ii.
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Undeniable Threat (Attainable Asset)
Life asked Death, "Why do people love me, but hate you?"
Death replied, "Because you are the beautiful lie, and I am the painful truth."
"It's done." Pein's voice resounded, and Nanami stopped her absent wandering around the edges of the cave. She liked the way the cold stone slick with moisture felt underneath her fingers as she walked. A smooth, graceful sort of slide that made no sound.
She looked up in time to see the last flicker of Gaara's chakra be consumed by the summoned demon, and a pupil flickered into existence within one of its eyes.
That made three pupils out of nine eyes.
The blue chakra that had held the boy aloft for three days slowly retracted and fed back into the things mouth with the last residual traces of the red chakra within it.
Gaara's body fell, and hit the ground hard.
He wasn't moving, and Nanami knew he wouldn't.
He was dead.
No one said anything for a long moment. She sighed, her awareness of the ever approaching Leaf-nin grew crisper as they advanced. It was almost time then. She tried to brush off the sinking sensation in her chest as her eyes flickered over to Sasori's scorpion puppet.
Nanami would do everything she could. She only hoped it would be enough. She didn't know what else she could do.
"Guh, my shoulders are stiff." Loud Blood complained.
"Took long enough, un." Deidara commiserated with him.
"It's going to be this exhausting every time, isn't it?" Kisame asked rhetorically.
"Good work everyone." Pein told them, his eyes flashed down to catch hers and she paused in the slow careful steps she'd been taking towards the ichibi's corpse.
"You too." He told her, and he sounded… Surprised? Pleased? She wasn't sure, and his chakra was difficult to read because it was like… an echo, like it wasn't really here. Whether that was because of the body lantern jutsu, or the fact that the skin he wore wasn't really his was up for conjecture.
She smiled a little sadly up at him, glad to be of some use at least. A little sensing was the least she could do.
Speaking of…
"They're here." She murmured, knowing they would hear her.
"That sounds like our cue." Kisame commented. There was a wet, crunching sound as the eyes of the demon began to slide closed.
And one by one the body lantern images of her Red Clouds flickered away.
"See you soon, little bitch." Hidan called in a distorted mess as he dissipated. Kakuzu's acid green and red eyes turned on Burning Earth and False Pieces.
"The company was unexpected." He said, a kind of warning maybe.
"Don't worry, she'll be home in time for dinner, un." Deidara said sarcastically with a roll of a beautiful blue eye.
"Do a better job this time." Kakuzu's voice was irritated and scathing as he shimmered away.
"Tch." Deidara made a sound of annoyance.
The artist duo leapt from their perches just as the massive summons dismissed itself in a cloud of white smoke. Nanami reached down to the still warm body of Gaara and pulled him into her lap.
She hadn't known him in this life, their contact during the battle brief and not exactly a pleasant one for either of them- and yet…
"You're a bleeding heart Nanami-chan." Burning Earth told her a little playfully as he sat next to her.
She smiled- because it was true, and ran little hands through the boy's soft red hair.
"What a waste." Sasori murmured on her other side as he settled down to wait as well.
"Most of them will get caught in the trap, un." Deidara said, "Once the cave is open we'll see how many we have to deal with before we high tail it."
"Four." Nanami answered without hesitating.
She got two sharp looks for that. She shrugged.
Nanami looked down at the darkly lined eyes of the boy in her lap, and ran gentle fingers over the kanji on his forehead absently before switching back to his hair.
"He's dead you know, un." Burning Earth told her a little softly.
"For now." She responded without looking up.
The Akatsuki shared an incredulous look over her head.
A resounding boom echoed around the walls, and small rocks and dust fell from the ceiling.
"One of them punched the barrier." She informed them, feeling the chakra skitter over the surface of the rock face as the seal displaced it outwards.
Deidara laughed good naturedly. "Ha, points for trying at least."
"What's the kyuubi like, Nanami." Sasori rumbled after a few minutes of quiet, she could tell it wasn't a casual question.
