That nagging feeling in the back of my head seemed to feed off the darkness of night, metastasizing into something much more insidious than the shadows. As I slept, I saw baby Aki again. There he was in my arms, looking up, laughing and pink-faced, just the same as before. The scene replayed over and over again on a loop, despite it being only seconds long. Over time, the laugh became... distorted. It devolved into a garbled mess of cries… then the cries into screams. Many of them, all at once. A hundred adult, shrieking howls came bursting from this baby's mouth. There would be a flash cut of us suddenly covered in swaths and splatters of crimson, and in another flash it would be normal again, the baby laughing once more. It felt like it went on like that for hours before I could finally bring myself to break the cycle and snap out of it.
I awoke with a start, lurching up into a hunched sitting position, my fingers throttling the blankets like they had personally offended me. I swallowed hard and released a throaty exhale, bringing one shaky hand to comb through my hair. My scalp was drenched in sweat and I couldn't tell if the moisture I wiped from my face was also sweat or tears. Regardless, I pulled the bottom of my shirt up to blot at my skin and sat there for a long moment, gathering my senses.
Looking to my left, Hidan was peacefully asleep atop his bedroll. Shirtless as always and not even covered with a blanket, his limbs sprawled out chaotically in every direction, a wheezing snore coming rhythmically from his mouth which hung open slightly. I looked to my right to see Kakuzu laying on his side facing my direction, his eyes open and alert, staring directly at me.
"Oh dear God!" I whispered harshly with a jolt, my hand grabbing at my heart. "You scared the hell out of me." I breathed with some relief as I ran another shaky hand through my hair.
"I'm only laying here, you were the one making all that noise." He stated, pushing himself up to sit facing the fire which still burned dimly as a pile of red-hot coals. Apparently I had been some sort of noise in my sleep, enough to wake Kakuzu.
Ugh. Embarrassing.
"Oh I… I'm sorry," I said, shaking my head.
"Stop apologizing for everything."
"Sorry…" I said again, absent-mindedly. He probably had an annoyed look on his face, which I'd actually be able to see if I bothered to look at him. His cowl and mask were removed and folded neatly on the ground beside him. I stared blankly into the coals.
"Do you normally have nightmares?" He eventually asked, his head still but eyes moving to meet mine.
"No… not really. Not like that." I confessed, still feeling shaken. "I think it's this memory stuff… breaking the seals… Like the gap is wide enough now and something is trying to push its way through."
He regarded me silently before looking back at the fire. His hair was surprisingly long, reaching nearly halfway down his back. I focused on it for a second and imagined Kakuzu donning a variety of hairstyles from space buns to a bowl cut. Any distraction had become a welcome one.
"Kakuzu…" I began in a whisper. "What if there's something buried in here..." I ran my hands through my hair, grabbing the sides of my head. "What if there's something in here I don't want to remember?"
"We all have things we wish we could forget," he said with a certain stoic coldness followed by a sigh.
"I guess you're right…" I mused solemnly, taking the opportunity to get a better look at the state of his hair. Frowning, I took note of the many split ends and neglected tangles. It was like the man had never even heard of conditioner. Luckily for him, this was the type of appalling mess I could actually sort out.
"What do you think you're doing?" He asked with a twitch of his eye, batting my hand away as I turned a lock of his hair between my fingers for closer inspection.
"I'm going to fix the abomination atop your head formerly known as 'hair'" I chastised, stretching over to my bag to retrieve my brush.
"You've lost your head if you think I'll allow such a thing."
"Pfft, lost my head? You're confusing me with your partner." Brush in hand, I scooted up behind him and settled into a kneel. "Now hold still, the more you fuss, the longer it will take." I ordered patiently as I began to finger-comb through his wild mane first to assess the situation.
"Izumi," he growled out, low and warning, shaking his head in an effort to interrupt my trailing fingers. I was quite used to hearing Hidan's name in that tone, it was the first time he used it on me, however. Still though, maybe he was just tired, but it came out half-hearted.
"Relax Kakuzu… I promise I don't charge a fee."I assured, taking the brush to his scalp and running it down as far as it could before it hit a knot. He exhaled in a way that made me think perhaps he didn't hate it, but his words said otherwise.
"Izumi, you are really testing me." His voice was gravelly and wrought with irritation.
"Well, let's hope you pass then," I said optimistically, paying him no mind and continuing to gently work the brush across his scalp, freeing tangles and making it further down the length of his hair each time until I finally cleaned one section enough to bring the comb through it entirely without stopping. I did so several times, enjoying the feel of how long and silky it actually was when not in a state of disrepair. Quite pleased with this, I moved to the next section.
Kakuzu, despite his earlier protests, sat silently and unmoving, his eyes remaining buried in the coals.
"So… what do you wish you could forget?" I asked, going back to our conversation prior to hair.
