Yahiko
The door clicked softly as it closed behind Nagato, who wasn't aware of closing the door at all. He swallowed and leaned back against it, finally giving his head license to spin. Yahiko wiped at his eyes every two seconds with sleeves that were both too wet to do anything except spread water all around his face. Hidan gently lowered Konan's head to the bed next to him, and propped his scythe up between the bed and the side table. That done, he stayed sitting next to her, brushing a few stray strands of hair out of her face.
Yahiko started raising the bottom of his shirt to wipe his eyes instead. At any other time, for any other reason, either Nagato or Hidan or both would have offered him a sleeve. Neither moved to help him now.
Nagato's head was still spinning. What was he to do? What should he do? Partial answers to those questions drifted past, whizzing in and out of his attention like circus gnats. He had a vague idea, then another, then another. He leaned back, putting more pressure on his shaking hands, and did nothing.
Yahiko gave up and let the tears drip down into his shirt. "I might be sick," he whispered.
Nagato tried to move out of the way, but couldn't muster enough attention to do so.
Yahiko was not sick. The heavy weight at the bottom of his stomach did a convincing impression of nausea, but was not it. His stomach twisted at the look on Konan's face. Despite having gotten as much as she had out, she did not look peaceful. Far from it. If he'd had to guess at the cause of her unconsciousness just from the look on her face, he might have guessed something along the lines of "medically induced coma." He felt, in his uncomfortably large heart, the enormity of what had been revealed so far. All that, and nobody had guessed any of it. What else must still be hidden?
Nagato whimpered. He was starting to recover enough to process what she had said more deeply. He could almost see Yahiko's face as pale as she had described, and still. His mouth filled with water. He really was going to be sick.
Yahiko gestured at her, asking a silent question. Hidan's brow furrowed. He had no way of even guessing what question Yahiko could be asking. His mind felt like it was tied to an invisible stake in the ground, and that stake was Konan.
Nagato stumbled out of the bathroom and leaned against the door again, this time sliding down to the ground. "How?" he asked. "Oh my god…"
Yahiko swallowed. "Is she...going to be okay?" Why can't I think of a better question? Why?
Hidan shrugged. His eyes looked distant, and talking seemed to be beyond his efforts for the moment. He rubbed his forehead between his eyes, visibly resisting sleep.
Nagato got to his feet. "Probably," he answered. "She's survived this far. Not just survived, but also made plans, and fought, and been kind to us. She's stronger than anyone; she has to have the strength to recover."
He turned his attention to Konan, and started shaking. "This isn't the first time her world's ended." Nagato's eyes began to fill with tears, even as they widened in awe. "I can't begin to imagine living through something so terrible. If you… I can't even say it. That would be the end of my world. I couldn't handle that at all."
Yahiko reached for his hand and squeezed in agreement. "I'm not brave enough to imagine it either," he whispered. "A terrorist organization? Oh...gods…" He couldn't imagine Nagato ever being something terrible. He couldn't imagine the Nagato he knew, with smile intact and a strong heart and sound mind, ever being angry or cold. It would be like the wreckage of a house collapsing, broken and rotted beams falling in and lying, still, in a pile of ruin. "It would be like you died."
Nagato nodded. "I would be. Because my world would be over, if you were pale and...stiff...and…" He gagged, but had nothing more for his stomach to reject. "I really would be dead. But she's alive, even though she loved you, so her world had to fall apart too. And then her world fell apart again so now she's here, and who knows what happened in between." He shook his head. He couldn't speak of the other horrors she had described, but what did that matter? The fact that she hadn't just fallen down and given up at some point was too astonishing already.
Yahiko looked again at her face. It was still the furthest thing from peaceful, and peace was all Yahiko had ever really aimed for. His hand tightened on Nagato's. "I'm sorry."
Nagato looked at him, baffled. Hidan sensed a change and stopped smoothing Konan's hair back from her face, looked up at Yahiko instead. Yahiko made a move as if to reach out with his other hand, but stopped. Would it be a good idea? Nobody reassured him it would. I don't need to, anyway. I can talk about this. He swallowed and prepared what he had to say.
