I don't own Naruto.
The silver blade flashes in the dim illumination of the concrete room. Light pools over the length of high quality steel, collecting in its imperfections. Hairline fractures stand out, dark and gloomy against the mirror like polish, and chips mar the smooth surface.
"One day," Kisame drawls, hunched over his katana, "Chips and cracks in a blade will no longer be a problem for me."
There is a grunt of agreement from his side, where Zabuza hones his own tachi, carefully working the edge down to a scalpel like sharpness. His focus on the task is a little bit worrying, but as it is one of his self proclaimed favorite things to do, nobody says anything.
"Samehada can regrow her scales, not that I've ever seen a lesser weapon take one off," he says casually, his beady eyes inspecting a chip near the hilt. Some stupid Doton technique from an Iwa nin. He's glad the man is dead by his hand.
"Kubikiribocho can regrow if fed blood," the spiky haired boy contributes, his voice gravelly. Puberty is doing strange things to that twelve year old, Kisame thinks. His voice is deepening, sure, but it also sounds like he swallowed rocks.
"It still breaks," the blue haired teen reminds the younger boy.
There is a grunt, then the sound of a whetstone sliding down steel. A short silence follows.
"Kubikiribocho is bigger," the masked adolescent contributes.
"Kubikiribocho is longer," Kisame corrects, "Samehada has more weight and girth."
"Samehada bends weird," the younger male points out, as if a flexible sword is wrong and against nature. In his mind it is.
"It can reach places better that way. Unlike Kubikiribocho, which is just a-"
"I can no longer tell if you two are talking about swords or dicks," interrupts a husky voice, smoothing out with age.
Kisame turns around to the girl lying on her belly on the bed. Her long, braided hair drapes over the pillows and he knows later they will smell like sea water and flowers.
"I thought you were asleep," he comments lightly.
"I was trying, but some genius guys started comparing dongs not two feet away from me," she whines. Kisame snorts and nudges her with his elbow. She always gets irritated when she's tired.
"Is the little Ningyo grumpy?" he croons in a patronizing voice. She groans dramatically and twists the blankets around her tighter, squeezing her closed eyes shut just a bit harder as if it will keep the noise out.
"I'm cold, and tired of hearing you two go on about the gigantic weapons you'll inherit that double as masculine fertility symbols," she grumbles, her words muffled by the thin sheets.
Zabuza grunts and kicks off his shoes, moving up onto the bed a bit more. She makes some noise of protest as he scoots to place his back against the wall, forcing her to curl up to avoid him, but quickly changes her mind when his toasty warm legs stretch out again. She hums happily inside her throat, and flops her head on his lap. Kisame is struck by how much it sounds like a pur.
He grins to himself and lets his own upper body fall across her outstretched legs. He can feel the coolness of the blankets, which is frankly a relief. The room is sweltering, and she always seems to be at the correct temperature.
"I would be mad that your fat body is crushing my legs," she murmurs sleepily, "But you are incredibly warm."
"Not fat," he informs her.
"Built like a brick house body didn't fit as well," she snarks back, attempting to smother herself in Zabuza's thigh. She hates the cold, and nothing is colder than February in Water Country. Outside the outpost walls there is at least two feet of snow, and an ice storm struck not a week and a half ago. The temperature has remained too low for it all to melt, and she is miserable in this climate. They can't light fires, lest they draw enemy attention, and none of her jackets survived the battlefields. Ryuishi can barely step outside without becoming a shivering mess, and inside is little better.
The outposts along the frontlines are full of concrete walls that eat heat and destroy it, and if there is any hint of moisture it freezes as well. There may not be a wind chill, but she can see her breath mist at night. She just isn't built for this.
The ten year old is just glad that she has Kisame and Zabuza, because without her gigantic, living heaters she would be dead. A frozen block of ice. She has no idea how they just go on like a pair of arctic creatures, but she doesn't care as long as she can leech their heat.
The sound of weapons being sharpened lulls her back to sleep once more. It's more of a light doze than anything, but this is a calm in between battles, when the Kaijuu No Kiri are allowed to rest instead of rampage. It's nice hanging in the outpost with her unit, she likes it.
What she doesn't like is the wary eyes of the squads the village places them with. After squad eleven fell, they never got re-homed and bounced around where they were needed. At first, everyone had looked down on the young unit, sneering and judgemental. Freaks and brats, that's what they thought.
Then they saw them on the field.
She doesn't know when, exactly, they started harmonizing attack patterns subconsciously. Or when they started rampaging like a beast with one body. It doesn't matter anymore, not really. They do well together. They come, they destroy, they leave.
In the eyes of others though, they are monsters wearing human skins. Kisame is their task master, and she and Zabuza are his demonic disciples.
She probably likes that rumor a little more than she should.
