"All the pain you feel,

I'm sure you didn't wish for that,

And the looks that you bear,

Are so grim, those you wear,

Shining bright she is like the sun,

Waiting there for her fate to come,"

Soleil, Lizz Robinett

It was nighttime when I woke up.

I pushed myself up, hearing the crackle of a campfire before I saw it, watching embers float down and burn out against the circle of rocks containing it.

Hidan sat a few feet away, the Book of Jashin open in his lap. He was tearing pages from it.

I watched him toss one into the fire without looking up, humming off-tune to himself. Flames surged up to consume it, turning the paper brown, then black in seconds.

Naga was on his side, his back to the fire, an arm thrown over his head, the last point of our triangle.

"You didn't try to kill me," I noted. I still felt tired.

Hidan scoffed and didn't look up. "Don't flatter yourself. I tried, believe me. Red-head over there wouldn't let me."

I watched him as he carefully, meticulously, pulled another page free, holding the one next to it down. I looked at the hole in his shirt right over his heart, the skin beneath unblemished.

"The bird summon is gone," I said.

Even when it was in not-Madara's dimension I felt as it used the chakra I gave it, the power I let it borrow. I remembered the odd feeling of a connection, like a second presence in my head.

It wasn't dead, but it meant that not-Madara was still alive.

I looked at the twine around my wrist, crusted in dirt.

He won't go with you to that other place, Kota. I'll send him somewhere else.

Hidan paused, shifting the book to sit on his leg. "And what the hell was that? I don't know who's full of more shit. You, or that dimension-hopping bitch."

I looked at the fire and thought of what not-Madara said about what I could be capable of.

If I let him train me, if I didn't hate him as much as I hated Hanzo.

"You never said anything about my eyes," I responded.

Hidan shook his head. "Have you seriously never met a Hyuuga, or seen a picture of them? Freaky changing eyes aren't that uncommon in the Land of Fire. Go there enough times and you don't blink at that shit. I've met bastards from Kirigakure with pink pupils. Now that's weird shit."

I hummed. "And the Rinnegan?"

Hidan rolled his eyes. "You're just like every heathen I've met from Konohagakure. Always full of yourselves. Always assuming everyone outside your country was taught your history, like the self-important bastards you are."

"It was not-Madara who told me about the Sage of Six Paths. He acted like I should've known who that was," I told him.

He waved his hand. "Yeah, exactly. They always act like that. It's the most annoying shit." He threw a kunai at me with his other hand.

I caught it and threw it back.

He lazily raised an arm, letting the point sink in just above his elbow. He sniffed as he pulled it out and stuck it in the ground.

"We have scrolls you could seal that in," I said, glancing at his scythe.

"Yeah, right," he scoffed.

I looked at his book. "If that's a book to your god, why are you ripping it up?"

Hidan refocused on it, tearing off a corner of a page and throwing it in the fire. "It's an offense to Lord Jashin is what it is," he corrected. "That white-robed bitch back at the inn defaced Lord Jashin's sacred books, twisted it into some cult shit. Thinking about it pisses me off."

I hummed. "What's a cult?"

He stopped, looking up. "How are you this fucking dumb?"

I held my hands out to the fire, heat warming my fingers. "Amegakure doesn't have an Academy." I said, and felt his stare.

"You're bullshitting me."

Instead of looking at him, I followed the trail of sparks up to the sky. "Naga taught me how to read, and Yahiko and Konan helped teach me to write."

It was why I was passable at reading, why I knew the names of shapes and colors and animals but still needed help, even now.

Because Yahiko, Konan, and Naga already could, everyone assumed I could, too.

And now, well, the only things I could use to learn to read were mission scrolls.

I knew enough.

Hidan didn't say anything. He didn't curse or insult me. He only looked back at the Book of Jashin and I listened to the sound of paper ripping.

I smiled a little.

"You're not that different," Naga murmured.

Hidan stopped. His expression closed off, a shutter pulling fast over his eyes. He tucked the Book of Jashin under his shirt and abruptly stood, pulling up his scythe. He didn't look at either of us.

"I'm going to find someone to kill," he said, already walking away. "Don't follow me."

I looked at Naga once I couldn't see him anymore, but my brother only sat up and shrugged.

"What was wrong with what I said?" he asked at a mutter, pulling up grass and tossing it into the fire.

"How long were you awake?"

He shot me a rueful smile. "Couldn't sleep." His smile faded as he looked back at the fire. "Do you really not believe in peace anymore?"

