Fic: Really Nice Day
Title: “Really Nice Day”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG
Summary: Pain takes matters into his own hands, but the Author strikes back just as viciously. Chapters 436-437; spoilers up to 450 [semi-RPS, crack, implied KishiSasu, implied SasuNaru] Please R&R!
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi. Kishimoto Masashi obviously also belongs to Kishimoto Masashi.
A/N: I started this right after 436 was released. Can’t believe it’s been such a long time. I suppose this makes, what, the third installment in my Kishi-centric nameless-as-of-yet series of fics. XD I hope you like it! And really, no offence to the fans of Pain or NaruHina!
REALLY NICE DAY
It was a Monday, when my lover told me,
"Never pay the Reaper with love only."
Bif Naked. ‘Lucky’
It was a Monday when I found a skeleton in my closet.
Don’t get me wrong; I normally keep other stuff in my closet, the stuff that belongs there. Like, you know… stuff. I do have a few secrets of my own - like that recently finished poster of Sasuke, full height, full frontal nudity (oh, you did not hear me say it!); but real skeletons made of bones and all belong there in no case!
This one had long untidy hair that obscured most of his face. His sallow skin was taut over his prominent bones, so thin it looked almost translucent. He was lounging in some kind of a freaky chair, wired all over and looking exceedingly disturbing. To be honest, anything remotely looking like a human being sitting in my closet would seem disturbing to me. Especially if I had no idea how this creature had ended up there.
“Shut the door, heathen,” the invalid skeleton demanded. “I am conversing with the demon vessel and I shall not be interrupted.”
Holy f-!
I looked past him and spotted a blue-haired woman standing patiently in the shadows. She turned her head in my direction indifferently, and for a moment I felt as if I were the intruder here, not them. Completely smitten, I opened my mouth to protest, but the shrill ringing of the phone distracted me. I withdrew cautiously and began shutting the door, when the man looked up at me and informed me confidentially:
“I can see peace.”
Good for you, I thought grimly. I certainly couldn’t.
* * *
Having spoken to the person that had unwittingly saved me from getting into an insane asylum before my time (actually that was a very disputable issue: that person turned out to be my editor who usually pushed me in that direction without a second thought), I decided to ignore the closet my characters had chosen to haunt and sat down to do the ‘name’ for the new chapter of my manga. The process consumed me completely. Night was falling; from the corner of my eye I could see the glares of street-torches sliding over my window.
I rubbed my nosebridge wearily. I could use a cup of some strong tea or coffee or whatever. Holding that thought and working into a blazing obsession in my mind, I strolled to the kitchen, but ventured into the closet to see if the God I had there was still ‘conversing’.
The closet was empty. I released a small sigh of relief. Some time ago I would have thought it had all been a hallucination caused by the lack of sleep. I knew better now that I was getting weekly visits from a certain Sharingan-eyed avenger whether I wanted to or not.
A banging noise in the kitchen snapped me back to reality. I frowned. Could it be that my wife had come home earlier than she had planned? I recalled her saying she would be away for a few days on some family business. If it involved her side of the family, it was most likely serious, which made her presence in my kitchen practically impossible.
I barged into the kitchen, prepared for everything (a robber, an impertinent neighbour looking for salt, a four-eyed alien… I have a vivid imagination, yeah); however, what I saw there, was beyond my wildest fancy. For I saw Konan (wearing my wife’s apron with floral patterns embroidered in glistening pink) fussing around the table and whipping a strange yellowish paste in a large bowl.
“Konan,” I said, my throat inexplicably dry.
“Author-sama,” she greeted me back impassively.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m making a cake for Pain,” she said as though it were obvious. Of course, silly me!
“Why?”
Konan turned to face me. She had a bit of flour smeared across her pallid cheek, and her blue hair appeared to be in more of artistic disarray than usual. I was secretly glad Seishi was not here; he would have definitely tried to review the outfit she wore underneath the Akatsuki cloak to make sure she was as obscene as I had promised.
“Sugar is good for him,” she said gravely. “Besides, it’s his birthday.”
