Chapter 15: Aftershocks, Forerumbles

Kisame

The rest of the day was a little awkward. With no object to focus their attention on, most of the group dispersed to their own small circles. Nagato and Yahiko made some effort to enter into discussion with the Akatsuki members they had not known before, with great success. Neither of the two believed they were the one responsible for this success, each thinking that the other had some special charisma that did it. Sasori retreated to his room where he had stashed the paper, pleading tiredness. Itachi too wandered around back to examine the minuscule patch of yard they could claim to have. Kisame did not mind at all, because before any of this happened he had already returned to his spot by the stream. The subject was already worn smooth in his mind; there was nothing to be gained. He had to admit most of the reason he was here was to avoid the inevitable questions about what he had been thinking of all day.

No use talking about it until it's done. This is the sort of bet you should hedge. He stared at the water, which now flickered in a completely different and vaguely interesting pattern. Not to mention it'll spike my anxiety. There was a little flash in the water. He shivered. This was insane. Entirely crazy. He'd definitely be blacklisted from every place he knew of and every place he didn't, possibly be arrested, and who even knew what would happen then. He knew enough about cause and effect to deduce that.

Yet...Konan existed. Something about her existence seemed to Kisame like it should have some consequence, but it did not. Even if she had only been around for two days by now, the first day was spent wandering all around town. Shouldn't something have happened? Kisame could not for the life of him produce a mental picture of something that was likely to happen, but the feeling persisted. That doesn't make any damn sense. She doesn't really fit in with this world, but it's not like she clashes with it either. Did she? Kisame found his thoughts on that subject wandering in directions he really did not want it to be wandering. He was partially shark, after all…

That's just...huh. If cause and effect hold up, I shouldn't even be in this position now. His social position as of this moment was by his own choosing, which almost every child past the age of ten could understand as a privilege not afforded to those who had some obvious distinguishing characteristic. Not usually. I really shouldn't be seen as just another guy who works with sharks. And yet he was. Only the breaking of at least one of the laws governing the way the world generally worked could explain this. Could it possibly be that one?

This was not the first time he'd come to this conclusion and asked this question. Kisame was well aware he was performing the mental equivalent of pacing over well-trod, familiar ground. His hands tensed and relaxed rhythmically. He realized briefly that he was staring into the water. Staring. Why?

Could I be onto something? This was a more recent track his thoughts had started to run over after a while. He'd come to a lot of conclusions, and this was the only one he constantly retraced. Why? It's just as likely that something equally unlikely has happened. Maybe everyone is under an illusion. Maybe I'm just surrounded by people stuck in the same dream I was in, before I realized being sharky isn't normal. Maybe some pocket of good fortune kept prejudice off me until I proved myself to be perfectly normal with my actions. All of these things make logical sense. All operate on normal cause and effect. No need to assume the world's suddenly different when it wasn't before.

None of which affected the mysterious feeling in any way. No matter what… I still think something's not working like it should. And, back to analyzing the way Konan had looked to him at first meeting he went.

It was crazy. Entirely insane. If cause and effect was working normally, he'd suffer brutal consequences, and he wouldn't be the only one. But he had no idea if it was or not. And really, it wasn't even about him. What happened to Kisame seemed small if only… How am I going to explain my weekend to Samehada? Would he understand?

The little whatever-it-was flashed again near its hiding place. He'd noticed that it always seemed to be around a certain collection of rocks piled beneath the surface. Rather unstable place to make a home. But… Why not?

Hidan

Hidan spent all next morning recovering from the worst hangover he had ever had.

As he lay in bed curled up and shaking beneath a layer of the heaviest blankets he could find, trying not to move too much, images from the day before flashed through his mind. Each brought unspeakable agony. Then again, everything brought unspeakable agony, so as long as he was unable to pass out and bring an end to the pain he could at least be thinking of something pleasant. He reached this conclusion without actually thinking through any of these reasons, evidence of his only saving grace right now. It was probably the only reason he hadn't thrown up yet.

