Chapter 7: Comfort

Konan

She continued to sit there on the desk for some time after everyone had left. The lobby was dark; only her flower shone in the faint moonlight. It felt better to sit there unseen while she wondered what to do.

Why am I here? The question was unavoidable. There was physical evidence that the ninjas she knew were not actually the ninjas she had known. So why was she there? Konan saw, in her mind's eye, another woman, like herself but not the same person, laughing with the strangers that called themselves Nagato and Yahiko as she had done in another world. That woman could have been perfectly happy with them, they could have all been complete. That woman would not have her terrible memories, would belong here. A terrible thought occurred to her. I exist, and she doesn't. Did I do something to keep another me from existing, to keep them from having her in their lives? Is it my fault somehow that Nagato doesn't have a sister, and Yahiko's still probably single? Did I do something to steal a chance at a second life for myself when I didn't deserve it? Would they have been happier with a me that fit with them? If what she had seen of Nagato's interactions with Yahiko before was any indication, the answer was yes. Perhaps there was a reason she had been saved back then. Actually seeing them alone together, just her two lifelong companions without her, seemed unbalanced. If I wasn't here, they could have had a suitable me to balance them. Konan wondered how the afterlife was, if there was any need for balance in heaven. Do my Nagato and Yahiko miss me? Did I do something to run away from them? Are they angry or disappointed?

Konan shook her head, trying to dispel these thoughts. No. It's no use to think of what might have been. If I'm to prove competent enough to lead a new Akatsuki, I must look to the future, to what is and could be. So, there must be a reason I exist. Something that is here only because I am, that nothing and no one else could do. Was I brought over to this world with the intention that I would form a new Akatsuki? Is that my reason for existing? The idea was absurd. How could anything with the capacity to do this possibly care about something so small as a few humans? No...perhaps it's more general than that. A subject of one world, in another. The yin in the yang. A bridge. Her death flashed before her eyes. Do I exist because of what I promised Tobi, that I would be that bridge?

A decision appeared. To accept, or not to accept? Half of it was missing a leg to stand on, so it fell over and disappeared. There's no reason not to accept that as my reason for being here. I suppose they would have just reinvented the techniques of my world anyway. It is so, then. I am here to bridge the gap between my world and this one. I know that I am, because...because I decided I was. Who's going to tell me otherwise? Not anyone I'd know well enough to listen to. Her fingers tightened and she hissed at the casual reference to the fact that everyone she knew and loved or at least cared about in the slightest was dead. Even Hidan. Especially Hidan. Before she even knew it Konan had thrown herself off her perch and was moving at quick speed down the hallways of the building.

Her legs propelled themselves, and the mechanisms of her mind swung away from everything she'd just been thinking about. It was a common reflex hammered into every ninja during missions. She immediately classified this as a reconnaissance mission and focused all her attention on the task of learning more about the building.

First: the layout. The front lobby and its side rooms took up the entire front of the lower floor, and had two hallways leading from it on either side parallel to each other. The hallway they'd all used to access the kitchen through the propped-open door was the hallway to the right, as one faced into the lobby from the front door. Konan moved down that hallway quickly, turned into the kitchen, crossed it, went through the other door way, found herself in an adjoining room with nothing in it except a power outlet low to the floor on the left, turned right through a snugly fitted set of doors to exit that room, and found herself in a hallway. Turning to her right, she walked around the corner and found the kitchen's doorway. She turned back and crossed the hallway entirely, turning left when it ended, and the lobby reappeared. So, the lobby and the cross hallway appeared to form a rectangle, with the kitchen and small room going through the intervening space. On each side of this rectangle she'd seen one room, seemingly not used for guests. The guest rooms were probably the ones beginning at the two far corners of the rectangle and continuing down the building. She went back down the left hallway, noting several rooms on this side. It was long and ended abruptly, turning right into another cross hallway. In the middle of this one stood a set of stairs, and behind the stairs a back door leading onto a small stoop covered with bird poop. She continued through the cross hallway until reaching the other side, which had instead of a room at the very end a sunken stairway leading down to the left.

