"Wash the sorrow from off my skin,

And show me how to be whole again,

'Cause I'm only a crack in this castle of glass,

Hardly anything there for you to see,"

Castle of Glass, Linkin Park

"I've always wanted to duel with a shinobi," Hangaku said softly, stopping on the sand across from him.

He'd see Miyashita if he looked to the right, leaning against the side of the carriage, watching them. Waraine sat on the steps next to him.

Eito and the horses were twenty meters from him, probably around a more reliably clean water source than the sea.

"Five bottles of Shochu on the Taiyokage," Itsuki offered, feet away from Miyashita.

Nagato didn't know where they came from and he paused, wondering how much more there was.

"I'm neither a gambling man, or a drinking one," Miyashita said, almost scornfully.

"Piece of the ciba cake you have stashed then."

Hangaku slowly, carefully drew her blade from its sheathe, and he realized it wasn't one. It was more like a spear with a curved blade.

"Are you sure there should be no restrictions?" Nagato couldn't help but ask.

"Only if you offer your pouch of weapons in turn," Miyashita said in the background.

"For a piece smaller than my hand?" Itsuki asked back, laughter in his voice.

"I'm sure," Hangaku told him, and bent her knees, spear swinging behind her.

Nagato brought his hands together. Bird—

She was in front of him in an instant, staring intensely up at him, her spear cutting up toward his hands.

Nagato yanked them apart and the blade sliced the air where his fingers had been. Chakra extended from the tip like a second blade as it neared his face, surprising him, and he jerked back, turning his head as far away as he could, hissing as he felt the burn of a cut up his neck.

The blade missed his chin and face, but the area around the cut burned too—

Superficial, he thought as he pulled a kunai from his pouch with his right hand. Ignore it.

Nagato flicked his wrist and the kunai spun up between them. She tracked it for a second as he grabbed a second kunai with his left hand. He was already moving when she looked down, bringing the point down between her shoulder and neck—

Below the external jugular vein, but with enough force to hit the clavicle bone—

She twisted the spear even as her eyes widened, wedging the handle in the space between her skin and his blade.

The kunai he'd thrown hit the sand.

Nagato pressed harder, but the pole didn't give, so he made one-handed signs instead.

Dragon—

Her eyes flitted to his hand and she tightened her grip on on the pole.

Tiger—

Chakra flared around the blade.

Hare.

Nagato took a quick breath and spewed waves at her.

She aimed her face away as water splashed off her armor, but stayed in place until the sand became too wet and unstable to stick to. It was only right before she was finally thrown backwards that he saw her squeeze her eyes shut.

Nagato moved a little as water darkened the sand around the carriage, putting his back to Miyashita and Itsuki. He sensed Hangaku's chakra offshore, closer than he thought she'd be. He'd underestimate how much momentum his waves would lose hitting the sea.

He paused when he spotted her spear sticking out of the water, the blade anchoring her on top of it as she planted an arm on the surface and dragged herself up.

Nagato hadn't stopped making the Hare sign. He adjusted, and spat a more concentrated stream at her.

Hangaku bent her knees and thrust her spear in front of her, deflecting water off the blade and splitting it around her.

Nagato didn't move, and she seemed to realize he wouldn't stop, because she pressed a hand against the water after a few seconds and shoved off it, dodging the stream as she darted in a half-circle towards him.

Water sprayed up behind her as he followed her, but realized quickly how much the sand had been slowing her down. She twisted into a spin as she stepped onto the shore, keeping her momentum even when she shouldn't have, and threw the spear at him. The chakra around the blade disappeared the second it left her hand.

Nagato stopped and dropped down and Hangaku was in front of him as the spear spun over his head, fist raised.

He threw up his arm instinctively, knowing the instant he did that he shouldn't have. She'd focused the chakra in her arm into a glowing outline around her fist.

It felt like she'd hit him with steel.

Ulna break, Nagato diagnosed the moment after his arm bent unnaturally and the force of it tossed him on his back. Radial fracture. Median nerve and extensor damage. I can still use the arm.

It didn't hurt, but he knew he was in shock.

