Caught in the act of digging through the hall closet, presumably in his quest to find Zabuza, Gai spins, already beaming. “Yosh! Are you prepared for our day of challenges and manly combat?” For a long moment Zabuza stares at him. Then, carefully, he takes a deep breath and growls, “No. I have my own plans. I bought a massive dildo and I'm going to go stuff it up my ass until my arm gets tired. So unless you want to help me get off, you should fuck off.”

All of this, Kakashi would like it noted, is because he has terrible friends.

“Who is Team 7’s new sensei?” Iruka demands in horror, voice breaking about two octaves higher than is probably appropriate for a man his age. Tsunade doesn’t even look up from her paperwork. “The Uchiha brat,” she says. And then, after a beat, “Wait, no, that’s Shisui. The other Uchiha brat. The one who dragged me back to this damn village to begin with.”

“I just want to go home,” he tells Nagato, and hates that he sounds so very much like the crybaby child Kakashi always calls him. Nagato's expression twists, grief and sympathy all wrapped up and tangled together. He catches Obito's bandaged face in his hands, leans in to touch their foreheads together, and it’s closer to anyone than Obito has been in years. “I know,” Nagato says, hoarse. “I know, Obito. But we can save everyone we love, we can save the world. All it takes is our sacrifice. And someday, when we’ve put everything to rights, we can go back. We can live in a good world with everyone we care for, and know that we’ll never lose them to war. Isn't that worth it?”

It’s always been something of a point of pride, for Ponds, that he never really has to worry about his general.

When he rejoins the Order in the middle of the Clone Wars, all Ferus wants is to help as many people as possible. An emergency mission lands him in control of the 501st before he even has time to catch his balance, though, and the disappearance of the Chancellor means there's no time to waste. The galaxy's Deep Core is a treacherous maze of deadly planets and old traps, and fighting their way through is the sort of thing that would push Ferus to his limits, even without a squad of clones to protect at the same time.

With a sound of quiet sympathy, Kit reaches out, tapping his knuckles lightly against Rex's pauldron. “Forgive me, Captain, but I believe you would be far more comfortable without your armor. The beach cannot be a pleasant place for you right now.” Rex pauses, almost startled by the idea of taking his armor off. He’s on a mission, or at least the disastrous tail end of one, and unless he’s on leave, he almost never strips down to his blacks. And it’s been…months, since his last stretch of leave that wasn’t cut off before it even started. “Oh,” he says dumbly, and then flushes, reaching for the clasps on his armor. “Right, sorry, sir.”

“I'm not going to stay with the ship,” Anakin says, outraged. Savage closes his eyes, not quite praying for patience, but—reaching for it, certainly. Having a padawan has been good for his self-control in ways Savage hasn’t even wanted to consider too closely.

When Mace joins the 212th on a dangerous world, it's meant to help them end the campaign there more quickly. But his presence there sets into motion something that started a thousand years ago, and won't be stopped so easily.

“Barriss?” Ahsoka hisses, bewildered. Barriss, in a fancier dress than Ahsoka has ever seen her in, covered in tattoos and dripping jewelry, freezes stock-still on the stairs into the casino, and Ahsoka feels the bright-sharp flare of her panic a half-second before she spins to face Ahsoka.

This mission isn't going anywhere close to plan, and Mace is never again trusting Obi-Wan when he says it will.

Bly's new wife is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and she's graceful and charming and funny and so far out of his league that he's about to die.