Konan was intrigued and descended, finding a small door at the bottom in the left side of the wall. She opened it to discover a large open space. The ceiling was low, but the area was vast and obviously took up the entire space underneath the cross hallway. The floor was metal. Konan dismissed the obvious thought immediately. The room had probably been used for storage once and could be used as such again. There was no reason to have to torture anyone in this world anyway. Well, as far as she knew there wasn't, not yet. It would be really easy to clean in a pinch. Being right beneath the rest of the building would pose a problem, but as she looked around the soundproofing possibilities began to appear before her eyes. Konan shook her head, cleared these thoughts away for later, and returned to the ground floor. Again she traced her steps in the direction of the front of the building.

It seemed to appear after only a few steps in that direction. Every other room had been neatly closed or at most just open enough to peek into. This one was wide open, which Konan saw as she approached by the amount of light spilling into the hallway from it. This amount wavered a little as the door moved back and forth in the air movements coming from the open window. Konan stopped, looked and listened all around, sensing nothing. There was nothing outside the window but the forest. The forest… She recalled Hidan racing out of the room just behind her, turning in this direction. She moved inside and reached out for the window. Just before she could, it occurred to her to wonder why she would close the window. Her hand tightened around the window's handle, prepared to pull it down at the slightest sound of movement. Again she wondered why. He did not pose a threat to her. My Hidan wouldn't. But who is this guy? Even so...she could not really believe he was any danger to her rational self. I couldn't tell any difference before. She left, leaving the window gaping open behind her.

This hallway led back to the kitchen door and the lobby, as expected. A giant rectangle with a line splitting it in two across the middle. There was an upper floor, but the reconnaissance mission was over. She wandered into the kitchen and sat on top of the little counters, spent. Today had been too full. She felt almost as drained as she had after Yahiko died, but a different kind of drained. That had been overbearing loss. This was every kind of feeling mixed together. The happiness, the sadness, the sudden loss. It only made her slightly nauseous to wonder whether it really mattered that they weren't the people she knew, as long as they worked well enough as replacements. Of course it was obvious the answer was yes, but she turned it over in her head slowly anyway. Konan knew in a detached kind of way that she would wake up in the morning in hell.

Some slight disgust passed through her as she felt herself shrink away from the thought of seeing them again. What the hell was that about? Yes, it hurt to think of them, especially the ones that looked just like her two most treasured people in the entire world. But she was a warrior. She'd seen Yahiko die once already, how could seeing him alive possibly feel so bad that she'd shrink away from it? Actually, nothing about what she felt upon seeing him alive made any sense. Even before, when she'd thought he was her Yahiko, it had felt bad. Konan thought about the scene at the park. She hadn't been able to look at him. Even now...she tried to picture his face, and couldn't. Her mind flinched away from that image. With a sinking heart, she realized she could not look at him and would not be able to do so anytime soon. Why? She loved him. It didn't make any sense.

She considered her options. Even if she in no way had the energy to sort out her feelings tonight, her first instinct was to come up with a plan to do so. No matter what she felt, it was her duty as a shinobi to do what she'd promised and train them. She couldn't do that without looking at them. The thought of being in such close quarters, training together again, made her twitch. Konan groaned under her breath. I can't do this. I'm trying to make a plan to solve a problem that is itself disrupting my ability to plan and, I suspect, is immune to rational thought. I can't do this. I don't have the slightest clue how. Yes, she was aware such thinking would lower her chances further. No, she didn't give two damns about that at this time. Frustration seethed under her skin.

