For Nobara

Chapter 7: If I Make You Disappear

Clinging onto him, her feet tangle in the messed up futon. And even though he is right there, the way Kakuzu feels so far away frightens her.

To her, abandonment and betrayal isn't a stranger in her short life. She had once trusted too much only for that trust to be trampled on, and yet she still runs blindly to people who only use her as if she's desperately trying to fill the void inside of her.

"I'm sorry," she says, her voice overwhelmingly small. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

So please don't abandon me.

But Kakuzu can only clench his fist. He refuses to look at her, but in the end he can't completely ignore her.

He shouldn't have left her when he sensed a hint of danger when they were last together. He wants to get mad, but he can only find fault in himself when he didn't know what happened before Itachi brought her back soaked down through her clothes, when it was Itachi who was with her and not him.

He feels the urge to ease her, but just as he's about to caress her hair, he is reminded again.

"She is not yours to keep."

And he stops himself, his hand pulling back away from her just as Zetsu emerges from the darkness. And he reminds himself too—that she isn't his to keep.

"Leader requests your presence again," the creature says before its eyes swivel towards the child, but Kakuzu pulls back quickly as if to shield her from him this time. Those yellow eyes return back towards the green-eyed man again, and as if he knows, Zetsu pauses in thought for a while before turning away. "Then... I'll let him know you're on your way..."

And without another word, the creature disappears again.

Kakuzu feels like laughing then. Even though he thought he's already forgotten how to feel anything else than just physical pain, his chest feels tight and he doesn't understand it.

Why does the way the child clings onto him affect him this much? The way she stares at him now with those eyes, it makes him falter a little.

Without even the need to say anything... When has she so easily controlled him like this?

"I'll be back," he forces himself to say, looking away because he can't let her grow on him anymore that she already has. "Go back to sleep, Kigura..."

And he doesn't look back at her anymore when he leaves the room, as if afraid that if he sees her eyes again, he will cave in just like Leader knew he would. And yet, even when he has drifted so far away, he can't shake off the image of her looking at him with those eyes.

Why is she making it so difficult for him?

Kakuzu clenches his fist and he punches the wall. But as if he brought the warmth with him, the child who is left in his room in Pain's Tower curls to herself as the cold sensation settles in again. And she knew long before she smelt it, when he messes up her senses just like the first time.

The masked man is full of darkness and he seeps into her lungs. It clogs inside of her that it feels like she can't breathe in his presence.

He sits on one of the piles of books behind her, but she refuses to look at him. He couldn't have been real, could he? So she shuts her eyes like he will disappear just as easily like that, because it doesn't matter who he is or where he came from.