Suteta - (Akatsuki fanfic)

Part 7

 The girl looked from one person to another trying to figure out what the problem was. She wasn’t meaning to make fun of the shark-looking guy by pointing out his blue skin; it was just new to her. Why were the other two making fun of him? They were being downright mean. It wasn’t right. And “freak”? Whatever that meant, it must have been an insult from how angry the shark-guy was.

                She didn’t have to look at him to know he was mad. Besides, when she fell it knocked her vision blurry again so she didn’t see much detail. But there was some kind of change in the air causing her skin to crawl as soon as the gray-haired person made that statement. And it made her mad too. So she decided to level the playing field. See how they liked being made fun of! The girl pointed to the blonde. “You’re girly!” Then she pointed to the gray-haired person. “An’ you’re ugly!”

                “WHAT?!” They both exploded in anger.

                She stuck her tongue out at them, knowing she had just made a pair of enemies but not caring. They deserved it after calling names! The gray-haired one jumped out of his chair and started shouting words the girl couldn’t even begin to understand while the shark-guy laughed at the top of his lungs. All the noise caused her ears to ring painfully so she pressed her hands against them and squeezed her eyes shut as if it would help. Thankfully the blonde just stomped out of the room, the shark-guy having to move out of the way to let him through. Suddenly the toddler felt herself being lifted off the floor and opened her eyes to see Zetsu was holding her. How did he get in here? She didn’t even hear him coming as if he just phased through the floor. Weird. Still, with her vision clear again she noticed he certainly didn’t look happy. Uh-oh…

                “What did we tell you about leaving the room?” he scolded.

                She glanced away, not wanting to look him in the eyes. “I sorry…”

                “Sorry” doesn’t cut it, runt! You deliberately disobeyed us!” His voice was stern, but not loud like the other people. At least he wasn’t shouting.

                The girl just stayed quiet. She couldn’t say anything to that because it was true. At least the part she understood. She just couldn’t handle the pain in her head caused by the heat anymore, which was why she didn’t stay in the room. But she couldn’t say that. She didn’t know how. Her face reddened from how mad she was at herself for not being able to explain. If only Zetsu could read her mind, he’d know and then he might not be so angry with her.

                “Calm down, Zetsu. It’s not like she killed anything,” the shark-guy said as he slowed his laughing.

                “This doesn’t concern you, Kisame!” Zetsu snapped. The toddler glanced at the shark-guy, realizing his name. But for some reason she could only process half of it into a word as she mouthed the first part. Ki…Ki…She whined under her breath. The second part just confused her to try and say it. Oh well.

                “Actually, yeah it does. Thanks to her, I didn’t have to tear Hidan and blondie’s heads off.” He smirked. “Their egos took enough damage as it is.” Again, the toddler noticed another name. Hi-dan, she sounded out in her head. That was the gray-haired person, she was sure. After all, she figured “blondie” was what the shark-guy was calling the long-haired blonde. Made sense.

                Zetsu was quiet for a moment. “Is that so?”

                “She’s nothing but a f**king brat!” Hidan shouted.

                “Shut it, moron.” Kisame folded his arms and glared at him. “She wouldn’t have called you ugly if you kept your mouth shut.” The girl thought she heard Zetsu snicker under his breath, but she couldn’t be sure. As soon as she looked at him his expression changed back.

                “I wasn’t even talking about her!” he protested.

                “Both of you shut up.” Zetsu interrupted them. “Hidan, if you provoked her, you deserved it.”

                “But I-!”

                “I don’t care,” Zetsu growled. “Get out.”

                Hidan threw a chair and stormed out of the room. “He’s ugly an’ grouchy.” The girl commented as she watched him leave. She curled her fingers into Zetsu’s shirt when the thought of Hidan throwing the chair fully processed. He was violent too, which scared her. Hopefully they would never be in the same room together when he was in a bad mood. Now that she thought about it, she recognized his voice from a little while ago. She almost didn’t hear him over her own crying, but she remembered him and stitch-face yelling at each other. So far, neither of them were making a good first impression.

                Kisame chuckled. “Yeah, he is! You’re pretty smart, kid!” Hearing the shark-guy praise her, the girl smiled at him briefly. But she couldn’t forget she was still in trouble for leaving the room after Zetsu told her not to. She rubbed her head in memory of the awful pain from being in such a hot room. It was still there, just not nearly as bad as before. “Now I may be wrong,” Kisame started. “But as far as her disobeying you goes, she probably had a good reason other than the possibility of not knowing any better.” The girl had to process that for a few seconds. How did he know? Like a child would, she thought maybe he read her mind.

                Zetsu narrowed his eyes. “What makes you think that?”

                He scoffed. “She looks seriously stressed out and pale. It’s kind of obvious.” So that was how he knew. The girl paused for a second. Did she really look sick enough to have it noticed? Couldn’t be good. Apparently she wasn’t as good as hiding how she physically felt as she thought. Of course, in her mind, the thought was broken down into simpler terms that couldn’t really be put into words. Just pictures.

                “Really?” Zetsu glanced at her and narrowed his eyes, as if confused in some way. “I guess I didn’t notice…” The girl sighed. It was weird they were talking about her as if she wasn’t in the room. But at least Zetsu didn’t seem so angry since Kisame somewhat defended her. But there also was something she picked up listening to their conversation that she found odd. Why was Zetsu using “I” instead of “we” like before? She really was confused. “Now that you mention it, it’s the second time today I’ve seen her rubbing her head like that.”

                “It hurts,” she said as if he should be able to tell.

                “You’ve said that already, shorty.”

                “Uh-huh!” she responded matter-of-factly. Exactly why he should know already, right? Though he probably didn’t know about the machine making it worse. She had to give him that.

                “Smart-aleck.” The shark-guy sat in his chair and leaned back. “You got a name, kid?”

                That caught her off guard a bit. She really didn’t know. If she did have a name, no one ever told her. But it didn’t occur to her it was out of the ordinary, so she just blinked and shook her head. “No.”