Some time after Madara's attack…
It happened slowly. Or instantaneously. Pick one – it doesn't really matter, since time was not relevant until much further into this process. It began with the drifting together of particles, assembling into a rough human shape. Eventually, thoughts returned. A sense of time developed. A short time later, it was complete, and Konan opened her eyes.
She wondered, quite naturally, if this was heaven. But when she sat up and looked around at the dilapidated buildings surrounding her small rectangle of grass, it didn't look very heavenly. In front of her stood overgrown houses, their windows reduced to nothing but shards in the pane (if there was a pane) and surrounded by piles of spent nesting material from rodents and birds. She had never seen houses in such condition; either they were war-blasted and destroyed, or still used for some purpose if not lived in. A building simply abandoned without any signs of a fight to explain why was not a familiar sight. It looked very sad, like something misused and empty.
She turned and looked behind her, and had to simply stop and stare. The building behind her was similarly overgrown and abandoned, but it was a completely different kind of building. It had huge windows, a massive area of pavement with faints lines painted on in front of it, and many old signs with just-readable numbers and seemingly nothing else on them posted in front of it. It resembled faintly the shops of the Rain Village with their large windows and signs announcing special sales and deals, but shops were shops. This was something huge and sprawling and more than large enough to be lived in by several families. What could be big enough to require this much space in order to sell it? She glanced around with quick, hardly noticeable jerks of her head. No matter what it was, the sheer fact that she didn't know and couldn't guess was a bad sign. Being uninformed in possibly hostile territory is never a good thing to be.
She tried to stand, and wobbled a bit with sudden disorientation. It felt as if she'd been lying there long enough for her legs to fall asleep and her heart to get used to inactivity – how long had she been lying there before waking up? That was unknowable. The blood came back to her head, and she stood up. She looked down and took stock of what she had: all of her clothing, intact and non-bloodstained, her ninja tool pack, the minor contents of her pockets. In short, everything she'd had upon death. That was good. She made some signs and paper briefly appeared and formed into wings. So she had her jutsu too. That was very good. There appeared to be no immediate danger, unless the diseases to be caught by urine-stained nesting material counted. The amount of broken glass made her very glad she wore such high boots, with decent soles. There was no telling who or what could be hiding among so many abandoned houses, but none of them had signs of battle and most had been very recently occupied by the sorts of animals that were the first to flee at human activity. In contrast to the openness and complete lack of defense provided by the large storefront, a maze of abandoned houses seemed much safer. She looked up at the pale blue sky with wisps of clouds floating in it. It looked almost mystical in how ordinary it was, how completely lifeless and uninspired. Rain clouds did not look much drearier. If this was heaven, it was at least as derelict as the buildings. She expected this wasn't heaven. If that was the case, how could she possibly have gotten here after death?
She paused in the middle of the road and looked up and down its entire length. There were trees to the north, and none to the south. It seemed to be all stores in that direction. She continued crossing to the east and considered moving a couple degrees to the south as she scouted. If there were people nearby, it would not do to be surprised by them. For now, it was mid-afternoon. She jumped onto the roof of a house and noted that there were a lot of them. She could spend the night in any one of them.
The next few hours passed quickly as she searched through the houses for any useful materials. None of them had food, but she did find a few that still dispensed water through their faucets. The smell and cloudiness made this discovery less than useful. Some may have been abandoned in a hurry; there were still sheets in the bedrooms. There was no reason to take them for now, but why on earth would they still be there? She filed that away as a mystery to potentially look into. Night fell, and as the lights from a vague southeasterly direction became and remained visible, she realized that there were people in that direction, and they did not go to sleep at a reasonable time. Her stomach growled, and she swooped down from the rooftops to head north. She had determined what resources there were in the abandoned houses and on herself. She had located the nearest people and decided they would be best scouted out in the daytime. The most pressing need right now was food, and the forest was the most likely source of that. It was all organized very logically, if a little bent from careful avoidance of the important questions. Alone…in an unknown place, and very likely an unknown world…without allies or familiar structures…What was she going to do? She very deliberately stepped on broken glass and ground her nails into her palms. Take care of the need for food now. Panic and search for her friends later. There was nothing else she knew how to do in this place.
