A/N: An extra long chapter! Because I just felt like it.
There is finally proper snow on the ground, a Christmas tree in the corner, and most of my textbooks are gone because Amazon wanted them mailed back the day BEFORE finals even started. Seriously? And now I have chocolate, and a giant chair taking up half my room, and my Teddy (that's his name. He's a dinosaur) sitting in the chair, and I know how to make hot chocolate now. All is well.
I love anyone who's reading this, just because I feel appreciative of the world in general right now. It's crazy, and hurts a lot, and confuses me, and throws me in random directions, and is filled with feathers and clouds and colors, and I can't help but love it when I'm in a mood like this. In moods like these I wish I could interact with fictional characters, just so I could talk to Obito and see the look on his face.
Anyway, in this chapter, the sleep issue Nagato mentions having is one I have. I also have a variation on the one Itachi has, though without the waking up early part. I just can't easily get back to sleep, even if I want to.
Look around and see what there is in your world to appreciate today.
.
Nagato
Yahiko whimpered in his sleep. His fingers curled, gripping the blanket. He pulled the blanket closer, exposing his feet. His face twitched uneasily. He whimpered again.
It was too much to take. The sound was faint through their shared wall, but Nagato could hear it as clearly as a mother hears her newborn's sobs down the hall. He had no choice but to throw himself out of bed and sneak across to Yahiko's room in the dead of night to see what was wrong.
He pulled the rustling blanket down over Yahiko's feet and gently sat down on the edge of the bed. Without turning the lights on, he extended his fingers in the general direction of the pillow until he could feel Yahiko's hair, and used that to guide his hand onto Yahiko's cheek. "Yahiko? I'm here," he whispered. "I'm here." He massaged Yahiko's hair and rubbed a thumb over his cheek, vaguely wishing he was doing so under a vastly different circumstance. But he shoved that wish aside. Not helpful. The important thing is what he needs, not what I want.
Yahiko's hands relaxed, and his breathing became more steady. It was still fast, so Nagato kept his hand on Yahiko's cheek. "I'm here. It's alright," he whispered. You're not supposed to ever be crying. I will find whatever is making you cry and make it stop. I will make it better. I promise you that.
A deeper than usual breath signaled that Yahiko was waking up. "It's me," Nagato said. "I'm here. You sounded upset."
"Nagato?" Yahiko blinked a lot and yawned. "Mm."
"It's okay," Nagato repeated. "It's alright."
Yahiko reached up to hold the hand that was warming his cheek so nicely. "Thank you. Sorry."
"No, it really is fine," Nagato said. "I woke up in the middle of the night anyway. I think it's because I made the mistake of thinking that I would need extra time to do things before I fell asleep. If I think anything along the lines if 'I could use an extra few hours,' or even just one extra hour, I'll wake up 5 hours before usual. It's part of being me."
He could feel Yahiko's smile against his hand. It felt great. "Just thank you, then."
Nagato felt like he could burst, being able to comfort Yahiko like this. "Of course. Even if it was a trouble, even if you did wake me up, I'd choose to be woken up. I would choose that. Don't tell me my choice is a bad idea. That's disrespectful."
Yahiko chuckled. "Right, right. It's not about me. You said that before."
"Damn straight it isn't." Nagato chuckled again, just because it was infectious. "See? This is why I would choose that."
The room felt like it warmed, as if sunlight was getting in somewhere, but Nagato knew it wasn't. That was the unusually strong aura Yahiko was giving off. "You're the best, you know that?" he said before sitting up. Nagato took his hand back, and they sat together. "I'm glad you're here."
"And me you," Nagato said. He made a deliberate effort to project his chakra, because his sentiment was so completely and utterly true that he couldn't convey it in words, or even through touch. Oh! Chakra gives us the ability to feel each other's feelings, by projecting auras. That is really good. It's possibly the most important thing chakra can allow us to do, more useful than all my eye powers. I can't believe I didn't fully realize this.
Yahiko relaxed so much he sagged sideways and ended up leaning on Nagato's shoulder. "Hey…" He sniffled. "That's…" He took a couple deep breaths, then took Nagato's hand and tried to project his chakra, too. Nagato felt indescribable gratitude, beyond Yahiko's ability to express and possibly beyond his own as well.
Nagato smiled as another idea came to him. "It might be your chakra," he said. "You have such an open face, which explains why you can be persuasive even though you don't know exactly how to describe things. But I think it's also your chakra that does it. Chakra allows us to communicate and understand exactly what each other are feeling. You're a master of the nonverbal communication styles, including that one."
"That kind of makes sense." Yahiko shifted the position of his head. "That makes complete sense. It's exactly what Konan does with her chakra. That's it!"
"Even if this is the only benefit we get from being in this group, it's one I'll always treasure," Nagato said. His smile faded. There's a chance it could be. We joined to help her, but we're not making any progress. It could be possible that we won't help her, we won't get the satisfaction of personal achievement for ourselves, or we'll get enough heartache to balance out whatever we do get. Yahiko's already getting so heartbroken over not being able to help her, and I thought at the beginning that being in a group of mostly men would help broaden my dating pool, but that was expecting far too much of myself. I can't date yet. I'm not ready. Learning about my powers might really be the only reward of joining her that I can claim to have gotten.
