"But I'm weak,
And what's wrong with that?
Boy oh boy I love it when I fall for that,
I'm weak,"
-Weak, AJR
Yahiko heard them before he saw them.
One wore sandals that clacked against the stone, followed by the solid thud of boots. He saw the wavy outline of a woman, a man, and then a toddler behind them, flickering on the walls right outside the room.
Mamoru-sensei would be somewhere outside under genjutsu, watching for anyone that might've followed them. No matter how careful they were, they were still civilians.
Sae didn't look a lot like he remembered. Flinty eyes, short hair, distrust coming off her in waves.
Then again, Yahiko didn't remember that day well—anger setting his skin on fire, his mind burning, and before he realized it, before he knew what he was doing—
It was on that particular day that he'd killed someone for the first time.
"You wanted to see us, Lord Yahiko, Lord Nagato?" Keitaru asked, glancing at Nagato, who stood closest to them.
A toddler in an oversized shirt and his hand in his mouth clung to his pants.
Yahiko should've stood up, should've already been standing. He heard himself laughing off the awkward air, apologizing for how he'd acted the first time they met, for not doing anything to help them.
He didn't.
How would he begin to explain how looking at them made him feel—shame and guilt filling his mouth and pouring down his throat like sand until he couldn't breathe, until he wanted to claw at his own neck until it poured out and air came in—
Keitaru looked almost exactly like Oka told them, but not as thin. The toddler's feet were wrapped with cloth—
"For what, exactly?" Sae was asking Nagato.
They believed in him, and he abandoned them.
Being confronted with his past like this really sucked.
"We wanted your help," Nagato began. "We don't know much about how the civilian side of the village was run before the war, or how it should be run now. We could learn, but we can't afford to make changes that might make everything worse. We can't make mistakes."
Sae stared at him. "You want us to lead them?"
"I don't know if you understand how much power you'd have to give up to us," Keitaru said after a second.
Yahiko looked at the holes in Keitaru's shoes, the missing laces, but he was thinking of—not paying attention to his reserves, not caring until the pain made him puke—
He closed his eyes.
I made up for it, he told himself. He was called a god and he was still making up for it.
"You'd need access to funds, whatever records we have, decision-making authority. But we don't have another choice. We can't just ignore most of the people here until we're ready," Nagato explained. "We can feed them, but we can't run a civilian academy. We wouldn't know where to start, or what to teach. If we had to, we could run a ninja academy."
Sae was looking at him and Yahiko thought of Keitaru's brother, who died just for taking them across the sea.
Some people called him a god.
"Have you asked anyone else?" she asked, looking away.
"No."
"Why come to us?" Keitaru asked.
"It's not a very good reason," Nagato admitted. "You organized them, the first time we met. You arraigned us to meet you. It didn't work out, but you tried to do something."
"It didn't work out," she repeated. "They survived that day because of the Akatsuki, only to be picked off the day, the week after, and no one came to save them."
"Sae," Keitaru warned.
She turned on him. "Everyone in your group survived. How ironic is that?"
Keitaru picked up the toddler, trembling at the shift in tone, but said nothing.
"What's his name?" Nagato asked, trying to break the tension.
Sae glanced at him, but Nagato kept his gaze on Keitaru.
Keitaru looked at him for a second. "Junpei," he finally said.
It's not your job to save everyone.
The voice in his head sounded suspiciously like his own.
He let out a long breath and pushed himself up. What kind of role model was he if he couldn't follow his own advice?
"All we can do is focus on the present," he said. "And now, we need you to help us help the village."
Sae looked at him with mistrust and Keitaru—he thought that might be pity.
"Blaming us, others—" Yahiko shook his head. "Everyone here wishes they could've done something differently, but we can't. And that's just how it is."
Sae looked away and crossed her arms. "Do I have time to think on it?"
"We can give you a few days," Nagato answered.
The faster they fixed the economy here, the better. No one traded or bought things with money, and if they wanted to traders to come here from outside the village, they had to.