He didn't answer immediately but after several moments, he sighed. "When you're as old as I am, many things." His voice was low and even but there was something else there. A certain tiredness, and I don't mean in the physical sense.
"So you're really 90, huh? Do you have any family?" I inquired curiously. I had come across another knot, a rather stubborn one, and had set the comb down to solve it strategically with my fingers.
He closed his eyes and shook his head. "No… and yes. I have a daughter but… she's an old woman now."
I was surprised by this but tried not to let on as I continued my assault on the tangled knot. He didn't strike me as much of a family man. I had a thousand questions but I knew enough not to pepper him with them all at once.
"Where is she now?" I asked.
He shook his head again. "It's useless to dwell on such things. She thinks I am dead anyway. Her mother told her as much when she was only a child."
"What? Why would she do that?" I asked, baffled. There was a lot about the life of a ninja I would never come to understand.
"To protect her. It was the right move." He answered matter-of-factly. "She was a smart woman, her mother. Smart enough to know what I would become, even smarter for removing me before I did so."
I had finally gotten the knot untangled, running the comb through that spot several times to ensure it was resolved completely. It was so odd to me, the way Kakuzu spoke. Like he knew he was a monster and respected her for seeing that, but still did nothing to prevent it. And then there was me, brushing the monster's hair. Life had certainly become strange.
"But you do know where she is, don't you?" I pressed in reference to his daughter again. I didn't want to push him too far, but I couldn't imagine him talking about this stuff with anyone else. The relationships he had were minimal and shallow at best. His closest ally was Hidan and they seemed to hate each other most of the time. My heart broke for him as he stared into the fire, rekindling difficult memories.
He didn't answer but he also didn't say "no". Slowly and not without hesitation, I brought my free hand up, hovering for a brief moment before letting it rest gently against his arm. I resisted the urge to pull it back at the feeling of his heavily stitched skin.
"I'm sorry," I offered in a whisper, rubbing up and down his arm calmly. He didn't say anything, he didn't move or shake me off, he didn't even turn to look at me. I let several long moments go by like this, still combing, expecting him to pull away and suddenly become irate with me. But he didn't. He just kept staring at the fire.
"I thought I told you to stop apologizing," he eventually said, not breaking eye contact with the smoldering embers.
I breathed out through my nose in a subdued sort of laugh. "You did," I agreed, though I still had a thousand questions. I took my hand back to work out yet another problem area. I was close to finishing though, most of his hair laying like a smooth, flat sheet across his back.
"What was she like? Do you know…?" I wasn't sure if it was wise to keep asking about his daughter, but I felt like it was almost therapeutic. He sighed deeply at this question and closed his eyes, his head coming to hang a bit. After another long silence he spoke, returning his gaze to the flames.
"Like you, I suppose," he said flatly.
That was not what I expected him to say. I paused mid-comb for a second.
"She must be pretty cool then," I eventually mused, pulling the comb through the length of the last section.
"Tch…" It was the closest I'd get to a laugh out of him.
"So she's short, smart, a good cook... funny of course," I continued on, setting the brush down and separating his hair into three sections.
"Kind," Kakuzu added quietly, proudly, unexpectedly. I got the sense that he was glad she didn't end up like him.
I smiled, weaving his hair into a braid along the spine. "Well, that depends on who you talk to. It may be true for her but I stepped on an ant that other day I'll have you know. I could have avoided it but my legs were tired."
He let out another snort halfway between amusement and disapproval. I tied the end of the braid and gave his shoulders a pat. "All done. This way it won't get all tangled again."
He took the braid into his hand from over his shoulder, turning it over like it was something so foreign that it needed to be subject to a certain degree of scrutiny before he could allow himself to be at ease in its presence. I scooted to sit beside him and watched the approval process with a faint smile.
Kakuzu glanced at me. "You should sleep."
"I can sleep when I'm dead. You should sleep," I retorted with a pointed look.
"Sleep," he commanded sternly, his brows narrowed with eyes like dagger points. There was that mood swing I'd been anticipating.
"Okay, fine. Geez…" I agreed and began crawling back to my spot.
"Izumi," He said, causing me to pause and look back at him. "I would appreciate your discretion with this information."
"Yeah. Yeah, of course." I said with assurance.
"And don't think this changes anything. You're still foolish and useless." He glared at me.
I nodded in an obvious manner. "Totally, I'm the worst. Understood," I agreed enthusiastically. To an untrained eye one might think Kakuzu was not entertained by this, but I detected the slightest upturning twitch of the corners of his lips. I crawled back into bed and managed to make it to morning without incident. In fact the remainder of our travelling went on without incident, despite the pit that had been growing in my belly.