She brushed her fingers through red hair and thought about her answer for a moment.
"He's… loud. Brash. Obnoxious. But he has a fierce sense of loyalty." She settled finally, enjoying the silky texture of Gaara's hair.
"Hm." False Pieces acknowledged.
"Sounds like a dumb kid, un." Burning Earth commented with a brush at his bangs.
Nanami nodded. "He is, in a lot of ways." She left a lot of other things about him unsaid, because that's not what Sasori wanted to know really.
She blinked at a small disappearance of chakra. She looked over towards the boulder.
"The summons has been dismissed." She told her Red Clouds. Burning Earth made a dismissive gesture, Sasori didn't say anything but his eyes narrowed on the entrance.
"Ah, I think they'll be coming in soon." She announced, feeling signatures separate to four points around the area.
"They still have to get past the massive rock." Deidara reminded her.
She went back to petting Gaara, and snuck a look at Sasori. Now seemed like the last opportunity to have a word. Words were all she could offer really.
"If we get separated" She started hesitantly, gaining the man's attention. "There's a girl with the Konoha team. She has… bright pink hair. She's dangerous. Her name is Sakura, she's the student of the sannin Tsunade, she has the same medical knowledge and super strength." Nanami paused her rush of words, "She's devised an antidote to your poison."
It was silent for a moment as the pair considered her, and she was pleased to note that Sasori seemed to take the warning seriously.
"I don't know if i'm ever going to get used to your knowlege thing." Deidara murmured, and she gave him an apologetic smile.
He waved it off, nonplussed.
The chakra of the barrier fizzled outwards and dissipated into nothing. "Here they come."
And with her announcement the stone boulder exploded inwards, whipping her hair back and making her sneeze with all the dust.
The sound of it was deafening.
Nanami absently brushed dust and stone from Gaara's body as light spilled into the cave for the first time in three days.
She blinked a few times to adjust her eyes.
"They're awfully noisy, un." Deidara complained, Nanami nodded in agreement. Sasori made a disgruntled sound that she assumed meant he agreed as well.
Four figures flashed into the cave, two on each side of the entrance. Nanami smiled softly in greeting as her eyes touched on each one.
She held the majority of the attention, seeing as how she had Gaara in her lap.
"Sunshine, long time no see." She greeted Naruto, but his eyes were glued to the red head.
"Nanami." Burning Earth whined. "Don't give the jinchuuriki names, un." She tilted her head.
"Why not?" She asked, genuinely perplexed. Deidara's blue eye flashed in the sunlight.
"Because we have to kill them all." He said like it was the obvious answer. She supposed it was a pretty good reason to not go around nicknaming people. She tapped a finger from her free hand on her lips in thought, the other still combing through silky hair.
"Oh," She said. "Sunshine still has a couple of years before then." She told him. Kakashi visible eye widened on her, the only one of the Konoha team to understand that particular implication.
"Nanami..." The boy in question breathed her name, breaking the silence the leaf-nin had been holding.
"Gaara… is Gaara…" He trailed off, and the sound of his anger, and the pain in his voice squeezed at her chest.
"Naruto," She said softly, catching his watery blue eyes as they began to shift to a deep, angry red. The whisker marks and his face deepened, and gained a jagged quality.
"Gaara's not doing so good right now, but don't worry. He'll be fine soon." She assured with a firmness as her eyes slid to catch the old woman's.
Chiyo looked taken aback by her statement. Her eyes went wide, and they flickered between her, the Kazekage and Sasori's scorpion puppet.
"Don't lie to the poor kid, un. Dead is dead Nanami." Deidara told her with a tone of voice she recognized as enjoyment.
She shrugged. "Usually."
"Stop it." Naruto whispered, and then louder, almost a scream "Stop it!"
She tilted her head at the boy, unsure of what he meant by his words but understanding that he was in an emotionally rough place at the moment.
