"I'm too late to walk it alone,

too late to say I don't know,

too late to turn back time,

Fall inside the—"

-Rabbit Hole, AViVA

My eyes snapped open.

My vision was unfocused and I didn't move, staring down at nothing until I could see again, until I could make out the grass next to the stone steps and the small beetles moving through it.

A familiar, blood covered hand dropped down to the side and I heard an amused huff.

I realized that I was on top of someone.

I turned my head. Hidan was lying on his back on the stone steps, his cloak dragging down behind him, and both of my hands were around a kunai in his throat.

He turned and spat blood into the red stains on the stone and I blinked at the path down below him, and then at the sky.

It was brighter, not as dark of a gray as before.

I idly pulled the kunai out, and Hidan didn't make any move to stop the flow of fresh blood.

"Fucking finally," he rasped. "Where the fuck did you go?"

I looked at him, still slightly unbalanced, and asked back, "You snuck up on me?"

He threw his head back and laughed and it came out mangled. "I was looking for you. You were just sitting there in space, and—fuck, I thought it was a genjutsu or some shit, and I—I touched your shoulder and—" he broke off, his voice giving out.

He gave me a bloody grin as he gestured at his neck.

I hummed, wiping my kunai off on his shirt before I got off him.

He shook with silent laughter as he sat up and signed, with both hands, "Do you know how long I was laying there? How much my back hurts?"

I tilted my head as I pocketed the kunai and asked, "Who taught you to sign? Mamoru-sensei? Joji?"

Hidan stood, still grinning at me as he signed, "Shut up."

"You're slow at it. It's a little annoying," I told him.

Hidan paused, looking at his hands, and I knew he was trying to remember any signs for curse words, but there weren't any. Eventually, he just threw his middle finger up at me.

I couldn't help a slight smile.

"What the hell were you doing?" he asked at a strained whisper, rubbing his throat as he looked around. "Thought you had a weird thing about going alone."

I blinked, and then I tilted my head again and asked, "What else did Maho tell you?"

Hidan tsk'ed at me, ignoring the question as he started down the stairs, scooping up his cloak on the way and tossing it over his shoulder.

I gave the top of the path one last look, and then I followed him.

"So, you're not going to tell me what the hell that was about, are you?" Hidan asked after a few steps.

"I'm not, and I'm not going to ask you about signing or Maho again," I answered easily.

Hidan was silent for a few more steps, and then he ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. "Talking hurts like hell anyway," was all he said.

.

.

.

I stopped for half a second as I turned into the alley, watching Kisame Hoshigaki watch me.

He stood against the wall with arms crossed, grinning, half in the shadows at the back of the alley, not reacting at all to the assessing but unsurprised way Hidan eyed him.

Chojuro was the closest to me, still sitting alone with his legs pulled up. He shot me a brief glance before he went back to watching Kisame.

And then Yahiko gestured me over to where he sat with Naga in the middle of the alley.

I hummed, looking briefly at Kisame again before I went over to him.

"You're very strange," Kisame said, his tone unreadable.

I sat and asked, without looking, "Do you want me to say I told you so?"

I still saw the way his arms tightened and the suddenly razor-sharp edge to his grin.

So, no, he didn't.

I automatically pulled Namekuji into my lap, ignoring his half-hearted whine, and thought about what it meant that Kisame was here.

It stopped being a maybe, a guess, that it was not-Madara. But had it been? What if it had been her, leaking through again?

It didn't matter, not really, but I still felt something odd, something sad.

Maybe I should've thanked her at least once for using her memories, even if it just would've made her angrier.

I blinked back to reality as Yahiko gestured at me, exchanging a long, unsubtle look with Naga, and I pushed those thoughts away, a little amused at them.

Maybe one day she'd be strong enough to let go.

Namekuji looked up at me, feeling how tightly I was holding onto him and feeling it when I responded by loosening my grip.

"Humans," he grumbled to himself, but didn't ask, and my smile was faint, but there.

Hidan crouched between Naga and Yahiko, fixing Naga with a bored, unimpressed stare, waiting for something.

Naga blinked at all the blood on Hidan and sighed softly. "Are we going to have to clean up the mess you made?" he asked, but turned to grab the cup that had been used as a firepit earlier. He dumped all the leaves out, made the half-dog sign, and drained a formless blob of water into it.

"This isn't from that shit. It's from her," Hidan said, hooking a lazy thumb at me.

