A/N: It is a wonderful weekend! The birds are chirping, the air is cool, the sky is not raining, and people are going out to craft fairs! Craft fairs are awesome! Maybe I'll write one into the story somewhere.

I meant for silence to be discussed more after everyone finished testing, but that's not going to happen for another chapter. I managed to work silence into this one anyway so I will not be a retroactive liar. Retroactive lying is the worst.

Ruta does something I wouldn't do in this chapter. He explains something coherently, without pauses and fillers and repeated sounds and extremely imprecise language. Yeah, Yahiko gets that from me. I never speak half as well as I write.

Happy day.

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Hidan

Ding. And like that, Hidan was awake. What the fuck? Hey, give me back my grogginess! I didn't even have any last fleeting dreams! Shit!

He crawled to the side of the bed and slid off, noticing that some wonderful person had put his scythe on his back as he was sleeping. He made a mental note to thank whoever he needed to thank, if he was lucky enough to remember this note later. In the meantime, he tried to remember exactly what he had started napping in the middle of. So there was a phone call with Dei and Itachi…

Oh, yeah! Nagato was amazing, as always. *sigh* Hidan noticed that he was not smiling. Something felt a little...off. As he paid attention to it, the off feeling grew into light fluttering, then full-blown nervousness. He scratched his head, took deep breaths, and tried to imagine what could be causing this. He had no luck until one of his ears twitched, which led him to think he might have awoken because he heard something, which reminded him that Itachi and Dei had to come back sometime. It must be because of the stuff they had to talk about.

Hidan walked through the base, but not normally. He paused to look down at his feet. He normally walked quietly, but he was walking extra quietly now, rolling his feet more than usual. Should stop that before I accidentally creep up on someone. He made an effort to walk more normally, but his feet weren't cooperating. They wanted to creep. What the fuck? He tried to remember Nagato being amazing. He did remember, but the memory did not make him any happier. It was as if the good things in life were suppressed, made remote from him.

Something more than basic nerves might be at work here. Hidan hurried forward. He had to settle whatever it was as soon as possible.

Ironically, he ended up being the one creeped up on. He stopped short just before reaching the lobby when a hand touched his. Nagato stopped short just as quickly. "Oh. I didn't know I'd surprised you. Hidan, are you okay?"

Hidan scratched his head. "No. I'm heading out to find out why."

"I've never seen you walk that fast," Nagato said while walking. He kept pace with Hidan all the way out the front door. He took Hidan's hand. "You'll be okay."

It was meant to be reassuring, but it had the opposite effect. The hairs on Hidan's forearms rose. Okay after what?

Itachi and Deidara were talking to Kisame and Konan in the parking space. They all spoke quietly, but the telltale signs of a scolding were clearly visible. Deidara shifted and said something apologetic. Itachi and Kisame simply looked at each other, with Itachi lowering his head in a subtle admission of fault. Konan fell quiet as she saw Hidan and Nagato walk up, and from her, all four of them turned to look.

Hidan's mind went completely blank as he let go of Nagato's hand and faced Deidara and Itachi. He had no words. He could not imagine saying words. Words did not exist in his thoughts or anywhere else. It was his body that came to rest, and his body that waited. His mind was still, remote, hidden, curled up in some corner of himself where it was hard to reach.

"Hey," Deidara greeted. Hidan looked normal from the outside. How could anyone be afraid of him?

Hidan blinked. He could not say anything in response. There was no such thing as words.

"Is he alright?" Itachi asked.

Hidan blinked some more, at the ground because he couldn't look at anyone."No," Nagato answered. "I don't know why not. He said he was going to find out. Hidan?'

Far away, not wanting to be reached. It was scary to be reached. Besides, the world looked strange from over here. Things that did not normally matter gained weight to his mind's eye, and things that normally did matter seemed light and trivial, rushing past on breezes. It was reassuring.

But so was Nagato's hand; that was also reassuring. So was Deidara poking him in the shoulder. "Hello? Earth to Hidan, yeah?" So was Konan silently observing everything from the darkness. All of that helped bring Hidan back to himself.

He didn't like what he came back to very much. "I don't feel right," he mumbled.

Itachi activated his Sharingan. "Because of your own feelings, or someone else's?"

"Mine."

"Because of outside circumstances, or not?"

