"At the far, far-flung ends of the night,
I shall nurse my grudge towards you,
Whom I once loved,
To the bottom of this deepest of hells,"
-dongdang, Waltz of Malice
I touched the upside-down triangle necklace sitting in my pouch, in a small pocket meant for needles or thread or something else small. In another pocket was the note that Gou had given me, folded and crumpled beneath a roll of cloth bandages, and frayed pieces of Kota's necklace.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to ask Enyo to fix it for me again. Maybe I shouldn't.
But I'd never gotten a gift for anyone before.
I'd given Matsu the chikuzen-biwa, but that was different. He wanted it, and had asked me for it.
Hidan hadn't asked me for anything.
I stopped on the bottom step leading up into Minakami and said, half-turning around, "You look okay with brown hair."
Hidan paused below me. "You mean I look like shit," he responded tonelessly.
His hair was the murky brown of swamp water, and his eyes were the same color as the sparks that came of a blade as it was being sharpened off another metal. A warm, fiery amber. He looked like someone who was regular enough, but with something that made him mist. Like the clan with the birthmarks or tattoos shaped like plants on their faces, or the guy with neon green eyes.
Something that stood out, like my eyes.
I pulled my hand out of my pouch without the necklace and half-signed at him, "You really don't."
His hair wasn't slicked back, but down, and he ran an irritated hand through it, perpetually annoyed with it touching his face.
He watched my hand, looking more unhappy. "You're shit at compliments."
I hummed, then said, "So it was Mamoru-sensei. Joji wouldn't have taught you to read half-signs, and you wouldn't be able to keep up as fast if it had been Maho."
Hidan blinked slowly at me, and then he closed his eyes and scrubbed at his hair, and I could hear all the insults he didn't say in the silence. "Yeah, okay," he eventually said, annoyed. "So, are you going to tell me what the hell happened when I went looking for you? If that wasn't some genjutsu, then what was it?"
He nodded towards the top of the stairs as he spoke and I followed his gaze to the dark red stains permanently dried into the stone.
"Oh," I said.
"Oh," he repeated, mocking. "Next you're going to say some shit like, blanking out is normal, it wasn't a big deal."
I only said, "If I tell you, you have to promise me something."
"What?" he asked, bewildered.
I looked away and said, "You have to promise to believe me."
He was silent, and then he asked, "You know who you're talking to?"
"Still."
"Okay, whatever. I'll believe you?" he half-asked, scratching at his hair.
I stayed silent. It shouldn't have been hard to explain, but I'd never had to.
Yahiko and Naga hadn't needed an explanation. It had never been something that needed a how, what, or why, like when Hidan had to explain why he couldn't die.
I didn't know where to start, so I just said, "I knew what chocolate was before I saw or had it for the first time."
He looked confused.
"And it wouldn't make sense to you, but if I didn't act right when I did when we faced Hanzo the day Konan did, Yahiko would've died instead," I explained, still not looking at him.
It was that hole in my head that had let Marie through, after all. I'd known things, small things, but I hadn't seen her until after that.
He didn't blink.
"And I knew about the Uchiha years before I met him for the first time," I finished.
"All that shit you told me about that brat that can see gods or whatever, she said that about you too, didn't she?"
I tilted my head. "It's not because of that. I was someone else before I was me. I don't know where she was born, but—"
"But you knew the future?" he asked in confusion, his hand frozen in his hair.
"I didn't. She did."
He paused for a few long seconds, then asked, "So what?"
"So... what," I repeated, disbelieving.
"I can't die," he reminded me. "Some kind of asshole god giving you a blessing to see ahead isn't that out there. You said not-Madara has a dimension in his eye, didn't you? Just some hole with light coming from who-the-fuck-knows where and where cubes can float for no reason?"
I didn't correct him again, because I realized then that I'd been spoiled by people who looked me in the eye and made seeing the future sound as normal as holding a kunai. Because this was how Hidan was making it make sense to himself, because it was abnormal, because it was nonsensical. And because I hadn't once thought to ask Marie why.
Why did you come back? Why do you know the future?
Because it didn't seem as important to me as what do you want from me? or how can someone like you make me feel so much pity?
And it was weird, wasn't it?
It had to be, because Yahiko and Naga had never told anyone, not even Mamoru-sensei.
And I'd never once thought to tell him myself. Because it wasn't earth-style, or training to resist genjutsu, or anything useful. Because Mamoru-sensei only knew how to talk to me when it was about being a shinobi.
I half-listened, half-tuned out Hidan's rant about how outrageous the idea of someone having a pocket dimension was, and wondered to myself who I would've turned out to be if I didn't have brothers that were so protective of me.
"It's weirder than that," I finally said, once he stopped.
"What? No it isn't."
"Yes it is."
Hidan rolled his eyes and said, "We're going to be here all day if we argue about it. But they—she—whatever—isn't that still you? Why do you talk like you're separate people?"
"No," I said. "She's not me. I'm me."
