A/N: This chapter's title is exactly how I feel right now. Finishing this chapter did not give me the boost it usually does. Mmm. I... don't know what I need. Maybe just time for my moods to reverse, as they always do. I was smiling involuntarily and quite hopeful and happy just a little while ago. Something for emotional stability might be nice. But who even cares about that.

Enjoy.

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Yahiko

Once again, he was unsure what to do. He wanted to talk to Itachi, but Itachi was outside, which probably meant he wanted to be alone. And aside from talking to Itachi, Yahiko couldn't think of much else to do. He remained near Kakuzu, sipping from a cup of some kind of juice Sakumo had provided. He didn't really care what kind of juice it was; only that it provided something repetitive to do while he thought. I'm not precisely like the kind of person I want to be. What do I want to be like?

The answer was obvious. I want to be more like Nagato. Not completely like him, but a little. I can think of what I want things to look like, but I don't know how to get there. What do the steps in between look like? What, exactly, do I have now? I don't know what Other Me did, so I don't know what Konan's really reacting to. I don't know why I am the way I am, and I might not even know what that is. I don't even know what kinds of spirits we have around here. Yahiko stared down into his empty cup. I should do something. I know I should; I've known that for a while now. "Something" means...learn to think better, maybe? Think more? See more?

That meant he should talk to Itachi. Itachi was thoughtful and saw clearly. Yahiko put his cup down. I need to do something, and I figured out what "something" is and I'm doing it, so he won't mind. He waved at Kisame on his way to the door, noticing that Kisame looked not as worried as he had before. That was a good sign.

The air outside felt very chill after the warmth inside. Yahiko thought he could see his breath in the air, just a little. After the light that resembled but wasn't firelight, he was also surprised at how dark it was. Itachi was hardly visible with his black hair and clothes. Yahiko remembered that he had other senses besides the usual 5; he had probably used them to detect Itachi.

"Hello," Itachi said.

"Hey." Yahiko shifted slightly on the wooden step as he sat down.

"It is dark."

Um, yeah. Yahiko said nothing. Why did he say that? It might be part of what I need to learn. Yahiko looked up.

The sky was filled with stars, more than Yahiko could remember seeing before. His jaw dropped. Whoa! And, without having to concentrate, the rest of his environment fell into place, each part shocking him with how aware he was of it. Yahiko realized that the darkness around him mattered to more than his eyes; it also made the rest of him feel as if he was in a small and peaceful space, and he got the impression of solitude even though they were right outside the door. The trees, which he was probably also using his ninja senses to detect, made him feel comforted and secure. The wood beneath him was solid and made a good surface to sit on when he had so little else to hold onto. The darkness felt like drifting, but not scary. It was like a quiet ocean folding around and embracing him.

Clear sight! Yahiko grinned. He said that because he's fully aware of what's around right now. That's the sort of thing I need to learn. He whispered, "Thank you!" to Itachi, trying to disturb the silence as little as possible. It still sounded uncomfortably loud.

"You're welcome," Itachi murmured.

"Thank you," Yahiko said again. "I…" How to explain? "I can see the stars, and I'm here, but it's hard to look at everything in between."

"Hmm." Itachi was quiet. Yahiko emulated his example, letting Itachi think while he looked around, concentrating on the environment more fully. Wait… The environment… Oh, man. That must be where the spirits are, if we have any. How could I see wood spirits or water spirits or other things if I can't clearly see where they live? Yahiko squeezed his eyes shut, concentrating on the feel of the air. Perhaps there were wind spirits in there. He put out one hand, slowly, feeling the air against his hand as he moved it. It felt so interesting that Yahiko continued to wave and bend his fingers. He flared them out and curled them in, raised and lowered his hand, aware and absorbed in the feeling of substance between his fingers. There was something there that he could feel, and as he moved his hand around Yahiko could feel parts of it that were warmer or colder than others. Even in still air, there were parts of it that were different from other parts. Yahiko started building a mental map of the air where he was waving, aware that his waving was making air currents that would disturb the patches of warm and cold.

"Hmm," Itachi repeated. This one sounded different from the last. The last had been a noise of thinking, whereas this was a noise of interest, of noticing something. "That's right - it is possible to feel the air. I'd forgotten. It's very interesting."