"I'm sorry, Konan." This part would have to be repeated when she was awake. "I'm sorry for all those jokes I made, and references, about my impending demise and sacrifices. I didn't take it seriously. You said your world is full of fighting, and I died, but I was stupid and didn't think about what that meant. I'm sorry."
He wiped at his nose. "From now on, I won't do that anymore. I'll take myself seriously, and I won't go running off to talk to a demon alone. I only just now thought of how scary that would have been, for anyone. I promise, I'll stay safe. I'll take extra training too, whatever it takes. I'll prove that I won't die again."
Yahiko sniffled and wiped at his nose again. His sleeves were in useless condition. He sniffled again to keep his nose in line, and looked sideways at Nagato. "She has to get better. I don't like seeing people like that; she has to. That means we have to fix her world. I can't undo anything, but I'll prove myself. I will."
Nagato nodded, unaware that he was doing so, or that he was beginning to smile. "I've never had a sister," he thought aloud. "If she wants to, I wouldn't mind trying to be a brother to her."
Yahiko turned back to Hidan. A warm feeling was blooming in his chest, spreading like a lotus in his heart. Fix the world. Is this what destiny feels like? No other goal had ever made him feel like this. Saving the world sounded hokey, but it felt right. And who knew what was possible, now that the world wasn't how they had thought it was? Who said he couldn't? At the least, he could save one world, and even if it was only one, that would be enough. Here, together, with his oldest friend and another just as true, they could do anything. Even if that anything was to pick Konan back up, hold her, keep her warm, and heal her back together again.
Hidan blinked. The imaginary light he saw was dazzling. It was almost hard to look at. Nagato could have sworn he actually saw a glow coming from Yahiko's eyes and skin.
"Hidan," Yahiko began. Though gentle, his voice would be obeyed without question. "Take us into town tomorrow. Get us cloaks like you have, like she has."
Hidan blinked some more. "Y-yeah." He yawned. He wasn't sure how much more he could take of feeling. His heart was tired.
Yahiko carefully let go of Nagato's hand. He gathered himself as much as he could, then approached Hidan. Softly, he covered Hidan's cheek with his hand, tilting Hidan's head up to look him in the eyes.
The uplifting feelings did more for Hidan than an IV of cocaine. His eyes opened wider, focusing on Yahiko's face. Hope shone through them. He felt some great warm flower inside as well, although, since he was still cradling Konan's head, the imaginary flower floated above a void. But that was alright, because Yahiko had said they could close the void, and Hidan could now see why he was so certain. It felt like he was remembering something already past, that the void was already filled with something cool and soothing. Hidan still desired rest, but he was no longer tired. He could go on as long as he was needed. He reached up to cover Yahiko's hand and nodded. All was well.
Yahiko took his hand back and straightened up, looking very proud. He looked at Konan once more, biting his lip. Should he? Could he? Hidan nodded.
Yahiko sat down on her other side and held Konan's hand. Maybe, wherever she was, she could feel it. I can see it, he realized. I can see how she and I could have been together. When she's asleep like this, she looks so much more peaceful, so welcoming. In another life, I could have been with her. "This explains a lot about why I've never had a girlfriend," he mused. "Other Me wouldn't have been with anyone else. Having her subtracted from my memories leaves nobody."
Only in another life. She's too different now. That was a very sad thought. Yahiko squeezed her hand. "I promise. I'll undo the subtraction too. You're not gone, not now. It's alright." How badly must that hurt, to be subtracted from everyone you ever knew? His heart ached. He squeezed her hand and got up silently. Nagato opened the door, and they left her in peace and quiet. The door shut with barely a sound. Yahiko waved down the hall to his room, where he probably had some tissues he could use.
