ii.
Chapter Thirty-Two: Reflection (Changes)
"I will never disappear, for forever, I'll be here."
"I'm laying down, I'm eating snow; my fur is hot and my tongue is cold. On a bed of spider web, I think of how to change myself." - Keep the Streets Empty for Me, Fever Ray
Nanami knew he was saying these things on purpose. She knew he was testing his limits, testing hers.
The manipulative fuck.
Still, the rage boiled under her skin, she felt flushed with it, she found it was hard to breath and all she wanted to do was rend Obito asunder.
Nanami looked down at her hands clenched lightly in her lap and uncurled them absently before curling them back again- tighter this time. Her nails bit crescents into her palms.
"You must be really strong to have outlasted Sasori-senpai!"
And that was the crux of the thing- wasn't it.
She would be here, long after all the chakra signatures around her were gone. And this, more than anything he could have said made her so furious.
She completely missed anything else he was saying as a seething hated fell heavy across her mind.
How dare he. How dare this man walk into her life and rub her face in her worst fears, in her burdens like it meant nothing more to him than to test her patience.
He had no right- She wanted to kill him-
Nanami griped the floor with chakra laden toes and snarled like a cornered beast as she threw herself at the man.
She wanted to sink her teeth into his jugular- she wanted to feel his blood run rivers down her face as he bled to death, she wanted him to feel pain. She wanted Obito to feel pain like she was feeling pain, the deep, bottomless maw agony of her failure because Sasori was- Sasori was-
She didn't finish the thought.
"Oh-to-to!" The mask man cried, his body swinging to the side in a 'dodge' but Nanami knew better as she phased through his side.
His hand shot out to grasp one of her arms that trailed behind her even as the occupants in the room came to stand. Dimly she was aware that Hidan was cackling in enjoyment.
His gloved hand brushed along her arm- solid, there, tangible.
Now!
She whirled around in a display of speed he wasn't expecting and slid her body to the ground in four points of contact and flung her leg out to sweep his out from under him. Chakra strings lashed out from her body to grasp at his ambient chakra in a punished grip. They fizzled on contact, two separate sentient chakras fighting for control.
"You will not!" Nanami howled out loud and in her mind and through her chakra as she commanded his to stay put in this dimension. She would rip it apart if she had too.
Alarm and surprise flashed through him when her sweeping kick made contact and he hit the floor hard. Surprise was her only upper hand in this fight, he apparently hadn't expected much out of her.
His mistake.
She was on him in a millisecond, nails scoring deep gouges into the orange ceramic of his mask as her other hand pushed down on his shoulder, forcing him into the floor with enough force to pop it out of place.
The wet crunching sound it made satisfied something that welled from deep within her, it demanded blood. It demanded Obito's blood.
He snarled back at her, a red spinning made itself known in his eye as the shadow genjutsu over his mask shuttered and failed.
Nanami's hand lashed out and snatched at the chakra that rose above his eye like steam.
"Sharingan is cheating-" She hissed at him nonsensically as she squeezed the chakra from his eye with enough of her own that it visibly smoked from her fist.
His chakra struggled in hers like a grass snake in a child's fist; hissing and thrashing as he instinctively fought against the force that bound his in place.
His one good arm came up to grip her throat in a jerky uncontrolled movement and he squeezed his fingers around her neck hard enough to make her choke.
"Girl." His tone was completely different now. All childish pretense lost.
"Fuck you." and she tugged hard enough on the chakra of his sharingan to make him hiss in pain.
Blood began to weep from the side of his mask as it leaked out of his eye to pool around the side of his head.
She loved the sight of it, red, such deep red like the color of Sasori's… Sasori's... hair...
Oh gods what the fuck was she doing.
Nanami's thoughts came to a sudden halt, harshly enough for her to gasp out around the grip that squeezed her throat.
There was a pause for a moment as both of their violent intentions towards the other shuttered in a stalemate.
He had made the mistake of letting her touch his chakra, and she had made the mistake of attacking an opponent leaps and bounds out of her league.
The occupants in the room shifted, chakra seeping into her awareness and she realized there was a lot of worry going around.
She didn't want to worry anyone.
She wasn't… she wasn't even angry with Obito really.
