[OP: "Passerine"--The Oh Hellos]

Shine and Wally were in a more relaxed mood, till they got back to the compound and Momo and Camie owned up to what they'd told Shikamaru.

Shikamaru himself had stalked away as soon as they reached the grounds.

Wally had completely forgotten that he didn't know about it--and it made him feel guilty. He'd been upset about not saving them all to begin with, and this made it worse.

Shine was a bit more resigned to it coming out since she expected these things to happen, but she didn't like that he was upset.

"Still, we always knew he might be," she said.

"Does that make it okay?" Momo asked, miserably. "I feel as if we murdered his father ourselves--and Ino's."

Sasuke glanced at them.

No one else was listening in (except for Temari, though she was pretending not to), but Sasuke always had a 6th sense of knowing when something was going wrong in the internal workings of the group, if he thought it might affect him.

He wasn't sure what Momo was talking about though.

Wally gave him a look like "move along", and he pretended to do so, but he just blended into one of the shadows where none of them could see him.

"We didn't murder anyone," Shine insisted. "We tried."

"But the fact is that we really could have done more," Momo said. "I always thought so."

"Sounds like you're reacting this way because you didn't like it either then," Wally said, rubbing his head. "But I feel you, honestly. I never felt like choosing not to save someone was the answer."

"We didn't choose not to save them--we chose not to do it in a way that was giving away too much," Shine said. "We talked about all the ways it could have backfired if we told them directly what would happen. We limited ourselves to warning people about where the bad guys would pop up and what powers they might have. That was risky already. But to tell them exactly what would happen, it doesn't usually prevent those events."

"That's a good point," Wally allowed. "But couldn't we make exceptions that going against people's choice thing? If someone tries to jump off a roof, you should stop them, right?"

"I agree, if you're a normal person," Shine said. "But if you have god-like powers at your disposal, then you have to be careful how you use them. Not going against people's choices is a big part of it. I didn't like it either, but it's how it is."

"But aren't there exceptions to rules?" Camie wondered. "What if we did screw up?"

"Sometimes," Momo said, "it just sounds as if you care more about those rules than about people suffering."

There was a dreadful pause.

Even Sasuke, who didn't like any of them, couldn't believe Momo had said that to Shine.

Temari nearly dropped her fan.

Shine stared at Momo.

Then, the strangest thing of all, she didn't even get mad. Maybe she was too stunned to. Instead she just said the first thing that came into her head:

"I remember a time when you would enver have objected to that openly," she said, strangely. "You have changed, Momo. I'm glad that you've learned to think beyond just rules."

Even Camie thought that was a bit bizarre of a reaction to that.

Momo was flummoxed.

Wally only thought that Shine might break down and cry; he knew her better and knew her weak points more than they did.

Shine, instead of crying in front of them, just smiled oddly and walked away like someone in a  dream.

"Somehow that was way worse than one of her lectures would have been," Camie winced. "Ouch. Geez, Yaomomo, did you have to do her like that?"

"I...can't believe I said that." Momo put a hand to her mouth. "That was so mean."

Wally peered at Momo. "Didn't seem in character for you either, Peaches. What's going on?"

"I don't know..." Momo said. "I guess...she just...sounded cold."

"She's not cold," Camie argued. "A bit abrupt maybe, but cold? Nah, sis."

"Shine's just trying to not let emotion sway her," Wally said. "Out of the two of us, she's much better at that than I am. If it was up to me, we'd have overridden that rule...and what could have happened? We have no idea. Maybe it feels wrong not to do something sometimes, but sometimes the right thing can feel wrong if it's just what you're not used to. I've tried to learn to tell the difference between wrong-evil and wrong-unusual. This one is tricky. Both options seemed risky, and we choose to follow the rules. And you're right, Camie, sometimes rules have exceptions. And I think the Big Guy knows that just as much as we do. But didn't we feel like the answer was no?"

"That way it sounds as if He wants them to die," Momo said.

"I hate to break it to you, kid, but God does decide who lives and who dies," Wally replied, seriously. "Maybe He doesn't kill everyone who dies--I don't think that's quite right--but He intervenes when He can and should, not when we think He should. Death sucks, but it happens to just about everyone. They would have died one way or the other. Could have been worse than it was. At least it was painless. That doesn't make me feel much better, but I've been in the hero biz too long not to know that not everyone can be saved. I'm sorry."

