"I was searching for the meaning of my birth,
Even if there is no answer, a place for my heart,
I just, just wished to be here,
Because you gave me the meaning to live,"
-Shirushi, LUCK LIFE
"How do you plan on winning them over?" Kisame asked curiously, sitting on the stone wall above the canal a few inches behind us.
He put a lukewarm cup of soup down in the space between us, tore a handful of hard bread in half, and soaked it in it.
I hummed absently. "What does electricity repairs mean?"
"Hm?"
"Back on that road. There was a shop with a sign that said—"
"Electronic repairs," he corrected. "Your mind works in strange ways. Of everything that happened, from most important to least—"
"How isn't important, because I'm going to do what we've always done to win people over. I'm going to feed them."
"And how do you plan to do that?"
"With your help."
"Oh? Can't help but wonder when I agreed to that."
"You didn't," I said. "But I'm asking you to help them fish."
Kisame ate his soggy bread. "You want me to show them where it's safest to fish."
"That too."
"You want me to contribute to Terumi's rebellion."
I looked at him. "Why did you stop eating when Yorujin came in?"
Kisame dipped more bread and didn't look up. "Changing the subject—"
"It's related."
Kisame looked sideways at me, grinning. "Fine. You learn quickly in the barracks not to trust an unknown ninja with your meals. Some think the effects of mild poisoning are fun to watch. They're quick enough to do it the instant you look away, even if you never put your food down."
"You didn't seem to think I would," I pointed out.
He was still grinning. "It's not your style, rain-nin."
"Have you eaten in front of Yahiko or Naga?"
He said nothing. I knew he hadn't.
"What do you know about me that makes me not an unknown ninja?" I asked, leaning my elbows flat on my knees.
He didn't answer that either, because we both knew that other than that I couldn't read well, he only knew my name and where I came from.
"If you trust me that much, you should show it. I didn't say anything about Mei Terumi."
Kisame tore his bread into another half and gazed at the canal for a long time. "Do you know what the graduation exam to become a mist-nin entails?"
It didn't sound like he really wanted an answer.
"You have to kill your classmates and be the last one standing," he said a second later. "We were put into groups so the village wouldn't lose those of us with the most potential in one big brawl. Mangetsu and I were in the same year, but they saw who we could be and separated us. He was in the harder group. Many in his batch had potential, but not quite as much as Mangetsu. It took him a long time, but he proved his worth, unlike me. I was the strongest of my peers by a wide margin. There was no one who came close to closing that gap. Everyone knew I'd win no matter who I was put up against and they feared me for it. Do you know who our teachers chose for me?"
I glanced at him in silence.
"The weakest. The fat they wanted to trim. The ones who couldn't see their own uselessness, or were smart, maybe too much so, but weak, or had come from Byakuren with a sponsorship from their parents to become ninja but no talent to back it up. It was a slaughter. I was finished before I heard a single sound from the other rooms. It's done that way to toughen us up, to get us over the hesitation of taking a life. For leaf-nin, they tend to take their first lives in the field, and they die in droves for it. But they have the population for that not to matter. Kirigakure on the other hand can only expand so far. We don't have the land. The population can't grow more than the resources that can support them. That's another reason for the exam. At the same time, we have to match the rest of the world in viciousness and strength if not size because if we showed even a hint of weakness to them, they'd conquer us," he explained. "That day taught me that the weak are all bugs just waiting for a bigger shoe to squish them. I had yet to meet a person, adult or child, who didn't fear me."
He was still looking at the canal. "Even after that day, when I was put on teams with those who I was supposed to be on equal terms with, who had killed in the same exam, I was still feared. Mangetsu and I have been part of the seven for a few years now, but he still has his moments of wariness. Mist-nin are all naturally wary of each other, but he specifically is wary because of my reputation to kill my comrades the instant a mission becomes compromised. I'm too unpredictable. Some during the war had hands dirtier than mine, but I was the only monster because of my chakra. Before I learned to pull it inwards through silent killing, even non-sensors would become unnerved by my presence if I was around them for too long. Every other nation knew, instinctively, that I was a monster."