She reached the edge of the forest in about 15 minutes running. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it a woodland – this could not properly be called a forest. Most of the branches were not thick enough to comfortably stand on, and the highest ones that were stable enough to stand on were plainly visible from the ground, even with freshly growing leaves on them. Not one of the trees growing here could be more than 3 years old. Nonetheless, the fresh green growth should have attracted some manner of beast. She stepped quietly between piles of dry leaves on the ground, ears alert for anything moving. The howls of a pack of wolves were difficult to pinpoint, but not that far away, perhaps one kilometer. She made sure to move roughly parallel to them, hoping they would frighten something in her direction. A small furry thing crossed her vision a few trees away. She stepped mostly on patches of bare ground as she approached, kunai in hand. Aside from the kunai, everything about this hunt came easily, down to the ducking under branches of stunted trees. The woods just on the edge of the Rain Village had been a little like this… But that was a long time ago. She pounced on the fat, waddling rodent and put the blade through its skull. It squished a little, like poorly-ripened melon… She shook her head. What about a foreign world where destiny had not gone as planned could inspire thoughts of the past? Especially those parts of the past that were so unhelpful to any situation she had ever encountered. She gritted her teeth and tore at the beast's skin with more force than necessary, not noticing. Those parts of the past must not be brought up. They only led to pain.
After she was done thoroughly repressing the unpleasantness of the past, she finished skinning the rodent and made sure to wear her best flat face while cutting its flesh into strips. The wolves howled slightly less than a kilometer away. The presence of wolves in the middle of a forest and the lack of people in the surrounding area convinced her that it might be a good idea to build a fire. Both facts would normally indicate a lack of potential enemies, so it seemed safe to do so. She didn't know any fire-style jutsus, but the edge of a kunai and an appropriate rock worked just as well. Stick to the details. It's safer that way. It was hard to help, though, considering how she had died. She sat and stared into the flames as she considered the last few seconds of her former life. She'd failed. Nagato's body had most likely been desecrated within minutes, his valuable eyes stolen. What did Tobi/Madara intend to do with that power? The Uchiha clan seemed to have a talent for implanting eyes. It was likely he had simply stolen Nagato's power for himself. Even now he was probably marching on a wave of conquest, subverting the hopes of her comrades and herself, throwing the waves of destiny aside. She closed her eyes. She'd promised to uphold their dreams after Nagato's death. She'd promised to herself, to Naruto, to them in her heart, and even to Tobi that she would hold up their bridge to peace. Could Naruto go on to stop the path of war and point the way to peace? It would be best if he could, but she couldn't simply place all her hopes on him. Pinning all her hope on another was, in part, the reason why the darkness had appeared and seized her so quickly after Yahiko died. There were other reasons too, but not so easily preventable. The past would stay the past. No matter the future, she'd failed.
She opened her eyes and looked into the darkness. How many terrible things hid there! She could be fairly certain that she did not know them all. The thoughtless, reckless Konan she had met and even now feared was surely not the only form of darkness. She squinted into the gloom. It almost seem to swim before her eyes, as slick as it always was, taking on the forms of innumerable nightmares every second. One of them darted suddenly, and she remembered the laughter from back then. Her heart skipped a beat in fear. Anything might be possible in this abandoned, half-broken world. Could the contents of her heart have become real?
Help me…Hidan!
She remembered to breathe just in time, as the wolves howled again, much further away. Then her chest froze again as an answering howl sounded, much closer to her. She looked down at the strips of meat over the fire, which looked done, and took them all away from the heat. It must have been the smell that lured this one here. She gripped her kunai at her side and stood up, cursing herself as she did so for being an idiot. Here she had sat, gripped in fear of the darkness itself, forgetting that it was the things inside the darkness that posed a tangible threat. Her eyes scanned the darkness, faster after she seemed to hear a distant sound. It was definitely a footstep, but somehow sounded too large to be a wolf's. She would have laughed if she didn't have years of practice wearing her flat face, but then remembered being convinced that her evil twin somehow had assumed separate form in the night. It would be hypocritical to laugh at herself for thinking of werewolves. Or would it only be hypocritical if she laughed at someone else for that? Her eyes narrowed at a distant shadow, visible only by a faint gleam that did not seem to be from moonlight. She waited as it moved closer. It was definitely human. Had someone snuck closer under the cover of the wolves? In that case, where was the wolf she had heard coming closer? Another mystery...
She waited as the shadow approached. Judging from the shape she could see, it appeared to be that of a grown man. The gleam was coming from his hair. Was white hair common in this world? Or could it be an enemy of hers? She mentally facepalmed at not having realized that there was no proof she was the only ninja trapped in this world. Well, if this was another shinobi, the one thing she could count on was some sort of discussion before anything, battle or otherwise, commenced. He seemed to be alone. This was a very good opportunity for information. And, if he was friendly, she could thank him for breaking her out of her thoughts.
As he approached the fire, close enough to make out some of his features, and ducked under a tree, she held the kunai out in a more visible position where it gleamed. He came out from under the branch, turned to face her, and immediately jumped back with a quick "Ah!" Then he turned slightly red and stammered to apologize. "Oh, jeez, s-sorry. Didn't mean to scare you. *sigh* I'm an idiot. It's the middle of the woods at night. There's no such thing as not scared. But anyway - I didn't come here to assault you or anything, I just smelled the meat and thought it smelled good, and wanted to know if you would share."