"It's one thing for us to accept that," Momo said, "but how can Shikamaru accept it? I tried to explain, but how cruel must that have sounded to him?"

"Sounds like you snapping at Shine was more about how you felt than how she acted." Camie made one of her oddly astute observations. "That's not fair."

"Maybe it was," Momo admitted. "She acted so strangely about it."

"Shine is proud of you for being able to disagree with her," Wally said, "and for feeling that there's a time not to follow the rules. When we met you, you didn't like doing that, so you've changed. But the rules are also in place to protect us and the people here. They're not just made up, so we can't just go around deciding to make constant exceptions. It's like that no-killing thing. There are times someone should die, but, if you start breaking that rule for one person, how long before everyone is someone who deserves it? And if you save one person, doing something that normally you wouldn't be able to do, how long before it's everyone? And not everyone should be saved, as weird as that sounds. Some people still have to die... It's not for us to make that call, I think, but if it's been made already, and we know it was, sometimes the request to change it gets denied. What can we do then?"

He shrugged. "Shikamaru won't like that answer, but it's the truth."

"Still, it sucks," Camie said.

"I won't argue that," Wally sighed. "I wish we could cheer him up, but I bet we're the last people he wants to hear from right now."

Sasuke walked away from them.

Despite all this being perhaps the best blackmail material he'd heard so far for them, he didn't even think about using it that way. He was far too busy trying to deal with the fact that they had known something like that...

But why was it such a surprise? They knew so much else...they might know who lived and who died also.

So...what did that mean?

Had they known ahead of time what he would do? Did they know if he would live longer than a year? 

And even worse, had they known about what would happen to his family before it ever happened?

That was a terrible question.

But he intended to get the answer to it, and since he was impulsive, he didn't wait long enough to ask if it was a bad idea.

He found Dabi and Bakugo, who were sitting silently while they both studied their respective texts for this part of the troop.

Dabi was on The Screwtape Letters right now.

Bakugo was reading something called A Swiftly Titling Planet. [Great World Walking fiction, btw.]

"Did you know?" Sasuke didn't bother to introduce the subject before he asked them.

"Did...we...?" Dabi looked up blankly. "Are you losing your mind even more now? Don't even realize you didn't actually bring up a subject before you asked us if we knew about it?"

"The h---?" Bakugo also looked up, cross.

"You know things ahead of time," Sasuke said, in a dark voice. "Both of you claim to not be liars, so answer me: Did you know about the massacre before it happened?"

Dabi and Bakugo a look.

Even they couldn't joke about this subject.

Bakugo sat up more, putting the book down.

He never looked this somber.

Dabi also discarded his book and crossed his arms in an uncomfortable way.

Sasuke clenched a fist.

"Before you get all crazy about it," Dabi said, "the simple answer is no."

"No?" Sasuke didn't realize how much he anticipated it being yes till they said that.

"Not before they went." Bakugo gestured at Dabi with his thumb. "They arrived after it happened, remember? They didn't know jacks--- about your world on that trip."

Sasuke felt what might be both relief and slight disappointment.

"We found out about it--" Bakugo gestured at himself. "--Camie and I, but we weren't there, and it wouldn't have mattered. The entry point wasn't till after it happened."

"Entry point?" Sasuke said strangely.

"With every mission, as I understand it," Dabi said, "there's an entry point. You enter the time of a universe at that time, and no matter what you do, you always go forward from that point. To keep time irregularities from happening, I guess. It's hard to imagine if you've never watched any sci-fi crap that talks about it. Shine can explain it much better than we can. But time is like a line going forward, in their view of it. We think of it as circle, cycle after cycle for all eternity, but they think that, though there are cycles, time is still linear. Things don't happen the same way exactly twice, things can't be undone, you get no second life, that kind of thing. So we can't go backward in time. Theoretically, I guess it would be possible."