Hangaku pulled the point of her spear out of the sand and stared hard at him. "Pick up your blade and face me on your feet, Nagato of the Akatsuki," she said, dripping, catching her breath.

Nagato sat up but didn't try to stand. "I give up," he said, covering the swollen, rapidly bruising skin below his wrist with a glowing hand to confirm what he suspected. "You win."

Hangaku didn't move. "I don't accept it," she said back. "If I did, I'd be insulting myself. Why have you been holding back?"

Nagato stopped, surprised, and then smiled at himself. Had he really been that obvious?

Hangaku pointed her weapon at him. "Stand," she demanded.

Nagato didn't respond right away. He ran his thumb down the middle of his arm, the chakra around his finger as thin as a scalpel as he made a long cut for the excess blood and bone fragments to drain out of. His arm felt numb, and he'd take advantage of it while he still could.

"I don't want to hurt you," he finally admitted.

Hangaku stepped closer and didn't look at his arm. She held the blade under his chin, but he still didn't move. "Do you think me so weak? Or do you think all samurai as less than yourself?"

He could've tried laughing it off like Yahiko, or defused the situation like Ren, but Nagato was neither of them. He was only himself, and so he told her the truth.

"I don't want to hurt anyone, samurai or ninja," he said, and she faltered. "Even if it's only a spar, I don't want to seriously injure someone I want to consider an ally."

He wouldn't have aimed for her clavicle if he wanted a quick end to this. There were deadlier places to stab in the neck than the bones around it, especially when he would've saved her after.

Hangaku slowly lowered her weapon, looking at him in confusion. "But you're a shinobi."

"I don't like what I do, even when I kill others so I'm not killed," he said, and couldn't suppress a wince as he pulled pieces of his ulna back together. "It's only during spars like this that I have the luxury to hold back, and I take advantage of it as much as I can."

Hangaku took a small step back, then turned to look at Miyashita.

"I continued to be astounded," Miyashita said, shaking his head.

"So, Baron Miyashita, about that cake—"

"Your Taiyokage didn't win."

"He didn't lose either."

Hangaku looked back at him, then sheathed her weapon. "I lose," she said softly.

Nagato opened his mouth to disagree, but Hangaku only turned and went to the carriage.

"You were saying, Baron Miyashita?" Itsuki asked.

Nagato stood, holding his arm close to his chest as he temporarily pinched blood vessels shut while he pushed damaged muscles to regrow. "How long do you plan to stay, Baron Miyashita?"

"Another day, I suspect, as we discuss the details of our arraignment," Miyashita said as Waraine climbed into the carriage and came back with a small, wrapped box. "Then I'll look to the Land of Fire, or Grass, for a proper inn. It would benefit us both if my presence in Rain is brief and quiet."

Waraine looked exasperated as Itsuki took the box from him, and Nagato tried not to watch.

"Suisai in Fire will host you if you tell them I sent you," Nagato offered. "They'll hide you, and they won't ask anything for it."

The least he owed Ren was the chance to make an impression.

"And why would they be so generous to me on your behalf? The Land of Fire isn't allied with Rain, or has peace between ninja really changed so much?" Miyashita asked curiously.

Nagato half-smiled. "It's in Suisai's best interest if no one knows they allied with us."

"I understand," Miyashita said, amused. "Very well, but you'll need to give me a map."

食

Nagato traced a hand up a wall of stone and steel, taller than he was.

Only the first floor was finished, and only in the barest sense of the word. There were holes for windows, a door, and space for things he was told were in hospitals. A desk. Chairs. A staircase.

He couldn't believe sometimes that Yahiko had done what he'd promised. Not because he didn't think he'd do it, but because it was a promise made before Yahiko stopped making promises.

He couldn't believe he somehow convinced Baron Miyashita to give them the materials to finish it.

There was no electricity, if only because it'd take more than a few wires and wishful thinking to make the water wheel work here, and Nagato would be the first to admit to knowing nothing about how it functioned beyond what Maho and Oka told him.

Debris covered the floor, what was left of the melted down steel and bricks were piled all over, but it looked like something.

