ii.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Frustration (Disconnect)
"I crave a love so deep the ocean would be jealous."
"I saw that you were perfect and so I loved you. Then I saw that you were not perfect, and I loved you even more."
After three days Nanami felt restless.
It must have been early, she mused to herself when she cracked her eyes open to see Loud Blood drooling onto his pillow with relaxed features. His brow lack its usual furrow, his eyebrows set in smooth lines that didn't twist inwards in anger.
Her eyes softened as she looked at him. He looked… young. When he was asleep. She brushed a hand across the white bangs that had fallen into his face.
She sat up as quietly as she could, and little hands brought the blanket up to cover Hidan's bare shoulders. She slipped off the bed, noticing Beating Hearts was empty and slunk her way across the room to the door that was cracked open.
Her throat itched, and she clamped down on a wet cough with an iron will.
Nanami slipped into the great stone room, intent on having a cup of tea and doing her morning ledgers, a shower would be nice too actually.
"Nanami." She froze mid step, and turned slowly to see Raven Eyes leaning against his door frame.
He quirked an eyebrow at her, asking without words if she should be up.
She smiled at him, and relaxed a little. "I wanted some tea." She offered an explanation. She looked away from him, over at Kakuzu who was watching the two of them from the table, pen hovering above a slip of paper.
"Hm." Itachi acknowledged her with a scrutinizing look. "Go and sit." He told her, and she did with a bright smile, because at least he wasn't telling her to go back to bed.
She folded herself down onto her regular cushion at Beating Hearts side, and he slid the top most section of papers over to her without a word.
She picked up the extra pen and got to work, pleased to return to something that felt normal.
Her Red Clouds were home, and for now, the gnawing quiet was gone. She would appreciate what little time they had left together before… well.
Her scratching pen paused and Nanami buried her face into the crook of her arm to muffle her coughing.
Itachi's chakra signature came back around and he placed a ceramic cup on the table to the side of her papers.
"Thank you." She told him, her voice a little raw, and she meant it.
She reached for it, and immediately enjoyed the way the the tea warmed ceramic seeped heat into her fingers. She sighed peacefully as Raven Eyes nodded to her and sat himself across from them with a book.
"Seriously" Loud Blood grouched as he came into the room. He dragged his comforter with him, and Nanami did a double take because- what.
She hid a giggle behind her cup, he looked like a kid with that mop of silver bedhead, and his droopy tired eyes dragging a blanket behind him.
She didn't have to wonder long when he stopped beside her, towering over her with a glower. He dropped blanket on top of her head with a scowl.
"You're finally starting to look less like a fucking corpse- what are you trying to do, fucking walking around like that seriously. Dumb shit." and he complained all the way to the bathroom where he slammed the door shut behind him.
Nanami pulled the blanket around her front and hunched a little over her tea. Grateful for both. Loud Blood cared too in his own annoying, grating way.
She put the cup down to pick her pen back up.
Next to her, Kakuzu green eyes slid over to catch hers. His hand came off the table to lightly fall on top of her head for a moment. He was warm, and the gesture was comforting.
His eyes slid away, retracting the hand and went back to his papers.
Nanami bit her lip, and then gave up and smiled like she'd just received everything she'd ever wanted in life.
She supposed she had.
Nanami could help but think that everyone was behaving a little… oddly.
She bit her lip in thought, eyes sliding over to Hidan who sat quietly on the couch next to her. He had his chin resting in the palm of his hand, elbow on his knee as he leaned forward. His purple eyes stared at nothing.
Oceans was sprawled about on her other side, arms akimbo as he rested the back of his head of the back of the couch so his could look up at the ceiling.
Raven Eyes was in his room somewhere… her gaze swept over to his door as she chewed her lip. He hadn't come out of his room at all today.
Burning Earth was in the kitchen, making a large amount of noise while he prepared dinner. Sasori hovered near the counters, harassing the blond man over one thing or another.
"You don't even eat, un!" Came Deidara's indignant cry from the other side of the dividing wall.
Kakuzu chose that moment to come gracefully striding from his own room and settle himself down at the table with a scroll he didn't even look up from as he walked.
He seemed… distracted.
They all seemed distracted.
And Nanami didn't want to pry, it wasn't any of her business, but…
(She was running out of time.)
Oceans soothing chakra washed over her as she absently twisted her hands together in thought. There was a sting in her lip and a bitter copper taste that told her she'd bitten it too hard.
"I told you not to chew." Hidan told her, his vivid purple iris resting on her from the corner of his eye without turning his head. Nanami gave him a hesitant smile for lack of anything to say.
On her other side Oceans sighed.
What the fuck.
She stood up with a suddenness that had hands reflexively twitching towards weapons.
Nanami growled low in her throat and turned on the two men sitting on the couch. They were already watching her, a set of silver guarded eyes and a glowing madness behind purple.