"In this book--" Bakugo held up his book again. "--they can, but only by going within someone who's alive in that time, or else it would break the time continuum. I guess that's how God is in all time, but we're not. Too many logical problems. So if your question was if they could have gone back and stopped what happened, the answer is a hard no. They can't choose the entry point. That's from Upstairs." He glanced at the ceiling.

"It is?" Sasuke said, not very nicely. "And the Upstairs Management doesn't think that something like that might be worth stopping?"

"There's special reasons why interference happens," Dabi said. "I asked the same question about the crappy things in my society. I got the same answer. People have to be ready for it. Besides, get real, do you think anything we could do would have stopped your brother from doing that? If we can't force people to obey us, what else would have worked?"

"He could be physically stopped," Bakugo pointed out. "But that wouldn't solve anything in the long run. Without killing him, there's no way to be sure he wouldn't have just done it some other time. Leaf put him up to it, so it's not like they'd have locked him up. The ugly facts are that without crossing someone's free will, there was no way to stop that bloody atrocity from happening."

"If he could have been by talking about it, maybe," Dabi shrugged. "But he couldn't be."

"You know that?" Sasuke didn't know why he was pushing this. He of all people should have known Itachi could not be talked out of anything.

"If he could have been, don't you think your parents would have talked him out of it?" Dabi said the harsh truth. "If he wouldn't do that to his own parents, why would some strangers have gotten his attention? I don't think he was much like you in that way--attracted by novelty."

Dabi knowing this about Sasuke was interesting, but not to him.

"That's bulls---." Sasuke didn't really ever curse, but this time it came naturally to him. "Your God cannot be good if He wouldn't intervene to stop something like that. You understand that everyone died, children also... You want me to think that all that is just inevitable?"

Daib and Bakugo exchanged another look.

Shoto walked in. "Is something going on?" he said, with a warning glance at Sasuke.

Sasuke was beyond caring if Shoto was there, and the other two knew Shoto should tread carefully on this subject.

"I'd watch it with this one, Snowflake," Dabi said. "This one ain't an ordinary problem."

Shoto was shocked enough by Dabi saying this to hold back his first thoughts. 

Bakugo rubbed his neck. "Those questions aren't the ones for amateurs to answer," he told Sasuke tightly. "It's a lot to do with free will, and a lot to do with the world being given to evil to begin with. It's an uphill battle for good to win, that much we know. But it has to. Not every battle is won though. If you want to know the real answer for that, you'd have to ask someone who knows more than us."

"Might be only God could answer," Dabi said. "I didn't get it either, how God can be all good and all powerful and bad things still happen to innocent people. Some people say no one is innocent because we're all born in sin, but that's not quite right either. "

Despite him saying that wasn't right, Sasuke had to wonder to himself if the Uchiha Curse could be behind this.

Could the Divine power just have decided that his clan was too corrupted or too imbalanced to live? Did that make it right, what Itachi did?

He'd already tried to resign himself to that by thinking that Itachi made a choice to protect Leaf out of genuine care for it...

But hearing this was starting to show him that he'd never really believe that. Loyalty to one group of people didn't demand slaughtering another group. 

Did that group being cursed really make a difference? Itachi hadn't known about that when he did it, Tobirama was just trying to justify his suppression of the Uchiha clan. What made them vulnerable to that massacre to begin with was that they were isolated. If other people had lived near them it could never have happened so quickly.

Itcahi must have at least seen that the Uchiha clan was set up by Leaf to be easy targets...so why had he chosen to side with Leaf?

The same sick feeling that he had when the nightmares had gone instantly seized Sasuke, and he thought he might throw up.

His eyes turned red.

Shoto tensed, but Dabi grabbed his arms before he could move forward.

"You do something to set him off and he could erupt with that dark stuff," he said in a low voice. "I don't like the look in his eyes."

Bakugo, who was good at reading people's intentions, didn't think that Sasuke was looking at them anymore. He seemed to be lost in his own tormented thoughts.

Still, he might do anything when he was in one of those moods.

Was it the will of God that the Uchihas died...? Was Itachi in the right? Or was it something that would never make any sense no matter how long he tried to understand it...? And if not everything made sense, would he ever be able to get rid of the feeling that he hadn't settled the matter? That nothing about Itachi's demise had really clarified anything...?

