ii.

Chapter Eleven: Torture (Nurture)

"I love individuals, every person you look at, you can see the universe in their eyes if you're really looking." – George Carlin

She came back out, face and hair freshly washed, her old ragged kimono she'd scrubbed in the sink and it was still damp from its cleaning. (She'd need new a new one soon, but she hesitated to ask. She never asked for anything, she preferred it that way.)

Her arm was still sluggishly bleeding, the cut was long- from shoulder to elbow and there were jagged chunks of skin missing in the middle where Loud Blood had plunged his fingers into it.

It flowed down her palm to drip off her finger tips. She held it away from her damp kimono.

Nanami felt nervous and jittery; it had been so long… would Oceans be staying? Her time in the shower had only made her nervousness worse, to much time to think with nothing to distract her but the pain in her arm.

Was she being rewarded for something maybe? Why had he come now after all this time? Where had he been? In rain maybe with Nagato and Konan?

She had so many things she wanted to ask him, so many things she wanted to say- but despite this, as the bathroom door clicked shut behind her and her eyes met the silver ones she'd longed to see, her throat constricted. Her chest felt tight, she felt… awkward, and insecure.

He blinked at her, looking uncomfortable under her scrutiny. The corner of his mouth twitched, showing the sharp tip of one of his teeth.

Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, so she chewed harshly at her bottom lip to make up for it. Her eyes fluttered away. She trapped a whine in her throat, not wanting to be obnoxious.

"Nanami." Beating Hearts called, sounding disgruntled and impatient. (He always sounded that way, his normal vocal range started at disgruntled and went up to enraged and murderous.) She lowered her head and made the worn path to his side in the aftermath of a rough fight with Loud Blood.

She sat, her bangs covering her eyes as she tried to hide her sudden bout of shyness from the occupants in the room.

Beating Hearts pulled her little arm up and placed it on the table before them, black threads pouring gracefully from the seam at his upper arm to pierce through the edges of her wound and sew her back together. They were warm from his body heat, and it felt comforting in its normalcy. (She had grown into a weird standard of normal, but she accepted it without much thought or fuss.)

She bit her lip harder at the sting, with no adrenalin to distract her from the pain this time.

"The fuck is wrong with you?" Loud Blood called her attention, she looked up to find him lounging at the other side of the table like nothing had happened.

Except all the blood he was slathered in. There was that.

Still, he had that pleased, sated look in his eyes and it gave her some sick sense of pride to know she could make him happy.

"Fuck off." She bit out, her curse word sounding immature and a little stupid coming from the lips of a six year old.

"Who let her hang out with Hidan? I thought we were supposed to be teaching her Japanese not gutter talk." Her eyes slid over to look at Oceans, who was leaning over the side of the sofa to watch them.

Another sting in her arm had her tensing and pulling her eyes over to watch as Beating Hearts attempted to do something with the worst of the center of her wound. He made an absent minded tisk noise that sounded agitated.

Loud Blood watched his partner put her back together with a look of pride on his face. (the sick bastard.)

"It couldn't be avoided I'm afraid. She has a thirst for knowledge be it useful or not." Raven Eyes sighed.

"Hey, cursing is very fucking useful."

Nanami nodded in agreement and then winced at a particularly rough tug.

"It's for.." She paused, eyes sweeping to meet purple. What was the word?

"Emphasis," He offered hearing her question without her needing to ask, and she nodded again. Loud Blood knew lots of words.

Mirth danced in silver eyes, and dark raven pools watched her with that sharp knowing edge to them. Like he could look at her and know everything she was. He probably could.

Beating Hearts pulled his threads away, and dropped her previously abandoned blanket over her head. It was warm, and she had to admit she was freezing cold right now. She used the corner to wipe the little dribbles of blood off her palm.

"Thank you" She told him sincerely.

She tried to stand but he gave her a sharp look with acid green and deep red. She sat back down with a questioning look, tilting her head as she reached up her newly sewn arm to curl a small braid behind an ear. The stitches tugged, but he always did a good job and she knew it would feel a lot better in a couple of days. Then it was be just another scar next to all the other scars that maped her relationship (friendship?) with Loud Blood across her skin.

Beating Hearts separated the stack of accounts she had been watching him work on earlier, and he slid the top layer of papers towards her.

"If you finish these without mistakes you may assist me from now on." and there was an intenseness in his eyes that signified to her that he wanted her to pass this test.

She wanted to pass it, to please him.

She beamed with a bright smile and glowing eyes. She could do this, she knew she could.

"You may do as you please when they are done, correctly." The last part sounded like a warning.

"Eck. Thats fucking sick Kakuzu making her work on the fucking accounts. Don't we torture the little leech enough?" Loud Blood said with a twist to his lips that displayed how disgusting he thought math was.

Nanami ignored him, and plucked the pen from the table. "Would you like me to round up or round down?"

