Chapter Text
The Akatsuki had survived. Of course he had. This fight hadn’t gone a single way Sasuke had wanted it to, why would this be any different? Drop him on the mines, make it easier to traverse the landscape, deal with the other Akatsuki that seemed impervious to his sword and—shit where was his sword? He left it in the minefield didn’t he? Well, at least it was probably intact.
The Akatsuki was too high up to do anything now. Worse, he was getting reckless. Reckless would’ve suited him fine in any other scenario, but this was an arsonist. If Sasuke didn’t take this fight one careful step at a time, he was liable to get a bomb to the face, no matter how close the Akatsuki was to detonation.
Then again careful steps hadn’t served him too well thus far, hadn’t even really kept him one step ahead. The Akatsuki was smart, smart in ways Sasuke hadn’t actually anticipated, and weren’t necessarily apparent from his proud proclamations.
This had to end now, and it had to end fast.
The clack of sandals on a tree branch, and Sasuke tensed. He’d been looking up at that Akatsuki he hadn’t even thought to look for the other—
But it wasn’t him, he was still standing a few trees away, and stared headlong at the same thing that caught Sasuke’s attention. Perched right on the same tree, shielding her eyes from the sun glare as she stared skyward, was a kunoichi Sasuke had not even slightly realized was nearby.
She looked a bit like the Akatsuki he’d been fighting, not very tall, and lithe. Her strawberry-blonde hair was parted the same way, though shorter and pulled all the way up into a spiky ponytail. She’d pinned her choppy bangs aside to make her forehead protector visible. She wore a blue kimono with one loose sleeve baring a cropped black tank top, lean muscle following the lines of her arm down to a pair of red-armored gauntlets.
“I knew it,” she whispered. Clearly, she hadn’t seen Sasuke at all. With a deep inhale and an outstretched arm, she started shouting. “Deidara! Dei! Hey! It’s me! Narumi!”
Sasuke stared, all at once it felt like every single ounce of tension had just fully left him. The girl started jumping on the branch as she waved, the dopiest crooked grin plastered across her face. Now, she reminded him of someone, someone who also had wild blond hair and a propensity for inane shouting, ironically.
“Who is that?” the Akatsuki’s partner shouted, pointing to the girl. “Is she an enemy? Oh is she with Itachi’s brother? Are we fighting—”
“NO THE FUCK WE ARE NOT!” the airborne Akatsuki shouted back. “AND SHE BETTER NOT BE WITH THAT BOY!”
The girl finally paused and looked at Sasuke, then gave a friendly wave. Something fell into place, and Sasuke quickly flicked his gaze up to the Akatsuki. He hadn’t sent a single attack their way. The girl was too close for an explosive and he was too far up to gauge a more precise attack properly. That girl had value to him. He didn’t want her to get caught in any crossfire.
That could be useful.
Sasuke flicked his hand out, focusing his chakra into a blade just long enough to reach under the girl’s throat. She jerked her head back just a little, eyebrows raised. Sasuke met her gaze evenly.
“Tell him to stand down,” he ordered. The girl knit her brow, then her attention drifted to the Akatsuki’s partner. He didn’t see her expression shift, but it must have, because the masked man jerked back with a yelp.
“Got a name stranger?” the girl asked, not looking at Sasuke but plainly addressing him.
“Not one you need to know,” Sasuke answered. “All I need—”
“Mine’s Narumi,” the girl interrupted, turning to him with a wry smile. “Pleasure.”
She was too calm. Why? Wasn’t she worried about what he would do to her?
Narumi leaned back then swiveled around the branch. The whole tree shuddered and jolted, and Narumi’s leading hand burst from her side of the trunk, a delayed crack of hissing air severing the rest of the trunk. Sasuke kicked off the tree trunk and skidded into the crater left by the mines. Narumi followed, bouncing her way across the loosened dirt as she slowed her progress. She lifted her hand up, holding out an open palm, and Sasuke tensed. Then a gust of air rolled over him and the clay bird once well above them flew just a meter overhead.
He hadn’t realized the Akatsuki had gotten so close, but as the clay bird came about, he signaled back with a closed fist and lifted upwards once more. Sasuke looked down at Narumi, who smiled and spun a hooked kunai in one hand.