"Couldn't you be put on a team with Hoshigaki?" I asked.
"I was never like other Hoshigaki. It would've been no different. Uchiha was afraid of me too, and rightfully so. He never let me see his fear, but it replays in my head that the first time we spoke it wasn't as him, but as Lord Fourth. He wears a mask and gloves to hide his identity, but he still felt the need to hide behind someone else when we met," he said, giving me a half-grin. "Maybe I earned my reputation with how I acted the day of the exam, or the day I cut down my own sensei for being a traitor without mercy or hesitation, or maybe I earned it all the day I was born as the tailless tailed beast. You wanted to know why I've been following you? It's simple. You were never afraid of me. Not when we met, and not now, even after you've seen that you're outmatched. You're strong, but not enough. Anyone else would have every right to be afraid of what I might do to them."
"I went easy on you," I said after a second.
He snorted. "Sure."
I looked at him.
Would you still think me not fearing you meant as much if you knew that I'd been using someone else's memories of you then, even if I didn't know it?
I hummed, glancing at the stone path beneath my feet. "What does Mangetsu want with my brother?"
Kisame studied me. "That's... all you have to say?"
I looked up. "I'm... sorry... that happened to you?"
He burst out laughing, seemingly surprising himself, because he choked on the last of his wet bread and coughed it up into the canal.
"Pretty embarrassing for a tailless tailed beast," I said.
He wiped his mouth between fits of laughter.
.
.
.
"If Ringo is dying, why isn't Mangetsu pushing Naga to go to Gengetsu?" I asked.
The grate was between us as it led us back to the road with all the shops. The water under it came from the canal, Kisame had told me, and eventually drained out into the ocean.
Kisame eyed a clan marking painted on the wall as we passed it. "He won't beg," he said.
"What makes it begging?"
Kisame grinned at me. "How do you think it would sound if he asked your brother to split up from the rest of you and rely on Mangetsu alone to guide him to where she is? Your brother already revealed he still has a tie to the village. If your gray-haired friend goes with them, that leaves you outnumbered with the other one, Yahiko, still recovering from whatever you all did to him."
"It was someone else," I told him. "But Chojuro is—"
"On Terumi's side, not yours."
That was true, but would he really try something?
If he thought attacking me or forcing us to abandon the revolution was the only way to keep Mei fully in control of it, would he do it? Even if it cost him the relationship they had?
"Do you know what Mangetsu's tie is?" I asked.
"I have a good idea," he answered vaguely. "But it's on him to reveal it."
I hummed. Kisame flicked a glance at the soup shop as we passed it.
"I wouldn't be alone. Namekuji would be there too," I eventually said.
"He would go with his summoner, wouldn't he?"
"No. If Hidan stayed, he'd go with Naga, but if he didn't, he'd stay with me."
"Sharks don't have that level of sentience. They listen, understand, and obey, but they don't make decisions. It's rare to contract with a shark with the intelligence above a small child," he told me. "And it's rarer still to form a bond with them that's not about mutual survival. Slug summons sound strange, but he fits right in with the rest of you."
He didn't say it as a compliment or an insult, but a fact. I couldn't help a small smile.
"If that firecracker is still alive, she's been slowly dying since near the end of the war. Feels like a decade ago but it's only been four, five years? If she's clung to life that long, Mangetsu is likely thinking that letting you finish here won't make a difference, if you really want a reason. Besides, her condition being worse means nothing. No one but Mangetsu knows what that means, and he doesn't trust you enough to go into detail, even with me there."
I hummed. "Firecracker?"
"An old nickname," he said after a second.
"Did you fight together in the war?"
