Notes: I won't always state the lesson beforehand, because sometimes it just makes more sense to just read the story. Less chance of ruining it and all. Someone made the point on my LJ, but the Sake Friday in question is just the one night of the week Kyouji and Arashi get as drunk as humanly possible. There's also a minor reference to Shinobi Tea. You don't have to read that to understand this one, but it'll help with understanding Kyouji's character. He can be quite judgemental.

Disclaimer in Lesson 1.

Lesson 2

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The topic of death comes up three days after Izumo's brother hangs himself in the Kamizuki clan gardens. By this point in time, Izumo has been working with his psychic/more than mildly empathic abilities for six months and is drawing off Kotetsu's near-unshakable calm to stave off his family's and to quell his own hurt at the clan heir's actions. Normally, Izumo leeches off Kyouji-sensei, but the jounin is troubled, and not by this suicide. The ache barely resonating from his sensei is an old one, maybe because of a suicide of someone Kyouji knew, Izumo thinks.

Kyouji exhales. "You know there will come a time to die. Death is one of the few constants in the shinobi lifestyle."

"My brother didn't die on the field," Izumo says tightly, trying to dispel the growing need to vent his frustration. "He failed a mission, and decided he couldn't deal with the dishonour, like he was some fucking samurai-"

A sharper wave of (remembered) pain hits Izumo unexpectedly, and for a second he sees a man-where is the mask, this man should have a mask- and a tanto and a cup of tea –

-and then Kotetsu is hauling Izumo back into a sitting position, telling him to snap out of it, he's going to give Kotetsu a heart attack one of these days. Kyouji-sensei's eyes flicker with something akin to guilt before he looks away and tells them, "For some people, dying looks to be the only option. But what's harder than dying for an ideal, a village, a single person, is to live for them through it all."

Kotetsu wonders about the story behind those cryptic words, Izumo is afraid he already knows, and Kyouji makes a mental note to see if Sake Friday can again come on a Monday.

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Years later, Izumo will be substituting for Iruka when the topic of death again comes up. He will tell these children pretty much the same thing Kyouji-sensei told Kotetsu and him when they were barely the age of these pre-gennin. A few boys won't be paying attention, most notably the Uchiha and an Inuzuka, but the Nara boy will be awake for once, and a boy with hair as bright as Yondaime's had been is strangely alert as Izumo talks.

"Oy," the blonde will pipe up. "What if what you're living for, y'know, goes away? Or that person who's so important dies? What then?" There will be no challenge in his voice, only curiousity.

Izumo will close his eyes and try not to think of a man who lived for one person so long and so fully gave his entire self for that one person that he couldn't find the answer to that very question. "Then you live for what's left. You live for yourself."