[Naruto] Diem Ex Dei (p2) -- Pein/Konan

[finnimbrun]

Title: Diem Ex Dei [Part 2]
Genre: General, Tragedy, Romance (?)
Characters: Pein (Nagato), Yahiko, Konan, Madara (Pein/Konan)
Rating: PG-13 (T)
Warnings: Violence/tragedy. Um, maybe very very vague sexuality.
Summary: So from her fingers sprout blades and stars and shuriken, paper bent into tiny points that will pierce, shred, make things bleed. She watches her work, creates beauty, and ignores all else for the time being. This is the day when everyone dies.

First part is here.



It is not really like this. Memory simplifies and enhances. Her memories insist that she argued little, protested little, and was certain of her feelings at all times. She knows these are lies. The trauma of those days abridges her former self, until in her mind's eye she is no more real than a paper crane resting against her thin wrist, appraised under the sun.

All memories converge and crystallize at this epicenter, with she and Nagato-in-Yahiko, holding tight, and Madara, overtaking a world (their world) with his voice, and this is what her mind records for posterity, but there must have been more. There must have been an entire universe of people and wars and suns and stars -- magic and moonlight and animals, and laughing and crying, bleeding and suffering, healing and hope. There must have been cities and machines and nuances of emotions, but not for her. Nothing she can capture.

What she holds against her wrist is that moment, when they three are all that remain anywhere, after the apocalypse that has not come (it will come). They are the world.

(All shinobi think that about their lives; it is loneliness, its own world.)

It must have been more complicated than that.

Memory, harnessed by limitations, is confounded by reality.

So it is not really like this. But this is a start.

--

The first time Konan meets Pein -- really meets him - is the next day.

They have left the house of healing. With a transportation jutsu supplied by Uchiha Madara, they have risen from the world of the dead and dying. They have risen above the war. They have risen above humanity.

“This is where you will keep the bodies when they are not in use,” he tells them. “Except for the body of Nagato. It must be placed in a secret, safe location, and tended as it was tended before. Don't forget that if that body dies, you will die.”

Konan does not like those odds. She says as much.

“Do not worry. That body is presently in a catatonic state; a coma, perhaps more correctly. It's using little energy and little chakra. As long as you see to it that its basic needs are met, it is unlikely to expire. That body -- “ And he waves his hand from Nagato-in-one-body to Nagato-in-the-next. “ -- is only the connecting point. Nothing more. This is now you.”

He hehs, dryly. “Whoever 'you' decide you are.”

Konan looks at Na-- no, she corrects herself - at Yahiko's form. Nagato, she still thinks. You're Nagato. Tell him that.

Of course, he does not. He says nothing.

“How did you come by these contraptions?” Konan murmurs, looking around the room. “And how did you come by this location? It's hard for me to believe that this jutsu has been used on someone else.”

It's all hard - no, impossible -- to believe. But it is happening.

“The world is a strange and limitless place,” Madara answers without answering. “I am old enough to know that. You two are mere children. Yes, of course this jutsu has been used before, as has this room. Do you think it is a coincidence that the rinnegan randomly appeared on a boy in Rain Country? It is no coincidence. It is inheritance. Nagato had the blood of the Sage of Six Paths in him. This jutsu was developed by that man, when his own power overcame the limits of his mortal body. This is what earned him his name. You are his second coming. You are like a god to this world.”

It is overwhelming, but then, lately, so is everything else.

Now that she is finally able to take her own well-being into consideration again, Konan eats and bathes and begins to feel like a human (but she is not, she remembers). She even lies down and allows herself the luxury of sleep - a thing she has caught precious little of during her time overseeing Nagato's recovery.

She has such fantastic sleep. Her body relaxes utterly and gives in.

Konan is lulled into vivid dreams. They are more alive than her life.

When she has awaken and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, cleaned and dressed herself and eaten again (starving; literally, she's so hungry), Konan decides to go to him.

A part of her wonders if she has been avoiding this deliberately. Has she been seeking distractions?

That can't be, because she's wanted nothing more than to have her friends returned to her - her friends, her sanity, her life, and some semblance of normalcy. Normalcy she knows she may never achieve as a shinobi, certainly not like this, but it is a small price to pay for those other desires. Sanity, she thinks she has. She's getting back to it, at least. And she is alive.

As is Nagato.