"Okay," Hidan dragged the word out in a way that told me he didn't understand. "Wait, what does any of that have to do with what I asked?"
"I was talking to her."
He looked exasperated. "Why not just say that?"
I wondered too.
But maybe Hidan had been the worst person to tell first. Maybe I'd tell Maho next, just to see if Hidan was just... Hidan.
"not-Madara ripped out my heart and crushed it," Hidan was saying after I took too long to answer, like I needed an even firmer reminder of his inability to die. "Didn't even bother to ask me out first."
I turned away without responding and started walking up the steps. "Gods," I mused aloud after a few seconds, testing how the word made me feel, but I didn't feel much of anything.
Naraka. Gods. Devotion. God-touched.
"I don't think I could ever be like you," I said to Hidan, but not as an insult. I couldn't see it, dictating how I lived and acted because of a god.
Hidan came around in front of me, walking backwards up the steps. "Your relationship to yours is your own shit," he said dismissively, extremely uninterested in talking about any but Lord Jashin. He lowered his voice and said, "You never told me why you want me to look like this. They saw me already."
And that was it, like my past life was a passing thought in a wider conversation.
I hummed. "I told you a little."
"Doesn't make any sense," he countered. "When you said that shit about lying low you hadn't even talked to their chief yet. You made it sound all logical and shit, but the more I think about it the less sense it makes."
Their chief, I mused to myself. Because that was what they were called in Yugakure.
"Wasn't sure you knew how to make sense after you said that the Uchiha's power is the same as seeing the future," I told him.
"Yeah, yeah, but it is," he said, then quickly added, "The steps didn't forget all that blood I left behind. You think they did?"
I looked at the stain again. "I don't know how many people really know," I admitted, lowering my voice so that he had to lean in to hear me. "It doesn't mean no one was watching, but you're still S-rank in the bingo book Mei gave us."
"So, it was all a guess," he accused.
"Everything is a guess," I countered. "You have to overthink and overplan and sound confident, always, even if you're not. I can't underthink. I don't know who saw you and who didn't, so, unless I get told, I'm choosing to go on as if no one did. It doesn't matter if they think you've joined Amegakure anymore, but you still have a bounty. And I know the loyalty between two people using each other, like me and Yorujin, isn't that strong. Maybe he wouldn't do anything, but he's not stupid. It's a lot of money, isn't it?"
"What do you think?" he asked lazily back.
"I think there are a lot of zeros, but less than most missing-nin that are leaf-nin."
Hidan cracked his neck and said, dismissively, "The Land of Fire has that kind of cash to throw around like it's nothing. For that place, yeah, it's a lot. How the hell do you know that their chief isn't already scheming behind your back?"
I stopped and looked up at him. "If he is, he is. But he'll find out the hard way that me and Naga didn't spar with you so much for fun."
Hidan stared at me, a slow grin spreading across his face. "And then what?"
"And then I'll use Minakami anyway, but with a lot less in it for them," I answered easily.
"They probably have lip readers watching us. I would if I was him."
"Not with you in the way," I dismissed.
His grin widened. "Underthink isn't a word," he said.
"Did you have to lead during the war?"
Hidan tilted his head and asked, "Do you think they let me lead shit?"
"But that's stupid."
Hidan paused for half a second, and then he broke into snickers. "Fuck—we gotta go visit so I can tell them that. Why didn't you put Hidan in charge? Are you stupid?"
"You used to be loyal," I pointed out. "You were at least a jonin, weren't you?"
"The fact that you're seriously asking that as a question," he began, dragging a hand down his face. "Just tell me you think I was shit to my face next time. Not that you deserve to know, but I was one of the top ninja there."
"That's sad."
"Fuck off," he responded, but I could hear the laughter in his voice. "You're always giving me shit, no matter where we are."
"It's because I know how much better you are now."
His eyes widened slightly, and then he closed them before I could read any emotion in them. He dropped his hand. "You don't care about rank. You, red-head, and Yahiko only send people out on missions that you're friendly with," he pointed out.
"Now," I agreed. "But that's because we don't get missions to go to other places. But it was just like everywhere else once too."
"Yeah, and you know how weird that is?" he asked, opening one eye. "Seriously, what the hell is going on with your daimyo? Do you even know?"
I didn't. But I knew there hadn't been any messages sent to us since what happened with Matsu.
"Is it really that weird?" I asked.
"Yes," Hidan answered in disbelief.
I hummed thoughtfully, and he shook his head and said, "About that place, it wasn't about rank. It was about trust. And I wasn't trusted not to fuck it up."
I heard a strangled half-shriek before I could respond and looked to the right, at the blond girl with the wild hair and the stained bandages wrapped around her eyes, more red than they had been before she saw the Uchiha. She was standing on her porch, frozen, the green door half-open behind her. She was staring at Hidan. She didn't look like she was breathing.
Hidan's eyes lit up. He left me, walked up her, and crouched directly in front of her.
She leaned back as far away as she could from him, shaking in fear.
