Itachi
Itachi went with Yahiko to the kitchen, where they retrieved the small amount of salt somebody had gotten for their use. Nagato excused himself to go check on Konan, so they were pretty much alone.
"I haven't read much about folklore or mythical monsters. Have you?" Yahiko inquired.
"A little," Itachi replied. "Hidan was right. Salt is regarded to be a powerful substance which can keep away every kind of evil spirit, fairy, or demon I've heard of. Silver also works, but that would be difficult to acquire. Have you ever heard of knocking on wood?"
"Yeah. But I don't know what that's for."
"I looked it up once. I found two explanations for it: either the knocking is supposed to rouse the tree's spirits, which are friendly, or it is meant to drive away any evil spirits that might be listening in."
"Cool! Anything else that might be helpful?"
Itachi shrugged. "I know nothing specific. There's only so much we can do anyway."
Yahiko looked around. "You know...that sounds believable."
"What does?"
"That trees have good spirits. I mean, they're trees. Of course they're friendly." Yahiko knew this to be as close to fact as he could get. "That's...more believable than demons. I saw one, but I still have a hard time…"
Itachi nodded. "I don't know exactly what you mean. Personally, I regard most things as being likely, even if they never happen, so it's hard for me to understand skepticism. But, even if I can't empathize, I think I could logically understand. It's like bringing yourself to jump off something tall. It's only one action, but that action is so hard to start."
"Once I start, where does it end?" Yahiko finished. "I just don't want to believe in bad things. I was the first one to suggest there might be angels too when she came back from meeting the demon, but monsters, I don't know. I know, I should get over it."
"No," Itachi thought, "you don't need to. It's part of who you are. You're kind, so it's easier to get along with the idea and the reality of things that are like you. You wouldn't be asked to deal with something so unsuited to you anyway, so it's alright."
Yahiko was struck by the idea. "But I should be able to…"
"You're not alone." Itachi wanted to elaborate, but that was all he could find to say.
Yahiko cradled his package of salt carefully in his arms. "My family died when I was young. I was 8. It was some kind of accident." Itachi noticed he was reflexively stroking the top of the package as if it were a child. "Ever since, I've wondered if even Nagato will be gone someday. I…" He didn't finish.
Itachi lifted his package and held it equally carefully. "He might. We all might. But the more there are, the less likely that all of us will be gone all at the same time. That's why finding people is lifelong."
Yahiko seemed unconvinced. "It was bad enough when Jiraiya couldn't stay. He was like a father to me. I don't think I'm strong enough."
"You seemed strong enough last night."
"That was different. That was for him." Yahiko protested. "I can be strong for people, no problem. But…"
Itachi sighed. "I have a little brother. He's the last of my family. I've thought of what I would do if something happened to him."
Yahiko stopped stroking the package of salt. "What would you do?" he asked in the voice of a disciple seeking a wise sage.
Itachi tilted his head. He'd never spoken of this before. How can I say it? Will he understand? "Sometimes, I feel...a strange lack of agency over my life," he began. Yahiko was still enthralled. "Not the bad kind, as if I can change nothing. It's a good kind. More like… I am part of the world, and the world will keep rotating if Sasuke dies. Therefore, I will go on too, because there is no other way." Close, but it doesn't seem like enough. How can I say…? "The thought of having to force myself to go on is the hardest. That's where all the effort is. But if I know that I will anyway, just because that's how things happen, how the world turns, it's easier." So inadequate. Not remotely enough.
Yahiko took a sharp little inhale of breath. "That's why I do good things for people. Because I do. It's what I do, like how you said the world turns. Like that, huh?" He seemed struck. "That… So, if I… If that was how it felt if something happened... " Here he struggled, to connect this reasoning to the answer he wanted. "If that was how it felt...I...I'd want Nagato to be proud of me."
Itachi wondered aloud, "Are you religious?"
Yahiko shook his head. "I don't think so. Well, actually...that doing good things for people does seem to kind of sweep me up...but I'm not sure what that is. I'll find out." He seemed unsure of that.
Itachi wondered further, "What is this god of Hidan's like?"