While the burst of angry motivation was just starting to make its way through her arteries, the moon continued to shine softly on the forest, bathing everything in its silver glow. The winds moved slowly, almost wrapping themselves around the living things in the woods like a hug. Hidan raced along, moving as silently as he could, surging through the night. He did not have the breath to waste purring, but he was certainly in the mood for doing so. Some funny thoughts were racing through his head, but funny in a kind of good way. Home. Family. Maybe...the future? Hidan wondered if he'd ever had any of those things. Of course he must've had a home and family at some point. As he ran alongside the wall and carefully oriented himself so the blades on his back wouldn't catch the side of the window, Hidan wondered if his parents looked like him and would recognize him if they could see him now.

Easily, he hopped into the air, twisted just the right amount, and threw his arms under and behind him to propel himself forward. That part was easy. The hard part was the landing. Certain muscles pushed as he crossed through the window to swing his body to the side. As his body failed to turn enough, Hidan panicked and pulled his legs forward just in time to land on the very front of his feet and continue falling forward. His arms were more accurate in their timing, so he landed hard on his forearms and continued forward, stopping only when he reached out with his left hand and pushed back against the floor in front of him. His nose was mere inches from the carpeted floor. Hidan whined despite there being nobody to hear his complaint, and pushed himself off the ground. No matter how much he practiced these movements, his instincts always accounted for a tail he didn't have. He continued to grouse before it occurred to him that maybe his scythe could help with that. He stopped brushing off immediately and popped out of the room, purring eagerly.

The purr changed to a thick rumble, then died as his steps slowed. Leaving the room and entering the hallway, the tracks of Konan's path just a few minutes prior lingered. Hidan found himself reflexively reaching for the handle of his favorite weapon, pulling it closer, as if that would soothe anything. His other hand curled, and he came up with a really, really good idea for one of the training rooms on the spot. But this time, the suddenness of this feeling left no doubt. Hidan shook his head, pushed it away. When stuff came up out of nowhere like this with no obvious cause, it was definitely someone else's feelings. He remembered the look on Konan's face, the sudden change in the air as she told them they looked like all her dead friends, and felt very stupid. Following the trail, he raced to the front of the building.

The lobby was in darkness, as it had been ever since she first raced out of the room and left them to their thoughts. Hidan would've preferred the warm light of the sun himself, but at this moment he understood perfectly her perspective. The darkness was better for being alone. He slowly, carefully stepped out onto the lobby floor and made his way to the desk she was standing in front of. He stopped a little behind and to her left, and considered what to say. Even for someone like him, this was still a guessing game. He tried his best to see how her feelings felt, but the only things they left him wanting was a room full of punching bags to beat mercilessly. A shiver shimmered up his spine, and something seemed to slip. A feeling of panic that was all his own rushed through Hidan's veins. He recognized this vague sense of being off-kilter, unstable. It was a terribly dangerous thing to be, and everyone he'd ever felt it from had had an uncontrollable situation that someone always had to step in to control. Family if they were lucky, cops if they were less lucky, a judge ordering them to a psychiatric stay if they were super in over their heads. Sometimes, in the best of cases, it had been him. The desire not to let her be alone took him, and Hidan understood exactly what he needed to do.

"Want a hug?"

Konan felt something twist inside. Her first thought was that no way in hell could she do that. Touching him, wrapping her arms around him, letting him hold her in a close manner...something in that felt like it would be wrong somehow. He's not my Hidan. He's another person who just happens to look and sound a lot like him. He's like my Hidan's twin brother! I can't just skip from man to man like that, as if he was interchangeable. Hidan is just like Yahiko in how unique he is. That would be betrayal. No, it wouldn't. He'd understand perfectly if he was able to. Actually… Actually, this difference in semantics was her rational mind speaking. Konan, after running through a great deal of thought, realized that she was going about this entirely the wrong way. Her rational mind was entirely helpless. It was no good to appeal to it. For now, as long as it felt like betrayal, it was. I've never thought of it like that. I've never decided my own reality like that. I don't know how to think in this way.