Yahiko pulled his hand back and didn't even try to stop the smile that spread over his face at those words. It was great praise.

Now that the silence was broken, Itachi continued. "I'm surprised to hear you say that."

"Why?"

"Because you like to help others," Itachi answered. "Doing that requires focusing outside yourself, so that you do not even see or feel yourself, but rather the other person. At least, helping others effectively requires that."

"Really?" Yahiko put both hands on the step for balance and looked into the darkness. "I never thought of it that way. You really think just being able to look at other people is that important?"

"More than looking. Like the darkness, after I pointed it out to you." Yahiko felt Itachi gesture outwards. "Complete focus and concentration allows you to do more than look: to feel. Being able to fully concentrate on another person means that you see what they do and how they do it, but also that you can feel those actions in yourself, and you understand what that feels like and what it could mean. I believe empathy is rooted in careful observation."

"Really?" Yahiko murmured, looking down at his invisible legs. "So...I should sit like this more often? That could help me understand how she feels?"

Itachi snorted. "You don't need to set that high a bar for yourself. She's an enigma, even to me and my Sharingan. You won't ever know exactly how she feels. But yes, it might help."

Yahiko spread his fingers over the wood, moving his hand down the step in the same fashion as a starfish, carefully observing how it felt. "That's all I want. I know she won't tell me what Other Me did, not in a million years, probably. I can't imagine what he could've done. It seems like Other Me was just like me. What could I possibly do to hurt her?"

"I do not know."

Yahiko sighed. "She said she wanted to test me. Not just regular me; you know, me. She said it was a test of my self." He bit his lip. "Should I try to improve my self? Make it stronger? If Other Me's like how I am now, then if I do that, it would make me a little different. But how do I do that? I don't even know…" What, exactly, is a self? Can I feel it anywhere in me if I pay attention? Where is it? If I act different, is that enough? Is it my actions? Yahiko was not one to wonder about the very nature of identity, so he had no clue. He felt incredulous just thinking about these questions. They were very strange questions to ask, and he never would have thought of them before.

Itachi looked sideways at him. "What do you want to hear?"

Yahiko blinked slowly. "Do I have a choice?"

"Yes. There are two answers." Itachi exhaled slowly before continuing. "They are different from each other. One may help you. The other probably will not."

Yahiko's brow wrinkled. "I don't understand. Of course I would want the helpful one. What else would I say? I don't know, maybe I don't understand what you mean by different."

Itachi sat up straighter and turned toward him. "The answer that won't help you is that you are yourself. To change yourself, then, means trying to change something with the very thing that needs to change. It's nearly paradoxical. How can you do that?

"The answer that might help you is that you are different from yourself. You lie in the center of it, but your self actually consists of things outside of you as well, like the way you interact with the world. If you try to relate to the world differently, to look and think in a different way and change where your attention is placed, that would be changing your self."

Yahiko's eyes widened. "I've heard of that before. I have!" He had heard it in school, and from reading things that he and Nagato were interested in on their own. "It's, like, the Eastern style. People think differently about themselves in those cultures. They think they are their relationships, like 'I'm so-and-so's daughter and I belong to this group of people,' whereas, we think people are just what they are, and not...not...not - what they do." Ow. I still don't know what a self is. How can I talk about it?

"Do you want to know something?" Itachi asked.

Yahiko looked for anybody else nearby before leaning in to hear. "Sure," he said quietly. In the way Itachi asked it, that question could mean nothing other than a personal disclosure. Yahiko was honored.

"I find it helpful in talking about the world." Itachi looked away. "If you asked me if I thought the world was a good place, I couldn't answer. I've thought about it, and I've tried to come up with an answer in the past. It's the question everyone wants to know the answer to. But then I realized, I can't ever have an answer. I simply don't know what the world is. I can't see any of it other than the part I personally interact with." He sighed. "That means I can only talk about the part of the world I have a relationship with. I can't tell you if the world is good. I can only tell you that my relationship with it is good."