Deidara
"Oi! Can you hear us up there?"
The words drifted up to Deidara's ears like thin, wispy smoke. Mhm. A little. Enough. It took a few seconds for it to register that he hadn't spoken aloud. He took another few seconds to gather enough breath to shout back, "Yeah!" How can shouting be exhausting? Uhn, everything's exhausting. Deidara made the bird take a steep dive down to the ground. There was too much risk of him falling asleep if he stayed up in the air. He still yawned as he hit the ground.
Hidan patted him on the back. His eyes dulled and he backed off quickly. "Ugh. Wow. That's some strong shit. You gonna be okay?"
Deidara shrugged. He had to be, right? And if he wasn't, probably someone else could be selected to herd her the way they wanted her to go. Deidara just hoped he didn't crash. His expectations were sinking lower by the minute.
"No wonder depressed people sleep." Hidan shook his head. "I'm gonna go see how Konan's doing. Kisame, I told Kakuzu I'd send Sammy when we needed him. I just...yeah." I just need to get away from Deidara. Dei sent some chakra up to his brain. He felt better, better enough to feel bad about the implied statement.
Hidan stumbled away, tripped over the corner of the stairs, tripped again over the waist-height railing, and finally got far enough from Deidara to operate the door. Deidara's newly refreshed brain was able to interpret this as something to laugh at. He let loose like a crazy person, heedless of the stares of everyone else who'd attended the demonstration. Would I do that? He probably would. It wasn't hard to imagine his fogged brain, running without chakra as it had just been doing, operating his body like it was drunk.
Kisame and Sasori both walked over, concerned. "You alright?" Kisame asked warily.
Deidara wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. "Yeah, hm. I just...I just need to save my chakra for this thing, that's all, hm. So I can't use it all the time to keep myself awake, hm."
Sasori sighed. "Why didn't you just leave the bird at the lake where you were using it? Would it explode if you lost touch?"
Deidara stopped wiping. His face was red when he took his sleeve away from it. "Oh. That would be better, yeah."
Kisame huffed. "Do whatever you have to. Just don't crash." He walked off to wait for Kakuzu.
"I'll try my best, yeah."
Samehada came back with Kakuzu following, and there was commotion from inside.
Konan
-a proud cat, lying sideways across the thin, craggy grass with its legs in a tangle before it. The ribcage, collapsed unnaturally thanks to the shattered breastbone. The tail, kinked. The deep blue eyes saw everything and said nothing. The flaws in them where genuine ice crystals pierced through shone in the light. There was no blood or sound.
This was the image that Konan blinked away. It resisted her efforts, stubbornly staying behind her eyelids even as she sat up, shook her head, did everything she could think of to drive it away. Eventually, in desperation, she closed her eyes and imagined herself walking up to that cat where it waited for her. She closed its eyes. At last, the image disappeared, and she got up without any further trouble.
"Hey," Nagato piped up softly. He sat on the other side of the bed, and had been for a few minutes as he sorted out whether to wake her or not.
Konan stared at him, then flicked her eyes to the window. She had an outside room on the opposite side of the base from where Sasori and the others greeted the sun each morning. Even so, she could tell the morning was well underway, and stood up sharply enough to take herself off balance.
"That was a pretty good choice," Nagato told her. "To leave Hidan in charge of the strategy making, I mean. He's surprisingly good at it."
Konan regained her balance and stood evenly. Hidan took over after I fell asleep? She actually had not planned for that. Her heartbeat that had started racing calmed again. "He thought of something?"
"Yeah," Nagato smiled at her. "Come on, he'd love to tell it to you and Kakuzu. He's really happy about it." His smile seemed to indicate that Nagato was too. Konan glimpsed it as she swept out of the room to find out what was going on.
She nearly smacked into Hidan. "Oh, hey," he greeted her. His words were quiet and subdued as if he was very tired. Sure enough, he yawned.
"Are you tired?" If the first day was any indication, he didn't normally like staying up when he was under no influence. Konan felt a little guilty for falling just in time to leave him with everything.
"No, Deidara is." Hidan yawned again. "Are you awake? I could touch ya to pick up awake feelings if y'are."