Sasuke weighed his options. He didn’t have a lot of chakra left, especially if he kept using his Sharingan or Chidori. She had completely ripped through that tree too. It didn’t look like her hand had a scratch on it. A fight with her would probably be as long and grueling as the fight with the Akatsuki above them if he didn’t play his cards right.
She’d signaled for the Akatsuki to stay back, so clearly, she was confident she could take him without help. Normally he’d think that bold, but he imagined he looked as exhausted as he felt. Fuck, was he starting to feel the aches of overworking himself too. His back burned where his wing would normally be, would probably sport a nasty bruise if he made it out of this.
That wasn’t even touching on his foot. With the distortion of the curse mark gone, he could see the raw bits of skin blistering off and the cracks coming up from the charred sole of his foot. He kept his weight off of it, only grazing the ground with the ball of his foot. Hell, even that hurt, like a knife across the skin. And she could see every bit of that.
Narumi jolted forwards, bringing her foot around towards the ground as chakra concentrated in the sole. Her opposite hand flicked fast between a lighting and earth seal just as her foot connected.
Bad. Bad. Sasuke needed to move.
Forgetting the pain in his foot he bolted back, which was a half-measure. The ground crackled and buckled, then with a great thrum of noise and heat, exploded back out.
Sasuke stumbled on his landing, dropping low and letting the following shockwave roll over him. Same technique as the clay bombs, a lot shorter range, and the Earth Chakra ignition wasn’t delayed. He couldn’t cut it off before it detonated.
The air in the smoke whistled, and Sasuke strafed back as a shape took form. He knew that sound, clear as day.
Narumi burst through the smoke, Sasuke’s own sword in one hand as she brought it around to slash. It was a feint, meant to drive him back, but Sasuke didn’t have anywhere else to go.
He had to keep close to her, keep her engaged. Signal or not that Akatsuki wasn’t bombing him to hell because she was in range.
Sasuke ducked under the slash and reached for the hilt in her hand, but the bottom of the blade would’ve worked. No dice. She caught his shoulder as a landing spot and dropped down, effectively pinning him.
“Pretty eyes,” she complimented, sticking his sword in the ground and dropping her hand down into a lightning seal. The blade crackled with energy. “Figure the trick is to not focus on them, right? Like an optical illusion.”
Exactly right, he’d be impressed if she wasn’t about to kill him. He needed something, literally anything.
Sasuke grabbed the blade of his sword and channeled his own chakra into it. It wasn’t much, but she wouldn’t be able to blow them both up.
“Takes most folks ages to figure it, how lightning and earth makes an explosion,” Narumi flipped her hand to the top of the blade. “Takes them longer to figure out that adding more lightning diffuses it.”
“Neither of you hide your hand signals,” Sasuke croaked out. “You’re igniting the blast with Earth signs.”
“And Earth is weak to lightning,” Narumi smiled. “Smart boy, but you did just, in effect, make a lightning rod.”
Narumi flicked out her hooked kunai and held it to the flat of the blade.
“So, I’m still controlling the amount of lightning in the metal.”
Shit.
Well, Fuck.
Shikamaru stared down at the symbol burned into the dirt, a triangle circumscribed. Just like the circles drawn in blood, burned into his memory. Quite a time to have this much work dumped on him.
“We contacted Yugakure already,” Izumo reported, but he was staring at the symbol too. “I know you wanted to handle anything involving him but—”
“I did,” Shikamaru confirmed, not letting Izumo talk him out of anything, “What did Yugakure say?”
“Nothing,” Izumo replied, “the hawk didn’t even return.”
Comforting. That meant an interception, didn’t it? Yugakure might not even know there was any trouble. Nevermind it, they didn’t need to know. If this was some Jashinist’s attempt at turning the scales, they were in for a wake-up call.
Hidan was already buried in pieces; they weren’t getting him back.
“Here they are,” Ino’s voice was distinct, even from this far off. “Shikamaru! Yugakure sent someone!”
“They could’ve told us,” Izumo muttered.
Shikamaru turned, brow knit. They would’ve. Who did they even—
His blood ran cold making eye contact with the shinobi. A man of average height, dressed in a practical rendition of priest’s robes, and silver hair tied back with only a small fringe. It was his single eye—the other was covered—that bothered him so much.
Deep violet, with the same cold indifference; he looked like Hidan.