(This is what you fear: talking to him, touching him, and finding that he is gone. Getting everything you wanted while getting nothing you wanted. And you know you will be happy, for his sake, that he lives, no matter what, but what if you are now --

-- a stranger? Obsolete? -- )

When she goes to him, she is wearing the plain white gown they gave her at the house of healing, and a flower in her hair.

Her hair; she's spent too long brushing it, tidying the strands, pulling it back and clipping it. It's silly. It's all so silly. Beauty does not matter in a place like this.

Konan finds her companion in the room allotted to him. He is staring into a full length mirror, unmoving.

She wonders what it must be like, to see your dead friend's face when you see yourself.

How would it feel, to look, and to be reminded, each time, that you could not save him? It is strange enough for Konan to view Yahiko's body in this condition. It shakes her. But for Nagato, it must be - she cannot fathom.

There are other bodies, she wants to say. Why don't you use one of those instead? Why do you always prefer this one? Why is it always this one?

Because it hurts like a paper cut to the heart.

Konan stands in the doorway, rubbing her heel against the wood.

He does not look at her.

“He was right,” he says, smoothly.

Konan responds, perhaps a bit too eagerly, glad that he is speaking to her (glad that he is not locked away, locked in himself, because she feared -- ): “Who?”

“Jiraiya-sensei.”

“Jiraiya-sensei?” That seems a thousand years ago, somehow. “Right about what?”

She watches his lips as he speaks. There is a heaviness to his movements: a weight.

“I asked him how I could grow up. He told me I would need to find the answer on my own.”

This is when he turns to her.

“I have.”

Konan takes a step forward.

“I think I have, too,” she says. She has not felt like a girl for a while now.

“I have chosen my new name.”

He turns again. Yahiko's body looks back at him. Nagato's eyes . . . Konan has never before taken note of how wild they are. There is a fierceness to them, a frenzy she has not seen before. It makes her skin feel cold. But he is contained. Calm.

“Pain,” he begins, “is what has forced me to grow up.”

Konan nods.

“Konan.” She thinks she hears Nagato, briefly, in the single word. Then, he is gone. “This face reminds me of mistakes I will never make again. Yahiko wanted to go off on his own. I let him. I was weak, and uncertain. I was hesitant. I always cried. Now, I can look at myself, and remember.”

Konan sees his eyes in the mirror.

There is nothing to them but chill.

“Do you remember what Yahiko said that night at the dinner table?”

“No,” she confesses. “What do you mean?”

“He said that for people to understand one another, we have to make them suffer like we've suffered. If someone gets injured, for example, and a fight stops because of it. And then, he despaired, thinking it would never happen, and there would always be wars.”

He lifts a hand; strains his fingertips through his messy, spiky hair.

“I don't understand,” Konan admits.

“Madara told me that Hanzou's men were the ones who did this.” He presses a finger to ”his” cheek, pushing the nail against the skin. “Hanzou rules Amegakure. His decisions have brought war to Rain Country. War. This is what has destroyed our families, left us homeless and hungry. This is what killed Yahiko. This is what took our innocence and ignorance away. Time and again, I have learned the meaning of pain.

Nagato? How can this be Nagato? How can this be the boy she met, who pouted and quivered and stuttered when he spoke through his tears? His voice is measured, controlled. Hardened. Like an adult's voice. Beneath, far beneath, the sound of rage echoes from the depths; she hears it, ringing under everything he says, but it never escapes, never pierces his stoic exterior.

He looks up. “Pain has pushed me over the edge, Konan. It pushed me, and I fell, and Nagato is lying in the abyss, dead with Yahiko. Nagato is gone. Only his pain lingers. His pain. Yahiko's pain. And the pain of all those who have died to become me, and all those who have died in this miserable country.”

“But you've been given a second chance,” Konan answers, slumping against the frame of the door. It is almost too much, hearing her fears confirmed one by one. “I'm not an idealist. You know I'm not. But I have to believe there's some reason that you've been returned --” (to me) “ -- and as much I always question good fortune, can't we accept this one piece of luck? Won't that give us a little peace of mind?”

Please, she adds, silently. She wants peace of mind. She wants them to cope as best they can. She wants to begin a new life. Paper into origami. Her hands know the motions.

When Pein looks at her, she feels instantly like a child.

“I know what I have to do. It's all so clear now.”

Konan looks down.

“All right, then.”

They both know the discussion has concluded. Konan stands aside, makes way for him, and Pein pushes past her, and tells her, quietly, over his shoulder, “Wait here, Konan. I'll return.”

