"Chairs so close, a room so small,
You and I talk all the night long,
Meager this space but serves us so well.
We comrades have stories to tell,
And it's always like that in the evening time,"
-So Ist Es Immer, Hiroyuki Sawano
The water was cold as it splashed over his bare feet. It made Nagato think of the past.
Of Konan, pointing and laughing at him, standing on top of a lake that he fell in. Holding Oka on his back after she fell asleep on the beach with sand in her hands and bruises on her knuckles. Before any of them had ever killed anyone.
It had been a long time since he could look at his happier memories without seeing dead fish and purple water or an empty, abandoned lake.
Maybe it was because Oka had started it when she brought up Kota, or asked him to braid her hair, or maybe it was because he could look at the water and only see himself in its reflection. He had no real attachment or memories around the waters of Kirigakure. It had been a long time since his reflection didn't show him the worst versions of himself.
Nagato heard a frustrated sigh and looked up, at Chojuro, standing on the water in front of him.
His pants were rolled up to his knees and he was making the dog sign with both hands, trembling as he tried to force the water to rise up into the shape of a bubble.
It wasn't quite ninjutsu, but basic elemental manipulation. If he couldn't do it, Nagato couldn't teach him any actual jutsu.
Chojuro had admitted to him that he'd never done true ninjutsu before, and if he couldn't do even this, Nagato would have to use a diagnostic jutsu to figure out why, because his spar with Hidan proved he could use chakra.
Namekuji was helping, in his way of helping, by advising Chojuro through berating him. He'd started doing it with Enyo first, or at least that was what he heard through Matsu.
Yahiko sat further out on the water with Mangetsu crouched next to him, holding an improvised fishing rod made with from a kunai tied with ninja wire and a stick. He'd skewered a blue beetle he'd dug out of the sand on the end, and had it sitting in the water. He was shirtless, with faintly wet bandages wrapped around his middle, and was using one hand to wave emphatically at the water as he talked to Mangetsu, probably trying to convince him of the value of fishing.
Nagato could guess, because of the skeptical way Mangetsu looked at the water.
Nagato looked at his reflection again and saw his sister this time, with Kisame behind her, telling them that he would help them fish.
She hadn't told them much about her meeting with the supposed leader of Minakami, other than the deal she made with him.
And then they'd all went to sleep, and when he'd woken up again she was gone again and had taken Hidan with her.
Kisame had been the one to tell them the details, but it had surprised Nagato more to find him almost-asleep. Kisame hadn't slept at all since meeting not-Madara. It was impossible to miss the chakra he'd been using to keep himself alert, but it meant that he trusted them more without them doing anything to really earn it.
Because Oka had somehow convinced him they were trustworthy, and to include them in helping her. Kisame hadn't needed to wait for them. Not only did he know the water and area better, but he could make enough clones to fish faster than they ever could and to haul what he couldn't store.
To Nagato, they were just in his way, but Kisame had showed them the area and just sat, which made him more curious about what she said to him.
Why treat this as if he was helping them, and not that they were helping him?
Chojuro dropped to one knee, panting, but still hadn't managed to channel his chakra into the water, or even outside his body.
Kisame sat on a rotted log behind Nagato, on the beach, surrounded by their things. His and Yahiko's sandals and weapon pouches abandoned higher up on the sand; the Hiramekarei, carefully wrapped and lying next to his log; Chojuro's vest and their cloaks folded in neat piles to avoid getting them wet; the nagamaki, left on a patch of grass where the sand met the dirt path, protected in case they were here long enough for the tide to rise.
"Please show me again..." Chojuro gasped, looking towards him, his glasses covered with water. "Just—Just one more time. I can do it."
Nagato quietly used nature energy to poke at his chakra, but carefully to not disturb the flow of it. He'd never used it like this, wrapping nature energy around someone's coils like grasping a handful of sand.
It was a complicated way to try and imitate what Konan used to do naturally—to sense chakra nature, which he couldn't do naturally no matter what he tried. It was... difficult.
And even harder to balance. If he grasped too tightly, the nature energy was drawn towards his network to turn it into more nature energy and he had to let it go. If his grip was too loose, the chakra didn't stay where he wanted it to around a specific chakra point and was drawn to his organs.
Practicing on himself had been nothing like controlling it within another person. It was a lot like medical chakra in a way. The body didn't innately see it as something harmful, and Chojuro had no experience with it, so he didn't have the ability to sense it like Yahiko and Oka did.
So, Nagato prodded, like brushing against someone's skin with a hair follicle. His chakra felt like cold baby slime. Liquidy, like water, but even more shapeless. Like something in between water release and the natural state of chakra.
Something that confused him, but was extremely unreliable to diagnose off of. Nagato waded closer to Chojuro, shuffling through the water in a way he hadn't done in a long time.
It made his wet pants even darker as water soaked him, and it made him feel childish, but he felt—
He stopped, the water rippling and settling around his legs, and let out a long breath, because he was relaxed.
He was in Kirigakure, on a mission to potentially killed the Mizugake, and he felt relaxed.
But no one wanted to kill him yet. He wasn't looking at all the strangers around him and searching for Root, or waiting for someone with Hanzo's ideals to come and try and kill him, or ready for someone to be injured.
He wasn't one-third of a Kage, or Akatsuki. He was just Nagato.
"Glasses is broken," Namekuji announced loudly.
Nagato was brought out of his thoughts as Namekuji crawled up his leg, then his back.
"H—Hey!" Chojuro shouted in shock.
