"Call me in the morning to apologize,

Every little lie gives me butterflies,

Something in the way you're looking through my eyes,

Don't know if I'll make it out alive,"

-Teeth, 5 Seconds of Summer

"The deal with Kusagakure means we don't have to worry about overfishing anymore, so Yahiko left early to catch some for the villagers," I explained, sitting at the top of a column of stone and iron, a ruin covered in rust and moss.

My legs dangled over the side. It might've been part of a wall or a doorway, once.

"Naga and the others finished the foundation of the hospital and a little of the first floor, but there isn't that much left that can be melted down," I added.

And some ruins couldn't be used because of all the rust.

"Remind me, why the fuck do I care?" Hidan asked, sitting on a rusted, half-buried panel. His chin was on his palm and his scythe stuck in the dirt.

I looked down at him. "Because you're still here," I said. "If you want to be part of the Akatsuki you should know why we have rice and why Naga wants to trade with Iron."

"And who the hell says I want that?" Hidan asked, waving a dismissive hand. "You keep thinking I'm here for anything other than the free food and the place to crash, and I'll enjoy the face you make when I finally cut off your head."

Glancing away from him, I looked at a patch of orange wildflowers. They wouldn't have grown in the rain.

"You could've killed anyone," I finally said.

"Huh?"

"When you go out alone," I added. "You could kill anyone, but you don't."

Hidan shook his head. "What part of if they don't put up a fight, they're fucking worthless, do you not understand?" he asked. "You think I can just walk up to a civilian, cut them down, and Lord Jashin will give me a pat on the back for barely putting any effort into it at all? No, shit for brains. That's just more work for me, and this whole thing is tedious enough as it is."

"They'd fight back," I said, thinking of the civilian he killed in Rain Country. "They don't want to die, so they'd fight to stay alive." Even if it was just by throwing rocks.

Hidan stared up at me, then he shook his head and stood. "You really know how to piss me off, you know that?"

I looked at him again. "Maybe you shouldn't be so easy to piss off."

He chuckled and jerked up his scythe. "Know why I let your blasphemous ass follow me here?"

"Because it's out of Naga's range?"

Hidan pointed the scythe at me. "If I sacrifice you, no one will come looking until it's dark, at least. That gives me plenty of time to make you suffer."

I hummed, "And how long would it take Naga to find you if I cut you to pieces?"

He laughed hard. "Arrogant bitch," he said, wiping fake tears away. He swung his scythe around behind him and ran, blades tearing a hole up the side of the column.

I only pushed off the top, and he stopped as I fell past him.

I landed on my feet and tilted my head back to look up at him. "Still too slow."

He shook his head again and slicked his hair back. "By the way, is it true that you were taught by the sanin, of all people?" His knees bent and he shot off the column, raising his scythe high above his head.

I took a step to the side and the blades hit the ground where I'd been, throwing up dirt and rocks and wildflowers.

Body still in the air, he swung around, and I ducked under a kick.

"Are we fighting, or talking?" I asked.

He landed between me and the scythe. "Whose fucking fault is it if you can't do both?" he asked back. He lifted the blades over his head and I sidestepped again as he brought it down—only for him to turn the handle before it touched the ground, twisting the blades up at me.

I spun back and out of the way. "Naga and Yahiko were taught by the sanin," I answered, dodging another swing aimed at my throat. "Mamoru-sensei taught me more than they did."

Jiraya might've taught me the basics, but it was Mamoru-sensei who taught me earth-style, who taught all of us to counter genjutsu.

Hidan abruptly stopped. He pulled back and lowered the blades, covering his face with his hand as he tilted his head back. "Do you have any idea how much it pisses me off that you don't take me seriously?"

"Do you want me to?"

He looked at me through his fingers. "What a stupid fucking question."

I glanced at his scythe. "You should try to kill me without that. It makes you slow. How long have you had it?" Why not have it fixed before if he had it for a long time?

He stared at me. "Go fuck yourself," he eventually answered, but let go of the handle. He dropped his hand away from his face. "Alright. Okay. Fine—" he lunged, a hand reaching for my neck.