“No, it’s not!” I fumed. Huh! Not even I know when Pain’s birthday is! How would she know?
“Pain has had a total of eight bodies, notwithstanding the failed experiments,” Konan chided. “I didn’t say it was Nagato’s birthday.”
This was getting downright ridiculous.
“You mean you celebrate eight birthdays?” I gasped.
She came up to me, her face never changing from the mask of indifference, and whispered:
“He needs a lot of sugar.”
It was then that I noticed a familiar glimmer of those weird spiral eyes behind her and took a step back, just in case. For all I knew, Pain could be a jealous type (not that I had made him that way).
Apparently they had already decided to celebrate Pain’s birthday in my apartment and there was nothing I could do about it (especially if I wanted to ever complete the Invasion of Pain arc). I retreated to the bathroom, rinsed my face with cold water and proceeded to think how to get rid of the Akatsuki duo effectively. Once I emerged from the bathroom, I found out with a pang in my heart that my living room had suffered great damage. Clusters of pink, blue and violet origami flowers blossomed here and there. Curtains had been replaced with sparkling tinsel, and multi-coloured paper lanterns were hanging from the ceiling.
“Redecorating?” a bored voice asked. I spun around frantically. “You have poor taste.”
I clenched my teeth to contain a snappy remark. Coming from the person who delighted in having no taste whatsoever, it wasn’t that much of an insult anyway. Especially since the whole redecorating thing had been performed without my consent.
“Help me!” I blurted out.
Sasuke narrowed his eyes. He turned towards the kitchen, sensing the presence of my visitors, then cast me a wary glance. I shrugged helplessly.
At that moment, Konan emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands clean with a towel. She froze upon seeing Sasuke, and for a while the two were standing still opposite each other, scrutinizing each other’s attire. The flowing black fabric covered in red clouds.
“Konan,” the woman introduced herself. “God’s Angel.”
Sasuke grunted non-committally at that, rightfully assuming she knew who he was. The silence was interrupted once more by the rumbling of Nagato’s chair as he tried to push it through the door.
“We are Pain,” he said huskily, not looking at Sasuke, but clearly addressing him. “We are God.”
Sasuke knitted his eyebrows and glanced at me.
“He can see peace,” I added, trying to suppress a snort. I was half-expecting Sasuke to ask where.
Konan pulled the chair through, the train of black wire still trailing after it.
“Blueberry pie,” she said in her quiet voice, vaguely reminiscent of the rustling of paper. Blueberry went really well with her colour. I thought for a moment that I must be a genius.
Konan vanished into the kitchen briefly and returned carrying a large plate where the pie was sitting. The pie itself was also pretty big, with a thick open layer of blueberry laid out on crisp dough. I was instantly hungry and wondering if I could possibly eat what my own characters created. Why not? If I could touch them, I could just as surely touch the products of their making. As a result, I ended up sharing a table and a meal with Pain, Konan feeding him gently, and Sasuke eyeing the entire sequence with a mask of quiet indifference upon his face.
“Uzumaki Naruto says hello,” Nagato said all of a sudden.
I frowned. Ah… So he was still ‘conversing’. I should have known that Pain was one of those quiet types that could not be shut up once they started talking. Still waters run deep, as the saying goes. Well done, Masashi.
I munched down my slice of the blueberry pie (Konan could bake pretty well for a fictional character) and watched Sasuke from the corner of my eye.
“Hello, Naruto,” he replied after a short pause.
“He says you’re missing all the fun.”
“Tell him I have more important business to attend to.”
“He says: Go fuck yourself.” Sasuke’s brow twitched. Pain cocked his head with an almost curious expression on his worn-out face. “Oh. My bad. He said that to me.”
“In theory, it’s quite possible,” Konan remarked, stuffing another piece of the pie into Nagato’s mouth before he could protest. Crumbs stuck to his chin in a funny way. That’s a major villain to you, kids.
“I don’t like him,” Sasuke said after the dinner when I was holed up in the kitchen doing the dishes (basically just to escape the living manga-fest playing out in my living room).
I sneered at his remark.
