Yahiko
The clay owl was only large enough for two people to ride on its back comfortably. Fortunately, it was a strong flyer and had large, taloned feet.
Yahiko winced as he stretched his arms on the clear patch of grass in front of what appeared to be an old car dealership. "Ow. I heard that stretching the arms above your head like that is how crucifixion kills, but ow."
Nagato was paler than usual as well, though he made no sound of pain. "Mm-hm. Hey, Dei?"
"Yeah, hm?"
"How about you just carry one of us in its feet the normal way, and the other one of us can hop in with you and Kakuzu, or ride its tail or something?"
"Yeah, hm." Deidara's blonde ponytail looked silvery in the moonlight. "I just hope we have time, hm."
"That's what I'm here for," Kakuzu grumbled. "They can't bite through rock-hard skin."
"You guys take care, yeah." Deidara was more somber than usual. Being on a mission had this way of returning him to the military mindset; the same thing had happened during the succubus fight once the action had started. It still felt good. Deidara was more convinced than ever that his getting a uniform was a good idea. He had seen nothing to contradict his idea that something in his mind had never returned to civilian life, and this mismatch was behind many of his problems.
Yahiko tried to arrange his face in the same somber way. It's not somber, it's practical. Thinking that I might be in danger, when I really could be. I need to think this way too. Yahiko's face firmed up, and he nodded. Deidara whispered that he would be a few houses away from them at all times, and lifted off.
To calm himself, Yahiko tried to think of what he needed to do. I shouldn't be too somber, though. I should be friendly. The vampires haven't done anything, and they don't have a reason to hate the rest of us even if they have. If I look grim, it'll look bad. Grim doesn't really suit me anyway. He relaxed his shoulders and smiled slightly. There. That felt appropriately serious.
He and Nagato started walking into the houses, keeping eyes and ears out for activity. "So, what's the thing you mentioned?" Yahiko whispered.
"Hidan has a kind of similar need for blood," Nagato whispered back. "Not as much, so I don't see how he could compete with them or anything, but it's a possibility."
"Really?" Hidan's never said anything. And even though he acts different, he's never said anything about being physically different. "That's interesting."
"I think it's eerie. I think a lot of things are." Nagato looked around. "Speaking of which…"
"See anything?"
"No, but we should stop talking."
"Yeah, sure. Right."
They continued walking, which Yahiko interpreted to mean that Nagato hadn't heard anything, either. He shivered as a wildly overgrown bush brushed his arm. That's how it feels. I can see why she freaked out. The moon was mostly full, but clearly on its way out, and the buildings did much to cast shadows even if none of them were terribly large. They glanced at each other. Neither knew if vampires needed lamps.
They wouldn't, since they have sharper senses, right? Better eyes, better ears, smell. Wait. Smell. Oh, that's not good. Yahiko realized that if vampires had sharp senses of smell, then they could probably smell fear. It was no good arranging his face to look confident if inside he was really freaking out.
He nudged Nagato's hand. Nagato looked at him questioningly. Yahiko gestured to his nose, then whispered, "So what kind of vampires do you think we have?"
Nagato touched his nose, flinched as something crackled under his foot, then understood. "Who knows?" he said, trying to make himself less scared by thinking of it as a remote issue. "The things in this town aren't quite like they are in stories. The demon boy, for instance. What kind of demon is that? I don't even know about the snake kid."
Yahiko shrugged. "Might just be regular vampires. Sounds similar so far - no smell, except blood, nocturnal."
Nagato's heart still thumped in his ribs. It wasn't working. "Maybe." He fiddled with the zipper of his cloak, making sure it was as high as it could go for the 7th time since they'd started walking.
Yahiko whispered, mostly to himself, "It doesn't matter. Because no matter what, I like Hidan. He helped me figure out why I could make people nervous, and what to do about it. He's a good guy. He's good to talk to. He's my friend." He felt his heartbeat slow, and smiled. Success!
