail again.

“Let’s keep going,” she said. “The night is growing old and your love is still lost.”

Kakashi followed her, keeping his gaze lowered to the forest floor so as not to catch the names on the whispering lanterns as they passed underneath.

“Not for much longer,” he said.

There was no sense of time passing beneath the forest canopy. The sky was mostly hidden, and so Kakashi couldn’t track the movement of the moon – assuming this world had a moon and that it traced the same arc from east to west – and the forest itself was so unchanging that the monotony made time stretch and stagnate. They could have been walking for a single hour or for three by the time they glimpsed the palace through the trees.

They came upon it suddenly: the trees opened out ahead of them into a large clearing, at the centre of which was a palace. It had been built in the traditional style, three storeys tall with wide eaves and a sloping roof. Its walls were white and it glowed like bone in the lantern light, its windows all shuttered and dark.

Except for one. On the top floor, there was one open window, and when Kakashi squinted up at it, he thought he saw a flickering glow on the walls inside.

“Is he here?” he asked Chiharu.

“He stepped out into the clearing here,” Chiharu said. “Along with the person who was leading him. This whole area smells strongly of that second person.”

“When you say it was a person who led him here,” Kakashi said slowly, “do you mean a human?”

He thought he saw a shadow move across the upstairs window, but he couldn’t be sure.

“No,” Chiharu said. “Not a human.”

There didn’t seem to be any defences set up around the palace, or none that Kakashi could see. Still, he moved carefully as he left the treeline and approached the steps leading up to the front door. Chiharu stayed close, and he trusted her to alert him if she smelt anything dangerous, but she stayed silent as they made their way up to the entrance.

From close up, Kakashi could tell the building was old and worn. The paint was peeling from the walls, and the stone steps were chipped. It was very dark here, away from the lantern light, and Kakashi glanced up towards the sky, relieved to see only darkness and stars above. They still had time before the dawn.

“Is it likely to be warded?” he asked under his breath.

Chiharu sniffed around the door and then shook her head.

“Whatever lives inside doesn’t use wards,” she said. “Or doesn’t need to.”

Kakashi tentatively tried the door. It opened under his touch. The palace might be old but the hinges were oiled, and he slipped soundlessly inside with Chiharu close behind.

The large hall inside was bathed in the silvery light of a miniature moon. It hung in the centre of the high ceiling, suspended by no means Kakashi could discern, perhaps five feet in diameter and pitted with craters. Beneath it, the hall was a picture of dignified decay. The space was mostly bare, with no decoration to cover the cracks in the walls or the warped wood of the floorboards, but it was swept clean and the air smelt like jasmine with the faintest hint of smoke.

A low growl from Chiharu put Kakashi instantly on high alert, and he scanned each of the shadows again, but there was no movement or sound. Each of the three doorways leading from the room were shut.

“What is it?” Kakashi hissed, and Chiharu moved in front of him, still growling low in her throat. Kakashi followed her gaze to the stairway at the back of the hall. It was wide, and it rose up out of the moonlight, melting into the shadows.

He heard the footsteps before he saw what was making them, and for a wild moment his heart leapt in hope that it would be Iruka, even as he knew that would be too easy. Then a figure came down the stairs, pale and wraithlike in the light of the moon. It wore a thin white kimono, of the kind that bodies were dressed in for funerals, so long that it slithered over each step and hid the feet beneath. The figure’s gender was impossible to discern, and it stopped with its face beyond the reach of the light, though Kakashi felt its gaze on him.

“A visitor,” it said, and its voice was quiet and level, though it carried easily across the barren space. There was no emotion in its tone. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

“I’m here for Iruka,” Kakashi said, every muscle tensed and ready to use force if he had to. “Where is he?”

“Upstairs,” the figure said. “I have offered him a contract.”

“A contract? What does that mean? A summons contract?”

He had never seen a summons like this. It was too close to human, though its shape seemed more an affectation than anything real. Everything about it was uncanny: the fluidity with which it moved and the way its words dropped like leaden weights, intoned as solemnly as funeral rites. Even the shape beneath the kimono seemed somehow disproportionate, although Kakashi couldn’t have said quite how. He couldn’t see any skin on show except for an inch of pale flesh at its throat.

“Has he signed it?” Chiharu barked, and Kakashi was alarmed by the urgency in her tone.

“Not yet,” the wraith said. “He is considering the terms.”

Chiharu turned to Kakashi. “You mustn’t let Iruka sign anything. It’ll be a contract of servitude, like the summons contracts we sign with shinobi, but in reverse. Iruka will be the one bound.”

