ii.
Chapter Thirty-Four: The Human Condition
"Was there a time we weren't at war? When we knew what our hearts and hands were for? I don't believe there ever was. It's always been a lie. A soothing lullaby. We'll soon be swallowed by the sea." -Lost Continent, Thrice
"War... war never changes." -Fallout
"Nanami-chan!" Tobi whined for her attention, and she rolled over on Kakuzu's bed to see him standing in the doorway.
Kakuzu turned from the papers he'd been shuffling through on his writing desk to look at the masked man, and then over at her before turning back to his work dismissively. Inside the bathroom she heard Hidan turn the water for the shower off.
"Swirly Face?" She questioned, and she got the distinct feeling he was pouting. He trotted into the room and scooped her up off the bed so quickly she didn't have time to react.
She blinked at Kakuzu from her position thrown over the mans shoulder.
"Eh?" She managed as he swept her out of the room and flew down the stairs fast enough to feel like they had teleported.
She knew he did this stuff on purpose to mess with her, she thought maybe he got some kind of enjoyment out of startling her and putting her off kilter. Or anyone really. Tobi practically lived to disturb, bother and throw people off balance for fun.
He tossed her down onto the couch, and consequently into another person. Another person who protested loudly.
"What the fuck! Un!" Nanami scrambled off Deidara's lap, anxiety blooming in her chest.
Tobi was such a jerk.
"Fix him Nanami-chan!" Tobi continued to whine with a pointed finger at the blond man who looked just as startled and unsure as she felt. "He's so mopey!" and with that, he sat himself heavily into the armchair across from them and threaded his fingers together like he was their psychiatrist or something.
What a nut cake.
Deidara had very obviously been avoiding her for the last week, she knew he wasn't angry anymore, but she figured his pride kept him from approaching. Any time she had tried he'd given her a half-hearted glare and wandered off without a word.
For Tobi, this was the perfect opportunity to make more than one person uncomfortable- but then again, if this managed to get Burning Earth to talk to her she'd be grateful to him. Even if he was just fucking around.
Deidara went to stand and he stomped off towards the stairs. Her heart sunk low.
He paused at the landing, flashing her bright blue eyes and a menacing scowl.
"Are you coming or not, un." He grouched, and Nanami was up and following after him so fast Tobi didn't even have the opportunity to protest.
This was not going to be a spectator sport, she knew Deidara would never talk to her with an audience, and she wholeheartedly agreed that it would be awkward.
Burning Earth pushed her into his room, the second door on the right at the top of the stairs. Nanami couldn't help but feel like it was too empty. Too clean, even with Deidara's mess scattered around. Two beds looked weird, and Tobi's side was as immaculate as Itachi and Kakuzu kept theirs.
Which was also weird.
The door clicked behind them just as she felt Tobi's chakra flickering after them. He slammed into the door the second it latched like an idiot.
Deidara scowled harder.
"Look." He said rounding on her, and she unconsciously spread her feet farther apart in preparation for her animal stance. She tried to relax as soon as she realized what she was doing, but Deidara didn't miss it, and his next words were a little less aggressive.
He tightened his high ponytail in a fidgety gesture. "Look, I'm not… mad okay, that stuff I said-"
"It's okay." She interrupted, trying to save him the distress of apologizing when it was clearly difficult. He didn't need to, she had already forgiven him, as far as she was concerned that wasn't even anything to forgive.
She just wanted to be friends again. She wanted her brother back for as long as she could keep him.
"No, un." He glared at the floor. "Just let me finish." and he sounded so frustrated that she snapped her jaw shut with a clack.
"I didn't mean what I said before, I was angry and upset and it was wrong of me to put that on you- so." I'm sorry. She heard beneath every word.
He grit his teeth together, eyes narrowing on that same spot on the floor like he loathed the wood it was made of.
"So, look, I'm just sorry okay! Un!" He didn't look up from the floor, and she could tell he was having a difficult time of this. So she took slow steps towards him, and when she was an arms length away his blue eyes flashed to meet hers. He looked unsure.
She reached out slowly, so he could see, and grasped one of his hands that he held balled up at his side. His skin was warm, and smooth.
She brushed a little thumb over the back of his hand, and a small amount of the tension in his muscles eased.
"I'm not mad." She said. All is forgiven, was said underneath that.
He let out a breath, and stilled for a second as if debating something. His eyes narrowed, gaining a determined look and he twisted his hand out from hers and grasped her little wrist to yank her forward faster than she could respond too.
It was Deidara, and she trusted him. She would always trust him.
