"We have dedicated everything,
And faced a darkness that has yet to cease,
When we reach the end of this ever-looming night,
What paradise is waiting for me?"
-Requiem der Morgenröte, Lizz Robinett
Sitting on the sand with Namekuji across my lap, I watched Naga.
He was knee-deep in seawater. He took a deep breath, dunked his head underwater, and screamed.
He did it because we didn't know how long Zetsu and not-Madara had been watching us. At least long enough to know we would see Hanzo, to know how he would answer. He knew what would happen when Naga and Yahiko went to Shido Valley and did nothing to stop it.
Because of Root, because not-Madara made him feel powerless by taking him by surprise, because he was still so, so angry.
I scooped up a handful of black sand, turned my palm slightly, and watched it slide off. "Do you like Emon?" I asked Namekuji.
He hadn't liked Kuu.
"No, but she's tolerable," Namekuji said.
I glanced at him.
"The dislike is mutual," he explained. "We stay with our respective dumb humans and don't go near each other. That puts her above most summons."
I leaned back on my elbows, the sand warm. "Is Chiyoko like that?"
"She understands boundaries better than you meat sacks," he answered.
Naga jerked upright, gasping, coughing, and I watched him shove his hair up out of his face.
I tilted my head back and saw Yahiko, upside-down, walking towards me. His sandals crunched sand and sunk into it, but only because he wanted them too. The nagamaki was sheathed to his back.
"Where's Emon?" I asked. She wasn't on his shoulder or moving around under his shirt.
He tapped the right side of his chest without looking. "She can't live outside my body for that long," he answered, stopping next to me. "What was he doing?"
Naga didn't turn back to us. He only crossed his legs, his hair a wet curtain that would've hid his face, if we were close enough.
I hummed. The last time I saw Yahiko angry was when we met Hanzo, when he was a living, breathing thunderstorm, shooting lightning at everyone around him.
"How do you deal with your anger, Yahiko?"
"Ah, I get it," he said. "But to answer your question, I bottle it up like all normal, non-functioning adults."
I fully sat up. "You shouldn't. I don't want to watch your bottle to break again."
"You always know how to hit me right in the heart," Yahiko winced. "But that's why I said non-functioning adults."
I scooped up another handful of sand and didn't respond.
Yahiko plopped down, looking out at the water. "And how do you deal with your anger, hurtful sister of mine?"
I let the sand fall. "I let myself feel it. I don't hide it away, and I don't run from it. But I care a lot less than you do."
Yahiko shook his head. "What about you, Namekuji?"
"I melt nosy humans," he immediately answered.
Yahiko laughed a little and I wondered how Namekuji really felt, if he would tell me if I asked.
Probably not.
I watched Naga lie back in the sand, watched him spread his arms out, his head tilted back towards the sun, water splashing underneath him. His legs were fully submerged.
I looked back at Yahiko, at his small, sad smile. "All I have to do is stick my head under for a few minutes and I won't be angry anymore?"
"It makes him feel better for a little while," I said in answer. "He screams in the water so no one will think something happened."
Because the village was almost used to the sounds of quiet instead of war.
Yahiko shook his head. "It won't hurt to try," he said, almost to himself, and stood.
I picked Namekuji up and followed him down to the shore, until I felt water over my feet.
Yahiko left his sheathe in the sand.
Naga looked up as Yahiko stepped past him, tilting his head as Yahiko knelt and water soaked the bottom of his shirt.
Yahiko down stared at his legs. "I'm suddenly remembering how heavy wet pants are."
"That doesn't sound like screaming," I noted.
"Push him," Namekuji helpfully suggested.
Yahiko sighed. "I should've made myself a nice, private puddle to dunk my head in," he said to himself. He stared at the water for another second, apprehensively, before he held his breath and went under.
"You okay?" I asked Naga.
"Exhausted," he answered.
Yahiko blew bubbles for two seconds, then came back up. "Yeah, no, it's not doing it for me."
"You didn't scream," I said.
Yahiko shook water out of his hair. "I tried. It's a lot harder than it looks."
Naga closed his eyes, but he was smiling a little.
"Better yet, do that push jutsu," Namekuji suggested.
Yahiko glanced back. "I suddenly feel like I should get out of the water."
"You don't have to be strong around us," I said, and he faltered. "I told you that before, didn't I?"
Yahiko only stared out at the sea. "Hurtful little sister," he repeated, tonelessly.
I moved closer until I was beside him. He didn't look at me.
"I'll keep hurting you until it makes you angry."
Yahiko only closed his eyes and smiled humorlessly. He didn't speak.