She does not argue. Why would she argue? He's been through hell. If he needs to take his leave, she thinks, then let him go.

When he has gone, Konan sinks to the floor and sinks into herself.

She links her fingers, wiggles her thumbs. Jutsu paper blooms between them.

Though she has lost sight of this fact in her moments of terror, surprise, and pain, Konan is a kunoichi. She has been chosen to live. She did not fall. She did not fall. Nagato chose her. Madara chose her. Fate chose her. She must make herself useful. She must support Nagato. She must protect him (but he is still powerful, always more powerful, but she must protect him), as he has protected her; she must make his decision a worthwhile one. Because she is alive, and Yahiko is not.

Because she lives. A life must have a purpose.

So from her fingers sprout blades and stars and shuriken, paper bent into tiny points that will pierce, shred, make things bleed. She watches her work, creates beauty, and ignores all else for the time being.

This is the day when everyone dies.

She is sitting quietly, tending her paper garden, when Hanzou and all his men, and all his family, servants, the children, and everyone in his regime - all who might have connections with him - are slaughtered. Konan would have never suspected.

No one can blame her. There is no way she could have known. Nagato did not kill.

Only once. Only once, he --

(She saw it foretold it in his eyes. She knew. She stepped aside.)

Tucked in the folds of herself, tiny and thrumming, there is the terrible desire --

But she is a good person.

-- to see them all suffer and die. Each one. Fragile as paper.

But she is a good person, and she does not know, has no idea, of what is to come next.

(She stepped aside.)

Unexpectedly, a corner cuts her finger. Konan stares down, watches the blood fall, like the blood that splattered on her face that day.

She lifts her finger, puts it into her mouth, and sucks the blood away.

--

When the flames grow so high that she can see them, even from the top floor, Konan leaves.

She runs through the streets, expecting to hear cries and screams, but there are none.

Windows are shuttered. Once or twice, she thinks she sees an opening, and a cautious eye peeking out at her. Then, the human presences are concealed. Amegakure is industry, metal and roads.

It rains.

She finds his central body before the ruins, sitting in a low crouch. Water drains down his cheeks. Dangling from one hand is a hitai-ate. Without looking up, he strikes the ground with it, scarring the Rain Country symbol with a long crack.

“I told you to wait,” he reminds her.

“I was worried.”

“It's over,” he says, calmly, as if she had not commented. “They are all dead. There will be no more war here.”

“You were capable of this all along, Na--?”

He looks up. To her shock, the syllable appears to have wounded him. Maybe it's only the lighting, she thinks.

“Maybe, physically. Not in other ways. But now I have grown up.”

Behind him, the blaze roars. It is an inferno. An apocalypse.

“I killed them quickly. There was not as much pain as you'd think. My rain will end the fires.”

You really are a god.

“Where are the other bodies?”

“Cleaning up the remains, throwing them into the fire. It smells horrible, doesn't it? Burning flesh. I'm going to retire the other five and lock them in the chambers tonight.”

“Your . . . last body. I've taken care of it, for now.”

“I appreciate it,” he says, quietly.

Konan walks over and takes a seat beside him, filled with a kind of awe. This. This is. There is nothing that can summarize it.

“Don't get too near the fires,” he cautions. “They wouldn't mix well with your jutsu.”

“I know.” She glances back, like she cannot quite believe what she will see. “Na-Pein. Are you sure this was right?”

“You can't ask me that.”

“Why can't I?”

“Because I have to be sure. This is my burden. And if I look back, all those who have died will have died in vain, for a meaningless goal. You are not thinking large enough, Konan.”

He stands, as if with great difficulty, and she realizes that the body before her is in a state of exhaustion.

“When I was hurt, I did not feel like myself. I did not feel like I was in my body. There was pain. And aside from the pain, there were dreams. Fever dreams. They were like nothing I could describe to you with our limited language. I was in a stupor. And during that stupor, I made my peace with the fact that I would emerge as someone different. I have.”

He looks up, as he did before, and the rain falls fiercely. In the orange illumination, his hair and eyes are a perfect match.

“When the jutsu was performed, when I took into myself the pain and lives and knowledge of those others, I transcended humanity. Jiraiya-sensei said kindness is what makes us human. I am no longer bound by human laws.”

His mind is cracking apart before her eyes. It is horrifying, but so beautiful.