"You think Sasori was right?" Yahiko asked cautiously, in the same way he would poke a sleeping bear: with a very long stick and his arm fully extended.
Nagato thought about what he had been before, and what he was now. I used to be comfortable. Now I'm scared. Jumpy. Confused. Angry. Unsure of myself, and unable to do what I could do before. "Yes."
They sighed together, and several seconds passed. It was a quiet and solemn several seconds. Then Yahiko moved. "Wait…" he began. "Do you think Sasori was right?"
Is that excitement I hear? "What are you thinking?" Nagato asked. I could really use an exciting way of interpreting this. Tell me how!
"We do bring up the worst in each other!" Yahiko whispered excitedly. He sounded as if he would explode. Nagato could all but see the room filling with light and joy. "We do! Sadness, and fear, and - and - and all of the things we didn't want before! All of the things we ignored, or pushed away, but now that we're here they can't be pushed away anymore! The longer we can interact with each other, the more we can see what's wrong!"
Nagato needed a second to understand what he was saying. Wait a second. He's right. Nagato's mouth dropped open. He's kind of right. Being here, and being stressed out by everything Konan does, and everything Hidan does, it's forcing me to realize things I never realized before. Like that I'm not ready for love, and I need to deal with myself, and everything really isn't fine. How long would it have taken me to realize I couldn't go on hiding from myself? Konan pushes me to think about what really matters to me. That symbol shows me what I'm afraid of and makes me deal with it. I'm not happy as often as I used to be, but I shouldn't be happy, because I have upsetting things to deal with!
Yahiko chuckled nervously. "Not that, you know, there's anything really super wrong here. Just…"
Not true. Nagato put his arm around Yahiko's shoulders and said nothing. That's not true. There is something wrong right here, with us, and there always has been. How long was I going to go on pretending our friendship was real? I was way too good at pretending I wasn't lying to you before. But being here with Hidan and that symbol and everything makes me realize I'm lying to myself, and to you, and that's not fair to either of us.
But, Nagato reminded himself, Yahiko was also right about the beneficial effects of being in such a group needing time to manifest. He'd developed a lot of insight, but was still not ready. The lies could be fixed, and would be fixed, but only when he was done cultivating his courage. Be patient. Stick it out, and all will be well. In the meantime, let him think it's okay. I shouldn't burden him before I'm ready to lift the burden right back off. It won't hurt him to believe we are okay.
Yahiko
Oh my gods, what did I just do? I just lied to my best friend!
The reason Yahiko had trailed off and not finished his sentence was because as soon as he said it, a mental wall had come down. Just because it was reflex to try to pretend everything was okay did not make him any good at pretending so. What was worse, this time had involved lying with his words. That was something he was especially not good at.
No! I don't want to lie to him! I don't want to be the sort of person that would do something like that to my best friend. I shouldn't be mean, or cruel, or hurtful to anyone. I don't want to be cruel. Yahiko was glad Nagato had not turned any lights on, because his face was scorching red. But I can't do anything else! It would be just as cruel to make things awkward and put all my troubles on him. I'm hurting him no matter what I do. I'm sorry, Nagato!
Yahiko closed his eyes and let yet more tears flow. His throat ached in a slow, pulsing beat, as if the pain was caused by his own heart. The whole area around his heart ached that way, in fact. I'm alone. I always talk to Nagato when I'm upset, and he makes me feel better, but I can't talk to him here. I can't talk to anyone. I can't do what I usually do to feel better.
But, Yahiko reminded himself, what he'd said about the benefits of being in such a group needing time to show up was true. Whatever was wrong with him still wasn't out in the open, wasn't clearly visible, but his awareness of it had been improving. It was coming up from wherever it had been submerged before, and soon he would be able to see and deal honestly with it, and get rid of it, and things would get better. He needed to give it more time to float up to the surface. I just have to be patient. I'll find out about myself and what's wrong, with Konan's help, and then I'll be able to improve myself. I just have to stick it out.
In the meantime, Nagato was here, and Nagato was strong and sturdy and so comforting. He was just what Yahiko needed: something secure to latch onto. At bare minimum, even if everything else went horribly wrong, Nagato would always be here, and their bond would never change. Yahiko smiled, just a little, and leaned into Nagato's shoulder. He felt just as if he could drift back into sleep.
Nagato took hold of him and lay him back down, and pulled the covers back up. Yahiko giggled. "Going to kiss me goodnight too?" He would make a really good parent. It's sad he doesn't have anybody to be a parent with yet.
Nagato froze. "Um…" He pressed the covers into Yahiko's chest. "Just go to sleep, sleepyhead. Yeah. Okay."
"Okay. G'night."
"Um, yeah. Good night."
"See you t'morrow."