"I've tasted some weird chakra from you walking meat sacks, so when I say his is broken I mean it—"
"Broken how?" Nagato asked as Namekuji hung over his shoulder and ate his chakra.
He'd whined and complained, but came back around to being a sensor-nin in the end.
Namekuji peered at Chojuro. "Like a stick that bends the wrong way."
Nagato silently attempted to translate that into something that actually meant something but couldn't.
Yahiko had somehow fished up a long piece of driftwood and let it bob between him and Mangetsu. The beetle was gone, and Nagato didn't know if he'd lost his catch or gave up, but he watched him pull something from his pocket and hold it out.
Mangetsu eyed his hand for a few seconds, then held out his hand under it, and Yahiko dropped a pair of dice into his palm.
"Your slug means that it's unstable," Kisame raised his voice to say, before Nagato could start guessing.
Nagato turned.
Kisame leaned his arms on his knees and grinned at the attention. "The ability to become a member of the Seven Ninja Swordsman doesn't involve talent or training or status like foreigners think it does. It's decided the moment one is born," Kisame continued. "It's only based on compatibility. Take the Hiramekarei. Each wielder of it, as far back as our recorded history goes, has been born with difficult chakra, and by that I mean chakra that doesn't like to move away from the center of the body or change its shape."
Chojuro looked surprised.
"Such difficult chakra will only ever cooperate when being used with something that can force it to move and change the shape for the user. The more difficult the chakra, the easier Hiramekarei takes to it. It's why Chojuro there is considered something of a prodigy. Chakra like that only appears once in a generation, or even less than that. Or perhaps not, but the inability to use basic ninjutsu usually gets someone written off as a failure before they even begin. Some might even call him lucky."
"To be lucky is to be born in Byakuren," Mangetsu interjected with a toothy grin without looking up from the point Yahiko was scratching into the wood with a disassembled part of his fishing rod.
Chojuro curled in on himself.
"Don't take it personally," Mangetsu said like he saw. "I like you, but luck is decided at birth just ability is for people like us."
"I—I didn't," Chojuro said, looking uneasy. "At least not... that. It's just that no ever told me that about my chakra. And I've never thought of myself as… lucky."
"Between you and the slug—Namekuji, was it?— one of you would've been able to figure it out eventually but—" Kisame stopped, then shrugged. "I suppose there's no explanation for why I decided to tell you."
There was. Her name was Oka.
"But, about the Hiramekarei, there's only been a single exception to the rule of its users," Kisame continued without waiting for a response. His eyes flicked to Mangetsu as he spoke.
Mangetsu shook his fist and dropped the dice in a way that made them roll to a stop just before they fell off the edge. "Hey, Chojuro, I've been wondering, how'd you end up mixed up in this?" he asked, casual and light, taking the stick from Yahiko to scratch a point on his half of the driftwood.
Kisame leaned back and said nothing to being ignored.
"You have a bounty like Terumi, but no kill-on-sight order like her," Mangetsu added.
Nagato paused. "She has a kill-on-sight order?"
Mangetsu responded by pulling a thin gray scroll from his weapons pouch. He tossed it back carelessly and answered, "It's only for show. All hunter-nin know that you can't kill her without bringing her before the Mizukage first, but it sends a bad message all around that all immunity takes is catching the eye of someone in the daimyo's court. It makes people think that they can do it too."
Nagato caught the scroll and turned it over in his hands. It was thinner and shorter than his own scrolls, and the paper felt thicker, but it seemed like the fuinjutsu for 'storage scroll' was universal.
He unsealed it as Mangetsu looked around Yahiko at Chojuro, waiting for his answer, and caught a small gray book as it fell out, looking at the hiragana for 'water' in white on the cover.
He wordlessly tucked it into his pouch for later. He'd look at it with Yahiko and Oka when they were together again.
Chojuro fidgeted. "Lady Terumi..." he trailed off, tucking in his knees "I might've been born in—" he stopped, then tried again. "It was never like what people think it was. Ao thinks I had it easy, but I was never a person to my brothers. I was a baby when they were running our family business, and then I was… the successor or the next wielder, but no one ever explained anything to me. All I knew was the Hiramekarei. Lady Terumi was the first ninja, no, the first person I met that wanted to know about—about me. Not my potential. The Lady wouldn't even let me use the Hiramekarei until my stamina was up to her standards, even though that made a lot of people angry. Not that you weren't a good sensei to me Mangetsu-sensei, but..." he trailed off.
Mangetsu only asked, "Ao? You're talking about Headhunter Ao?"
Chojuro's smile vanished and he looked guilty suddenly, like he'd just revealed a secret.
"Everyone knows he defected with her. She's skilled, but she couldn't have outmaneuvered the hunter-nin without him," Kisame answered for him.
Chojuro breathed out in relief, while Nagato, content to listen, only wondered to himself how Mangetsu didn't know if 'everyone' did.
Mangetsu whistled appreciatively, looking at Chojuro again. "How'd she get him in on this?"
Neither Kisame nor Chojuro answered him.
"Fine, but one more thing. How'd you end up on that island? Time outside the village starts to blend after some time, but I still would've heard about it if the Hiramekarei disappeared. It would've been me who had to retrieve it."
"Lady Terumi, she kept me as far away from all of this at first," he said hesitantly, taking off his glasses to rub at his eyes. "But right before she defected she... the last thing she taught me was how to escape if I ever felt like I needed to. She told me about a cargo ship that would smuggle me. I don't know the details, but Lady Terumi promised the captain a favor. He left the village not long after he helped me, and the captain the rain-nin—uh, Nagato and Yahiko—met on Nankai wasn't used to Lady Terumi yet. That's why it was easier than usual for her to make him do what she wanted."