“Bound to do what?” Kakashi asked, turning between her and the stairway, already forming a plan for how he would force his way past. He didn’t know what this being was capable of, but it was about to learn that he was not to be taken lightly.

The wraith stepped gracefully down another two steps, bringing its head into the light. It was wearing a Noh mask, painted in the style of a beautiful young woman, and when it tilted its face, the light caught the expression differently, deepening the shadows around the eyes so that it seemed caught between sadness and pain. The wraith drew in a long breath, as though tasting the air.

“You also smell like the great fox with nine tails,” it said. “The other human told me that my master is trapped inside a boy.”

Kakashi was very, very glad that Naruto wasn’t here with him.

“What do you want from Iruka?” he asked again. “He won’t bring you Naruto, so if that’s the bargain you’re trying to strike, you might as well give up now.”

“I did not ask for the boy,” the wraith said. “What would I want with a human boy? But I offered knowledge. Oh yes, I have books on the spirits and how their powers wax and wane. On how to tempt them in or drive them out. All this, I offer freely.”

Kakashi hesitated. “You know how to take the kyuubi out of Naruto. That’s what you’re saying?”

“Not I,” the wraith corrected him. “I am not a scholar, only a keeper of knowledge. But the right mind, with the right books and with access to my master’s prison, might free him.”

“You’re selling Iruka hope,” Chiharu said with disgust. “For what price?”

“He will live here with me for half of each year,” the wraith said. “From the autumn equinox to the spring. He will clean my house and prepare my meals and keep me company in the long hours of the night. It is so quiet here. I am tired of solitude.”

“Iruka already has someone to spend the winter nights with,” Kakashi said sharply. “And freeing the kyuubi is not an option. Where is he? Take me to him or I’ll tear this place apart until I find him.”

“You are my honoured guest,” the wraith said. “You are free to seek him out. Climb the stairs all the way to the top of the palace and you will find my library. The human is inside.”

Kakashi was running up the stairs before it had finished speaking, Chiharu right beside him. He palmed a knife in case the wraith tried to stop him, but it only watched him as he passed by, and called after him as the darkness swallowed him up.

“Six months of the year is a small price to pay for a boy’s life,” it said. “The other human knows that well. He will sign my contract before the night is out.”

Not if Kakashi could help it, though he didn’t bother to say so, putting all his energy into racing up the stairs.

It was pitch black beyond the reach of the light, but just as Kakashi was about to cast a jutsu, a flame burst to life ahead of him. It floated three feet above head height, the palest blue, and Kakashi felt no heat from it as he passed beneath. Another flame flickered into existence ahead of him, and another, leading him onwards and upwards.

There seemed to be too many stairs for the number of storeys he’d seen from the outside, but eventually they reached the top. A sparse landing stretched out ahead of them, all the doors closed apart from one, right at the end, which was open just enough to let through the orange glow of firelight.

Chiharu was already moving towards it, following Iruka’s scent, and Kakashi was hot on her heels. She nudged the door open, and Kakashi burst into the room.

The wraith hadn’t been lying. It was a library, not large but well-stocked. The walls were lined with shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling, each shelf bowing under the weight of the books. In the centre of the room was a large table with several flickering candles set around it, and a single sheet of paper lying ready with a calligraphy brush and a knife beside it. Summons contracts were always signed in blood.

Iruka was standing by one of the shelves, a candle holder in one hand, and he looked round, startled by the intrusion. He didn’t look frightened or hurt, but there was unmistakeable relief on his face when he recognised Kakashi in the doorway.

“Kakashi!” He started to hurry over, but Kakashi got to him first, wrapping an arm around him and pulling him close.

“And here I thought Naruto was the one who needed telling not to wander off with strangers,” Kakashi said, pressing a fierce kiss to Iruka’s cheek. “You’re supposed to know better.”

Iruka reached out to rest the candle on one of the shelves before wrapping his arms around Kakashi, who kissed him again.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m sorry I worried you.” He tensed as Chiharu’s claws clacked on the wooden floor. “Um. Please tell me the wolf is with you.”

Kakashi finally drew back enough to gesture towards Chiharu, who had circled the table and was watching them politely.

“Yeah, this is Chiharu. I knew her a long time ago, she was my dad’s summons. She’s going to help get you out of here.”

Iruka had glanced at him at the mention of his father – a topic Kakashi rarely discussed – but he frowned when Kakashi brought up leaving.

“I can’t go yet,” he said. “I’m…thinking something over.”

