ii.
Chapter Twenty-one: Once Upon a Nightmare
"On the way to sacred shores, in the arms of a life we adore. Moonlight shows a white design, that's been waiting for a chance to seize the soul once more." -Once Upon A Nightmare, Epica
"Some trees flourish, others die. Some cattle grow strong, others are taken by wolves. Some men are born rich enough and dumb enough to enjoy their lives. Ain't nothing fair. You know that." - John Marston
Nanami dreamed she was a magpie.
Her feathers were black and white and she quite liked them, she liked the way the wind combed through them when she stretched wide and leapt from tall branches to glide to the ground. She liked the clean, sleek feel of feathers attached to skin attached to bone that gleamed in the sunlight.
Nanami had a mission- but because it was a dream (she knew this in the way she knew the sun was a star- she knew but she didn't understand.) it was a bit nonsensical.
She was collecting eyes for her nest.
Pretty purple eyes that she found deep underground buried beneath earth to lie forgotten, and acid green in a sea of red that she'd battled lightning and wind to have. They waited for her above, cushioned softly like precious things in down feathers she had shed just to keep them safe.
She added a bright sky blue eye that she stole from clouds that burned with fire, and a deep chocolate brown eye that reminded her of warm desert sands that she brought to her nest from a ruined cave. She nuzzled her collection around lovingly with her beak. There was a vague sense of horror that didn't quite penetrate deep enough to make her pause as she worked for long and diligent hours to bring these eyes home.
She was just a bird after all.
Nanami searched high and low for a pair of deep black eyes that shifted to red and swirled. Her wings beat at the air, swooping through branches with a sense of urgency she didn't understand.
Running out of time...
When she did find them, it was with a stab of hurt that she realized they had already been claimed by a boy. He blinked over his prizes, and Nanami mourned their loss with a deep sense of despair that she knew birds probably couldn't feel.
Nanami fluttered her wings from her high branch, and she watched as the boy shed tears of blood for his lost kin, he sat on his knees in the mud looking for all the world like his life was full of regrets and pain- and if she wasn't a bird she would of cried with him. She trilled instead, a soft sad song that fluttered down to the boy to join his sorrow.
She left him behind, because she still had silver eyes to find… silver eyes like ocean foam…
sea salt… and... sand…
And as dreams are wont to do, suddenly she was no longer dreaming of her magpie self, but her regular child's body, swathed in blankets with burning skin.
She blinked lackadaisically, and in her dream above her head, hanging on the wall was the symbol of Jashin-sama.
She smiled up at it, and even this small movement made her feel tired. She suddenly wished for the return of her feathers and hollow bones.
She was so light in that body.
Nanami lolled her head to the side, the back of her neck was sticky and wet and she thought this was a sucky dream in comparison.
Across from her was another bed, and standing between her and it were three people she recognized.
Even in dreams. (She would remember them forever.)
She blinked again, tired. Weak. She found it difficult to breath.
"Itachi" she whispered, and the name felt strange on her tongue, because she never used their names- but she thought it would be okay because this was only a dream.
The three stopped talking and turned to her, and she suddenly bore the gaze of acid green within red, deep purple and…
She sighed in relief. "You still have your eyes."
This dream was better than the last then, and even as she realized it something wet and hot rolled down her cheek.
Two of them shared what she thought might be a startled look, but the deep pools of black held hers. Those eyes knew. They could see through her, into her. They saw into her dreams and knew.
He looked tired, the deep lines of stress underneath his eyes seemed more shadowed than usual. He looked as tired as she felt.
"Nanami," and she knew she must be dreaming, because Hidan would never call her by her name. "What exactly is all Zetsu's fault?"
Nanami registered the words like they had come from far away, like through a phone with bad reception.
She reached up weakly to touch her eyelids, just make sure she still had her own eyes. They were wet, but they were there.
"Everything." She breathed to dream Hidan, and she hadn't meant for it to sound so… vindictive.