Yahiko squinted, trying to see more clearly. "Like how I think everyone is a good person, just because I feel good when I'm with them? Just because they do good things for me, or for other people? I'm not literally looking at their soul and telling you what color or shape it is; it's not the same…"

"Exactly." He could hear Itachi's smile. "The word 'good' does not actually describe what you are. It describes how I am. I'm simply seeing myself reflected in you."

Yahiko squeezed his eyes shut. "So...wait...uh, that's…"

"Too much and you'd like me to give you time?" Itachi guessed.

"Yeah. How can that be how it works? I know you're different from me, and you look different. And wait, you just said a while ago that knowing someone else means not paying attention to myself. What?"

"That might be another question with two answers," Itachi mused. "You might be me, or I could be you. I could see you as a reflection of myself because I am actually a reflection of you. Alternately, both answers could be true - I could feel good about you and therefore see you as good, and the reason I feel good in the first place is because you are good and your existence has changed me."

"My head hurts," Yahiko groaned.

"Of course. Thinking can only be practiced alone. I'll leave you to that, then." Itachi turned back to his position looking out on the forest, and folded his hands under his chin in order to digest what he'd just said.

Yahiko rubbed his head. Ow. I'm probably not going to remember most of that. It's too much! Let's just stick with what I know. So...um...what was that again? We were talking about the self, and how some people see the self as not one thing, and oh I got it now! I can change myself by changing my relationships. Hopefully. He rubbed his head some more. Lightly tugging on the roots of his hair was always quite soothing. So what are my relationships again? He said how I see the world…

Yahiko was no longer sure that he knew what being a ninja meant at all.

Hidan

Hidan woke up to the sound of Samehada rattling loudly, attracting the attention of everyone in the cabin. He worked his eyes open to see the shark lying directly on top of him, and his scythe also on top of him, and his scythe covered with drool. "Da fuck?"

Samehada purred pleasantly and licked his chin. Hidan could feel interest and curiosity taking root and luring him into awakeness. "What is it?" he asked. "Where's the cool shit?"

Konan excused herself from her conversation with Deidara, which was already shriveled and withered anyway. Deidara was thankful she'd finally released him to seek out someone with a more receptive viewpoint for his opinions. Konan hoped Hidan might be able to help her understand some of what the blond had been saying. It seemed as if they were talking from completely different places. "Welcome back," she told Hidan. She then turned to Samehada. "What have you found?"

The shark chirped twice, and Hidan giggled excitedly. Samehada flapped his fins up and down before making biting motions at the handle of the scythe, then biting motions at Hidan's hand. He repeated this several times.

Kisame did his best to interpret. "He tasted the scythe's chakra and Hidan's chakra." Samehada then looked back and forth between the scythe and Hidan, eventually shaking himself. "There's a connection between them?" Samehada shook his head no. "Okay, not a literal connection. A metaphorical one? Similarity?" Samehada flopped his entire body up and down in the most enthusiastic nod they'd ever seen. "I take it that means a lot of similarity?" Samehada wriggled yes and opened his mouth wide, turning from side to side as if to swallow the entire room. "All of it? Wait… They're the same?!" Samehada nodded yes.

Konan asked, "Why do you sound so surprised? Hidan already talks about his weapon as if it was a part of his own body. The first thing he asked me after getting it was if he could use it as a tail."

"That wasn't part of your usual 'I'm going to talk about random objects as if they were alive' child speak?" Kakuzu asked.

"There is nothing wrong with being respectful to rocks!" Hidan glared as much as he could from his position. "I don't see any difference anyway. Why wouldn't rocks and shit be alive somehow?"

Kakuzu facepalmed. Konan reminded him, "Recall that we may have nature spirits in this area. They probably are." He facepalmed harder.

Konan gave him some space to adjust. "Anyway, if Samehada did indeed taste chakra, and the scythe used chakra, that means it must have some kind of chakra system to manipulate it with. Anything can be merely covered with chakra to make it sharper, but the scythe was far enough from you that that can't be what happened."

A chakra system? Hidan looked as far down as he could, or rather up, since the scythe was still on top of him. Are its blades separate from the handle? 'Cause if they are, then where would a system go? It'd need branches in the blades to work. He grunted at Samehada to get him to move. The shark moved, and Hidan sat up. He examined the blades more closely.

