Kisame was alone. There wasn't a single scream, shout or cry of 'Someone stabbed Choujuurou, again'. All of that, was much, much further away from him... which was probably the only reason he had ever agreed to fill out the organisation's immense amount of paperwork. It was one of the few things in the world he could trust the others to keep away from, meaning that the times when he was working on it, were the only times he could ever actually let his guard down.
Which is probably why the excited shout of, "Hey Kisame, can you do me a favour?" caused him to fall backwards of his chair and stare up at the green-haired girl like a startled infant would.
"Sure..." he answered eventually, pulling himself to his feet after getting over the initial wave of embarrassment.
"Thanks, I knew you would... sucker."
"What?"
"Nothing... Anyway, you know this mission I'm going on?" Kyouki asked. Whether she was actually asking a genuine question or just trying to point out that from time to time, she did actually work, was unbeknownst to Kisame. And so, he merely responded with a shallow nod. "Yeah, I need you to look after Mangetsu while I'm gone..."
"...But he's a grown man..." Kisame said, but judging by the confused expression on her face, Kyouki clearly wasn't understanding his point. "He can look after himself..."
"Oh you'd think that, but he's more of a gremlin than a man. There are really strict rules for looking after him; he can't have maple syrup after midnight, if he wants to touch your hair or something, just let him, you can tell he's angry or upset when he stops saying 'eh' so you know... just jingle some keys or something and he'll get distracted and whatever you do...you have to listen to him talk about hockey... but never actually play it with him – he'll kill you."
Kisame stood there for a moment, frozen and horrified. It didn't really take much for him to come to a decision on the matter. "No, I'm not doing it."
"But you said you'd do me a favour, you can't take it back now!"
"I thought you meant water the plants or something."
Kyouki sighed, "Just think of him as a Venus Flytrap... except instead of digesting you, he'll just... hug you... and never let go."
"No." Kisame replied, now more horrified than he had been when Kyouki drew up her Gremlins analogy.
"You know I'm only asking you to do this 'cause you're the only person who I trust enough to do it..."
"I don't care." This time, Kisame didn't even bother to look up from his paperwork. And so, an awkward silence began to fill the room.
"Kisame." Kyouki slammed her hands down on Kisame's desk, her face now visibly twitching from irritation, "If you don't do this, I swear to god, I am going to phone your dad and I will tell him that Zabuza is totally up for it."
"..."
After that, it no further convincing was needed. Kisame decided that babysitting Mangetsu would be a much easier task than listening to Zabuza cry and scream over 'attempted rape'. Kyouki left for her mission, and for all of fifteen minutes Kisame found himself actually being able to get on with some work of his own. That was until Mangetsu burst in, as if he sensed that Kisame wasn't quite in a bad enough mood already and had made it his mission to fix that.
"Have you seen Kyouki? She's been missing for like... ten minutes, eh."
There were a lot of things Kisame could have said in response to that, 'She can't leave you for more than ten minutes?', 'Have you ever thought you might have Separation Anxiety Disorder?' or indeed 'Why hasn't Kyouki killed herself yet?' . Although eventually, he settled for a much simpler response.
"She's away on a mission... apparently I have to look after you until she gets back."
"...what...?" Mangetsu replied, with all the horror and disdain that Kisame himself had expressed when told he'd be spending the next three days looking after him. "Well, until she gets back... do you want a game of hockey, eh?"
"No."
"But-" Mangetsu tried to whine at Kisame, but promptly stopped when he felt a horrible shiver crawl up his spine, like all that was good and pure had been drained from the world.
"Raiga... where are you going with those matches and gasoline?" Well that explained everything.
"Just to a cave..." Raiga avoided eye contact with the other two, as if he wanted them to know he was lying, "I'm taking the boy scouts out on an expedition."
"But there are no boy scouts..." Kisame knew full well that the fact there were no boy scouts, wasn't the only issue with Raiga taking small children off to a cave, no doubt in the deepest, darkest part of the woods. But as time was wearing on, he was losing the will to even try and put a stop to Raiga's... hobbies.
Raiga stood there for a few moments, staring past Kisame and out the window, his face devoid of all emotion. Then, after managing to pull an expression that looked vaguely like surprise, he pointed to one of the few trees that remained outside the base. "Oh look, someone's lynched Choujuurou again!"
"What?" Kisame quickly spun round, it honestly wouldn't have been a surprise to him if he had seen Choujuurou, hanging lifeless from a tree. Instead however, there was nothing. And upon turning back around, he saw nothing but fleeting shadows. "...Goddamn it, Raiga."
It wasn't as if Raiga disappearing – no doubt off to molest children again – greatly bothered Kisame. In fact, it seemed to fill the room with a sort of silence, that although being very uneasy, allowed Kisame to completely forget about the responsibility that Kyouki had oh-so-charitably bestowed on him. That was until, for the third time this day, he was interrupted. This time, by a rather disgruntled looking Zabuza. "Kisame, there's a bit of a problem."