She gave him a slow, sad smile then. "He wants mother... that's why he ruined Akatsuki… that's why he… why… the Uchiha are cursed…"
She trailed off, eyes sliding shut tiredly. Hoping for a new dream of a new animal and a new skin. She liked her nonhuman skins. Maybe a deer this time would be nice. She thought she'd like to be a deer.
"Nanami" someone called again from far away, and she mustered up the last of her energy to look at them, because they were her purpose, her reason for being. She would give them anything.
"How much do you know" Kakuzu asked her in his deep voice, and she blinked, trying to understand the question through the fog in her brain.
This was a strange dream.
She wanted to tell him she'd read all of the Naruto mangas and had seen most of the show, because really- who hadn't? It was a great story…
"Everything." She said again instead, because that other thing would of been too many words and too much energy she didn't have.
The three of them looked at each other, and her words seemed to confirm something she'd missed.
They didn't look happy about it.
"Rest, Nanami. Keep your silence." Dream Itachi said to her in a resigned voice.
"Okay," she whispered agreeably, and she wondered then, why it was that she was crying. Why something was clawing its way up her throat at the sight of them.
Why she felt so ashamed, so hopeless. (She couldn't remember, she was so tired.)
She closed her eyes, moisture slipping silently down her cheeks and moved on to the next dream, she hoped it would be something nice this time.
She was tired of watching them die.
The next time Nanami opened her eyes, she felt… confused, disoriented and her skin was burning and she ached all over. The room spun in an unpleasant sensation that reminded her of the aftereffects of a drink she'd had in a distant life.
It was too dark to see.
Someone shifted next to her, warm hands pulled her closer to lay their chin on top of her head. A blanket was tugged higher up her shoulders.
"Go back to sleep little bitch." Hidan's voice whispered into the void. She clutched at his shirt (his shirt?) and it felt real enough… she let it go to reach up and touch the skin of his cheek in the dark, it also felt real.
"Is Kakuzu okay?" she breathed the name over flashes of surreal flat images that showed her an electrified fist that wore fingerless gloves punching through a tan chest and exploding out of a porcelain mask.
Someone grunted on the other side of the room, and she allowed herself to relax then, because they were both here and that was good enough for now.
There was… something stuck to her forehead.
…what?
It wasn't cloth but it was cool… and thin like… paper maybe. Why did she have paper on her...
She blinked open bleary eyes but closed them again because it was too damn bright. "Loud Blood?" She called quietly instead, and her voice cracked a little and she felt shame for it.
There was the sound of shifting cloth, and someone sat on the edge of the bed she lay on.
The paper was removed from her skin, only to be replaced with a new piece, this one cooler, crisper.
"I'm afraid it's just us for now." A feminine voice told her.
Nanami froze, because there were no women other than her. (Woman? Girl?) She forced her eyes open again, despite the way the light seemed to split her brain in two, her eyes met purple hair and orange irises.
Her chakra felt like millions of humming birds beating their wings into the air in a desperate attempt at remaining airborne.
It was a weird chakra signature.
"Oh." She said for lack of anything better to say. The woman's face was blank and apathetic as she sat there. Nanami had a lot of things she wanted to say, to ask. But she was tired.
"I'm Nanami." She introduced herself instead. The older woman frowned at her.
"Konan." She stated in a clipped sort of way.
Nanami closed her eyes then, because she didn't have anything else to say right now, and Konan clearly had no interest in talking to her.
She rolled over to face the wall, curling into blankets that smelled like Hidan. It was quiet for a long time, hours maybe, but Konan stayed.
"Hummingbird." She murmured after a while, naming the woman.
"Hm?" Came the small sound of inquiry.
"Everyone gets a name." A familiar voice stated laughingly at the doorway.