"So you're the one," he greeted, looking her over as he eagerly asked, "What do you see?"
I could vaguely smell smoke and looked up at the smoking woman on the balcony above me and across from them. She leaned on the rail to watch Hidan with wary, guarded eyes. A cigarette slowly burned down between her fingers, but she didn't pay attention to it.
I hummed, but walked up to Hidan, who tilted his head back to look at me as the girl stood frozen in front of him.
"Why the hell won't she answer me?" he asked.
I ignored him and simply asked her, "Do you trust me?"
Her head snapped up to look at me, and she looked like she was going to make another strangled little noise, until her face relaxed in recognition. She inched to the side, onto the dirt and away from Hidan, before she nodded.
"I brought him here so you could tell him what you see," I explained patiently, and she turned her head back to him. "He won't hurt you."
She bit down on her fingernail. "Bad god," she mumbled.
I watched Hidan tense, watched his mouth open to lecture her, but she spoke again before he could.
"Maybe, I don't know," she added timidly. She bent down, her hands searching and closing around a small rock. She started drawing aimlessly in the dirt. "I don't belong to Him. Wants... more. Always more. Fear makes Him hungry."
Hidan's eyes widened in delight and he asked, "You can see Lord Jashin?"
"'Course I can," she mumbled around her fingers, relaxing more as she drew. "Others just leave marks, but you—He lives in your skin. Clings to your bones. It's scary."
She abandoned the rock and stood, and I stared at the crude face she'd drawn. It didn't have a mouth or nose or eyes, but it had the marks that appeared on Hidan when he did his ritual.
Hidan hooked a thumb back at me. "And who do you see when you look at her?"
She pulled her fingers from her mouth. "I don't see names," she muttered. "But He—I don't know. You called something. Something people shouldn't call. But you did. You made Him look. Distant, but curious. A gate broken open. I wouldn't have had enough life to do it, but I'm little, so."
Hidan looked at me, like he might be able to figure out what she meant if he stared hard enough.
"Something was that head you saw that one time. The one with the purple flames," I explained. "She called it the Naraka path."
"How could I forget that blasphemous shit," he responded, grinning as he turned back to her. "I thought you said you couldn't see names?"
"The paths aren't names," she muttered in offense. "Her chakra is loud. That's why. It fills my head like water in a cup. The more water, the more I can read inside, all the way to the bottom."
"You're a sensor-nin," Hidan said in surprise.
"No. I'm a cursed child," she mumbled to correct him, then quickly added, louder, facing Hidan, "Your chakra doesn't have enough life in it, so you couldn't open that gate. But it's not your fault it's not loud. Your He makes it half a cup, so—"
Hidan sighed noisily over her. "What the hell did I do in my last life to have to take this shit?"
"I was saying a nice thing," she mumbled.
"What did you see when you looked at the Uchiha? The boy who made your eyes hurt?" I asked.
Hidan's eyes twitched towards me, narrowing.
She shuddered. "I couldn't go outside for the rest of the day after that," she complained. "It always hurts before I get used to it, but never that much. He was small like me, but he was like water that wouldn't stop spilling. Too much. Noisy all over, except for his eye. It's quieter than the rest of his head. That's why I tried to look."
"His eye?" I asked.
She covered her left eye with her hand, the side that the Uchiha always had covered by his mask. "This one. But the rest of him was so loud."
I paused. If he had both eyes, why keep one covered by his mask?
"And he has a lot of life?" I asked.
"No," she said, frowning, digging up a handful of dirt and squeezing it between her fingers. "I don't know."
"It's not chakra?"
"Life is... in chakra, but it's not chakra," she hesitantly answered, paused, and then said, "People want to know what I read, but they don't really want to know. They get mad when I explain because it doesn't make what I say special anymore. Why do you want to... understand?"
I hummed as I thought about it. "Because, gods or no gods, chakra sensing or something else, you're not special to me," I answered, watching her head jerk up. "You're just... a little girl. Knowing things doesn't change that."
Her mouth dropped open, and then she quickly shook her head. "It does. It's why I'm supposed to stay inside, and why no one will play with me."
I glanced quizzically at Hidan, who watched us in silence. "Is she special to you?"
Hidan turned to blink at her. "No. Why the hell would she be? Just because she's sensitive to shit?"
She turned her head towards him, saying nothing, and I was sure, more than ever, that Hidan had been the worst person to tell first.
I crossed my arms, already knowing his answer as I asked, "That's what you'd call her being able to sense Lord Jashin? Sensitivity?"
"Yeah," he said plainly, blinking at me.
It still made me smile.
I glanced at the girl when I heard a wet sniff, and caught her wiping hard at her eyes underneath her bandages before she turned her back to us. "I'm allergic," she said in explanation, even though it sounded like she was crying. "It'll go away if you don't look."
I paused, then turned around without another word. I looked up at the smoking woman as the girl tried to muffle her sniffing. The cigarette had burned all the way down, but she hadn't moved, black ash staining her fingers.