Nagato held his hand, correctly figuring that Yahiko wouldn't mind. That was a bittersweet thought. On the one hand, it felt good to hold Yahiko's hand. On the other, it didn't mean anything. Yahiko would never mind, because holding anyone's hand was nothing special. Sometimes Nagato felt like he wanted to be special and outstanding in some way, to be able to communicate to Yahiko how much holding hands meant to him. He almost wanted Yahiko to not give his hand so freely. Almost.
On a related note… "That must have been nice."
"What?"
"Helping Hidan like that while he's in female form. Anyone else would get ideas." Nagato knew better than to think that such a gesture could be special. Not coming from Yahiko. Anybody else would get ideas, but not Nagato. He was forever cursed to have no illusions about how platonic most of Yahiko's actions really were.
"Oh…" Yahiko only just then realized that. "Yeah, maybe someone else would've. I didn't. If it was nice, I couldn't tell. Things like that get drowned out, so it would be really hard for me to know. Maybe it was nice." He didn't really want to think about Hidan like that, though. "So, how are you?"
They stopped outside Yahiko's door. Nagato released Yahiko's hand, briefly mourned, and shrugged. "I'm going to have nightmares for the next month," he admitted. "Zombie You'll be chasing me down, or worse, just looking at me. Always looking. Always judging." Nagato fervently hoped talking about nightmares in real life dealt with them, somehow. Otherwise, he'd just filmed a whole horror movie for himself.
Yahiko forced out a laugh. "Me too, probably. Maybe about you, or about Konan. You'll be ordering my death for reasons I can't explain, or she'll be, I don't know, jumping off a cliff." As soon as the last syllable left his mouth, Yahiko knew immediately that he should not have added the second part. Hooray, I'm unique. I get to know exactly what I'm dreaming about in advance. He shivered.
Nagato winced. "Honestly, after everything we've been through, all in the space of a week, I think everyone's having nightmares. It's only reasonable. I remember hearing the incubus' screams in one of my dreams just last night, from after she poured salt over him. We need time."
Yahiko had to agree with that. "You think that counts as traumatic?"
"I'll bet you the entire contents of my wallet right now that nobody's going to be touching Sasori without him flinching for the next week, at least."
Yahiko considered this problem. "Do you think after a week, anyone'll be willing to start group therapy sessions?"
"No. I think anyone will be willing, not after a week, but after we find someone else." Nagato explained, "We fought as a group; we were all there. Commiseration's great, but somebody, anybody else who isn't themselves having nightmares would be better. Maybe those other people that are also ninjas could help."
"That guy who shouldn't be here, like me," Yahiko recalled. "You're right. I really want to talk to him now. Oh, I'm going to take forever to get to sleep now."
"Me too," Nagato acknowledged. "Me too."
Talking about it may not help the nightmares themselves, he thought, but it was doing a lot to help everything else. Humor makes a great nightcap. Nagato considered putting that on a bumper sticker.
Konan
Meanwhile, Hidan had returned to the land of the exhausted. It wasn't a physical exhaustion that he could just sleep off. It was a mental exhaustion, so that Hidan found his thoughts dipping down into pessimism whenever he bothered to notice, and he couldn't steer them back up. It was an emotional exhaustion, so that he couldn't have cheered himself up, even if he had possessed the slightest inclination to try. Trying was impossible. Motivation did not exist. He sat there, with his perfectly healthy and well-functioning body, ruminating on how he could not, would not, use it for anything. Wasn't that a great fuckin' irony? Only a person in no need of help could have the ability to try. As soon as he needed to try to help himself, the ability to try was gone. Hidan felt a glimmer of kinship with catatonic patients. Sitting here forever was a possibility; his body felt entirely filled with some kind of liquid sludge. Mud, or more likely, liquid concrete. It was heavy. Hidan felt numb, like every nerve in his body had been removed. That would explain the paralysis.
Though his thoughts dragged, at least they moved. Maybe he could use his mind. Hidan felt very clearly that he could not move himself, so he remembered Yahiko. Yahiko was strong and capable of moving things. Hidan imagined Yahiko sitting with him, using those healing powers on his missing nerves. Just like that, Hidan regained the ability to move his arm. He scratched his head, more than content to pretend it was Yahiko helping him instead of him helping himself. If he thought the latter, it wouldn't work because he knew he couldn't do anything.