Something about Itachi running through a list of diagnostic questions for his feelings was meaningful. He liked it. "Probably outside."

Deidara blinked. "Did they start when me and Itachi got back?"

"Think so. I woke up all of a sudden then."

"Oh."

There was an awkward pause. Nobody knew how to respond to this issue. Nagato had said careful avoidance was best, but how could that be exercised in a conversation about the problem itself? Thankfully, nobody had to venture out on that limb, because Kisame was there and he had no idea what was going on. "What's going on here?'

"Demon said stuff," Hidan answered. "Not good stuff. I...want to hide from the world now?"

"Me too," Ruta muttered as he walked up. "There's supposed to be testing?"

"Yes." Konan came out of her silence and her shadows, just in the nick of time. Hidan found that he could suddenly breathe easier. "In the backyard."

"I'll get wood," Hidan offered. Being alone for a bit would be good. Who fucking knows why. It just would. He dashed into the woods, leaving a bunch of confused onlookers behind.

Konan

Konan ushered everyone into the backyard and did a headcount. "Where is Kakuzu?"

"I'll go get him." Nagato ran off.

Darkness had completely fallen, and everyone was visible only as a shadow. Just like when we sealed the tailed beasts. Konan was struck by how sweet this memory was, how precious it seemed. How not painful. I am ready to tell them more about my previous life. That is something I did not know I could be ready for. Why was time suddenly helping to heal the wounds in her heart, when it never had before? She attributed that to the shallow nature of these wounds.

Deidara came up next to her. "Should we say anything?" he whispered in her ear.

Nagato came back with Kakuzu just then. Kakuzu was already tense. "I hate that thing," he snarled.

"So stop going near it," Nagato suggested.

"I want to test myself against it."

"That's illogical."

"What do you hate?" Yahiko asked.

"That damn symbol."

"Its radius of noticeable effect extends at least this far," Ruta said. "Avoiding it isn't really a workable solution."

"Exactly." Kakuzu squinted, his eyes not at all adjusted to the dark yet. "Tiger kid."

Ruta shrugged. "That's me."

"I am sorry for threatening you last time you were here."

"Aw…" Ruta grinned. "Not a big deal, really."

"The symbol pisses me off," Kakuzu explained. "I wasn't really angry at you. You didn't do anything wrong."

Ruta grinned some more. "Thanks…" His shoulders shook as if he was laughing, which he was, silently.

"Ahem." Konan answered Deidara's question by stepping forward and taking charge. "When Hidan returns with wood, we will make a fire for visibility. Then, Nagato will test the procedure that was invented for testing lightning-nature chakra. Then we will run through everybody in an order that has already been established." She shared the ordering, which was as follows: Yahiko, Kakuzu, Sasori, Ruta, Kisame, Itachi, and Deidara. "That is the basic ordering. Unexpected findings will take time to explore, so it may change."

"What about you, Hidan, and Samehada?" Ruta asked.

"Hidan and I already know ourselves to have wind-nature chakra, so there is not much need for testing. If there is time left to fill, I will go." She didn't expect that there would be. Unexpected findings were to be expected with this crew. "Samehada swallows and consumes chakra. I doubt he has any of his own."

"He doesn't shred my clothes from climbing on them, so he has to be using chakra," Kisame said. "He should climb on the scythe before I go."

"As stated, unexpected findings will take time to explore."

"May I keep notes on what we find here? Who has what kinds of chakra, what they do to the scythe, all that," Ruta requested.

It was hard to tell when he was a shadow in darkness, but Konan did not see him moving. He appeared to be perfectly under control. Good. He is obedient. That is precisely what he should be. She decided it was safe to grant him permission. "You may."

There was a rustling in the bushes. It turned out to be Hidan, dragging lengths of wood that were obviously cut-up sections of a larger log. It was a relief to be able to see that after he surrounded these quarter logs with scrounged-up twigs and Nagato started the fire. Konan was more than used to half-light and complete darkness, but that was why she didn't want to be in darkness just yet. Darkness is the place for confession, reveal. I may be ready to reveal more, but I wish to wait. Let these few hours be filled with work.

General

"What's the procedure?" Nagato asked as he held Hidan's scythe.

"I figured lightning chakra would be electric, so someone can transform into a big, furry, wooly thing. Wave the scythe next to them and see if they get a lot of static electricity," Hidan explained.