His arms came around her, and he hunched forward slightly in a protective gesture to lay his chin on top of her head.
He let out another, more relieved breath.
"Un." He made that small noise he always did. That's good. She heard.
And then Tobi burst through the door, breaking their nice moment like the jerk he was.
"Aww so sweet! I'm so glad you two made-" He cooed clasping his hands over his heart with a dramatic sigh, only to be interrupted when Nanami and Deidara lunged at him.
"Hello...?" She called into the dark. How had she gotten here? Where was this place?
"Hello?" She called a little more desperately. All around her the dark pressed in, taking bit and pieces away from her in wisps. She moved an arm she couldn't see to swipe at the tendrils of void. Her body moved through it, every inch of her bared skin in contact with this empty beast that burned with hunger in the form of endless nothing.
"Who are you?" Voices called all around.
A sick conglomeration of all her brothers voices. Angry, on top of sad, on top of pleading voices all calling out to her with the same words at the same time and all of them somehow asking a different thing through the same question.
Nanami turned, eyes wide and sweeping through the dark; seeking, eternally seeking.
"Who are you?" They moaned a desperate tone that matched her earlier one.
A tendril of dark she couldn't see caressed her eyes, and she startled hard enough to jerk backwards, steps silent in the void.
The touch receded, and as it pulled away a figure lit before her. She squinted at it, it's shape going from blurry to clear.
"False Pieces?" She recognized.
Chocolate brown eyes watched her, as she attempted to approach; but no matter how many steps she took he was no closer, and no farther away.
"Who are you?" He asked in a clear, single voice; his own voice. No… wait… was that his voice?
Nanami felt panic rise.
She couldn't remember. She couldn't remember what his voice sounded like. And as this thought hit her, the color of his hair began to morph, switching from several shades of red to a dull brown and back again.
"Please… don't do this…" She begged the void.
It laughed at her without sound, and stole more of her memories of Sasori with a single minded glee.
She felt the empty pressing in, pulling at the wisps of her mind. Taking the very last thing she had left of her beloved brother.
Her memories.
And then he crumpled to dust before her, and there was only darkness once more. The harder she tried to remember the farther away the memories seemed to be.
"Please, it's all I have left…" And her voice began to sound empty to. She felt empty, her chest a gnawing deep chasm of nothing but the ugliest blooming flower of regret.
"Who are you?" They called again, and Nanami shook her head desperately.
"It doesn't matter." She told them legs trembling as she back tracked through nothing, and then forward in what might have been circles.
For hours, for days, for years there was only her steps and the dark.
For so many lifetimes until the moment she wished they would say something, anything.
Who would say something? She was alone here. There was only… her.
There were memories once, people… people she was sure she had loved so deeply.
But now there was no one.
"Who are you?"
She gasped a sob.
"I am the witness."
And there was light. Light all around, banishing the void.
But Nanami was still alone.
There was no one. Not even her.
Only a single voice.
"Time waits for nothing, time will take everything."
Hidan rolled over, drool trailing down his chin and flopped a heavy arm across her middle, startling her out of her newest nightmare in a long string of nightmares that never let her sleep.
She breathed deep, images and sounds already fast fading, swallowed by her waking mind. But there was always that feeling left behind. The desperation, torment and panic.
It was awful.
This had been going on for weeks. Ever since she had woken to the feel of Raven Eyes' pain. She wasn't sure why the dreams never went away. Stress maybe, Nanami worried about a lot of things and she did her best to hide this from her Red Clouds. She was sure they noticed anyways.
The bags under her eyes didn't help her case any, nor the lethargic way she moved about the base during the day. Like she was asleep on her feet.
Nanami figured this might be normal; she had a lot more things on her mind than the average eight year old. And she was still coping with the loss of False Pieces.
Hidan murmured something about paper bombs into the pillow as he rolled again to face the wall, relieving her of the heavy arm that had startled her from her nightmares. She sighed quietly, a soft exhale from between parted lips that made no sound, and slid from Loud Bloods bed to make her way to the door. Acid green caught her, and Kakuzu sat up to give her a questioning look.
She smiled tiredly, "Just going to make some tea." She murmured. He said nothing, not to agree or disagree, just continued to watch as she slipped from the room and pulled the door closed again as quietly as possible.
Nanami rested her forehead against the cool wood of the door, and let out a breath.
She thought maybe if she exhaled purposefully enough times it might expel the awful dreams from her sleep. It didn't work, no matter how many times she tried.