"It won't work," Naga murmured, and I turned to him. He was staring at his hands. "He doesn't have the same problem I did. He'll only be angry if he lets himself be sad, first."
Yahiko winced deeply.
"He needs to think about Konan, but without a distraction in the way like revenge," Naga continued, quieter. He didn't look up. "I'm sorry."
I looked back. Yahiko didn't move, didn't speak, but I heard a quiet, uneven breath.
He slowly bent down until his head almost touched the water, clutching at his chest as he squeezed his eyes shut, fingers digging and digging into his shirt.
No one moved when he grit his teeth, or when he started to sob.
受け入れ
Hidan tilted his head back and yawned.
His scythe was propped against his shoulder, the blades pointed behind him. "Where the fuck are we going, anyway?"
I turned around, walking backwards through the grass. "To fix your scythe."
He kept his head tilted back. "Do you listen to anything I say? I didn't ask what we're doing or why we're doing it."
I glanced at Mamoru-sensei, ahead of us.
"I'm taking you to see Etsudo," he said after a second. "She's the only one I know who might be able to fix a weapon like that."
I remembered the haunted look in her eyes the most.
The way she'd retreated within herself after our old hideout was attacked, like she did after she told us about her son.
I'd asked if I could visit her, but I hadn't thought about her since then.
"How the hell would I know who that is?" Hidan asked.
"Why is she out here?"
"I don't know the exact reason, but it could have something to do with all the outposts and shelters that were forced open after the rain stopped," Mamoru-sensei answered. "Retired and active shinobi alike banded together after they heard about our raid on Doro and did the same to the other shelters. They took whatever they could find and left, leaving them for civilians or anyone else who wanted to live in them. Those groups even tried to raid the still-occupied outposts, too."
"Tried?" I repeated.
Mamoru-sensei didn't answer right away. "Most didn't put up a fight when asked to leave, but the most loyal ninja tend to be the type that would die for what they believe in."
I looked at a crumbing stone wall, something never finished or never fixed, and I thought about what it meant to be loyal.
Ideals over lives. Fighting and dying without ever knowing why. Believing the dead over the living.
"When we build the Academy you should teach kids not to be like them," I said idly.
Mamoru-sensei shook his head. "I've had my fill of kids making me feel like I should've retired years ago."
"They'll be better shinobi between you and Joji," I mused.
"I'm not a shinobi anymore," he said, more firmly.
"You won't have to fight," I told him. "And there's no one else Naga or Yahiko trust as much to do it."
Mamoru-sensei didn't respond, but he didn't object again either. I smiled.
I heard the slight scrape of a kunai behind me and turned around again.
Hidan glanced at the blade in his free hand, at me, then threw it anyway.
I sidestepped it.
"Your penance will come one day," was all he said, grinning.
I hummed. "What's the Academy in Yugakure like?"
He looked suddenly bored, eyes sliding to the side. "What the hell do you think it's like? I was taught more about chakra by warm water's enemy. It was shit."
Was Amegakure another enemy of Yugakure back then?
I didn't know.
"Better than not being taught at all," I told him.
Hidan didn't acknowledge me. "Why do you call everyone shinobi? It's fucking weird."
I tilted my head. "Aren't they?"
He shook his head. "Do neither of you know what kunoichi are?"
I considered that. "Do shinobi take infiltration missions? Espionage missions?"
"Of course they—"
"Then what's the difference between a shinobi and a kunoichi?"
He sneered in answer and I turned back around.
"I bet you have a shit reason too, heathenous old man," Hidan said.
"There wasn't time for labels during the war," Mamoru-sensei said back. "Or much else."
Hidan didn't bother with a response, but it was something else he didn't, couldn't, understand.
Yugakure never became a battlefield. I didn't doubt that he was sent out again, but that was beyond his village's gates. Maybe Yugakure had the choice to use their men and women differently in battle, but we didn't.
"What does a battle mean to you?" I wondered.
Hidan didn't answer that either, but I didn't expect him to.
"To me it's watching ninja from Konohagakure rob and kill and leave the people they stole from to die," I continued, still looking back. "It's looking at the rubble of a tower after a battle between Sunagakure and Iwagakure. It's learning to pat down the dead for weapons before I learned to read."
He stayed silent, but I knew he was listening. He didn't look bored.
"When did you learn to read?" I asked him.
He closed his eyes. "Shut up."
"Who taught you?"
I watched his eyebrows pinch together. He rubbed the back of his head. "Just stop fucking talking."
I wondered who he was thinking of.
.
.
.