Nagato tried not to let any of the emptiness he felt into his voice. "See you."
Hidan
Pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows.
It was the name of Hidan's favorite song, and also an appropriate description of how he was feeling right now. He wriggled back and forth just to feel the thick blankets on his back brush against his skin. Rrr. Warm. Rainbows.
He stretched, and yawned. But the room was still dark, both inside and out. Once Hidan saw that, he frowned. Did I get "happyed" awake? That's a thing that can happen outside of movies?
He shrugged. If so, that was awesome! Hopefully he would be happyed awake in the future. He pushed the blankets off, giving his poor shoulders a break. Hidan put his scythe down on the bed and rubbed the sore spots where it had been pressed into his back all night. Ow. Okay, scythe and heavy blankets don't mix well. Shit.
After flexing his shoulders and working the blood flow back into them, Hidan sat on the edge of the bed and wondered what he wanted to do. His body felt just as awake as his mind. According to past experience, that meant he wanted physical exercise. Hidan picked up his scythe and whispered to it: "You, my sweet, are going to have a fine day today." He pulled its cord out from under the bed, ran his fingers along it, and tied the cord by touch. He also picked up the harness, fastened it, and wound the cord around there by touch. It was hard, but necessary. Hidan then scoured the front desk for a writing implement and something to write on, and left a note in the kitchen. It promised that he would be out for an indeterminate length of time at the open field with the little pond, practicing with his scythe.
But before he left for the open field with the delightful little pond, there was business to decide on. How should he approach the open field? As soon as he considered the question, Hidan realized the feeling of awakeness that drove him to running and racing and chasing and fighting also drove him to hate human settlements. He did not want to go through town. The field was southeast of town, almost the exact opposite corner, so the distance would be equal whether he ran east then south, or south then east. Hidan pictured each route. East then south would take him through the forest, close to the Hatake campground and their friendly animals, then into whatever was east of town. The other route would press him between lived-in houses that he did not want to be near and abandoned houses where angry vampires lurked. I don't want to rile them up. I have other people besides me to worry about, and the vampires know it, and none of these people did anything to deserve trouble. East then south it is. Hidan amended his note to add, PS I'm heading the opposite way from the vampires, so don't worry, and then set off.
He went out the front door and stopped. There was an art to the act of racing and chasing and fighting, a set of traditions that must be adhered to in this most sacred set of practices. The first tradition, upon entering open air, was always the Deep Inhale. Oh, fuck, it's delicious! The air was sweet and cool, but not so cold that it failed to carry the scent of life. Hidan swallowed back drool and shivered in excitement. The second tradition was the Close Look. Hidan cast his eyes over the stars, muttering the names of constellations he had once read a book on. It being the time of the new moon, there were more stars than usual visible today. Hidan was the kind of navigator to lower his head to the ground when he needed to locate himself, not raise it to the sky, so he did not find any of the constellations. But the bright stars seemed to come nearer, and the dim ones that looked like faint speckles of dust to retreat, so he got the feeling of looking through three-dimensional space. How could anyone have ever believed that was a flat painting on a dome? Did they never Look at it?
With further looking, he began to see the subtle shifts in the quality of the darkness between the stars. In one place, it was black; in another, more of a very dark purple. Then he worked his gaze down to the treetops, which stood out as true black against the very dark purple of the sky, and then sideways, to look out over land which had few trees and many buildings. This area of the sky, too, was very dark purple, thought he knew it to be the opposite side of the sky from where the sun rose. It dampened his excitement to see that. That's what they mean by light pollution. It doesn't look right.
Then, finally, it was time for the Close Feel. Hidan allowed one last thought to pass through his mind before closing down to focus. I should teach Sunshine these traditions. Then he closed his mind down, settling it under a heavy blanket so that his thoughts slept peacefully and did not disturb his senses with their movements. Hidan crouched on the grass, feeling it brush against his fingers, allowing the sprig of twig to press annoyingly into the pad of his middle finger. He tilted his head, far enough for something to brush against his ear, and listened. His dampened excitement rose and started pacing back and forth again, twitching its tail. There was no prey to be heard in the nearly flat grass, but listening for prey always created the excitement of hunting, even if he knew full well that there was nothing to hunt and all he was doing was listening. The sounds of insects excited him. It was time.
Hidan rose to two feet, grabbed his scythe, held it out at his side, and began to run.
He started slowly, to get his blood flowing, then picked up speed until he had a nice, steady lope going. Hidan trusted his body to decide what a steady lope was, which was why he was interested to see that a steady lope could carry him up a decent slope in two or three strides. As he swung his scythe out of the path of a tree, he checked his legs. They felt warm in that strange way that was so similar to body heat, and yet so different. Chakra! Yeah, Konan had said it strengthened animal tissues, hadn't she? Hidan stuck his tongue out a little as he realized that he could spend more chakra this way for longer than most people could, because he knew he would not die from lack of it. Fuck yeah!