He was faster. The difference was enough to tell me what happened to him, in a way.

He wasn't this fast in Suisai. Not even close.

But either you adapted, became the best, or you died. Still, compared to Naga in Sage Mode, he was painfully slow.

I jumped straight up. He was still moving as I flipped upside-down and used his shoulders as a springboard to land behind him.

I touched the handle of his scythe as he finally stopped and turned around. It was heavy, too heavy.

"Get your filthy hands off it, heathen," he said.

Yugakure created their own monster, then were surprised when tore them to pieces.

"Make me."

Hidan only looked at me. "Such an annoying shit."

My hand fell away from the scythe. "How did you meet Jashin?"

He scratched the back of his head. "More blasphemy. That's Lord Jashin to you. Have some fucking respect." He made the dog sign.

"Lord Jashin, then."

He paused, then shook his head. "Lord Jashin wouldn't accept a heathen like you, so don't even try. You've already committed too many grave sins. You want to protect people," he said, disgusted.

"I don't want to be a Jashinist," I told him. "But you can want to protect certain people and still kill because you can."

Hidan didn't blink. "Why do I even talk to you? You always say the inanest bullshit." He inhaled, leaned forward, and spat spinning water cylinders at me.

I made half-signs with one hand—Ram. Dog. Ox. Snake—and dropped into a crouch, shoving a hand against the dirt. A wall shuddered up in front of me, bulging and going soft where the water hit, but didn't let any through.

"You told me the people at the inn didn't worship him right," I said.

"Yeah," he sounded suddenly close. "What about it?"

I looked up and he was crouched on top of my wall, kunai in hand.

I shoved a hand flat against the wall as he threw it, still making the snake sign with the other, and his kunai bounced off a shelf.

"You shouldn't stand on a wall an earth-style user made," I told him.

An earth hand burst out of the top of the wall, malformed and crumbling fingers grasping at his ankle, and he laughed.

"Good fucking thing I didn't," he said, and I heard a splash as the clone dissolved.

I glanced behind me and watched his eyes widen, then narrow. His scythe was mid-swing. He couldn't stop even if he wanted to.

I didn't move, didn't blink. Hands burst out of the wall around me. Long, spindly arms dodged around my body and tangled around each other, half-complete fingers opening and closing and grasping eagerly at the air.

I made them split off in two directions. Half of the hands went behind me, and the other half stopped his scythe. I watched hands impale themselves on the points, pushing back against the metal, while more surged to wind down the handle.

The force pushing back against the hands disappeared suddenly, and they crumbled and broke apart under the full weight of the scythe.

I kept my hand against the wall as I stood and looked back, watching Hidan flip backwards. Hands impaled the ground where he'd been but there were always more, hitting each other and bursting apart as they followed him.

It was a massive waste of chakra, but it didn't matter. It was mine to waste.

Powerhouses, Yahiko had called me and Naga.

"Such bullshit," Hidan shouted, sliding back as he landed on his feet, but I didn't stop.

"You wanted me to take you seriously," I reminded him.

He ducked, a mass of wriggling hands surging over his head, and laughed. "You're joking, right? This isn't you taking me seriously, it's complete—" it only took a hand snagging his pant leg mid-roll to make him falter, and then he fell, wrapped in them.

I dropped my hand and the earth hands stopped moving, but didn't fall off.

Hidan didn't move as I walked over to him. He was bound up to his shoulders and only stared blankly at the sky as I sat near his feet.

"You're an asshole," he decided. "You're not even tired after that shit, are you?"

I crossed my legs and started to speak—

"You know what? Don't fucking answer that."

"How did you know how to worship him right when they didn't?" I asked.

Hidan blinked slowly. "Your mom," he answered, deadpan.

"She died a long time ago," I reminded him. "I told you that, I think."

He tilted his head. "Do me a favor, will you? Take out a kunai and prick yourself with it, enough to draw blood. Then give it to me, and I'll reunite you with her real soon."