Her gaze was still watchful and guarded, but not for herself, I realized. For the girl.
Hidan stood and came closer, standing in front of me, forcing my attention on him. "When was Uchiha here?" he immediately asked, eyes narrowed again. "And since when did you stop calling him not-Madara?"
"Since he found me. Yesterday?" I asked, looking up at the sky, but I still couldn't tell what time it was. Only that there was still light behind the clouds. So, daytime. "It felt like it was a long time since then."
A lot had happened in the last forty-eight hours. not-Madara, Kisame, exploring, Yorujin, the TV. Familiarizing myself with Minakami, so I could care.
So I could work with them, when fear was easier. Because what could they do, really, if I ordered them to war with three of the swordsmen behind me? Resist and die? Hate me?
I knew at least that Kisame didn't care much for the people here. I told him I didn't want him for the war, but if I asked him to just be menacing, if I was honest with him about how I felt, would he keep them in line for me?
"Hey, you in there?"
I refocused on Hidan.
Or would I be the Uchiha, using him? Would I just be another Hanzo, running another village into the ground? Or was I just an opportunistic wolf, wanting to use their pride as mist-nin to fight and kill other mist-nin, so I could close my jaws around the throat of whoever was left standing?
I didn't know, because I still didn't care about Minakami. Not really.
I cared, maybe, about the girl behind me. I didn't want her to die, at least. The soup guy was nice enough. The little boy and that TV, maybe.
"Hey," Hidan emphasized.
I blinked at him again.
"Were you talking to yourself again?"
"Not me," I answered absently.
He was silent, and then he asked, "You said that bastard Uchiha found you. You talked to him?"
"Not for long. He tried to understand how to use me," I answered, looking past Hidan. "But he couldn't. I don't make any sense to him."
Hidan waited, but I didn't elaborate, and he sighed loudly, but looked intensely at me and said, "That bastard is still mine."
I focused on him again. "Okay."
He didn't look like he believed me, but I wasn't known for my restraint. We'd talked about it already a little, but we hadn't finished talking about it.
"It doesn't matter who does it," I finally said. "And I don't think I could make it anything but quick."
Even Kisame, with all his power, hadn't been able to keep him still. Neither had that bird I'd summoned before.
But Hidan—a lucky shot and a drop of blood, and he could do it. Maybe the Uchiha knew about his ritual circle through White Zetsu, but he'd never actually seen it. And I'd earth hands'd Hidan out of it too much for him to attempt it right in front of the Uchiha.
But as long as he had blood, the only thing that could stop him was distance, and only Hidan knew what that limit was.
I raised my left palm to eye-level to stare at it. All this powwr and I could never use it for anything I wanted for myself.
I could probably summon that bird now that I understood how my summoning worked, but I couldn't talk to it. The link between me and Usagi had been one made of Intent, of using half my chakra as fuel, but that was it. Naga made it sound like Usagi could understand him, but there was no way for a summon to communicate what happened in a fight without words or the finger-coordination to make signs, and I couldn't read their Intent.
It was somehow more frustrating than when I didn't think I needed it. A bird for war, after it was over.
I could surprise him, if my trick worked, if he'd even been paying attention when I tried to make him think it was my right hand that could absorb chakra, but it was only enough for a strike.
An easy death.
The Uchiha's death wouldn't make me feel better about what happened. I learned that from Hanzo. But still. But still.
The idea of giving him a quick, painless death made me feel... unsatisfied.
I looked past my hand to Hidan, suddenly boiling inside. Nothing went above Lord Jashin for him. No one, nothing, not even me.
"Do you really know what you're asking from me?" I asked, unable to hold back the bite. "No, I don't think you do. Did I ever tell you that he's the one responsible for it all? Konan, Kota, Osamu. Hanzo didn't know it, but the Uchiha was the best partner he ever had."
His closest friend. The inheritor to his plans that he didn't even know he'd chosen.
"I've always respected your beliefs," I continued, staring around him again. "All of Amegakure has, even though they don't understand the Way of Jashin and you never tried teaching them. I made you Akatsuki so if you went and killed all the friends of every person loyal to us, they'd just thank me for it. No one can retaliate against you unless they want to become enemies of the Land of Rain. I've given you so much, and you don't even realize it—"
I broke off with a short laugh, more of an exhale, because it was ridiculous put like that, wasn't it? Letting Hidan decide who lived and died most of the time because of Lord Jashin, but other times based on how he felt that day.
Choosing to bend the unspoken rule of why ninja from the same village didn't kill each other, the rule of comrades, again and again, just because of a little loneliness. Because Naga was used to violence, but only because the world hadn't given him a choice.
Because Yahiko could kill with ease, but then he'd go silent after, just for a second or two, long enough to notice if you knew him. Because Maho ran when he was scared, while I bared my teeth and killed until I wasn't anymore.
Because I was supported, but not understood.
It was no wonder the people I said I didn't like had been ostracized without a second thought. It was no wonder why that guy whose name I'd never know acted like he was the victim.