I leaned back on my elbows. "I believe in you, Yahiko, Mamoru-sensei and Maho and Joji. And I..." I trailed off. "I believe in Konan's dream. But if war was declared again..."

"You wouldn't care," Naga finished for me.

"What's the difference?" I asked him, reaching a hand up to the sky. It was so far away. "I was four when I was given a kunai and taught to kill. I blamed the war until I started blaming people. Now we have peace, and a four-year-old somewhere else is being taught to kill."

"Ren wouldn't have sponsored us if there was still war," Naga pointed out. "He would've made us leave. There'd be too many shinobi passing through that might've told the truth to the Hokage, or the Daimyo."

I dropped my hand. "When the Academy is built, we'll train kids too, won't we?"

"Not in the same way," Naga answered, flames hissing away at tossed grass.

I glanced at him, but he was staring at his lap.

"It's still an idea, but I was thinking of having Joji-sensei and Mamoru-sensei teach them," he said.

"Mamoru-sensei won't do it."

Naga closed his eyes. "He might. It'll give him something to do," he murmured. "But Joji-sensei isn't the kind of person to give his time to anyone he doesn't think worth it. If it was Joji-sensei who Yahiko found instead of Jiraya-sensei, do you think he would've trained us?"

No, I thought immediately.

Joji would've looked at him and kept walking.

And you'd be dead, Naga.

But if it was after Jiraya and Tsunade left, if I found him instead of Mamoru-sensei, maybe, maybe we'd be better for it.

Or all of us would be dead instead of some of us.

"He'll fight you on it," I said in answer.

Naga smiled a little. "He already gave in twice."

It was only because Yahiko was Yahiko that Joji warmed up to him.

I couldn't see him keeping a student who didn't impress him if we didn't make him.

I believe in a place where people could be happy.

A place that limited who could fight and kill, that didn't send untrained kids to die.

Was that enough?

"If I tried to absorb not-Madara's chakra while he couldn't be touched, what would happen?" I asked the sky. "He uses chakra to do it."

"I'm not sure, but I know you'll try," Naga said.

I smiled a little.

"Why didn't you tell me about not-Madara's offer before?" he asked, quieter, staring at the fire.

I followed his gaze. "It wasn't important. Not when I had bastards to kill."

He was silent for a few seconds. "Remember the voice that Mamoru-sensei heard when our old hideout was attacked? I think that was Zetsu," he said. "That means one or both of them helped kill Osamu."

I thought of the rock at the bottom of my pouch. "It's watching us, too."

"I don't think he is right now. I've been trying to sense with nature energy ever since we met not-Madara."

I tilted my head his way. "Trying?"

"I've never done it before without Sage Mode," he admitted. "Using the nature energy already around me to do it makes it easier than trying to take it in while moving, but I keep hitting my limits faster. I won't know if it works until I sense him."

I looked back at the sky, and I thought of how easy it turned out to be to bend steel.

.

.

.

Hidan didn't hide his footprints. I followed his heel-shaped indents in the mud, the grass he'd flattened that led back to the Rain-Grass border.

A woman knelt in the middle of the road, her arms wrapped tight around a younger boy. I heard her voice tremble as she whispered that he had to be quiet as he cried, muffling his sniffs with a hand over his mouth.

The muddy footprints went around them.

Civilians, I thought, as she noticed me too late. Her eyes widened.

"Please," she said, shielding him as much as she could with her body. "Please don't hurt us. We already—I'll do anything. Please."

The boy clung to her, fresh terror in his eyes.

He looked around Gou's age, except dirt clung to his face like he hadn't bathed in days, his fingernails were bitten and ragged, and his clothes were black to blend into the dark.

I stared at them and I remembered what Hidan said about sacrifices being worthless if they sat around and waited to die.

An armistice, an agreement of peace, and civilians were still fleeing from war.

She drew away as I walked past her, eyes squeezing shut, waiting to be killed.

I felt her stare on my back and I heard her whisper quickly to him, listened to her drag him up and run.

"Wait, we can't go without—" the rest was muffled, but I kept walking.

.

.

.

I heard Hidan before I saw him.

He stood at the edge of a swamp, laughing wildly, at the center of an upside-down triangle. A red circle was smeared around the triangle in wet grass, touching each of the points.

The blond half in the muddy water in front of him looked like them. He held his side, the water dark red beneath him.

He was looking at his wound in shock.