Nagato couldn't get his hopes up quite that high. But that was okay, because if what Yahiko had thought of was true, then he and Yahiko were a complementary set, doing what the other couldn't. Yin and yang. It was okay to be more cautious while Yahiko was bold. No; it was his job to be so. His heartbeat eased as well. Nagato readied his chakra, just in case he had to defend the both of them. Because that was also his job.
Yahiko's instincts pinged. He felt twitchy, and looked around. He felt not alone. He took Nagato's hand and squeezed.
Nagato glanced around. He briefly wished his eyes had sensory powers as they should. Where were they? He saw nothing, but he had a feeling like he was being watched too.
Yahiko thought of Konan, of his plans to talk to nature spirits. This was his chance to prove to her that he could handle himself, and prove to himself the same thing. If he was really being honest, what reason did he have to believe he would be okay, except for a basic sense that the world was a good place? Konan clearly didn't feel the same, and feelings and ideals weren't admissible as evidence. He needed a demonstration. It was time to make the universe live up to that sense.
Still holding Nagato's hand, Yahiko steered them onto an open intersection. If he was really being honest, he also had to admit his own confidence was on the line. What if his basic sense about the world was wrong? What he was about to ask for would be the only validation he had received in his life so far. Nagato shared his basic optimism, so they held each other up. But what adversity had they really faced down and claimed victory over? What change had they really made? How strong were they, really? Yahiko bit his lip. I shouldn't rely on Nagato to convince me that we really can do good things in a good world. I need to believe it myself. Without trying to, he remembered that stream of water he had conjured. He had lifted water off the ground like it was nothing, like it was an extension of himself. He had one of the four elements on his side.
The surge of power this thought brought him was a great comfort. It would have been greater if he'd been in a very watery place, but he had managed to work with the water inside a plant before. This overgrown forest would do.
In the dead center of the intersection, Yahiko brought them to a stop. They turned to face behind them. It was a purely symbolic gesture, since the vampires could have been anywhere and they would be equally invisible, but the symbolism was needed. Nagato swallowed and struggled to remind himself of his strength. How was Yahiko looking so bold?
Yahiko was glad Nagato was there to keep an eye out with him. He needed half of his focus to keep from thinking about all of the things that would make him feel less confident if he thought about them.
Nagato looked around. His eyes were adjusting to the dark well, and he thought he saw movement. His grip on Yahiko's hand tightened. He couldn't stop thinking about all of the many very good reasons they had to be afraid right now. He would keep all of those reasons in mind so that Yahiko didn't have to.
They waited.
From their right, something crackled.
Yahiko turned to look. Nagato looked away, instinctively scanning the opposite direction in case it was a distraction. He was very conscious of his hand in Yahiko's, the two of them joined as if one. Itachi called them twins sometimes, if he thought it wouldn't get back to them. Nagato thought of telling him he didn't mind being so called, that it was accurate. The warmth of Yahiko's heartbeat beat against his.
One shape approached from their left. Meanwhile, Yahiko saw three emerge from the shadows to their right. All four stepped out to join them in the intersection, under the moonlight.
Nagato was surprised to see that they looked normal. He'd thought they would look more monstrous. He'd let his fears get the best of him.
Yahiko let go of Nagato's hand and stepped forward, moving in front of Nagato slightly. Nagato glanced around to cover their backs. Yahiko waved. "Hello! Thanks." He gestured to the right, where the sound had come from.
The woman in front sniffed. "It's only courteous to treat guests politely. You've come here for a reason. No sense in torturing you before I find out why."
Yahiko couldn't help smiling. They sound like really reasonable people! This is gonna work out. "Well, we just wanted to know more about something we heard of that was strange." Should I mention we're friends with Hidan? They probably know, but I shouldn't anyway. It'd just make everything weird and hard to talk about.
With that in mind, he tried to figure out how he could approach the topic of Hidan without making everything personal. "Um, a friend of ours was looking into town laws for personal reasons, and he found that there was lobbying to close off the forest, for some reason. We think that's the same group as you guys, so, why?" Why didn't Kakuzu tell us more about what he was doing and what he found?!