The different smells of the forest were fascinating as he passed through patches of air. It was not boring to run this way. There was no sense of time passing, of chances drained away and lost. Hidan was in the seconds as they ran, so he did not feel them running. He felt only himself running, then smelled traces of wolves running in the past, then saw a dark wolf-shape running besides him in the undergrowth. He smirked at it. The shape giggled under its breath.
Hidan angled south to follow the edge of town. The wolf shape leaped up and disappeared into the trees. He grinned to see it go, because there was something far more exciting ahead. What is over here, anyway? The forest ran so far to the north, and then he had to earn money to live on in town, and find people to play with, so between it all he'd never quite found the time to go east. 'Go east, young man.' Hehe. Quotes are cool.
The answer was evergreens. Lots of them. From what little Hidan could make out with ninja senses and touch, the ground might also have been sloping upward. Hidan was dodging trees by smell, and had to slow down. Nice stands! No freakin' way anybody would have made the decision to plant them so close to each other. I have got to come back through here in daytime. Hey, I will be! After training! He stuck his tongue out in joy again, and to taste the delicious evergreen smells in the air.
Deciduous trees returned, at first as saplings scattered beneath trees that would probably starve them all to death in a year, then as partly grown ones, then adult trees that forced the evergreens to stay in their grove on pain of crowding. But then all trees ended abruptly, so it wasn't like the adult deciduous had much territory of their own to crow over. Hidan leaped into the air in his best Bambi impression as he crossed the border from trees to grass. Well, trees to dirt; he came out near the unauthorized basketball hoop. Hidan stumbled to a stop after his leap and looked up at it. "Huh, when'd that get here?"
He knocked on it, first gently, then harder, to really test the metal of it. Pained knuckles, nice echoes; okay, you get to stay up another day. Hidan nodded in respect at this high-quality hoop, before turning and walking out onto the open grass.
There was a suspicion of light on one side of the sky. Hidan held his scythe up, and determined that it was just barely enough light for him to see his scythe at all. It would not be safe to start throwing it around now; he should wait. Hidan listened for quiet water sounds and walked toward them until he felt water weeds beneath his feet. He sat down. He thought he could just make out the brightest stars faintly glimmering in the unsteady water.
Itachi
Itachi woke up earlier than he would've liked. He was still tired, to judge from the weight of his eyelids, but whatever had happened during the night had stirred his heart to such activity that it was not going to let him go back to sleep. Itachi took a deep breath and forced himself off the edge of the bed.
He gasped upon hitting the ground. It was a gasp of surprise. Of course, he had meant to fall off the bed, and he had expected the landing to provide a jolt of enough force to wake him up. But the force of the jolt he got was unexpected. Itachi was not hurt, but still he cradled his elbow out of concern. Why did that hurt so much more than I expected?
He tried to come up with plausible answers, but none came. In fact, his thinking processes felt greatly disoriented, much more so than he would expect from being tired. When was the last time he'd felt this disoriented? The symbol. It's worsening my distraction. Perhaps it is also worsening my pain.
Itachi groaned beneath his breath and rubbed his head, wondering how long it had been since he'd had any coherent thoughts or come to any conclusions, before last night. I can't remember, which means it was too long. Even though I did not notice it, the symbol must have always been influencing me even after I got used to it. In his current irritable mood, Itachi did not like that idea, even less after Sasori's words last night presented such an obvious need for clear thinking and conclusions. I must leave the base, at least for a few hours. But I do not want to be alone…
Who knew what kind of monsters were still out and about, especially at this time of night. Itachi shivered. The last time he had met a monster, his very thoughts, which he trusted to guide him above all else, departed and left him helpless. Without my mind, I don't know what I would do. I would not even be myself. Certainly, I must get out of here. but I have to keep myself safe as well. How?
Itachi swallowed back revulsion at what the symbol was doing to him. He did, however, allow himself to think one mean, bitter thought about it: I wish Konan had never inflicted that thing on us. Then he pushed bitterness aside and turned his attention elsewhere, or at least mostly elsewhere. It was hard to manage his thinking in the presence of such a distraction.
He pushed himself to his feet and left his room, wandering through the dark halls just for the sake of motion. Nobody else stirred, so Itachi stayed in the center of the halls and moved quietly. He made his way to the kitchen, where he planned to search restlessly in the fridge. Something else interrupted those plans.
Itachi pulled the outer door of the kitchen mostly closed, in case the light could make it down the hall enough to disturb anyone, turned on the light and read what was written on the folded piece of scrap paper. It said, Heading out to that little pond with the field around it. Bringing my scythe. We'll be having fun together. No idea how long. -Hidan PS I'm heading the opposite way from the vampires, so don't worry.
Itachi returned to his room to get the car keys.
.
Dawn had arrived by the time he parked in the little gap in the trees that was used as a parking space. Itachi activated the Sharingan as soon as he stepped out of his vehicle. Most likely, Hidan was already having fun with his scythe, and Itachi had no desire to accidentally take the place of the roof it had torn. To be extra safe, he climbed a tree next to the parking space in order to locate the scythe before entering the field.
