Konan
That same day at around 6 o'clock, almost everyone had come back except Kisame. This time, they gathered of their own accord. Hidan was eating a banana when Itachi found him in the kitchen and hesitantly approached. Hidan looked at the banana questioningly. It didn't look any different, but somehow he did not feel like eating. He felt a lot like every tissue in his body had been disturbed in some way. Before Itachi could say anything, Hidan turned in his seat with an accusing glare. Then he stuck his tongue out at Itachi and muttered, "Thanks a lot for ruining my banana, jackass."
Itachi wondered why a banana was important. "Why is the banana important?"
Hidan looked at him like he was being very stupid. "Because I was eating it, of course."
Itachi shook his head. "A banana is not more important than blood."
Hidan's ears perked up. "Now we're talking! That is a 100% correct statement." He took another bite of the banana, fending off the disturbance for a few seconds to enjoy it. He swallowed. "What blood?"
Itachi winced internally at the memory of it. "Last night, after the first incident with the woman, as you were coming back to the table I believe, the people near where you confronted the woman started bleeding. It was not clear where they were bleeding from or why."
Hidan stared at him blankly. "There was bleeding last night? I don't remember any bleeding."
"Do you remember anything that could possibly have caused bleeding?"
Hidan's body tensed somewhat. His eyes moved up to look in a corner of the room as he mumbled, "Nope. Don't remember any fucking thing about bleeding." He put down the banana and started scratching his head. It seemed more of a compulsion than an actual pleasure.
Itachi's eyes narrowed. Perhaps he could get Kakuzu or Konan to help him with this. Before he could leave and find anyone, Kakuzu walked in. He looked between the two of them. "What are you two talking about?"
Hidan paused in his scratching, said, "Bleeding," then continued. His legs waved back and forth as if he really wanted to go somewhere else.
Kakuzu looked at Itachi. Itachi reminded him of the bleeding at the incident last night, then subtly indicated Hidan. Kakuzu nodded slightly and narrowed his eyes. With a calculating look on his face, he crossed the room to loom over Hidan. "Hidan."
The younger man looked at the last few bites of his banana very sadly. "I don't want to talk about bleeding, okay? Itachi's giving me all kinds of disturbed feelings about it that feel bad. I don't know shit."
Kakuzu's hands clenched. "What happened last night, Hidan?"
Only Itachi was at the right angle to see Hidan's face get an actual frightened look on it. Hidan scratched his head even more roughly and muttered, "The lady touched me, or something. I kicked her in the crotch. Shit happened."
Kakuzu tilted his head and sighed. "Damnit. Is that really all you- "
Hidan stood up very quickly. "Fuck you!" he shouted, then ran out of the room.
Yahiko was next to appear in the far doorway. "Is everything okay?" he asked. Nagato appeared behind him, as usual.
Itachi kept a calm look on his face as he replied, "Hidan seems to be very sensitive to questions about last night." Actually, it was his thinking look. He kept only half a mind on the conversation, preferring to analyze the situation. If only he had thought to use the Sharingan!
Kakuzu clarified, "He's very sensitive about a number of things, all of which are the exact things anyone with a brain in their heads would most want to know about. I hate to say it, but we're actually lucky he only ran away. I've pushed him too far before. All that results in is him forgetting the question ever happened. Damn frustrating amnesiac kid…" His growl reinforced that last point.
Yahiko relaxed a little. "Ah. So nobody's really hurt or anything?"
Itachi shook his head.
Nagato's one visible eye focused on Kakuzu. "What do you mean he just forgets the question ever happened?"
Deidara walked in, nudging Yahiko out of the way so he could carry his shopping bags inside. "Hey guys! I, uh, went shopping, hm." He had a different smile on his face than anyone had ever seen before.
Yahiko raised a hand in greeting. "Hey, Dei. Apparently Hidan doesn't want to talk about last night. He ran away."
Dei's happy smile settled into a more serious expression that the others also had not seen before. "What about last night? There's a lot that happened there, yeah."
Kakuzu grumbled. "That's it. I'm not in the mood to repeat myself. Get anyone else who wants to know in here already so I don't have to."