“I had a revelation, and this is it. I am the one who will save this world. I am the destined child. The pain and the trials of my life have all been for this purpose. They were meant to prepare me. All throughout my pain, I dreamed of bringing a new era to this world. And then I woke up, and was given the chance to do sign. This is fate. The pain of those who have died here is what has made me into an adult. A god. And now it's obvious to me. Everything is obvious to me. I will not ask what is right and wrong. I will make my own right. And that started today. These deaths are sacrifices for the greater good. Here is what has become has become apparent to me, what I was too much of a child to comprehend before.“

He pauses.

“Even a large number of deaths is a small price to pay for the end of war.”

Pein's dream is sweeping her away, and Konan guesses she must be going mad, too, because she has no reason to be sane, because Nagato is gone and Yahiko is dead and she has no family and country, no allegiances but to him, and he is right; if anyone should take the weight of the world upon their shoulders, it should be people whose spirits have been bent.

Because her human heart tells Konan that she should grieve for those who are dead, but she feels nothing. She has spent all her sympathy already. There is nothing left. Nothing but to follow him.

“I am an adult, as well,” she says, and rises.

They stand side by side and watch the fires as they die in the rain.

The flames have lit the clouds in the sky.

“Red clouds,” Konan says.

“Beautiful. By tomorrow, the rain will have washed away the rot in this city. We are standing on the verge of a new era. I will bring peace to this world, starting with Amegakure. More than a Kage, I will be God.”

“Is that what you want? To be God?”

“It doesn't matter.” Yet again, someone answers her without answering. “This is a role only I can fulfill. It is not a matter of choosing.”

“Beautiful,” Konan agrees.

“Konan, this body is spent. It is about to collapse. Will you lift me?”

Always. “You don't have to ask. You know the answer.”

His face is impassive.

“It does not trouble me to ask,” he says, at length, and that is that.

Rain has undone her hair; it hangs limp, wet and matted, down her back. Her thin white gown, soaked now, and transparent, clings to her breasts and thighs and belly. Konan faces the fire, letting it warm her skin; arms by her sides, face stern, she sees the future in this night, and it warms her. Yahiko was right. Only destruction can bring peace. It will be worth it.

Peace is his goal. Pain is his burden. He is her god. He is her burden.

He did not let her fall.

She will hold him up.

--

She does not call him Nagato again.

--

Amegakure enters a time of peace and prosperity. The people of the streets begin to rebuild their lives, and the leaders of the surrounding countries will not make war, because who is there to make war against? Hanzou is dead. A ghost ruler has taken his place. A “God”, they say, but no one has ever seen him. They only see his messenger. His angel, with her elegant white wings.

Exactly seven times, enemy factions have attacked Amegakure. Exactly seven times, they have been killed, without mercy, down to the last man. Pein has no patience for conflict. He is a ruthless man, absolutely brutal in his Judgments; he will not hesitate to wipe a clan from the face of the earth, should it trouble him.

Pein is not tolerant of those who oppose his ideals. He teaches them, quickly and thoroughly, that this is a mistake.

They do not survive to repeat their error.

The common misconception other countries seem to have regarding Pein is that he is a cruel man (god).

Konan disagrees with this assessment. He does not abuse her, physically or verbally. He does not grow angry. He does not raise his voice. His temper is kept in check, at all times. If there is a side of his spirit that delights in the pain he has named himself for, he does not show it overtly. Konan does wonder. When he speaks of his goal of teaching the childish world the meaning of true pain and forcing it into maturity, she hears wrath and questions whether this is all about saving the world, or whether the last lingering piece of Nagato's soul - and the souls of the others - cries for vengeance.

There is no definitive answer.

Konan is his angel. She rules Amegakure through him, delivering his messages, his blessings, and his judgments. By this time, Akatsuki has formed, and Pein is often busy with the organization.

He is private, excruciatingly so, and this is one facet of his persona which has remained intact since the days when he was named Nagato.

Nagato only shared his true self with Konan. Pein only shares his true self with Konan. It is the same relationship, but it has matured in ways neither of them could have foreseen.

Life is not so bad anymore. They are no longer starving. They no longer wear rags. They no longer wander the streets. They no longer cry. They have risen above - above everything. The long, torturous days of their youths seem like memories that do not belong to them.

The same is true of the happy moments they enjoyed together, years ago, and that is unfortunate. However, sacrifices must be made.

Pein has two idiosyncrasies, and one is the rain.