“Big surprise! Last time I checked you didn’t like anyone, not even yourself, I’m afraid.”
He fixed me with a dirty look. Well, guilty as charged: I am to blame for that not liking people thing. Indirectly.
“You promised me Konoha,” he said listlessly. “Next thing I know this freak is out there grinding it into oblivion.”
I opened my mouth to point out that I had promised him no such thing (I had long since made a point out of not promising my characters anything. Ever.), but I’d be the first to know that arguing with Uchiha Sasuke never ends well. So I simply smirked.
“Ever heard of the author’s arbitrary rule?”
Before he could reply, something in my living room came crashing down. The sound was so abrupt that I nearly dropped a plate. Wondering what the hell my guests were doing out there, I rushed out of the kitchen just in time to notice Pain hovering over my computer. In a flash, it all came crashing upon me. Oh, that cunning bastard! He was redrawing my ‘name’! No, scratch that: having already redrawn it, he was sending it to my editor.
Desperate to stop him, I made a go for the computer, but Pain was incredibly fast for a guy in a chair. He backpedaled, then turned the chair around and maneuvered towards the misfortunate closet, Konan loyally by his side. For a moment, I got caught in the wire and barely kept on my feet. The door slammed shut before I could reach the fugitives. When I managed to open it again, they were gone.
“Could have helped me!” I shouted to Sasuke who was standing beside my computer like nothing had happened. “I’m so tired of you guys thinking you can manipulate the story.”
He shrugged inexpressively. Sure-sure, keep telling yourself you don’t care. I braced myself for the worst as I sat down to check what Pain had drawn.
“Is that Hinata?” Sasuke asked, peeking at the screen over my shoulder.
To say I was shocked was to say nothing. That was something I had once had in mind (but honestly, my mind is a dump!) - but never so abruptly, so out of the thin air. One thing was clear: Pain needed a reason to utter another long and boring speech and thus prolong his life. I had never planned the Invasion arc to last this long but now that Naruto had seen another precious person die, we wouldn’t see the end of it.
“Is she… dead?” I whispered under my breath. “Fans are going to kill me!”
“You changed me. Your smile saved me. So I’m not afraid to die protecting you,” Sasuke read quietly. Holy hell, the bastard had even written out the dialogue! “Because I love you. The fans are going to kill you.”
Head, meet desk.
“What are you so broken up about? It’s not like it’s the final release yet.”
“You don’t know my editor! He’s a sap at heart! A tragic love story - he’ll never let me live it up if I cut it out! He’s firmly convinced Naruto is in need of romance, both story- and character-wise!” I took a deep breath. Pain made himself a luxurious birthday present, it could not be denied. “Maybe I’ll be able to save her, but it’s a hopeless mess! What am I to do with this love confession? It’s so out of place! The last thing I need is to piss the fans off, and half of the fandom will hate me for killing her off whereas the other half will hate me for bringing up the love issue.”
Not to mention, all of them would hate me if Pain lingered too long, but that, I assumed, went without saying. To my distress, Sasuke cracked a small smile at that.
“Like you don’t know Naruto. He’ll forget about it as soon as more important issues arise.” By that the smug brat undoubtedly meant himself. “Provided she survives of course.”
Damn straight! The last thing I needed was my sensitive, hero-complex-prone protagonist blaming himself for anyone’s death! But Sasuke was right. I should have been focusing on more important things.
“I’ll kill Nagato,” I said resolutely. “I’ll give him a death to remember, be sure of that. But first I’ll sort things out with my editor.”
“I have a better idea,” Sasuke said with a glint of mischief in his eyes. “Naruto, after all, is a pro at butchering bad guys’ characters.”
A quarter of an hour later I had already outlined the plot for the next ten to fifteen chapters that included a lot of talking, a wangsty flashback, a pointless character death, a couple of decision made on the spot and a giganimous peace-fest. Pain wouldn’t thank me for that. But it was his call. Nobody messes with my rough drafts!
“Hey, Sasuke,” I said grinning. “You know what?”
“Hn?”
“I can see peace!”