Fortunately, someone did, and he was standing right there waiting for her. Konan turned and looked him in the eyes. He looked faintly worried at first glance, but grinned before she finished turning. He wondered how much directness she was used to, then decided, screw it. He was a direct person, she'd have had to get used to that before, so onward! He reached out his arms and held them there, an invitation to step into them should she decide yes.

Konan hesitated. It still seemed wrong. But looking in his eyes, there appeared nothing but a desire to make her feel better. Why is that look there? Sometimes, when I've done something for him, Hidan has offered assistance in return because he sees me as being like himself. But this Hidan is nothing like me. Why? She had no idea. All she knew was that stepping into his arms right now would be something very significant. A show of trust. Did she trust him?

Hidan's arms were starting to feel it after a couple seconds being held out like that. He knew he'd feel so, so much worse, maybe up to triple terri-bad levels even, if he left himself and her to such feelings. He didn't have the slightest clue what he was defending himself from, except that it was awful, and a hug helped with awful feelings no matter what they were, right? So he kept his arms up despite their burning.

Konan wondered how long he was going to keep this up, and why. Then she realized she was very stupid. He trusts me. He's inherently unreasonable enough to do that. My whole plan depended on him trusting me. Why did it take me so long to think of that? Such faith couldn't go unrepaid. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him.

The world dropped out from under her. As soon as her fingers made skin to skin contact, she felt it. Without any knowledge or feeling, her knees went limp and he held her up. Konan's perception was far away from such small concerns.

Her perception was that the world had turned liquid, no, more insubstantial than liquid, and was now in action ever everywhere, and she was in serious danger of being swallowed up and dissolved. With no small horror and amazement, she realized Hidan was hollow. Since first contact his skin and muscle, all that seemed solid in him, had first become as thin as the membrane surrounding an apple, then disappeared entirely. All she could perceive now was that she was in contact with a portion of the liquid reality that hurt, and was on the edge of falling into it. Suspended over the abyss, she could imagine her entire being separated into its constituent motes never to be reunited again, and said being became almost entirely composed of fear. Almost. Even as she feared falling in, she knew she could not. Somehow, though she couldn't feel it, Konan's being was still attached to her body somewhere, and her body could not pass through Hidan's. Her being could not truly merge with this substance of reality.

This inability was not absolute, however. Some things can escape beyond a single person's being even while confined to a physical body. Parts of one's personality and identity cannot, but emotions easily can. So it was that before her perception, the substance of reality that she could only barely stay separate from reclaimed the parts of itself that were in her. The pain of loss, of deprivation, that dull ache that pounded through her entire body and fatigued her was first transmuted, then withdrawn. From a dull ache which tired her and felt uneven and dirty, it became a sharp flash of stabbing, cutting pain, a clean form of pain that drew all impurities out and filled her with energy. The only impurities it drew out this time were itself, the impossible deep blue that was not blue, it was every other color at once actually, but mostly blue. Most of the colors it consisted of she had no possible name for. All she could name was a deep blueish color that felt like stabbing and splitting and falling, and had once made her feel afraid. As soon as the pain was purified she had stopped feeling fear. Now it seemed, above all else, clean. She wanted to fall into it, become precise, defined and clean like it was. Still her body held her back.

It was awful, terribly awful. Tears filled her eyes, and her arms tightened around Hidan's broad shoulders. Hidan's arms tightened too, but his eyes stayed unfocused straight ahead. He had felt the fear, of course, as well as the...the...what? Something...something sinking down, incorporated and washed away into him. He wondered what that feeling had been. The feeling that...what? Had something important happened? She'd been afraid, he remembered. Had anything else happened? No, nothing that was in his recollection. No other feelings. He smiled and rubbed her back comfortingly, wondering what she'd been afraid of.