It wasn't a crater filled with weapons and bodies, the rubble of a collapsed building, or a shelter scraped together out of anything sturdy and earth-style.

It looked like it would be something, and it motivated others to find Michi, Keitaru, or even Mamoru-sensei, and ask if they could help, too.

Keitaru had been working on mapping what the civilian sectors should look like and Michi was trying to organize them, last Nagato checked.

He laughed, just because he was happy.

"The fuck?" Hidan mumbled, disturbed.

Hidan sat on a corner of the wall behind him, but Nagato had kept his questions to himself, hadn't acknowledged him at all, and Hidan hadn't offered to tell him why he'd come.

Nagato still couldn't stop his smile.

It was the first time he'd seen Hidan without his scythe, but he politely hadn't asked about that, either. Hidan had a tan pouch strapped to his side that hadn't been there a few days ago, and a quick glance told Nagato that it looked too empty to have anything other than a kunai or two.

Or a storage scroll.

Kanna was outside, on the other side of the wall, along with twenty-three civilian volunteers. He could hear her, measuring a window with a long strip of paper that'd been marked into increments, and if he looked, he'd see burn scars that warped her skin down her shoulder and puckered around her left hand.

It was a war wound that had been left to heal on its own and did badly enough that it meant she'd kept using the arm to fight without resting for a long time.

Nagato sensed the sluggish, sputtering flow of chakra up her left arm, but like Ren, if she wanted his help she would've asked.

"Are you really going to pretend laughing to yourself in a corner isn't weird as shit?" Hidan asked.

Kanna pulled the paper down, thumbs marking measurements as she counted, and Nagato heard Oka as he considered a safe answer.

Says you.

"I'm happy," he said, shrugging.

Hidan stared at him for a few seconds. "Just shut the hell up."

Nagato weighed what might happen if he did channel his sister and point out that he was the one who asked—

"I brought the booze," Itsuki announced, lowering an old crate full of clear bottles to the ground.

Kanna immediately abandoned her measurements to take a closer look, and Nagato was left amused as others did the same, dropping what they were doing with mutters of, feeling a little thirsty, now that I think about it, and might as well take a break.

Kanna held up a bottle full of clear liquid. "Who'd you have to rob to find this much sake?"

"Shochu—"

"Whatever."

"You know what, I don't think you deserve to know," Itsuki said.

Kanna twisted the cap off with her right hand and showed him her middle finger as she took a generous drink.

It made Nagato smile. He realized then that he was being stared at. Volunteers were standing around or behind Itsuki and Kanna, unsure and hesitant, looking between them and him.

A dark-haired man shifted down to one knee. "If it's not too much to ask—" he stopped awkwardly and tried again. "Do I—we—have your permission to—"

"You don't need it," Kanna dismissed, shoving a second bottle into the hands of the nearest woman, who made a started sound but didn't drop it.

No one would meet his eyes. If they knew how uncomfortable it made him to be kneeled at, would they still treat him like he was above them? If they knew part of the reason he came here was to seem less godly, what would they think?

"I brought this to celebrate what we're doing here," Itsuki told them. "It's old stuff, and not as good as ciba cake—"

"Stop telling everyone about your ciba cake," Kanna cut him off, taking another drink.

It wasn't a secret that Itsuki came back from Iron. Even if Konohagakure found out, it wouldn't matter. Why would they think he succeeded when even they failed?

"You don't," Nagato agreed, but a few still hesitated while others crowded around the crate and pulled bottles free.

He watched as they were passed around, or quickly opened, and caught a few side glances. Even when they laughed and clinked bottles and two women argued over who touched the last bottle first, it sounded off, like they weren't sure they should be so casual around him.

He didn't know many of the rumors around himself, but he knew they all made him bigger than he was, and more confident than he'd ever been. When he made it rain for Yahiko's birthday, they said he'd called to the sky.

If Mamoru-sensei told him all of them, Nagato mused that he might think himself a god, too.

It would've made him feel insecure, once upon a time. But looking at them drink, he just felt okay with it. He felt gratitude, too, because when he tried to think of becoming what they thought he was, he remembered his sister teasing him. If he even suggested it, Yahiko would look at him weird. Then probably put him in a headlock.