February 24-June 29, 2009
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG
Summary: Pain takes matters into his own hands, but the Author strikes back just as viciously. Chapters 436-437; spoilers up to 450 [semi-RPS, crack, implied KishiSasu, implied SasuNaru] Please R&R!
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi. Kishimoto Masashi obviously also belongs to Kishimoto Masashi.
A/N: I started this right after 436 was released. Can’t believe it’s been such a long time. I suppose this makes, what, the third installment in my Kishi-centric nameless-as-of-yet series of fics. XD I hope you like it! And really, no offence to the fans of Pain or NaruHina!
REALLY NICE DAY
It was a Monday, when my lover told me,
"Never pay the Reaper with love only."
Bif Naked. ‘Lucky’
It was a Monday when I found a skeleton in my closet.
Don’t get me wrong; I normally keep other stuff in my closet, the stuff that belongs there. Like, you know… stuff. I do have a few secrets of my own - like that recently finished poster of Sasuke, full height, full frontal nudity (oh, you did not hear me say it!); but real skeletons made of bones and all belong there in no case!
This one had long untidy hair that obscured most of his face. His sallow skin was taut over his prominent bones, so thin it looked almost translucent. He was lounging in some kind of a freaky chair, wired all over and looking exceedingly disturbing. To be honest, anything remotely looking like a human being sitting in my closet would seem disturbing to me. Especially if I had no idea how this creature had ended up there.
“Shut the door, heathen,” the invalid skeleton demanded. “I am conversing with the demon vessel and I shall not be interrupted.”
Holy f-!
I looked past him and spotted a blue-haired woman standing patiently in the shadows. She turned her head in my direction indifferently, and for a moment I felt as if I were the intruder here, not them. Completely smitten, I opened my mouth to protest, but the shrill ringing of the phone distracted me. I withdrew cautiously and began shutting the door, when the man looked up at me and informed me confidentially:
“I can see peace.”
Good for you, I thought grimly. I certainly couldn’t.
* * *
Having spoken to the person that had unwittingly saved me from getting into an insane asylum before my time (actually that was a very disputable issue: that person turned out to be my editor who usually pushed me in that direction without a second thought), I decided to ignore the closet my characters had chosen to haunt and sat down to do the ‘name’ for the new chapter of my manga. The process consumed me completely. Night was falling; from the corner of my eye I could see the glares of street-torches sliding over my window.
I rubbed my nosebridge wearily. I could use a cup of some strong tea or coffee or whatever. Holding that thought and working into a blazing obsession in my mind, I strolled to the kitchen, but ventured into the closet to see if the God I had there was still ‘conversing’.
The closet was empty. I released a small sigh of relief. Some time ago I would have thought it had all been a hallucination caused by the lack of sleep. I knew better now that I was getting weekly visits from a certain Sharingan-eyed avenger whether I wanted to or not.
A banging noise in the kitchen snapped me back to reality. I frowned. Could it be that my wife had come home earlier than she had planned? I recalled her saying she would be away for a few days on some family business. If it involved her side of the family, it was most likely serious, which made her presence in my kitchen practically impossible.
I barged into the kitchen, prepared for everything (a robber, an impertinent neighbour looking for salt, a four-eyed alien… I have a vivid imagination, yeah); however, what I saw there, was beyond my wildest fancy. For I saw Konan (wearing my wife’s apron with floral patterns embroidered in glistening pink) fussing around the table and whipping a strange yellowish paste in a large bowl.
“Konan,” I said, my throat inexplicably dry.
“Author-sama,” she greeted me back impassively.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m making a cake for Pain,” she said as though it were obvious. Of course, silly me!
“Why?”
Konan turned to face me. She had a bit of flour smeared across her pallid cheek, and her blue hair appeared to be in more of artistic disarray than usual. I was secretly glad Seishi was not here; he would have definitely tried to review the outfit she wore underneath the Akatsuki cloak to make sure she was as obscene as I had promised.
“Sugar is good for him,” she said gravely. “Besides, it’s his birthday.”