"What now?"
"...Mangetsu set up a pony farm in my room."
"What are you talking about? He's right... here..." Kisame stared blankly at the – now empty – space where he was convinced Mangetsu was standing. And for what felt like ages, he stood there under the impression that if he maintained that blank expression for long enough Mangetsu would soon re-materialise. Although Kisame should have known Lady Luck was never on his side. "WHERE THE HELL HAS MANGETSU GONE?"
"Like I said, he's in my room. AKA the village's LOCAL PONY FARM!"
"You seem to be upset about something, Zabuza..." Kisame replied absent mindedly, having only just realised he had barely been listening to Zabuza at all.
"There are ponies in my room. I woke up... and one of them was licking my face. And I think one of them ate my sword."
For the first time that day, or even that month, Kisame could feel a smile tugging at the side of his lips, "And here I was thinking you'd be used to that by now."
Sadly, that smile wasn't about to hang around for long. As amusing as Zabuza's pain was, there was always one thing that could ruin the fun of it all. That thing, was Tatsuya, bursting into the room and whining about nothing in particular.
"There are ponies upstairs! They are so damn cute. I got to pet one and give it a carrot. Mangetsu said it was called Canuck and I was sure we'd be friends forever but then I put my hand in it's mouth... AND THEN HE BIT ME!... and now my hand hurts. Kiss it better Kisame, please...!"
Kisame sighed, trying as best he could to stop himself from bursting a blood vessel. "Go to hell, Tatsuya."
"But, but Kisame~ my hand really hurts! If you don't kiss it better it'll fall off!" Kisame attempted to brush past Tatsuya, only to have the older man latch onto his leg and cling for dear life. Although by now, Kisame was more than used to Tatsuya's advances, and so he simply carried on walking – dragging Tatsuya through the base as he went along. It was until they reached the black medieval-styled door that stood outside Raiga's room, that Kisame finally decided to stop.
"Go get Raiga to kiss it better."
"NO, NO, NO! It's fine now." Tatsuya said, suddenly springing to his feet, his face drained of all colour. He felt like this would have been an appropriate time to give Kisame a rant about his 'totally awesome healing powers', but before he could even open his mouth to speak, the whole base echoed with the sound of Mangetsu's screaming.
"MY PONY, EH!"
Lo and behold, when Kisame finally reached Zabuza's room – he found Samehada, with what appeared to be a horse's hoof poking through the bandages. It didn't really take a genius to put two and two together here. "Bad Samehada, bad! Don't. Eat. Ponies."
"Not Ottawa, anyone but Ottawa, eh." Mangetsu fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face, as twelve angry ponies stood there glaring at him. "Don't... look at me... like that, I'm very upset at the moment, eh."
"Why'd you name him Ottawa?" Tatsuya asked in an attempt to stop Mangetsu from crying. If it was coming from anyone but him, he really despised the sound of whining.
"Because... I like the Ottawa 67s but that'd be way too long a name, and 67s would just be a stupid name to give a pony. I was also considering naming it after the Calgary Hitmen, but that just didn't feel right, eh..."
"Jesus Christ..." Kisame muttered, trying to turn his back and leave the room before he was forced into further conversation with Mangetsu.
"You seem more grumpy than usual today, Kisame. Is it because you hair is hideous, eh? Because you know, I can fix that."
"So you're a hairdresser now?" Zabuza asked, appearing in the doorway with a large smirk on his face. "Maybe you should change your name to Mangaysu."
"...just don't talk Zabuza..." Kisame sighed in disgust, before wandering off down the corridors, in an attempt to once again, rid himself of his ridiculously annoying team mates.
"Ohh, so you're allowed to make terrible puns but I'm not?"
"Exactly."
Some twenty minutes after leaving Mangetsu's room, Zabuza and Tatsuya were sat in the lounge (they felt obligated to be there, since if the room had feelings today it would be feeling abandoned and unloved). Zabuza was doing his best to catch up on all the sleep he had lost due to 'the great pony catastrophe' that had occurred in his room, but he was finding that rather difficult due to all the excited ramblings Tatsuya was blurting out. However, upon forcing open one eye, Zabuza found that it wasn't him Tatsuya was attempting to lecture... it was more that he was holding up a conversation with thin air.
"Who the hell are you talking to Tatsuya?"
"Frank." Tatsuya replied, as if he was stating the blatantly obvious.
"But he's not – WHY IS THAT CUP FLOATING?"
"I told you, Frank."
"Why are you not surprised by this, Kisame?" Zabuza screamed at Kisame, jumping to his feet and grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him as if he should have been fully informed on the situation, despite having only just entered the room.
