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Akemi bought her former genin team gifts, when they graduated for the second time.
Shōkurō was a challenge, given how few things her eldest student was interested in. She settled after consideration on a set of wagashi moulds and tools to go with them, having caught him surreptitiously munching his homemade sweets so many times. If he wasn't going to grow out of his candy habit, she could quietly give it her blessing and help him improve at something he was, at least, dedicated to. A good wagashi artist would hardly lack for a place in Yugakure with its streets of tea houses and souvenir shops, after all; and his rare smile when he unwrapped the package let her know she'd chosen well.
She took a while over Tori, too; but this time due to a surplus of inspiration, rather than a deficiency. In the end she bought her young kunoichi a new, fine obi of silk as pale blue as a watered sky, embroidered with pastel cranes and boughs of cherry blossom. A girl who was destined for the world of flower and willow could never have too many beautiful clothes, and Tori's eyes had shone at the sight of the gift.
Hidan's present took the least time of all to arrange, but that was because there was only one thing she could possibly give him. She tracked him down to the steam pools and invited him to walk with her, and he tagged curiously along at her side as they left the village boundary. "Ne, Akemi-sensei, you know I never mind hanging out with you but where are we going?"
She touched a finger to her lips. "Far enough that the Council won't see us," she told him in a smiling whisper.
His eyes widened with intrigue and he quickened his pace until she had to speed up in turn, and their walk turned into a flying run through the flower-thick woods and a playful chase up the cliff path until they were high above Yugakure, up in the wind and light, hidden behind a grand outcrop of rock that the tourists never cared to walk as far as. Hidan stood fearlessly at the edge of the ravine's three-hundred-foot drop, peering down. "Don't think they can see us from here, sensei," he prompted her.
"No," she agreed, and felt a little guilty that the thought made her shoulders feel lighter. "Here, Hidan-kun. I got you a gift to celebrate your chūnin graduation." She held the little wrapped box out to him. "Something I hope you'll remember me by."
He gave her a startled smile, reaching out eagerly. "Oi, you didn't have to - wait, why do we need to hide from the Council over this? Aren't you supposed to do it or something?"
"Open it and you'll see why," she told him.
Agile fingers pulled the furoshiki wrapping undone and he tucked the pretty red cloth she'd chosen through the belt of his pants, looking at the plain black wooden box for only a moment before he excitedly snapped it open. Orphan, Akemi thought, her heart aching. A child who was never given anything, even when others were...
And then he froze, eyes going round, mouth dropping open. "Oh holy shit, sensei!"
"Language, Hidan-kun," she murmured fondly.
"Yeah, sorry, fuck-" and Akemi bit her lip to hold back her laughter as fingers turned suddenly reverent lifted her gift from the deep-red silk in which it nestled. He curled his hand around the hilt of the elegant black kunai - too easily, too fluidly, too practised for a Yugakure ex-genin and she let herself pretend not to notice - and held it up, shaking it a little so the silver and garnet beads dangling from its red-wrapped hilt clicked together. "Sweet fucking Ja- Sensei, you really - this is mine?!"
"It's yours." She smiled. "Just don't tell anyone it was from me, or I'll be in trouble for encouraging you."
"Yeah - yeah, no shit, got it-" He juggled the box under his arm so he could test the blade on his thumb, drawing a sharp bright line of crimson and catching his breath in more delight than pain, and then he looked up at her and she was shocked to see tears overflowing his dawn-sky eyes. "You don't know what this means to me, sensei," he breathed, his voice shaking. "I literally thought nobody in this shitty village would ever let me carry a blade, let alone give me one. I - I fucking love it, I'll keep it forever-" and then he threw himself at her and she was crushed in strong young arms, her face buried in his neck as he pressed her close. She could feel him trembling as she wrapped her arms around him and patted his back like he was ten again.
She held him tight, and wished she didn't have to let him go. "It's all right," she murmured. "Keep it safe and may it serve you well." She squeezed his shoulder. "The Council should have transferred you to the combat division the moment you were promoted, Hidan-kun. I give you this in the hope that they change their minds."
His breathing hitched and she could feel his tears dripping into her collar as he clung to her. "You're the fucking best, Akemi-sensei... I was so lucky I got you for my jōnin-sensei. Thank you so much, seriously, thank you..."
"It's been my pleasure," she told him, meaning it with her whole heart. "I may not be in charge of you any longer, Hidan-kun, but wherever you may go from here... I'm so very proud of you."
He caught his breath at that and hugged her tighter, and she squeezed her own stinging eyes closed against the wind and sun.