The other is the habit he has taken on of piercing himself.

His reasoning is something to do with the devices he keeps his bodies in, but Konan knows him, and she knows this is merely his way of reminding himself what pain feels like. He is a god. He needs these reminders, as gods need crucifixion, crowns of thorns, nails through the wrists, lives of detachment and sorrow, and other miseries.

It is strange, Konan supposes, that he craves the pain and blood whose very existences seem like fundamental affirmations of humanity.

She dismisses the thought.

He calls for her, one day, and places a bolt of metal in her palm.

Pein indicates the bridge of his nose. “Here,” he says. “Push it in. Like the others.”

Konan looks down at her hand, then at his face. He has not asked her to do this before. He has only ever done it himself, and she does not know what to make of this gesture, or if anything should be made of it.

The face that once belonged to Yahiko looks to Konan, waiting for her reaction. Outside of battle, this is the body Pein utilizes at all times. It has grown, this body. It is entirely the body of an adult, with none of the features of the round-faced youth she met in her first lifetime.

And those eyes. Not Yahiko's eyes. The eyes which have taken over the country. They promise to change the world.

She hesitates, but not for long. Never for long.

They stand in the rain, on the tongue of the statue of the tower that Hanzou built-grotesque as it is.

Konan holds his chin and tilts his head, and his eyes do not show response; there is nothing, only that intense watching she thinks of as keen and bright, because his eyes are the eyes of a visionary. Her purple nail grazes his cheek, and he does not flinch.

Theirs is a relationship without a relationship. They do not talk much, compared to most people. They do not touch, as they could. But he is her god, her master, and she is his angel; she is a piece of him, like one of his bodies. Their wants are united. Their thoughts are united, until sometimes it is difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. They are intimate. They do not have to talk. They do not have to touch.

They stand together, sleep together, bathe together. They tend to one another's injuries (his rain and his hands clean the blood from her skin -- her blood, and others'), and when he is tired, she lifts him, because he does grow tired; spent. Each body has a limit.

But he never makes the touching what it could be.

They are everything. They are not lovers.

Because he is god, she thinks. And gods have no lust. No earthly desires.

But she is an angel, and she burns for him.

Every day, she burns, never satiated.

Konan holds him, and pushes the piercing in.

(Penetrates.)

Cartilage tears. He shudders, slightly; only slightly, even though she has been brutal. His fingertips are on the small of her back, drumming, drumming, drumming, like the rain that drenches their skin, and her mouth is over his, both open, open, open, and she can feel the heat radiating off his skin, under the rain. If she moves lower, now, only just barely. She could. They could.

Konan wipes the blood from his face and re-ties his hitai-ate. He fixes her hair, tucks it back into place.

“Thank you,” he says, like always.

“Of course,” she answers, as she answers every time.

She leaves.

They are busy people. Busy changing the world. And Pein has a country to watch, besides.

They are busy people.

--

She burns, worse and worse every day, and she thinks it will go away, thinks it will be cast aside, because they are busy, and the world is important, far more important than this, but the years intensify it.

And there are days when, gladly, Konan would relinquish her divinity, let the world go, let the pain go, if he would stop being God, if he would be a man, only, and have her, because that is what she wants, really wants. She tries to deny it to herself, to say that she is a spirit, an angel, the right-hand of a visionary, and that is of far greater value, to herself and to him and to everyone else, but.

When she folds her swans and dragons and unicorns - residing in paper castles built by her fingers - she wishes, in her private and secret castle, that in the new world (his fingers are building) - he will be a man, and she will be a woman.

And there will be nothing remarkable about them.

Another unicorn joins the pile at her feet, crushed beneath the heel of her boot.

Nothing remarkable in the least.

--

The death of the heart occurs in stages.

Like a flower - a real one, this time - in the hand of a child; one petal plucked, then another. ”He loves me; he loves me not.” Konan remembers it from a long ago and a far away. Her parents' faces have all but faded but her mind. There are heretical moments in which she looks in the mirror and tries to find their faces in her. She cannot.

Most nights, Pein comes to bed after Konan is asleep, and wakes before her. Yahiko's is the only body he brings to a bed; the others, he confines to machines. When he sleeps, he leaves one or more to watch over the city, such that he never truly sleeps.

Konan's room (their room, really, but she has come to think of it as hers) affords her a good view.

They live in the tallest of the western towers.

Constantly, Pein sits on the ledge, staring out.