Konan took a deeper than usual breath. Hidan congratulated himself on having had the foresight to use the last of Yahiko's provided strength to lift Konan up and hold her against his side. She leaned on him now, her head on his shoulder. It was very nice. It might have been romantic, if not for the obvious problem with that idea.
She yawned, and opened her eyes. Gazing down at the carpet, she observed that she was somewhere safe and warm. Did she have to get up? A ninja, she remembered Jiraiya sensei saying, is one who endures. Jiraiya sensei's wisdom hadn't worked so well lately. Who else had wisdom she could use? She recalled Hidan's wisdom. It had worked much better. Screw enduring. I don't want to, so fuck off. She felt kilometers better already, just being able to say that. She laughed to herself. The idea of having to endure was itself a thing to endure. She felt very free now.
That laugh echoed in emptiness, and Konan realized that it didn't matter if she chose to endure or not. The simple fact was that there was nothing to endure with. The softness and warmth of her current position was good, because she was stuck with it. The world was too heavy. Just...fuck off. She thought this at the world now. It helped, but not as much as someone to lift the world off her would have.
Hidan sighed next to her. Of course. What else could it be? She could only be with this Hidan who was not quite Hidan. Konan mustered the strength to turn just slightly and wrap her arms around him. She wanted to just dive into him and stay there, suspended forever in wild currents. He tightened his arm around her. If there was nothing else, there was him.
Some last, subterranean part of the dam cracked open. A little trickle of gratitude sprung from it, containing all the power of a thousand breakdowns like the one she just remembered having. Her breath shook. Hidan was here, and that mattered. It mattered so much.
"They're gone," she realized. She had seen the clones as strangers once, when they had been horrified at her. But then the three that mattered most had come for her, and she'd let herself believe otherwise. It had felt good to believe they were, or could be, at least a little of who she remembered. But it wasn't reality. They were all gone. Or was it she who was gone? Subtraction. That word had been used to describe it somewhere. It was terribly accurate. She was one person, and now she was subtracted, and there was nothing.
Something seemed wrong with that logic. Konan remembered that she still existed. So one minus one did not equal zero? She was very confused.
"They don't wanna be," murmured a voice of wisdom. "He promised that you wouldn't be subtracted, that you'd come back. They wanna rebuild your world. So hold still, things are better."
From the little trickle of gratitude came strength. The ability to feel ridiculous came back. "Oh gods," she whispered. "Did that happen in front of everyone?"
"Yep."
"I'm not much of a leader now, then. Pathetic." She supposed it was inevitable. No king can rule forever, and all that. At least she'd told Nagato. This version wasn't so much of a leader, but if he and Yahiko were together, it might work.
"What ya talkin' about?" Hidan's words, she noticed, sounded lazy. He spoke like someone who was aiming to minimize the number of syllables he had to pronounce. He sounded tired. "Your respect is way up. They had no idea you had family, or liked him, or any a that."
Why should that make a difference? She'd run to the end of her rope. That was it; it was all over for her. "What do you mean?"
"They're amazed at how strong you are," she heard. That can't be right. "Having legit reasons to be unstable and such is more respectable than being in that condition because you just, I don't know, couldn't bother holding together."
"I had a breakdown in front of everyone," she insisted. That was not a thing someone fit for leadership did. It was weakness.
"So? Weakness is being all messed up for no reason. You have like all the reasons, and you still talk and shit. That's strong. Besides, it helps take things down a notch. Easier to be your buddies if they can freakin' do things for ya. If they couldn't, it'd be like being under your command, like you were supreme lord admiral or whoever. You can't be buddies with a supreme lord admiral. Buddies get more respect, and it's just easier."
What? A pit opened up beneath Konan's thoughts. She spent the next five minutes, at least, wallowing in it. What? Friends? Not under command? The Akatsuki? That didn't make any sense. We work together. An organization. Work = command. They wanted to have some organization, right? Someone had to be in charge. Who was in charge, if they didn't want her to be? Organization = command. One - one = zero. Not only was the world heavy, it was also completely strange. Was red going to be blue next?