The sound of Zabuza sharpening his sword stops, and he shifts for a moment, wiping it clean and placing it in his scabbard. She keeps dozing until she feels her hair shift around, somebody untying the end of her braid.
She cracks one eye open, but all she can see is the fabric of his pants and his stomach. That boy is going to get frostbite one of these days, she just knows it.
"The fuck do you think you're doing?" she huffs out.
"Weapon maintenance," he grunts out, undoing her braid. She frowns at his words, but she allows him to play with her raven locks. He really is a tactile oriented person, always sharpening his weapons and fiddling with kunai. She guesses her hair counts, in a way. It does have barbed wire in it.
She closes her eyes and enjoys it for a second, luxuriating in the feel of his fingers working out the knots, gentling untangling the snags in the strands with surprising gentleness. She feels safe, surrounded by them both. The sharp tang of ocean brines that is Kisame, and the musk of weapons oil that lingers around Zabuza-
Her eyes snap back open.
"Kisame, does he have oil on his hands?"
"You have eyes, you look."
"All I can see is Zabuza's incredibly stupid gut, bulging out from eating all of my jerky."
"Our jerky," Kisame reprimands.
"For fucks sake. Does he, or does he not have oil on his hands?" she snaps out.
She hears a put upon sigh, and feels more shifting on her legs as the oldest of them tears his attention away from his weapon and examines Zabuza's hands.
"No," he answers, "But you're right, he should probably lay off the jerky."
There is a defensive grunt and Zabuza tugs on her hair, making her scalp stretch. She hisses like a snake, indignant at the treatment. They don't actually mean it. If anything, they could all stand to eat more.
"Teasing, Zabuza," she keens, wriggling across his legs in an attempt to ease her suffering, "We're not actually insulting you. This is friendly teasing."
The hold remains for a moment longer, a lingering threat, before it releases. She slumps across his legs as adrenaline wakes her up fully. No use sleeping now.
A hand cards through her hair like a pet owner soothing an animal, and even though she hates that it does, it totally fucking works.
"I would fight you," she grumbles, "But I don't want to wrestle when Kisame has a sword on the bed."
Said teenager snorts at the excuse, and she shifts her heel underneath him so it digs into his ribs. He deserves it. He made a jerky comment too.
"You'll get yours Kisame," she growls, "Karma is going to get you."
He forces her foot to lie flat with an errant hand and brute strength. Maybe she should eat more of her own food, because obviously these two are reaping some benefits from it. They can wrestle grown ass men already, and they're shooting up like kelp. It's like a centimeter each fucking day.
"Yah? How so?" he asks.
"Inopportune boners," she assures him, "Important mission assignment? Boner. Just walking through the street? Boner. In the middle of a fight? Boner."
"You said that was natural," he grunts, his face staining a darker blue grey.
"It is a natural reaction to adrenaline at times. It's also karma because you let me take the hit on this one," she explains, "And also because you pick the crab legs out of the seafood sukiyaki and leave none for the rest of us."
"Yah? Well you spend forever each morning in the bathroom, and you have no respect for your superiors," the teenager reprimands.
She hums in her throat. There's no point in denying it. They all know it's absolutely true.
"If we're talking about bad habits, then you and Zabuza should stop peeing in the snow like animals," she informs them. Honestly, some habits go across dimensions.
"You're jealous because you can't," rumbles Zabuza in a fit of insight. She makes a 'tch' sound as he drags his fingers across her scalp gently. He's also right. How sweet would it to be to just pee anywhere like that? Pretty fucking sweet, if she says so herself.
"Okay, point, but swords suck. Everyone knows meteor hammers are the true best weapon."
Laughter from both of them. Kisame's is raspy and breathless, but it wracks his whole body. Zabuza's sounds like pebbles jostling around in a bag, and she can feel it reverberate through his chest. The sound vibrates around the room, warm and hearty. She likes it. It makes her forget the frontlines for a little bit, makes her feel like those empty, Void filled pieces of her are full. She would fill the abyss inside her soul with the sound of their laughter if she could.
Her heart swells inside her chest, full of something like birds taking flight and a warm drink on a cold day. Ryuishi hides a smile against Zabuza's thigh, and savors the heavy weight of Kisame on her legs.
They make her feel whole again.
AN: So, for people asking for a reunion, I'M WORKING ON IT. HAVE THIS TO DISTRACT YOU. Also, this chapter is dedicated to tumblr user taffyq, who was like 'alright, but what if the Kaijuu no Kiri were happy' and then made me have a bunch of feels. They know what they did.
Thanks to everyone who read, fav's and follows. Reviewers give me strong emotions which cause me to write chapters. It's a thing.
Also, shout of to...er, I forgot his name on here. Doors something rather. I'm just gonna say it later. He edited this like a champ, heap your praise upon him!
Q:Give me your oneshot ideas for this. Do it.