"I get it," Mangetsu said, his tone neutral. "You're not listed as a traitor because no one knows whether you're dead or alive. You just disappeared one day. That right?"
Chojuro hesitated, but Mangetsu didn't wait for his answer.
"Makes some sort of sense. It was assumed you'd been somehow kidnapped and the Hiramekarei stolen and most likely sold to another village. Couldn't be that it was done for a ransom, because any demands for you or the Hiramekarei would've ended with all of your family dead as the ones responsible for letting it happen. But since no ransom was made, your family thought it better to keep quiet and keep their heads," Mangetsu reasoned, leaning back. "Besides, that kind of shame so soon after what Konohagakure did? Loyal Byakuren would have their own civil war if it got out. They would've torn each other apart. So they reported you gone but not the Hiramekarei. With me out of the village, there'd be no one to hand it off too, so it wasn't a priority to collect it. How close was I?"
Chojuro frowned deeply. "Lady Terumi said—" he stopped, his shoulders hunching. "You were right that they think I disappeared, but wrong that they still think that. Lady Terumi said she'd take care of it, and she did. They think I'm in the daimyo's court."
"How nice it must be to be the daimyo's favorite," Kisame mentioned to no one.
Chojuro's eyes went down to the water, unwilling to respond.
Yahiko nudged Mangetsu, and he tore his stare away from Chojuro. He went back to the game and scanned the board.
Kisame shifted his weight on the log and it creaked loudly.
Chojuro's hands clenched at his side at the sound, betraying his fear even as he still avoided Kisame's searching eyes, and Kisame grinned wider.
"I have a question of my own," Kisame said. "What do you plan to do now, Chojuro?"
"What I... plan to do...?"
"About the rain-nin and Mei's so-called revolution," Kisame casually explained. "I should've asked instead, what do you plan to do knowing what they plan to do?"
"What—I—nothing?"
The log creaked again and Chojuro tensed.
"I don't think I ever had the chance to tell you how much I hate liars, did I?" Kisame asked.
"I'm not lying!" Chojuro said through his teeth, his head jerking up as he continued, "Lady Terumi, she started all of this to force a change. She stepped up to lead because no one else was going to or wanted to. The Lady didn't have an easy life, but she had enough status to become my sensei, even though she specializes in ninjutsu. She could've just stayed quiet and let the purges happen. But she couldn't. Yes, the Lady wouldn't like that they've made their own plan, but she wouldn't stop them. As long as, once this is all over, the Lady and people like her can feel like Kirigakure is their home again—as long as that happens, it's okay."
He broke off, heaving for air, and it was the only sound for a few seconds.
"Well, well, maybe you do have a backbone," Kisame said eventually, sounding mildly impressed.
Mangetsu looked at Chojuro out of the corner of his eye, studying him like he'd never seen him before. And maybe he hadn't. At least not who he was now.
"He might be broken, but at least his mouth works," Namekuji observed.
Nagato choked, turning his head to cough into his sleeve to hide a sudden laugh.
"Since we're sharing so much," Yahiko spoke, scratching down a point in the driftwood under Mangetsu's watchful gaze. "So, Kisame, how'd you know Nagato was an Uzumaki? The red hair I get, but I remember you said something about the feeling of the ocean in Oka's chakra. Are there more Uzumaki out there?"
Kisame shifted his gaze to him. "No," he said after a while, then stopped, seemingly considering whether or not the rest was worth responding to.
Chojuro leaned his head on his knees.
Eventually, Kisame said, "It's not something people speak openly about. But there's a library in Gengetsu with restricted texts that explain why they're all gone, if you don't mind using a little force to get to them, but if your question was about whether I've met any myself, then also no, but Samehada has. I get—let's call them impressions—of the chakra she's last eaten when she shares with me. From that, you have enough clues to guess at what her former master had been last doing before she became my partner."
"Huh," Yahiko said.
Nagato saw Kisame's eyes flit to him, like he'd be able to tell how that made him feel just by looking.
I should have an opinion, he mused to himself, but he didn't. He had never known the Uzumaki.
Once, a long time ago, what Kisame said would've ignited a fire in his chest. Anger on behalf of his mother. Angry that he'd never get a chance to meet them and have them tell him who he was.
But he hadn't been that kid in a long, long time.
He was curious about the Uzumaki as a clan, sure, and about the knowledge they had, but that was all. He cared to the extent that everything he learned about them filled in holes about himself, but he didn't need the Uzumaki to feel like he belonged somewhere.
He belonged to Oka and Yahiko, and to Amegakure.
He didn't need to know the details of what happened to them. He'd seen enough reactions to him to make a few assumptions. Orochimaru, looking at him like he was surprised by his existence. Mei, telling him how valuable he was in a way that was supposed to be a compliment.
And he still remembered that storybook he used to read Oka when they were both tiny, about the red-haired princess who fled as her home burned behind her. The story their mother had cherished, because it was about her.
He didn't even know if Oka remembered that storybook, but he also knew that even if he told her about it she'd listen and take in his thoughts, but she wouldn't really care.
She'd care because he did, but it was a distant memory in a huge pool of them.
So, Nagato made those connections, but kept them to himself. Still, he did appreciate Yahiko asking on his behalf.
"I'm sorry," Nagato said to Kisame instead, pretending he didn't see Kisame's quick, confused blink as he fully turned around, shin-deep in ocean water.
Kisame tilted his head like he hadn't heard him quite right.