Naga only sighed again, louder.

Kisame was watching us, but his eyes were unfocused, somewhere else.

Yahiko sat up a little more, clearing his throat and asking, "So, team leader, as your loyal subordinate I have to ask... what's the plan?"

I glanced at him. "I told Naga already."

Yahiko blinked, which only meant that he'd been told, but thought there was more.

I looked at the sky, considering how to put my thoughts into words.

Hidan poured water over one hand, then the other, getting some of the blood off, and then handed the cup back expectantly.

"Next time, you're doing it yourself," Naga said in exasperation, but took the cup.

Hidan fully plopped down, sticking a pinky in his ear as he asked, "Why the hell would I waste that much chakra on this?"

Naga didn't answer.

I leaned forward, meeting Yahiko's eyes. "I want Minakami. I'd be nice to have Gengetsu too, but that probably won't happen. But I know, we know, that the most dangerous ninja are the ones who are given something to fight for, those with nothing to lose and everything to gain if they try," I finally explained. "No matter what Ao said, we really couldn't go to Byakuren because then it stops being a revolution. It becomes a war, an attack. Maybe becoming Mizukage will give Mei the sway she needs to convince the daimyo to ally with us, and maybe she really does have that influence now, and maybe I can make her share that power with us instead of relying on her to be that bridge."

Yahiko studied me, tapping his chin thoughtfully. Naga was focused on filling the cup, but he was smiling.

"That's all," I said, leaning back.

"That's all," Yahiko repeated with a scoff.

"I could be a spy," Kisame reasoned blandly, but didn't sound like he believed himself. His arms were still crossed and he didn't seem to realize his fingers were digging into his skin. "You're making it stupidly easy, and I don't do intel."

I looked at him for a long time, and then I asked, "Do you want to spar, after this?"

Kisame fully focused on me. He was silent for an even longer time before he grinned and said, "So, so strange."

"You like to fight," I pointed out.

"I do. So what?"

I turned fully to him and asked, "You said you'd find us, and you did, so why stay?"

Kisame said nothing.

"Why did you say you'd come back at all if you don't want to talk about it?"

For a second as we stared at each other it felt like we were the only two in the alley.

"What if I told you that I knew, if you were right, I'd have nothing?" Kisame slowly asked.

I caught Chojuro's eyes widening but didn't break eye contact with Kisame.

"I took that away from you," I reasoned. "Even a lie is sometimes better than nothing, and I ruined that just because I could. I knew what would happen if I was right and did it anyway. So, we should spar."

Kisame showed more teeth and asked, curiously, "You think I'll attack you?"

"No, we already made a deal about that," I dismissed.

Kisame tilted his head. "I'm still not joining Terumi's rebellion."

"Didn't ask you to."

Kisame didn't respond. He studied me in silence.

Yahiko had his chin on his hand, watching us like he was watching a play. Hidan had taken off his shirt to scrub at the stains.

"My body language might tell you a few things, but not enough to know how I felt before I ever said it," Kisame said eventually, a question there.

"I know what it looks like," I answered, hooking a thumb at Hidan. "He didn't join us because we asked nicely."

Kisame's eyes slid to him, and Hidan sneered automatically at the attention, but he was focused on his shirt and Naga's quiet, patient instruction on how to mold his chakra without molding it into a jutsu so he could wash the shirt on his own.

I kept looking at Kisame.

Kisame raised his eyes to a point above me and refused to meet my eyes again.

I shrugged and turned back around. I immediately felt his stare on my back, but spoke to Chojuro as I said, "You should be a part of this."

Naga shot him a quick look, full of a meaning I didn't know.

Chojuro looked at me, at him, and sagged. He scrubbed tiredly at his eyes under his glasses before he dragged himself up, came over, and Yahiko made room for him to sit. He pulled his legs up, like he needed a barrier between us and him.

"I can join you now that you've already said all the important stuff, right?" he muttered, glaring at the ground.

I only looked at him and asked, "Do you want me to repeat it?"

His gaze snapped to mine, but I meant it.

He didn't have anyone to tell, and even if he did have a way to contact Mei, what I wanted to do wouldn't change.

He buried his face in his arms and didn't answer, but he trembled slightly. "Sorry," he managed, "All of this is because I—I'm sorry. I know I don't have the right to be mad at any of you. You were wrong with what you said about me. I couldn't even stay awake for a few hours. Ao was right that I—"

Yahiko reached out and ruffled his hair, shocking him into stillness.