She was just… angry with herself. Angry Sasori was dead, that a rift had formed between her and Deidara. That everything just keep moving forward and the world hadn't stopped suddenly in it's tracks like it should have because someone precious to her was dead.
Maybe it wasn't even anger, maybe she was just terribly sad. (Nanami felt so broken. So lost. What now? Would they all just move on like Sasori's life hadn't meant something to her? Like he hadn't been an important part of her family? She ached at the thought, oh, gods how she ached.)
Her emotions fizzled out like a bucket of ice water on a camp fire, leaving her feeling like a million little pieces that she didn't know how to fit back together again.
Sasori was dead. She remembered. How could she possibly have forgotten.
Anger was a heady thing.
Something clear pliped onto Tobi's mask and ran down the crevice between swirls to slide away and join the pool of blood that still oozed from his eye.
She let go of his chakra immediately and sat back on the man's chest. He let her, his gloved grip on her throat sliding away as he felt her release his chakra.
She scrubbed at the tears that wouldn't stop with her forearm.
"Nanami is sorry, Tobi." She deflated, reverting back to her improper speech in her distress; and surprise flickered across his chakra.
"I'm not… angry with you, really." She admitted.
Someone gripped the back of her shirt and lifted her up and off of the man who was bleeding out on the floor. Obito's wide red eye stared up at her from behind his mask, the sclera crimson with blood.
She looked up from the grip that held her aloft and her eyes met the ripples of the rinnegan.
"Do not kill the new recruits." He told her blandly, and she could feel the way his attention was sharpened on her with the knowledge that she possibly could.
Nanami said nothing, the shame of her actions only adding to the heavy emotions that clung to her heart.
If Tobi was to be a Red Cloud, then she needed to accept him like she had all the others. All his faults, with all of the good traits… which somehow didn't want to come as easily as it had when she was a smaller child. The desire to accept was there, but it felt like something had carved a gorge between her and feeling that came so readily as a wild thing.
Something had changed now, maybe she had changed.
But beyond the difficulty, acceptance was still within her, and Nanami was firm in her resolve. Red Clouds were Red Clouds.
She needed them. (They needed her.)
Tobi rose to sit beside where she dangled in Pein's grip and used his good arm to pop the dislocated one back in place. He rolled the shoulder in a casual gesture.
"Damn, bitch. You can't even kill without crying on them, seriously." Loud Blood complained in an exasperated tone suddenly at her side, pulling her from Pein's clutches.
Pein let Hidan take her, and Nanami found herself being shuffled backwards through several bodies and directed up the stairs. Kakuzu was waiting at the bottom landing with crossed arms and an unreadable expression.
"Good show." Kisame laughed viciously with that lopsided smirk.
"Fucking seconded." Hidan cackled.
Itachi met her eyes with a look that said there would be questions later. She sighed in acceptance.
Deidara pushed off the wall he was leaning against at the top of the stairs as he listened to the commotion going on below.
"Nanami is sorry, Tobi." He heard her, and something in him went slack at her defeated tone. "I'm not… angry with you, really."
He strained to hear the last of her softly spoken words that dripped with a kind of self-loathing that made something in his chest tighten. He sighed.
Ah, Damn.
He envied her ability to look within herself and know how she felt.
Deidara wasn't like Nanami, no one here was quite like her really. She had this ability to sort through her emotions like a level headed human being and move on with her day in a way he knew he lacked.
And wasn't that saying something, for a little girl they'd plucked from the forest all on her own dressed in rags and sleeping in piles of deer. Weren't they supposed to be the civilized ones? Well, no one had said you had to be emotionally stable to be civilized he supposed. Repression was a beautiful thing.
Deidara wasn't good at acknowledging stressors and dealing with them. He just… got angry instead. It was easier to deal with. Everything was easier to deal with when there was something tangible to blame.
It was Iwa's fault for making him a missing-nin, it was Itachi's fault he was forced into Akatsuki, and his demolished pride.
It was Nanami's fault his long time partner was dead.
See, wasn't that easier..?
It felt more like a question that a statement somehow.
The thought rang harshly through him. It stung and burned like a lie and knowing he was wrong to put that on her just made him even more angry.