"What are you doing?" Sakumo asked. He didn't know enough about how Hidan thought to begin to predict what he was thinking now, and that was a problem if they were supposed to be allies.

Hidan did not pause in his examination. "If there's a system, it'd need to be in the blades, but I don't know if the blades are connected to the handle or not." He tilted the scythe so he was looking at it from the top down and squinted. "And I can't fucking tell if they are!"

"Rar?" asked Samehada. Hidan stopped what he was doing and waited for the shark to elaborate. Samehada made vertical slicing motions with his teeth and licked Hidan's fingers.

"Claws," Konan translated. "He seems to believe the blades are not separate, or are only as separate as claws are. That's an interesting image." She pictured Hidan with razor sharp red claws. In order to make that image work, she had to imagine the rest of his body as a tiger, or perhaps a dragon.

"Can it be taken apart?" Nagato asked.

"I don't see any screws or shit if that's what you mean."

"It has never been broken or disassembled in my knowledge," Konan said, "so I do not know if it can be."

Kakuzu's eyebrows raised, and he looked down at the scythe. His left hand turned black and hard. "Never broken? Hmm." Hidan's ears folded back as far as they could while he hissed and growled. Kakuzu's hand returned to normal, followed by Hidan's ears after a delay. Hidan still bared his teeth. Don't even fucking think about it.

Konan looked at its red blades more thoroughly, with renewed interest. "Perhaps it repairs itself," she murmured. "Or has unusual durability."

All Hidan could do was shrug at that. Huh. It's mine, but I don't really know shit about it. I don't know how it moves. I didn't know it could attack Dei before it did, and I still have no idea what happened there. It was weird. I dunno, does it do other things? Fuck, it's my tail and I don't know what it does! Hidan hugged the blades as close to his chest as he could. That stupid handle still kept it from moving exactly as he wanted. And it's still not a real tail! Fuck! He squinted for focus and sent out a complaint to the universe. The complaint was registered, but nothing happened. Typical!

"Maybe Other Me got an instruction book or something with it," he thought aloud. "If he…" If he was here… Shit. Other Me, where are you? Hidan patted the blades for comfort and tried to hide how his eyes were misting up. It was official: he missed someone he'd never met. Why? How? He did not know. The best he could do was connect it to his search for answers about himself, and his desire for Konan to be happy. Those didn't feel like sufficient answers, but they would do for now.

Konan briefly held her breath and hid her reaction much more successfully than Hidan did. Who knew; maybe there had been more than lust involved. The look in his eyes reminded her of herself, so that was at least one connection they had had. And now, just when she needed to know, the only source of information about Jashinism was gone. This cloned version was no replacement for any of that. Why was the one thing that only Original Hidan could do, and nobody else - not even his clone - could, suddenly so important after and because he was gone? That had to be some kind of sick joke.

Hidan sniffed. Nagato pushed his way forward and sat on the couch behind him, patting his shoulder. "Hey," he said. "It's...tough. I know. I wonder about my original all the time too."

Hidan wiped his eyes. "Really?" *sniff* "I get that he had powers and shit, but you think he might've been cool?"

"He used to be in charge of things," Nagato answered. "And now I'm not, but sometimes I catch myself doing things that someone in charge would do, and I wonder how much of that I could do if you and Konan weren't already capable of doing things by yourself."

A brief silence passed before Sakumo gathered the courage to speak. "Yeah." He touched the side of his mouth. "In this world, where I didn't notice anything strange about myself, I probably wouldn't have had surgery to get rid of my fang-teeth. I wonder why my original got rid of them. Was it different to be half beast over there? Worse? Did he even have wolves around?"

Hidan sobbed and wiped his eyes furiously. Who'd I used to be? He can't tell me, 'cause he was different from me, but he'd have to be at least similar. Like me. Maybe Original Hidan could understand some things that nobody else could. But this version of Hidan would never know, because the closest person he had to family was gone. Maybe he could be like a cool little brother. Fuck, it'd be nice to have a brother. Maybe I do but I don't remember. Behind his sleeve, his face twisted in agony.