It took all of the years of practice she had at keeping a perfectly steady face not to let her mouth fall open while he was speaking. Firstly, he was dressed in a hooded sweater of a design she hadn't seen before, and otherwise perfectly normal pants made of a material that she hadn't seen before either. The way he dressed seemed entirely foreign in some way she couldn't pinpoint exactly. Secondly, the way he talked was very strange, maybe as if he were the world's most shy child. But even children didn't exactly talk like that. Thirdly, she actually did recognize him. The gleam was from his long white hair, tied back in a rough ponytail. His facial features were almost uncannily similar. It was hidden well, but he had a short blade at his side. There was no doubt about it. According to everything she'd heard or seen, this was Hatake Sakumo!
His tendency to willingly offer up insults against himself, though, almost had her laughing. She felt the urge to pinch herself just to make sure she wasn't having some fantasy dream. Here was a well-known shinobi, probably in possession of substantial knowledge, and he appeared to be willing to say 5 times more information than she desired without her even having to ask. She put the kunai away and smiled as she offered him one of the skewers, hoping that his status as a gold mine didn't show too much on her face.
"Oh, thank you." he said, and looked for a place to sit down. He found one and proceeded to tear the meat off its stick eagerly. "Tonight's catch didn't go so well, and I can't really stay out much later than this anyway. It's good to go to sleep with a full belly. I hope everyone else finds something, though. We're getting new pups soon. They'll need it."
"Pups?" she inquired, raising her eyebrows.
"Yep. It's spring, getting close to the start of denning season. You probably heard them, the pack? They're so excited! That's because the alpha female is already looking for a den site. Fingers crossed that all the pups will live this year." He ripped off the rest of the strip, swallowed it almost whole, and hesitantly gestured for another piece, which she was only too happy to give him.
Konan took another bite herself and waited purposefully another few seconds before asking, "So, you know that pack? How?"
Sakumo finished chewing another overly large piece of meat. He must have been very hungry. "I've known them since childhood. They're-well, they're my family. My cousins, mostly."
The obvious response to that was on her lips before she suppressed it at the last moment. No way, that was a silly idea. She wasn't 3 and scared of the dark. Not that she could remember ever having been scared of the dark, until just a few minutes ago. This same foolish idea had occurred to her a few minutes ago, too. Maybe it would be good to engage in his terms for now. "Are you a werewolf?"
He smiled as if sharing a joke and stated in a mocking way, "Nah, just a half-wolf, sorry." She silently stared at him and blinked slowly for an overly long stretch of time, until he realized he wasn't fooling anyone. "That's, uh, exactly what it sounds like. I'm partly wolf. My mother was one. I-I promise, it's not exactly as perverted or anything as it sounds. I'm perfectly normal anyway. Just a normal guy. Who happens to have a wolf family." His face was all flushed, and he couldn't seem to meet her eyes. "That is not any less weird than a werewolf, I know. I know. I don't know why I'm saying this much to be honest. Can I perhaps blame it on you being very charming?"
His obvious embarrassment and slight fear went straight past her defenses and woke up the laughing, reckless part of her that was on alert for such things, so she reached over without thinking and stroked his hair, like with a pet dog. He froze, but began to relax. "Nah, blame it on the moonlight. It's the same as admitting you're a lunatic, but nobody notices." She smiled and ran the edge of her boot along his leg, then pushed his head away dismissively. She forced the last of the skewers into his hands as she asked, "You must have other half-beast buddies of yours, right? I'm sure they're fascinating. Anything else special about your people?"
"Um..well...yeah, fascinating. Uh...we're really strong?" A blush of a different nature remained on his face now. She bared her teeth and thought triumphantly,
If I cut his face open right now it'd shoot geysers. Cut? No, no. No breaking things yet. I need to find more.
He squeezed his eyes shut and regained composure. "I mean...yeah, we're really strong. I have no idea how, I don't remember going through special training or anything, but I can punch through a tree somehow. Durable too - I mean, we're durable too, because my fist doesn't break from doing that. We've kinda formed a group in the forest to the east, and there are half-snakes and bears and tigers and other beasts. That was like a year and a half ago."
Suddenly he tensed and straightened. The blush disappeared, and a confused look came over his face. He suddenly looked very much like a man with something to say. She eagerly waved her foot back and forth and had to restrain a purr as he stopped and looked her dead in the eyes. "That's when the first of us started to get together, I mean. A year and half ago. It just didn't make any sense to them anymore. I joined only a few months ago, because that's when it stopped making sense to me. Before that it made perfect sense, like of course people can have totally different species for parents, that's not strange at all, happens all the time. I just could not notice that was weird, as if something was keeping me from seeing it. I didn't even think about it. Nobody did. It was unreal."
