Suteta - (Akatsuki fanfic)

Part 28

The hours passed quickly, and in that span Zetsu only dared to leave Hanaki alone for so many minutes at a time before returning to check on her while she slept. Beyond that he was preparing like everyone else, and at least had Tobi to watch her while he was away for the better part of the last hour before they were due to meet with the others.

The masked nin would have been grateful that she managed to sleep for a while, saving what energy she had left and recovering what she could...if it weren't for the knowledge how fitful her sleep really was. As he sat beside the bed in the chair Zetsu commandeered from the leader's office, Tobi noted that Hanaki's face never relaxed from a twitching, scrunching frown. Whatever she was seeing, it couldn't be anything but unpleasant.

For once he didn't try to utilize the sharingan to find out one way or another what her nightmares were like. Any further stress like that to her mind or body just might make the poor thing fall apart.

What a sorry state you walked yourself into... he thought at her with a heavy sigh. Even if it was technically our faults.

Almost on cue the plant nin returned with a newly sealed scroll in hand, which he placed on the short bedside table. "We need to wake her now," he commented at low volume. "It is nearly time to leave."

"Hopefully she can handle the trip," Tobi replied in his own voice. With everyone occupied with their respective assignments, there was no one in this sector of the base to bother them. Let alone discover his identity. "Hasn't she only been asleep for a few hours?"

"...Three. Give or take a handful of minutes." He didn't sound very confident about it. But then, who would be? The time she had to rest was barely pocket change compared to what the invasion put her through. More than obviously, it wasn't really enough.

Folding his arms, the masked nin looked back to the toddler. Both of them were hesitant to disturb her, but there was nothing they could do about it. "We will definitely have our work cut out for us, won't we."

Zetsu frowned to himself, his thoughts almost unreadable as he retrieved Hanaki's bear from the small pile of things he gathered onto a low shelf in the corner of the room. He recovered it from the floor in the kitchen sometime after she drifted off. And he just stared at it in his hands for a moment. Tobi could only figure that the entirety of the day was finally sinking in. "She can hardly be blamed for that..."

Tobi allowed a moment of silence between them, unable to disagree in good conscience. But one thing still needed to be said. "No. However, we both know he won't see it that way."

With a forced sigh Zetsu let the stuffed toy drop to his side in his hand. Every reminder of the leader's inevitable disgust was bothersome. "Are we sure Konan will not manage to reason with him? Even she and those other two were victims of war. Is that not something people can typically relate upon?" He was trying to think with a sense of logical reason. Though, perhaps analyzing the psychological outcome of traumatized adults was not his forte.

"That all depends on which way the gavel swings," Tobi said, following his partner's line of thought, and posed a few questions for him to consider. "How do you define justice? Or revenge? Where do you draw the line between the two?"

He held up a finger to indicate he wasn't finished, and added, "The question is also in how you define 'creating a better world.' Is it to save others from the same hell you experienced, or to sate your own ambition? Are there any people left who deserve to be saved? Or are they just obstacles that get in the way? It's a slippery slope at best."

In his explanation he was implying that Konan and the leader had two very opposing outlooks on those things. And just because Konan would let herself relate to Hanaki's situation, didn't mean she could convince the head of the organization to do the same. In fact, the more Tobi thought about it himself, he knew things were looking bleak for their helpless little castaway.

"What are your answers to those questions?"

The pointed inquiry from Zetsu's darker half interrupted the masked nin's  inner thinking, along with the shrewdness in his yellow gaze. It caught him off guard to be asked just how black and white his own views were, and now the silence that hung in the room only a moment ago had settled within himself.

In spite of them knowing each other for so many years, that was still something the masked nin couldn't clarify.

So, he merely folded his arms once more and lowered his head to close off the topic. "That's...complicated." For him, justice and revenge weren't all black and white. Just...mountains upon mountains of grey. He couldn't even separate Hanaki's dilemma into its own category. It was all falling within the same philosophy, under the same umbrella.

Wasn't it..?

Before he could pull his conflicting mentalities together, Zetsu interrupted them again. "Let's just hope our 'leaders' have more sense than you," he said bitterly, not taking the lack of decisiveness very well. His respect for the various members of the Akatsuki had been dropping point by point ever since he began advocating for the girl. Now Tobi could see he was just added to the list. Sharingan completely unnecessary.

While Zetsu proceeded to wake Hanaki, he decided it best for him to leave and give them space. The last thing they needed was another hour of her crying just for picking up on tension she didn't understand, and had nothing to do with.

Right... Tobi realized with a glimmer of minute awareness. She doesn't have anything to do with the argument. Not really. It wasn't about her, so there was no reason to lead her to believe it had been.

Maybe, one of these days, he needed to try taking his own advice.

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Hey, friends! Here for a brief update! Next time we'll have an official (though short) time skip into the next arc, so I hope you look forward to it!

Anyone who celebrates Thanksgiving, I hope you all are having a good week so far! If you don't, I still wish you the same!

As always, thank you for your patience, and I hope to see you next time!

~MGPD