How many people had Hidan "taught" by then for me to tell him what he'd done was wrong? It was no wonder he looked at me like I was the monster.
It was so selfish it was funny, and I laughed at myself again, helplessly.
Sure, Sasori had a reputation, but all he'd done since coming to the village was help by building our tower. Only we knew that he was really doing because he was impatient.
What message did it send that I'd brought Hidan to Amegakure just to kill as he wanted to?
If I were Root, I'd be haunted by me too.
It was no wonder why the only action they'd taken lately had been against Matsu and Sana and the others that died in that blast, and only because they'd been caught, because most of them weren't Urakawa.
Most were Mamoru-sesnei's dead friend Shuji, who'd blown himself up too.
I took a breath.
"The Uchiha was mine before he was yours," I finally said, refocusing on Hidan again. "So I want you to get, really get what it means that I'm letting you have something else of mine, and how important this is to me."
Hidan stared silently at me, and then he said, mildly, "The people I killed—they deserved it, and if they didn't, it's on the people who brought them into it."
I stared back at him.
Deserved.
We didn't define that word the same.
"What about the people you didn't kill? Was Etsudo the only one you scared into doing what you wanted?" I asked, knowing she wasn't.
His pupils shrunk and he looked briefly surprised. "Cash cow doesn't count," he answered immediately, then paused, frowning. "And anyone else was just a civilian. What's the big deal?"
I kept staring at him, but he didn't speak again. I let out another quiet breath. "Forget it—"
"No. Fuck—" he began, stopping himself halfway through finger-combing his hair back. He closed his eyes. "Look. I won't give you shit if you kill him, okay?"
I didn't respond and he opened one amber eye to peer at me.
"I get it," he said, completely serious for a few seconds.
Satisfied, I turned back to the girl—but she wasn't crying or paying attention to us anymore. She was carving numbers into the dirt, adding them, writing in the answer at the bottom, and then rubbing the math away to do it again.
"But there's one thing I think you need to get too," he added, still looking at me through one eye as I glanced back at him. "I keep forgetting how you grew up. Having choices and shit. Every other nation's ninja only get the choice to do as they're told—to set fire to some backwoods town left full of old people and kids because they were letting cloud-nin pass through to bypass those icey bastards, and to cut down anyone that escaped so they couldn't tell Kumogakure what happened. Yeah, I chose to become a ninja, but they don't tell you shit like that in the Academy. You see civilians as people. Fine, but don't give me shit for not playing nice with everyone in the village."
We stared at each other.
"I wasn't giving you shit," I finally told him. "But it's something me and everyone let go. You came to Amegakure and stepped all over what they believed, that the Akatsuki—that I would protect them, and I let you. That's why I said it. I wouldn't be surprised if that group that still has Hanzo's ideals found more members because of me."
Hidan didn't respond. His eyes skipped away from mine and he said, "All that shit I just told you doesn't matter anyway. I don't know what the hell you're talking about with Hanzo's ideals or whatever but—" he tangled his fingers in his hair again in annoyance. "—what else did the Uchiha say to you?"
I only hummed, staring at him, wondering if anyone had ever explained what those ideals were. Because I didn't think I had, just like I'd never tried to get the villagers to understand him either.
Because I hadn't wanted to share anymore.
I blinked at the thought but... it was true, wasn't it? Our win over Hanzo had been ours and theirs. Even Konan's death had been a loss for everyone, a reason for them to give up.
But they hadn't even been there.
"Are you feverish?" Hidan asked suspiciously. He squinted at me, holding the back of his neck.
"No," I answered, and said, before he could speak again, "The Uchiha told me that to be dieu a touché you have to earn it."
"Dieu a—what?" Hidan asked, fumbling over the pronunciation more than I had.
"It means 'god-touched'. But she—" I continued, nodding towards the smoking woman. "—told me that that girl was born as that. Can that happen? Can you get blessed by a god just for being born? Or reborn?"
Hidan paused, turning to eye the smoking woman, who was still watching us. "You really think her sensing is because of some shit god?"
"Have you ever met a sensor-nin like her?"
His eyebrow twitched and he said, "Why the hell would they tell me if they could—wait, shit, that's right. You knew the Fourth Hokage. Your sense of normal is fucked."
"Minato couldn't do it—"
"Minato," he repeated to himself in disgust, looking away from me. He tilted his head. "He was seriously a sensor-nin too?"
"—and questioning what I think is normal? Coming from you?"
"Either way, no, you can't," he finally answered, his amber eyes sliding back to me even as he ignored me. "The Way of Jashin can't be followed just by being born. That's heresy. It takes real devotion, and a higher understanding of suffering. What it is, why we suffer, and how to embrace it. All so that all the heathens that don't get it can be taught those pillars of Jashinism and repent for their ignorance—"
"Hidan," I mildly interrupted him.