She didn't say anything, didn't ask. She couldn't bring herself to do it. (She was afraid of the answer.) But she stared them down, glowering at them from her small height that basically had her level with their sitting ones.
When they kept their silence, she looked over at Beating Hearts who was also watching her, scroll held loosely in his hands.
He didn't say anything either.
Deidara came out of the kitchen looking pissed as hell, followed by an overly smug Sasori.
"Foods done." The blond hissed, and then stopped when he saw her, blue eyes flicking between her and the occupants in the room.
If anything Sasori looked even more smug. "I told you she'd figure it out."
"We didn't even say shit." Loud Blood spat at the red head.
Oceans sighed again, and that was about all Nanami could take of this uncharacteristic behavior.
She stomped her little foot onto the floor like a three year old having a tantrum. She was sure her face was red right now. She was beyond frustrated.
Little cracks spread along the stone beneath her foot.
"You didn't have to." She told Loud Blood. "You're all acting weird." She said between clenched teeth. Hidan seemed to perk up a little at her behavior, excited to see her angry maybe. It wasn't very often she got like this. He sat back, lifting his chin from his hands to fold them across his chest.
Raven Eyes chose that moment to join them for the first time that day. He scrubbed a hand through his hair mussing his pony tail looking like he was about to do something he'd rather avoid.
"We should talk." He said as he made his way to the table to sit. He looked exhausted. (He always looked exhausted though.)
Nanami relaxed a little bit, anger ebbing away. As long as they told her what was going on, she could accept it. She had an idea of what it might be anyways.
It had almost been three years, and she was running out of time.
Kisame sat up, his silver gaze resting intently on her. Deidara swept and hand through his hair, looking stressed and sat himself on the floor right where he stood, as if he just didn't care enough to find a proper place to go.
Sasori leaned against the kitchen dividing wall and closed his eyes like he could care less. Nanami knew him well enough to know that if he really didn't care he wouldn't be in the room right now.
It was quiet for a moment, and Itachi finally broke it- ever the one to take on the responsibility no one else wanted.
"Akatsuki is getting ready to move. Some things are going to be changing-"
Nanami held up a hand, and he stopped.
"I know. You don't have to explain. I understand." She wanted to spare them this difficult conversation. She understood perfectly well how drasticly things were about to change. She knew it better than they did.
Raven Eyes let out a soft breath. "What is it exactly that you know Nanami." and suddenly she felt like there was an undercurrent in the room. Like this was really the point of contention in everyone's gaze and strange behavior.
She gave him a flat look, because she knew he understood perfectly well, but perhaps he just wanted confirmation.
"Akatsuki needs to collect the tailed beasts in order to revive the ten tails."
Itachi froze and the occupants of the room looked confused. Nanami hesitated- had she said it wrong?
"What the fuck is the ten tails?" Hidan spoke for all of them, and Nanami's lips parted in surprise. They didn't know about that? What exactly had Pein told them as a cover again? She couldn't remember…
Nanami opened her mouth, ready to attempt an explanation when she was cut off by Kisame's chuckling.
"This whole thing is a joke." He said around his laughter, it had an angry tinge to it.
Nanami sat herself onto the ground like Deidara had done, and she shrugged because yea, it kind of was a joke for everyone in this room.
They were only a means to an end for Zetsu.
"Well…" She started. "It's not like any of you joined because you cared for the whole 'world domination' trope anyways. You all had your reasons."
A tremor of discomfort passed through several chakra signatures, unused to words spoken like an adult coming from the lips of the little girl who danced in their midst.
Words spoken like she knew, like there were no secrets safe from her.
Others though, were not surprised at all.
She curled a lock of shoulder length hair around a finger. "I mean, the 'lets take over the world' thing isn't really wrong- but that's not really the end game here. Zetsu couldn't care less what happens to the planet." She stopped, realizing she was rambling.
It was quiet while everyone's eyes watched her.
"Who is 'mother'." Kakuzu spoke up. Nanami gave him a perplexed expression.
"How'd you know about that?"
"You told us during your fever." He explained. Nanami's eyes widened and she looked around at the familiar faces of her brothers. They were all waiting for her answer, even Hidan who usually couldn't keep his mouth shut.
"Oh, I thought that was a dream." She murmured to herself.
"It's… complicated." She answered with a twist to her lips. How does one explain what the woman who lived inside the moon was? Where did she even begin with that? She couldn't even really remember the backstory very well. Something about the world tree and a fruit.
"Her name is Kaguya." She said instead, because that much she did know.
Itachi's hand balled into a fist on top of the table in an uncharacteristic display of emotion.
"Infinite Tsukuyomi." He breathed to himself.
Nanami sighed, and nodded.