Since thinking hurt too much, memories flashed by as images. Kakuzu wearing a flower crown. The rusted locks on the treasure chests. The skin-darkening-and-turning-hard technique being used by Kakuzu to smash open the locks. A hug from Sasori. Konan taking her first car ride with Kisame and Itachi. The bar. The first round of drinks in celebration. And then…

Somehow the memory of what had brought on this hangover was painful by itself. If he'd been relaxed enough to breathe, Hidan would have whimpered. He pushed forward, remembering. Konan not drinking. Everyone laughing, the sound paired with an image of the far corner of the bar. Grief. A crying lady. Attempts at comfort. And then…

The touch. My soul. What was that lady? He had no idea. Touching me. H-hey…

Mercy at last. Hidan passed out smiling, his plan to relieve his pain having worked perfectly.

Konan

Meanwhile, Konan sat around with the containers of paint Nagato had helpfully loaned her, painting targets. As she worked, she thought of last night. The screams. The terror.

After taking all the boxes down to the basement following their little Christmas celebration, they discovered that Hidan's fears of rust were not unfounded. Fortunately it had only affected the locks by this point, although the corners of some older boxes were dangerously brittle and already bent. The timing seemed suspiciously convenient. Konan wondered about that as Kakuzu employed the technique she had reminded him of to great effect. Oddly enough, the most visibly joyous reaction of all had come from Sasori. Her expectation of him as a puppetmaster was dropping by the hour.

Someone had had the bright idea to suggest alcohol to celebrate. So back to the bar she had gone, this time taking the opportunity to experience a car for the first time. Konan's eyes glazed over at the memory, her mouth moving upward and her heart beating faster. Haaaaaaahhhhhhh. Did I feel like this with Yahiko once? Maybe. That thought did not bring any pain at this time, which might have been because she wasn't picturing Yahiko as she thought it.

So fast. So smooth. Konan took a deep breath and pushed away that delightful memory for the present. Afterwards, the bar was exactly as she remembered it. Still crowded. Still uncomfortable. Still overly popular. Several Akatsuki members had mentioned the noise and smell, so she wasn't the only one that found the environment unpleasant. Yet they had decided to celebrate there, apparently because it was known as the place to celebrate things. That made no sense at all. What is going on in that place?

The answer was clearly, "more than it seemed." Because they had had a good time for a while, sitting around a table, talking over the day's events, ordering the first round of drinks. Konan had to admit that if used properly, the bar was a place where people could have legitimate fun. Even she had enjoyed her time there without the influence of alcohol, which was too dangerous to risk drinking. Even Kisame had laughed. The first half hour there was surprisingly pure bliss.

Then it happened. Konan, as both a social outsider and the only nondrinker there, had been the first to see Hidan's ears twitch. Then he turned and looked around. Konan had followed the track of his eyes to a woman who, now that she was focusing on it, could be heard crying quietly in a far corner. Hidan looked very confused. He had put his hand on his chest, then taken it away and scratched his head. She would have to ask him what he had been confused about when he recovered from the events that followed.

Konan now closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. Thinking about what happened had a way of sucking her into her thoughts, because it had all been too confusing. She had not the slightest clue what had happened, and no amount of going over the jumbled visual memories in her mind could change that. One more breath. In. Hold. Out. Looking at something would help her become absorbed in her thoughts, so she kept her eyes closed. Sort it out, ask Hidan what happened later.

What was there to sort? Let's see… First, Hidan had gotten up. That was the part some others at the table had first noticed. He walked over to the woman, blocked Konan's view. Even as she had stood up to see the woman better, she saw Hidan's body language change into something uncomfortable. Had he been trying to get away? Unknown; some people had walked between them at that point. The last of the interlopers jumped and skittered to the side as the woman let out a piercing shriek, threatening to blow Konan's eardrums out of her ears. She had instinctively closed her eyes and every other sense against this onslaught, which was a mistake. She'd recognized that at the time and forced her eyes open in time to see Hidan stumbling back, and a someone on the floor beneath him. Whoever it was was still crying out in pain. It now seemed to have two voices as it rolled, clutching at its genitals and scratching blindly in Hidan's direction.