Mamoru-sensei knocked once on the door of a shack. The walls were battered stone, the steel roof rusted. It was covered in layers of moss.
Someplace abandoned, somewhere someone who quit being a shinobi would be safe.
I heard a slight grunt from the other side as the door was tugged open, the metal shuddering and scraping against the dirt until Etsudo stood in the doorway.
Her hair was cut short and there were deep bags under her eyes. I didn't remember them being there before.
She was thinner, too.
She shaded her eyes as she squinted up at Mamoru-sensei and then they popped open. She took a quick step back, sucking in, shock, regret, and pain tearing her expression in three.
It told me that he hadn't come to see her, but when would he have when this was the first time he left the hideout in who knew how long?
"Mamoru?" Etusdo asked.
He didn't have to do this, I thought.
Mamoru-sensei could've told me where she was, told Yahiko or Naga or anyone else and stayed behind.
Etsudo looked over at me, and her mouth dropped open. "Oka?"
The last time she saw me my hair was in a tattered braid and I wore a cloak that lost all meaning.
Should I have been happy to see her?
She spent more time with Mamoru-sensei, more often helping Osamu and Joji cheat. She told embarrassing stories about Mamoru-sensei to Konan, but me?
Had we talked at all before the day she left?
Naga would've pinched me for staring, so I waved.
"You're so tall," she blurted out.
"Now that's bullshit," Hidan said, and her gaze snapped up to him like she hadn't noticed him before.
Her eyes roved apprehensively up his scythe. "A friend?" she asked us.
I hummed noncommittally.
Mamoru-sensei shook his head. "We can talk inside."
Etsudo moved back.
The inside didn't have windows or holes in the walls to let sunlight through. The only light came from a bright lantern hanging from a hook in the middle of the room.
The room was only big enough for a slab of stone with tools and weapons on it, two cots side-by-side close to the back wall, and a blond girl in the corner, kneeling in front of a pack filled with bunched-up clothes.
She stood fast as we came in, green eyes flicking from us to Etsudo.
"Of course it would smell like ass," Hidan said, tugging the collar of his shirt up over his nose.
"I don't smell anything," I told him.
He responded by moving to look at a long piece of steel hanging on the wall, vaguely in the shape of a sword.
Etsudo eyed Hidan for another second before she strolled over to the girl and slung an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close.
She looked younger than Ren, but older than Yahiko.
She was resigned as Etsudo ruffled and ruined her tied-up hair.
"Getting the introductions out of the way, this little gem is my apprentice, Asuga," Etsudo introduced, squeezing her. "And Asuga, our guests are—" she faltered, a cloud of a bad memory flitting across her face.
"Akatsuki," Asuga signed. She stared at me, then up at Mamoru-sensei. She shot Hidan a curious look, but if he noticed, he didn't turn.
"That they are," Etsudo said, and even after all this time I could tell her smile was forced. She looked at Hidan again. "Not going to introduce me to the new member?"
"Hidan," I told her.
Her eyebrows shot up. "That Hidan?"
I didn't answer, but I wondered how much she knew about us. She'd isolated herself out here, as far from the village as she could get without crossing the sea, away from the all the rumors of who we were, what we'd become.
"The geezer over there said you could fix this shit. How about we get to that and skip the bullshit?" Hidan asked, eyes sliding to her.
Etsudo blinked once, and then she burst out laughing. "Geezer?" she repeated, and laughed harder, clutching at her stomach. "Mamoru—He calls you—You're kidding."
"Parasite," Mamoru-sensei responded.
Hidan let the scythe fall off his shoulder and Etsudo jumped when the blades cracked the ground, her laughter dying off fast.
"Hey, I asked you a question," he said, deceptively lazy as he stared at her.
Etsudo frowned and didn't answer. She pulled her arm away from Asuga and looked between me and Mamoru-sensei. "You didn't say he was a friend," she said, light and humorless.
Mamoru-sensei looked at me, expecting me to speak, but he wasn't, so I didn't.
Hidan grinned in the silence. "Another question, have you heard of the Way of Jashin, by chance?"
I absently trailed a finger along the wall next to me. "You don't have to worry about him," I said. "He's like a cat. A feral cat."
Never mind that I didn't know what a feral cat looked like, or that Yahiko said that about us both—
Etsudo gasped and I ducked down as his scythe gouged the stone above me.
Hidan only laughed and slicked his hair back. "Remember what I said about overconfident bastards?"
I watched Asuga squeeze her eyes shut, watched something like despair flash across Etsudo's face as her eyes darted from the holes in the floor to the marks on the wall.