Nagato continued to pat his shoulder, not knowing what else to do. Sakumo rubbed the side of his mouth. Samehada whimpered, just because everyone else was sad and lonely and that itself was very sad. Meanwhile, Kisame and Kakuzu exchanged glances. They never in a million years would have considered missing their originals, who were jerks. They also didn't consider themselves to have much in common with their originals. That, it seemed, was a minority viewpoint.

After some nice, distracting food and drink, Sasori was refreshed from his work and ready to focus on something else. He and Deidara stood apart, as uncomfortable as Kisame and Kakuzu but with less reason to be near. Deidara shook his head; he couldn't imagine feeling anything but anger at the asshole he allegedly shared powers with. Sasori gestured uselessly with his hands. He was nothing like his original.

What could they do?

Hidan switched to his other sleeve. The agony had passed, and now he could speak. "I just… It's like he's the closest thing to family I can have. I can't even know about anyone else. But I still don't get to have a family, because he's gone. Shit." Nagato nodded in understanding. He could at least remember his parents, but he had still lost them at around the same age. That was completely relatable. He slid his entire arm over Hidan's shoulders, giving him a strange sideways hug of solidarity. Hidan leaned in, forcing Nagato to prop the both of them up. Fuck, thank you, Moonlight. You're so freakin' nice. And warm. *sniff*

Konan said nothing and did nothing, but a close observer might have seen her eyes narrow by a small fraction. Was she not alone? She had thought she was; she belonged to a different world and had to create a new path for herself in a land of different customs, rules, different things that everyone knew. But these clones already knew about this world. They knew how it was, were perfectly at home in it, and guided her through it like natives. It was her world that was strange, that they had a choice to accept or reject, and if they rejected it they would lose nothing. She had no such choice.

That was what she had thought before this night. But maybe it wasn't true. Her world was somewhat their home, somewhat the place they belonged. Maybe that half-belonging was enough to allow them to miss it in the same way she did.

Maybe she wasn't the only one who needed to grieve.

Kisame

The closest thing to family…

That one phrase stayed in Kisame's mind. He and many others found excuses to pretend to be doing something else, of course, leaving Nagato on the couch with Hidan. Konan retired behind the couch to think and consult the mirror. Once excused, Kisame found himself still in the middle of an awkward situation, because Samehada would not stop crying. He picked up the shark and took him down the hallway to the bathroom.

Samehada was inconsolable. He took staggered breaths and whined loudly, sometimes on the verge of wailing. The lack of tear ducts or visible eyes made it no less genuine. Kisame knew the shark would not like or be able to calm down when asked, so he did not ask and simply held the shark, allowing Samehada to sob into his shoulder. While Same cried, Kisame tried to think of what he could say or do to make Same feel better, but his mind kept circling back to Hidan's sentence instead.

Shit. Is that really true for him? I didn't notice. Only now did Kisame remember - no pictures, no mentions or references to any parents or siblings, no responsibilities, no house, nothing. Only now did he slow down, stop, and think of Hidan as a person. Kisame felt horrible as soon as he did so. And here I was, saying just last week how I didn't have any family and didn't have anyone like me at all. I have Same, and the other sharks. The Hatakes understand me, too, and said I could stay here anytime I wanted. I might as well have a palace of people compared to him. He's so weird that there's no way in hell he'll find anyone like the Hatakes to understand him, and he doesn't have a cat the way I have Same. He doesn't have anyone except, well, us.

Suddenly, blockages thrust up from the ground, forcing Kisame to make creative maneuvers to get that train of thought past them. Hold on a fucking second. I'm not at all like him! Nobody is. He does what he wants. Even Konan only goes along with that. But then he squeezed his eyes shut. Wait, no. No. He's weird, and so are we. I don't have a family, like he doesn't. I could, maybe, somehow, talk to him about that. But when Kisame tried to imagine a conversation in which he actually connected on a vulnerable level to Hidan, no image came. He did not imagine fragments of a scene, or disjointed parts of sentences, or hissing static; he imagined nothing. And he tightened his arms around Samehada and backed away as he did so.