Kakashi hadn’t thought that Iruka would truly consider the wraith’s offer until now. Even as Iruka avoided his eyes, he couldn’t fully believe it.

“That thing told me what it asked you for,” he said. “Iruka, you would have to live here for six months of the year! That’s half your life! And for what? The possibility that there mightbe something here that could help Naruto?”

“I know it sounds crazy,” Iruka said, still looking anywhere but at Kakashi. “And I know it isn’t fair on you. I don’t want to be apart from you either, but if I could really help Naruto have a normal life…that isn’t something I can refuse lightly. He’s suffered so much already, and it’s getting worse. Those nightmares he has…I’m scared the kyuubi is growing stronger. Its mind is spilling into his, and I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know what will happen if we don’t stop it!”

“That isn’t for you to deal with alone,” Kakashi said. “And it won’t help Naruto if you throw yourself into fighting against some worst case scenario that might not even be true. I know it’s been scary to watch him go through this – I’ve been scared too. But the last thing Naruto needs is for you to run away.”

Iruka took a half step back. “I’m not running away!”

“That thing downstairs is peddling you a miracle cure,” Kakashi said. “It’s a snake oil salesman, and I think you know that deep down. But it’s easier, isn’t it, to shut yourself away with its books and feel like you’re doing something for him. That you’re sacrificing something for him. It’s easier than admitting that there might be nothing we can do and he’ll have to live with a monster inside him his whole life.”

Iruka was staring hard at the bookcase behind him, but Kakashi knew he was getting through to him. It was there in the pursed lips and the little wrinkle between his eyebrows. Kakashi just needed to push a little further to get past that last layer of stubbornness.

“You are already making a difference, Iruka,” he said. “We are making a difference.”

“But what if it isn’t enough?” Iruka asked, flinging his hands in the air, and Kakashi understood that frustration intimately. “What if it gets worse and we have to stand by and do nothing? What if he lives his whole life being hated for something that isn’t his fault? I can’t stand it, Kakashi! I have to do something.”

Kakashi grabbed his hands, holding them tightly. “You are doing something. Every single day, you wake him up in the morning, make sure he eats breakfast, and get him to school on time. It might not sound like much because it’s normal, but he wouldn’t have normal without us. He would start and finish every day alone. There would be no one to help him with his homework or make sure he brushes his teeth and goes to bed on time. He would wake in the night and be alone in the world, and that’s what we’re saving him from. We’re giving him all the boring, normal moments that other kids take for granted every day, and that means something.”

“I know,” Iruka said quietly. “I remember what it was like to be a kid without those things. But is it enough?”

“It’ll have to be,” Kakashi said. “Because leaving him for half the year won’t be enough. If there’s a way to take the kyuubi out of him or quieten it down, we can search for it without leaving him alone in the meantime. I couldn’t take care of him alone, Iruka. And I don’t want to. He isn’t the only one who needs you.”

He was still holding Iruka’s hands, and Iruka’s fingers curled around his, tightening.

“I don’t want to be away from either of you,” he whispered. “I want to go home.”

Chiharu cleared her throat. Kakashi had almost forgotten she was there.

“We have to leave now,” she said. “And we have to hurry. Sunrise isn’t far off. If we miss our window, the door will close and you’ll both be stuck here until next spring.”

Iruka’s eyes widened. “Wait, there’s a time limit?”

“Wonder why your new friend forgot to tell you that,” Kakashi muttered. “Let’s get out of here.”

He expected something to try and stop them as they made their way out of the library and back down the stairs, but the palace was just as empty as it had been on the way up. The blue, heatless flames appeared once more to light their way, and Kakashi grew more and more tense with each floor they descended. It couldn’t be this easy.

It wasn’t. The wraith was waiting for them in the hall, standing beneath the moon between the staircase and the door. Its white kimono shone in the light, and it truly seemed like a ghost as it watched them descend.

Chiharu reached the floor first and placed herself between them and the wraith, her hackles rising. Kakashi kept Iruka close enough that he could defend him against an attack from any angle. Just because they hadn’t been attacked on the staircase didn’t mean there wasn’t anything lurking behind them in the dark.

“Have you made a decision?” the wraith asked without any apparent irony. Its cool neutral voice was really starting to get on Kakashi’s nerves.

“I can’t stay here,” Iruka spoke up. “I’m sorry, I can’t sign your contract. I need to go home.”

The wraith didn’t move.

“I implore you to think again,” it said.

Chiharu growled. “It’s stalling to keep us here until there isn’t time to make it back.”