"When you came and agreed to spar with Oka, I should've trusted you," Nagato said.
Kisame blinked again, his grin becoming smaller as he tilted his head, not understanding but willing to hear him explain.
"I followed you," Nagato soldiered on. "Because I was afraid of what you could do to her, but—" he broke off with a sigh and just said, "You've shown me more trust than I deserved."
"Have I?" Kisame asked, like he didn't believe it. "You acted as any normal person would've in that situation. I don't think you need a reminder of the state I left her in," he reassured him, like he wasn't sure why he needed to.
"That told me that you would've brought her back alive," Nagato retorted. "Her wounds might've been worse, but not lethal. What you did to her looked worse than it was."
"Downplaying your own skill?" Kisame asked curiously, leaning back.
"How much information is in the chakra you get about someone else through Samehada? Because if it's everything, then you knew I was a medic-nin when we met," Nagato pushed on. "That was the first time I met anyone who could absorb nature energy. It was instinct to use medical chakra to try and find what was wrong, so I know."
Kisame didn't respond.
Nagato idly rolled up his sleeves, not hot, but humid and wet, like the air was sticking to him. "It was unlucky, or lucky, that you did that to me first," he added. "Everything has to have a limit, even a chakra-absorbing sword. You didn't say that she only gives you chakra when you need it."
Kisame was silent, and then he shook his head. "You're a lot like him," he finally said, tilting his head towards Mangetsu without moving his eyes. "But you don't pretend to be dumb."
Nagato paused, but wasn't surprised. After Mangetsu guessed why Chojuro wasn't in the bingo books and Chojuro didn't correct him, he was starting to suspect that Mangetsu had known exactly what he was doing the day they met.
"Did she tell you to apologize to me?" Kisame asked.
Nagato tilted his head. "Does that sound like her?"
Kisame said nothing.
"Why are you trying to convince me that you meant to kill her?" Nagato asked.
Kisame grinned, but it looked as thin as glass. "I would've if I didn't have her summon to play with," he said with an edge, but it sounded automatic. "Why do you feel the need to apologize to me then, if not for her?"
Nagato paused, really thinking about it. "Because I misjudged you. It… wasn't fair. We're intruders. We came here to make the village more unstable. You had every right to kill us, and you would've been acting as a shinobi of Kirigakure," he reasoned. "It'd be like if you snuck into Amegakure and didn't trust me for finding you. Because I'm a sensor-nin, I judged you based on feelings, before we ever spoke. I don't want my apology to be accepted. I want to start over too."
Kisame said nothing for a long time, then surprised him by shifting his eyes away, but still didn't respond.
It could've gone worse, Nagato mused to himself.
He heard a sudden splash and looked over to see Yahiko batting water at Mangetsu, who seemed baffled as the spray hit him.
Mangetsu was frozen, one hand half-raised as if to block an attack and the other around the handle of the Nuibari.
The driftwood was cracked in half.
Mangetsu looked completely dry as he forced his hand away from the handle. "What'd you do that for?"
"Oh, just defending my honor. Cheating was expected, we're ninja. But using ninjutsu to cheat is another level of disrespect," Yahiko explained, pretending he didn't notice Mangetsu's reaction.
Watching them gave Nagato an abrupt, childish idea.
Nagato moved back into the water as they talked, gathering as much water in his hands as he could carry, and slowly shuffled closer to Yahiko's turned back, trying to keep as much of it in his hands as he could.
Mangetsu leaned his arms on his knees and asked, "Oh, is that right? Where's your proof?"
"I don't know how you did it," Yahiko admitted, looking at the sky. "But what a coincidence that the water suddenly stopped being calm when I was about to win, and then went back to being calm after the dice fell into the water and disappeared. And because I had only had the one pair, you won."
"Those were your rules," Mangetsu reminded him. "They go under, you lose." His eyes finally flicked behind Yahiko to Nagato, but even if Yahiko noticed, it was too late for him to react.
Nagato tossed the water at him. Not enough of it had survived his awkward shuffling to do more than sprinkle over Yahiko, but Yahiko still stiffened. He spun around as Nagato turned to run and Nagato, as he took a step, remembered why ninja didn't run in water.
It felt like weights were tied around his ankles that dragged along the sand. Nagato tripped and fell onto his hands and knees.
"You're cheating," Nagato managed to say as Yahiko's shadow loomed over him. "I'm not on top of the water."
Yahiko paused just long enough to look at his feet and let himself sink.
"Can I use acid?" Namekuji asked, on Nagato's back.
Nagato opened his mouth to answer, then sputtered and coughed as Yahiko kicked water at him from behind.
"I'm going to spray acid at you," Namekuji decided.
"Your partner started it," Yahiko paused his assault to protest. "Besides, I'm still half-injured. Would you really shoot acid at an injured person?"
"Dumb, fragile meat bag."
"Fragile enough for you to not shoot acid at me?" Yahiko asked hopefully.
Namekuji dropped off Nagato's back to avoid being caught between them, muttering about being owed for this from both of them for his restraint.
Nagato tried to quickly stand, to make another attempt at escape despite the water actively working against him, only to gasp as Yahiko caught the end of his braid.
"Hair pulling?" Nagato hissed at him, his hands scrabbling back to grasp at his hair. "Are you a kid?"
"Ah, I must've forgot that water throwing is what adults do," Yahiko shot back. He let go, but just as quickly got his arms around Nagato's neck before he could make another attempt to move. "Let's be kids together, eh, Nagato?"
Nagato responded by kicking back hard at his knee.