She went to the tremendous effort of giving up and snuggled into Hidan's shoulder. "You?" There were so many questions she could be asking that Konan didn't actually know which one she was asking first.
"Yeah."
"Stay."
"Yep."
"..."
"..."
The ability to feel pain came back. Konan closed her eyes and took it. It felt like needles. "Who promised that?" she finally remembered to ask.
"Sunshine did." Hidan shook her back and forth for attention and looked at her. "It was fucking awesome. He said this whole inspirational thing about how he's sorry for making jokes and running off, and he won't do that anymore. Oh, him and Redhead want to get cloaks, just so you know. And Redhead said he would not mind having a sister, not at all. Um...he'll sign up for more training too, so you can know he won't die and shit. And he totally gets why he's never had a girlfriend now."
Hidan tried to remember if there was anything else to tell her about. No, that was pretty much it. He turned his attention to other matters. "You do know we want to help, right?"
Konan was still unable to decide how she felt about this version of Nagato wanting to be her brother. Did I even hear that correctly? "I'm sorry?"
"The three of us," Hidan prompted. "Like before, when we found ya on the roof. We promised to help you. We want to. And I'm glad you'll let me, even if you forgot they also want to, because I gotta burst your bubble here." His voice took on the universal tone of tough love. "It's always been freakin' obvious that you needed it. Literally everyone knew there's something off in here." He gently pressed a finger to her forehead. "The only question anyone's ever had is, is it bad enough and unfixable enough to abandon ship, or not? If we needed to think you were strong and mighty enough to be the big boss or whatever, you wouldn't have been. Luckily for you, we're not a bunch of terrorists and psychopaths. Now, you want help, or not?"
His eyes were filled with expectations. They looked at her with certainty that his question was only a formality, that of course she would accept her radically altered position in a group full of people she didn't actually know, start all over again. Her heartbeat thrummed in her ears. Most of her wanted to say, I can't start again like that. As if anything Hidan said was even possible. What good was it wanting to help, if nobody could? It would be better for them not to waste their time.
Hidan propped her up as he turned sideways, then wrapped her in a proper hug. "Relax," he ordered. "You're very much overruled anyway." He rubbed her back, and the memory of the last time he had done that made her wince and hold back tears. Gods above, this didn't make any sense. Why?
"Why?"
"Hmm." Hidan kept rubbing her back. "Wrong question. I've always said there's only two kinds of actions: the kind you need a reason to do, and the kind you need a reason not to do. I don't have any choice, and for Sunshine and Redhead, it's just what they do. You'd need to give one honker of a reason why not, or else we will. We help people."
"I'm not a person." Konan was mildly surprised to hear herself say that. But it was true, wasn't it? She'd been subtracted. Besides, she had little practice being a person in her own right. Who am I without them? After a week, she could say: Nothing human.
Hidan drew back and looked her in the eyes. "You are not an unperson. Not true. Lie. You hate lies, right?" He nodded decisively. "That is one."
Is it? Yet, it felt so true. He should know. Or should I? Do I know what's truth and what's a lie? That was horrifying, and depressing (or already depressed), and tiring. She didn't want to be horrified; she wanted to be warm again. I'm pathetic now, reduced to curling up like a little girl. She wasn't much of a person, and according to Jiraiya sensei, she wasn't a shinobi either. I'm not really anything. Gods, Tobi/Madara/Whoever was right. It was possible to be nothing at all.
Though, she did have to admire his ability to act despite knowing that. The muddy feeling was back, and it was difficult to understand how he could have managed to move, never mind make plans to shape worlds. Shaping worlds wasn't in the cards for her, apparently.
Hidan groaned and hugged her again. "Oh, shitttt," he moaned. "How does this work?"
"What?"
"This thing," Hidan clarified. "Are you gonna go back to normal feelings? How long'll that take? How does this usually go?"
