Kisame watches.

He watches the house of his enemy, one hand on the hilt of his nameless sword.

He waits.

It's been a long time coming, this revenge, but then he was never even sure he would do it since vengeance reeks too much of loyalty – a twisted, bloody version, but still.

And he was never a loyal man.

Maito Gai doesn't ever leave his house. Other people come and go – his students, whom Kisame vaguely remembers as nuisances of no importance, Hatake Kakashi, the Copy Ninja, who might be worth a fight, and others he doesn't know and who are therefore not worth his attention – but not Maito Gai.

It makes him wonder if his trip to Konoha is nothing but a great waste of time, if he should move on before he is found out – he's still in the bingo book, after all – and yet, something is keeping him, the feeling that he is there. He is in that house and Kisame owes him.

A fight and, more importantly, a painful death.

After his defeat at the Falls of Truth, it took Kisame almost a year to recover from his injuries. That is, those he could recover from.

He hasn't spoken a word since that day.

He can't.

Not without his tongue.

What he misses most isn't the ability to speak – the one man he liked to chat with most has been dead for a long time now, anyway – it's the taste of blood.

Kisame doesn't have the time or the low profile to hang around the house for more than a couple of days. There is only one surefire way to find out if his sources were right.

On the third day he breaks in.

Everything goes as planned.

Until he actually finds his target.

At first, Gai's back is to him, but he still notices the odd way he's standing – leaning – back bent awkwardly, swaying a little.

Only when Gai starts moving does Kisame put the pieces together.

He watches his enemy's laborious movements, one arm, then the next, and then the rest of his body follows, dragged behind like dead weight.

Crutches.

The bitter tang of disappointment Kisame can still taste, even without his tongue.

There's no fight left in this man.

His nameless blade raised, Kisame creeps closer. A mercy kill is not what he was after, but seeing the Brainless Beast like this, broken and helpless, it makes him want to put an end to his enemy's pathetic existence.

But no, he wants to look into the beast's eyes when he takes his life.

He wants his face to be the last thing Maito Gai will ever see.

With one hand, he grabs Gai and spins him around, the crutches falling with a clatter.

Kisame brings his sword down in a graceful, deadly arc.

And stops.

There's no fear in his victim's eyes, just acceptance, no recognition.

"Who are you?" Maito Gai gasps, and something inside Kisame flares up.

Gai cannot walk without the crutches. He can barely walk with them. He's all broken bones and partial paralysis.

He's weak and fragile.

Most of all, he seems tired of waiting for death.

Killing a dead man is no fun; it's no challenge; it's not what Kisame wants at all. Gai owes him a real fight. He owes him sweat and blood. Most of all he owes him recognition.

And Kisame is going to get it.

One way or another.

All it takes is for Kisame to loosen his grip on Gai's shoulder and the man, unable to support his own weight, reaches out to him, grabs hold of his arm to remain on his feet, swaying.

If he still had his tongue, Kisame would have mocked him.

"What are you waiting for?" Gai asks, clawing at his arm. "What do you want?"

Kisame grins and shoves him to the ground.

He doesn't need words.

He'll show Gai exactly what he wants.

And then he'll take it.

Kisame tears the clothes – simple cotton, not that green abomination he used to wear - right off his enemy. Underneath the fabric, Gai's body is partially withered and scarred like old bark.

Still, it surprises him - almost disappoints him actually - that Gai doesn't even fight him a little.

Itachi, when Kisame first met him, was a child, a frail kid. Just walking next to him, you could sense the enormous weight that rested on his shoulders, and yet he never faltered.

Not once.

In the end, it's a cheap triumph. Gai is in pain, it comes with his condition, and Kisame doesn't get off on pain. People expect him to, due to his looks, but, outside of battle, it bores him and ruins his fun.

He would have enjoyed hurting Gai in the context of a fight, and he certainly had moments when he wanted nothing more than to tear the strange beast limb from limb, oh-so slowly, to savor every drop of his enemy's blood.

This is different, though.

When Gai is beneath him, clawing at the wooden floorboards with trembling fingers, weak fingers that couldn't hold a sword steady, can hardly make a fist, and Kisame is holding him down easily, he doesn't feel that surge of power. There is little satisfaction. Too little.

So he pulls Gai up on his feet, wraps his own torn cloak around him, and, unceremoniously, drags him into the bedroom.

He used to take care of Itachi when it got worse. He'd make tea, he'd cook even. He'd sit and listen to his partner breathe. It wasn't loyalty, just… being careful with his resources. He needed Itachi to be able to fight; that was all.

Kisame is taking a break. He likes a good fight, but being on the run all the time can take a lot out of a man. His enemy's house is the perfect hiding place; who would expect him here?

No one.

That is his reasoning, and, after a while, unexpectedly, Gai begins to talk to him.

Itachi used to talk in his sleep. Kisame tried not to listen too closely; he had manners, after all. A few words, though, kept resurfacing, again and again, invading Kisame's sleep, threading themselves through his dreams.

Father.

Mother.

Sasuke.

Forgive me.

It made Kisame glad that he never knew his father, that his birth killed his mother, that he tore his siblings apart in the womb.

It's almost insulting to Kisame, to find out how much of the sign language supposedly taught only to Kirigakure hunter-nin Gai understands; it makes communication far easier, though, and since Kisame, too, knows his way around more than a few Konoha ANBU signals, they soon develop a strange mix of the two systems that works surprisingly well.

Gai talks most of the time, of course, but sometimes the sign language is just quicker, and, naturally, silent.