Nagato pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, because he was trying not to laugh again and doing a bad job of holding it in.

Hidan turned his incredulous stare onto Kanna and Itsuki, wordlessly asking if they saw what he did, and it made Nagato laugh outright.

"It's been so long since I felt like this," Kanna murmured into her bottle.

An older man drained a cupped handful of shochu directly into his mouth, but Nagato still went unacknowledged, and no one seemed to want to acknowledge Kanna or Itsuki, either.

Nagato still didn't know how to fix the line Hanzo had drawn between civilian and shinobi.

"Where did you find this?" Nagato finally asked Itsuki.

There were two bottles left untouched, if only out of respect.

"Not from anyone, that's for sure. The crates around here are always emptied within the hour," Itsuki told him, picking up a bottle. "But if you know where to look, you can find plenty of surprises buried here. Usually done to keep the enemy from getting to them, and then whoever did it didn't live long enough to dig them out."

"You're killing the mood," Kanna told him.

"Oh, right. I meant I found it under a rainbow along with piles and piles of ryo," Itsuki said.

Kanna only laughed and took another drink, bottle half empty.

"You should drink with us, Lord Nagato," Itsuki said, holding out the bottle. "This whole celebration is because of what you did, after all."

Nagato looked at it, but didn't take it. "I've never had shochu before. Or anything," he admitted.

"First time for everything," Itsuki said. "See if it's for you. If not, I'll drink it. No loss there."

Nagato knew what alcohol did on a practical, medical level, and knew it could be used as a disinfectant if the alcohol content was high enough—

"My arm is getting really tired here," Itsuki added. "Don't overthink it. Don't want to? Say so."

Maybe if Yahiko, Oka, or Namekuji were here, the idea of drinking for the first time by himself wouldn't have made him less happy.

He took the bottle anyway.

"Go easy. Take a small sip first to see if—"

Nagato unscrewed the cap and tilted his head back as he took a swig before he could ruin his mood more.

Itsuki confiscated it from him when he gagged and stared at him.

His throat burned and his tongue tingled with spicy, vanilla flavored wood. "It tastes awful," Nagato coughed.

"Yeah, when you do it like that. If you want to make yourself sick, you're doing a great job."

"I didn't know it'd be that strong," he managed, barely audible.

Itsuki shook his head and took a sip. "I'd say you'd have an easier time with sake, but I can't remember what it tastes like."

Nagato tried to speak and coughed again.

"If this is a celebration, might as well add Lord Jashin into the mix," Kanna said. She lifted the last bottle and shook it at Hidan. "Why not, right?"

Hidan eyed her. "That was some sacrilegious shit you just said," he mentioned, but didn't move to attack her.

"Then come down here and teach me about Jashinism," Kanna said, trying not to let her words slur. "Akatsuki never did. Can you believe that? Mamoru told us to roll with it, with you, but anything else? Yeah, right."

Hidan only gazed at her, searching for something. He paused when he didn't it. "What the fuck is in the water here? Why the hell do any of you care?"

"I respect the Akatsuki, more than I've respected anything in my entire life, and they want you here. Why is that so hard to understand, you big idiot?" Kanna asked. "Here."

Hidan caught the bottle as she tossed it up. "Big idiot?" he repeated. "What, afraid the scary curse words will bite if you use them?"

Kanna ignored him, "I heard you liked talking about Jashinism. Where's that enthusiasm now?"

"Couldn't drink on the field, and here wasn't any safer," Itsuki muttered to himself. "Was the first drink I had since the war really in Iron?"

Hidan ducked his head and laughed. He held up a finger. "One, what you heard doesn't mean shit to me." He raised a second finger. "Two, if you're asking me that, you'll never understand the bond I have with Lord Jashin. You heathens never listen when I try to teach you—" he lifted a third finger. "—and three, question my enthusiasm for Lord Jashin again and I'll show you just how enthused I can be."

Kanna hesitated, then raised her middle finger as she drank again, a second before Itsuki took her quarter full bottle and shoved it at the closest civilian, a dark-haired man.