She looked at me like she must've looked at the shinobi who destroyed her shop. It told me how little she knew and maybe it stung, just a little, that she thought I'd let him do that.
We were shinobi to her, strangers with familiar faces that came into her home and started a fight. She didn't want to be involved in the civil war and didn't owe anything to a place that took everything from her.
It made sense, why she looked at me like that. It made sense.
Hidan stopped mid-laugh, eyes rolling up, his body suddenly stiff. I saw Mamoru-sensei behind him, leaning against the wall and making the half-rat sign.
I stood as the scythe slipped out of Hidan's grip and clattered against the floor.
Etsudo patted Asuga's shoulder a little too hard and smiled, nervous, relieved. "Seems like I'm the one that'll be needing repairs," she said, trying for humor.
Hidan's fingers twitched and Mamoru-sensei's gaze sharpened.
Etsudo quieted, going stiff and still again.
Hidan stumbled, groaning. He leaned a hand against the wall, the other squeezing his stomach. "Genjutsu using bitch," he spat.
Mamoru-sensei looked briefly surprised. He lowered his hand. "You're a sensor-nin?"
"If fucking only," he said. He leaned towards the door, barely outside, and threw up.
I raised an arm to cover my nose, but it reminded me of pulling him after me, of a genjutsu wall, of something that could've, might've been called friendship.
Asuga inched closer, eyes flicking up to him as he coughed and cursed. She crouched beside his scythe, tentatively looking between me and Mamoru-sensei.
"She's asking you to tell her what's wrong with it," Etsudo provided. She didn't move any closer, still looking at Hidan. "She only knows as much of the village code as I remember, and that isn't much, unfortunately. It's been a long time."
"Hello," Asuga signed, paused, and then said, "Honored."
Someone had to get all these tools, I thought.
Someone who went to the village and traded or worked for them after Etsudo stopped going herself.
"The cable is broken," I told her, then glanced at the steel hanging on the wall. "What's that for?"
Etsudo followed my glance, only slightly less tense. "A commission," she answered. "Hard to make them these days when we have to make our own fires, but we're getting there—"
"Don't fucking touch it," Hidan warned, still half-crumpled in the doorway.
Asuga drew her hand back away from the handle.
"I brought you here for this," Mamoru-sensei reminded him tonelessly.
Hidan looked away to spit. "Yeah, well, you're a bitch," he said back. He dropped his hand away from his stomach as he turned around, wiping his mouth with the other. "Keep your filthy heathen hands away from Lord Jashin's sacred weapon."
Asuga frowned. Etsudo's eyes went to the tools on the table, but she didn't grab one.
Mamoru-sensei only looked at me.
"If you wanted it to stay broken—" I stopped, because I thought of how he always made sure he was armed, of how he always found kunai to throw, of how he wouldn't let me seal it away.
He made it seem like it was about Jashin, but it wasn't. He didn't trust me, so why would he trust them?
"You have to rely on other people, sometimes," I said instead, and had the attention of the room. "Even if it's only a little."
How little had he trusted Yugakure to turn on them?
Hidan stared at me for a second, then he grinned wide, amused. "I don't think I caught that through the wave of shit that just came out of your mouth," he said. "Want to try again?"
Why should he trust anyone when I didn't trust him?
I glanced at his scythe. "I think you don't have a choice, because you want it fixed, and that bothers you."
And then he didn't seem to find what I said funny at all.
"Fuck off," he said, suddenly irritated. He walked outside but left his scythe.
Mamoru-sensei turned to ask Etsudo what she wanted for the repair and I moved closer to the doorway. Hidan was just outside, sitting against the wall, the Book of Jashin open in his lap.
"Do you know what fuck and off mean?" he asked without looking up. He flipped a page.
I leaned back against the doorframe. "What makes it a sacred weapon?"
"Because I fucking say it is, and anything else is blasphemy."
He waited, seemingly for an objection, but I didn't speak.
"Piss off," he said anyway.
I didn't do that either.
A/N: 受け入れ - Acceptance
The last chapter had a longer end note, but it didn't feel right including it, so I moved it here:
I didn't mean to give Obito any character (again) but here we are.
I watched the Book of Light/Darkness arc recently and came out feeling like Shisui had a burden just as heavy as Itachi's, but no 'big brother' figure to lean on. I don't know if the anime intended to make it seem like he was giving more than he was getting, but that's how it came across.
I also hope Book of Light/Darkness gets a proper adaption one day (as unlikely as that seems) because from Itachi's wiki page alone it seems like a lot of the best plotlines were straight-up dropped. Whether they're canon to Axis though... Hmm, I wonder...