As we got closer to base I could sense the familiarity of the air. The sun was nearly done retreating over the horizon, leaving behind everything as the night raced to take its place. Another day gone. As we stood outside the cave entrance, our bodies engulfed by the orange flame of the sun's parting goodbye, Kakuzu bent down to my level and tugged my cloak up until he decided it covered my neck sufficiently before ruffling my hair and parting my bangs over to the side to cover the burn on my right temple. Hidan watched and grimaced slightly.
"Alright," Kakuzu said, satisfied with my seemingly scratch-free appearance before we entered what I had begun to call home.
"Hey, look who it is. How've ya been, kiddo?" Kisame asked with lifted spirits as he tousled my hair and rested his elbow atop my head.
I laughed softly while discretely and hastily fixing my hair to cover the mark on my face again before answering. "I've been surviving, and I'm not a kiddo," I jeered with feigned aggravation.
"Oh, so I guess that makes you a woman?" He asked and I nodded hesitantly, not sure where he was going with it. "In that case, you should go down the hall and take your first left."
I looked up for a moment in thinking, mentally following his directions to figure out where that would lead me. My expression turned sour with realization. It was the kitchen. I snatched the newspaper out of his hand and swatted it against his stomach.
"You are rude," I said with a light-hearted glare, slapping my hand to my hip. He put his arms up in defense as he snickered at my attempts to punish him with a rolled up wad of paper.
"Ah, I missed this," he sighed while pretending to enjoy the beating.
"You mean you missed my cooking!" I laughed, throwing the paper at him and missing due to a sudden darkness obscuring my vision unexpectedly, a pair of hands pressing themselves over my eyes from behind.
"Guess who," A distorted voice said into my ear.
"Ew, Deidara!" I shrieked with a giggle as I felt something wet against my lids before trying to scramble free of his grip.
"Oh no you don't," he said while picking me up effortlessly and throwing my body over his shoulder. I kicked my legs and beat against his back wildly as he raced towards the kitchen with me in tow. I could hear Kisame's boisterous guffawing from the living room even after we'd left.
"Put me down!" I cried through laughs before he set me to my feet. I staggered backwards for a moment before glaring at him playfully, my arms crossed over my chest.
"You can't be mad at me, un" he teased before adding, "Not while I'm hungry at least."
"God, you're so fucking immature," Hidan snorted from the kitchen table where he sat. I hadn't even noticed him there until he spoke.
"Since when do you have room to talk about maturity? You're the worst one out of all of us, Hidan," Deidara spat back, his eyes angled dangerously.
Hidan stood abruptly, pushing his chair back from the table, causing it to fall over and screech against the floor as if squealing in fear from the thick tension that suddenly filled the room. With a primal growl resonating deeply in his throat, Hidan's hand grasped tightly around the scythes handle.
"Un," Deidara produced a low grunt while making a move for his pouch.
I looked back and forth between the two men, absolutely flabbergasted at how they could go from zero to one hundred like that. "Stop it, both of you!" I yelled as I stepped in between them with my palms facing out like stop signs towards each one.
"He started it!" Deidara yelled while glaring hard at Hidan, whose eyes had a certain manic shine to them.
"I don't care who started it, I'm finishing it," I said sternly as I looked from one to the other. Their staring match continued as Hidan slowly swaggered forward until his chest met with my outstretched hand. His pectorals flared against it but ultimately allowed it to stop him. Deidara mirrored him so I was truly the only thing between them.
"Guys, please," I pleaded, exasperated. The tension continued to grow to an uncomfortable level before Hidan broke it with a smirk and looked down at his nails, picking at them with disinterest.
"Since you asked so nicely," Hidan said, tossing a wink at me as he broke off and brushed past Deidara, shoulder checking him on his way out. Deidara glowered at him until he turned the corner out of sight. I sighed heavily to myself.
Don't babysitters usually get paid?
"Izumi, you've returned." Itachi's voice made my ears prick. Deidara scowled at this new interruption but Itachi either didn't notice or paid him no mind. He stood in the doorway, the light smile that adorned his face sending a wobbly jolt to my knees. I had only been gone a little less than a week but I had somehow forgotten the way the air felt ectric around him. I returned a smile and nodded.
"Alive and everything, are you impressed or what?" I asked.
He looked me over. "Well I am impressed that Kakuzu would update your wardrobe... how very unlike him," he said curiously with a purposeful step towards me, reaching out and feeling the top of the high collar between his fingers.
Biscuits. He's on to me. Play it cool, Izumi.
"Yeah, Kakuzu's not that bad. Oh, you should ask to see his hair!" I suggested enthusiastically.
Changing the subject. Nice.
"Perhaps I will," Itachi said absent-mindedly. I noticed the pleasant curve of his lips dissemble into an indiscernible taut line, an uneasiness hiding between the cracks. I looked at him cautiously and couldn't help but flinch when he activated his sharingan.
A/N: Welp, there's the chapter. Thanks for reading and of course, your lovely lovely comments. I appreciate the feedback so much guys! Definitely helps with writer's block _