He paused, looking at nothing for a few seconds before he closed his eyes and asked, like nothing happened, "Didn't that girl say that you broke open a gate? There's always a sacrifice that gets made. Most people are born average, and die as nobodies. If being born was all it took, there'd be more than me, you, and—" he pulled a face like he'd smelled something bad. "—Uchiha. What about that shitty town? Suisai. They've been worshipping Inari since before either of us were born, and what've they got to show for it? Jack shit. Gods are fickle like that. They don't come to us, because why the hell would they need to? We're all unworthy in their eyes, and the only way to get their attention is to make them look at you. And it's not something any shit Academy anywhere teaches, because it's all made-up stories to regular people. Without the Book of Jashin, I'd be just like them."
My eyes widened slightly, because the Uchiha had said something like that too.
Every fairytale you've ever heard is based on the truth.
"Why are we unworthy to them?" I asked.
Hidan ran his fingers aggressively through his hair. "I don't know? You don't pray and puppet bitch doesn't pray. No one prays except for me and a group of monks committing blasphemy in the Land of Fire. And even after learning all this shit about your god, will you start praying?"
I blinked, and I thought I understood why, because my answer was, "No."
"Heathen," he said back, but he didn't sound surprised at all, and he added, "You've got some idea in your head about that girl, don't you? Why ask me that stuff about being born?"
I hummed. The smoking woman's cigarette had burned down to the nub, but she still hadn't moved.
Keeping watch over the girl, even knowing she couldn't stop us.
"She doesn't have parents. Just her grandfather," I finally said. "Maybe she was born a sensor-nin and is just extra sensitive to chakra, or maybe someone else made a sacrifice for her."
His eyes widened, then narrowed. He glanced at the girl, who had moved onto division, and then slowly back at me. "And why the hell do you care?"
I looked at him and I... didn't know.
I opened my mouth and what came out was, "Her grandpa can't move around as well as he used to."
"Yeah, so?"
"So we can look around inside."
"What?" Hidan asked, completely taken off-guard. "You... did you bring me here to terrorize some old heathen?"
"No, I brought you here so she could look at you," I answered, but had no answer to his next question, a repeat of why, so I turned before he could ask and strode up the dirt path to the slightly ajar door.
Hidan lazily followed me, staring holes into the back of my head.
I pushed the door open the rest of the way and went inside without a glance back. I stood for a second, taking in the scratched and warped wood floorboards and the low table in the middle of the small room. Two worn, brown cushions were on the floor around it, and empty bowls were stacked on top of the table, buzzing with flies.
But it was a white square in the back corner of the room that drew my attention next, taking up too much space and humming quietly like the TV had, but different, somehow.
"What's that?" I asked.
Hidan poked his head in. He blinked sideways at me. "You really don't know what a fridge is? Huh, I never did see one in Amegakure."
A fridge.
I didn't, or I didn't think I did, but there was a sudden, but faint scent in the air, of seaweed soaked in salt-water.
There was the sensation of red, flowing hair tangled between my fingers, and then an ice-like coldness on my forehead. Waking up to a pitch-black ocean weeping in despair on my chest, making a broken wail like she'd just watched something die.
Someone—me.
A fractured snapshot of the moment I was 'born'.
My feet moved across the room to the fridge. My hand moved without any conscious thought, my fingers curling around the edge of the door and yanking it open. I found myself staring down at a line of old-looking yellow boxes that said 'porridge' and 'oatmeal', looking for the smell, but it wasn't there. The inside of the fridge smelled vaguely stale, but there was no seaweed, and the jugs of water probably weren't salt-water.
"What are you doing?" Hidan asked curiously, leaning an arm on top of the fridge next to me.
The smell of seaweed was completely gone, but it still made me think of drowning. "I don't know," I told him honestly, still staring into the chill of the fridge. "I don't know what I'm doing."
Hidan peered into the fridge, then at me. "Are you..." he trailed off and tried again. "Are you okay?"
I leaned back and closed then fridge. "Have you ever felt—?" I stopped, thinking about how to put it. "I remembered something from a long time ago, but it was... sudden. I smelled seaweed, and then I was remembering something I didn't think I had any memories of."
Hidan raised his arm and pointed, and I followed his finger to a plastic bottle on the table filled with stale-looking water. There was seaweed growing in it in a bunched-up dark-green ball.
"Yeah, it happened in that shit hole on Nankai," Hidan drawled. "Got hit right in the face with memories of a brothel. The sign said tea house, but it's the same shit."
I stared at him.
"I was only there once, I think," he continued. "I remember a whole lot of assholes shouting. Something about them owing my mom money for her work. Nothing big, but those feelings—fuck. I think the smell was so bad I threw up. I was... three? Four? Embarrassing shit, so I left. Ran with my tail between my legs and told you even more embarrassing shit on that boat like I forgot I was a shinobi."
He dragged his fingers through his hair. "Just like at that hotel in the Land of fucking Rivers," he added, tilting his head so far back that his neck looked broken. He pointed an accusing finger at me with total accuracy. "I never used to just... say this shit. You shitheads poisoned me."