Sasuke ran from the room abruptly.

"Is he going?" Shoto asked. To his credit, he didn't sound happy about it.

"I don't think he's running away," Dabi said, still tensed. "But he looked like he was about to puke."

"That conversation stirred something up," Bakugo said. "He's going to lose his crap now if someone doesn't stop him. Shine's the only one who could get through to him now. He doesn't trust us enough to listen to us."

"He doesn't trust her either," Shoto said.

"He trusts her the most of anyone," Bakugo said flatly. "And much as I don't like that prick, this is real s--- we're talking about. It's not that you can just blow off because he's a jackass. "

"I agree," Shoto said. "Whatever he'd done since, that tragedy was at least something that was beyond his control, and we can't lump it in with his other choices...but I don't think that we can do anything to help him either. If it happened to me, I wouldn't know how to live with it."

"But he's got to learn how to live with it," Dabi said flatly. "Because it's not reversible."

"Better warn Shine," Bakugo said. "He'll go for her as soon as he thinks of it."

"Again, I don't think he will," Shoto said. 

"You don't know a d--m thing, Icyhot," Bakugo said.

* * *

Shine was trying to calm down after her earlier kerfuffle...and Bakugo coming into her room to warn her didn't help.

But at least she knew what to expect.

"I think you did the best you could," she said, after hearing what they'd told Sasuke. "It's a difficult question. Always has been. I think we're so used to justice being a given in our society that we ignore that for many people, senseless cruelty was the norm if there was enough power. God intervening at all would have been stranger to them, not that He didn't interfere. Power used to decide everything. Reason and justice are newer standards to human civilizations."

"That won't help," Bakugo said.

"I know," Shine said. "Sometimes I just like to get a more distant perspective on things, to remind myself that the modern view is not the only view. We're often very entitled because we're used to the weak being defended and not brutalized in our world. And that should be how it is, but it's not always how it is. Job did not question that God was good even after he lost everything, as a good man."

"That story is so weird," Bakugo said. "Still don't know why God didn't tell the devil to frick off."

"God had to show that love cannot be bought," Shine said. "If Job has stopped loving him after losing everything, then he only loved God for his blessings, as the devil said. If God had not let the test happen, then Job would have looked bad. God proved that Job was righteous by testing him, and he proved that love for God can be pure. That's rare. Most people go to God for what he will do for them, even Christians. Never just because they love God Himself. There are things more important than temporary suffering."

"Just wasn't it hard on Job's family?" Bakugo said.

"That part is hard to understand," Shine said. "Who but God could decide that it was right for them to die to prove a point? Yet they were taken care of by their father, so it's not as if they suffered eternal damnation if they were righteous. In that sense, were they worse off than if they'd lived another 200 years? Perhaps at that point, they would have not been so well pardoned."

"Isn't that just a guess?" Bakugo said.

"Is it?" Shine said. "Or is it rational? God would not punish one person for someone else's sins, but not all suffering is a punishment. Sometimes it's hard for us to understand that people don't always die because they are evil...but that's the whole point of Job, isn't it? Bad things happen to good people as well as evil. And we shouldn't assume we know which it is when we're not God. This is the limit of my wisdom, Katsuki. If there is a better answer, I'm happy to hear it. Do you have one?"

"No," Bakugo said. "This stuff is weird to me. But I can tell you that answer won't satisfy Uchiha."

"No, he has no faith," Shine sighed. "But what would satisfy someone like that?"

"Then how would he ever believe that God is good?" Bakugo said. "Sometimes we barely can believe that."

"I don't know. It would take a miracle," Shine said. "This all happening together on the same day...feels almost planned...but this conversation was inevitable. He was always going to ask us once he knew who we were."

"Probably," Bakugo agreed. "Took a freaking risk telling him the truth so soon."

"Even Sasuke must be granted the dignity of a choice made as if he can make it rationally," Shine said. "Even though we may think he won't do it. But it's still his right, as a human being, to get a choice. So somehow, I think waiting would have made any difference in any significant way." She tugged her hair. "I hope."

"I'm getting out of here before he comes looking for you," Bakugo said. "Yell if he tries to do anything crazy."