"You don't need to apologize. Seriously, look around, does it look like anyone is blaming you?" he asked.

Chojuro paused. He slowly lifted his head and took a hesitant glance around. After a few seconds his expression crumpled and his hid his face against his knees again.

"I don't get—any of you," he managed to say, trying to muffle it as he sniffed wetly.

Yahiko patted his head a few more times and then turned away, letting him have as much privacy as he could give him.

"You don't have questions?" I asked Yahiko after a second.

Yahiko lifted one shoulder. "I've heard enough to be satisfied. I'll just wait here until you tell me what to do."

I let out a quiet breath, because I loved him and Naga.

"What you should do is stay down here. Hidan too," I said. "If Minakami sees you around too many times, especially wearing the same cloak, they'll think it's someone in the underworld helping Kirigakure, not Amegakure."

Hidan dropped his wet, pinkish shirt in his lap, glaring at it, and said, "That's annoying as shit, like this."

Yahiko looked thoughtfully at me as he said, "You know, If I use enough mud my hair will stay down for at least a few hours."

"But then you'd smell worse than you already do," Naga pointed out, casual.

"Coming from the one who smells like wet slug all the time, that's a non insult," Yahiko shot back.

Hidan tilted his head at me, ignoring them, and asked, "Aren't you in that shitty bingo book too?"

"It doesn't look anything like me. Mei only knew because Yahiko's page is next to mine. It's not hard to connect the dots when we came together."

Hidan muttered under his breath, made the half-dog sign awkwardly with one hand, then gave up and used both hands.

"You're sure you won't be recognized?" Naga asked.

I turned to Kisame again and asked, "Are there hunter-nin around the bridge into Gengetsu?"

"Yeah," he said shortly.

I turned back around and said, to Naga, "They didn't recognize me."

Naga paused. He folded his hands in his lap and said, slowly, "Knowing that you let yourself be spotted by hunter-nin has the opposite effect on me than you think it does."

"That's not the point—"

Hidan suddenly went stiff, hissing loudly through his teeth, and I followed his gaze down to where Chojuro had tipped over, sprawled half over his lower legs and partially on Yahiko.

"Get the heathen off," Hidan said immediately.

I didn't, wondering how long he'd been asleep.

His glasses were still on and the frame was bent awkwardly.

"Let him rest," Yahiko said lazily a second later, after Hidan started trying to nudge Chojuro's legs off.

Naga reached over and maneuvered his glasses off.

"Know what? Fine, let's spar," Kisame spoke suddenly. He peeled himself off the wall, waiting, daring me to take it back.

I hummed, didn't, and got up, putting Namekuji around my neck.

"I'm coming too," Naga said, handing the glasses to Yahiko as he stood too.

Hidan looked incredulous and offended that no one was helping him.

"I'll make sure Hidan doesn't kill him in the meantime," Yahiko said, waving us off.

"If you don't want him to wake up—" Hidan began to hiss, but I interrupted him.

"You owe him a spar too," I told Kisame.

Hidan went silent.

Kisame gazed at me for a long second, then he eyed Hidan. Without responding, he strode around us, and only said, "Follow me," as he left the alley.

.

.

.

Kisame led us back out onto the ocean.

He stood on the water across from me, grinning, Samehada leaning on his shoulder. A thin layer of mist hovered between us, making everything past the shoreline, and farther out on the ocean, look cloudy.

"Hunter-nin won't come to investigate?" Naga asked curiously, sitting on the water, Namekuji leaning down his shoulder.

"You ask a lot of questions," Kisame said, never taking his eyes off me. "But no. They'll sense the fight, and then they'll sense me, and they'll assume I'm taking care of it. It's one of the benefits of having the reputation I do."

I looked down at the water, looking for sharks, but it was too dark and choppy to see through.

"You aren't going to move?" Kisame asked casually, letting Samehada fall off his shoulder and skim the water. The bandages started to unravel around his feet.

I raised my right hand up at him in answer.

Kisame half knelt, throwing Samehada behind him. "Fine," he said darkly, and launched himself at me.

He crossed the distance between us in an instant, swinging Samehada sideways at my side.

I tracked him, flexing my fingers as I pushed—

And felt an instant of surprise as he made a quick slash through the invisible wave. I saw his grin widen and then it felt like a wall hit me, and then I was flying backwards.

