Open Where The Heart Is | [Req. Yong & Nao]

[Senju Akio]

The sun hung low against the horizon, bleeding warm light across the rooftops of Maple Town as Akio and Yong crested the final rise that gave them their first real look at the still-new Sakurako Clan compound. Akio’s breath caught, not from exhaustion, though the road had been long, and not from awe. Though the compound was familiar, he couldn't help but take note of how quietly different everything felt now. The air at his former home alongside Nao felt physically lighter after the years he’d spent under the pressure of the shoreline’s oceanic realm. It had been thirty days in this world since they slipped back here, back into a time that seemed to barely notice his absence, yet Akio carried half a decade in the way he stood, the way his shoulders sat more grounded, the way his eyes scanned with measured calm instead of raw urgency, and in the physical appearance of his body itself. Whoever he was now, he wasn’t the boy who had run into the hospital those many years ago, driven by spitfire resolve and an emotion-first thought-second attitude. He was older, quieter and sharper and grown.

A breeze drifted through the compound’s gates, warm with the promise of dusk, stirring the banners that marked this place as clan territory. Akio’s eyes narrowed, not with suspicion, but with the sense that a new chapter was beginning, one he could now meet with intent instead of reaction. He exhaled slowly, letting the years he had earned settle into the breath, and took another step forward. Yong walked beside him, characteristically steady and deliberate, his presence as heavy as the realm that the two had lived in for those years. Akio remembered his words. "What comes next... is simply necessary." They were here for the same reason he'd entered the Goddess' Realm. Necessity~. Nao was in danger. Yong’s words had been stoic and sure on that point, and the grown Senju wasn't about to let down the man who had taught him, helped raise him, and took him in when he was young and lost. Here, at the home of Clan Sakurako, they might find answers. Or if not, Akio hoped that at least they'd find the man he sought to help.

 

[Wee Yong]

Yong moved through Nao’s compound with deliberate, measured steps. He had only intended to displace Akio and himself for a moment, not a month. Time outside had slipped past them differently, and Yong feared Nao might have suffered more in their absence than they could have imagined.

Five years away, one month gone.

The math still felt wrong.

Wood creaked softly beneath his steps, familiar in the way one remembers the texture of a place after long absence. Konoha’s air smelled faintly of smoke and old cooking, warm and domestic, but something underneath it felt thin, stretched, like a membrane pulled too tight. Yong’s gaze flicked briefly to Akio as they moved, then ahead.
They found Nao in the kitchen.

Nao was near the counter, posture stiff, breaths uneven, trying far too hard to look untouched.

Yong saw it immediately.

Nao you proud idiot.

Nao swayed, knees buckling. The world lurched, but Yong was already moving.

One instant he was beside Akio.The next he was there, arm snapping around Nao’s shoulders, guiding him safely down.
Yong eased Nao to the floor, green light pulsing softly through his hands. The faint hum of chakra filled the kitchen, subtle and steady. He pressed gently against Nao’s chest and back, feeling the rhythm beneath his hands, the pulse of life intertwined with sheer will. Each breath, each movement carried the weight of the years Nao had endured. Yong let himself simply be there, grounding himself in the fragility and determination in front of him.

Yong glanced at Akio. “Nao’s heart is gone. This isn’t new. I have been aware of it for some time. What is happening now though… that is something else entirely.”

His eyes fogged, partial Sage Mode threading through him, and the edges of the kitchen blurred as the spiritual plane opened beneath his senses. Currents of unseen energy brushed against him, faint and restless.

Yong reached outward, following ripples that were scattered, subtle, and uncertain. Perhaps at the market, maybe the graveyard, possibly the casino, the forest, even the prison. None were clear, only impressions, hints of imbalance spreading beyond the walls of the compound. Something had shifted, something beyond Nao.

“Something has been disturbed,” Yong said quietly, voice steady. “And it did not start with him.”

He scanned the compound again, senses stretching outward as far as he dared, feeling the strength of Nao’s resilience beneath his hands, aware of every subtle change, every breath, every slight movement.