Keitaru sighed. "Do you have another option, if not us?"
"No," Nagato admitted.
Keitaru paused, shaking his head as he turned away. "That's about what I expected."
Yahiko watched them leave, listened to their footsteps fade down the hallway, and then he slid down against the wall and closed his eyes. "If you don't mind, I think I'm going to sit here for a little while."
He heard shuffling, and then Nagato sat next to him. "It was hard for me too," he said.
Yahiko opened his eyes a little. Nagato was staring at his lap.
"At least you could talk to them."
Nagato only smiled. "I've had a lot more practice than you at holding in how I feel, but she wouldn't have stopped if you didn't speak up."
"Not true. I owe you something for that. A fishing rod? Wait, no, you don't like fishing. Why don't you like fishing again—"
"You should sleep. You're not thinking straight," Nagato said over him.
While Yahiko registered his amusement and knew he was avoiding the question, he wasn't awake enough to do much more than mutter incoherently about how good fishing was as he fell asleep.
スロー
Matsu held a cup between his hands, sitting at the edge of the roof of a two-story apartment building. There was cold rice at the bottom, barely enough to fill a quarter of the cup.
It was made with earth-style, and he'd stolen it.
He raised the cup close to his face. He couldn't see his thumb or part of the bottom of the cup. It was like someone had scrubbed at a circle of light and color in his vision and left it dim and blurry.
Matsu closed one eye, then the other, wondering if it was worse than he remembered. He couldn't tell.
It had been child's play to steal the cup, easier than it ever was before he started training with Joji-sensei.
What am I doing?
It had been left unattended for a second, an instant when he saw it as he walked by. He'd been hungry, and he blamed the instinct to take whatever scraps he could get his hands on and stuff them under his shirt as fast as he could, because he never knew how long it would be until he could find food again.
He could fish about as well as he could set traps, which was to say not very well, but he could've asked Joji-sensei. He'd be made to work until he collapsed, but he would've eaten too. More than this.
Matsu lowered the cup. He didn't feel hungry anymore.
Why are you trying so hard to be a ninja? For Enyo?
He really didn't know.
Enyo didn't need him anymore, not when he had a shinobi watching over him. There had never been an after when he scavenged for Enyo, lied for Enyo, survived for Enyo.
And now... there was.
"Hey! Matsu, down here!"
Startled, he almost dropped the cup. He looked over the side, knowing who it was before he saw her standing outside waving at him, black hair short and curly. Cho.
It was a mess inside. The building used to be for shinobi before, well, before two wars.
A paper bomb had gone off inside, or some other explosion, but crumbling walls, old bodies, and scorch marks had mattered little if it meant being out of the rain.
Matsu stood, stuck his feet to the side, and walked down.
He didn't have much chakra. Something about how he late he started training, something else about underdeveloped coils.
She stared up at him, wide-eyed. Her arm dropped to her side.
Joji-sensei might've been the only teacher he ever had, but he was certain no one could be worse. When he was in the mood to think like an adult, and he rarely was around Joji-sensei, he could admit that his sensei produced results.
Wall-walking always seemed like something he was destined to watch being done by others and not do himself.
Matsu couldn't do much else, but Joji-sensei was a, ah, perfectionist. Sensei decided to teach him to wall-walk first because he was an adult and Enyo was not, and he'd get his ass kicked if he couldn't do it.
The logical conclusion there was that he didn't like to get his ass kicked, so he learned to wall-walk.
He hopped the last foot to the dirt, and she smiled softly, sadly. She was as clean as one could get in a village like this.
After a second she peered around him, like Enyo would materialize out of thin air if she looked hard enough. "Where's your brother?"
Matsu looked at his cup absently. "I don't know," he answered. "With sensei, I assume. Or someone else."
She paused and he pretended not to notice that, either.
"So, what everyone says is true, then?" she asked. "The Akatsuki took both of you in?"
"Not exactly," Matsu answered. He saw her disbelief and something that was almost jealously. He looked harder at his cup. "Enyo comes back when the sun sets."