“Yugakure didn’t send me at all, Mikami Shrine did,” the man corrected, placing a hand on his chest. “Kyouta, Hidan was a member of our clan, so we take responsibility for his actions over the village.”
A lance to match the rook, then? And Mikami Shrine…that was a shinobi shrine, right on the border. The shrine could’ve intercepted the hawk easily.
But why? Clearly, Hidan didn’t retain the faith he was born to. If the Mikami Shrine wanted to cut off the village’s access to Hidan, there had to be a reason, beyond their own sense of duty. Besides, where had they been when one of their own had carved a bloody path across the Land of Fire? Where had they been when Hidan killed Chiriku or Asuma?
Shikamaru bit the inside of his cheek. He had to word his questions carefully, because Kyouta had his own secrets to keep, and he clearly had every intent on keeping them.
“Is Hidan sealed nearby?” Kyouta asked, circling the symbol on the ground.
“Close enough,” Shikamaru answered. “It’s closer to where we killed Kakuzu.”
Kyouta flicked his eye up to Shikamaru. “His partner?” Kyouta guessed. “I don’t recognize his name.”
“He was Takigakure,” Shikamaru said, trying to figure what Kyouta needed to know and what truths Shikamaru could bend. They were closer to where Kakuzu had been killed, but they were still close enough to Hidan’s grave that someone looking could find it.
“And not of Jashin?” Kyouta guessed.
“Akatsuki, not Jashin,” Shikamaru confirmed. Kyouta perked up at mention of the Akatsuki.
“That’s odd, Jashinism usually forbids working in any capacity with nonbelievers,” Kyouta recalled, then turned back to the symbol. “This isn’t their work either, look.”
Kyouta gently scuffed one sandal on the symbol, which crinkled like breaking glass. Shikamaru knelt and brushed the soot aside. The symbol wasn’t just burned into the ground, the earth had melted in the shape and cooled rapidly, forming lines of obsidian deep into the earth.
“Lava Release,” Kyouta identified, “Iwagakure shinobi occasionally inherit the gift. So, maybe this isn’t about Hidan. Maybe this was just the best way to get your attention.”
A reasonable notion, Shikamaru doubted anyone really had intent of avenging Hidan or Kakuzu. Neither seemed like they got along with each other, let alone other people. They were just two disagreeable monsters forced to share breathing space.
“Then we won’t know what they want until they make another move,” Izumo remarked. “I’ll check in our records to see if any Iwagakure shinobi arrived recently.”
“Right, and I’ll check Hidan’s seal,” Shikamaru nodded, “Just to be safe. Thank you for your help, Kyouta.”
Izumo and Ino nodded, while Kyouta gave a shallow bow. Shikamaru still didn’t trust him, but at the very least he didn’t think the young man had any ill-intent.
“Can I ask something?” Shikamaru spoke up as the others departed.
“Of course,” Kyouta gave a polite smile.
“Why did Mikami Shrine intercept Yugakure’s hawk? Why not let the village take care of this?”
Kyouta gave half a scoff. “Yugakure’s been trying to ‘fix’ this Hidan problem since he turned his back on the shrine. The clan elders don’t think the village is up to the task anymore. Hidan is one of us, so he’s our responsibility.”
“You think he’s your responsibility,” Shikamaru guessed.
“Yeah, actually,” Kyouta nodded. “He’s my older brother.”
Oh, oh, Shikamaru felt a pit in his gut. That must’ve been why he was sent over anyone else.
“I’m sorry,” Shikamaru said softly.
“Don’t be,” Kyouta held up a hand. “Hidan and I haven’t spoken in many years, not since this parting gift.” Kyouta indicated his eyepatch. “I should go back to the village, though, leave you to that seal.”
“Would you like to come with?” Shikamaru asked, too quickly. Kyouta raised his eyebrows.
“You—Can I?” he asked.
“As long as you’re with me,” Shikamaru shrugged. “It’s always a pain to walk all the way out there. I wouldn’t mind the company.”
Kyouta’s polite smile settled into something all the more genuine. “You’re kinder than I thought you’d be,” he remarked. “Sorry, the last few people who met me after Hidan were…less friendly than you or your friend.”
“You’re not your brother,” Shikamaru replied. “Are you coming?”
“Sure.”