“I figured,” Kakashi said. He tugged a knife from its holster and let the light glint off the blade. The wraith turned its head to look at him and the shadows turned its masked expression into a rictus of agony. “We’re leaving. If you try to stop us, I won’t hesitate to cut you down.”

“The doors are not locked,” the wraith said, still completely calm. “I’m not keeping you here, I am merely talking. Don’t you understand what I’m offering you, Iruka? If you walk away, my library will be closed to you forever.”

Kakashi heard Iruka draw in a long breath, and glanced over to see the struggle on his face.

“You can’t force him,” Chiharu said. “Contracts must be signed willingly or they can’t be enforced. And there are ways to tell, you know that.”

“I wouldn’t dream of forcing his hand,” the wraith said. “He can accept my offer or lose the chance. The choice is his alone.”

Kakashi reached out and grabbed Iruka’s hand, squeezing tightly, and Iruka met his gaze and the war on his face smoothed out.

“We’re leaving,” he said. “And we’re not coming back.”

He dashed forwards, so suddenly that even Kakashi wasn’t expecting it and almost stumbled as Iruka tugged him along behind. He gripped the knife tightly in his other hand, expecting the wraith to try and stop them, but it didn’t move as they rushed past it and slammed the doors open wide. They made it down the steps with Chiharu hot on their heels, and only once they were out in the open space of the clearing did Kakashi glance back over his shoulder to check they weren’t being followed.

The wraith stood in the hall exactly where they’d left it, watching them go.

“It’s really not coming after us?” Iruka panted as Chiharu loped past them and led the way into the lantern-lit forest again.

“That’s not its game,” she called back. “It’s waiting for the sunrise, then it’ll have six whole months to wear you down before the doors open again. It thinks time is on its side.”

Above them, the sky was lightening, the black fading into navy along one side of the sky. Kakashi couldn’t be sure how long they had left. Maybe an hour, maybe less. How long had it taken them to get here from the door? It had felt like a long time.

Luckily, they were all used to running through the forest, and the lanterns lit their way. The whispering seemed to carry them onwards like a tide buoying them towards the shore. Kakashi imagined that the voices were urging them on and that one of them was his father, chanting prayers for their speed. He channelled extra chakra into his legs, never loosening his grip on Iruka’s hand so he could pull him along, not letting him fall behind.

“How much farther?” he barked at Chiharu.

“Not far. When we reach it, we’re going to run right through. Follow me exactly; I can smell it, even if you can’t see it.”

Sunlight was splashing over the horizon. Kakashi couldn’t see much through the thick canopy of leaves, but he could see enough to mark the changing shade of blue. The light of the lanterns was being washed out by the dawn until the candles seemed dull by comparison.

“We’re not going to make it,” Iruka gasped.

Kakashi didn’t reply. He saved his breath, practically dragging Iruka along, focusing all his attention on running in Chiharu’s footsteps and putting all his faith in her to lead them home.

And then she vanished like a shadow in the midday sun, and a second later the air seemed to curl around them and Kakashi’s foot smacked down onto paving stone and he scraped his hip on the back of the shrine as he shot out of the gap between the shrine and the wall. Behind him, Iruka let out a breathless grunt as he also smacked himself on something in the narrow space, bouncing off the wall before they both managed to skid to a halt.

Above Konoha, the clouds were pink and yellow, and as Kakashi panted to catch his breath, he saw the first glimmer of the sun lap the edge of the sky.

Iruka was doubled over, leaning against the wall as he gulped down breaths, and beside him Chiharu was sitting sedately, looking as though they’d been for a light jog and she was politely pretending not to notice how winded her companions were.

“That was a close call,” Kakashi said. “A little too close. Iruka, when we get home we are absolutely having a long talk about stranger danger.”

Iruka gave him a half-hearted glare, face still flushed from exertion.

“I promise not to do it again,” he said between gasps. He turned to Chiharu. “Thank you. I’m sorry I caused so much trouble.”

Chiharu flicked her tail. “Don’t do it again,” she said lightly.

Kakashi meanwhile had gravitated back to the shrine, peering around the back as though he could see the absence of the door. Cautiously, he stuck his arm out into the space, and then when nothing happened he squeezed all the way through the gap and emerged at the other side.

“We’ll have to put a warning sign around here at the next equinox,” he muttered. Then, turning back to Chiharu, he frowned. “Wait, so how are you going to get back to the other world?”

“Since I no longer have a summoning contract, I can’t move freely between worlds,” Chiharu said. “I’ll be here until the spring.”