"Or I could cut you to pieces, like I said."

He looked back at the sky. "Go ahead and do what you want. When I put myself back together though, I swear to Lord Jashin I'll make you regret it."

I hummed, "Guess neither of us are doing anything, then."

He closed his eyes. "Piece of shit."

.

.

.

Hidan's gaze roved around as they walked back to the shelter (who the hell over twelve still called a place a hideout?), taking in the triangle-shaped earth or rock tent whatevers, the line of civilians off to the side holding old cups or bowls or other curved objects, waiting for an older man in front of a pot—a shinobi, probably—to scoop out a handful of water and... fish?

The chunks repulsed him, whatever they were, and he didn't care enough to investigate.

Oka might think this a village, but he'd seen places better off in Water Country.

And yet, and yet, the shinobi's eyes widened the second he saw them. The guy quickly dropped his gaze, but others in line openly stared at them, and some outright bowed.

Despite the scythe against his shoulder, despite him doing shit all to earn the trust of these heathens.

It pricked his senses to alertness faster than a kunai at his throat. And it gave him hives.

The kind that itched almost as bad as his desire to sacrifice them.

You could've killed anyone.

"Tch." She knew nothing about Jashinism.

He stopped when a smaller, shorter body collided with his, bounced off, and successfully distracted him from his thoughts about whether he should attempt to teach Oka the Way of Jashin when he finally sacrificed her.

On one hand she was the worst kind of heathen and he'd rather eat glass, but on the other, there were sort of rules he was obligated to follow—

"You walked right into me—" the boy on the ground began, palms scraped and bleeding, high-pitched and annoying like children were.

Oka turned back to look at him, but he hadn't been paying attention, so what?

A girl bent down and quickly slapped a hand over his mouth. "Shut up, idiot! That's Lord Hidan you ran into. You're not supposed to talk to him like that."

The boy looked up, eyes going wide like he hadn't looked properly before.

Hidan's eyes slid away.

Lord Hidan.

It grated at him, chaffing and chaffing at his skin until he wanted to kill the kid, just to get that look off his face.

His grip tightened around the handle of his scythe, but he didn't move.

The Wolf of the Rain is the dumbest shit, he thought.

He could've tried anyway. He'd be stopped before the blades got near them, but if they looked at him in fear it would make them better sacrifices for later, prime targets for a lesson on Jashinism.

Not that anyone ever listened, the heathens.

Hidan didn't move.

I could leave this shitty place, he thought. No one would stop him.

Oka was right that there were places for missing-nin. There were plenty of seedy, high-ranking civilian bastards who'd turn a blind eye if he did jobs for them. Or he could kill them and take over, but the latter was like poking a snake pit and expecting them not to wind around you and squeeze.

He'd cleaned out several, in his warm water days.

He could've. Could've. But he hadn't. Didn't.

No one else wants you.

Fuck her for that, seriously.

"Apologize," the girl said, pushing the boy's head down, brown pigtails swinging, and at any other time he might've laughed at her for it.

The boy clasped his hands above his head. "I—I'm sorry, Lord Hidan. I didn't mean to run into you. Forgive me."

Hidan didn't understand any of them. He squeezed the scythe hard enough that the bruises down his arm from earth hands ached, but his damn feet were rooted in place.

It would be so easy to make them afraid of him.

He watched Oka crouch between him and the boy out of the corner of his eye, watched her pat his head a few times, stiffy. But her hand might as well have been gold for the looks they gave her.

Her back is open, his mind supplied. He'd fail, but it was the effort that mattered. A tiny misstep, a minuscule opening was all he needed, all he wanted.

Then why the fuck aren't my legs moving?

"Fuck," he said, vehemently, because fuck.

Neither of the little shits were paying attention to him though.

"Hachirou," the boy said. "I'm—It's an honor, Lady Wolf."

Oka turned her head, and the girl went stiff and wide-eyed and fuck.

"S—Sen," she stuttered. "We were just playing. We didn't mean—"

"It's okay," Oka dismissed, standing, and Jashin fucking dammit.