I felt myself relaxing, the scent fading to the point that I could ignore it. "Is that almost a compliment?"
"No."
I hummed, glancing at a table against the wall, squeezed into another corner. It was covered in trinkets. A small house was in the middle, styled in the old way that the palace had been in Suisai.
"And what's that?"
Hidan pulled his head forward to look.
A sitting statue sat on one side of the house with eight arms. Sitting on the other side, leaning upright, was a biwa. It had papers covered with markings stuck to it—seals, I realized. I vaguely recognized the fuinjutsu for 'stasis', because storage seals had them too, but nothing else.
Hidan pushed off the fridge and it wobbled as he left it behind. "A shrine," he answered, stretching his arms. "Shit, I think you were right."
I stared at the shrine and turned away. The girl slipped in through the door, hopping over to a bucket to wash her dirty hands without a glance at me or Hidan.
Hidan waved away wisps of smoke from blackened, but still lit sticks sitting in a bowl. "A real, proper heathen," he said in what sounded like approval. He moved back and plopped down on a cushion and crossed his legs, waving away flies. "Okay, is the old man deaf or what?"
"He can't sleep at night. He wakes up thinking people are here when it's just me," the girl answered him, wiping her hands dry on her dirty pants. "Those sticks are so he can sleep during the day when he can see everything, and it makes him sleep deep."
I sat on the other cushion. "How do you think mist-nin will act when we fight?" I asked Hidan.
"You're giving me a headache," he complained.
"You're the only one on this mission who'd fought mist-nin before," I explained, idly pushing the seaweed jar away from me. "They're prideful, but sometimes not. They want me to think they're the worst. They want me to believe it. That helps with talking, but not with fighting. So, I want to know."
Hidan leaned back on his elbows and rolled his neck, looking bored. "What happened to my disguise? You called me by my name."
I blinked, glancing at the girl. "Can you keep a secret?"
She squeaked loudly and slapped her hands over her ears. "I wasn't listening! I promise I wasn't!"
Hidan closed his eyes. "Their blades are always poisoned," he said before I could respond. "And they've got this seriously weird attachment to them. If they use kenjutsu, and that's almost all of them, they'll only use ninjutsu that they can use with their freaky blades. They suck ass at genjutsu, and they really like cutting joints. Elbows. Back of the knees. Get hit once and you're dead anyway—or, shit, I forgot about that puppet bitch. You can forget what I said about their poison."
"He couldn't have been dosing us enough to protect us from everything mist-nin have—"
"Oh? And why the hell not?" Hidan asked, flopping backwards with a loud thud. "Getting caught poisoning everyone was sloppy shit for him. The more I think about it the more annoyed I get, because he had to have been doing it for a while and I didn't fucking notice. He only got caught because it made you ask him about the spies in the village, and that makes it worse."
I stared at him, but it made sense. He could kill the Kazekage with poison without anyone noticing, but couldn't poison our tea and not get caught?
The curtain was yanked aside suddenly. A bald man with a bent spine, a cane, and seaweed wrapped around and underneath his feet stood holding the fabric. He stood frozen, his widening eyes darting between Hidan and me.
"Touko," he said so sharply and angrily that she sat up completely straight. His voice was thick and deeply accented in a way I'd never heard before.
"That's a boys name," Hidan lazily told Touko. "Did you know that?"
Touko and her grandfather both ignored him.
"You're not supposed to leave the house," he said just as angrily. "And you're especially not to interact with the people on the stairs!"
"I didn't... mean to," she said, curling in on herself. She bit her nails and said, "She gave me fruit. We don't have fruit."
"Is that all it takes to give foreigners your trust?" he asked, more furious.
"They're nice," she squeaked. "They're not like—they're not mean. They didn't take me anywhere!"
Her grandfather's face turned red, but I could see the distant spark of fear deep in his eyes. He swiveled towards me. "Leave us alone! You—You foreigners are all the same. No respect. You will not find a prophet here. And you—" he faltered as he turned on Hidan. "How much did this leaf-nin pay you to help with this?"
Hidan blinked, looking incredibly amused, but didn't answer.
"I'm not a leaf—"
"Those eyes stink of Konohagakure," he interrupted me. "We have nothing like those eyes here or in Byakuren, and I would've heard if any dojutsu had come out of Gengetsu."
"Who is that shrine for?" I asked him.
"Elle ne va pas payer pour mes erreurs une deuxième fois!" he said, raising his voice and slipping out of what Kisame had called the 'common tongue'. "Elle devra passer sur mon corps."
"I don't know what you said."
"What the hell—what language was that?"
"I've done nothing to attract foreigners in my home," he forced out, his legs trembling.
I pushed the seaweed jar further away, to the far edge of the table, and said, "I don't want Touko or you. I just want to know if anyone you know made a sacrifice for her."
He went completely still, looking stricken and pale. "Guidez mes paroles," he whispered to himself, like a prayer. He looked at Touko. "What have you told them about themselves, child?"