The pink haired girl known as Sakura took a hesitant step forward. "Are you saying you can save him?" pastel green eyes held hers with an intensity in their depths.
"Not me." Nanami told her simply.
Chiyo shifted uncomfortably. The silver haired jonin noticed.
Naruto's bangs shadowed his eyes, but she could see the way his teeth were elongating, the way he clenched them together.
The way his chakra thrashed through the air like nine, furious tails.
"Let them go." He ground out without looking up.
"Hou…" Sasori made a sound of interest, and Deidara turned one blue eye bright with mirth on her.
"How about it Nanami, un, ready to head off with the little leaf-nin?" Naruto's fist clenched at his side, and she eyed him warily. His stance shifted and he sprung forward flashing crimson red eyes with a slit animal pupil. "Don't mock me!" The blond snarled at them.
Sasori's tail came up to hover above her head in a single smooth motion in response to the Kyuubi.
Chiyo gasped at Sasori as Kakashi stepped into Naruto's path, blocking his forward momentum. Naruto skidded to a halt behind the arm that barred his way.
"Nanami!" And he sounded a little more than desperate, a little broken at the sight of his dead friend's body that he couldn't accept was dead. He turned pleading crimson eyes on her. "C'mon, Nanami let's go- we can take Gaara away from here, get him help-"
"Naruto, stop." Kakashi interrupted him with a tone of finality.
"Nanami, please." The blond boy outright begged her.
She smiled sadly, he didn't understand. Maybe he never would- but that was okay. He didn't have to, but her position here was not the first of its kind that Naruto had come across.
Perhaps he only needed to be reminded.
"Naruto," She she said his name softly, a sad whisper of regret that she couldn't (wouldn't) give him what he needed. "Someone once said-" and she pause for a split second to make sure she remembered the right words.
"It is only through the eyes of others that our lives have any meaning." Naruto startled; taking a step back on reflex, and Kakashi and Sakura froze, turning wide eyes on her.
Nanami parroted the distantly remembered words quietly. She always did like Haku, everything about him spoke to who she was as a person now. She thought she would have liked to have known him. They would've had a lot in common; trailing after blood thirsty missing-nin, finding purpose in life by being a part of their lives. Yea, she was sad she'd never gotten to meet that boy.
"You can't possibly know that…" The pink haired girl whispered.
Deidara rose at her side with a chuckle. He reached into his clay pouch, and pulled out enough to create his bird with. She could hear his hand mouth chewing away at it.
"Enough with the soothsayer crap Nanami, un." Burning Earth told her laughingly. She got the feeling her words had somehow made him feel uncomfortable. She frowned, that wasn't her intention, but she guessed it was probably more the content of the words and less where they had come from. Deidara and Sasori had never cared that she knew things, it had been just another ability that was accepted when it came to light.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Naruto whispered to her sounding lost and unsure.
Nanami smiled softly, catching his bright blue eyes. "Think about it, Sunshine."
Kakashi caught her attention as he reached to slowly lift his Konoha headband away from the sharingan that never sleeps.
It spun in maddening circles, and she quickly moved her eyes away when she saw his ambient chakra begin to reach towards her.
There had been something in the depths of his mismatched eyes. Something she couldn't name. He seemed more shaken by her words than the others, and yet somehow less surprised at the same time.
Could he possibly know..?
"Sharingan no Kakashi." Sasori's voice interrupted her train of thought.
"At your service." The silver haired man offered in a too-light tone of voice.
Nanami made a final brush of light fingers through Gaara's red hair, and gently set his now cold body on the ground and rose to stand with Deidara.
It was time.
"Deidara." Sasori grumbled. "Take Nanami and go."
"Aa." His partner agreed, throwing up the little bird sculpture he'd been working on into the air, it exploded in a cloud of smoke, and touched down behind her, flapping its wings about agitatedly. Deidara's blue eye roved down to look at her from his taller height.