You were tired of being alone.

Fuck. Shit. Shit.

But he didn't speak, and his scythe didn't move off his shoulder.

And Hidan started to think the one he didn't understand was himself.

恐怖

Yahiko tossed a red scroll up, caught it, and threw it again. "We accept one mission with questionable ethics and everyone starts to think we're a group of mercenaries."

Mamoru-sensei scoffed from his corner near the doorway. "Aren't we?"

Yahiko caught the scroll. "I take offense to that," he said flatly.

Emon's black and yellow-spotted head poked out from his collar and then ducked back down. If she was bigger, I couldn't tell.

Red meant Iwagakure, didn't it?

At the opposite end of the room, Namekuji pushed his head against my leg. I patted him and he made a noise that was content but trying hard not to sound like it.

"What's it say?" I asked.

Yahiko looked thoughtful. "Let's just say the Tsuchikage is asking us to get our hands dirty so he doesn't have to. So, the usual."

Mamoru-sensei closed his eyes. "What it means is that Iwagakure doesn't take us seriously as a ninja village," he said. "The Tsuchikage wouldn't ask allies to do mercenary work in the same way he'd send excess genin missions to enemies to insult them. Work like this is for missing-nin who don't follow the unspoken laws of any nation."

Naga sat with crossed legs on the floor close to him.

"You might still be avoiding a conversation with Shohei, but he'll send someone to speak for him eventually," Mamoru-sensei sighed. "If you want other countries to take us seriously, our Daimyo has to recognize one of you as the village ruler. Find a compromise. Pay off Hanzo's debt or work something else out where you take missions only with his approval."

Yahiko's eyes followed the scroll as he tossed it up again. "We should."

Mamoru-sensei stared at him. "We'll be destroyed in another civil war."

Yahiko only tilted his head back against the wall.

"But if we do that, everything will stay the same," Naga spoke quietly, looking at his hands. "The village was used during the war and we ran out of food, but I've never heard of that happening to Daimyo. Hanzo had the support of a Daimyo and no one outside Rain Country knew he was the one running things here, but that support disappeared when the towers came down. Where was the Daimyo when ninja from Konohagakure killed my parents or Yahiko's grandparents—"

Yahiko stopped.

Naga barely stopped to take a breath, fingers curling into fists, "Joji-sensei and you keep telling us how much power they have and how they can stop us, but where were they during the fighting? It was ninja who were the ones that fought their fight—"

The clatter of a dropped scroll made him pause. Yahiko didn't pick it back up, but he'd only done it as a distraction to stop Naga from getting more worked up.

"I don't want war either, sensei, but we have to do what's best for the village, not the system," Yahiko finally said. "We'll worry about how we look later, but I'm not going to use our funds to pay the tithe, and I think everyone else in this room would agree with me."

Mamoru-sensei looked older and wearier suddenly. He scrubbed his hand down his face. "I'm tired of conflict," he admitted. "It becomes easier to choose complacency, something I find myself defaulting too, when you've been a shinobi for as long as I have."

I pulled Namekuji into my lap. "It's not your conflict, sensei. It's ours. You don't have anything to do with it anymore."

Mamoru-sensei covered his eyes. "And yet I find myself wanting to help you annoying kids in some way, all the same."

"That's why you agreed to help run the Academy."

He snorted. Naga released a long breath. Yahiko opened his eyes and smiled a little.

"Speaking of something not even a little related to that, I couldn't help but notice how much time you've been spending around Etsudo lately, sensei," Yahiko said airily.

Mamoru-sensei paused, hand sliding down so he could look accusingly at Naga, who conspicuously coughed into his sleeve to avoid his gaze.

"I wish you never found me," he said flatly, and Naga choked, coughing harder.

Yahiko laced his hands behind his head. "No need to be embarrassed, sensei. She's good for you. The balance you need in your life. I approve—"

Mamoru-sensei immediately disappeared. He left a puddle behind.

"Good material for later," Namekuji said, and I poked him until he squirmed.