He had gone back to look for her. Guilt heavy on his mind, and when he'd arrived at the decimated cave to find nothing Deidara had worried.
(He always made things worse.)
When the foul-mouthed Hidan had sucker punched him instead of demanding to know where Nanami was he felt a small amount of relief, because that meant she had to be here.
(She had to be. If he lost Nanami too… well, he hadn't. Maybe it was better not to think about these things.)
But it had also only fueled the fire of his anger, because here was another man willing to react with violence in the face of emotions none of them knew how to deal with, that none of them had ever had to deal with before Nanami.
The kid had this way of making you look at yourself, and question things. Question things you never thought to do before, because it was a shinobi's job to be emotionless, a cold hearted killer. You didn't have to love or be loved to be good at blowing peoples heads off or slaughtering entire enemy platoons, and this had always just been the way it's done, accepted without thought or pause. Shinobi were emotionless, shinobi did not love, shinobi were not loved.
Nanami made him want things he'd never stopped to want before. Deidara saw his own realization mirrored in many of his comrades; some took it better than others. Repression was a beautiful thing.
A door opened on his left and out strolled Leader casual as you please. He didn't even spare Deidara a glance as he descended the stairs.
This irritated him too.
Another door opened, and Kakuzu followed in the wake of the man before him.
He paused at the first step, giving Deidara a disturbing look.
"You are still young." Kakuzu's voice rumbled.
Deidara scoffed, the fuck was this guy on about? "I'm nineteen, un." He told the taller man with narrowed eyes. An adult on all accounts, he'd been killing people since he was six years old.
Iwa would never have let a valuable kekkei genkai like his go to waste.
Kakuzu gave him a flat look that said, 'yes, that's my point.' and Deidara supposed that compared to the Taki-nin he was quite young; Kakuzu had to be over a hundred years old by now.
Kakuzu turned away, and took a few steps down before he paused again.
"Either deal with your issues, or they will be dealt with." and a ripple of movement went through the stitches along the man's arms with his words, as if eager for Deidara to test him.
Deidara narrowed his eyes, his pride sparking his anger once again at the challenge.
He was too tired to deal with this shit.
"Tch." He turned away from Kakuzu, who had already resumed his purposeful steps down the stairs, and made his way to the second door on the right.
His and Sasori's room.
Damn, he really did need to straighten himself out.
Not because Kakuzu had said so though- fuck that guy.
Nanami stretched with a jaw popping yawn, and watched with bleary eyes as Ocean's massive form joined her on his bed.
His large hand reached out to tilt her chin up so he could get a better look at the hand-shaped deep purple bruising around her neck.
"Aren't you just a little punching bag." He said laughingly, and she reached up to place little palms on his large wrist and move his hand away from her face. She grinned back at him, tired but feeling a little better after her tussle with Tobi.
She had some things she needed to work through, and it wasn't fair to go shoving her problems off on other people. (The irony here was completely lost on Nanami.)
"Don't get comfortable now." He told her after she yawned again, "Go get in the Uchiha's bed, he has more room." and with that he pushed her off the side of his mattress.
Nanami blinked blearily, landing lightly on her feet and made her way to Itachi, who was already moving the covers for her without looking up from his book.
She crawled in, and looked over his arm that held up his reading material to see what it was about.
"There are four hundred and thirty two chakra pathways that lead to each eye of the human body, although this is subject to change for cases such as doujutsu users who tend to have more. For example Konohagakure No Sato's Byakugan eye has been confirmed to have more than nine hundred leading to each eye, although the exact amount is not known…"
Nanami scrunched her nose.
Boring.
His dark eyes slid to catch hers as if he'd heard her thoughts. His brow rose.
"I'm going to figure out how you do that someday." She murmured to him as she turned her face into the mattress at his side. She inhaled his comforting and familiar scent of weapon oils and tea leaves.
A page turned. "Do what." He smoothly replied.
Nanami giggled, "Read people's minds." His chakra spiked in curiosity, and she felt him shift, but without looking she wasn't sure what he was doing.
"I can't read minds." He said gently, as if trying to reassure her. From across the room Kisame snorted doubtfully.
Nanami sat up pushing off the bed with little arms; distracted for a moment, and her eyes tracked something only she could see beyond the far wall.