"What do you mean? My mood? Why would I have any idea?" She'd never been given any reason to track such a thing. She was a shinobi. Who paid attention to things like that? And why would Hidan assume there was something to track? Moods didn't have patterns. Except for...
"Well," she corrected herself, "there is one thing I've been paying attention to." Ever since it destroyed my world. "As you know, every so often I take some opportunity, even an extremely minor one, to jettison difficult feelings and refuse to deal with them. I stop caring. I always return to caring, to trying to advance my position in life, but each time I've undone all the progress I made before. I vow not to give up again, but it never sticks. I don't really want it to. It's very easy to do anything I want when I don't care if I live or die. I can't tell whether I dread it or look forward to it. I seem to spend a couple months, on average, between those feelings."
"What about this?" Hidan asked.
"This?"
"Uh, yeah. The rebound period? The time where you're stuck going over the stupid shit you did last time? Feeling worse than normal?" Hidan sounded completely flummoxed by her confusion. "You have to notice something that feels worse than normal, right?"
Konan was also completely flummoxed. "This isn't much worse than normal. The only difference is that I'm physically tired. I'll be fine after a few nights of sleep."
Hidan groaned and fell over onto the bed, pulling Konan down with him. "Fuckity." He looked at her, clearly as exhausted as she was. "Sorry. I'd have something nice to say if we were around other people. But I don't, because we're not, and that's just… When people say that, it's… Ah, just fucking too much to deal with. I can't." He sniffled and started to cry. "See, this is why you're strong," he forced out through whimpers. "Anyone who can deal with this kind of shit and do stuff is strong. Really fuckin' strong. I'm fucking impressed."
Konan reached up and silently wiped away the tears he missed in his lackluster wiping. He can't take feeling like this? Were these feelings really abnormal? Surely everyone felt tired sometimes. A shinobi was someone who persevered through that. They were all shinobi; he should be able to handle the occasional lack of motivation.
Hidan sniffled some more. "It felt so much better when Sunshine was here," he whispered. "Like he was glowing. I just wanna lie here now."
His stomach quietly complained. "I'll see what we have," Konan whispered. She brushed his hair behind his ear and stood up, praying that she would meet nobody else.
She moved like a frozen shadow through the halls. In a way, this feels kind of nice. There were a few things in the fridge. I may be nothing in particular, but I can bring food and such to people like him. Even if, she acknowledged sadly, I am the cause of his pain. That wasn't new. When wasn't she the cause of somebody's pain? Konan remembered the first Before, before she had lost her parents. Even then. But she could bring food to Hidan, so she did.
His spirits were partially revived when she returned. He sat cross-legged on the bed, staring down at the carpet. He looked up upon her return. "So," he began. "About the plan I outlined for how it would hopefully go down earlier… I mentioned introductions. We never got to that part."
"Just as well," Konan said as she laid the sandwich she'd made on Hidan's lap. "How would I introduce myself? I have nothing to say."
"Yeah. We'll not, then." He looked deeply disturbed, his eyes clouded over. What was he thinking?
He finished his lackluster eating and sat for a few moments, quiet. Konan wondered if she should be worried. "Hidan?"
"Do you want company tonight?" he asked in return. "I don't have to go back to my room."
Konan blinked. That was...a strange offer. The room wasn't meant for multiple people. He could wrap himself in blankets on the floor, or… No, that would entirely defeat his stated purpose. He must mean to share the bed.
What is there to complain about? I've lain in his arms in the back of a truck before. He is good looking, but he's not like his original. He's off-limits. Her body was on board with that, miracle of miracles. And everyone else seemed to take their closeness for granted. And Konan really didn't want to be alone, for this one night at least.
"Thank you." The little trickle of gratitude stung like extremely potent medicine always does. "I would like that very much."
------------
Support me on Patreon.com and leave a comment on this chapter if you like it or not. It will be more motivation for me.
And let me know if there are errors or mistakes.
You can read the advance chapters here : patreon.com/Vigilante04