One of the men standing behind her with his hands in his pockets snorted and grinned. He was better described as a boy. He said nothing, so Yahiko didn't know why he'd grinned. Maybe he was impressed that they'd found out so much? Only now did Yahiko get a good look at them, since he hadn't really been paying attention to these three before. If they were backup, they weren't the hired muscle kind.
A girl of apparently similar age to the boy twisted her hands together and snuck glances at the woman they stood behind as if she wasn't sure why she'd been granted the honor of being here, and the third, a man who looked like he was in his 40s, glanced over the whole scene as if he was an adult supervising a children's field trip. He looked mostly bored, but a little interested in the two humans.
The woman in front smiled. "You are different from most of the people we've seen, aren't you?"
Yahiko nodded. "We have...reasons to be. Yes."
She nodded her head politely. "If that's so, we might be able to see eye-to-eye for once. We could help each other. What do you say?"
Yahiko's heart soared. Helping each other?! It's perfect! His face lit up immediately, but before he could say anything, Nagato jabbed him in the ribs. The redhead stepped out from behind Yahiko and drew in front of him, reversing their positions. "Excuse me," he said, "we're going to need to know what, exactly, you want to 'help each other' with."
The leader looked him up and down, like she had previously appraised Yahiko. "Aren't you two a dynamic duo? Very nice. Well, alright. Buckle in.
"We're trying to make it so that humans have limited access to the forest in order to protect ourselves," she began. "And protect humans, too. We only want to keep everyone safe.
"Unfortunately, some humans threaten this. They call themselves 'vampiric,' but trust me, they are nothing like us. They are human in all but a strange need to drink blood. They benefit from it, too. That's why they're so dangerous."
She stepped forward. Nagato and Yahiko held their ground. Looking from one to the other, she told them, "We've known about their kind for a long time. They compete with us for very limited food; how could we not? Once, vampires accepted their presence, kept them around and treated them as being nearly like us. That was a mistake.
"Over and over again, the same thing happened, always. They started out perfectly kind, decent, human. Then, inevitably, they stumbled onto some source of power that they could get more of only if they consumed more blood." Her face darkened. "So they began to see vampires as competition, and humans as food. Tell me…"
She looked from one to the other. They were both starting to get worried. Where is she going with this? "Tell me," she repeated, "that white-haired friend of yours, or anyone else like him. Have you ever seen a glint in their eyes? A predatory instinct, to harm, to kill? A fleeting desire that could all too easily turn on you? Raising a weapon or looking at your neck just a little too long, appraising you like a lamb to the slaughter…"
Yahiko's entire back stiffened, and he felt cold all over. Lamb to the slaughter. Paper claws. A dismembered deer. Nagato's eyes narrowed, and his hands tightened into fists.
The woman smiled. "I see you have. So have we. The fact is, so-called 'vampiric' humans are a danger to both humans and vampires. We have opened an entirely new world for ourselves, a world of scent and sights otherwise undetectable, a nighttime world that humans do not share and therefore do not compete with us for, and we earned it by becoming restricted to one of the most difficult and restrictive diets imaginable. It's not even as filling as you'd expect." She chuckled.
"This broken breed of humans seeks to take over both worlds, and they earn none of it. They take blood not to keep themselves alive, but to keep themselves powerful. A small group can consume far more blood more quickly than a medium to large society of vampires, and they will search for more. They take humans as food, and starve honest people who only wanted to fly freely at night to death."
She held up a hand. "Of course, I know yours haven't proceeded to that point yet. The white-haired one takes only small mammals once or twice a week, and if you know any others that we haven't seen yet, you clearly aren't afraid of them. But the white-haired one and any others will turn on you, very soon. We know about that symbol."
Nagato swallowed. He didn't want to, not in front of them, but he couldn't help it. "What symbol?"
She looked at him as if she was so disappointed. "Don't lie to me. We can feel it, just like you can. Even more so, actually, considering that the god to whom that symbol belongs was stolen from us in the first place."
Nagato and Yahiko's mouths dropped open. Jashin sama is a vampire god? Nagato remembered the incredible amount of blood required to draw the symbol. Yahiko remembered how it itched, as if it didn't fit right. Was this true?