"No. I was always more useful on my own, with my unit staying out of the way and taking the role as the backup I never needed. That didn't fit the style of the rest of the seven," he answered. "I was tearing a bloody path through Lightning when they were all killed. But before that, we ran into each once at the same outpost. She was overeager to resupply and take more heads. The others were half a day behind her. The outpost itself had been destroyed, but there were tents that were supposed to be for the wounded. She and I borrowed one. What happened between us, you can call it stress-relief. There were never any feelings involved."
I blinked at him. "Stress-relief?"
Kisame suddenly wouldn't meet my eyes. "You know what? Never mind. This is why I like questions that only need me to say yes, or no."
"Or you could explain what you meant."
"No," he said, and wouldn't say anything else.
He eventually stopped, and I realized we were next to the 'electronic repairs' shop.
"Do you know what an electronic is?" he asked.
"Should I?"
"It's not required as a ninja, no, but as a Kage? Yes," he answered, but didn't seem at all surprised that I didn't. "It would be faster to show you than to explain the meaning behind something you've never seen."
I watched him duck inside, giving me a quick glance back at me to follow him, and hummed.
He'd remembered what I asked, even though the answer hadn't been that important. I tilted my head back to look at the round dish on the roof, and then gave a brief acknowledging glance to the kid still sitting on the same roof watching us, but without the bag of chips.
Then I followed him.
"Do you have something ya' want repaired, stranger?"
It was the voice of a kid. He sat on a stool behind the rickety counter between him and Kisame, ten or eleven, slowly spinning back and forth, wearing a plain shirt, shorts, and socks.
He clearly didn't know who Kisame was.
"No. I saw the dish outside. Do you have a TV?"
I looked at some of the things hanging on the walls. The ticking hands moving around a circle of numbers. The big hand didn't move at all, but the small one seemed to be counting something.
"Yeah, we're the only ones who do!" he said proudly. "My grandpa used to live in Byakuren. He says my great aunt went through a lot of trouble to get it here for him along with the rest of his stuff, but I've never met her. I want to though!"
"You're awfully talkative to a stranger."
"Well, yeah. You're not a stranger stranger. You're a rain-nin. It's not the same."
"Sure."
"What's that?" I asked, pointing at the ticking hands.
"A clock," the boy answered, sounding a little confused about the question. "You want one?"
"No," I said, looking back at it.
"And where's your grandpa now?" Kisame asked.
"Working on his radio in the back."
"He has a radio?"
"Everyone has that same reaction when I tell them that, like it's a big deal, but he's been working on it since before I was born," he said, and laughed to himself.
I moved on, staring at what looked like a small green frog cut in half, showing the springs and metal that made up its insides.
I wondered if his parents died, or were clanless.
Kisame patiently waited until the kid stopped laughing before he spoke again. "I'll pay you five-hundred ryo to see the TV for five minutes."
I hummed. He'd had money the entire time, and still gave away his headband.
The boy crossed his arms. "Only five-hundred?"
Kisame grinned. "You're not big enough to haggle yet. Take it or I leave."
"Okay, okay!" he said, huffing. "But I gotta be there. You can't be alone with it. That's the only rule!"
"Fine."
He hopped off the stool and led us around the back and down a short set of stairs.
"You have signal down here?" Kisame asked curiously, ducking down to fit.
"Signal's bad everywhere in Minakami. The location doesn't make a difference. That's what grandpa says when people ask," he answered without looking back.
He hopped down the last step, pulled on a string, and the room filled with yellow light.
I studied the bare bulb as he went to a box on top of an old cabinet and began turning knobs.
Kisame sat on the bottom step, waving me towards the box when I glanced at him.
A TV, I mused, turning the word over in my head.
At least with the clock, it sounded familiar. Maybe I'd seen one in Suisai or Hyozan or River country, but just never paid attention to it. Never had a reason to.
I couldn't help freezing when a sudden burst of static came from the box.
Kisame made an amused sound behind me.
A grainy, black and white picture was on the screen and it was moving.
I didn't...
...understand.
The boy went behind the TV and the picture slowly became clearer, but was still fuzzy.
There was a person on the screen. It was hard to see them, but I made out his formal-looking robe and his darker vest with shoulder pads.