Nagato blushed faintly where he had caught up to Konan and stood at her side. "Um...I am…"
Hidan felt noticeably more awake already from being around him. Even so, he cupped Nagato's cheek with his hand. The resulting feeling felt spicy. Nagato leaned into his hand despite his best efforts not to. Hidan took his hand back too quickly.
Hidan was now grinning from ear to ear and his eyes were alight. "Oh fuck yes!" he enthused. "I came up with a strategy after you went out, and everyone agrees it's the shit. I gotta tell you and Kakuzu." His eager gaze on her said that Kakuzu was added as an afterthought. He searched her face. Konan fed him a small approving smile, and he just about glowed. A ghostly vision came to her of what he must have looked like at 3 years old. His wide, pink eyes were undiminished.
Nagato felt like and not like a part of whatever was going on. He focused his attention away from whatever that might be and mentioned, "I'd hate to be a third wheel, but you really should get her and Kakuzu up to speed." His disclaimer felt hollow.
He should have known better than to think he could be a third wheel when Hidan was present. Hidan sighed happily and chirped, "Yep, probably should." He grinned a challenge at Konan. "Race ya outside."
Konan answered by darting past him at a speed that Hidan quickly matched, but nobody else could have. Hidan got to the door first and leaped out over the porch with a "Yahoo!" that echoed off the trees. Konan stayed on the ground as she darted out and was in position to smack him just before he hit the ground. She grabbed his leg too, automatically turning a gesture of play into a move that had Hidan sprawling on the ground with her on top of him in the blink of an eye. Itachi, just coming out of the building after hearing the conversation, had to replay his memories of it several times just to figure out what had happened. Thank goodness for the Sharingan.
Hidan laughed from where his face was pressed into the ground. As part of her reflexes, Konan of course had a kunai in her hand and pressed to his throat. Hidan turned, saw this, and squealed again. "Whoally shit that's awesome!" He seemed to love being forced to the ground and made no move to get up. Konan smiled and put her kunai away, finally letting him up. Hidan whimpered up at her like he wasn't done.
Yahiko forgot about the salt he was still holding entirely. "I need to learn that," he declared.
Konan continued to tuck her kunai away and kick Hidan to get him up. I will have to train him sometime. Hidan got up, grumbling his disappointment. But I'm not going to teach him a damn thing until he's ready.
"You have a strategy to be telling us about?" she reminded Hidan.
"Oh, yeah. C'mon, Kakuzu!"
"Hey." Deidara nudged Sasori. "I'm more awake now, yeah. I think I'll go test the second part."
Sasori nodded and turn to address the whole backyard. "Spiders in the hole!" he yelled.
Kakuzu
They turned their stare on him as one. Her in polite interest, him in excited curiosity. Kakuzu steeled himself and refused, absolutely refused, to demonstrate powers that still repulsed him in front of any kind of audience. "Yes, I can," he answered, then folded his arms across his chest to say And we're done here.
"Excellent." Konan turned back. Hidan found her opinion more interesting than Kakuzu's powers, so Kakuzu was off the hook. For now, he reminded himself. Hidan would probably remember at the most inconvenient time, if Kakuzu did not get a chance to show him today. He left the two nutballs to their deliberations and focused on his own identity crisis.
To himself, Kakuzu was capable of admitting when he was scared. He was scared now. Why did he have body parts that were tentacles of all things, and where were the body parts that were supposed to be in their place? He didn't have any reason to think he was missing vital organs. He was capable of all things other people were capable of. He had upper body strength, so he wasn't missing any muscle. The only thing Kakuzu could think of that could have been reasonably replaced in him were connective tissues. There were too many tentacles and not enough connective tissue for that to be the whole story. What the hell am I? Was he even human? He unwound and rewound a stitch above his stomach, and shivered.
"Let's go, then. If we have salt and Deidara is done testing, we're ready." Those words from Konan broke Kakuzu out of his thoughts. He hated those words, took a dislike to them instantly. There was a great difference between talking about something crazy, and doing something crazy, and he was reluctant to cross that gulf unless he absolutely had to. And he wouldn't like it even then.