Yahiko jerked his leg back immediately, tightening his grip as his balance wavered, and it was suddenly harder to breathe. Nagato barely had time to try and pull the arms away from his neck before Yahiko was trying to push him down into the water.
Nagato resisted, throwing his weight back as Yahiko tried to sweep his ankles, making them stumble awkwardly to the side together.
"Just take a little dip, Nagato, and tell me how the water tastes," Yahiko grunted, breathing hard, but still trying to wrestle him down.
Nagato itched to form a half-sign for a water jutsu. He kicked at his leg again instead.
This proved too much for the fragile balance Yahiko had as the tide pulled out and sucked the sand out from beneath his feet, and Nagato felt Yahiko tighten his hold as he started to fall, his flailing arms ignored as he was dragged backwards against his will.
The instinct to use chakra reappeared, but Nagato only shut his eyes right before they hit the water together, then felt Yahiko let go and shove away from him.
Nagato jerked upright, coughing as he rubbed at his neck, but all he heard was Yahiko laughing.
And then Nagato started laughing too.
His hair was a mess, it'd take hours for their clothes to dry, and they hadn't caught any fish between them, but Nagato couldn't stop.
He flopped onto his side and eventually said, "We still need to catch something."
"Nah," Yahiko said, eyes closed. "I think I've accepted my death. There was this huge fish, you should've seen it. I was so close to catching it, but it ate my bait around the kunai while I was distracted and ran away. Some fisherman I am."
They should've moved onto deeper water the second after Kisame told them that mostly minnows were in the shallows, but then Chojuro wouldn't have approached him to train, and Yahiko wouldn't have built a fishing rod, and Nagato wouldn't have admitted to himself that they needed this.
To stop and breathe and focus on something other than the village, on supplies and missing-nin, even if it was for a few minutes.
A shadow appeared over them, forming quickly into the shape of a person.
"Looks like fun," Mangetsu spoke suddenly. "You don't mind if I get a little revenge, do you?"
Mangetsu didn't wait for an answer.
Nagato sat up just as Mangetsu's body melted into the water, but instead of surprise, he looked at the spot where he'd been and silently wondered what happened to his organs when he did that.
Yahiko splashed and choked beside him.
Mangetsu had un-liquified sitting behind him, Yahiko's head locked against his elbow.
"Can't breathe—" Yahiko began.
Mangetsu yanked Yahiko to the side and shoved him underwater to quiet him, and Nagato saw that he was missing the Nuibari. It was back on the shore, sticking out of the sand like a flag.
Yahiko went limp almost immediately, and Mangetsu tilted his head, holding him under for almost another minute before he raised his eyes to Nagato, who couldn't fake a reaction, because he knew that Yahiko could hold his breath for almost ten minutes.
Mangetsu refocused on Yahiko and let go to dig a knee into his back.
Bubbles came from the water, and Yahiko started kicking his legs and wriggling to try and free himself.
Since they were already being childish, Nagato, picked up a handful of water and threw it at Mangetsu.
Instantly, the mist-nin went very still.
The distracted allowed Yahiko to roll out from beneath Mangetsu and lay on his back, half-submerged and breathing hard.
Mangetsu put his hands on his knees, stood, and said, "Guess you can be first if you want. I don't mind either way," and then the color leeched from his skin and his body fell apart.
Before Nagato do more than try to get up, he felt a hard tug on his ankles and he fell back into the water.
.
.
.
Nagato leaned down and hugged himself. He was shivering and tired and resigned to the fact that he'd have to endure extreme judgement from his sister.
They could do it tomorrow, but it would be time that they didn't have to waste. Still, he couldn't find it in him to regret it.
Yahiko was spread out on the sand next to him, eyes closed, a hand covering his mouth. He was breathing hard, wisps of poison escaping through his fingers.
Nagato could feel the heat coming off him and it made him feel colder. He bent down more. Instead of mastering medical ninjutsu, he should've forced himself to attempt to learn fire-style.
He still didn't quite know how Yahiko had done it. It should've been easier for himself, since his second element was wind, which wasn't at least not the opposite of fire like water was, but he couldn't.
He glanced at where Mangetsu sat against an old, burned stump with his arms were crossed and his head was hanging down, his chin touching his chest.
Out in the water, Chojuro threw himself out of the way of a spray of acid, falling to his hands and knees for a second before he scrambled up. He glanced back as he started running again, then yelped as his shin hit a larger part of Namekuji and he tumbled down into the water.
Chojuro sputtered and coughed, but forced himself back to his feet before Namekuji could attack him again.
"Will Emon let me check your side?" Nagato asked Yahiko, watching them.
Yahiko's bandages had been lost to the ocean sometime while they were trying to drown each other, letting Nagato see how irritated and red the long scar along his liver looked, but it wasn't deeply bruised like it would be if he had internal bleeding.
Which he wouldn't put past Yahiko to hide.
Yahiko let his hand drop down and breathed out a stream of poison. His eyebrows pulled together for a few seconds, then he shook his head. "Nah, she's too agitated," he answered. "Might have something to do with all the water in my lungs, but who knows?"
Even when they made a temporary truce and started working together, they still couldn't touch Mangetsu. It was only Mangetsu giving up that had let them stop.
The log behind them creaked and Nagato turned as much as he could manage without getting out of his slouched over position. Kisame was standing, looking out into the distance. He came closer, until he was standing beside them.
"I don't think I've ever seen Mangetsu like that before," Kisame said curiously, but only for their ears, like they'd been in the middle of a conversation.