"Up, any excess over a yen you will seperate onto a different Motochō." She tilted her head at the unknown word. (but also pleased that he accepted her knowledge of mathematics and treated her like she was capable.)

"Hm?" She made a small noise asking for clarification on the word.

"A list of accounts by type." She nodded, and set the tip of the pen down on the first list of expenses, nervousness and shyness forgotten.

"You taught her math?" Raven Eyes questioned (Incredulously? Curiously?) as he abandoned his post at the door to kneel at her side and watch her tally.

Beating Hearts grunted. "No." He didn't offer more of an explanation, and Raven Eyes rose a questioning brow at her.

"Nanami knows." She offered simply with a shrug. Itachi looked up and over to share something quiet and unsaid with Kisame.

"Fucking brat." Loud Blood broke the awkward moment. He was good for that. "Don't go fucking turning into a little god damn Kakuzu one is fucking plenty." He gave her a stern look, an expression she wasn't used to seeing on him.

It didn't really suit him. (She like it better when he grinned at her with dancing eyes and crazy laughter.)

"Like we need another Hidan." Beating Hearts grumbled lowly.

"Hey, fuck you- she would be fucking blessed to be like me, I'm the holy fucking disciple of Jashin-sama and you're just a dirty heathen." He shot back without pause, all signs of his previous seriousness gone. His hand came up to hover near his favored weapon and he glared at Kakuzu menacingly.

Nanami tittered quietly to herself relieved at the return of his normal behavior, and she slid aside the topmost ledger. She never realized how much money went into all the crap False Pieces had, hint- it was a lot.

She said so, earning herself a startled and upset look from the white haired man.

"Fucking hell she's already starting to sound like you." Kakuzu grunted and held out his hand for the aforementioned expenditures and she handed it over to him, switching to the next one in her pile.

Raven Eyes shifted at her side and she lifted her pen for a moment to look at him.

He had a small frown on his face, but mostly he looked just as apathetic as he always did.

"Perhaps you are in need of different role models." he deadpanned.

Her eyes widened at him, her lips splitting apart in surprise. It was true she spent more time with the Zombie Combo than any of the others- but that was mostly because they were here the most often. He didn't want her to spend time away from them did he? She… didn't want that.

Though… she had no idea how he would even manage it when they were short handed for other people to foster her off onto anyways.

Oceans burst out laughing then, a loud gut full of barking enjoyment- and Nanami realized that it must have been a joke.

The Akatsuki were her only role models. (That in itself was kind of a joke actually.)

"Good one." Oceans said, eyes full of good humor. Itachi's eyes curved subtly with the hint of a smile and he laid a reassuring hand on top of her head for a moment before moving away and into the kitchen.

"Pft," Loud Blood made a noise halfway between a laugh and a disbelieving sound. "You actually though he was serious little bitch? Good to know you like us so fucking much." His grin was wide and pleased.

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment and smiled back at him. Kakuzu's large hand landed on the back on her head and he pushed her forward to look down at the papers in front of her.

"Finish."

She giggled and picked up where she had left off.

AN: So there's some weird issue going on with FanFiction, the emails arent letting me reply to y'all's reviews and the link to view them from the story doesnt show them either. So I figured I'd just reply to them here until the staff can get the problem sorted. Sorry guys- I swear I'm not ignoring you, I've been trying to reply.

First of all, I want to thank all of you for giving my story a try, thank you so much for taking the time to read, i'm glad you've been enjoying what I have to offer thus far!

River Banking: There is a plan with the whole 'touching chakra' deal- you'll see more of that later. As for Zetsu, he'll show up at the turning point. I haven't decided if Nagato and Konan will be making an appearance yet, i might work it in but i might also just focus on the relationships shes already making. We'll see! Thank you for your review!

Realworld No Shinobi: Nanami and Kisame's deal will come later, i won't ruin anything of it so you'll just have to wait and see :) Thanks for taking the time to review!

thechangeofseasons: Thank you! That's actually most of what we'll be focusing on in this fic. Thanks for reading and reviewing!

TamashinoSuzume: Nanami suspects she is five years old when she hears about the Naruto Bridge incident and retrieves Zabuza's headband. So that makes her five compared to team sevens twelve. There wasn't any time line i could find that really showed how much time was in between the Zabuza arc and when Naruto leaves with Jiraiya on his three year trip, so i estimated more than a month and less than a year. I left it up to Authors choice because it's too hard to figure out when you calculate in all the filler. So for the sake of my sanity Author rights are stating that she will be somewhere between six and seven when he leaves, and somewhere between eight and nine at the start of Shippuden. Unfortunately, again because of the lack of concise time lines available there will be a lot of my guestimations like this for the rest of this fic. You'll have to keep reading to find out about Tobi. WHEW. Long one lol! Thanks so much for reading and reviewing! i'm so glad you like it so far!

Thanks again to everyone! I really appreciate you taking the time to give my story a chance!