For the first time since stepping back into the world, Yong felt it clearly.

Something was seriously wrong with the Land of Fire.
Yong lowered his voice, quiet but urgent, letting it reach Nao.

“Stay with me. Keep breathing.”

(Ooc: godmodded Nao with permission. Topic entered)

 

[Sazuki Nao]

Nao cursed quietly under his breath as he reached for the heavy cast-iron pan. A sharp and agonizing throb pulsed from his chest, radiating outwards like an icy flame. 'Damn it...' Were his thoughts as he gritted his teeth. He only had a sliver of time before the pain would completely overwhelm him, making it impossible to even string together a coherent thought... Let alone make dinner for the kids.

He was trying to make Gyoza pan-seared with a complex dish of rice, vegetables, and meat, besides that... A receipt that was passed down from his mother. Tonight... He needed the comfort of the warm, familiar flavors more than ever. But the preparations were proving to be a race against his own body.

He managed to wrestle the pan onto the burner, the clang enoing a little too loudly in the apartment... Sweat beaded on his forehead as he fumbled with the knife, trying to julienne the carrots before the pain completely took his motions. Each movement was like a battle, his breath coming in ragged gasps.... He managed a few sad-looking carrot strips before the world began to swim.

A sense of time was something that was slipping from him; he had no idea how long he was already standing here in the kitchen like that... But he barely noticed that someone had come into the house. He wanted to yell, tell them to go away, but his throat was constricted with pain... He just gripped the counter, knuckles white and trying to stay up. Once the footsteps were near, he had managed to do a single step. Knees buckling but standing... But even that seemed to fail. All he finally managed to do was press the button on his headset, which produced only a static noise.

It was that Yong managed to get in time to him, but otherwise the kage would probably have made a smack to the ground. Today... was one of the worst ones he had in a long while. While Yong was guiding him down, he only managed to weakly shake his head, unable to articulate the agonizing burning in his chest.

While Yong was working on him, Nao lay on the ground, trying to hang on to whatever was happening. His face was pale, his breath ragged, and sweat was falling down his forehead. From the pain, his body replied with holding his breath, breathing, holding... It was getting disturbed, and for a moment it seemed to get worse before slowly calming.

Through the spiritual plane, you could faintly notice the changes that came through the land. Once Nao seemed to settle under the hands of Yong, the spiritual plane eased up just a little, too.

 

[Senju Akio]

The moment Akio stepped into his childhood mentor's home, he felt it. Something was wrong. It was the same wrongness he had felt in the air earlier, the same subtle pull that told him something in the Leaf had slipped out of alignment while he was gone. The world had not waited while he was gone training with Yong, and neither had whatever was spreading through it.

Nao was still upright when Akio saw him, but only barely. One hand braced against the counter, the other drawn tight against his chest. His breathing was uneven, shallow one moment and too deep the next, every inhale looking like it took more effort than the last. Akio stopped just inside the threshold, the instinct to rush forward rising fast and sharp before being checked by something heavier. He looked into Nao's eyes as he fell. He'd seen that expression before, too many times, especially in the height of the Red River Virus. Nao himself had taught him how to recognize that look.

Akio moved closer anyway, steps quiet, measured. He watched without speaking, eyes already tracking color, breath, pulse, the small tells that had been drilled into him by the former medical Sennin since he an academy student, barely old enough to follow real med-nin around in the Byoin. "Sweat at the temples. Tension in the jaw. Pulse... Wh-where's the..." He couldn't sense it. Nao... had no pulse? It hurt more than he expected to realize that he had no idea what to do. There was no clear wound to close, no signs of toxin to draw out, nothing to stitch or bandage or cauterize or heal with chakra. And he knew well, if Nao had known a way to stabilize whatever condition ailed him, he would have done it already. After all, he was one of the most legendary healers in the history of Konoha. Akio stared wide eyed, that truth heavy in his heart, fighting the surge of emotion that pounded into his chest and made his muscles tense. "If whatever this is goes beyond what even Nao-sensei can handle, what can I~ do?!" His mind desperately called out, so desperately that he froze when his mentor's knees buckled.