Iruka’s head shot up. “You’re stranded here? Oh my God, I’m so sorry! I didn’t realise! Is there anything we can do? We could make a contract with you and send you home if you want us to.”

Chiharu seemed extraordinarily unruffled by the prospect of spending six months away from home.

“After Sakumo died, I decided never to bond myself to a human again,” she said. “The loss was too great. I haven’t set foot in the human world since then.” She looked down the street, her gaze roving slowly over the houses. The streetlamps had gone dark, but there wasn’t much movement in the houses yet either and the street itself was empty. “Since I’m here, I might go travelling. There are many places I never got to see, and some I’d like to see again. Places that hold memories.”

“If you need a place to stay between travels, you’re always welcome in our home,” Kakashi said. “You should certainly stay with us for today at least and catch up on sleep. I know Naruto would love to meet you.”

Chiharu inclined her head graciously. “I’m curious to meet him too.”

When they got home, they found Naruto curled up on the couch with Pakkun, both of them asleep, although Pakkun’s eyes snapped open when they entered the room. Iruka hurried over, a lump of guilt and love in his throat, and crouched down next to them, gazing at Naruto anxiously as though he could tell by looking whether Naruto’s dreams had been troubled in the night. It suddenly seemed a terrible thing that he had left Naruto for even one night – how had he ever thought he could be away for half of every year? The very idea was monstrous.

“How was he?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“Didn’t sleep much,” Pakkun said. “But he held up OK.”

“Did he have any nightmares?”

“Not that I noticed. I think he was too exhausted to dream much of anything when he finally passed out.”

Iruka ran a gentle hand through Naruto’s hair. He glanced up at Kakashi, who was standing right behind him and who had pulled down his mask so Iruka could see the soft expression on his face.

“Should we let him sleep a little longer?” Iruka asked.

“He’ll be mad at us if we do,” Kakashi said. “Wake him up. We’ll get him properly into bed once he knows we made it back safely. He can take the day off school. Both of you can.”

“I’m not sure anyone’s going to believe me when I tell them why we need a rest day,” Iruka muttered, but he stroked Naruto’s hair again. “Hey, sweetie. Wake up.”

Naruto’s eyes opened blearily and took a moment to focus on Iruka, but when they did he made a wordless sound of surprise and relief before surging forwards to wrap his arms around Iruka’s neck. Iruka hugged him close, kissing the top of his head.

“You came back,” he said into Iruka’s shoulder, voice muffled and hoarse from sleep, and Iruka had to swallow hard against the ball of emotions in his throat.

“Of course he did,” Kakashi said, crouching down beside them. “I told you I’d bring him home. You didn’t doubt me, did you?”

“No,” Naruto said, raising his head just enough to look at Kakashi without letting go. “You promised so I knew you would, but you took ages! I was waiting all night!”

“Hey, a good rescue takes time!”

“Where’d you go anyway?” Naruto asked, finally pulling back from the hug and sitting up. “Pakkun said somebody took you through a door or something? And…” His eyes widened as he finally spotted Chiharu in the doorway, sitting a respectful distance from the reunion. “Why do you have a wolf with you?”

“She helped save me,” Iruka said, beckoning Chiharu further into the room. “And she’ll be staying with us for a little while so you better be on your best behaviour.”

Chiharu came up to the couch and sniffed at Naruto. There was a moment when Iruka was suddenly worried that she, like the wraith, would smell the kyuubi under his skin and see him only as what he contained, but when Naruto reached out a hesitant hand, she let him stroke her head.

“It’s nice to meet you, Naruto,” she said. Then she glanced up at Kakashi and said, “It seems I have a lot to catch up on. I’m glad you found yourself a family.”

Kakashi wrapped an arm around Iruka’s waist and Iruka smiled and leaned into him.

“I wouldn’t trade them for the world,” Kakashi said.

Naruto rolled his eyes, apparently done with the sappy homecoming already. “But what happened? I want to know where you’ve been! Was it really another world? Was it a monster that took you? Why would a monster want you?”

Iruka caught Kakashi’s eye. They’d been together for long enough that they didn’t need words to communicate, and the same thought passed between them, a conclusion reached with a reassuring squeeze of Kakashi’s hand on his waist.

Iruka rose to sit on the couch, Kakashi sitting on Naruto’s other side so he was safe and protected between them. He was still looking up at Iruka expectantly, unaware that his world was about to be changed with Iruka’s next words. Maybe the time wasn’t right, but the time would never be right. All that mattered was that they were all here together, and they would face the truth and what it meant for them all.

No monster could tear them apart.