The boy ran around to the front, studied the screen, and then got down on his knees next to it, sticking his tongue out in concentration as he turned a knob at the bottom.
It made a loud crackling sound, like thunder, and I didn't realize my hand had found it's way into my weapons pouch until I pulled it out.
"Sorry!" the boy said quickly, hastily turning it down. "I'm still not that good at tuning yet."
Tuning?
He adjusted another knob, and a voice came through, crackling with static. It was male, but didn't match the mouth movements on the picture.
The moving picture?
"...the young Lord Imai is seen here announcing the end of the Third Shinobi World War, in his first act since taking over the position of Honored Daimyo from his father..."
I blinked as the voice was consumed by static. "What was that?"
"An ancient broadcast," Kisame answered. "Is that the only thing you can pick up here, repairman's grandkid?"
"My name is Sosuke," the kid said back, turning another knob. The static got louder when he turned it one way, then softer when he turned it another, but the voice didn't come back. "But... yes. Grandpa says the receiver we have isn't strong enough for more than this, but we pick up all the new announcements when they happen. It's all re-runs in between."
Receiver? Re-runs?
I stepped closer to the TV and ran a hand over the top and around the metal wires that stuck out of it.
"Hey, hey, no touching!" Sosuke said. But other than glaring up at me didn't do anything to stop me.
"I won't break it," I promised.
It was warm, and seemed to hum beneath my hand. It felt a little like the hum of chakra when I focused it into a jutsu, but it wasn't chakra. There was nothing to absorb.
I looked at the dust on my fingers, and then the figure on screen.
"Is that Hyousuke Imai?" I asked.
"He was young then, but yes," Kisame answered.
"How old is he now?"
"Twenty-six or twenty-seven. Around that."
I crouched down. His face was mostly grainy, but one of his hands was clenched on the desk in front of him, not all the way obscured by the sleeves of his robe.
I pressed the tip of my finger to the glass and the image didn't change or waver. It was warmer too. I hummed. "Where is it coming from?"
"He has this thing in his court called a video camera. It records him there, and then the recording can be sent anywhere that can receive the signal. Don't ask me how it works more than that. I've only seen it once," Kisame said.
"That dish outside," I mused, poking the image again.
"I gotta clean it after you leave when you do that," Sosuke huffed, sitting with his arms crossed.
I glanced at him, lowering my hand. "Your grandpa fixes stuff like this?"
"No, 'cause it's the only one, but across the street, Doremi's baby brother has this electric toy that he likes with flashlights for eyes, but it breaks all the time. Grandpa makes special batteries for heaters in the winter when the mist collects the cold, but they don't last long, and people don't clean their heaters, so the insides rot and need to be replaced. That's the kind of stuff he fixes."
Flashlights. Heaters.
Batteries were... weren't they used in some medical tools in Fire country?
"Flashlights?" I asked.
Sosuke stared at me in surprise. "They're..." he trailed off and his eyes lit up. "Here!" he pulled open one of the cabinet doors, glancing up at the TV as it wobbled, and then pulled something out and pushed it into my hand. "It's like that, but smaller. Grandpa keeps 'em all over in case the power goes out."
I looked at the cylinder shaped object he'd handed me. It was black, with a bulb at the end behind a circle of glass.
"You're supposed to..." he reached up and pushed a switch up. A white circle of light appeared on the wall.
"Oh," I said. "A floodlight."
I aimed it at him and he fell back with a hiss. I'd only seen them underground and they'd been attached to the wall, but they did the same thing as lightbulbs.
"What's a heater?" I asked
"It warms you up," Sosuke answered, frowning in confusion. He covered his face when I shined the light on him again. He pushed himself back, uselessly, since I just moved it with him. "What else would it do?" he squeaked, twisting away.
I hummed. I flicked off the flashlight. "Can I buy this?"
"It's not for sale!"
I shrugged, put it down, and stood.
"Got your answer?" Kisame asked, lounging back on the steps.