He walked past them and onto the water without waiting for them to respond. Nagato glanced at Yahiko, who shrugged back, just as unable to read him.
Chojuro paused as Kisame walked by, but wasn't given a glance either. Kisame eventually stopped at the edge of the steep drop-off that marked the end of the shallow water.
Then he lifted his hands together and rapidly made handsigns.
Nagato couldn't see all of them but counted nine, starting with dog and ending with him clapping his hands and holding them together. Still, he knew the jutsu. He'd seen it twice so far, first when Yahiko was trapped, and again when Kisame had captured the dog summon.
But nothing seemed to happen.
Chojuro dropped into a hasty crouch to avoid an acid attack while he was distracted, automatically throwing his arms up to instinctively protect his head. Though if it had hit him, it probably would only sting, or at worst irritate his skin.
Chojuro frowned in disapproval at Namekuji, who scoffed at him, still split in half.
"How well do you know Chojuro?" Nagato asked Mangetsu, half-turning in the sand.
Mangetsu opened one eye, barely raising his head as he answered, "Enough." The 'why' was unspoken.
"He doesn't need to wear his glasses?"
Mangetsu raised his head to look at Chojuro and Namekuji, but didn't answer.
In front of Kisame, the water began to ripple and shake, sending little tremors behind him that spread all the way to the shore.
Yahiko blinked sluggishly, in a losing fight with exhaustion.
"He can make out a shape to tell what it is without them, but that's not good enough for a member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen. Byakuren must still fume about it," Mangetsu finally said, squinting. "Glasses are for people who can't fight anymore or never could. The research rats and the bookkeepers and the people who run businesses. People like that. Here, ninja have no faults. They aren't ninja if they do. But they couldn't deny him the Hiramekarei. Hoshigaki might have a different experience, but they test for the ability to become Seven Ninja Swordsmen before we ever know what a ninja is. He and everyone like him are too rare to be killed like the rest of us."
"Aren't you rare too?"
Mangetsu sunk down more and closed his eyes, "Sure, they say that. But I'm not lucky."
The water began to shake violently in front of Kisame.
Nagato watched Chojuro as he slowly, cautiously picked up the biggest piece of Namekuji from behind, trying to lift Namekuji above a wave that splashed his legs, trying to help, and Namekuji wiggled and hissed like a feral animal until he was dropped.
It made him smile, even as he thought over what Mangetsu said.
How old had Chojuro been when Byakuren finally decided to give him the means to see better? Eleven? Twelve?
It made him think of Matsu, because Hanzo had the kind of pride mist-nin did. If he'd known he had a son, would he have done the same if he learned about his eye disease?
He wondered what kind of person Matsu would've become if Hanzo had known about him.
A massive sphere finally broke the surface of the water. Its shadow swallowed Kisame as it rose slowly, spreading until it covered Chojuro and Namekuji too.
Nagato's eyes widened at it, because it was bigger than the one he'd made before. It looked like a dark blue swirling sun hovering above them.
Chojuro stumbled back and fell, staring up at it, and Mangetsu raised his head, looking at it through one eye, expressionless.
As it hovered above them, Nagato saw movement within it. It was filled with a large school of large fish the same color as the water with noses that were pointed like kunai.
The sphere stopped moving once it fully left the water, and Kisame stayed just as still. It was almost like he didn't want to turn around.
Kisame had to have heard it as Chojuro tripped over himself in fear, had to feel how heavy the silence was behind him.
Nagato said he trusted him, but the only one to prove it had been Oka, and she wasn't here.
What did Kisame see when he did something like this in front of other people?
Nagato scrubbed a hand through his still messy hair and sighed, and stood, instantly missing the body warmth he was giving up. He wiped the shock from his face as he looked up at the sphere again.
He felt very small beneath it, and couldn't image how Chojuro or Namekuji felt. Still, he walked towards across the water towards them and picked up Namekuji, who'd put himself back together.
His chakra was twisted with apprehension, but Namekuji relaxed, almost instantly, as Nagato put him on his shoulder.
Nagato stopped next to Kisame, fully underneath the giant fishbowl, somehow feeling even smaller, like he was standing under a miniature sun. "I don't think we have enough scrolls for this," he thought aloud, not knowing what else to say.
Nagato didn't think he himself could do this.
Kisame only looked sideways at him.
Nagato could see groups of fish probing and pushing at the edges of the prison, probably just as mystified as he felt, but the water retained its shape, no matter how much they pushed at it.
"Do you have to clean your gills every time you wash your face?" Namekuji asked.
Kisame blinked at him.
"Do mist-nin wash their faces?" Namekuji continued.
"I'm sorry about him," Nagato said reflexively.
"What's the point of them if you have a nose?" Namekuji asked relentlessly.
"That's the water prison jutsu, right?" Nagato asked quickly, before Namekuji could go on. "How do you get out of it?"
"For you, you'd only need to use more chakra than the caster can use to keep you contained. Most can't, for obvious reasons. It takes chakra to keep the shape of a prison, and chakra to stop the ability to move. If you only do one, you need more chakra to keep the other," Kisame answered after a second, nodding up at the water prison and the fish trying to escape it. "Attack the shape and, while you still can't move, you're already free. It's a jutsu to torture the weak, or people who don't really understand chakra. Which are most people."
Attack the shape.
Yahiko had never seen the water prison jutsu used on anyone before he was caught in it, but it had taken seconds for him to figure that out.
Nagato always thought he had a good understanding of chakra until he stood next to Yahiko.