Deidara looked at the others. "Has anyone seen Sasori?" They had not. He went to look.
Nagato mentioned that Kisame would not return until much later, but he seemed to have something on his mind so he probably wouldn't care. Kakuzu's shoulders slumped a little at that. It seemed himself and the shark-man were the only reasonable people in the whole base.
Deidara returned, dragging Sasori by the arm. "He was hiding in a training room, hm."
Sasori would have rolled his eyes if he had felt like doing so. His voice was monotone. "I stole documents from my boss today, he knows I did, he's going to make the rest of my working life a living hell, and I was actually forced to run because I got the feeling something very bad was about to happen. I also have a bicycle to fix, which I do not have the parts for. Do not give me a reason why I should not go to bed right now."
"What documents?" Kakuzu asked.
"Why do you have a bicycle?" Yahiko wondered. Nagato seconded that, and asked what he had thought was going to happen.
Sasori's voice stayed flat and monotone. Deidara knew that tone well enough to realize Sasori actually was pretty tired. "Here you go. It was there outside the shop with no marks around to indicate anyone had left it, and I was in too much of a hurry to take the time to investigate. It would also be wrong for me not to fix a broken machine. I did not have any coherent thoughts of anything happening, my instincts just told me that something would and took over."
Kakuzu chuckled. It sounded unpleasant and toying, like a cat who has found a new mouse to chase. "I can think of several things to do with this…"
Sasori closed his eyes. "Knock yourself out. The other thing I stole, which he doesn't know about, was a price list. You'd probably enjoy seeing what the price of wire is now."
Kakuzu looked at the redhead in a new way. He may have participated in the taking of the pictures, but even so… "You have brains in your head, I see. What is this boss of yours going to do?"
Sasori opened his eyes. His voice now was questioning. "Probably yell at me all day like he does to the front desk lady. Why do you want to know?"
Kakuzu nodded with a firm look. "I'll keep a look out for something else."
Sasori's eyes widened. "Um...thanks…"
Deidara also nodded in support. "Yeah! Sounds like a real bastard, hm. Anything I can do to teach him a lesson?"
"No."
Konan poked her head around the corner of the near door, which led into the adjoining room that Hidan had fled through. "Is there a reason for this meeting?"
"Ooh, I love meetings," Hidan bounced into the room and sat down on his vacated chair rubbing his hands together. He picked up the remains of the banana and offered it to Konan. She shook her head no. He ripped opposite flaps of peel apart and gripped the whole remaining section of banana between his teeth. Tilting his head back like a crocodile, he horked it down whole. "What's the fuckin' news?"
Several of them opened their mouths simultaneously. Kakuzu won the race to determine the direction of the meeting and said, "The news is that you don't want to talk about last night." His direct look indicated the he knew this was Hidan's fault.
The words and the look bounced off Hidan's head like it was made of Teflon-coated rubber. "Awesome! We're looking into what happened with that shit? Fuck yeah! What the fuck happened with that shit?" He looked excitedly at Konan.
He is such an anomaly… She stepped into the room, indicated everyone else gather around the far side, and proclaimed, "I have spent all day considering that question and asking Hidan what happened. As far as I can tell, what happened was this:
"Hidan heard the sound of the target crying and was confused because he did not feel sad. He approached the target to find out more, at which point she did something to him. The closest thing he can compare it to is a touch. Hidan reflexively defended himself by kicking her in the genitals and made his way back despite the immediate effects of her actions. Several other anomalous things happened, including the wounding of several bystanders and the altering of the physical properties of a nearby chair. It is unclear whether these effects were caused by the target or Hidan.
"These aftereffects caused some panic in the surrounding civilians. The target escaped in the chaos. Hidan was recovered and taken outside in around three minutes, at which point the immediate effects had ended and the secondary effect of pain had begun. He recovered from the pain sometime this morning, falling into ordinary sleep and awaking around 2:30 pm. There do not appear to be any lasting effects either physically or psychologically. Preexisting mental abnormalities make it impossible to determine if it had any mental effects.
"This is the current report of the incident. Any further questions?"