Hidan turned towards me, though I didn't make a sound.

"'Course it's you," he said, shaking his head. "What part of don't follow me did you not understand?"

It was sort of like looking at Naga in Sage Mode, except his entire body was black. White lines ran down each of his fingers, stopping at his nails. A white mask-like shape covered his face and a stab wound bled down his leg.

His scythe was point-first in the mud next to him.

I stopped and stared at him. Was this part of the reason why he wasn't surprised by my eyes?

It feels like my entire life is thinking something doesn't exist, then finding out it does.

His grin stretched wide. "What? You scared?"

"It looks like Sage Mode," I answered.

His eyes narrowed slightly. "I'll add it to the list of blasphemous shit I'll pay you back for when it's your turn," he said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the blond.

"What happened to me?" the blond asked, bewildered. "What did you do?"

Hidan faced him again and laughed in his face. "I'm helping you. I'm teaching you the Way of Jashin. There's nothing to fear about pain, and no reason to be afraid of death. I'll show you!"

He yanked up the scythe and swung it around so the blades pointed at his own arm.

The blond fought to push himself up. "No, wait—!"

He impaled himself on the blades.

The blond cried out and clutched his arm in the same spot, shuddering hard, tears in his eyes.

And Hidan shook his impaled arm, laughing and laughing as the boy hissed and ducked his head and threw up in the murky water. "See? That wasn't so bad."

I thought of stopping him because this was cruel. More than I'd ever been.

They came from the south. From River or Wind Country, close enough to the border that it told me they had only used Rain as a shortcut to Grass, or Fire.

A family that already experienced loss, by the way the woman was willing to leave her brother behind.

What could they do against a shinobi? If they went back for him they'd die.

I didn't move.

Cruel for Jashinism, cruel for the sake of it, cruel because the world we were born in thrives off it. Was it crueler to do it, or to stand back and watch?

If I cared a little more, if it was a week ago, before I decided it wasn't enough to be selfish for peace.

Making peace wouldn't make me win, because Hanzo wouldn't be any more alive for me to shove it in his face. He lost the second Yahiko shoved the nagamaki in his chest.

"Stop," the blond begged, wiping his mouth. "Please stop."

I looked at Hidan and I felt what Naga must've when he ducked under a door and found me a second away from killing Enyo and his brother. He made a choice, and I'd already made mine.

I glanced at the circle Hidan stood on, connecting them somehow, enough to share his pain.

Why not?

"Is torture part of the ritual?" I asked Hidan.

Hidan admired his arm and didn't turn around. "A heathen like you would call it that," he answered. "It's enlightenment. Like I said, I'm teaching him not to fear pain."

"Let me go," the blond said miserably, shaking. "I don't—I don't have anything."

"Easy for someone who can't die to not fear being hurt," I pointed out, like the boy didn't speak, like he wasn't sitting in his own blood.

Hidan laughed. "You think Lord Jashin just hands out immortality? Sorry to break it to you, but I stopped fearing pain before I earned the favor of a god."

And I wondered if he would've stopped if the lesson worked.

"I thought you said you couldn't use a sacrifice if they sat around and died," I said.

Hidan stared at me, unblinking, then sighed noisily. "Look, I'm going to have to cut this short," he told the blond. "Doesn't seem like she's going to shut up and let me do my thing, so."

The blond stared at me, his face suddenly pale. "Wait—you—the way you came from—" he broke off, his arm and side forgotten. "What did you do to them?"

Hidan wasn't listening. He held a hand out towards me. "If you're going to be a shithead, the least you can do is let me borrow a kunai."

I pulled a kunai out of my pouch, but not before I saw the dawning horror in the blond's eyes, the assumption that I already killed them. I tossed it at Hidan.

"I didn't do anything," I answered as Hidan caught it.

There was a second of relief, and then the blond choked, eyes bulging, uninjured hand groping at his chest before freezing and sliding away. He collapsed back in the water.

The kunai was buried deep in Hidan's chest. "He threw rocks at me," he said, humored. He stepped out of the circle. "Still a piss-poor sacrifice, but I could work with that." He pulled the kunai free and pocketed it.

I still didn't know which one was crueler. I watched the black disappear, soaking back under his skin as he dislodged the scythe from his arm.

"What happened to not liking being hurt?" I asked.

"There's a fucking difference," he answered as he walked past me, but didn't explain further. "What the hell made you stick around to watch, anyway? You into that kind of thing?"