That was why, he supposed, some higher power had arranged for him to be with Hidan of all people. "C'mon, slowpoke, get a fuckin' move on, we finally get to start!" Hidan chirped gleefully as he wrapped his arms around one of Kakuzu's and dragged the older man from the room. Why was dragging Hidan's preferred method of moving people? Probably because it works for him, Kakuzu admitted.
Outside, a spider stood in the middle of the backyard. For the grass's sake, it was on the same patch of ground where Kakuzu had tested Stonemaker Jutsu that one day. Was it really so recently that they had demonstrated their jutsu? The patch of stone was unmarked still by any force of nature. It had only a few leaves blown onto it.
Overhead, Deidara circled on his bird. He sneezed. The garage was dusty. He got to the same height he'd held earlier, and tried moving the spider as he had the day before. The spider skittered in a circle around the edge of the patch of stone, then settled in the center. Sasori nodded at the three who had just come out, motioned them back on the porch, and raised his hand. Nobody moved. He let it fall.
The spider hissed, swelled, then popped like a moving cyst. Instead of pus, fire erupted from it, and not a little concussive force. The leaves were incinerated before they got to the grass and the stone sported some very small cracks directly beneath the center of the spider. For something that was only meant to blow a hole in someone's chest or face at close range, it was remarkably powerful.
Deidara landed the bird. "Looks like I'm good, yeah," he addressed Hidan and Konan together. "I don't know how many of these I might need, though. I'll need my chakra to stay awake as well, yeah."
"Can we spare anyone to help?" Hidan asked.
"You forget, I have nothing to do at this part. I'll harass her in my paper form," Konan answered.
She then nodded to Hidan, put her hands together in that strange seal, and turned entirely into paper. As the last of the paper dispersed, Kakuzu's heart began to beat faster. He might not like crossing that gap, whether he had to or not...but he did have to admit the other side had its perks. He was too old to be spending his time sitting around. "I take it that means 'Roll out,'" he addressed Hidan.
"Fuck yes!" Hidan pointed to Deidara and Laurie. "You guys stay with the bird. Everyone else, abandoned houses are thataway." And he took off into the trees. Kakuzu followed, as always. There was the sound of many footsteps behind him.
Deidara
Red shirt, blonde hair, Konan had reported of the succubus' latest form. Already in the west side of town. As long as the succubus was in town, Konan was running the whole operation. Deidara circled high and clear, staying out of the sun's path and keeping himself below the clouds as much as he could. Every so often sheets of paper formed into Konan's head and told him of the latest movement. Deidara found this to be a lot creepier than Laurie did and had to remind himself She's a normal person, yeah. They have those blinders on so they don't notice how weird things are, hm.
"Wow," Laurie was mostly amazed, not frightened at this point. When they leveled off, she unclasped one arm from around Deidara's waist and pointed. "You see that? That's the entire area where I live. It looks right next door to the shop from here. I wonder where Sasori's is?"
"I don't know, hm." Deidara shrugged. Sasori always came to him, not the other way around. Deidara had always gotten around feeling guilty for this by promising that, as soon as he was mentally on his feet, he'd return the favor. Deidara belatedly realized he already had. He'd come to see Sasori that day the boss was out, without being called. He smiled and leaned back into Laurie's embrace.
Laurie held him just a little tighter. "So...what about you?"
"Uh…" Dei tried to come up with something plausible, and failed. She might find out anyway, he reasoned. And feared. He readjusted his front ponytail, which did not need it, and tried to be casual. "Um...So, I didn't really want a lot of people around, and I didn't know what I thought about explosives, it was kind of sudden…" he stalled.
Laurie's grip on him loosened just a little. "There," he pointed, before she could say or do anything else. He did not point to the cheap apartments in town. He did not point to any of the actual homes served by the roads leading out of town. He pointed almost due west, just south of the direction the rest of the group had run in.
"Really?" Thank the gods, Laurie didn't sound like she would judge him for this. "How did you get things? Are there any not-abandoned places that way?"