Yahiko did the honors, transforming into a large hoofed animal that Konan did not recognize. "Is that a musk ox?" Ruta exclaimed. It was. After having his knowledge confirmed, Ruta frowned. He had no idea where or when he had learned what a musk ox was.

Nagato concentrated on the feeling of electricity, changing his steady flow of chakra into something that jumped and writhed inside him, threatening to evaporate from his hands. He forced it into the scythe instead. He was already holding the scythe so that its head was a foot away from Yahiko's side. There was a crackling zapping sound, and Yahiko turned to look at his side. He undid the transformation and reported that he'd definitely felt it.

"It works!" Hidan cheered. "Fuck yeah! Now who's going first?"

Yahiko took the scythe confidently, but hesitated as he held it. "Wait… My chakra has two natures in it. What do I do?"

"Concentrate on what you want your chakra to feel like," Nagato advised. "You can make hand signs too, to test a technique."

"Okay. I think I won't do anything at all first, to see which nature is more on top," Yahiko decided. He channeled chakra into the scythe. "Sorry," he apologized to a nearby tree before swinging the scythe's blades into its trunk.

There was a solid Thunk! as the blades bit into the wood. They didn't go far, only a few inches in, but they would leave marks. Yahiko grabbed the head of the scythe itself and shifted the blades back and forth, working them loose from the wood.

While he was doing that, Nagato informed the others, "Water chakra normally creates an ice effect, freezing whatever the blades hit." The tree's bark flaked as Yahiko worked, its lowest limb hung limply like normal, and in general the tree displayed no signs of freezing in any way.

"Ooh!" Ruta rushed to make a note. "So the scythe can only show one effect at a time, even if the chakra fed into it has multiple natures? That's cool."

"Yeah, I think so," Nagato said. "My chakra can become anything, but the scythe only has one effect when I use it. Is that unusual?" The question was directed at Konan.

"No. Other methods for determining chakra natures also show only one result. Yahiko was correct about one nature being dominant over another - any method of testing will only show the most dominant one."

Yahiko finally worked the blades loose. "I really, really hope that means what I think it means. Can someone bring fire closer?"

Deidara stuck a small stripped branch into the fire and brought it over as a torch, just in time for everyone to see what Yahiko was talking about. The bark was irreparably damaged, but the living tissue below was already healing. Not a drop of sap glistened in the firelight.

"What good is that?" asked Kisame. "It still wounded the tree, even if the wounds are hygienic and healing fast. That thing can still cut someone's leg off in a fight, and no amount of healing will work then."

Konan too struggled to see the utility of a weapon which hurt and healed at the same time, but she gave it her best effort. "Perhaps in practice, it could be given such chakra to keep accidental injuries to a minimum of hurt. Unless a limb is cut all the way off, the wound will heal and stay clean long enough to get medical attention, and even if a limb is lost the amputee would not bleed out."

"It'll keep the wood spirits happier when I practice in the forest," Hidan added.

Kisame grunted. "Assuming he's there to provide his chakra, which he won't be most of the time."

"Yeah." Even Yahiko agreed that this was not a particularly useful characteristic to give this weapon. But he did find it neat.

"It would have been more useful on Original Hidan's weapon," Konan thought aloud. "He used the scythe to gather blood, often from people who would think they had dodged it, at first." She nodded to Deidara, who winced. Avoiding the scythe was not as simple as dodging it. "This effect would prevent an enemy from realizing they had been wounded for longer, giving him a greater advantage."

"Uh, no," was Yahiko's reply.

"Yes. Ironically, a healing effect is less useful in this world."

Ruta dutifully recorded this. "It sounds like there is also a numbing effect? Loss of pain?"

Yahiko explained to Ruta what his chakra normally did when it was completely unaltered. "I assume it's the same. I mean, the tree isn't bleeding."

"Hey wait a second," Hidan interrupted. "If your plain chakra only makes things hurt less, and actual healing chakra is different, try actual healing chakra next!"

Yahiko's face lit up. "I hadn't even thought of that!" He laid the scythe on the ground and began to use healing chakra on its blades. Konan was reassured that she would not have to go this night. Unexpected findings take time.

