AN: Set in the Scarlet Spiral world and dedicated to my fellow players there. Scarlet Spiral can be found here

It was hard to tell the dawn mist from the clouds of smoke. The whole block of buildings was gone, leaving nothing but a few smoldering, charred beams poking up into the grey sky like the ribs of a crow-scavenged corpse. The smell of death and ash was heavy in the air, and the mask tied over Genma's nose and mouth did almost nothing to filter the stench. He used a long-handled spade to sift through the remains of his family's home, almost relieved when he couldn't find anything more recognizable than a few shards of broken ceramics.

All over Konoha that morning, shinobi and civilians alike were digging through the rubble of their beloved village. The demon fox was vanquished, but it felt like a defeat, not a triumph. Their young and handsome fourth hokage was dead, and with him what seemed like half the village's ninja population. And all of its hopes for the future.

When Genma's shovel pried up a chunk of blackened roof tile to reveal the fluttering pages of a calendar, he stopped, stooping to pick up the fragile thing with clumsy, gloved fingers. He looked like a wraith, with fine, powdery ash coating his black and grey ANBU uniform. Sweat dripped down his dirty brown hair and made rivulet along his temples, soaking into the fabric that covered his lower face. His left shoulder bore the blood-red spiral mark of his commitment to his village. His right the blood he'd shed himself trying to defend it in that chaotic night.

The calendar was a commonplace thing, what was left of it. The picture was mostly burned away, but the month was still turned to October, the days marked with the quotidian events that no longer had any meaning. There in Genma's sister's neat penmanship were the annotations of a life no longer to be lived. Appointments that wouldn't be kept. Groceries that were no longer needed. He almost wanted to keep it. It was hers after all, and even if she was dead, somehow Yumiko seemed to live on in the pages of this calendar.

Genma blinked and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of one gloved forearm, smearing black ash across his already filthy brow, and wincing when the action ground the stinging mixture into a cut over one eye he'd almost forgotten about. He stared at the calendar a moment more before turning and placing it carefully in the little pile of things he'd rescued: a single, unbroken rice bowl, a silver picture frame engraved with his family name, the memorial tablets for his mother and father, the scorched horn handle of his younger sister's cane.

He dug for another hour before he turned up the shrine. It was seared and blackened, one door was gone, and the little twisted rice straw rope was burned through, hanging in a mocking tatter as if the gods themselves had deserted their own sanctuary when the demon attacked. Genma carried it in weary arms, stumbling a little before setting it reverently with the other relics of his family. It was heavy, weighed down with sorrow and death and loss, and he almost couldn't go on with his digging after he found it.

But there was still something missing. Something critical. Something he had to see with his own eyes to know for sure. To know for sure that there was no turning back. He found it at the back of the house. Or where the back of the house would have been. A wheelchair. Haruko's wheelchair. Haruko, his baby sister who had suffered so much after the Fox's first attack four years ago when she was only nine. Haruko who had wanted to be a ninja like her big brother and sister. Like their mother and the father she didn't even remember. Who was denied that life by a demon who took no more notice of her than a woodland fox would of a tick.

There was some proverb about lightning not striking the same tree twice, wasn't there, Genma thought, standing there in the ash. It was a lie. What karmic twist had ensured that innocent Shiranui Haruko should be struck down twice by the Kyuubi? He kicked the bent circle of one of the chair's now-useless wheels, coughing at the cloud of dust that rose up to envelop him. When it settled, he dropped to his knees and sifted through the grit, picking out one slender, knobby ivory tube.

Genma was a ninja. He was an ANBU Hunter. He was an assassin. He knew a phalange when he saw one. A finger. Haruko's finger. He slipped it into a pocket of his vest, rose to his feet in a parody of grace, and pushed his way blindly out of the wreckage. His eyes, like the eyes of all the Hidden Leaf ninja and civilians digging through the acrid, smoking ruins of their homes, were red-rimmed and glassy.

It would be eight months before he would actually cry. Kneeling in his apartment in front of the rescued and repaired shrine, and wearing a necklace made of bone, Genma would light a stick of incense and watch the wisps of smoke drift lazily towards the ceiling. He would stare into the depths of a home of gods he wasn't certain he even believed in anymore. He would stare at his splinted hands, still healing after a mission that had nearly reunited him with his lost family, and with all the bitterness of a child who has lost everything, Genma would cry himself sick.

But for now... For now all he could do was keep digging.

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