There! The sun was not yet high enough to shine directly onto the field, so Itachi saw the scythe as a dark shape that shone as it moved. He squinted. I lost it. Where is it now? Itachi saw it again, flicking upward, but lost sight of it again almost immediately. Interesting. Even with the Sharingan, it moves too erratically to follow. In partial darkness, or if it was camouflaged, it would be deadly. Itachi wondered if he really wanted to go out there. The scythe had been fearsome enough in broad daylight, from several houses away.
Fortunately, the next glimpse he caught was of it burying itself in the ground. Itachi leaped down from the tree and ran as fast as he could onto the field. Itachi got close enough to easily see Hidan just as the albino pulled his scythe from the ground and brushed dirt off its blades. "Hidan!"
Hidan looked up. "Hey, Itachi! What are you doing here?"
Itachi came to a stop next to him. "I needed to get out of the base for a while, and your note provided a place to go to."
Hidan weighed different variables in his head, before deciding, "Alright! Sure, you can hang around." He held out his scythe. "Wanna see us in action?"
Itachi nodded. Hidan grinned, and turned away so that they faced at right angles. Itachi made the wise decision to move directly behind Hidan, so he could see the same way Hidan saw and because that was probably the only safe angle to be at.
"That's not a great angle to be at," Hidan warned. "When I pull it back to me I have to jump out of the way."
Correction: it was a terrible angle to be at. Itachi walked out to the side so that he was not directly behind Hidan. Hidan nodded, and the show began. He spun the scythe in his left hand, expertly moving his fingers to maintain the spin and keep them from getting smashed, then brought the scythe to a sudden stop. Hidan pulled his left arm and leg back in a runner's pose, with the scythe projecting mostly forward and slightly out to his left, and took off running, flicking his wrist to make the scythe angle backward as he did so. After several steps Hidan came to a sudden stop and threw the scythe straight out in front of him.
The scythe soon started to jerk back and forth. Itachi still had his Sharingan activated, and followed the movements back to Hidan's hand. Is he aware that he is holding the rope? Hidan was looking at the scythe as it flew and his hand was flexed so that only his ring and pinkie fingers were holding the rope, as if he knew exactly what he was doing. They all had some time under their belts in which they could have been practicing and learning how to handle their powers, so it was possible he could have learned to handle the weapon deliberately. But Itachi would not have bet money on that, especially considering Hidan wasn't even looking. No; it is muscle memory.
Hidan gripped the rope harder and pulled to the left. Itachi winced, because he could see how that wave of movement would clash disastrously with the way the scythe was already moving. Sure enough, when the pull reached the scythe's handle, the handle was busy swinging to the right. The scythe flipped and buried itself in the ground.
"Fuck!" Hidan yelled. "That worked before! Shit!"
"You didn't pull at the right time," Itachi said. He followed Hidan to where the scythe was buried in the ground. "The handle was moving to the right by the time your pull reached it. The two movements clashed."
Hidan pulled the blades from the ground, but did not brush them off. He looked up at Itachi instead. "Hey, those eyes could really help," he realized.
Itachi smiled. They can. It seems I made a very good choice.
Hidan pulled clumps of grass out from between the blades and stood up. "Teach me how to look for that shit!"
Itachi nodded. "Very well. I think the first step should be… Well, you should become aware of your hand first."
Hidan looked down. "What?"
.
"Can't believe I just spent a half hour relearning shit I already knew how to do," Hidan grumbled.
"Firstly, muscles may have a memory of their own, but they have no ability to process information on their own to learn from," Itachi stated. "You won't improve without your higher brain getting involved. Secondly, you haven't relearned it all. Your movements are still much stronger and less subtle than they were before. Thirdly, even if it is relearning, this has yielded valuable information about how the rope influences the scythe. We'll need that later."
Hidan grumbled. "I feel closer," he admitted, "Like, mentally and physically. I can kinda feel it moving."
"Empathy is rooted in careful observation," Itachi said.
However, there were things Itachi did not say. He shut his mouth and let Hidan keep throwing the weapon while he watched. Perhaps it's empathy, or perhaps it's something else. It is no longer moving how my eyes predict it should; he is learning to control the rope better, but it is also coordinating with him. The improvements are far above what learning on his part should accomplish. Is he getting a closer understanding of it, or it of him?
Hidan pulled with his pinkie, and the scythe twisted around itself like a snake coiling in midair to strike. He briefly imagined there was something there to strike at, and snarled. One minor reflexive movement later, the scythe shot forward as if to sink its blades into the imagined enemy.
Really, this is as much a teamwork exercise as it is individual training.
Hidan deliberately jerked the rope to send it into the ground. He growled in displeasure as he did so. "Fuck! Thanks for the tips, Itachi. Maybe they'll be helpful later, when there aren't fucking people here."
Itachi blinked and deactivated the Sharingan. "How long have we been here?" he murmured as he looked around. A group of young people was heading their way with a basketball, shoving each other as they walked. The different colors of their outfits were vivid in the bright sunlight.