She'd winced, its cries of pain making her head hurt for a moment. Then Konan had recovered, just in time to see a man rolling around on the ground whimpering. The woman had disappeared. Where had she…? But then the man had gotten up and stumbled for the door, and had his features seemed a little strange as he did so? Hidan stumbled back over, punching someone out of the way in the process, and everything went to hell. He fell down, and several people around the site of the initial incident started screaming and bleeding. Konan hadn't even been able to see where they were bleeding from. Someone threw a chair, which broke over a person's head. For a moment she had flashed back to Hidan's conversation about wood, but it was gone before anything useful came to mind. Nagato and Yahiko ducked their heads as they tried to lift Hidan to their shoulders. Deidara had disappeared; there was a flash of blond dragging a pale flash of red out the back exit. Kakuzu, weirdly enough, had raced over to the scene. Perhaps he had some innate sense of his durability similar to how Hidan's survival instincts tailored themselves to his immortality. Konan had no idea what he'd accomplished; she'd covered Hidan with paper and used her jutsu to get them the hell out of there. Nagato and Yahiko followed shortly, a little delayed from Nagato's emergency rescue of Yahiko when the latter fell down near some panicked people. Her paper contorted, so she let the jutsu disperse. Hidan promptly curled up with his hands and legs folding in towards his chest, barely able to breath as tears dripped from his eyes.

So what the hell happened? Konan opened her eyes and resumed painting. The brush swirled in an even circle around a dot. The circle closed, a little lens which Konan peered through, almost imagining that she could see the scene in it. But no, there was no clarity to be found here. The brush snapped in her fingers, and she threw it to the side as she stood up and stormed off to Hidan's room.

Itachi

Itachi stood in a gas station bathroom, hands placed on the two near corners of a sink. He breathed. In, out. In, out. His hands itched to reach for his phone. He noticed this impulse, and ignored it. In, out.

For a mantra, he idly browsed through a selection of mental images. He needed something stable. For a few seconds, he tried to use the mental image of his drink that he had looked down at for a while last night. That is not a stable image. It kept changing to other things. Itachi decided he needed something not from last night. That was a wonderful idea, but it failed miserably. Not a thing came to mind.

He tried to use a sound, instead. The sound of his breathing, which he slowed to its previous speed, worked. Or at least it seemed to. There was a time limit to how long he could stay here and try to calm himself. He swept his focus over his hands. They did not seem to be shaking very much. That would have to be good enough.

As soon as he left his foul-smelling happy place, the questions returned. His hands trembled again. The blood… He had never seen so much blood. It wasn't a "somebody definitely died" amount of blood, but it was significant. Was any of it Hidan's? Had he worked his way back to their table before or after? Itachi paused midstep, long enough to decide that no, he had only been imagining a repeat of those cries from last night. What had Hidan even walked away for? What had he seen? Itachi tried to notice these thoughts passing and let them go, he really did, but they dragged him away. His heart was beating hard, his face felt a little warm, and he could even feel some of his body hair itching at the roots. His hands pricked with full awareness of every ridge, it seemed like.

A regular acquaintance of his came up. It was the guy who always asked if he had anything new to play. The guy opened his mouth, then tilted his head, puzzled. He seemed to shake, and his eyes lit up. Itachi had the feeling that he knew exactly what this guy was going to say before he said it. Sure enough, it happened. The exact words. "Is that the flush of creative fever I see? Dude! Play it!"

Itachi clenched his fists to keep from strangling the guy, who seemed not to notice this great effort. But then he stopped. The urge to strangle passed. Haven't all great artists been inspired from their lives? Perhaps I can use this…

He didn't have any time to prepare anything, so it was full improv. Itachi didn't exactly care in this mood. The guy's eyes bugged as he heard the chaotic, discordant, messed-up sounds that issued from the guitar. His body bobbed up and down in an enthralled stupor, and he wasn't the only one. Itachi found the way his fingers trembled, switching from one position to another before he was even halfway through the previous note, to be very useful. He swept himself away against a background of people.