I hit the water hard and dropped under, feeling a sharp, stabbing pain in my middle, but ignored it as I blinked around me.

I had a second to catch the outline of something surging towards me in the water.

I quickly made the half-dog, then half-ram sign and the shape stopped suddenly, caught by a water tentacle, blowing bubbles and thrashing as I caught a second shark, squeezing it as it inched closer until it went limp and blood came from its nose.

Not seeing more shapes in the water, I swam up with one hand and didn't let go of the sign, even after I pulled myself on top of the surface.

And then I dropped to one knee, unable to ignore the sharp, stabbing feeling in my stomach. I glanced down at the tear in my cloak, touched the wound, and my fingers came back wet with blood.

It stained the water red under me.

I rely on the Rinnegan too much, I thought grimly.

No one I'd ever met had a counter to being pushed. Not Hanzo's nin, not the samurai, and not even Yahiko or Naga.

Naga endured it if he was using Sage mode. Yahiko made a strategy around it, but no one could stop it.

"Your chakra has a unique texture," Kisame called, and I looked up at him as he walked leisurely towards me. "Haven't felt anything like it, and I haven't felt Samehada this excited in ages."

How long had it been since I'd faced a challenge in a real fight?

Too long.

I wiped my hands on my pants and stood, sparing a quick glance at Samehada.

Bandages floated on the water behind Kisame. She was bigger than he was, a sword of giant blue scales, and I blinked at the tongue hanging out of the mouth shaped hole, shuddering next to him like a living, breathing thing.

I understood suddenly why Kisame called her a her.

"We'd already be done if this wasn't a spar," he said casually, and I watched Samehada snap her sharpened teeth at me, only held back by Kisame. "I haven't been underestimated like this since I was a child."

I was still holding the sign as I said, "You should de-summon them."

Kisame stopped.

"I'm not going to kill them," I added.

Kisame tilted his head. "And why not?"

"Because summons aren't things. If I have to kill them, I will, but I don't."

Kisame looked at me, the grin freezing on his face. After a few seconds he wordlessly made the release sign.

I dropped my hand as the weight left the tentacles. "I wasn't underestimating you," I said, shooting him a grin of my own. "I'm used to fighting people weaker than me. That's all."

"Lesson learned then," Kisame said, grinning again.

I looked at him and my grin sharpened. "Fine," I said back, and charged at him.

Kisame raised Samehada above his head with one hand and brought her down, throwing up water around him like a wall.

I flipped forward onto my hands and ignored the twinge of pain as I tucked my legs in and threw my body above him, watching Samehada sweep through the air and water where I'd been and curl up to follow where I landed behind him, her mouth open wide in anticipation.

I pushed my cloak aside as I shoved a hand into my pouch, looping my pinky though the handle of a kunai as I grabbed an explosive tag with my other fingers, and yanked both out.

I used my other hand to grab the tag and press it around the kunai as Kisame spun, activating it with a pulse of chakra as I threw it at him.

My left hand was already reaching for another kunai as he redirected Samehada to block it, and we stared at each other as it exploded, as the heat and chakra were absorbed, leaving only the smoke.

I was already moving, sweeping into the black cloud as I stabbed the kunai up towards his middle, ignoring my stinging eyes.

A hand caught my left wrist and Kisame stared down at me as the smoke began to clear. "That was risky," he noted, light and unbothered.

The point of my kunai was pressed to his flak jacket, but then I stopped, realizing—

Samehada surged at me from the right and Kisame's grip tightened, locking me in place.

I didn't mind so much because if I wanted to move, I already would have.

"Your hair is too long. It almost makes me want to grab it," he said conversationally.

I looked to the right, at the shadow about to bite me, and threw my right hand out at the water next to me and pulled.

Water spurted up, sudden and violent, blocking and rebuffing Samehada and dousing me in the spray.

"Maybe the real you can see if he can," I said, glancing at him, and caught the surprise in the clone's eyes, the way he hastily tried to let go, but I was already absorbing him.

The color leached from his skin, making him the same dark blue of the ocean for a second before he destabilized and shrunk, pulled into my skin.

There was a loud, wet splash as Samehada landed further away.

Kisame's chakra was like the taste of sea salt, like the feeling of the wind whipping against a boat.

I made the half-dog sign, then half-tiger sign, redirecting that chakra into a clone.

And then I jumped high, hands bursting out of the water beneath me, twisting to use the clone's shoulders as a springboard as Samehada shot out of the water.