"I mostly just wanted space to myself, and to not have to deal with things," Deidara admitted. His face was all red. "Kind of a mess after I got back, yeah. 'Specially for the embarrassingly long time it took to think of getting back in touch with Sasori, yeah."
Laurie held him closer again. "I'm glad you did. Sounds like the both of you needed it."
Her breath tickled the side of his neck. "Yeah…" Deidara answered lamely. This is nice.
The upper half of Konan's body formed beside them. "She gets more angry than intimidated by these indirect attacks," Konan informed them. "I'm going to have to be more direct. Be ready to provide backup."
Laurie's arms squeezed tighter, almost fiercely. "I'm kind of looking forward to this. You?"
Deidara took the bird lower. "Hell yeah!"
Konan
She reformed in a side street that crossed the path the succubus was taking as she ran from flying paper shuriken. The last paper shuriken embedded itself in the pavement, forcing the succubus to leap back. She snarled. Konan stepped out behind her and waited in silence. The succubus spun around and nearly smacked into her.
The succubus' face wrinkled like she smelled something noxious as she took in Konan's appearance. "You...who are you?"
Konan stared with her most implacable gaze. "I am the one who will see you leave this place." A kunai entered her hand. "You hurt a man I would give many things to see safe, and threaten others I would give my entire life for. You…" She held up the kunai so it glinted beneath her eyes. "Will not be allowed to continue."
The succubus' eyes widened. "He's already got…?"
Konan glared sternly. "It is best to know who your enemy is. That was a mistake you should not have made."
The demon's eyes settled, and her features began to shift. Konan entrusted her other senses with her safety and glanced skyward. She saw nothing, but wingbeats soon sounded behind her. Konan returned her gaze to the… Wow. The man before her was stunningly attractive. He's got hair like Yahiko's...skin like Hidan's...that predatory look in his eyes of my Hidan… Konan forgot entirely where she was or what was happening. She swallowed back excess saliva as she took in the man before her. He looked delicious. The kunai glinted. A low snarl broke from Konan's throat. I want to do everything to him. The incubus's aura allowed her to forget her more noble desires not to rip open the people she loved. There was nothing to stop her from leaping upon this good looking, good smelling person and sinking her teeth into his well-muscled flesh.
The incubus realized it had indeed made a mistake.
Konan awakened from a dreamlike haze of flirtatious pursuit, with the incubus taking the role of the prey, once they were well into the forest. The demon's features had begun to dissolve, and its aura changed. Konan gritted her teeth in frustration and wished death upon the demon for several more reasons than she had before. The road was not within sight. Konan could not be sure of where she was relative to the abandoned houses.
Snow fell to the right, exploding as it fell. The succubus fled up a hill to the left. So that's how it will be. Konan would keep her moving, and Deidara would provide direction. That was more than fine. Konan poured on the speed, spending chakra she hadn't recovered yet. As long as this worked, she would not complain. Fine with me.
The succubus howled. "Why are you still following me? I can't exactly be killed!"
"We're aware." Konan threw a kunai with an exploding tag. It caught both the demon's legs, causing her to stumble. But the demon stumbled on, nonetheless. She had more than met her match in the human behind her, the human whose eyes sparked with the desire to hurt even as they glazed over, the human who would destroy what was impossible to kill. Yes, she had made a very bad mistake.
Paper claws nipped at her shoulder. Thunder drove her north, then west, then north again. It seemed the entire world was shattering as she broke out into sunlight and clustered houses, like disused nests. The succubus dared not stop to plan. She keened with rage, humiliation, fear, and shrieking powerlessness. Her soul trembled. What was this? Who were they?
A shadow leaped on her right. "Go!" it commanded. And go she did, as a tremendous push lifted her off her feet and sent her tumbling across empty lawns, into a pile of used nesting material and broken glass. She had to be contracting who knows how many terrible diseases in the few seconds she lay there, stunned and in pain and burning up with rage that threatened to make her very soul explode. It was all his fault! That thing, that was in everything now. What had it done to these humans?
Hidan perched on a roof, chewing some birdseed he'd snagged in place of popcorn. His eyes followed her, not leaving even while she screamed.
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