She was expressionless. "Comes back, or is escorted back?"
Matsu didn't answer.
She turned away from him. "Well, it doesn't matter," she said, taking a few steps away. She held out her arms like she was trying to balance.
"What made them pick you?" she immediately asked.
"They didn't pick me," he muttered.
It was the best thing for Enyo. Who else could teach him how to defend himself, even if neither of them wanted to be anywhere near them—
Cho came back and reached for his hand, only for her fingers to falter when he pulled back, his hand shooting up to scratch his ear in a poor attempt to cover it.
"I don't have time," he said.
Not because his training, not because of the Akatsuki, but because he didn't know who he was without the constant need to check on, protect, make sure Enyo was okay—
She rubbed the back of her hand, looking as far away from him as she could without moving. "You look like him, you know."
Matsu stared at her and said nothing at all.
She laughed a little, full of hurt. "You were so thin before I couldn't even tell. But the last few months did you good. You have muscles now. It's obvious. Is that why?"
"Because of who my father is..." he repeated her unspoken point, trailing off. He shook his head and smiled bitterly. "If only that ever did anything for me."
She squeezed her hands together. "People have been talking. About you."
Matsu scoffed, "I'm not afraid."
That ship had sailed with Oka. He'd been terrified then. He didn't think anyone else could come close to making him feel that way.
"I didn't say you needed to be," she said quietly, staring somewhere far off. "No one would try anything, anyway. Not with the Akatsuki in your corner."
Matsu stared at her again, but she wouldn't look at him. He glanced at his cup. "Have you heard about what Yahiko told everyone about Konohagakure and Root?"
Her eyes flashed to his. "Yahi—Don't you mean Lord Yahiko?"
Matsu stayed silent.
She dropped her hand and picked up a rock at random, throwing it as hard as she could. "You're close to them, aren't you?"
"I'm not—" she threw another rock, and he heard it ping off something metal.
"And no, I didn't know Lord Yahiko spread those rumors personally," she said.
"Here," he said, holding out the cup. "It's cold, but that's never made a difference."
She stopped and finally looked at him. He didn't move as she stepped close enough to look in the cup. Her eyes flicked up suspiciously. "No one is giving more out until the next shipment next week. Where did you get that?"
"Take it, or I'm going to put it down."
She pulled it from him.
"You've been careful, haven't you?" Matsu asked, dropping his hands to his pockets.
She stuck her fingers in the cup. "I'm not the kind of person that has to worry about that," she answered, piling rice in her mouth. "You think orphans would be the ones that were double-agents?"
"If they were taken to Konohagakure, taught to be spies, then sent back," Matsu said.
She paused. "We can't be suspicious of everybody all the time," she said, looking sideways at him. "What, Lord Yahiko wants us to look over our shoulders all the time, thinking our friends are enemies?"
Matsu didn't immediately respond. "No. That wouldn't make sense," he conceded. "I think it was more him trusting us with that information, not what he thought we would do with it. Besides, how else was he supposed to put pressure on the spies?"
Cho looked away from him, eating another handful of rice. "You sound like them."
He tilted his head at her.
"Ninja," she elaborated. "You're already thinking like them, too. Why didn't you eat this? You didn't know I was here. Did you?"
"No," he answered, and didn't explain.
She waited, but there were some things he wasn't ready to talk about yet. Not even with her.
She looked further away.
"Just be careful," Matsu said.
Her fingers squeezed the cup. "Sure," she said, and walked past him, back inside.
He looked at the doorway for another second, then headed the opposite way.
.
.
.
I rubbed a thin, soft petal between my thumb and forefinger.
There were a lot of them clustered in front of our old warehouse and around the side.
I looked at the leaves, curled and long enough to touch the ground. It almost looked like the stem was growing from all the leaves instead of the dirt.
Naga wouldn't care if I ripped them all up anymore, or if I crushed and buried them like they were never there.
It won't change my memories of them, he'd said.
The earth was dark and wet underneath them, despite the sun.