Konan knows, as she knows many things he does not say, that he is looking for Yahiko.

Yahiko is in the mirror. Yahiko is buried in a grave years deep. Yahiko is gone.

Once, Pein is not there.

In his stead, Konan walks to the end of the ledge.

She looks down, and remembers.

She is down there. At least, a part of her is. Down there, dead, with her friend.

Konan did not fall. She does not fall. Not then. Especially not now.

Inhaling a deep breath, she inches closer, until her toes touch the end of the rock.

Konan closes her eyes, spreads her wings, and flies.

Pein is waiting for her in the bed when she returns, and that is how Konan knows something is amiss. Pein never lies down before she does. He is as predictable as the weather patterns he creates, except on rare occasions, but this is a first. His back is facing her. Konan crawls in beside him, saying nothing.

This must have to do with Madara's order. Subtle though he is, expressionless as he may be, Pein's ill moods are not entirely concealed from Konan. These days, every time he has a conversation with Madara, he grows even more distant than he usually is, such that Konan cannot reach him.

Konan recalls Nagato, crying, with his hair in his face and his eyes hidden. Boy, man, or god, this is the way he's always been, isn't it? Ever since Konan met him, when they were orphans in the war -- coming together because of their mutual loneliness - he has been inconsolable.

Sunrise and sunset, sitting on that statue and giving her messages to relay, this is the way he is.

Certain days, it becomes particularly bad. On those days, he must be stricken with some hidden ache, plagued with some unseen grief. Then, he recedes into himself, and will not speak, and when Konan speaks to him, in hushed murmurs (she never loses her patience), he will not answer, but only sits, like the other statues.

She walks away, leaves him to whatever he is contemplating, but inside, far inside, a part of her is furious.

Fury she is good at suppressing, like many other emotions; Konan is a detached woman, herself, but she hates that he locks himself in, locks her out, even after everything she has done for him. And then, when she thinks further, she hates that it has to be this way, that he has always locked everyone out, except her, to a degree, because he is - has always been - beautiful. Everything she has ever experienced of him is beautiful. And these are the moments when Konan most wonders if she is going quietly mad (has gone mad), because how could she have done so much for someone who will never fully open up to her, someone who is not even really the one she thought she fell in love with, when she was only a fledgling girl?

She was a waif. She knew nothing. And he is not the one who smiled at her. He never smiles. He won't hold her, won't take her, won't kiss her; at his worst, he won't even talk to her, or look at her.

These are the times when she wonders what she is thinking. Does she love him only because she does not know how to do anything else? Does she love him, at all, or only her memories?

She must be so mad, so foolish, so pathetic, to have devoted her entire life to this man (because it is the man, and not the god, to whom her allegiance truly belongs).

Then, he speaks to her again, and all her doubts dissolve. Right or wrong, this is her life. This is what they have. And it will not change.

“You're troubled,” she says, once she has gotten under the covers.

He is silent for a long while. She wonders if he will respond.

“There are two left,” he says, finally, “and five of us.”

“Good odds, when you put it that way.”

She wants to ask what's wrong, but that would be the worst course of action. If she is too direct, or if she speaks too much, he will shut down. She knows this from prior experiences.

“I still distrust the Uchiha's abilities. I'm not so sure he can defeat the eight-tails.”

Pein stirs.

“That's not my concern.”

Konan is taken aback by the severity of his tone. “Really?”

A pause. Then, “He has no business in this organization.”

Ah. She sees at least a part of what is upsetting him, now. Progress.

“I agree with you about that. And he's a mere child. But by its nature, the organization has always made use of --“ How to put it? “-- people we would rather not associate our names with, if we could avoid it. We've tolerated them. We always do.”

While it is something of an insult to Akatsuki on Madara's behalf to put Uchiha Sasuke in one of their cloaks, Konan is nevertheless stunned that Pein would react this poorly. Akatsuki's members have never been their comrades; not really, even if Pein did, once or twice, show a slightly negative response to their deaths.

The organization has always been a means to an end. As long as that end is being achieved, what should membership matter?

Pein stirs again, shifting, as if he's growing restless.

Peculiar. Unheard of.

“Think carefully, Konan,” he says, and to her astonishment, his voice is thick with restrained emotion. What emotion is impossible to discern, but she knows that thickness of speech. “It does not take a rinnegan to see what is happening. Think about our orders.”