It withdrew. The pain that filled all of reality, that gave life, that made things right that were wrong, it hid itself again. Konan was able to wrestle her emotions back under control, and found herself pressed up against Hidan's muscular shoulder while he rubbed circles in her back. Rubbing circles like that seemed so Hidan somehow, so much like the huh, I heard upset people like this, let's try it out form she'd always imagined any attempt of his to be kind would take. It was utterly soothing, and intolerable. But this time, even though it was for the same reason, it being intolerable didn't hurt in the same terrible way. She marveled at this as she stepped back.

Hidan melted with relief, and almost fell forward as the burden was lifted from his shoulders. Now that he didn't have to use his energy to keep her feelings from overwhelming him, his eyelids began to send signals warning him of what time it was. It was really too bad, he would've liked to nuzzle her more, watch her smile like she was now for a while, but he actually did have questions to be asked. With a sigh, he reached back and grabbed the scythe, stepping back to sit on the desk as he did so in order to lay it across his lap. Konan stayed where she was, looking at him intently and with no desire to turn away.

"I have some questions about...everything," he said. This was no surprise, and Konan waited patiently for him to settle on what to ask first.

"Where did this thing come from?"

Konan blinked in surprise. Then it dawned on her that of course, after what Hidan had said earlier it followed that he would be most interested in his original's past. The one group of topics she didn't know anything about. "I don't know. Perhaps I should warn you; the original Akatsuki was not a group of friends, as you seem to be. I knew them only as far as I worked with them. I would've liked to know your original more, but fraternizing that much would have been highly unusual and suspicious, so I did not. I can't tell you anything of his past."

Hidan had looked at her expectantly while she answered as if he had a list organized and ready to run through, a guess confirmed by the way he muttered, "Oh. Crap," and furrowed his eyebrows. After only a few seconds, he got a lightbulb expression on his face and asked, "But wait, that means you know how he fought and stuff, right? His techniques? What kind of cool ninja shit did he do?"

Uh oh. This poor guy… Her face slipped and revealed the oncoming disappointment. Hidan's expression changed from "eager lightbulb" to "hah?" as he looked. Konan rearranged her face quickly and proceeded. "I'm sorry, but...not a lot. There were only two notable characteristics of your original. The first was his immortality. He could take any amount of damage that didn't destroy his body on the cellular level and survive it. Given how he didn't bother defending himself most of the time, I believe he healed more efficiently and faster to compensate. As far as actual techniques, though… he only had one that I know of." Hidan's eyes were doing something strange. They were widening in an odd way that made her feel very, very bad for telling him this. His lips joined the act, too, and Konan fought not to cringe.

"The reason your scythe has three blades is to increase its attack span. It's not meant to kill the enemy itself, although it can easily do that if you hit the right place, but your original only used it to gather blood from the enemy. He had a ritual, used in battle as part of his religion. It was some kind of human-sacrifice ritual, and he considered it disrespectful to his god not to use it, so that was the only technique he fought with. He had to get some of the enemy's blood, stab himself and draw a design on the ground with his own blood. When he ingested the enemy's blood and stood in the design, his body would change color to show it was connected with the enemy's body. As long as he stood in the design, anything that was inflicted on him would be inflicted on his target as well." Konan paused to catch a breath and gauge Hidan's reaction, which had paused at the stage it was at before. His eyes changed slightly, keeping their unusual guilt-tripping qualities but with a look of added bewilderment in them, like she was doing something to him and he couldn't understand what he had done to deserve it. She was used to "taking care of" minor nuisances Nagato did not wish to bring out another Path for, but something in this particular man's expression touched her in a way screams had not for some time. Her voice softened to a near whisper for the final devastating news.

"I'm afraid...the limitations are as bad as they sound." Konan swallowed. "This only worked as long as he stayed in the circle, which meant that his greatest physical attribute, his mobility, was rendered useless. In the time it took to draw the circle and stab himself fatally, an enemy could easily force him out of it. The technique either only worked on one enemy at a time, or he simply never bothered to use it on more than one, but either way only one target could be killed using this technique. If he wanted to kill more than one, it would require leaving, fighting to get more blood, and returning to the circle all over again. He had to have backup for every battle if there was a chance of there being more than one enemy, and the technique would fail if an enemy got the chance to see it and live. Backup is the only reason he survived using such a technique, because his immortality could easily be defeated by an enemy forcing him out of the circle and immobilizing him, such as by cutting off his head. In fact...that's how he died."