"Sure," Shine said. "Tell Wally to be on standby, actually."

Bakugo nodded and left.

* * *

Sure enough, not long after, Sasuke did come looking for Shine.

She'd moved to a more open room that seemed to have once been a foyer from the look of it. They were using it as their sitting room in this building.

She figured it would be harder for him to corner her if he did try to do something crazy, but she didn't expect him to.

Sasuke hadn't calmed down, really, from earlier--he'd just thrown up into a bush. He hadn't made it to the bathrooms.

But he still felt kind of queasy. He gave Shine a dark look.

"Katsuki mentioned to me what you talk about." Shine decided to spare him needing to explain it. She clasped her hands around her knees. "I can't really think it's going to be an easy conversation."

Sasuke only cut his eyes at the news that she already knew.

"You're all hypocrites," he said.

This didn't surprise Shine at all... She knew it would be something like that.

"Why?" she asked slowly.

"You pretend to find it reprehensible, the things that the shinobi did," Sasuke said, with more bitterness than most teenagers could have mustered, and it made him sound very old. "But at the same time, the God you claim to serve allows those same things to happen--and could have sent people to stop them before it happened but didn't. So you lied."

"I've never lied about it," Shine said evenly. "I've never claimed otherwise."

"It's a lie to act one way but actually think another," Sasuke said.

"You're right, it is," Shine said, sitting up more. "And you're lying right now, then."

"What?" Sasuke said, eyes becoming red again.

"You have every reason to hate what happened," Shine said. "I've never said otherwise, if you'll recall...and I think this anger is not really about me but about that. So I won't take it personally. But you can't do this without cutting off the limb you're standing on. If you want to claim that all this should have been stopped by God, then you must also claim that He should have stopped you from doing everything that you ever did wrong. Leaving the village, working for Orochimaru, killing people, trying to destroy others. Trying to do the same thing that Itachi did. If you were more righteous than him, or than God, why would you try to do what he did? And God, not stopping you, at least not by force, also did not stop him. If you wish for that, then what point is there to you having a choice at all, good or evil?"

Sasuke glared at her more.

Granted, it was a fair point. But he was not in the mood for fair.

"Atrocities are not something to turn into a point by point argument," he said. "Either you think they're wrong or they're not, and if they are wrong, then they should be stopped. It's not that complicated."

"You're the second person today to say that, about two entirely different incidents," Shine said, thoughtfully. "And it's hard to argue with that, because it sounds so right, on the surface. How can not stopping an atrocity be the correct choice? But in another way, it's nonsensical to ask God to micromanage us and still call it living a life, not being like a machine or a vegetable, incapable of choosing anything for ourselves. Some people end life that way...but who would want to live their whole life that way? If we can live, then we can do evil... Even an animal can obey or disobey... Sasuke, these particulars won't make you feel better. I recognize that...but neither will your desire to defame everyone else in order to prove that you're right to hate them."

Sasuke blinked at her strangely.

"There is the fact that tragedy is real," Shine said. "And no one should deny that fact. Those fools in Leaf who would try to call that massacre an act of loyalty to the village should all be hanged, if they wouldn't recant that. But, two wrongs do not make a right. There is a right and wrong way to react to tragedy, and all of us decide on it based on our worldview. Your decision was that revenge makes thinks equal. But that's almost like saying that one person's life is equal to another. That you can trade a guilty man's life and buy back the worth of the hundreds of innocent people he killed. All that punishing him does is stop more from suffering. It won't bring back anyone else."

Sasuke didn't like the effect her words were having on him, like he might break into a thousand pieces if she kept talking.

"Shut up!" he exploded. "None of that makes it what you would call right. I already know that things can't be undone. You're the one who wants to make that out to be not evil."

"Evil is not undone," Shine said. "It's rectified by good overcoming evil. Nothing could ever make what happened to the Uchihas okay...but there might be a way to surpass the evil. God is only good... Man is not incapable of evil. I can't lie to you about it. It would be worse to tell you that what happened was not as bad as it seems, wouldn't it? But I can't agree that that makes us hypocrites. Did I tell you that my own people have suffered similar things to your clan, and they are known as the chosen people of God. And Christians have been slaughtered by the thousands and millions, and we claim to be the closest to Him."