Oceans
Nanami was instantly pushing herself to sit up, but regretted it when her body screamed in protest. A wave of nausea had bile rising into the back of her mouth. She swallowed it down, disgusted. She coughed around the taste, and it made her chest feel tight.
"Oceans." She called even as Hummingbird's delicate hand was reaching out to push her back down to lay. It didn't take much force.
"I see." She told Kisame, although it didn't really sound like she did. Kisame grinned, leaning against the door jam with folded arms.
"You have pneumonia. Don't get up." The woman told Nanami next.
"How long have I been asleep?" She asked anyone who would answer.
"Four or five days." Oceans told her flippantly.
She sighed, so much lost time that she could never have back. So much time she could have spent making memories with Red Clouds. (She was running out of time…)
"They asked me to come when you weren't getting any better. You're fever broke last night." Hummingbird informed her in a flat tone.
Oceans chuckled again; like it was a good joke, and he turned to leave; curiosity apparently sated. He pulled the door shut and it clicked behind him.
Quiet descended on them again, and Nanami felt herself drifting off; falling backwards into the bed in a disoriented sort of sensation that might mean she was either about to faint or fall asleep.
"You talk in your sleep." Konan's voice informed her. Nanami made a small effort to make a noise of acknowledgement.
"You might have lived a longer life if you had avoided the Akatsuki." She said next after a short pause; and Nanami thought it was a useless thing to point out, because she didn't care.
She didn't care about what her life could have been, because what she had was exactly what she wanted. Even if she didn't live to be twelve, or fifteen, or twenty, or forty five. Nanami didn't care.
"What is life without the people you love." She murmured in answer.
Another long silence, and Hummingbird's chakra flicked about in thought, apparently considering her words.
"I see." She said finally, a little softer, a little less apathetic.
The paper on her forehead lifted itself away to be replaced by a new one. The chakra inside it soothed her ragged nerves.
The door clicked shut behind him, and many eyes looked up at his entrance into the great stone room.
"She up?" Hidan grunted at him. Kisame grinned at the white haired man, all sharp teeth and good humor.
"Why, worried?"
Hidan folded his arms and turned his face away, leaning back into the couch. "Tch, shut the fuck up."
Like all of them didn't already know the Jashinist was soft on her. In a 'how much can I make you bleed before Kakuzu cuts my head off' kind of way.
"I don't understand why you insist on keeping the creature underfoot." Zetsu said softly from the far corner.
"Why do you even care." Deidara snapped at the plant man with a sweep at his long bangs. Next to him Sasori rolled his eyes like he felt the entire thing was a waste of time. He probably did.
Itachi put his cup down on the table just as Kakuzu picked his up. Neither of them had anything to say.
"Akatsuki will mobilize in six months time." Pein smoothly interjected, getting them all back on track. "We will begin by retrieving the ichibi." He reiterated. Sasori narrowed his eyes on their leader but didn't voice his complaints aloud.
"This task will fall to Sasori and Deidara, but everyone's presence will necessary for the extraction. Contingency plans A and D and in effect." He monotoned.
His ripple patterned eyes slid to the door Kisame stood at for a moment as he considered.
"This base will be left behind, for the extraction we will utilize the secondary Rivers location, afterwards we will move to the base on the border of Rain and Rivers." He crossed his arms as he spoke.
"Either leave the girl behind or take her with you. I don't care." He paused and then added. "Find a use for her if you must, we don't have time for dead weight."
There wasn't any question what choice they would take. Except maybe for Itachi, who secretly wished she could have the opportunity to have a normal life somewhere, but respected her choice enough to know that's not what she wanted.
She knew too much, besides.
"Bitch can hold her own." Hidan quipped, the only one of them who bothered being mouthy to their leader.
"If she gets in the way, I expect you will know how to handle it." Pein continued as if the man hadn't even spoken.
"In the next six months we will begin several preparations..."
And the day wore on for the Akatsuki, for the whole world would soon know their names- and it would not a be pleasant thing.