“No, it’s not!” I fumed. Huh! Not even I know when Pain’s birthday is! How would she know?
“Pain has had a total of eight bodies, notwithstanding the failed experiments,” Konan chided. “I didn’t say it was Nagato’s birthday.”
This was getting downright ridiculous.
“You mean you celebrate eight birthdays?” I gasped.
She came up to me, her face never changing from the mask of indifference, and whispered:
“He needs a lot of sugar.”
It was then that I noticed a familiar glimmer of those weird spiral eyes behind her and took a step back, just in case. For all I knew, Pain could be a jealous type (not that I had made him that way).
Apparently they had already decided to celebrate Pain’s birthday in my apartment and there was nothing I could do about it (especially if I wanted to ever complete the Invasion of Pain arc). I retreated to the bathroom, rinsed my face with cold water and proceeded to think how to get rid of the Akatsuki duo effectively. Once I emerged from the bathroom, I found out with a pang in my heart that my living room had suffered great damage. Clusters of pink, blue and violet origami flowers blossomed here and there. Curtains had been replaced with sparkling tinsel, and multi-coloured paper lanterns were hanging from the ceiling.
“Redecorating?” a bored voice asked. I spun around frantically. “You have poor taste.”
I clenched my teeth to contain a snappy remark. Coming from the person who delighted in having no taste whatsoever, it wasn’t that much of an insult anyway. Especially since the whole redecorating thing had been performed without my consent.
“Help me!” I blurted out.
Sasuke narrowed his eyes. He turned towards the kitchen, sensing the presence of my visitors, then cast me a wary glance. I shrugged helplessly.
At that moment, Konan emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands clean with a towel. She froze upon seeing Sasuke, and for a while the two were standing still opposite each other, scrutinizing each other’s attire. The flowing black fabric covered in red clouds.
“Konan,” the woman introduced herself. “God’s Angel.”
Sasuke grunted non-committally at that, rightfully assuming she knew who he was. The silence was interrupted once more by the rumbling of Nagato’s chair as he tried to push it through the door.
“We are Pain,” he said huskily, not looking at Sasuke, but clearly addressing him. “We are God.”
Sasuke knitted his eyebrows and glanced at me.
“He can see peace,” I added, trying to suppress a snort. I was half-expecting Sasuke to ask where.
Konan pulled the chair through, the train of black wire still trailing after it.
“Blueberry pie,” she said in her quiet voice, vaguely reminiscent of the rustling of paper. Blueberry went really well with her colour. I thought for a moment that I must be a genius.
Konan vanished into the kitchen briefly and returned carrying a large plate where the pie was sitting. The pie itself was also pretty big, with a thick open layer of blueberry laid out on crisp dough. I was instantly hungry and wondering if I could possibly eat what my own characters created. Why not? If I could touch them, I could just as surely touch the products of their making. As a result, I ended up sharing a table and a meal with Pain, Konan feeding him gently, and Sasuke eyeing the entire sequence with a mask of quiet indifference upon his face.
“Uzumaki Naruto says hello,” Nagato said all of a sudden.
I frowned. Ah… So he was still ‘conversing’. I should have known that Pain was one of those quiet types that could not be shut up once they started talking. Still waters run deep, as the saying goes. Well done, Masashi.
I munched down my slice of the blueberry pie (Konan could bake pretty well for a fictional character) and watched Sasuke from the corner of my eye.
“Hello, Naruto,” he replied after a short pause.
“He says you’re missing all the fun.”
“Tell him I have more important business to attend to.”
“He says: Go fuck yourself.” Sasuke’s brow twitched. Pain cocked his head with an almost curious expression on his worn-out face. “Oh. My bad. He said that to me.”
“In theory, it’s quite possible,” Konan remarked, stuffing another piece of the pie into Nagato’s mouth before he could protest. Crumbs stuck to his chin in a funny way. That’s a major villain to you, kids.
“I don’t like him,” Sasuke said after the dinner when I was holed up in the kitchen doing the dishes (basically just to escape the living manga-fest playing out in my living room).
I sneered at his remark.