She pushed away and turned only to come face to face with Konan's apathetic figure. She stood there, as if she had been there the entire time. Like her being in the hallway in this exact moment was exactly where she was supposed to be, standing in the dark, in the middle of the night while everyone else was asleep.
She said nothing for a moment, just took in Nanami's rumpled, exhausted appearance with half lidded apathetic eyes.
"Come." She commanded and she turned without looking to see if Nanami would follow.
Nanami's brow furrowed, unsure of what she wanted, but slumped after her without question. Hummingbird had never requested anything from her before, this was out of the normal lines of what Nanami would consider within the nature of their relationship.
It wasn't unwelcome though.
Konan pushed open the first door before Deidara's and flicked on a light.
Konan had her own room, which Nanami was sure she was quietly grateful for. Or maybe she didn't care either way. The woman was pretty hard to get a read on.
Hummingbird took long, confident strides to the far wall of her bedroom, and pulled out the topmost drawer of her night stand. Nanami noted it was cluttered with bottles, and little clasped pallets that she assumed was makeup.
The room smelled like spring flowers.
"Come along." Hummingbird said as she brushed past her again, flicking the light off once more. Nanami followed demurely, more out of her sleepiness than actually feeling submissive.
She trotted after the woman down the stairs and towards the table, and Konan guested for her to take a seat next to Echo-sama who didn't even look up from his book as she folded herself down onto the cushion.
Hummingbird sat across from her, coming down in a smooth graceful motion that was more liquid than sinew and bone.
"Hands on the table." Konan clipped as she placed a small bottle of a dark purple substance between them. When she opened it, the lid had a little brush attached.
Nail polish?
Nail polish that smelled like plums.
Nanami placed her hands flat on the wooden surface, a distantly familiar movement from a lifetime ago when she had participated in such things.
"The smell will fade when it's dry." Konan explained with the first swipe across her index nail.
It was quiet for a while, with only the sound of Echo-sama's turning pages as Konan turned her fingers this way and that to layer the lacquer across her nails.
"You're having trouble sleeping." Hummingbird stated, and it certainly wasn't a question. Pein's chakra didn't even flicker, his disinterest in them evident as his ripple patterned gaze swept across the pages of his book.
Nanami didn't say anything, unsure if she was supposed to confirm what was obviously a statement and not a question. She offered a noncommittal 'hn' sound in the absence of words.
It was quiet again while Nanami waited to see if she would continue. Which she apparently wasn't planning on.
Konan switched to her left hand, her right gleaming a wet deep purple color that reminded her of poison.
Nanami's mind wandered as she gazed around the room, finding Pein's chakra soothing in a strange sort of way. It was calm, and it rippled in a sensation similar to the way his eyes looked. An echo rushing forward to chase another echo on and on. Like waves crashing upon the shore.
"Did Echo-sama do your piercing?" Nanami asked without meaning to as she considered the stud in the woman's lip.
Pein turned a page in his book, but Nanami knew he was listening for the first time. Konan nodded absently as she turned her little thumb to paint the side.
"Yes." She told her simply.
"Do they meaning something?" Nanami inquired, not really expecting an answer but curious nonetheless.
"They are symbolic for Konan." Echo-sama's smooth voice spoke, and Nanami figured it was something like that. She didn't miss however, that his statement left out what they meant for him. It didn't matter though, Nanami was already aware of how the strange black metal bars called receivers allowed him to control Yahiko's body remotely.
Which one was he again…? Deva Path she thought might have been it, but it had been a long time and she was unsure. She wondered for a moment where Nagato was; probably in Ame somewhere, making rainfall for six days out of the week.
Konan turned the little brush back into it's bottle after releasing her hand and Nanami kept them flat to give the laquer time to dry, and she laid her head down on her outstretched arms.
"Ah, pain. Seems appropriate." She murmured in understanding into the table. Physical pain as a show for the emotional pain that didn't.
Echo-sama's chakra twisted at her words in apparent empathy. "And what would a child know of pain?" He questioned at her side.
Nanami thought it was a strange thing to ask, because although the words sounded derisive, he wasn't actually having any feelings of contempt at the moment. Nanami lolled her head lethargically to the side atop her arms so she could look up at the man. Her brown eyes met intense ripples.
She smiled sadly.
What did she know of pain? She thought about what answer she might give, what kind of words she knew that might encompass the feelings she bore.
Everything she came up with seemed to fall short. Nanami wasn't good with human language.
She chewed her words for a moment, contemplating before carefully giving an answer.