Kakuzu

Kakuzu paced around his apartment, sweeping the occasional knickknack off the low table of his living room. He tried to sit down, but got back up, buzzing with energy. He tried to complete some kind of project, but his mind wandered and he got up again. He went to the kitchen and looked for something to eat. When the door closed he hadn't even seen what the inside of the fridge looked like.

Damn you Hidan. And damn everyone else, as long as I'm at it. His eyes roamed over the space he'd called home for years, and yet it seemed like he'd never seen it before in his life. Everything was dull. Even colors seemed muted. The flashy red and green of that book that Hidan had gotten once for the sole purpose of annoying him now seemed irrelevant to his eyes. Kakuzu looked around at things he'd been annoyed by almost every day for the past three months, been making a continuous effort to reorganize. His arm swept out and knocked one of those loathsome piles over. There was brief chaos as everything fell to the ground, then silence. It was over.

Damn you Hidan. Kakuzu could now feel the muscles in his arms, feel the chakra humming in his body. He could even feel his mind working, strange as that sounded. Did maniacs feel like this? Probably. As worried as he might have ordinarily been, Kakuzu could do nothing but visualize that room that Hidan had planned, where things never just stayed in order, over and over again. His curiosity was alive, making him wish for a pen to write down all the questions he had. Just what had their originals' world been like? What did ninja do with their abilities? Did it involve racing? He had the strange certainty that it did.

Grrr. Next thing I see is getting a hole punched through it. He snatched some kind of coat from somewhere and threw the door back against its hinges. He was actually getting a little bored. Fuck you, Hidan. That little furbeast had better be awake when he got there.

Deidara

Deidara went shopping. It was nice. He hadn't been shopping in a while. Several weeks, at least. The air conditioning was soothing, as were the delicate perfumes of the fruit section. Ah, it was good to be home!

Dei wondered about things as he went up and down the aisles. He wondered, I need to ask Sasori how much the materials for those things cost, yeah. He wondered, Should I go to the pharmacy for hair care products? It's been a while, yeah. That led him to wonder, How long has it been since I took a full, soaking bath, hm? A good one, with all the works. I've really let myself go, yeah. He wondered about a lot of minor domestic things. The beauty of it was, not one of those things was at all related to last night.

At checkout, he voluntarily chatted with the cashier lady for the first time in what felt like forever. "Do your corporate overlords know that their 'awesome sale' this week is on the same stuff that's filling the half-price rack, hm?" he asked, indicating the peppers.

She smiled a little and shook her head. "Don't think so. And please, don't tell them. You'd be amazed at what the feeling of 'pulling one over on the man' is doing for customer morale. Haven't gotten a baseless complaint all shift."

Dei blinked. "Damn. I hadn't thought of that, hm."

"That's all you have in the cart? I'm required to check. Well, if you need to take out rage against the world at someone, I'd rather it not be me."

"Sounds like you meet a lot of people that are just crazy in their head, yeah."

"You ever work retail? That'll be $35.46, please."

Dei put his card in the machine, entered his number, waited around for it to finish whatever it did. "No, and I think I should be happy about that, yeah. At least the people shooting at me had reasons behind it."

The cashier lady paused after sliding the last item into the bags he had provided. "What?"

The transaction was completed, and Deidara took his bags back. "Weird reasons, but reasons, yeah. Happy Monday!"

Her mouth opened, but then the next customer called for her attention with a "you! come here" snap of their fingers.

Sasori

He'd never thought about how to sneak into the shop manager's office without being caught before. But like they say, there's a first time for everything.

The job would have been harder to pull off if he'd thought of this the previous week. Now, it turned out to be surprisingly simple. Sasori didn't get much time to himself for any kind of a break, so he planned everything out down to the minute as he completed routine repairs beforehand. He would only have two chances at this. He saw an opportunity to add an extra minute or two to the first of those chances, and pushed extra hard to get the last thing done quickly. No new customers came in, so the shop manager was powerless to make up a new job for him to do before the machines finished their duties. Grudgingly, he gave Sasori a slightly early break.