I ignored his insults. "We didn't even do mercenary work in Yugakure."

"Well," Yahiko said. "Since Hidan is technically, almost, kind of part of the Akatsuki—"

"It looks like we did," Naga said over him, abashed. "I wasn't exactly subtle, Oka."

I thought of all the water we'd left behind.

"The village was blocked off and still might be. Even if they managed to send someone to the inn who could tell that they all died before we got there, it wouldn't be a priority to investigate properly," he said, shaking his head. "What it would look like to anyone who passing by is that we had a mission to kill everyone at the inn and we did it."

I looked down at Namekuji. "But Iwagakure sent something here."

Naga smiled ruefully. "That's on me. If you were Takkao and two Ame-nin were interested in Hidan's bounty, said they would find him, and neither they or him came back, what would you think happened?"

With Hidan's blood everywhere?

"They turned in the bounty," I answered.

"He must've checked," Naga mused. "And to do that, he would've had to tell whoever collects bounties about us and our mission. Even if he didn't, foreign-nin running around your country isn't something you keep a secret."

Especially ones from Amegakure.

Naga looked at his lap. "I gave us away and didn't even realize it."

Yahiko shrugged. "The mission Iwagakure wants us to do isn't the kind you want a Daimyo to find out about, so as long as ours doesn't, it shouldn't matter."

Naga sighed. "It won't be kept from him forever," he said. "It'll spread that we're taking on mercenary missions, if it hasn't already, and eventually someone will hear about it that we don't want to."

As he spoke, Yahiko's gaze drifted to the ceiling and he didn't respond.

I saw Emon after a second, watching her climb up his collarbone and rub her small head against his neck until he smiled.

I glanced down at Namekuji. "Emon's nicer to Yahiko than you are to me."

"How's the situation in Iron?" Yahiko asked.

Naga frowned. "No response, but I can't be sure Itsuki delivered it yet. Iron's a long way from here."

Namekuji rolled his eyes. "Go a day without driving off purple-eyes and then you can talk to me about being nice."

I shook my head. "I don't do it on purpose."

Namekuji only scoffed back.

"What we need is power," Yahiko said, staring up again. "The only way I see us facing Shohei and coming out still leading this place is if we have the power to stand up to him."

Naga closed his eyes. "We need allies."

"Powerful ones," Yahiko agreed. "Who, at the same time, could and would help us in a way that might end with them destroyed, too."

Naga's frown deepened. "If I could make Iron trust us, and it would take years, I still don't think they would get involved in this."

"I can't get what Joji-sensei said about Hoshigakure out of my head," Yahiko said. "I can't say I'm optimistic enough to think Shohei'll be kept in the dark until Joji-sensei and Mamoru-sensei can train the next generation. We need shinobi strong enough to defend this place now, and we don't even have enough to do missions."

Would I let them turn us into another Hoshigakure?

I leaned back against the wall.

Was violence the only answer?

Naga dropped his head in his hands.

"They can try to do that to us," I said, and Yahiko glanced over.

The masked man might've been able to make me bend, but I was still made of sharpened steel, and I'd show anyone and everyone how hard I could cut.

"Let's save plan burn-the-world-down for when we're out of options," Yahiko said, because I was an open book and he'd already memorized all the pages.

"Missing-nin," Naga said. He didn't lift his head. "They wouldn't have survived this long if they weren't strong. We could ask them to be our shinobi."

Yahiko paused, "Negotiating with anyone would be a nightmare."

"No more than it already is."

"Touché."

We both watched Naga lay back and drop an arm over his eyes.

"We need a bingo book," Yahiko said, stretching his arms. "But, right now, what I think we both need is a very long nap."

I stood and picked Namekuji up. "Let's go see what Hidan's doing," I said, for Yahiko's benefit.

He half-laughed and waved me off.

"So you can bully him again?" Namekuji asked as I left the room.

I smiled a little. "If he gives me a reason to."

A/N: 恐怖 - Fear

I fell in love with earth hands after editing a certain chapter and now Oka has it forever.