"The greater your capacity to love, is the greater your capacity to feel pain." Nanami felt like this was as close as she could come to the core of the thing, but she doubted any words even existed that could truly iterate the devastation she felt; the constant anticipation and fear for a future that would leave her with nothing but memories.
(And even those would fade in time.)
But that wasn't everything. That wasn't all of who she was. Because Nanami loved, she loved so deeply.
Nanami loved so much and so thoroughly with every inch of who she was. Like the broad strokes of a fat calligraphy brush dripping heavy with ink she smeared all she had to give across page after page that was her life.
She was sodden with it.
And she hurt just as much as she loved, a precarious balance that she carefully tended to within herself.
Echo-sama's chakra flickered again in empathy, and a deep ache that resonated with herself filled the space between them. For a long moment Nanami wondered if they were even different people, for all that she felt, and all that he deeply understood, it was almost as if in this singular moment they shared something more meaningful that words could ever be.
"Aa." was all he said, and the sound of it felt resigned, and regretful and understanding all at once.
Nagato cried a lot as a child, and even though he never cried anymore he still cared. It's why he berated the others for bickering, it's why his demeanor was always respectful. It was why every Sunday in Amegakure it didn't rain.
Nagato had once loved as deeply as she does, perhaps he still did.
There was no peace for him in this life anymore. There was only pain, and through it he sought to teach the world to desire peace because he didn't know how else to make them see; and he cared enough to make them want to.
Humans were pretty stupid. All of them.
A part of her truly believed he was correct, and the world would never want an end to the fighting until they'd had enough of it to slake the blood lust and leave only despair in its wake.
Even then, the memories of what remained in the aftermath of brutal death would fade. Generation, to the next generation to the next and suddenly once again there would only be the anger, and resentment towards one another.
War was an insatiable beast.
Even the peace she knew Naruto would one day bring to the world wouldn't last, because humans had a short memory, and long tempers.
Selfish, cowardly, wrathful, protective creatures that loved and believed so deeply that Nanami doubted there would ever come a day when the memory of anguish lasted forever and no one sought to bring death upon the world ever again.
Human's were awful, and beautiful things like that.
"The cycle never ends." She muttered morosely into the crook of her arm. A part of Nanami would always be a nihilist now.
But she supposed she didn't have to believe in peace to want it, after all, if the fourth shinobi war wasn't a thing all of her Red Clouds could live their lives as they pleased.
"Hm?" Hummingbird inquired from across from her as she painted her own nails.
Nanami could feel both of their attention on her, like a white hot blade pointed at the back of her exposed neck.
"Humans have short memories." She told the pair without looking up.
"You speak as if you are not also a human." Pein monotoned, and she got that feeling again that he said something that was completely at odds with what he was actually thinking.
"Human enough to understand the nature of the word."
Nanami knew what it was to be human, to be violent, and angry. To feel the full spectrum of emotions and have them motivate her choices.
No one said anything for a long time, and Nanami drifted slowly as she rested her head on the table, lulled by the sound of turning pages and the soft shifting of cloth.
Even farther into the night, when Konan had long since retreated upstairs and Pein had procured himself another book to read at her side, she felt the approach of a familiar chakra signature.
Kakuzu lifted her gently, collecting stray limbs and gathering all of her together. He turned and made his way back upstairs, but paused at the sound of Leader-sama's voice.
"Is she even a child at all?" He inquired softly.
"In some ways. Not in others." Kakuzu told the man quietly above her, a disembodied voice that hazed through the edges of her exhausted mind.
"I see that." The orange haired man murmured in understanding.
Nanami was laid on a soft mattress a minute later, and Beating Hearts warmth joined her at her side.
Whole, alive, breathing and here.
A blanket rose to cover them, and she sighed contentedly through distant images of a dream about birds parting clouds that were red in the haze of dawn with soft feathers and mournful trills.
AN: Goodness the level of angst in this chapter makes me itchy. I hope Nanami doesn't end up being one of those preteens. (If anyone is wondering she is still eight at this point.) Despite the weird turn this chapter took i'm not unhappy with it, so I hope y'all enjoy!
I'm so glad NarutoWiki is a thing otherwise i'd have no idea how to write Pein/Nagato. I was really kind of surprised to find out how similar he is to Nanami's character in a way. I'm not overly familiar with him, and there aren't a lot of fanfictions that include him either so I hope I stayed true to his personality.
PS. The next chapter titled: "The Best-Laid Plans of Snakes and Men" will start a new arch. I'll leave this here as a teaser ;)
PPS. 200 reviews wow! Thanks so much you guys! I love y'all! Thanks for reading!