"Maybe we should start from the beginning, un." Deidara interjected looking lost.
"Why the fuck are we here if it isn't to take over the hidden villages." Hidan grouched.
Ah, Nanami realized. Yes, it had been something like that. Some basic lie about cornering the market on war.
"Everyone wants something different." Nanami realized aloud. "Nagato wants peace, Madara wants power and Zetsu wants Kaguya."
"As long as we get paid I don't care what they want." Kakuzu grumbled looking disinterested.
"I didn't even want to come here, un." Deidara shot a sharp unhappy look at Itachi who completely ignored him, "So Madara is involved then." The raven-eyed man was murmuring to himself.
"Who the fuck is Nagato." Hidan continued complaining.
Kisame rubbed at his eyes with the palms of his hands. "What a pain in the ass."
"How do you know these things Nanami." Sasori's apathetic voice cut through the grumbling.
It was quiet again for a minute, and Nanami laid her head in her hands, elbows balanced on her folded legs. She took a deep breath, and let it out again.
She didn't know how to answer that. She couldn't very well tell them 'Oh yes, a previous version of myself read it in a book before she drowned in a fit of depression and loneliness, you're all story book characters didn't you know?'
It didn't even matter anymore.
They weren't characters in some far off distant story. They were all real people, with emotions and needs and wants that lived real lives and made real choices.
These men were everything to her.
So what should she say? What was the truth and what was a lie?
"I have…" and her voice was strained, and too loud in the space between her and the Red Clouds. "... always known."
"Soothsayers aren't real." Sasori told her after a beat, but she wasn't sure if he was telling her or himself really.
"What the fuck." Hidan interjected.
"I'm not some kind of prophet." She denied, because that was stupid. Her birth was just some kind of accident of the universe. She wasn't some divine bull shit, she was just… Nanami.
That's all. Just some lost little girl who sometimes thought she might have been a grown woman once with memories that felt real and fake at the same time. Just because she knew some things didn't make her special.
They were still going to die after all. She didn't know how to stop it, they were going to do what they wanted and she had no control over that.
"I don't know little bitch because to me that's what it fucking sounds like." Hidan pinned her in place with furious purple eyes. He looked angry and frustrated.
She could empathize.
She wondered then, why her. Why was she reborn into this world, at this time and this place with the knowledge she had still intact. What was the point, she wished someone would tell her.
Nanami had never bothered to think about these things before, she didn't like to wonder about it. It just… is how it is.
This was her home. These people were her family. She cared about them. These were the facts that felt real to her, she didn't want to bother with 'why' and 'what if' that kind of thinking was distracting from the things that actually mattered.
"I don't know what to tell you… I'm just… Nanami." she said around her own frustration.
Hidan stood then, his chakra lashing about in the air. He picked up his scythe off the floor next to the couch with a carefulness that spoke of a control she wasn't aware he had.
He didn't look at her as he walked out the main door and shut it with a snap behind him. Kakuzu stood from the table without a word and trailed after him.
Probably to make sure he didn't go slaughtering the nearest village he could get his scythe into.
Nanami swallowed down the hurt that was stabbing into her gut. She hadn't expected that reaction, but it was only fair.
She'd basically been lying to them this entire time. Her eyes stung a little but she forced it back. Now was not the time to be upset. It wasn't about her, and how she felt. It was about them.
"Do you dream about it?" Deidara asked her after the door had once again closed. He rolled a bit of clay between his fingers, looking more contemplative than upset.
Nanami shook her head, she did dream about their futures but that's not what he was asking.
"You're just a little fucking kid." Kisame bit out, as if that had some bearing on the situation.
"So you know all about us then." Sasori murmured with a sweeping gesture around the room. "Our pasts, our futures."
She sighed. "Yes."
"They will kill you, if they find out Nanami." Itachi told her gently.
"I know." She told him without moving her eyes from where Hidan had previously sat on the couch.
Silence reigned as the occupants in the room seemed to digest this new facet of the little girl they'd brought into their fold almost three years ago.
Kisame was the one to stand up next. He shouldered Samehada and walked out the main door. Itachi stood and followed him.
He turned for a moment to give Nanami a piercing look that broke her heart.
"We'll be back later." He said softly, and the door closed behind him.
"Well." Deidara said into the oppressive silence. He stood, and took the three steps to stand next to her small form, he offered her a hand.
"C'mon, dinner is probably cold by now, un." She took the offered hand, and flashed him a watery smile.
His blue eyes danced, and she was glad he at least, didn't seem to care.
Sasori trailed after them into the kitchen.
"I want to teach you to use chakra strings." He said with an abruptness that had her missing a step. She turned around to meet his kohl lined brown eyes with her own wide, suprised ones.
"Okay." She breathed, and had she been looking she would of seen the grateful look Deidara flashed his partner.