The sign for incoming is the one they use most.

Whenever an enemy approached them, Kisame used to step in front of Itachi, shielding him. It happened on instinct; it was only logical.

When the kids come, Gai acts the fool like he used to. He's loud and happy and incredibly obnoxious. He plays down the pain and up the idiocy, and Kisame creeps into the bedroom and sharpens and polishes his sword until they – finally – go away.

With Hatake Kakashi, it's different. Gai still pretends, but less; it's not necessary anyway, because Kakashi knows.

Not about Kisame, who has become quite good at masking his chakra – no better practice than being a missing nin – but about the state Gai is in.

Gai is dying. His heart could give out any day now, and Kakashi knows, but he never says anything.

Instead, he comes and goes, speaking in half-truths and ellipses, skirting around the truth as if it might burn him if he got too close.

Kisame derives a certain kind of pleasure from spying on them when they are together. They are wretched in a way Itachi and he never were.

"We used to be equals, but we're not anymore," Gai says. "That's all there is to it. Our rivalry is over."

Kisame smirks at the stupidity of the statement; he can practically taste the guilt every time Kakashi visits. The regret. The longing.

Rivalry?

It's ridiculous.

Gai never lets Kakashi help him with anything, never lets Kakashi touch him at all.

Kisame does most of the housework – out of boredom, out of habit. Menial tasks, well, he did most of them back when he was travelling with Itachi, too.

Sometimes Kisame wonders what Hatake Kakashi would do if he knew. Sometimes he idly fantasizes about Hatake finding out. He knows exactly what he would say to taunt the Copy Ninja – but that would require the ability to speak. Sign language just wouldn't be the same.

It would be a good fight, anyway.

Blood and guts and torn off limbs.

Gai loved to fight as well; he talks about the battles he fought with relish. There's a glint in his eyes like light reflected off a blade. It makes Kisame bitter about the fact that they never could have that last fight.

He wants it then. The blaze of chakra, the kicks and punches, the sound of steel slicing through flesh and bone, the pain.

More than anything, the taste of blood.

One time, he asked Itachi about Konoha's Bizarre Beast.

"Gai-san?" Itachi looked mildly surprised at best.

"You told me not to underestimate him, Itachi-san."

Itachi nodded. "Most people do."

"Then the stupidity is an act?" Kisame could see it; he could see it working. First impressions, reputation, these things were powerful. He knew that he was the perfect example of that. The Monster of the Hidden Mist.

Itachi , however, had no answer for him. "Who knows?" he asked, his eyes trained on Kisame but not seeing him at all. "How can anyone ever really know another person's true self?"

Time bleeds out.

One morning, Kisame wakes up, and the room is unnaturally quiet, completely still. It feels like the bottom of the ocean, like he is submerged under tons of water.

Kisame has felt death a million times. He dished it out; it passed him by. He grinned in its face and it grinned right back.

He doesn't need to look to know.

It's a shame for any shinobi to die in his sleep, which makes it fitting that someone as stupid as the Brainless Beast would do just that. Kisame stands over Gai's body, studies it one last time. It pisses him off how serene Gai looks, how peaceful, with his eyes closed.

He should have died in battle, a bleeding mess. His body should have been torn open by Kisame's sword. Instead he is lying in bed, looking like a marble statue, almost beautiful if you can ignore the ridiculous haircut and huge eyebrows. And the scars, but then Kisame always found them appealing.

He has no use for beauty, though.

"With a pretty boy like you, Itachi-san, people will be confused. They won't know when to run," Kisame said lightly, and watched Itachi's mouth quirk into the briefest of smiles.

Dead or not, Gai still owes Kisame, and – finally – payday has come. That bastard Kakuzu would be proud of me, Kisame thinks as he picks up his sword and plunges it into Gai's motionless chest. Blood doesn't spray; it just seeps lazily into the mattress, dyeing it red.

He leaves the sword in the body, and sweeps two fingers through the blood. It's barely even warm anymore.

Disappointing.

He puts the fingers into his mouth and sucks the sticky liquid off them, tasting nothing.

It's done.

Three days later, Kisame is sitting on the pier, that pier, his feet dangling in the water, his mind on Itachi, Gai on his tongue.

Phantom pains.

Kisame heard about the truth behind the mooneye plan after the war. So much for his world without lies. Hiding from the truth is all it would have been, pure cowardice.

He feels the crackle of chakra more than hears it, the killing intent directed at him like a single drop of bright red blood in the vastness of the ocean.

He smiles.

"Hoshigaki Kisame." The familiar voice is a hardly more than a hiss, the sound of a blade being unsheathed.

So you came, he thinks calmly, unsurprised.

When he turns around, he sees Hatake Kakashi standing on the pier, ready for battle. Kisame knows enough to keep his eyes trained on his enemy's upper body, on the blue flames that seem to lick his fingers.

Kisame can almost taste the hatred in the air around him, sharp and acidic. His smile widens as he draws his new sword.

Clearly, Hatake Kakashi didn't want to see the truth that was right in front of his eyes. As a shinobi he should have been able to tell, he should have taken one look at Gai, at the amount of blood, the position of the body, not to mention the two bloody fingerprints on his lips—

Kisame shakes his head, no time for memories.

A new enemy is in front of him, his blood beckoning.

"I will kill you for what you did," Hatake says.

Vengeance reeks of loyalty.

Kisame laughs under his breath.

Itachi-san, he thinks, this will be a good fight. Don't you think?