Wait...reassured? Why was she glad to think she would not have a chance to use the scythe? Everyone present, even those who had no interest in discussing the nature of chakra, were wide awake and interested. They all looked eager to use the scythe, even those who did not usually look eager about anything. Konan kept her face still, but turned her thoughts away from the moment. What do I think would happen if I used the scythe? I already know I have wind-style chakra. It will sharpen, as it did before.

But maybe it would do something else. Maybe it would spark, as her whole body did when her will was active and urging her on with burning chakra. Or maybe the scythe would sprout extra blades, paper claws in miniature. Chakra was partly spiritual in nature, and could show what one really was. Who and what was she?

Konan kept her face still. Very still. Not tonight. These last few hours should be entirely work. I will disclose tomorrow, if I must. Not tonight.

Yahiko tried brushing the blades against the tree's wounds. Nothing happened, but why had nothing happened? "The demon boy said chakra works better on animals. If the scythe's effects are chakra based, then maybe they just won't work on a tree."

"Give it here." Hidan turned male, took off his cloak, and used his scythe to cut himself. Or he tried to; the marks healed instantly. "Fuck! Recharge it while I get a knife or some shit." He borrowed a kunai and sliced his arm open from elbow to wrist. "There. Now try." Yahiko very carefully ran the flats of the blades down his arm. Hidan started nodding halfway down. He opened his mouth to ask for a cloth or something, but didn't. That taste in my mouth sometimes is the taste of blood. His heart fluttered at the idea, but he was no stranger to looking weird. He hoped weird was all that he would look. He licked his own blood off every part of his forearm that he could reach before he could think any further. It tastes good…

Konan looked at him sharply, interrupting a sudden and not entirely unwanted fantasy about licking other people's wounds clear after an injury, slowly and softly if it was Nagato or Konan injured… "What?" Can she read my mind? But why would she object to it? Other Me killed people. Licking wounds is nothing next to that!

Konan's eyes stayed on him for several seconds. "Your original visibly changed after ingesting blood, to show that he was ready to use the ritual. You are unchanged; perhaps that doesn't happen when it's your own blood. Thank the gods."

Hidan rubbed his face. "But I would never use that ritual, like, ever. Why would I change like that? Would I really have to use it if I did?"

The quiet sound of Ruta's keyboard provided a comfortable background of sound to have a conversation on. Nobody could remember exactly when it started or stopped; like a good scribe, his work did not intrude on their activities even though it was noticeable. Konan decided to describe the ritual to him after Yahiko finally finished what was technically supposed to be his turn. The orange-haired man didn't mind; he was worried about Hidan's last question. He already knew one example of Hidan's own powers working against him, in that case by forbidding him from doing something he wanted to do. Can his own powers make him do something he really doesn't want to do? Can they compel him to murder? That would make a terribly good horror movie premise, if it wasn't one already. He certainly had chills running down his spine.

"I do not know," Konan murmured. "If the ritual involves drawing the symbol of Jashin, then it draws on his power. I have not the slightest clue what your relation to Jashin sama's power is now." Actually, I do. He has it right at hand, and probably would not need to draw the symbol at all. But everything in him seems set against the use of that power. I know what he can do, but what is he allowed to do?

Hidan's fist tightened. "Everything comes back to that, doesn't it? Fuck that! I am not letting any fucking symbol run my life! I'll try it and see what happens; I'm not scared." To his surprise, he wasn't. The fuck? I thought everything to do with Other Me's religion scared me. What's up with this? He was glad to have found something he could talk openly about, but he would have rather known why he could talk about it. If he knew that, he could use logic to find other things to talk openly about! Talking openly was awesome! It was starting to feel like everywhere he turned, he was slamming doors in his own face, hiding from himself. He didn't want to have a hostile relationship with himself, of all people. Can't we be buddies? At least a little?

He got no answer.

"You don't have to be," Konan reassured. She didn't want him to be frightened either, so she really hoped what she was about to say was true. "The worshipping side of his religion is the ordinary side. You don't have to be frightened of trivial human-oriented details; it is the nonhuman aspects of his religion that bother you the most." Now, to get this damn testing over with so she could finally explain things! "Now then, what procedure was invented to test water chakra?"

Kakuzu picked up a previously unnoticed bowl from the porch. It was one of the bowls Konan had used to provide water in the basement. "A watery one, obviously." He put the empty bowl down on the grass, went inside, came back out with a large glass of water, and poured it into the fairly flat bowl. "Dip the blade in. If the water instantly freezes, it works."