"Who gave you the right," Kanna hissed at him.

"Your liver, mainly," Itsuki said mildly.

"You shouldn't be embarrassed," Nagato told him. He knew why Hidan didn't drink because he'd just experienced it himself.

Hidan's gaze shot to his, "What the fuck did you just say?"

Nagato considered taking it back, and instead added, "It might not even affect you at all—"

Hidan responded exactly as Nagato thought he would. He threw the cap at him and chugged from the bottle until he choked.

Hidan bent down and tried not to vomit, and Nagato thought that he might not be as alone as he felt after all.

.

.

.

Hidan stared at the playing cards he held in confusion, and then he stared at Kanna, sitting across from him.

He looked at the cards again. "Why am I—" he stopped, and tried again. "Why the fuck—"

Nagato quietly matched the up-facing card between them with a three in his deck, then put both cards down on top of a small pile next to him.

The cards were all damaged in some way, from faint, peeling numbers to ones without a matching pair.

Kanna sighed and put her cards face down on her knee. "Don't do this again," she said, carefully, struggling not to let the sentence slur together.

Nagato only smiled.

"You were telling me about the Way of Jashin," she prompted, waving a hand at him.

Hidan kept his eyes on his hand, perturbed by them. "No the fuck I wasn't," he said after a second, less articulate.

Nagato maneuvered around a mostly empty bottle of shochu as he reached out, took the top card of the neatly stacked deck between them, then placed it face up on the ground next to it. It was an eight.

"You, you idiot, were in the middle of a rant about how no one understands Lord Jashin, and say anything while you have them in your circle thing to get the pain to stop instead of embracing their deaths or whatever," Kanna insisted.

Hidan blinked once, slowly. He squinted at her. "Why the hell," he began. "Are there two of you?"

"You said something about how much of a pain it was to find a sacrifice a day," she insisted again, leaning toward him.

"It's not a day," Hidan mumbled. "Depends on the quality and shit. The biggest sinners make shit easier because they're worth at least four or five regular assholes."

"It's your turn," Nagato mentioned.

Hidan didn't hear him, "Who the fuck said it was about embracing death?"

Kanna leveled a stare at him. "You stopped mid-rant."

Hidan glanced at his deck. He spontaneously picked a card, put it on top of the face-up card in the middle, and didn't respond.

It didn't match, but Nagato politely picked both up and added them the pile next to Hidan anyway.

Kanna watched him and frowned. "You cheated for him," she said, unsure, forgetting to address him properly.

Nagato said nothing as he flipped over a new card in the middle.

She used her cards to point at him, but seemed to forget what she wanted to say, and settled for troubled silence.

"It won't help him," Nagato finally said.

She took in Hidan's sad pile of matched cards, then Nagato's moderately sized pile. "How much have you drunk from that?" she asked, almost accusingly, waving at the bottle.

"Once," Nagato answered mildly. It was the only time he lost.

She leaned down more, squinting at him. "You're the only one not drunk," she said, fully accusing. She gestured to where Itsuki slept against the wall. "Everyone else either left or passed out, and you're sober."

"It's your turn," Nagato deflected.

She abandoned the effort to enunciate each word, "What? You an embarrassing drunk, Lord Nagato?"

Nagato didn't know and would keep winning to avoid finding out. "There's not enough left to get me drunk," he pointed out.

"Plenty for a lightweight," she said. "Especially someone who thinks shochu is spicy."

"You'll have to win," he said back, ignoring the rest.

"That's more like it," she said, grinning as she sat upright. "You said you took two swigs, right? Yet you're starting to sound at least a little affected."

Nagato kept his eyes on his cards and refused to speak.

Hidan's attention drifted back to his hand, and he looked baffled. "What the hell is this?"

A/N: 食 - Eclipse

Ciba Cake - fried rice paste molded into cubes and dipped in brown sugar and roasted soybean flour.

Yahiko - Left-Handed

Enyo - Left-Handed

Nagato - Ambidextrous

Everyone Else - Right-Handed

this is totally n̶o̶t̶ important information I promise.