"More than that," I said. I paused, then added, "Thanks."
"We're even," he said lazily. He stretched his arms above his head and stood as much as he could. "For the spar," he added at my blank look.
"I thought that was what the headband was for."
He shook his head. "I told you what that was. I don't hold onto trash."
He led the way back up the stairs.
"You shouldn't be playing down here during work hours. There was someone yelling for me at the front. They must've been waiting there for—" the man coming towards us froze.
He didn't blink as Kisame passed him without a glance, but looked much paler than a few seconds before. Sosuke's grandpa was taller than me, but not Kisame, with his gray hair tied up tightly in a ponytail.
His mouth pressed into a firm line as I passed him, and I fought a smile.
"I was helping other customers," Sosuke said loudly, oblivious to his grandpa's sudden silence. He ran around in front of us to grab the money Kisame held out.
His grandpa didn't move, keeping his eyes firmly on the wall, and stayed still until we'd left the shop.
Once we did, I laughed.
"Should I ask why you're laughing or call you strange again and leave it alone?" Kisame asked, stopping next to me.
"It's different here, but still kind of the same," I answered once I'd calmed down. "Back in Amegakure, they look at us like gods, even though we didn't really do much at all. A lot of people even fear us. And here, even when I do nothing, I'm feared. It's a little funny how that works, that's all."
Kisame looked at me. "I think it was me he was afraid of."
I waved his words away. "I met people that reacted like that before I met you."
Even when I didn't try, even before Hidan sacrificed someone, the people on the ship had feared us.
He followed me as I started walking. "Why gods?" he eventually asked.
"Do you know who Hanzo the Salamander was?"
"'I've heard of him, yeah."
"In Amegakure he was more of a symbol than a person. He was unbeatable. Even the strongest ninja from other countries couldn't even injure him. If their best couldn't do it that meant that only someone more than a ninja could. No one thought we'd survive it if we fought him, but we did, and we came out unhurt. That made us more."
Kisame was silent for a few seconds. "You said you didn't do much."
"I didn't. We didn't. Hanzo was weak. He..." I trailed off, trying to find the best way to explain it. "He let himself go. Any half-decent chunin could've killed him by then, but no one knows that."
"Except me."
I blinked back at him. "Oh. Yeah."
Had I really never told that story to anyone outside of the Akatsuki before?
Kisame slowly shook his head, looking to the side. "You're really like no one I've ever met."
I paused. "Is that a compliment or an insult?"
Kisame flashed his teeth at me in answer.
"They call Yahiko the God of Twilight," I told him. "Naga is a Storm God, and I'm the Wolf of the Rain."
"Why aren't you a so-called god? Aren't you their leader?" he asked curiously.
"Because Naga spread that name first." I answered, then mused aloud, "If they knew he did, it probably wouldn't have caught on."
It would've felt forced, like they had to, and not like they wanted to.
"No answer for the other question?" Kisame asked, cutting right through my attempt to dodge it.
I hummed. "Sometimes."
He blinked at me, but I didn't elaborate.
We walked in silence for a while before he said, "I feel like I have to warn you that it wont be like this in Gengetsu or Byakuren."
"Like this?"
His eyes flicked to mine. "That firecracker had to fight until her teeth were bloody to be accepted as a student to the last wielder of the Kiba, and she had to fight even harder to be acknowledged as one of the Seven, even with the Kiba in her hands and the knowledge that no one else could wield it. There are people that won't want to listen to you because you're a girl, no matter how strong you are. Most of Byakuren is like that. They tend to live the longest and be the most resistant to change."
I glanced at him. "Remember what I told Jin, about how nothing could change what I wanted to do?"
Kisame grinned and said, "I only said it so you'd know what to expect." He paused, eyeing me before he added, "Don't take this the wrong way, but it's a little surprising that you're aware that kind of discrimination exists, what with how you're going about this. Neither you or the others seemed to consider it in your plans."