"And doing it handless takes twice as much chakra," Kisame added. "The people that use it against you—that's how you'll spot the easiest prey in battle. And they will. They'll see your hair and take it as an invitation to competition. They'll use entire teams to trap you to test the limits of the famed Uzumaki."
Nagato only shook his head. "If they keep me still, they'll only be doing me a favor."
Kisame looked at him.
Nagato paused briefly, but said, "The chakra Samehada took from me when we met, it was nature chakra. I can use something called Sage Mode. If I take in enough, I can use it offensively. How old... is Samehada?"
"Why?"
"It's dangerous to take it in improperly. People can be exposed to small amounts, and I hadn't taken in a lot in, but Samehada had no reaction to it."
Kisame eyed him, but told him, "Samehada existed before the Elemental Nations, and will exist after them. No one fully understands her, not even me. It's an accepted idea that a forbidden jutsu created her, and that she's tasted even the Sage's chakra."
"You don't agree?"
Kisame smiled. "Samehada is Samehada," he said. "We're the same. I was created for a purpose as she was, and we've both abandoned it. There's nothing more to it."
Nagato was silent.
"It's no wonder she's so hungry for your chakra even now," Kisame said conversationally. "But I'll keep what you said in mind. This tolerance for nature energy, I'd like to avoid finding out my own."
Nagato folded his arms in his sleeves for warmth, but didn't know what to say. He had questions, but Kisame couldn't answer them.
"Would you taste like fish or meat?" Namekuji asked.
"You can keep ignoring him," he sighed.
"No he can't," Namekuji said, offended.
Nagato fought a losing battle with a smile and finally asked, "What'll the hunter-nin do when they see this?"
Kisame's grin became sharper as he looked up and said, "They can come if they like, but they'll do it knowing they won't return alive. If I have to do this twice, I'll take my frustrations out on them."
Samehada shuddered slightly on his back, woken by what Nagato was starting to identify as his bloodlust.
"Have you thought about what it means that Oka had me show all of you here? It sounded to me when she first brought it up that she wanted me to keep you safe from what lurks in our waters. You wouldn't know what is and isn't poisonous, or that these fish may not look it, but are razor sharp to the touch. She never corrected me, but safety can mean many things. You interpreted it as safety from the hunter-nin, with me sent to act as a guide to avoid where they patrol. But I'm starting to think she really meant for me to act as safety from the Uchiha. The other reasons may add to it, but that sounds like the closest to the truth. Family is an interesting idea, isn't it?" Kisame asked, seemingly to himself, "People always act irrationally to protect those they call 'family'."
Nagato was stuck on a different word. "Uchiha?"
Kisame looked at him. "She didn't tell you?"
"Everything she told us, she did in front of you."
"In your code, I meant," he clarified. "But I suppose she also left that task up to me."
"In our code, we use our hands. You don't?"
"We don't use our hands in the way I think you mean," Kisame answered, but didn't elaborate. "You all fidget a lot."
Nagato didn't know what to say to that either, other than to ask about the training he and Mangetsu endured to make them so still all the time, and he wouldn't answer himself if he was in Kisame's place.
"How do you carry around that much chakra every day?" Namekuji asked. "How have your coils not exploded?"
Kisame looked up at the water sphere again, ignoring Namekuji. "I think I understand where she gets it from, her strangeness. It's you. You're strange too."
Nagato didn't agree, but didn't say his thoughts out loud, that Kisame only thought that because he hadn't been able to see who Yahiko really was, other than that he was unbelievably stubborn.
"This first," Kisame said when it was clear he'd stay silent, eyeing the water prison. "Then I'll tell you what she told me about the Uchiha."
.
.
.
Nagato hadn't known there was a size limit to storage scrolls until the fuinjutsu for 'seal' hadn't responded to his attempts to seal a fish longer than his arm in it.
Between the five of them, they had six scrolls of fish.
He felt amused when he thought about all the fish Kisame had to let go. He must've caught a school of them.
Nagato stopped abruptly when he felt four different chakra signatures in front of him, blocking the dirt path back to the bottom of Minakami. He couldn't see them through the mist, but he heard Kisame grab Samehada's handle behind him.
"Who's there?" Nagato asked.
A figure took a few steps forward, a familiar one, emerging from the mist with a basket filled with bundles of sticks on his back and a black mask covering the bottom half of his face.
If Nagato had been able to sense when they first met, he'd have known he was there before he was within eyesight.
"Oh, hey. You're the guy who thought we were the Seven Ninja Swordsmen," Yahiko greeted him like they were old friends.
Kisame scoffed at that.
"And tried to blow us up," Chojuro carefully mentioned.
Mangetsu crouched suddenly in response, one hand around the handle of the Nuibari, the other pressed to the dirt like he was about to spring forward, showing off his pointed teeth as he smiled, a challenge.
"Not here... to fight..." the masked man said, his voice as strained as it had been when Nagato first heard it.
An injury from smoking a long time, or inhaling a lot of it at once and without a medic-nin to treat it. Or from poison.
A woman stepped out of the mist next to him, marks like nails around the hole where her left eye was. Her other eye was milky white. She bowed her head to them, holding a small hand-woven basket filled with fried frog legs.
"Gift," he said.
A third and a fourth person emerged on his right, short-haired with birthmarks like sunflowers on their cheeks with the petals spiraling around their left eyes. They looked identical, but had most of their bodies hidden under seaweed-colored wrappings.
"I don't speak often... but..." he stopped to cough, gesturing with a gloved hand at the basket. "Gift," he said again.
"Are you from Minakami?" Nagato asked.
The left twin's hand clenched into a fist and the right twin put a hand on their shoulder, holding a sickle loosely in their other hand.