"Leader-sama is coming." and a sharp knock rapped at the door before it was pushed open without even a by your leave.
Pein entered, looking as blank as he always did and following behind him was Tobi. They shut the door behind them, and Itachi closed his book with a snap and sat up.
Kisame did the same, folding his legs in front of him like it was going to be a nice chat all around.
Nanami doubted that.
Pein pulled a chair away from the wall next to where Samehada leaned and sat himself down in it like the graceful killer he was.
Tobi just stood there, quiet. Unnerving.
"I believe you have both met Madara-sama." He began, and to their credit neither Itachi nor Kisame made any indication that his words meant anything to them. "He will be taking Sasori's place under the guise of Tobi, as we can not move forward with only eight members."
His ripple patterned eyes rested on her briefly, and she folded her legs like Kisame had as a way to distract herself from his attention.
"Would anyone care to explain." Pein remarked as if he was asking for notes on a pastry recipe. Itachi's chakra flickered in resignation, and Kisame's in irritation.
"Nanami has a kekkei genkai that allows her to interact with nature chakra." Itachi monotoned back as if they were discussing the weather.
Tobi stepped forward, uncrossing his arms. "You knew I had the sharingan." He said to her, and she nodded, because she had.
"It feels the same." She gestured to Itachi at her side. Definitely not a lie, but not exactly the truth either. She wasn't comfortable enough with Tobi and Pein yet to be as open and honest as she was with the others. Nanami wondered if this development was a new facet of the changes she was beginning to notice in herself.
"I see." He murmured, orange mask turning to the wall.
"What is the extent of this ability." Pein interjected.
"We don't know." Kisame told him, his silver eyes turning on her. So she picked up the explanation with what she did know.
"I can make suggestions to lesser chakra signatures, such as basic elements or animals. They tend to agree with what I ask so it doesn't take much." She ticked off her fingers as she thought back on things she had successfully attempted or failed at.
"Summons that aren't mine tend to resist. Human's are much more difficult because the chakra is sentient, but I can… force the issue. If I want it enough." She paused, considering.
"I was able to sever the ichibi's connection to his sand, when he was attempting to crush Burning Earth's arm. So I suppose I can... sort of damage a person's ambient chakra?" The last part came out like a question because she wasn't really sure what that had been about.
And as this was news to everyone in the room, their attention sharpened on her.
"Interesting." Pein said, as he continued to pick her apart with his eyes, he crossed one leg over the other and sat back into the chair.
"That's how you kept me from phasing." Tobi spoke up again, and it was strange hearing his voice so level and calm.
She nodded. "Yes."
"Irritating." He replied folding his arms back in front of his chest.
Pein turned his rinnegan on Itachi. "Can this be used?" He asked the man as if she wasn't sitting right next to him.
Itachi nodded, slowly, carefully. "Probably, with more training."
Pein stood from his chair. "Do it." and he turned to her again.
"You will never be Akatsuki, you are far too young and inexperienced." He said sternly, and she nodded because she already knew that. "But if you are useful you are welcome to stay. You've been around long enough already."
With that he opened the door and walked out, Tobi turned to her then, too. "Bye bye Nanami-chan! See you in the morning!" He sing-songed and snapped the door closed behind him.
A Long AN:
We have officially caught up with what I had pre written, so the next chapter you'll have to wait a little longer for, sorry guys. Chapter 33 about 80% complete at the moment, but i probably wont post it till i'm up to at least chapter 35. (writing on the spot chapters drives me nuts, i like to be able to go back and edit things before posting.)
I had a reviewer ask me what fic inspired me to write this one, (Dahliareads) and I figured i'd share here because they are both excellent fics. The first would be "Dragonfly" by Kettobase, it's one of those ones that drags out your hope till the very ends and well, just read it.
The other would be a one shot fic, "All Roads Lead Home" by Insomniac Owl. It is so good, man it will tear you up inside. After reading this one shot I had to write something, like powered by some invisible force to fix the emotional damage this story wrought on my soul. Because damn. I couldn't just let it end like that. Totally worth your time guys, seriously check these two out!
PS, Dahliareads also suggested I try out making a poll (it's my first one!) You can find it on my Author's Page. Thanks for reading and taking the time to review y'all!