“To go to Konoha and hunt the Kyuubi?”

Pein rolls over, so that he is facing her.

Bright, bright eyes. Concentric circles. Moonlight in them.

He stares with no hint of self-consciousness.

Konan stares back.

Suddenly, she sees fingers in front of her face.

“Leaving tomorrow,” Pein says, as if Konan does not already know that.

“Your first time away from Amegakure in years,” she says, offering her implicit guess at what's vexing him.

“My first time away from Amegakure.”

There is no reprimand in the emphasis. Nevertheless, Konan chides herself. He is not - that person. His name belongs to six (seven) and six (seven) belong to him.

She is still distracted by that hand in front of her face.

“Shouldn't be a problem. You're invincible.”

“So you told Madara, twice.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No,” he says, and again, there is no reprimand. There is never reprimand for her. With anyone, Pein's tone is never harsh. It's always calm and dry, sometimes unnervingly so, but so, Konan supposes, is her own.

Konan is not sure what to say, but she tries. “I don't understand why he emphasizes our opponent so, but if he insists on doing that, then I'll emphasize you.”

Pein closes his eyes.

“He upsets you,” Konan says, softly.

Watching him like this, in the slim light . . . she knows that she does not ask him how he is feeling, that they do not communicate with one another in that way. They never have. It is not his manner of self-expression, and she is not sure it is hers. But at this moment, he looks more exposed than she has ever seen, and it is frightening, and intriguing, and she thinks she might just feel peculiar enough to ask of him - to tell him that she would like to know what he is thinking.

“Why won't you tell me -- “ Her mouth goes dry at the words. “ -- what's on your mind, Pein?”

Slowly, his eyes open again.

“Something's wrong,” she says, feeling bolder now that she has broken the dam of silence, “but you aren't saying what. Why do you never say? I know . . . I know you are someone who likes to give presence, rather than words, and I trust that by coming here, to me, you are telling me something.”

So she hopes.

“But sometimes, I wish you would speak frankly with me. All these years, all I have done for you, I have never asked you to compromise for me. Will you do it, this once?”

His lips part, barely. Konan can see him taking in a breath.

“Do you trust me?”

“I do.” How could he doubt that? “I have built my life around my faith in you.”

“Then I see no point in asking me such questions. I am a benevolent god.”

This is territory they have never really breached before, but then, they have never been ordered to leave Amegakure before, either. Change is such a thing that once a domino falls, every last one can hit the ground.

(They're tipping, slipping, toppling. One by one, by one, by one.)

“I know you are, Pein, but I am your partner -- “ In almost every way. Your lover and other half, for all intents and purposes. “ -- And I think that I am not presuming too much and treading upon your benevolence to suggest that I should know your feelings, from time to time.”

(And down they go.)

Those fingers are still there, almost close enough to touch her cheek.

“You think I am afflicted.” His voice gives no sign that he is losing his patience, if he is. “And you insist on knowing why?”

“I will not reduce myself to insisting, no, but I am asking.”

“There is no purpose in you being afflicted.”

“Is that what this is about? You don't want to worry me? Is that it?” And she is almost pleading, now, in spite of herself. “But I don't mind. I want to share your pain.”

The words are gentle. Konan is beginning to feel bewildered. Honestly, what does he think she has been trying for the better part of her life to do?

“Gods who need comfort are not worth faith. And without faith, a god is worth nothing.”

Konan's eyes lower. Her lids are heavy.

“Then I guess I am the fool, who would retain her faith. Good night.”

She starts to roll over, not wishing to maintain this potentially confrontational gazing between one another, but his fingertips on her cheek stay her. Out of the corner of one eye, she sees the ring on his thumb.

“I've never cared about this organization,” she says (which she guesses is a pointless thing to blurt, but seeing his ring makes her think of it, and she's forgetting what she was saying already).

“I know.”

His hand drops, finds hers, and she thinks he might take it, but instead, he only hooks their smallest fingers together - never taking his eyes from hers, and his bottom lip is out, as it always is, or maybe the piercings produce an illusion - but this gesture, like when they were children . . . when she and Nagato were children, and Nagato was shy.

Konan props herself higher on her elbows and inches sideways. Sheets ripple soundlessly. She is a kunoichi, and her jutsu have always been focused on levity. She could move, with just this amount of stealth, in order to get near enough to an enemy to slice them to ribbons. And she has before.