He wasn't supposed to ever die. The shock from months ago came over her, and Konan was rendered speechless once again. No, he…no, the possibility that he could be immobilized is right there, easily deducible, plain as day. The idea that he couldn't was one that I should never have entertained. I was stupid, blinded by lust and whatever kind of connection I may have begun to think we had. Just because a man is handsome, has the protection and guidance of a literal god, and seems more than normal doesn't mean the universe is obligated to protect him. There's no special armor awarded to those who are special. I must never forget that again. I'm not sure how I did forget that...again.

She bowed her head in an instinctive show of respect to the dead, regardless if they could see her or not. "His abilities also included the standard ones that every shinobi learns from their general education - the ability to handle ninja tools, kunai, and shuriken, some moderate skill in hand to hand combat, some low-level jutsus. If you have inherited any capacity to be a shinobi, you should have those skills as muscle memory."

Once more she faced him, looked into his eyes. "Any questions?"

Hidan stared back, the guilt trip gone but the bewilderment remaining. Slowly he blinked, and looked down. His mouth moved as he considered what to say. His hands tightened around the stem of the scythe just below its lowest blade, and he lifted it, held the blades in front of his face. "So, this is all I have."

Konan reminded him softly, "And the ritual, and immortality."

Hidan shook his head. "Immortality, yeah. But no battle techniques. No actual impressive unique things, except something I can't use. I can get stabbed, and I can use a slightly different weapon slightly better than some rando could. That's all I get from my original, that...that fucking bastard."

Konan frowned. "The ritual isn't completely unusable."

Hidan looked up sharply at her. "Yeah, it fucking well is. It's a thing that requires me to be there close to the person I'd use it on, gives them enough time and enough warning of how totally screwed they are to let all the dread and fear and shit settle in, and makes me feel the same as they feel. That is completely and utterly, totally fuckin' unusable. I'd drive myself insane if I used that! I couldn't use it for anything except killing someone, so every time I used it I'd have to feel all the fear and pain of dying… Yeah, I don't like feeling that shit! I can't use it at all! It'd make me lose my mind! How in the fuck could-"

He continued on in an almost uninterrupted string of curses for some time, but Konan stopped paying attention and continued to process the beginning of what he'd said. He does feel the pain, but he enjoys that usually because he's a masochist. But he mentioned fear as well… The ritual doesn't make Hidan feel the same emotions as his victims. He's never described feeling fear before. I didn't say anything to imply it did, I only said his body would become linked to their body. I only described physical linkage. Why on earth would he think…?

"Hidan?" she interrupted. He looked up with an angry look on his face, presumably at his unhelpful bastard of an original. Konan stared at him and found the inner blaze surging of its own accord behind her eyes as she focused intently. The look dropped and his mouth fell open a little, but all she was focused on was his eyes. His eyes near instantly assumed the focus of a predator, even as they widened in awe. The result was a combination of both. The space between them seemed to vibrate as they both looked with intense focus at each other, and only each other. This time, there was no other business to get in the way.

"Hidan...how did you know my intentions were trustworthy?" she demanded.

For someone else, he might not've, but for her he obeyed. "You felt trustworthy. With you there, I didn't feel any mocking like 'hehe, suckers', I didn't feel any anger or desire to hurt, I didn't feel anything except closeness. If you had been untrustworthy, you would've brought untrustworthy feelings and shit with you. I didn't. So, I knew you were okay."