I landed behind Samehada as she tore through my clone before it could finish making the half-dog sign.

I touched a hand to my stomach.

It wouldn't stop stinging. I only gave the fresh blood on my fingers a brief glance as Kisame climbed out of the water.

He chuckled and said, "If only it lasted a few more seconds."

I threw out my right hand.

Samehada moved in front of him, but I wasn't aiming at him.

I yanked at the water he was standing on, just enough to disrupt the chakra he was using to balance on top, and he dropped straight down.

I took off my cloak, not acknowledging how heavy it was with blood.

Kisame broke the surface a second later, spitting water. He leaned both arms on top and told me, "You have a lot of annoying tricks."

"Are we done?" I asked him, sealing the cloak away in a scroll.

Kisame grinned in answer. He folded his hands together in the the dog, then tiger sign.

I made him fall again as I turned to eye the clones emerging from the water around me.

One of them picked up Samehada as Kisame popped up again, treading water.

There were eleven, maybe twelve, and it was getting hard to think.

I threw my right hand up, opposite of Samehada, and turned half of them back into water with a single, chakra wasting push, but they only reformed, telling me what I already knew.

Kisame would outlast me, and I had already lost too much blood. The extra effort to keep moving would slow me down.

And still—

I ducked backwards to avoid a quick grab at my hair and twisted, swinging my foot high and driving my heel through the middle of a clone.

The burst of chakra I felt was like a shot of energy, but it wouldn't make up for the blood loss. And it didn't even faze Kisame, who was leaning on the water again, holding the sign.

I moved on autopilot, throwing a kunai at the clone who moved into the empty space the other had left behind and grabbed at my foot before I fully put it down.

I twisted to the side, feeling the wind of a punch next to my head, and made the half-dog, half-ram sign.

A water tentacle circled around the neck of the nearest clone, and then another caught an arm that tried to elbow me, and then a leg that tried to sweep my feet.

I pulled more water to throw Samehada back. A hand snagged strands of my hair and I bit through the wrist, but it didn't make a difference.

For every clone that burst into water, two more stepped in its place.

I stopped, breathing hard, vision starting to blur, and looked past all the grinning faces at the real Kisame, who looked the same as when we started.

The tailless tailed beast.

Monster of the Hidden Mist.

I needed a beast. Something that could keep up with him, if not with his chakra. Something harder to keep down than me.

I took a step forward without thinking, and a massive seal appeared beneath my left foot.

I threw a hand up as puffs of white smoke appeared around me, as the clones popped under the weight of something landing on top of them, and then a giant shadow stood over me.

I looked up.

A reddish-brown dog was there, leaning forward and snarling at Kisame. It had a reflection of the Rinnegan in its gaze.

I blinked and I was suddenly sitting on the water, unable to get up and not knowing when I sat down.

"You fight like you know I'll always be there," Naga said, half-admonishing, a half-mutter as I blinked slowly at him.

His hands were glowing green on my stomach and Namekuji was there, numbing the area.

"Where did it go?" I asked him.

Naga nodded to the side, and I followed his gaze to the dog standing on three legs, half-obscured by the mist, growling low in its throat.

Its front left leg was cut off at the joint and blood gushed into the water. I blinked again as the blood slowed, then stopped, then a new leg regenerated in half a second.

It put the new limb down, its bird-like tail swishing back and forth, and I caught the wild, excited shine to Kisame's eyes as it pounced at him.

Water splashed up around them as it landed, and it came down on us like rain.

"I need to name it," I said absently.

Naga shook with laughter. "Stop talking. I'm trying to concentrate."

"It happened before," I told him, trying to see them through the mist. "Did I name the bird?"

"No," Naga answered. "Stop—"

"Do you think I could do it again?" I asked but didn't wait for an answer. I concentrated as much as I could, feeling that I had enough chakra left.

Naga stopped to grab my hands, like I might make a sign, but I didn't need them.

I wanted to—no, what had I thought before?

I need something that could catch not-Madara.

I need a beast to match Kisame.

I needed something to protect Naga, in case he got caught in the crossfire.

I pressed my foot firmly to the water, using my will and my chakra, and the giant seal appeared beneath me again.

Naga sucked in through his teeth, and then we were covered in smoke.

When it cleared, a chameleon with small wings and a snake's tail tilted its head to stare down at me with Rinnegan-eyes, and I blinked.

"Usagi," I named it, and passed out.