“When I think of associating with people like them -- “ She does not shudder until she feels his other hand on her neck. “ -- Some of them, so perverse -- “

“I do not think of it. Once again, small prices to pay for the safety of the world.”

Konan still remembers the first person she murdered, thoroughly and assuredly, before her own eyes. Still remembers his face. Though she should not be thinking this now, she tells herself; what point is there, in this? “Human puppets,” she murmurs.

“This world is still in its infancy. Humans are like children.”

Do you mean me, too, when you say that? Konan wonders, for a moment, but he must not, because she is an angel, not a human. Not a woman.

She leans down; farther, farther, until their noses are touching.

“The humans born in this era, in this time, will forever be like children, because they are crippled. All the strife has crippled them. But the humans born after my plans have come to fruition, after I have achieved my goals, will be different. It will be a new world, like nothing we've known. There will be no one like -- “

“ -- us?”

“That which you want, I know,” he says, abruptly, and his eyes come into focus again, and he is no longer dreaming of his glorious future, and Konan does not understand the subject change.

Please. “We have so much to do,” she hears herself respond.

Finally (and in this last instant, when she makes the connection, it is so unexpectedly comfortable, like slipping on her cloak, but perhaps the comfort is that she has already let her mind reach a protective distance), Konan presses their lips together, entreating, and feels his deep, rich words vibrate over her pale, smooth skin: “I want the same.”

If he will continue to resist telling her of what tortures him, then so be it. If he, in his irksome godly pride, is set upon suffering alone, and carrying the burden of the weight of the world and the weight of humanity and the weight of sins and the weight of war and the weight of his plans, then Pein works and lives as he understands, by his own rules. And so be it.

Konan cannot stop him. But this must be his catharsis. At least there is this.

And she will make him forget, for as long as she possibly can.

Hers is the mercy he lacks for all things: especially himself.

Konoha waits.

--

There are two kinds of interpersonal knowledge. One is the kind in which a fact is present in your mind, stored and filed, and you are certain of it, and could recite it at any moment, if asked. The other is different and opposite: it is knowledge without knowledge. It is that which can affect your actions for the entirety of your life, like the pull of gravity, yet you could never say what it is, or why. It is defined wholly by its effect on you, and it hides, lurking beneath your consciousness.

Some would call this second kind a form of faith, exactly like its more conscious counterpart. Exactly like one believes in a higher power.

Konan lies in bed and lifts Pein's hand so that she can watch the hazy morning sunlight filter through the glass of the windows and play upon the Akatsuki insignia of his ring.

She is awake. He is asleep. It is the first time.

Her long, slender fingers spread wide as she presses her palms to the mattress.

Once again, with grace, Konan slips near. Her calf pushes his.

Leg over leg and her hair is down now, falling, and her arms are almost the colour of the sheets, but softer, and she crawls, climbs, stretches.

Unfolds. Like origami.

She has always loved him for his loneliness.

It is this knowledge, which she always known but never known, that surfaces now, as her hands come together and a garden of white paper flowers surrounds her.

Bodies together, and white wings. Like a prayer. This is her faith.

He wakes as she eases her lips over his.

“It's time to go,” he says; words engraved in her skin.

“I know,” she answers, and kisses, and feels his hand in her hair.

It's quiet. It's so quiet, quieter than she had ever thought it would be, but when have either of them ever had to talk to communicate with the other? To the ignorant - to their team-mates and to Jiraiya-sensei and when necessary, to others - he will make speeches, and use a surplus of language, but this quietness belongs to her.

And she finally understands that the absence of words has not pushed them apart. It has drawn them closer.

She loves him for his loneliness. He loves her, who has allowed him these silences.

Epilogue

1] There is one more part, an epilogue, which is almost finished and which I'll post as soon as I can. The story itself is mostly over, but the epilogue does serve to tie up some loose ends that other portions of the 'fic were hinting at.

2] On "Pein" vs. "Pain" -- I recently learned that according to the Databook, it's supposed to be "Pain". Well, originally, I used to call him that, but then I noticed everyone else referred to him as "Pein", and he's listed as such on FFN. >:O So I went along with that. Anyhow, I still think Pein looks more like an actual name, even if Pain makes more actual sense. Oh, whatevs. You know who I'm talking about. XD;

3] I tried to write their dialogue somewhat like what it is in canon, but that's kind of hard because there haven't been that many scenes of them talking in canon. XP But hopefully, this seems at least vaguely IC. XDDDD