“Big surprise! Last time I checked you didn’t like anyone, not even yourself, I’m afraid.”
He fixed me with a dirty look. Well, guilty as charged: I am to blame for that not liking people thing. Indirectly.
“You promised me Konoha,” he said listlessly. “Next thing I know this freak is out there grinding it into oblivion.”
I opened my mouth to point out that I had promised him no such thing (I had long since made a point out of not promising my characters anything. Ever.), but I’d be the first to know that arguing with Uchiha Sasuke never ends well. So I simply smirked.
“Ever heard of the author’s arbitrary rule?”
Before he could reply, something in my living room came crashing down. The sound was so abrupt that I nearly dropped a plate. Wondering what the hell my guests were doing out there, I rushed out of the kitchen just in time to notice Pain hovering over my computer. In a flash, it all came crashing upon me. Oh, that cunning bastard! He was redrawing my ‘name’! No, scratch that: having already redrawn it, he was sending it to my editor.
Desperate to stop him, I made a go for the computer, but Pain was incredibly fast for a guy in a chair. He backpedaled, then turned the chair around and maneuvered towards the misfortunate closet, Konan loyally by his side. For a moment, I got caught in the wire and barely kept on my feet. The door slammed shut before I could reach the fugitives. When I managed to open it again, they were gone.
“Could have helped me!” I shouted to Sasuke who was standing beside my computer like nothing had happened. “I’m so tired of you guys thinking you can manipulate the story.”
He shrugged inexpressively. Sure-sure, keep telling yourself you don’t care. I braced myself for the worst as I sat down to check what Pain had drawn.
“Is that Hinata?” Sasuke asked, peeking at the screen over my shoulder.
To say I was shocked was to say nothing. That was something I had once had in mind (but honestly, my mind is a dump!) - but never so abruptly, so out of the thin air. One thing was clear: Pain needed a reason to utter another long and boring speech and thus prolong his life. I had never planned the Invasion arc to last this long but now that Naruto had seen another precious person die, we wouldn’t see the end of it.
“Is she… dead?” I whispered under my breath. “Fans are going to kill me!”
“You changed me. Your smile saved me. So I’m not afraid to die protecting you,” Sasuke read quietly. Holy hell, the bastard had even written out the dialogue! “Because I love you. The fans are going to kill you.”
Head, meet desk.
“What are you so broken up about? It’s not like it’s the final release yet.”
“You don’t know my editor! He’s a sap at heart! A tragic love story - he’ll never let me live it up if I cut it out! He’s firmly convinced Naruto is in need of romance, both story- and character-wise!” I took a deep breath. Pain made himself a luxurious birthday present, it could not be denied. “Maybe I’ll be able to save her, but it’s a hopeless mess! What am I to do with this love confession? It’s so out of place! The last thing I need is to piss the fans off, and half of the fandom will hate me for killing her off whereas the other half will hate me for bringing up the love issue.”
Not to mention, all of them would hate me if Pain lingered too long, but that, I assumed, went without saying. To my distress, Sasuke cracked a small smile at that.
“Like you don’t know Naruto. He’ll forget about it as soon as more important issues arise.” By that the smug brat undoubtedly meant himself. “Provided she survives of course.”
Damn straight! The last thing I needed was my sensitive, hero-complex-prone protagonist blaming himself for anyone’s death! But Sasuke was right. I should have been focusing on more important things.
“I’ll kill Nagato,” I said resolutely. “I’ll give him a death to remember, be sure of that. But first I’ll sort things out with my editor.”
“I have a better idea,” Sasuke said with a glint of mischief in his eyes. “Naruto, after all, is a pro at butchering bad guys’ characters.”
A quarter of an hour later I had already outlined the plot for the next ten to fifteen chapters that included a lot of talking, a wangsty flashback, a pointless character death, a couple of decision made on the spot and a giganimous peace-fest. Pain wouldn’t thank me for that. But it was his call. Nobody messes with my rough drafts!
“Hey, Sasuke,” I said grinning. “You know what?”
“Hn?”
“I can see peace!”
February 24-June 29, 2009