I thought of my brother. "I accept you for who you are," I told him.

Hidan stopped and turned around. "...you're serious?" he asked in disbelief.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

He ran a hand through his hair and looked away. "Man, what the fuck have I gotten myself into?"

"No one is making you come with us," I reminded him.

Hidan didn't retort. Instead, I saw a flash of that same tiredness from before for a second, before he scrubbed a hand down his face and turned his back to me.

He didn't speak as we walked back to camp.

不眠 症

I saw Joji first as we crossed the sea.

He was looking at us before we reached the shore, before Naga and I stepped onto the shore and Hidan stayed back, on the water.

Joji stood further up on the sand, holding a barefoot boy upside-down by the ankle.

The part of my hair he cut was still shorter than the rest.

Enyo was biting his pants, growling, nails digging into his leg, but Joji didn't seem to notice. Up close, I saw dark bruises on Enyo's stomach and chest.

"Who's that?" Joji signed with his free hand. A rusty knife was in the sand at his feet.

"Underwhelming," Naga murmured, but he was smiling.

Matsu sat a few feet away from Joji, a hand clenched over his stomach, dried blood on his nose. He froze when he saw me. The last time we met, I was going to kill him.

He didn't look so thin, now.

"Hidan," I answered.

Hidan held his scythe against his shoulder and said nothing, his expression lazy, his eyes guarded.

"Ninja don't treat a successful mission as something to be praised, but something expected," Joji signed at Naga. "Here, especially, a returning shinobi would only be expected to turn in their mission report and await more orders. To rest quietly, if allowed the time."

He paused. "That said, welcome back."

Naga's smile stretched into a grin.

Enyo didn't notice us or didn't care, biting down harder, growling louder. Matsu watched us with careful eyes and didn't move.

He looked like Hanzo.

He hadn't so much the first time we met, or maybe I hadn't noticed because I didn't see Hanzo up close until after, when he came to us. But it meant something that he'd been living off scraps longer than I had.

Abandoned. Tossed aside. Left to rot away like garbage.

His eyes were the same intense, unyielding gray like back then, too.

"Maybe you can lead with us, one day," I mused.

His eyes widened.

Naga shook his head. "What she means is she's sorry."

Enyo quieted at that but didn't let go.

"Hey, old man," Hidan said, swinging his scythe around to point at Joji. "What's your specialty? Ninjutsu? Taijutsu?"

Joji only looked at him. He dropped Enyo, who yelped and coughed as he hit the sand, then his eyes slid to us. "Do you consider him an ally?"

"Leaving me out of the conversation, huh? Pretty rude, I'd say."

I hummed. "He's not not an ally."

Naga turned to Hidan. "Joji-sensei lost the ability to speak a few years ago," he explained patiently. "He can't communicate with you like we can."

Hidan's eyes flicked to him, then back at Joji. "Know Yugakure's code?"

Enyo yanked the knife up as he scrambled to his feet and Joji sidestepped a stab without looking. Joji made a few gestures I didn't recognize, paused, then gestured again.

Hidan blinked once. "Who the fuck taught you that much of it?"

Joji signed while dodging another stab, and Hidan tilted his head, eyebrows furrowing as he lowered the scythe slightly.

"We—They don't have code for longer words, so I don't know what the fuck that was, but I get the gist," he said. "I can already see how fucking annoying talking to you will be."

"He wants to kill everyone in Amegakure," I told Joji.

Joji's eyes flashed to mine and Hidan burst out laughing.

"Enyo," Matsu immediately called, and something in his voice made Enyo freeze, made him frown, made him retreat to his brother.

Enyo didn't take his eyes off Hidan, fingers clenched tight around the handle of his knife.

"Maybe don't lead with that," Naga muttered, discreetly pinching me. He stepped past me and started to explain what we knew about Jashinism.

.

.

.

Joji said Mamoru-sensei was at the hideout with Namekuji.

I ran my fingers along a blackened wall as I walked down the left hallway. Fire that burned so hot it left permanent marks in the stone, a new floor made of earth hiding what was damaged.

Another attack, more ex-shinobi that made me remember why I went to Antei outpost.

Shinobi that hid in the dark, ducking around corners and crouching behind walls, breathing in poison until it left them writhing and gasping for air.

Yahiko, who gave Mamoru-sensei and Joji the antidote as they died.

They didn't need me, after all.

I turned the corner, walked halfway down another hallway, then turned into the main shelter room.