How long did chakra-water last? How long had my brother been soaking them before he decided he didn't need them anymore?
I ran a finger down a leaf.
I could.
But I didn't feel like destroying them anymore than he felt like planting them.
I heard footsteps behind me, and Enyo's surprised noises of complaint when his sandals squished down in the mud.
"What're you doing?" he asked.
I stood. "Naga planted these," I answered as I turned around.
Enyo looked at them in mild, waning interest. He stuffed a hand in his pocket, pulled out a clenched fist, and thrust it out at me. "Here." He uncurled his fingers and I saw Kota's necklace.
He turned his face away when I looked at him.
"You fixed it?"
He answered by closing his eyes. I moved closer and crouched, holding out my palms under his hand.
He emptied his hand into mine.
It looked like it had the day he made it for Kota. Would looking at it always hurt?
"Didn' think I would?" he asked, one eye open.
I looped it around my wrist. "I knew you would," I said. "I just didn't think it would be this fast."
"It wasn't fast," he denied.
I looked up at him. "I wore it for so long that I thought months without it would've felt a lot longer, but it didn't. That's all."
Enyo kept his gaze turned stubbornly away, and I stood again.
"How'd you know where I was?" I asked.
"Storm God," he answered.
I couldn't help the laugh. "He hates that name."
"Everyone calls him by it," he said back, crossing his arms.
I raised an eyebrow. "Everyone?"
"Everyone else," Enyo said bitingly.
I hummed. He hadn't come alone, I knew. I took a slow glance around, but I couldn't see Joji. He was here somewhere though.
Enyo frowned. "What're you doing?"
"Soft," I said to the air. Half a second later I yanked a kunai up out of my pouch to deflect another aimed at my back.
Enyo took a surprised step as it hit the dirt, eyes flicking around, but I only grinned.
石
I saw Yahiko first, on his back in the middle of the main room with his arms and legs spread out, a tan scroll unrolled over his face. He didn't move as I walked inside.
I looked to his left, where Naga sat with his forehead against his knee, then at Hidan at the back of the room. His scythe was propped against the wall next to him, fresh dirt on the blades.
He held up his middle finger when he saw my glance, in the middle of drinking from an earth cup.
"You're not trying to kill them," I noted.
He raised his middle finger up higher.
Maybe he tried and failed, maybe he hadn't tried at all.
I hummed and knelt next to Yahiko, pulling the edge of the scroll up. His eyes were closed.
"What's wrong?" I asked. The scroll was from Kusagakure.
"They've been lifeless assholes since I got here," Hidan answered. There were patches of sweat all over his shirt. "So damn boring."
I looked up. "Don't remember asking you."
"Don't remember asking you," he mocked, high-pitched.
"Minato's dead, Oka," Naga answered softly. He didn't look up.
I didn't move, didn't speak. Minato was...?
Hidan choked and hacked, slamming down his cup. "Hold the fuck up—what?" he asked, coughing. "Who the shit killed the Yellow fucking Flash?"
Yahiko slowly sat up and pulled the scroll out of my grip. "It was our favorite masked bastard," he said humorlessly.
Hidan leaned his head back against the wall, eyeing him. "He tell you that himself, or what?"
"Ren did," Naga answered. "He doesn't know all of what happened, but it was bad. He saw the Nine-Tailed Fox from Suisai."
Hidan's gaze slid to his. "Fucking Suisai. I didn't ask shit about a tailed beast."
Yahiko draped the scroll across his lap, looked at it without seeing it, and I stood.
It didn't hurt, didn't even sting, but still, still—
It was someone else I knew that not-Madara killed.
The death of your friends, perhaps, might be sufficient motivation.
And I wondered.
"The Fire Daimyo put out a bounty for not-Madara across Fire Country. A high one. The way his mask was described..." Naga trailed off. "It's him."
"Well, fuck."
I moved closer to the wall Naga sat in front of and ran my fingers around the edges of a scorch mark. It would always be a reminder of what happened.
not-Madara was strong enough to kill Minato, enough to control a tailed beast, but still wanted my help?