Hidan looked up. "Few hours," he estimated. "Eh, whatever. It's close to too bright to use this thing anymore, anyway. It'd shine in my eyes."
Itachi looked at its blades as soon as Hidan had the scythe free of the ground again. "I just had a very strange idea," he told Hidan.
Hidan's ears perked up. "I love that shit!"
"How well can your weapon survive being blown up?"
Kakuzu
Perhaps I do pretend to dislike things more often than I need to, Kakuzu admitted to himself. Kisame was right. And there was nothing dangerous about spending time in the cabin of people who are friendly to us. Why did I act unhappy?
It was a good question, and possibly an overdue one. One thing Kakuzu had learned he needed to do, at his age, was review old habits. Habits were less consequential to younger people, who hadn't had them for very long. At his age and his health, Kakuzu considered habits to be very risky. Before he knew it, they might have worn themselves into his brain so thoroughly he could not change, and that was a form of powerlessness, and powerlessness was bad. Kakuzu narrowed his eyes. Perhaps I should thank Kisame for making me see that this had become a habit. I will thank him later.
In the meantime, Kakuzu had other things to focus on. One of them was the very good question of, "What the hell were we dragged out here for?"
"And why did I have to bring my clay, yeah?" Deidara asked.
"Stress testing!" Hidan chirped. He raised his scythe and thumped the back of its blades into his other hand. "On this! Konan said it's never broken, and she also said that Dei and Other Me fought, and Other Kakuzu sounds like an asshole, so they probably fought too. Let's see what we can handle!"
"You snarled at me for thinking of that last night."
Hidan stuck his tongue out at Kakuzu. "That's because you looked like you wanted it broken! Itachi here was much more reasonable. He suggested it like he didn't think my thing would break."
"Deidara already blasted it multiple times during your practice fight," Itachi pointed out. "Absolutely nothing happened. I have good reason to think it is sturdier than normal."
Hidan grabbed the scythe's handle with both hands and held its blades out to Deidara. "Anyway, cover it."
Deidara tensed. "That's, um, a lot of clay, yeah," he said in barely more than a whisper.
"You can use a really thin layer if that's all you have the clay for," Hidan reassured. "But full coverage. Points, handle, all that shit." Somehow, Deidara failed to be reassured. It might have had to do with that not being the reason why he was worried.
Deidara took a deep breath and fed some clay into his hand mouths anyway, muttering, "Just as long as you throw it a good bit away from you, yeah." Kakuzu watched as his hand mouths awkwardly spit the clay out onto their tongues and licked it onto the blades. Do those mouths have taste buds? More importantly, what does Hidan think he's going to accomplish with this?
"Of course I'm gonna throw it!" Hidan rolled his eyes, looking offended. "Long distance explosive delivery, here we come! What'd you think this was for?!"
Deidara stopped spreading clay in shock. "What?"
Hidan prodded him with the flat of the blades. When Deidara failed to resume spreading clay, he growled. "You want a super cool combo move, Blondie, or not?"
"I would like to interject here to point out that I did not suggest that," Itachi interjected. "I thought it would be a good idea to camouflage the scythe by covering it in something nonreflective, and that led to Deidara's clay, and that led to questioning how durable the scythe is. I was going to go on from there to suggesting that, but Hidan came up with the idea on his own before I could."
Hidan prodded Deidara in the stomach with the end of the handle. "Spread it!"
"So you only technically did not suggest that," Kakuzu said as Deidara resumed spreading clay.
"Technicalities are important," Itachi replied flatly.
Kakuzu did not respond to that. He had no idea how to. What the hell does Kisame see in him? Something about the way Itachi spoke, and acted, and, well, everything, did not quite work with Kakuzu's tendencies. He had no idea what to make of Itachi. The feeling was mutual.
"Ugh. Seriously?" Deidara looked at his hand mouths once he was done using them to spread clay. "You don't taste things quite right, so food's wasted on you, but you can taste metal, of all things?!" Hidan took a closer look at his scythe and looked regretful. Kakuzu really hoped he would at least wash the blades first, so he didn't lick up traces of Deidara's hand-mouth saliva. If those things have saliva. Even if they don't, it's still disgusting.
"Alright, lake time!" Hidan called. "It's big, it's water, almost everything in there is dead already. It's perfect!" And he started walking off.
Itachi joined him at the front of their little group. "Explain."
"Didn't I mention it before?" Hidan wondered. "I don't know if I did. You could've forgotten, anyways. It's been a while."
"It has."
"I mentioned to you and Nagato that I use the lake for releasing bad feelings when I get piled up with them," Hidan recalled. "Whenever I do that, I wake up to find everything dead. It's too much for their little bodies to take, I guess."
"Soooo creepy." Deidara shivered. "We thought that thing was possessed, hm!"
"I still can't imagine what releasing a bunch of negative feelings that you soaked up can do to result in a lake moving and splashing around," Kakuzu growled.