Dammit. Kisame realized he couldn't do that. It was literally beyond his abilities. Furthermore, the reason he couldn't do it was because there was a part of him that desperately did not want to. He saw an upset person talking about the closest thing they had to family, and all he could feel was separate from that person, unable to understand, and embarrassed that he had to be around their grief. What kind of person was he?

Samehada left out a long, drawn-out whine, but he had stopped wailing. He was finally calming down. Kisame suddenly thought, He shouldn't. He should be upset. He shouldn't feel like Kisame did, because that was not a good way to feel. He should be a good shark. Kisame grit his teeth and released his grip on Samehada, lowering the shark slowly to the floor.

Samehada still sniffled, but was able to focus on Kisame. Good enough. "Same?"

The shark looked up.

"Stay like that," Kisame ordered.

The shark tilted his head and whined in confusion.

What did I mean by that? Kisame struggled to find out. "Stay a good shark, like how you were just now, when you were upset that he was upset." Kisame's eyes darted around, but he couldn't avoid the following sentence. "I'm not a good shark." Dammit, might as well admit everything. "I just a few days ago said the same thing, that I wasn't like anyone else, and now look at me. Embarrassed to be around someone equally upset. I didn't want to go near him. I didn't want to offer comfort. It would have been...terrifying to do that. I can't. I…" He closed his eyes, bringing himself to a stop. "But you can. You can, and I can't, and… Keep being able to do that. Because if you can't, neither of us can."

Samehada waved his tail slowly and rumbled. Of course he would! That was how they were. Samehada saw something, and Human Cousin saw something else, and they were like one, and that was how they should always be. He nodded, glad that Kisame was finally acknowledging this truth.

Ugh. I sound so… Kisame stopped. The next word after that would have been pathetic, for admitting to being needy and other things Kisame didn't want to be. But why? Hidan made his needs for comfort and such obvious, and he was not less for it. Kisame grit his teeth and tried to push past the defensive reaction he had to such an idea.

But then he stopped. Why push past it? It was his reaction, and it might be useful to understand it better. Kisame ungrit his teeth, relaxed, played that thought again, and allowed himself to react how he would. The reaction he found himself having sounded like this: He's different, though. He can get away with things like that. It doesn't make it any less wrong to need other people, to show weakness around others like some little weak thing. All it means is that he gets away with it. He's immortal anyway; that's why he can get away with turning over and showing his belly to the whole world. It's still a fucking careless and stupid way to act.

Kisame blinked and patted Samehada's scales. What the hell was that? He felt cold. According to those thoughts, he was cold. Cold and mean and contemptuous and, if he looked closely, scared. All of it threatened to make him gag. What the hell? How is that… What is… Who… Another, much stronger, defensive wall was getting ready to burst out of the ground. This time, Kisame did resist.

Samehada thrashed his tail from side to side and made lots of high-pitched worried sounds. Kisame was shaking slightly, and unhappy, and angry, and obviously fighting something. His breath was strained. His hands were clenched. And he was so tense! Samehada wriggled out of Kisame's grip and crawled up onto his back. Human Cousin was clearly in danger, and Samehada couldn't let him fight alone. What if he lost? Same buried his muzzle in between Kisame's shoulder blades and rumbled as strongly as he could, channeling it directly into Kisame's back. This would drive the danger off!

Kisame shivered as Same's rumbling spread throughout his insides. He couldn't relax. He was resisting the urge to toss away the insight he had just gained and forget about it, and so far succeeding, but he couldn't make all of his defenses stand down. His body still reacted as if he was under attack, and Kisame let it. He only had to win the mental battle. That's not…! Yes it is! I'm not like that! Why not? I can trust some peo- No I can't! It is wrong and dangerous and idiotic to be so needy and weak! But- no- I want to trust people. Oh, dammit, dammit, why can't I?!

A very long 30-second battle later, Kisame resolved the matter and united his thoughts with -

What the hell is wrong with me?!

.

A/N: I don't have much to say here. I tend not to have words in this condition. I agree with Itachi; I view the world as being as good as my relationship to it. Hmm...

Yeah, there's a reason Kakashi in my other story made reference to becoming mute when he felt bad.

Goodbye. Next week.