"You know..." Kisame began, blinking out of confusion. "...Shark senses."
Three minutes later, and the door creaked open again. This time revealing Raiga, whose face appeared to be covered in a mixture of soot and blood. Leaving the other three – possibly even four – to stare at him with confused expressions plastered across their faces.
"Okay you guys, I can explain-" Raiga stopped flat in his tracks at the sight of the floating cup. His eyes widening more than he ever thought was humanly possible. "OH MY GOD, A GHOST!"
In a fit of panic Raiga grabbed what he thought was just a conveniently placed stick and began frantically beating the air with it in an attempt to beat Frank to death. What started out as surprise had now turned into blind anger, and of course, it didn't help when Tatsuya got between Raiga and the floating cup, with screams of, "RUN FRANK, RUN!"
No, in fact by this point Raiga was so consumed by his rage that he instead began to beat Tatsuya to death. It took the combined forces of the stick breaking, and Kisame and Zabuza using all their strength to finally make him calm down.
"Okay, Kisame. I have worked out the perfect hairstyle for-" Mangetsu paused mid way through sentence, staring at Raiga – who now looked like he was hyperventilating – with a look of horror and disgust. "Raiga did you break my hockey stick, eh?"
Raiga slowly stared down at the stick he was clutching and, after realising what it was promptly hurled it under a nearby sofa. "No..."
Mangetsu let out a heavy sigh, "You know something... I am so sick of you guys."
"Good. We should stay away from each other then." Kisame nodded in agreement, he could honestly say he would have absolutely no problem in spending the rest of his days far, far away from Mangetsu.
"No, I don't think that'll work..." Mangetsu replied, by now his Canadian accent had completely faded and his voice was left sounding completely hollow.
"Then what are you going to do? Challenge me to a game of hockey?"
"No...I'm taking the swords back."
"You're...what?"
"Well, I'm sick of all of you and since I'm master of the swords and all, I might as well take them back."
"That's not your title..." Zabuza added in, it was really the best he could do in an argument like this.
"It is now."
"Well... you can't... take anything from me." Tatsuya replied, staggering to his feet and slurring his speech like a drunk man, "I don't have a sword...'t's just a stick... see?" and from god knows where, Tatsuya produced a large black box.
"How many times do I have to tell you? That's just the cover." Mangetsu sighed, taking the box from Tatsuya and breaking the seal on it. "You can open it up like this."
Tatsuya stared at its contents, his eyes devoid of all emotion, "...it's... it's a needle and thread."
"Yes..."
"THAT IS SO GOD DAMN TYPICAL. WHY THE HELL DO I GET THE MOST WOMANLY SWORD? IT'S NOT EVEN A REAL SWORD! WHAT AM I GON NA DO EXACTLY, WHAT KIND OF DAMAGE CAN THAT DO? 'OOOOH BETTER NOT MESS WITH TATSUYA, HE'LL STITCH YOU UP!' I HATE YOU. I HATE THIS CRAPPY SWORD. JUST TAKE THAT... THAT ABOMINATION BACK. I NEVER WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN!"
With that, Tatsuya stormed out of the room. Mangetsu considered forcibly taking the swords from the others, but soon realised that none of them actually carried them around. Thus, he was condemned to spending the rest of the day searching the base for them.
Needless to say, almost as soon as Mangetsu's back was turned Raiga said, "What's he really expecting from all this? We haven't ever actually needed those swords..."
Later That Night
It really had been a terrible day for Zabuza. First Mangetsu's ponies had robbed him of his sleep, and now no matter how hard he tried to drift off, the murmur of yelling from elsewhere in the base was now preventing him from getting his precious sleep. Since sleep is an activity that takes up almost all of Zabuza's time, the poor man was left with no other option but to investigate the source of his disturbance. Although when he reached the top of the stairs, he really wished he hadn't. He was greeted, with the sight of Raiga... arguing with a demented looking snake-like man, whose name he believed to be Orochimaru, and his army of the most bizarre looking children Zabuza had ever laid eyes on.
"I'll teach you to burn down my houssssse!" Orochimaru yelled.
"Well, you had it coming! You were a crappy pedofile!" Raiga replied. Of course, that would have to have been the reason for all this.
"I'm the besssst pedofile! I could out-pedo you, any time, any place!"
At this point, Zabuza considered stepping in and giving Orochimaru what for. But when he saw the little white-haired boy, who he was convinced once belonged to the Kaguya clan – trashing the base, he failed to say anything... out of despair for the organisation's pure lack of skill.
"Wha- what this hell is going on? First there were ponies, now the little gay flowerboy I..." Zabuza sighed, rolling his eyes. "Screw it, I'm going back to bed."