The intense focus and burning disappeared from Konan's eyes as she retreated into her own thoughts, though she continued to look into him. Itachi… Hidan lowered his gaze and started scratching his head, feeling suddenly sheepish. They're different people, not the people I knew… Hidan stopped scratching and looked up. The space between them that had seemed so close before now seemed like a cold, uncrossable void. Hidan's arms prickled with goosebumps. But, didn't they seem to have the same abilities? Why…?

Konan returned to the room, which now seemed much more empty than it was before. She could feel the empty space around them, somehow, as well as the silence. Hidan looked at her, looking just as confused as she was. But he would, wouldn't he? The exact words Itachi had used before came back, and she did something she'd never done before.

She blushed AND facepalmed.

Hidan felt the ripple of an urge to laugh pass through him, then it was gone.

Konan lowered her hand to her side, and the very slight redness she had been able to allow to her cheeks disappeared. "My apologies. Immortality was the only special ability he had, but like everyone else my Hidan had some...quirks. One of those was unusually accurate perception. He could see things in other people that were not immediately obvious, almost at a glance. He saw some things I'd rather not mention in me, and sometimes made comments about Kakuzu or others that seemed reasonably true, but only if you had certain information that he was never given."

She peered closer at the version of Hidan sitting before her. "Unlike you, however, this only worked if he was bothering to pay attention or whatever he saw was interesting enough to grab him. The range of things he could perceive was limited, as well. Kakuzu found it veeerrrry helpful how often he might be asked to take a close look at an enemy and deduce nothing more specific than "What the fuck is wrong with that guy?" or something similarly unhelpful. A great many things he couldn't see, couldn't identify in specific language, or ignored as unimportant. And all he did was see things in other people, not feel them as you claim to. I'm intrigued now about what has happened to change you."

As well as why you have to be so different from my Hidan, and who the hell are you, and is anybody else also different from their originals. Let's not forget I might just have to throw out all my conclusions about this world and guess all over again, and most of my privacy will have to go in the trash as well. Hmmm…

Hidan was feeling very grumpy. He could be quite sure that wasn't anything he was picking up from her, because she didn't look at all grumpy, and she also wasn't the target of vague disappointing vibes, didn't seem tired, and wasn't acting like she felt at all uncomfortable. Not to mention that he had no idea how to feel about the idea that at least part of his having to be constantly swayed in various directions by other people might be because of his stupid original, and even if Future-him decided that was a good thing his original would still be a jackass. Alright, it was time to shut business down for the day and hit the carpet. He sighed, sat up, and grumpily asked, "Can I use this thing as a substitute tail?"

Konan followed his gesture to the red scythe in his lap. "You may try and tell me if it works."

"Cool beans. Let's make a deal: since I could feel you earlier having all kinds of problems with all your friends being dead and all, let's shake on it. Let's shake on us being, like, new friends for ya. We're new people, so that makes us new friends. Would that be good?" he asked, holding out a hand.

Konan looked at his hand and thought of Yahiko's smile. I will not be able to hold up my end of that bargain.

*sigh* "You'll have to get used to us eventually."

I wonder how long it'll take me to get used to having no privacy whatsoever. Nagato didn't use his jutsu to monitor all my activities, after all.

She still did not think it would be possible to not think of her versions of them, and said as much. Hidan said nothing, just stared back with visible effort taken to keep his eyelids open, until she relented. Even while tired, his hand closed firmly around hers, promising.

"That room with the carpet and the huge window that I used earlier looks good. I'll probably sleep in after all this staying up past my bedtime, so if Kakuzu asks you can tell him where to avoid going." *yawn* "Happy dream hunting."

Konan smiled, and it took no effort. "To you as well." Hidan hopped off the desk, gave her a thumbs-up, and turned in the direction of his room.

Konan realized she was very glad he'd decided to go to bed, and selected her own room in her mind. She did not feel remotely as tense and uncomfortable as before; it seemed like she would get a good night's sleep. Knowing he would be able to hear her, she followed Hidan's scythe-laden back as he left the room.

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