"Was Minato the jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails?" I asked.
"No. I would've known when we met," Naga murmured.
Someone else not-Madara used, something else for Minato to focus on instead of him.
"He was distracted," I said.
Hidan shook his empty cup out over his mouth. "Those tree-hugging bastards still have the Nine-Tails, or the masked bitch?"
"I think if he had that, we would've heard from him again by now," Yahiko said.
I paused, looking back. "It's that strong?"
Yahiko stared down at the scroll. "Tailed beasts were used to keep the peace way before any of us were born, and for a reason." He shook his head. "Even if we all fought it together, I don't know if we'd survive, let alone—"
"Speak for yourself," Hidan cut him off, wiping water off his chin.
I dropped my hand and spoke before Yahiko could respond, "When has that mattered?"
We didn't know if we'd live this long, didn't know we could beat Hanzo the day we killed him.
Yahiko looked at me. I stared back at him.
Who cared that we might or might not survive?
"Even if I didn't know what could happen, even if I couldn't win, I'd still kill it," I told him.
Fight, or die. Win, or die.
Yahiko grinned, ducking his head, and then he was laughing hard. "Man am I having a bad month," he managed, shoulders shaking. "First Nagato completes his fourteen-step plan to take over, and now that makes me feel better? What happened to me?"
"I don't have a plan," Naga muttered, but he managed a smile, too.
Hidan pointed at me. He looked at Yahiko and then, dismissing him, locked eyes with my brother. "You're telling me you think the complete batshit that just came out of her mouth is normal?"
Naga crossed his legs. "It's not the first time."
Hidan's eyes drifted up to the wall above him. "What the hell else was I expecting?"
I crouched in front of Yahiko. "Tell me to, and I'll kill the Nine-Tails."
Yahiko made a half-snort, half-laugh sound. "I'm going to die," he wheezed, clutching his stomach. "I'm going to die and all of my—my so-called friends are just watching."
I smiled.
"It's nothing that needs a medic-nin," Naga decided, and didn't move.
Hidan stared at the wall. "I'm not your damn friend."
"You can still help me with the Nine-Tails," I said, glancing back at him.
"Stop," Yahiko begged, tumbling backwards. "I—I can't. It hurts."
Hidan's eyes snapped to mine, thrown off. "What the fuck would I—Why the hell—" he stopped and shook his head. He simply grabbed his scythe and stood.
I didn't stand. I only watched him grin and lean the handle across his shoulders, blades pointed at the ceiling.
"You know what? I'm sick of your bullshit," he said. "But before I cut you up, I'm curious. Which one of these bastards dropped you on the head as a baby? Bet it was that one." He pointed the scythe at Yahiko.
Naga's smile faded, but Yahiko didn't stop laughing.
I still didn't move.
"You'd be a good distraction," I told him. "Since you can't die and all."
Yahiko rolled onto his back, both hands around his middle. "Can't... breathe..." he managed, gasping, trying, failing to hold back another laugh.
Hidan's eyes narrowed. He stared at me for a second, then looked at Yahiko. He squeezed the handle tight. "Stop laughing you shithead," he growled.
Tying him up had pissed him off, but it hadn't been like this. His knuckles were pale from how hard his hand was clenched around the handle.
Yahiko kept laughing, but it wasn't his real one. It was softer, his breathing carefully controlled, even if it didn't seem like it.
Hidan took a second to close his eyes, to force his fingers to relax, and chuckled low. "We'll see how funny you think it is when I sacrifice these two in front of you," he said over Yahiko's laugh. He ran a hand through his hair. "You don't know how much I wish it was hate that made you a better sacrifice for Lord Jashin."
I finally stood, slowly, and faced him. "I thought I understood you, but I don't," I said. "Do you want to stay, or not?"
His pupils shrunk. He looked wild as he chuckled again and shook his head. "Do you ever shut the fuck up?" he asked. His hand left his hair and squeezed the handle. Then he launched himself at me.