Hidan swooned. Everyone else felt something unnameable in them react to her words. Nagato thought he almost recognized the way she spoke. This report seemed to ring some kind of bell. He briefly flashed back to Yahiko's claim that his original was probably in charge of something. It could be determined for certain that this report had an effect on his mental processes.
Without noticing, his posture straightened. Nagato's voice was more confident than usual as he asked, "Yes. Could you please clarify what is meant by 'altering of physical properties' and 'mental abnormalities'?"
Yahiko also spoke. "We need to know more about his reason for approaching, as well. Why didn't he feel sad?"
They would have looked between themselves in surprise, but Konan responded too promptly for them to do so. "While walking with Hidan into town to get a cloak made, he revealed to me that the trees of this world have different characteristics than the trees of my world. Specifically, they do not grow as fast and the wood produced is much sturdier. Yet, during the incident, I observed someone break a wooden chair over another person's head. The blow was not hard enough to knock the victim unconscious, so if wood really is that much sturdier it shouldn't have been possible."
Hidan preened. "Aw yeah. I know useful shit."
Konan touched his shoulder to keep him quiet. "Hidan's thinking and senses are not impaired, but his memory is fragmented and his emotions are running wild in response to stimuli most people do not have such a reaction to. However, while interrogating him I discovered that these are perfectly normal for him. He has a long history of failing to remember or actively forgetting more than is usual, and the subjects of the missing parts of his memory overlap with the subjects of his extreme emotional reactions. I have already asked him to complete an exercise to help us find out more about this."
Hidan pouted and looked down. Konan gestured in Yahiko's general direction and looked at nothing in particular. "I also learned during the interrogation that his ability to feel other's emotions is not perfect. There is a certain class of being that he cannot detect the emotions of at all. If this woman was one of those beings, she must be relatively weak since she could not defend herself from his counter attack. 'Relatively' is a dangerous term, however. It is still likely that the target is stronger and poses a greater threat than an ordinary person, so I recommend that we prepare for retaliation seriously."
Sasori was the first to react, blinking rapidly and shaking his head to try to get rid of the feeling of disorientation. The feelings of familiarity and utter strangeness warred within him. Nagato and Yahiko looked between themselves now, sharing a feeling of fear from acting and speaking in ways they didn't understand and couldn't control. Deidara was unaffected, but wondered why Konan had the power to put his mind in military-mode. His good mood from the day improved. The incident at the bar had put him in military-mode as well, and a weight had lifted from his shoulders. It seemed some part of his mind had never come back to a civilian way of working, and the stress of that mismatch had been greater than he thought.
Hidan was also unaffected. All he knew was that Konan sounded very sexy right now, and he wanted her to talk like that more often. Preferably all the time. And also direct that tone of voice towards him. He whimpered to her, motioning toward her with both hands. She nodded. He hesitantly reached out and took her hand, then placed it on top of his head. She pressed down, and he purred.
Konan kept her hand there while she observed what she had done. What she had meant to do was nothing, just give a compiled report of what the hell had happened. Their reaction to this was...unexpected. Nagato and Yahiko sounded like leaders just now. It sounded just as if I was listening to my Nagato and my Yahiko. Shivers prickled along her spine. How much of my Nagato and my Yahiko lies dormant within them? What kinds of clones are they?
There was also Deidara to consider. He looked happy. Why? I was able to have mutual understanding when we talked about inflicting suffering, and the first time I saw him he looked much more like a shinobi than everyone else did. Perhaps I have mutual understanding here, too. What kind of mutual understanding, though? What was he responding to? What were any of them responding to? Konan looked around, looked back, looked inside. What had she done that was different than what she had done before?
Hidan pushed back under her hand. "You sound sexy when you talk in that way. Mmmm, reports and orders and shit." He stuck his tongue out and looked like a happy dog. "Maybe I should date more military people."
Konan stared down at him. So that's it. Reporting is unique to the duties of a shinobi. Perhaps acting distinctly like a shinobi reminds some part of them of what they are. She reached over with her other hand and scratched behind Hidan's ear as a reward. He drew his hands up in front of his chest like curled paws and purred.