Yong was there. Of course he was. Hands steady on Nao's shoulders, posture calm in that way that never mistook control for detachment. Akio glanced up at him briefly, then back to Nao. He remembered being younger, being convinced that persistence and heart and being willing to grow could solve anything if you worked hard enough. Five years under the shoreline had taught him otherwise. Some things did not yield to effort. Some things only yielded to understanding, and even then not always in time.

"Sensei... Nao…" The name left him quietly. It felt like so long since he'd said his prior parental figure's name. He wanted to help. The urge was almost physical, a pressure behind his sternum, the same feeling that used to send him charging headfirst into danger because standing still felt like a betrayal of those he cared about. Now it felt different. Now it felt like standing at the edge of deep water, knowing that diving in and thrashing about would only pull him under faster. So he just knelt down next to Nao, close enough to be present, far enough not to make things worse.

Akio's eyes lifted to Yong again, and this time he held another look he'd seen too many times in the days when the virus had so much of Leaf bedridden and comatose, the look of a medical practitioner that didn't know how to help a patient. "What happened?" he asked. The words came out low, not panicked like they might have been a month prior. They carried worry anyway, heavy and unhidden. "If he can't fix this… How can...?" He trailed off, breath tightening, fighting off his instincts and emotions. Nao was not just his mentor. He was the man who had taken him in when he had been raw and angry and heartbroken, barely holding together after the deaths of his best friend and his grandfather. He was the one who had taught him how to heal hands and hearts, how to sit with suffering instead of run from it. Seeing him like this made something old and painful stir in Akio, something that reminded him too much of nights spent waiting beside beds he couldn't save when the virus was at its peak.

Akio looked down again, fingers curling once against his knee before he forced them still. "I'm still learning," he said quietly. "You know that... If even someone like Nao-sensei is struggling… then what did we come back to, Yong? What are we supposed to do?" The question was not just about Nao. It was also about the village, the way the weather wouldn't settl, the shifts in chakra in the air. Akio could feel it in the trees, in the soil, in the way his own Natural Energy responded to the land now. Something was wrong, and it felt bigger than one man, no matter how important that man was to him. The village felt like it was holding its breath, waiting for something he couldn't see yet.

He stayed kneeling there, close but careful, eyes never leaving Nao's face. "Tell me, sensei..." Akio said again, softer this time, not sure which of his teachers he was pleading to. "Please." But the now-grown Senju did not cry like he would have were he younger. He did not raise his voice like the boisterous and effervescent child he once was. But the need to understand, to do something, to not be helpless in the face of another person he loved slipping beyond his reach, was written plainly in the way he waited for an answer, an answer that he wasn't sure anyone even had.

 

[Wee Yong]

Yong listened as the pieces came together. Nao’s unease, Akio’s questions, the subtle but undeniable sense that something in Konoha was off. Whatever this was, it was not sudden. It had been building quietly, seeping into the village’s spiritual foundation, and now it was finally loud enough to be felt.

Yong answered plainly, eyes narrowing just slightly as he looked between them. “Something is spiritually wrong with Konoha. It’s not random, and it’s not natural.”

His gaze settled on Nao. “You’re feeling it more sharply because of your dragon nature, aren’t you? You resonate with the land. When its balance shifts, it pulls at you first.”

He shifted slightly, placing himself closer to Nao without making a show of it. “I can keep you stable. I might even be able to draw answers out of whatever you’re sensing.”

Turning to Akio, Yong folded his arms. “I will keep Nao alive and safe here. That’s not in question.” His tone was steady and final.

“For now, you’re more useful elsewhere. Find the source of the disturbance. Do not engage unless you have to. I want information before confrontation.”

“Stay on headset contact at all times. The moment you sense a change, you report it.”

He exhaled slowly. “Whatever this is, it’s rooted deep. And it knows Konoha well.”