And so it was, that the base got trashed... or trashed beyond what the Seven Swordsmen themselves had managed to do to it. Somewhere over the course of the night, Tatsuya found himself being beaten up by a six year old boy and so he spent the night, curled up in a corner, crying and mumbling his 'last wishes'.
The Next Morning
"And, tell Kisame... I love hi-" Tatsuya practically fell unconscious from the kick Kisame delivered to his stomach, he really just wasn't getting the message.
"So Raiga... we never actually need our swords do we?" Zabuza asked, staring at Raiga with utter contempt. "Christ, trust Mangetsu to steal them the one time they'd be of use."
"I knew there was a reason I hated him." Kisame muttered.
"What are you guys whining about?" Kyouki asked. Usually when she returned from missions, she expected to see everyone trying to murder each other. But instead, she found herself greeted by three men who looked as if they had just found out they were having a mid-life crisis.
"The base got trashed." Raiga muttered like a sulking child.
"No... no it actually looks cleaner. I mean, that pile of rubbish looks slightly smaller." Kyouki paused for a moment, "Oh no wait, it's just been spread around the floor... someone get a broom and Choujuurou."
"Where is Choujuurou?" Kisame asked. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen Choujuurou at all yesterday either.
"Buried outside." Zabuza answered, "He'll be fine though, he has five minutes of oxygen left."
"Why'd you bury him alive?"
"Ninja training."
"What kind of training is that meant to be?"
"...Endurance...?"
"Well that makes sense... besides if he really is a ninja then he can dig himself out." Kyouki shrugged, "Now, why are you all looking so grumpy?"
Once again, it was left to Zabuza to explain the situation. "Raiga burnt down Orochimaru's house, then Mangetsu took all of our swords, then Orochimaru came round for revenge and here we are."
"...what did you do to Mangetsu?"
"Oh, Kisame was a dick." Raiga stated, trying to make himself look as innocent as possible.
"You were the one who broke his hockey stick!" Kisame yelled in response.
"Well if you had let him fix that mess you call a hairstyle he would have been fine!"
"My hair is not a mess."
"It looks like it's trying to escape your face!"
"At least my mouth doesn't look like a banana!"
"Yeah well you're blue!"
"...I'm going to find Mangetsu..." Kyouki sighed, of course there wasn't much 'finding' involved. She already knew full well that whenever Mangetsu was feeling particularly sulky, he would just lock himself in his room."Mangetsu? Are you in there?"
"No..."
"That's a shame... I guess I just won't be able to tell Mangetsu about how I met Canada..."
Barely a second had passed when Kyouki heard the 'click' of the door unlocking, and for the first time that day, a rather sullen looking Mangetsu appeared, "I'm listening... eh"
"Uh... well" Kyouki began, only to realise she hadn't actually come up with any kind of story she could tell Mangetsu, "You see, on the way back from that mission I was on, I just so happened to bump into Canada...which is why I was away for longer than I'd expected."
"What was she like, eh?"
"Uh... well she was... nice? But not overly nice. And she said she liked to talk about hockey and play X-box, but she wasn't very good..." Kyouki struggled to think of anything else to say, in spite of the many times she had heard Mangetsu ramble on about it, she actually knew next to nothing about Canada. "Apparently, she's quite a talented ninja... but not as good as you are. She also said she'd let you fix her hair whenever you wanted."
"She sounds perfect, eh! Can I meet her, eh?"
"...Sure... she's...er... coming back in... uh... a few weeks...?"
"I cannot wait, eh!"
"Umm Mangetsu... can the others have their swords back now?"
"Sure, sure, eh." Mangetsu said, handing Kyouki the scroll containing all the swords. "I have to prepare, eh!"
Kyouki sighed with relief, although that relief was about to be completely shattered. When she turned round to see Zabuza, which was really enough to give anyone nightmares."Won't he be mad at you when Canada never comes?"
"No. He'll get ridiculously over excited, use up all his energy and pass out. When he wakes up he won't remember the last few days."
"You know, that Canada you were talking about... were you trying to make it sound like yourself or did that just come naturally?"
"Shut up!" she yelled, throwing the scroll at Zabuza's head. "It was the best I could do on such short notice... If he thought I was lying to him he'd never speak to me again."
"Whatever, it doesn't matter... just so long as we got our swords back."
"What would we have even called ourselves if we didn't have them? The Seven Assorted Ninjas?"
"You could have just made the village's first ladies club..."
"What."
"Never mind... I have to go... disappear now."
"Why?"
"Well, you remember that time we put LSD in Tatsuya's cereal?"
"Ah, yes. Good times..."
"Yeah well Mangetsu's going to start acting worse than that... speaking of Tatsuya, why is he crying in a corner?"
"He's had a rough couple of days, Kisame rejected him a lot... he got beaten up repeatedly..."
"Well, at least something good came of this..."