Hidan shrugged. "The process is like going to sleep. I go into the water, and I sink into it until I'm fully covered, and I get this urge to just close my eyes and let go. The next thing I know is waking up. That's it. I don't know what happens in between."
"I stand by what I said, yeah. So creepy."
"Do you have any power to influence water, like Yahiko and Kisame do?" Itachi asked Hidan. "It might be unconscious usage of chakra."
Hidan shook his head. "No way. I have sharp cutty chakra, not watery chakra."
"How can you know that? Konan didn't teach you any techniques that use chakra." Kakuzu narrowed his eyes at Hidan. Once again, the little bastard goes around alluding to things he's forgotten other people don't already know. How can anyone have the power he does and still pay so little attention to other people's states of mind? I can hardly imagine how awful a version of him without that power would be.
Hidan paused. How did he know that? "Well, if I use chakra in my scythe, it makes everything sharp and cutty," he reasoned. "So I have to have that kind of chakra, right?"
Itachi looked down at the weapon. "That's right; it became much sharper than normal and cut through Deidara's clay. Konan said something about there being a technique for that. She didn't know you knew it."
"What? I don't know shit," Hidan stated. "I'm the one person here who most goes by muscle memory and whatever else Other Me did to make things just feel right. I don't have any actual knowledge of techniques and shit."
"So you sharpened your scythe with plain chakra?" Itachi's eyes were growing wide. Kakuzu's did too, but for the opposite reason. Dammit. This had better be something helpful.
"Well, I don't remember doing anything to it."
"Lake's just up ahead, hm!" Deidara said. "Let's blow it up and get it over with so we can see!"
They all, including Kakuzu, ran down to the lake to get the blast test over with. Hidan threw his scythe out over the open water, and Deidara blasted it. The scythe was thrown around wildly from the uneven distribution of force, but otherwise unharmed. Hidan even managed to apply his learning to reel it back in without too much submersion.
"I see no scratches," Itachi observed.
Hidan checked the points where the blades connected to the handle. "Nothing."
Deidara cautiously held his fingers close to the blades, felt nothing, gently poked the blades, still felt nothing, and finally laid his hand directly on them. "I don't even feel that much heat, hm!"
"Excellent. Now it's my turn."
Hidan looked around. "Yeah… Shit, we'd need something to put it on. If I just hold it, you'd break my arms." He looked around for a rock.
Deidara stamped on the ground. "I think the ground will work, yeah." Hidan laid his scythe on the ground, and they all took several steps away from Kakuzu in case of dirt being thrown up. Kakuzu grinned maliciously behind his mask. I will love smashing this thing as hard as I can. Perhaps I should stop waiting around for Hidan to put up those punching bags he thought of, if hitting things is this much fun. Kakuzu hardened the skin all over his entire body, stepped back, took a running leap, and brought down all the force he could muster onto the middle blade of Hidan's scythe.
The harshest clang anyone had ever heard was the result. Everyone winced and put their hands over their ears. Hidan also struggled for breath. He thought he could feel that clang in his very soul. He wasn't the only one to feel that way, but he felt it the strongest of all.
Once the echoes, imagined and otherwise, finally died down, everyone slowly opened their eyes. They looked down. The scythe lay embedded in the dirt, and apparently undamaged. The same could not be said of the dirt beneath it. Kakuzu realized what he had just done. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? He stared down at the brilliant red blades. The answer is that the two of them get along very well. It's everyone and everything else that suffers.
Hidan cautiously edged closer, and closer, as if his weapon was the prone body of someone who might have a broken back and he dared not risk moving them. "Fuck," he whispered. "Shit." Uttering a constant stream of such mild oaths kept him going, edging closer and closer, finally bending down and holding the handle of his weapon. At that point, Hidan stopped swearing, however mildly. "It's okay," he whispered. "You're gonna be just fine." And he lifted his scythe by its handle.
Even Kakuzu was expecting the middle blade to snap off, or something similar. He had felt its lack of give beneath his hand, felt nothing but unpleasant vibrations run through it, and still he vividly imagined the middle blade snapping off as soon as it was free of the dirt. The amount of force he'd hit it with was just impossible. And yet, absolutely nothing happened.
"Holy crap!" Deidara yelped. He jumped back out of reflex. "That thing's not normal!"
Kakuzu realized he was flinching away from the perfectly intact scythe, and stopped himself. What am I acting like this for? It's just a scythe. It's nothing to be scared of. Yet he, and everyone else who wasn't Hidan, was absolutely terrified by the amount of abnormality they had just witnessed. It clearly wasn't a normal weapon, because no normal weapon could take that force, so what was it? A divine weapon? Weapon-shaped eldritch abomination? Something human minds lacked the creativity to imagine? Nobody knew, and that was what made the scythe suddenly so terrifying.
Hidan squealed happily and hugged its blades to his chest. "Yes! I knew it. It's great. It's fucking awesome! Best weapon ever! *sniff* I can't believe I ever left you anywhere but at my side." And he started to rock himself back and forth, like he was comforting an old friend.