"I did promise Kakuzu you'd be home in time for dinner." He snickered at his own joke. The bird reached forward with a large beak and picked up Gaara's stiff corpse. It tilted its head back and swallowed the boy into its clay body.
Nanami took an easy step backwards as the Konoha-nin shifted aggressively in front of her.
"You don't have to go with them." Kakashi called to her, but she didn't look at him, avoiding his spinning red eye she could tell was just waiting for the moment it could grasp her mind.
Deidara laughed again at her side, apparently finding the Leaf-nin's attempts to coerce her in going with them humorous.
It kind of was, but at the same time she had to wonder. That look she'd seen in his eyes...
"Why." She asked quietly, and even though they didn't say anything she knew they could hear. "Why would Konoha want me to leave so badly, when you don't even know me."
Kakashi made a slight sliding of his feet that wasn't quite a shuffle but close enough in her book. His chakra spiking in anxiety (that he didn't show) also helped her conclusion.
He definitely knew. Which meant Konoha knew- which meant Konoha wanted her. Alive or dead had yet to be determined.
Her eyes narrowed on the jounins feet.
"It's alright Nanami, you'll be safe with us we know about your kek-" Kakashi slapped a gloved hand over his former students mouth and shook his head silently at the boy.
"Clever." Sasori murmured to her; now they knew why Hatake was attempting to convince her to leave with them. Naruto made sense, but this jounin loyal to his village should see her as a threat, not a possibly attainable asset. Unless of course, she had something they really, really wanted.
However, whether or not they only knew about her kekkei genkai, or thought her knowledge was a part of her bloodline limit was up in the air. At this point though, she knew she probably wouldn't be getting anything else out of them.
Nanami leapt backwards into the air with bare feet to land lightly on the back of Deidara's bird. She wasn't going to stick around to find out if they were planning on turning their coercion into more forceful tactics; not that they'd ever get past Sasori and Deidara.
Burning Earth joined her, standing tall at her side with a shit eating grin on his face. Naruto and Kakashi watched them with sharp eyes, just like she thought they would since they had Gaara body, and apparently an interest in her.
Nanami swung her attention back over to Sasori, who was giving the quiet pink haired girl a considering look. Sakura noticed, sweat rolling down the side of her face under his scrutiny. He turned to look up at her, chakra flaring in irritation.
"This one is the medic you mentioned?" He asked her. Nanami nodded to him. Her gaze drifted over the the very tense Konoha shinobi standing next to the silent old woman who had eyes only for Sasori. As if she were seeing a ghost.
"Be careful, Sasori. She's sharp." Nanami called down on a breath. A tense, pregnant sort of silence followed her words and False Pieces nodded, warning received.
"You can't possibly know that!" Sakura yelled with the stomp of her foot and clenched hands, repeating her earlier words with more anger.
Deidara was laughing at her side, and he placed a light hand on top of her head to ruffle her hair, her little bell chimed under his attentions.
"Don't give all the fun away, un." He told her with dancing blue eyes.
The bird swooped over the Konoha-nin and through the cave opening with a heavy beat of its wings. Nanami bit her lip harshly, her heart squeezing in her chest with anxiety and fear.
This is it.
She threw herself to the back of the bird, startling Burning Earth and screamed back into the cave "Come home safe Sasori!"
Naruto and Kakashi darted after them.
AN: Whew. This chapter was so stupid hard to write, and I'm still not really satisfied with it. Sorry if it's not flawless guys but there's only so many times i can rewrite something before I just have to leave it alone.
I'm a few chapters ahead of here currently, but once we catch up to what I have prewritten the updates will be slowing down from everyday at least once a week and at most every other day.
On that note as well, I'm looking for some story prompts if anyone would like to PM me ideas, something along the lines of "missions with the Akatsuki" that Nanami can tag along with. Whether it be cannon or a different idea i'd love to hear it so please don't hesitate to leave a review or send me a PM!
Thanks to all my wonderful reviewers as well for all the comments, advice, and generally nice things you've all had to say!