Sasuke stared at her blankly now.

"If that's all true, then how could you ever serve such a God?" he said.

"Perhaps because humans killed Him also," Shine said.

That shocked and confused Sasuke further.

"Didn't you get that far yet?" Shine asked. "God Himself has died...brutally. And He was innocent. I can't give you all the answers, Sasuke... I'm not sure you're even asking me for them, right now. You're angry. And I get it. I was angry about this stuff, and I have questions about it...but I know two things: One is that God is good. Evil does not change that, and evil was not His idea. It is something that we choose for ourselves. So to point fingers at him for it seems unfair, asking Him to clean up our mess. And the one thing I know is that, despite that, He has done just that. But not all at once. While time turns, there will still be choices. And when there is choice, there will still be evils. I know that God does not delight in suffering, and I know that He punishes people, but he also shows mercy far more often than He punishes."

She stood up. Perhaps she felt this warranted standing up.

Sasuke was shaking his head at her, but he didn't know why. Maybe it was a rejection of what she was saying.

"Your pain is warranted," Shine went on, steadily. "We will never lie to you about that. Go on and feel the pain, if that's what you need to do. Anger is also warranted. But don't let that excuse believing things that are not true. There is one fact you need to remember in all this: Itachi killed the clan. God did not put that Sharingan into his eyes--in fact it's an abominable power to God. God did not make it. God did not make him do a thousand little things that led up to that moment, or make the Leaf elders decide to obliterate innocent people. God does not punish the innocent or plot against them. But the evil one does. There are all kinds of matters of authority and war that factor into why these things happen, but it's not God's perfect will for innocent people to die. I think the word is clear on that. If it frustrates you that God may even have reasons He cannot interfere in these cases, then trust me, you're not alone in that. I believe that God is angry with the wicked every day. At some point, those of us who follow Him have to accept that not all evils can be stopped so easily, or God would stop them. But why not stop the first evil ever also then? It's just not the simple."

She sighed. "This is not what you want to hear, is it?"

Sasuke was starting to feel like fighting her was not worth the effort... She would have an answer to anything he said, whether he believed her answers or not.

What surprised him was that he thought he could tell she wasn't bluffing. She really did have unanswered questions also--and she still wasn't wavering.

Since doubt had always made Sasuke abandon the people around him, he couldn't understand at all someone who could admit to having questions and yet not doubt, not in any significant way.

His mind had calmed a little bit though... At least this was something that he could fight...sort of... It was better than the blind panic of remembering the past.

"I have a question," he said in a cold voice, but less worked up sounding. "Did this God of yours ever allow anything to happen to you that was senseless and evil, and you still trust Him?"

Shine tilted her head. "Yes," she said. "All of us have something like that."

Sasuke didn't think she'd own up to it so easily. "What?" Blankly.

"What was it? Or what do I mean?" Shine asked.

"The first one," Sasuke said, though he had more of meant the second one.

Shine sighed. "It will sound small to you, but my father abandoned me, basically, when I was young. Younger than you are now. And he hated me... Some of it went back to when I was just an infant, and some of it was that he didn't like my personality. To this day, we're not on good terms. And it has been one of the biggest sorrows of my life... There are others." She pursed her lips. "I didn't understand why God allowed it for a long time. My father even claims to be a believer. I didn't know how anyone who claimed that could be like he was...but I think I understand it now."

Sasuke had really hoped to be able to mock her for this--and he probably would have if it wasn't something that had used to bother him about his own father...actually possibly a little worse for her.

"Were you born cursed or something?" he asked instead.

Shine didn't react to that being a more sympathetic question than expected. She just shook her head.

"I was born sickly," she said. "But that wasn't it. It was never that that bothered him--it was that I fought him. You may have noticed I'm not the person who's the most relenting. I loved my father, but he always scared me...and I started to fight it after a certain point. He could see it. He hated me for fearing him, but later he hated me for fighting him while being afraid. He's an unbalanced man."

Again, that was too easy for Sasuke to relate too...and he didn't like that.

A pause ensued.