Deidara glanced with wide eyes at the scythe, down at his hands, and back up to the scythe. "I'm...suddenly a lot less sure I want to run my chakra through that, yeah."
Hidan released his scythe from the intense hug he was giving it and looked up at Dei. "Why?"
"Because it is yours, and nobody but you can be sure of its loyalties," Itachi answered. His voice was the essence of wariness.
Hidan hugged his scythe again. "I can, and I will. It's okay, Dei. You don't have to be scared." He held the scythe out to Deidara, blades first. Deidara once again took a deep breath and put his hands on the scythe. This time, his hand mouths gently chewed on the edge of the topmost blade, making quiet metallic sounds and releasing chakra. Deidara took his hands back quickly with a shudder, and Hidan smiled. Then he threw the scythe out over the lake as hard as he could.
Nothing happened, as long as the scythe flew through the air. But a bird flying overhead chose the worst (or best) time to release fecal matter, and white droplets fell onto the scythe. Itachi was the only one to see them, because he had overcome his fear enough to activate the Sharingan again, so he saw the faint drops of white as they fell. Nobody saw anything as they hit the scythe, because the scythe instantly exploded.
"Fuck!" Deidara screamed. His legs took on a mind of their own and ran away from the midair explosion. Meanwhile, his eyes went on vacation. Deidara gasped, flinching as he watched another midair explosion happen. He halted and raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare. But there was no glare, and it turned out to be a good thing he'd stopped because he would have run directly into a tree.
Itachi groaned in pain, stumbling backward and rubbing his eyes. Who knew explosions were so bright? Kakuzu winced, but had eyes that were neither especially sensitive nor scrambled, so it wore off quickly leaving only spots in his vision.
Hidan winced too and closed his eyes, relying on muscle memory to guide him as he pulled the scythe back. He opened his eyes just in time to leap out of the way as the scythe sliced through the air where his ankle had been. All three blades buried themselves in the dirt, perfectly unharmed. Hidan blinked, then kneeled down to touch the blades. "Ow! Okay, this time they're hot!"
Deidara blinked, confused as to what was happening. Where was he? His eyes returned from vacation and started working again, showing Deidara a bunch of trees. He was in the forest near the lake. He was not wherever that other explosion had happened. He shook his head to drive the vision away, and turned back to Hidan. "Was that your thing? It…"
"A bright light, a big sound, and strong wind," Kakuzu said. "It definitely exploded." But the scythe was not in pieces. It was not melting. It was not fractured. It wasn't even particularly hot anymore; the explosion had made the lake splash outwards, so it was lying on wet dirt. Kakuzu did not stop himself from taking several steps backward now. That is not natural. I am perfectly correct in backing the hell away from whatever that thing is.
"So it gets sharp when you give it sharp chakra, and explosive when you give it exploding chakra," Hidan murmured. "That's awesome!" He looked around at the three of them. "Y'know what that means? We could use it like a chakra test! Everyone should use it, see what happens!"
They stared back at him. Kakuzu felt that he was in very good company when he thought, as clearly as if he had spoken aloud, What the hell is wrong with you?
.
A/N: Hee hee. Oh yeah, this was in the cards from the beginning. And there are a couple other things that the scythe may or may not be able to do which haven't been introduced yet; but I'm not sure if it can do those things. It might only have the powers it has shown at this point in the story. I haven't put in enough thought to decide what it can and can't do yet.
But let's stop talking about powers and cool weapons. I want to talk about grammar and word choice!
Sasori WAS completely correct last chapter. His exact words were, "We bring up the worst in each other." For anyone reading this who is not a native speaker of English, I will tell you, the usual phrase would be, "We bring OUT the worst in each other." What's the difference?
The difference is that "bring OUT" refers to behavior. When you say something like, "He brings out the worst in her," it means that she acts worse when she's with him. She starts acting mean, or cruel, or selfish, and is less pleasant to be around under his influence. Alternatively, if you say, "He brings out the best in her," that means she acts like a better person when she is with him. Friendlier, kinder, more capable, and more pleasant to be around. Either way, her actions and personality change.
In contrast, "bring UP" does not refer to people at all. It refers to things you would talk about, and most of the time, it refers to problems. Anyone can "bring up" that thing you did several years ago, this problem we're having now, the fact that nobody knows what the scythe can or cannot do, etc. When you bring up a topic, it means you're putting it out in the open in order to talk about it.
So Sasori was right, but didn't know it. They really do summon each other's personal problems up to the forefront to be noticed and talked about. The negative meaning that Itachi worried about last chapter was because he mistook it for "bring out." Bringing out the worst in anyone is always a bad thing, because it always means that person is acting badly. Bringing up the worst, though, is not always a bad thing, for the reasons that Nagato thought of at the beginning of this chapter. Problems need to be talked about in order to be fixed.
I had Sasori say that because I wanted the actual dynamics they have to be accurately stated. Is it easy to miss? Yes. But it was accurate, and I value accuracy above a lot of other things. You're reading the words of a mild pedant here.