He laughed, and it sounded like it hurt. "No," he said. "We are... not from anywhere. Nameless... clanless... it's all the same. Minakami doesn't want... us."
"So why come to us?" Yahiko asked.
"Understanding," he answered. "I didn't lead you into that trap... out of malice for... you. I don't... hate you. I don't want you... to hate us. We know you... are taking Minakami to war. We've seen... the leader. He can hide among them... but we've seen him... when he hunts. We know his masked face... and his true one."
Nagato crossed his arms. "If you're his enemy, wouldn't that make you ours too?"
He tilted his head. "In a sense... but you stand now... with your enemies. They don't look as the rumors say... but those swords... three have yet to... meet their end. But Zabuza... is long gone. His... loyalties unknown. If he offered to help you... would you stand... with him too?"
Nagato didn't answer, but asked, "Do you think you can help us more than Minakami?"
"No," he said honestly. He gestured at the twins. "You see... twins are a... bad omen. They... were casted out. Raised by me. If Minakami can be free... they can be too. They've... done nothing... but be born."
Nagato looked critically at the twins but they avoided his gaze.
"And what have you done?" Yahiko asked curiously, leaning an elbow on Nagato's shoulder.
He sighed, the sound rattling in his throat. "Freedom is... funny," he said absently. "Kill to be free... destroy to be free. We don't want to replace Minakami as... your allies. There are not... enough of us. We live down here... at the bottom of the bottom. We can only be... bodies for you to throw... at your enemies. We can only... live in shame... and die. But they..." he looked at the twins. "...can step over our corpses... and live."
The right twin got down on their hands and knees and pressed their forehead to the dirt.
The left twin got down more slowly, their hand still clenched, looking at them with a dark, burning fire in their eyes, before they made themselves look away and pressed their forehead to the dirt too.
Mangetsu relaxed his stance, but stayed crouched.
Nagato shook his head. "If you wanted to make a deal, it's not us who you should've approached."
"Yes," he agreed. "But I don't want... to be bitten. Tell your Wolf... what I've said... and what you've seen. I will leave Anzu... on the beach. If the Wolf wants to speak... Anzu can speak for me."
The blind woman beside him took half a step forward and slowly, carefully placed the basket with frog legs on the ground.
"I hope... they haven't gone cold," he said, bowing his head to them.
The woman bowed deeply beside him, her head parallel to her waist, then backed into the mist and was swallowed by it. The twin on the right stood quickly, still looking at the ground. They stepped back without turning around and disappeared from eyesight too.
The masked man made eye contact with him, then Yahiko, and then turned around and walked into the mist. The only one who didn't move was the left twin, whose forehead stayed pressed to the dirt.
Nagato stayed silent as Yahiko left him to pick up the basket, tracking their chakra until they left his frustratingly small range.
"Did you tell them that we love to use poison?" Mangetsu asked, watching Yahiko as he spoke to Kisame.
"I told one of them," Kisame said vaguely, his tone unreadable as he eyed Anzu.
"What a coincidence, because I also love poison," Yahiko said, spinning around to face them.
"I don't think your liver would agree," Nagato dryly pointed out.
Yahiko waved his words away. He picked up a frog leg, opened his mouth wide, and stuck out his tongue, showing off Emon sitting on it.
Emon was bigger than the last time Nagato saw her, at least as long as his tongue, but not as wide. She had to take up at least a quarter of his lung.
Yahiko lowered the frog leg in front of her, shaking it enticingly, and Emon stuck her tongue to it and jerked it close enough to break off a small piece with her mouth.
"Should you be doing that in front of your new... friend?" Mangetsu asked, half-confused, half-cautious.
"It's supposed to be intimidating," Nagato answered for him, crossing his arms. "Most ninja wouldn't eat it, even if it was somehow known to be completely safe. He wants Anzu to carry along the message that we're not most ninja."
Mangetsu's eyes lingered on Emon. "That's not the part that I was questioning—"
"You know, it doesn't work as well if you explain it," Yahiko said thoughtfully, Emon having disappeared back down his throat.
"Did you want me to explain Emon instead?"
Yahiko looked more thoughtful. He tilted his head back and dropped the rest of the frog leg in his mouth. "My clothes are still wet," he said to no one. "But, yeah, it's supposed to say something like, 'don't underestimate me, I'm crazy enough to eat food I know could kill me' or 'I have a super cool summon that should make you just as wary of me as our local Wolf'. Like that. It's ruined now, but at least I can tell you that it isn't poisoned."
Nagato didn't apologize, and Yahiko held the basket out at him as he moved closer.
"There's no seasoning," Yahiko assured him.
"You're annoying," Nagato muttered, picking out a small leg for himself and a bigger one for Namekuji, who leaned towards the basket from his shoulder.
"Don't take that tone with me. I'm being a good friend slash older brother. You'd give me more grief if I didn't warn you."
Nagato said nothing. There was no real way to defend his taste buds without Yahiko turning it around on him.
Mangetsu stared silently between them. His eyes flicked to the basket, then he shook his head and pushed himself up to grab one too.
"What about them?" Kisame asked, never taking his eyes off Anzu.
"I'll stay here," Anzu answered immediately. "I'll do as I'm ordered to."
"Fine," Kisame said back. He lifted his gaze and walked around Anzu without another word.
He didn't wait for them to catch up.
Yahiko shrugged at Nagato and followed Kisame, throwing another leg in his mouth.
A/N: quick shoutout to Guest, who gave me that last shot of motivation I needed.