The new-week advantage factored in once the man was out of earshot, haranguing the lady in the front. At that point Sasori, keeping an eye out in case she finally managed to stand up for herself and shut the manager up instead of letting him drone on for the usual five to ten minutes about her professional failings, acted as his own lookout while he attached a chakra string to the doorknob and used his jutsu to unlock the lock and open it. It seemed she was not going to so manage any time soon. Poor girl, he thought as he ducked in and shut the door behind him.

Now where would it be? Sasori cursed his luck. The desk was practically busting its drawers with papers. How long would this take him? He opened the first and started sifting through the contents. Garbage, garbage, garbage. I'm screwed. Embezzlement? Garbage. I'll take it in case Kakuzu has any interest. More garbage. Nope. Not it. No. Worse garbage.

The clock ticked, and Sasori's heart nearly stopped as the sound of shouting peaked and died down the hall. I'm going to get so bothered for the rest of my day if he catches me in here. Then again… Sasori's hair found itself plastered against his skin with sweat. Oh, crap. I might actually get fired. There's no way he could forget which drawer the potentially incriminating paper is in, unlike all these oth-

He stopped shuffling. This is all garbage. Useless. He doesn't need it, he can afford to hide it somewhere he doesn't have to think about it. The important information would be somewhere he can ignore it but still get it when he needs to, such as-

Sasori turned around. The billboard right behind me. The one that has a single piece of paper tacked to it. Joy of joys. There wasn't enough time to get the paper, shut the incriminating drawer, and make his escape before the manager came back. Fortunately Sasori did not have to do all of those things. His fingers flicked on each hand, and he made his way to the door as the drawer closed behind him and the tack pulled out of the board. Another string caught the paper as it fell to the floor, pulling the sheet to a location out of the way before sitting slack on the ground and lengthening. Sasori wasn't quite sure about his ability to control such a long string stretched beneath a closed door, but how hard could it be? What mattered was that he was back at work, putting his lunch away as if he'd only just finished eating. There was no way for the manager to berate him for taking too long a break when he was technically back to work before he had to be. The unpleasant man grunted and continued on his way into his office, satisfied with the front desk lady. If he noticed Sasori keeping a pinkie free and motionless, he said nothing.

Sasori sighed in relief when the door closed again. The front desk lady's been here for three weeks now. She has to be getting unsatisfying. Thank god today's not that day. He hoped Original Sasori had practiced delicate moves like this, because he had no idea what he was doing, and moved his pinkie a little. He really didn't have any idea what he was doing. The basic principle of withdrawing the string back into his body was obvious, but how to control that? Eh. Fortunately the paper slid around the corner after a minute, and he heard no yelling from the office. Whew.

He took a quick look at the paper to confirm it was what he had been looking for before folding it for safekeeping. Dollar signs and numbers. Good. Metal, different kinds of wiring, other things, all their sources and prices are here. Bonus: he has readable handwriting. Sasori smiled and went back to work.

Yahiko

Even the sale on women's blouses could not calm his nerves. The woman in charge of his department had noticed he seemed jittery early in his shift, but said nothing. He was able to spare the energy to think that it probably had something to do with the reason he was rotated into in the women's clothing department in the first place.

The spare energy lasted for only as long as it took to think that before his mind was back to the events of last night. Hidan. Is he okay? Even the screaming and crying in pain which he still heard did not sway his mind from this concern. But none of these things was the true cause of his jitteriness. Yahiko was not distracted by fear for what had happened to his new friend (who was, after all, being watched over), nor was he distracted by the suffering of the past. He would make time to be disturbed by that later. No, the cause of his tension was something new. It was a thought that had occurred to him just before he drifted off last night, in perfect time to ruin his sleep. The sleep deprivation wasn't helping, but it was but merely an accomplice to one recurring thought that circled Yahiko's mind over and over. He felt like a delicious chum bag perched on a pole within a ring of circling sharks who were also himself. Yet he couldn't help it. It was instinctual. What did Hidan do?