"Time for a history lesson." She spread her hands wide. "Once, a long time ago, vampires worshipped that one. We worshipped almost as if he was a very great, very powerful vampire himself. Gave blood to feed him, all of that. In return, our powers grew even greater, making our natural regeneration even stronger and allowing us to survive just about anything.
"Then those off-breeds decided to join in. They needed less blood for their own survival, so they gave far more than we could. They got even more powers than the regular worshippers did! We physically could not give so much and survive! No god should discriminate so unfairly. They became a large and obnoxious base, pretending to be better simply because they needed less.
"Then a prophet came. I'll spare you the details of his story - suffice to say, he had a line. He was how we learned of that god's name, or our closest approximation of it, and he also demonstrated that someone had a clear preference now for human off-breeds, and not the beings that he'd originally been housed by. He also was a very, very public figure. Knowledge spread even into the human world, where previously undiscovered off-breeds heard just enough to join in. Everything was changed.
"We'd had some go power-hungry before. They gain about the same powers we have from adopting a diet just like ours, so it was no more trouble than any dictator. But their new patron deity had no stomach to grow full, and only gave more power in relation to blood sacrificed, so they went wild. Responsible vampires were forced to institute a culling program."
Nagato made some inarticulate sounds. "Culling? You mean...genocide?"
The leader gave him another disappointed look. "They're more like animals than they are like civilized people of either species, darling." She shook her head. "The social upheaval could only turn in their favor, or ours. It was war; what do you expect?
"It was all we could have done. Now, there are none allowed into the vampire world. Since they're human, they continue to pop up in the human world, and they continue to worship somehow even though we're sure knowledge of that god was suppressed and destroyed. Probably he encourages it. It's a bother."
She held out a hand. "We did nothing about the white-haired one, because he is the only one and he was just a boy. If there are more, or he's growing violent, and especially if he's bringing that god into this, then we can't be held back by conscience anymore. I'm not asking you to kill your friend - he just needs to be stopped if he is violent, separated from that god, and the symbol needs to be destroyed. Will you help us protect everyone?"
Nagato felt weak. Yahiko stumbled forward so they were side by side, and they leaned on each other. They glanced at her hand, at the other three vampires, at the sky - everything except her face.
Yahiko shook his head weakly. "Hidan's not dangerous." He really likes other people, and wants to help. He could never hurt anyone. "He - he can literally feel exactly what someone else feels. He can't hurt anyone."
The woman focused her green eyes on him. "Are there any others?"
Yahiko hesitated. He wasn't any good at lying. It was better when people were straightforward and truthful with each other; Yahiko believed that not knowing the truth was the cause of unpeaceful things. "Um...not exactly… Kind of? Almost?" Konan doesn't need to drink blood. Does she? Aside from that she's a lot like Hidan. I had no idea he needed to drink blood.
"Did whoever you're talking about follow him, specifically?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Drawn to the symbol?"
"...Yes."
She sighed. "That's harm enough."
Yahiko shook his head, more strongly this time. "He isn't dangerous. That's not true. It's not right either." The symbol itches, but it doesn't really feel wrong. If it was wrong, I'd know. Hidan's not wrong either. The idea of getting rid of them, though… That does feel wrong. But how can I say that it is, with no proof?
Nagato was grateful for this little discussion. It had given him exactly the time he needed to get his brain back in gear. "No."
Yahiko and the vampires looked at him. Nagato straightened and met the leader's gaze directly. "We will not accept your offer. Not yet. Not until we have information of our own." He glanced sideways at Yahiko. "There's no way I'll agree to anything drastic, without knowing anything of what's going on, based solely on a version of history that's definitely been edited by the winners. Even I can pick out some parts of that story that don't make sense."
Yahiko looked at Nagato with adoration. Yes! That makes sense. It's the only thing that does. How does he make sense of things so quickly? It was clear what they needed to do. If Yahiko continued to say that nothing about her proposal felt right to him, he would be argued down. Nagato couldn't back him up yet, because he didn't know enough to build a counterargument. They had to retreat and gather support for their position.