He stopped to catch his breath, and her foot resumed waving back and forth. That wasn't all. He was on the edge of something. Just a little push… She leaned forward slightly, careful to narrow her too-wide eyes so not to scare him, and breathed, "So?"
His eyes met hers again, and the look of someone who's just woken up came across his face. His voice was very quiet as he asked the one question that, honestly, it was strange he hadn't asked at the start. "Who are you?"
Yesss. Finally. Wolf-boy here's found some brains. She smiled sweetly in the way she had as a little girl and flippantly replied, "Konan. I'm real, and if you help me I can find myself a much better idea of what's happened than you can. I just need to know one thing: so you, the one who is strange, know that something's off. Awesome. Does anyone else? I mean all the shopkeeps, the pedestrians, the people who aren't strange that live around you. Would they give me a second glance as I walked around in this costume?"
Sakumo blinked, and his entire body language became more confident now that she was forthright. She considered that if he was telling the truth, then he was not consciously aware of what he was or what he could do. He'd probably unconsciously detected that she had a hidden motive and had been off-kilter this whole time. He straightened and said, "No. That was what I meant earlier, when I said 'Nobody did.' I didn't find anything unusual before, and neither did anyone else, even though I obviously didn't hide anything. And everybody in town has kept on treating me as if nothing's wrong since I woke up. I can't be sure if that applies to you, though. Do you have a 'before'? It might be different for you if you don't."
Crazy, reckless Konan was beginning to edge back into her box, but she had one last note of caution to completely ignore before she did. "Eh, what are the odds of that? If they did recognize me as strange, and I demonstrated some of the things you've mentioned, either they would be forced to ignore both of us, be forced to recognize both of us, or develop a reality-breaking case of cognitive dissonance. I like my odds." She stood up and reached out a hand. He took it and stood up, and she hastily said (while reason reasserted itself, before embarrassment and uncertainty returned), "Thank you for telling me where to find you, and for your help. I suppose it's only fair to tell you whatever theories I come up with."
He shook her hand with a rueful grin and replied, "Just promise me you'll give me some warning before you milk me like a factory cow next time? Unless it's necessary."
"Did you say something about not staying up too late?"
His smile dropped almost as fast as his hand did, into his pockets from which he quickly pulled out a small rectangle. He touched it, and it started to glow. He turned it off and stuffed it back into his pockets, mumbling, "Yes, yes i did. Thank you. I've got things to do tomorrow and I need sleep, so glad you reminded me. Thank you." He held up a hand in farewell and said, "Good luck on your mystery solving" as he left. Then he disappeared into the darkness, and the forest was quiet again. Only then did Konan notice the fire was barely more than embers.
She looked around and closed her eyes, muttering a prayer of thanks to any god that might be listening (including Hidan's, if he really was paying attention to her) that this world had lower standards of acceptable behavior in a conversation. She thought of running her boot along Sakumo's leg and felt slightly nauseous. At least she'd kept her priorities in line this time. That thought consoled her somewhat as she kicked dirt over the embers until they were completely smothered. Alone in the dark, she looked up at the moon and its own softly shimmering embers.
"Good moves there. You're crafty. I particularly liked the whole 'slightly crazed, wondering if you should kill him now' part. You sure look in-ter-es-ting. Let's play sometime!" said a voice right behind her, just over her right shoulder. She of course spun around as soon as it started speaking, but there was nothing there as the voice finished its compliment(?). A giggle came down from high in the treetops where no human's weight could be supported, followed by a wooshing sound much further away. Then she was alone(?) again.
What the hell was that? She looked all around her, knowing it was useless. Her pounding heart commanded her to check anyway. She sent up a silent prayer of thanks again for Sakumo and his wonderful, wonderful information. Clearly not much of what she knew was applicable to whatever place this was. She could only thank random gods that that situation would soon be remedied. As she turned and ran faster than was necessary back to her nest for the night, she pieced together in her mind the good news she had gotten so far. I was right. Other shinobi who have died are somehow coming back to life in this world. But, according to him, all the others have memories of always having lived here. Why are mine intact? Lucky for me, those false memories can be easily distinguished. The time estimate he gave suggests that this phenomenon began a year and a half ago, at least, if I take the moment their existence became "real" as the moment they actually came back to life here. She promptly tripped over a branch in her way and had to put out her hands to catch herself. Her heart skipped several beats as she lay frozen there, in the dark.
A year and a half...my gods...that's perfect. That covers everyone's deaths - Sasori's was only 8 months ago. If they're here, then I'm not alone. I can have the Akatsuki behind me! She smiled as she got up and started running again. Even Nagato! Not Yahiko, though...and since I haven't given up my memories and become part of this world, would they know me? Doubtful. I don't have a "before".
On she ran, to wait out the longest night of her lives.
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