I thought about that. "I don't know what it means exactly, but I have an idea. A long time ago, Hidan asked me why I called myself a shinobi and not a kunoichi, like they were different. Like I was the weird one for not knowing that they were supposed to be. He taught me then that at least some villages think that kunoichi are supposed to do infiltration and deception. Shinobi do too, but it doesn't mean the same thing for them for some reason."
"That's the contradiction of ninja," he agreed.
"My sensei made it sound like if it wasn't for the war, the differences would be more obvious," I added.
"They weren't wrong."
"Is Gengetsu like that too?" I asked.
"Yes and no. Gengetsu is where most of the village's ninja come from, and strength is strength, no matter what gender you are. But those in high-ranking positions can and do make noise if someone they don't like tries to rise beyond their station. No one cared one bit when that firecracker made jonin, and probably wouldn't have if she went down the route of a hunter-nin. You see what I mean?"
I hummed. "Do you see kunoichi and shinobi as different like that?"
Kisame looked straight ahead. "Sharks have a tendency to cannibalize each other the moment after they're born. They don't choose which sibling to eat based on gender, or genetics, or their natural potential. Everyone gets eaten all the same. All that matters to them as they cannibalize each other is survival. Nothing else."
It was both an answer and not one at the same time. I stared at him.
"I had a cousin, a distant one, who was a kunoichi. She was the best our clan had before me. She was a hunter-nin, but was able to be around more in the downtime between wars. The heads of my clan pushed her to breed while the peace lasted. With the right match, her children had the potential to outmatch even me. They set the marriage up for her, sat her down, and had a talk with her about what was best to raise our standing as a clan and how she was an important contribution to that. The entire clan talked gossiped it. And then she quit being a hunter-nin, just as they wanted, but do you know what else she did?"
I waited.
"She jumped into the ocean and disappeared. She refused to play their game, and so made her own. I've always admired her for her choice, more than I've ever admired anyone else I've met since then. Does that answer your question?"
"Kind of," I said, giving up on getting a straight answer. "What happened to her after?"
"She became a pirate, but one with the experience to evade hunter-nin while staying in the Land of Water. Most steal a boat around half the size of a cargo ship and then flee to Fire. It's easier there because they're not used to fighting on them. They're still too new there."
"Did Kirigakure use them to move people and cargo around during the war?"
"No," Kisame said, glancing at me. "The east has too many fire natured ninja and the north has too many with lightning nature. They would've waited for us on land and then burned the ships down before we could get close. Stolen ships are no different. Pirates tend to leave them intact and sometimes leave the crews alive. If they do, places like Konohagakure and Iwagakure don't pay attention to them. They're like flies to them. Annoying, especially when they touch your food, but not worth the effort to kill them unless they buzz around your head constantly."
"And everywhere else?" I asked.
"Sunagakure doesn't have the resources. Kumoagkure likes their waters empty and are nearly as aggressive as hunter-nin about it. Land-locked villages don't care," he said with a grin.
I led the way through a mist-filled alley, and out the other side onto the staircase.
I hummed. "I think I saw your pirate on the way here."
"So she's still alive," Kisame said, and his grin seemed more genuine.
"Are all Hoshigaki blue?"
"No. Some are gray, or chalky, or sea green," he answered casually, like I'd asked him what color the sky was. "Do all Uzumaki ask questions like this?"
"Probably not," I said, at the bottom of the path. "My brother would be more polite."
Kisame scoffed in amusement.
"I thought you liked yes or no questions," I mentioned, leading the way back to the alley. "I asked one, and you gave me two long answers instead."
Kisame was quiet, and then he asked, "You're always like this, aren't you?"
I smiled back at him in answer, and he fought not to let me see his real grin.
A/N: aha! you thought that conversation a billion chapters ago between Oka and Hidan wasn't important-*shot*
made some edits with parts of 88 I wasn't happy with, mostly the section with Hidan and Oka
MIDORI Music on yt is where the eng translation of the song comes from. There are many, but I like that one the best.