The leader dropped her hand. "Don't make sense?" She sounded angry, for the first time in the whole discussion. "It all makes perfect sense. Broken humans find power in a corrupt god and use it. Both need to be kept as far away from civilized, decent people as they can be." She caught her tone beginning to rise just as the middle-aged man looked at her sharply. "But, it is good that you have reason. Once you see, you might just make decent allies." She nodded politely at them. "I look forward to seeing you two again. This has been...interesting."
Yahiko blinked rapidly. "Wait!"
She halted in her turn and stared at him. He asked, "Do you have any idea where Hidan is right now? He was upset earlier and I want to talk to him. He said he's slept here before…"
"No idea," she replied. "I'm sure someone's keeping track, but I haven't received a report. Go back home." Without another word or gesture, she turned, gathered her three attendants with a glance, and they all disappeared into the shadows.
Nagato let out a shuddering breath several seconds after they disappeared from sight. He reached for Yahiko's hand. "Oh god," he whispered. "I don't doubt that what we heard was heavily edited, but… Could Hidan or Konan really -"
"No," Yahiko answered. "I can't say why, but I don't think so. They're not like that. She said things are wrong and bad, but nothing feels wrong or bad. It isn't true."
Nagato shivered. "I can't tell who's telling the truth. Everything sounds plausible…"
Yahiko squeezed his hand hard enough to cause some small amount of pain. "She's not telling the truth. We need to talk to Hidan, find out more like you said."
Nagato leaned onto his shoulder and sighed. "I'm glad you're so confident."
"And I'm glad you can make sense of things." Yahiko looked up at the sound of wingbeats.
Deidara and Kakuzu landed where the four vampires had previously stood in the middle of the intersection. Deidara visibly restrained himself from leaping off his owl and running to Nagato. Instead he asked, "What happened, yeah? Is anyone hurt? What'd she say?"
Yahiko pushed Nagato upright, and they walked over to the bird. Nagato shook his head. "No, it's… It's complicated. We need to find out more, make sense of it."
"Is Hidan hurt?" Kakuzu asked.
Yahiko shook his head no. "She said she has no idea where he is, only that someone's probably tracking him. Apparently they do that."
Kakuzu rolled his eyes. "Wonderful. It sounds like everything's grown vastly more complicated, and all for no reason." He tilted his head towards the owl's tail feathers. "Those can curl up. Get in."
Yahiko and Nagato stayed silent for the entire trip back. They would only respond to Kakuzu's annoyed and Deidara's worried inquiries with, "We need to talk to Hidan." This pissed off Kakuzu even more and worried Deidara even closer to a panic attack, so they stopped asking.
The fire was entirely out when they returned to the backyard, but Itachi had elected to stay behind and keep a watch on the back porch. Something else fluttered away into the darkness as the four of them got off the owl. Deidara jumped at the sound and asked, "Itachi, what was that?"
"A crow, I think," Itachi replied. "These steps were used by birds before. Perhaps some are getting used to human activity and coming back." He stood. "Is Hidan okay?"
Yahiko nodded yes, then remembered that Itachi probably couldn't see him well in the dark. "Yeah. The vampires keep track of him, but they're not eager to hurt him. The four we met just looked like really normal people, actually."
"I take it he hasn't come back yet?" Nagato asked. "Darn. We need to talk to him. Urgently."
Itachi looked at them with the Sharingan. What he saw frightened him, though he didn't show it on his face. Nagato appeared to be genuinely scared and unsure, his normal calm fractured to pieces. Yahiko was doing better emotionally, but he had a very serious look on his face. Either he'd matured into a full-fledged ninja in a miraculously short time span, or something of great importance was weighing him down. Nagato's look showed that it could not be a good kind of important. What could be both that large and that bad?
"I'll inform Konan," he told them. His voice quavered. "She can use some technique to search for him, now that we know he's not in danger."
Yahiko nodded. "That'd be good. Thank you."
Itachi went inside, and broke into a run.
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