The thought haunted him. The first scream hadn't been Hidan's, after all. It was that woman's. Or whoever's. The mental image of her facial bones bending like taffy still haunted his eyes. Regardless, he couldn't ignore the evidence of his senses. Hidan may be in a concerning mental state, but he wasn't injured. His pain had changed form and faded to nothing more than a headache resembling a terrible hangover by the time he got halfway home. But that woman-thing had been screaming, curled on the ground. Yahiko squeezed his eyes shut, opened them, and realized he'd wrongly stocked half a display. He took the items down and started over.

Somehow, he managed to hypnotize himself enough to get through the rest of his day. At some point during the restocking he'd remembered that some people used a mantra, and tried it. Ask Hidan later. Ask Hidan later. Ask Hidan later. By the end of his day, when everything was stocked as well as it needed to be and the department head told him to take off early with concern in her voice, he realized that the mantra had shortened to Later. Later. Later. at some point.

Nagato had to be either psychic or very worried, because he was right there waiting despite the early hour. Yahiko let Nagato take his hand and squeeze it, try to make him feel better. Nagato was always good at that. He didn't keep a distance physically or emotionally like most men seemed to. He couldn't. Yahiko had always been grateful for that. It was much more natural. Understandable.

He cheered up further when Nagato led him away to the aquarium.

Nagato

He knew by now what Yahiko was like, and would not have been afraid to claim he knew better than anyone else. There had been the sound of people screaming. They'd had to duck their heads as the bar erupted into chaos and fear. They'd had to protect Hidan for a bit. Of course Yahiko was going to be worried and distracted by thoughts of that all day.

And, Nagato knew, the ideal remedy for that would be something alive and liquid. The moths floating in the scent-filled air were like that. As it was not approaching night, the aquarium would have to do. Yahiko did seem to look more focused and walk faster as they got nearer. Nagato felt a little flutter of fear about being seen walking into a family-oriented place holding Yahiko's hand, so he squeezed his hand tighter. Yahiko needed him to, and he came first. Above everything. Yahiko felt the squeeze and smiled his gratitude. Nagato smiled back. Yahiko could have a lot of gratitude.

They walked in. Thank the gods, the aquarium made most of its money off people wanting to feed the animals or buy things from the gift shop, so they did not have to pay just to get in the door. Yahiko sighed in amazement, and his hand loosened in Nagato's grip. He did not need comfort any longer. Nagato held the feeling a little longer, then let go. His hand felt rather empty and cold now. He sighed, hoping it sounded like amazement to Yahiko.

They spent fifteen minutes straight on their feet staring up at the fish. The scales on the fish glinted like little stars every time the school turned, and no matter what happened they always seemed to be dancing. Yahiko was enraptured. Nagato spent the whole fifteen minutes struggling to keep his eyes on the fish and not on Yahiko. The blueness helped. He really liked that color. Out of the corner of his eye beneath his hair, another color he liked just as much beckoned. He did not give in.

After about fifteen minutes of this, Nagato had an idea. Yahiko could have spent every minute until closing time just tracing the aquatic life in their paths around the tank, but once Nagato suggested it he agreed readily enough. Nagato looked for signs. He had a specific destination in mind this time, if in fact it existed. It does. He hoped for distraction as they followed the signs to the shark tank.

The both of them got much more distraction than they hoped for. Yahiko spotted Kisame sitting on a bench against the opposite wall as soon as they entered the room. Almost instantly, he could see that something was wrong. Kisame's shoulders were hunched. His eyes were fixed at the bottom of the tank, ignoring the graceful fishes that swung like aquatic acrobats overhead. He jumped as they approached.

Nagato asked, with concern in his voice, "Kisame? Is everything alright?"

Kisame looked at them with a look neither of them recognized. "No. If you're smart, you idiots will get the hell out of here. I don't need to add anyone else to my plate."

Yahiko wanted to stay and ask more, but Kisame looked like he knew that and glared. The two of them looked at each other and made the wise decision to slink away quietly.

Kisame remained where he was, out of sight and contemplating. Eventually the flow of people into the room slowed, then stopped entirely. Only then did he stand up.

Kisame

Showtime.

------------

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