The broken desk had been taken out, but it hadn't been much use, anyway. There were still piles of scrolls in the corner, against the wall, sometimes organized, sometimes not.

Naga was neat, Yahiko wasn't, and Mamoru-sensei only sometimes was.

There was still the smooth patch of earth in the corner where Mamoru-sensei buried Hanzo.

Mamoru-sensei leaned on the wall across the room, a green-lined scroll forgotten in his hand as he stared at me and I stared at him.

"You're late," he eventually said.

Two weeks and a few days. Because we backtracked, because of Root, because we stopped for Minato and Suisai and Hidan.

"You still have the awareness of a plank of wood," Namekuji said, above me.

I looked up. "I knew you were there."

"Lie to someone else," he said, and dropped down.

I caught him and hugged him tight to my chest. He didn't split apart.

"How does your chakra taste worse than advanced feet?" he asked, half-offended.

I rubbed my cheek against his head. I didn't mind the slime sticking to my arms, my shirt. "You were there."

"It tastes worse than that," he denied. "Take carrot-hair's feet and the small one's breath and that's your chakra."

I laughed and sat, crossing my legs so he could lay across my lap. "Is Enyo the small one?"

Namekuji looked up at me. "Why would I know his name?"

I only smiled, because he did, just like he knew Yahiko's name.

"What happened to Shinnai and Kanae?" I asked back.

"They returned only a week ago," Mamoru-sensei answered for him. He moved away from the wall, tossed the scroll in a pile, and I looked at gouges in the floor in the middle of the room. Chakra-enhanced slices meant to cut bone.

"Kanae told us they left false trails and traveled on the main road as little as possible, and that took extra time," he continued. "Enough that your clone ran out of chakra while they were still in the Land of Rain. But Nagato's lasted up until help arrived to carry the grain across the water."

It wasn't Yahiko who made that cut. He wouldn't have wasted the chakra if he thought he'd miss.

"The chakra to maintain a water clone for over a week without driving himself to exhaustion," Mamoru-sensei said, almost to himself, shaking his head.

I wondered if he still thought telling everyone about the rice was the right choice.

I finally looked up at him. "Are you still sad?"

Mamoru-sensei stilled. We stared at each other again.

"You still have no tact," he eventually said.

I poked Namekuji and he squirmed, muttering insults. Naga tried to be respectful of how he felt, Yahiko tried to avoid it. But I— "Naga wants you to be an Academy teacher," I told him.

"Does he?" he asked absently, looking at the wall.

I traced the stripes on Namekuji's back and he muttered louder but didn't move. "Hanzo is still holding you back," I mused.

Mamoru-sensei glanced at me but didn't speak.

"All of the dead are," I added, looking at my slimy palm. "But him the most. You told me once that you believed in peace because of spite, and I thought I could, too. But it wasn't enough. He had power over you and me back then because everything we did was just so he wouldn't win. Then he died and it still didn't feel like we won. I thought if I kept believing in peace, if we did what we always wanted to do, it would feel like a win one day. But it doesn't."

"It feels like he won," I admitted. "We have the sun, we have peace, but it doesn't always feel worth it. I don't think you're sad because he died. He's dead, so what's there left to be spiteful about? Why would you still believe in peace?"

Maybe Hanzo didn't kill Kota and Osamu, but it was still because of him that they died.

If we got back sooner, if I didn't leave at all, if, if, if.

I felt Mamoru-sensei's stare, but I didn't look up. I adjusted Namekuji, if only to have something for my hands to do.

"I don't believe in peace anymore, and some of it is because I won't let Hanzo be why I fight," I told him. "But I still want to help the people I care about. Even if I didn't believe in this place or anyone, I don't want to die. That would be enough for me to try."

Mamoru-sensei found Kanae and Shinnai, but after that? He was here, and he didn't do much else.

I stood and picked up Namekuji. "I don't want you to die, Mamoru-sensei. But you shouldn't live for anyone but yourself, either."

I turned and walked out of the room. A step into the hallway and I heard a quiet, self-deprecating laugh.

"I've lost count of how many times I let kids not even half my age school me," Mamoru-sensei muttered. "I really am an old man."

I kept walking.

A/N: 不眠 症 - Insomniac

fun fact: Originally Hidan was supposed to kill someone from Root, but then I realized that was a cop-out. canon!Hidan ritual'd people that did nothing wrong before Asuma. It was just never shown.