Touko stopped moving, having distracted herself with scratching the paint off a coin. "Nothing," she answered meekly. "I'm not supposed to. It's bad. I left a... something outside!"
She stood quickly and fled out the door with the lie before her grandfather could finish calling her back.
He looked deeply unsettled, looking between me and Hidan. "What has she told you? You must know that she is too young to know what she's saying when she speaks on the things within you."
"Well," Hidan drawled, sitting up. He stuck a pinky in his ear. "She seemed pretty accurate to me when she told me that she could see Lord Jashin."
Shock rippled through his expression. "She saw a being within you? Within you both?"
"Oh?" Hidan asked, standing, looming. "You know Lord Jashin, old man?"
"No, but I know what it means to see a being within another."
"Oh. Boring," Hidan said, plopping back down.
"Is she really blind?" I asked.
"In a way," he said tiredly, drooping, suddenly seeming three times his age. "She isn't on paper, but she cannot use her eyes as we can. Her sensory abilities are... profound, but her physical chakra is lacking. She doesn't come from a background of ninja. Only a cloth of that material helps her to control her abilities. I don't know why."
I hummed, and decided to just ask, "What happened to her parents?"
His eyes flicked toward the shrine. "Sacrifice? No, there was no sacrifice. We call it a ritual, passed down from grandparent to parent and parent and child to ensure the prosperity of our family. My daughter and her husband had made a disgrace of themselves and my branch was cut from the rest of the family and erased. The least they could do was return their lives to our Lady Benzaiten. The details of the ritual will go to the pure lands with me, but they went into a freshwater lake together in Gengetsu and made themselves valuable in death. I believe it was also an apology. And I went and retrieved and revived Touko soon after. But I had been a proud, bragging fool in those days—"
As he kept talking, I realized why I'd wanted to know so badly if sacrifice had been involved with Touko.
It was because I'd wanted to be wrong.
Because Yahiko had said something just like that once, that if he'd died he'd be paying for his mistakes, and that he thought it'd make him valuable, just one last time. Because Mei had told me all about what she was willing to sacrifice, including herself. Because this kind of sacrifice was such a frustrating waste.
All for more power, when power never fixed anything that mattered.
I stood abruptly and he stopped mid-sentence. I strode to the door, vaguely hearing behind me,
"How could someone like Touko not understand?"
I slipped outside, pressed my back to the wall, and tilted my head back. I let out a long breath.
"Grandpa isn't mean on purpose," Touko quickly assured me, and I glanced down at her with empty eyes. "He's okay when he isn't scared. He makes oatmeal pancakes."
I stared at her for a few seconds in silence, and then I wordlessly crouched in front of her. "You're going to be someone with a lot of power when you're older. I know, because I have a lot. But no matter what anyone says, it's not real strength. It's... a tool, but it doesn't make you who you are."
All for more power, when power never fixed anything that mattered.
I stood abruptly and he stopped. I strode to the door, vaguely hearing behind me,
"How could someone like Touko not understand?"
I slipped outside, pressed my back to the wall, and tilted my head back. I let out a long breath.
"Granpa isn't mean on purpose," Touko quickly assured me, and I glanced down at her with empty eyes. "He's okay when he isn't scared. He makes oatmeal pancakes."
I stared at her for a few seconds in silence, and then I wordlessly crouched in front of her. "You're going to be someone with a lot of power when you're older. I know, because I have a lot. But no matter what anyone says, it's not real strength. It's... a tool, but it doesn't make you who you are."
"What?" she asked in a small voice.
"I think I said something like that to you before," I mused aloud, mostly to myself.
"I'll fight for your cause, rain wolf," the smoking woman called down from the balcony, and I turned to look at her. "I still don't know why you came to a place like this, but as far as foreigners go, you're not too bad."
I hummed, glancing back at Touko. "How do you know her?" I asked, hooking a thumb up at her, forgetting that she couldn't see it.
Touko jolted, but turned her head to where I'd pointed. "Oh, uh—"
"I knew her family," the smoking woman answered vaguely for her, tapping ash onto her railing from a fresh cigarette. "But, more importantly, she looks up to you. It'd be a shame if you died."
"And you think you can protect me?" I asked her without looking.
"No, not at all," she answered easily. "But if I can push you in the direction of winning, even a smidge, I don't think I'd mind dying for that."
"Why would you?"
"You've shown me that there's a chance, even a slim one, that you can actually pull off whatever you want to do here. And if it does benefit us all..." she trailed off and took a long drag from her cigarette. "Minakami is a dead end, and an even deader end for people born here. Even if no one else agrees, come find me and I'll fight."
A/N: To show my appreciation, I've decided to impulsively release this chapter early for FFN = author will regret this action later.
[Narrator Voice From The Future: The author did in fact come to regret this later]
Most of the chapter has been rewritten and there is no good place to split it, so here.
Elle ne va pas payer pour mes erreurs une deuxième fois = she will not pay for my mistakes a second time
Elle devra passer sur mon corps = she'll have to go over my body
Guidez mes paroles = guide my words
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