Yahiko made the hand signs for the water-streaming jutsu Konan had shown him and pushed that chakra into the scythe. The water froze before the blade could even get past the surface tension. Yahiko looked at the scythe thoughtfully. "What about -"

"I believe Ruta was waiting to hear more about the ritual," Konan interrupted. Even to Ruta who hadn't known her for long, she sounded irritated. Unexpected findings were welcome, but this group could get bogged down far too easily. She realized that was a large part of why Hidan was as much the leader as she was: he got things moving.

Quickly, she gave Ruta the same basic outline she had given to Hidan uncountable eons ago: taste blood, use own blood to draw the symbol of Jashin (which she described), stand inside the circle, and whatever happened to your body would happen to the body the blood came from.

Sasori coughed. "Speaking of flesh puppetry…"

"Woah!" Deidara, who was sitting near the fire where Hidan was, got up on his knees to lean over Hidan's shoulder. "You can turn yourself into a living voodoo doll!"

Kakuzu exhaled slowly, trying not to laugh. Of course he could. Reflecting other people's hurts through his own was exactly the sort of thing he did. Why am I not surprised that his original would do the same? They can't be too different, after all.

Konan debated with herself quickly. Do I want to add more to this already bloated meeting? She decided that, if it was important for understanding a jutsu, she could. "What is voodoo?"

"A religion where one of its practices, and the most well known, is the making of curse dolls," Ruta said. "They're dolls, usually made with some part of a person's body like a bit of their hair, that represent that person's body. You can stick a pin in the doll and the person will feel pain in the corresponding body part, for example."

"Thank you for the concise explanation." Konan checked the fire. It was going to need more wood, a lot more if the rest of the tests were like this one. "Kakuzu, your turn. Hidan, the fire needs more fuel."

Hidan raced off to get some. He had already seen what Kakuzu's plain chakra could do, so he wasn't missing anything. Kakuzu took the scythe and wondered what to do. He supposed he should demonstrate what earth chakra looked like. "Ahem. This is what earth chakra does." He lifted the scythe over his head, spun it around so that its blades pointed up and the back of it was set to slam into the ground, and brought it down. The back of it hit the ground, and a small earthquake rippled out from that point. Several people gasped and readjusted their footing, if they had been standing. Even the people sitting on the porch froze and gripped the steps, feeling the vibrations running through their bodies.

"That would bruise," Sasori commented.

"Yes, yes it would." Kakuzu remembered something else he could try. What could my skin-hardening jutsu possibly do to this thing? It's already indestructible. He suppressed a shiver.

It turned the scythe black. Hidan came back with an armful of fallen branches just in time to see that. "Kakuzu, what the fuck did you do to my thing?!"

"I used the chakra for my skin-hardening jutsu. This thing is already indestructible, so I doubt it did anything useful, but it made a cosmetic change." Kakuzu swung the scythe. "Heh. I think I like it better in black."

Hidan snatched his scythe back. "Go fuck yourself!" He glared at Kakuzu venomously. Kakuzu glared back just for the fun of it. They held their glares long enough for the scythe to return to its usual color. It did not fade to red gradually; it stayed black for a while, then all at once the black appeared to drain out of it. Ruta dutifully recorded this, his keyboard making the only sound in the otherwise silent backyard.

In the silence, a strange ripple passed through the onlookers. It started with Sasori, whose lips twitched for reasons he could not quite explain. In the quiet, with nothing to distract, anyone who caught this out of the corner of their eye, or felt a subtle shift in his chakra, smiled too. A general air of amusement spread through the backyard. When Hidan finally sniffed and decided to forgive Kakuzu this time, they found everyone except Konan struggling not to chuckle, snicker, or laugh at them. Even Konan was aware of the shift in the general mood, and she felt it herself, whether or not she smiled. What is this? she wondered.

Darkness was the place for confession, reveal. Silence was the place for togetherness, truth. Ruta put down his laptop and hugged his knees, feeling as if the air itself was hugging him too. Perhaps his silence was not what he had thought it was. Perhaps he wanted it to be like this, instead.

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A/N: Mmm. Soft, hugs. So nice. Quiet is nice. Voodoo is cool.