I watched him swing the scythe up over his head, watched the top blade gouge a ragged hole in the ceiling, watched Naga start to raise a hand above him as bits of stone and plaster rained down.
Yahiko wasn't laughing anymore, but Hidan was.
He was in the air right above me, mid-swing when I threw up my right hand. Then he was suspended for half a second, just long enough for me to see his anger as he stared at me.
Angry at me, at something else, at a thing that didn't matter when he couldn't touch me.
His laughter dried up as he went backwards. He grunted as he slammed into the wall, stone cracking and breaking under the sudden pressure.
"Oka," Naga warned, as cracks surged up the wall and across the ceiling.
"I'll fix it," I said, but didn't lower my hand.
Hidan didn't fight back. He spat blood, head aimed away from me, but didn't struggle. He didn't raise his scythe. He didn't tell me that my power was bullshit or laugh because he could.
He was unusually quiet.
His fingers opened a little, a gesture meant to drop his scythe, if he could've.
I lowered my hand. He was on his feet for a second before he slid down the wall, smearing it with his blood. The scythe clattered down next to him, but he didn't look at it.
He only pressed a hand against his face and grit his teeth.
I waited, looking at him for another second, and then I turned around. Naga was frowning at the cracks.
Yahiko beckoned me over, half-sitting up. His eyes flicked to Hidan as I sat in front of him, then me, a question there.
"Fujiwara?" I asked instead, reaching for the scroll. It was in a forgotten heap on the floor.
Yahiko looked at Hidan for another second, then shrugged and scooped up the scroll before I could touch it. "Oh, this?" he asked, waving it at me. "It's just one of the many things that go wrong in my life. I can't say if it's the sudden change in leadership, or because of the attack itself, but the Hokage recently started putting more pressure on Fujiwara to supply them instead of us."
"Will he?"
"No idea," Yahiko answered airily. He gestured at where he'd been laying when I came in. "But that's what you caught me despairing about before. We just started making progress, and this happens to try and stop that. But lucky for me, a certain wolf made me remember how difficult I can be when I try. I won't make it easy for the Hokage."
Naga sighed quietly and stood, tying his hair back.
Yahiko and I watched him kneel next to Hidan and press a glowing hand to his chest.
Hidan still didn't move.
"Can't Konohagakure kill him and put whoever they want in power?" I asked.
Yahiko laid back and laced his hands behind his head. "Doubt it. If they could, Iwagakure never would've left," he said. "If Fujiwara dies so soon after the treaty and Konohagakure suddenly has a new ally, Iwagakure might declare war again."
"They haven't declared war on us," I pointed out.
He tilted his head towards me. "One, we haven't made a big deal about upholding peace like Konohagakure has. I know Shohei finally signed the armistice, wherever the Daimyo were taken to negotiate, but I also know he didn't have much of a choice. If he didn't do it I think someone would've told us we were waging a one-village war," he said.
"And two, Konohagakure doesn't know who Fujiwara already has an agreement with. He's stalling, weighing his options. Konohagakure might have more resources, but any agreement with them will likely be more in their favor. Kusagakure still has enough of an excess that it's not that big of a deal that they supply us."
I hummed. "You should negotiate for more than rice."
He laughed. "I get what I give. We don't have many ninja to send to Kusagakure, so the work there is slow, and only worth rice."
It wasn't fair, but the way Iwagakure left them wasn't fair, either.
"Might be me, but I think you should fix that before we're all crushed to death," Yahiko said, and I followed his gaze up to the ceiling, to the cracks that were slowly but steadily growing.
I tapped a finger against the stone floor. "Would be easier if someone could melt through this to earth."
"Easier," Yahiko repeated, closing his eyes. "Coming from someone who burned through chakra a few minutes ago like it was nothing. Funny."
"I didn't use a lot," I denied.
"That's what the lucky say."
A/N: スロー - Thrown, 石 - Stones
canon!Obito left no witnesses. axis!Obito wouldn't have either, but Izanagi is a thing.