Kakuzu mumbled, "Or you could look into a certain subculture." Deidara burst out laughing.
Hidan repressed his purring just long enough to say, "I don't think there are any *purrrrrrr* of *purrrrrrrr* around here. I hate leather."
Nagato joked, "Besides, Kakuzu, you don't want to give him a reason to leave, do you? I like keeping him around. Don't let him know there are alternatives!"
Sasori groaned. "What does preparing for retaliation mean? Do we just keep our eyes out, or practice fighting skills, or what?"
Konan nodded. "Both of those are good ideas. Since Nagato explained the schedule that people of this world follow to me this morning, I will concede that practicing is unfeasible until the weekend. At a minimum, keep your senses open."
Yahiko asked, "What can whatever she was do? She was hurt pretty badly by being kicked, but she also touched Hidan and changed her face. What should we be looking for?"
Sasori turned like a guided missile. "Changed her face?"
Yahiko nodded. "Yeah. Did nobody else see it? Her face bones moved around and seemed like they were changing shape; it was really creepy. She turned into a man! What should we do about that?"
Hidan opened his eyes and went still. He smiled. "Hehe. Hehehehe. Hahahaha. Ahahahaha!" When poked back to reality and asked to explain, he looked to Konan and asked her, "Remember that research project?" He was grinning too widely after asking that to say anything more.
Konan narrowed her eyes at him. "Yes, we should get started on that, shouldn't we?" Before she dragged Hidan away for further interrogation, she turned back to the rest of the group. "I'll explain what that means tomorrow morning. Yahiko, describe her male face as much as you can." Then she tightened her grip on Hidan's head and pulled him up by the hair. He protested, so she switched to his neck to drag him away to the basement.
Sasori's stomach picked this moment to growl. Itachi handed him a banana. Yahiko banged his head against the wall and lamented his inability to describe it properly after he tried and failed to adequately carry out his orders. Nagato reassured him it was alright. "Now we know to also keep an eye out for a man who tries to attack us and be wary of him too. That's okay." Nobody noticed Kakuzu off in a corner, thinking to himself.
Eventually he got fed up with everyone else's noise making and left, barely noticed. Sasori went off with Deidara to enjoy the latter's grocery bags. Nagato and Yahiko noticed the absence of a protective sound bubble and left, seeking out privacy for whatever they were talking about. Only Itachi remained, focused so intently on what he had heard that it qualified as meditating. He wasn't even disturbed by Hidan racing back in and asking, in a frenzy of excitement, if Itachi knew where a computer was. He was directed to Sasori, who flatly refused to loan away his laptop, which he didn't even have in the base anyway. The poor kitty was forced out into the streets, where he raced Konan to the library for their research.
Konan came back much too shortly later, shuddering with repressed activity. Hidan had wanted to stay at the library in a frenzy of research, but she had reasoned that he should get proper sleep and finish recovering from the hangover that wasn't. The unspoken There isn't enough space in the library for the both of us hung between them. Hidan had looked at her closely with his brow furrowed as he tried to repress the feelings he was picking up from her. He'd frowned a little. Jealous, are we? The night was ablaze with stars inside and out. She disappeared back to the library before Itachi had had time to ask what they were researching. Hidan was left alone to try and explain.
He opened his mouth in excitement, only to be interrupted by his own vocal cords releasing a joyous squeal. "Sammy! I'd know that toothball anywhere!" Then the door opened, and Hidan dropped to the floor immediately for cuddles, and Itachi wondered how he was going to explain everything to Kisame, and the rest was snuggly.
.
Yahiko
Yahiko lay awake in his bed that night, thinking. He couldn't pinpoint any one thing to think about, or say exactly what he was thinking about whatever it was. Some questions had been resolved today. He now knew for certain that Hidan had not initiated whatever happened, which was a relief. His new friend was also safe and sound. After a while of listening to his thoughts running in circles, Yahiko decided not to fear whatever had happened when he and Nagato heard Konan speaking like that. His response to her had sounded commanding, authoritative, competent. That couldn't be bad, could it?
After that, he listened to his mind cycle some more. Yahiko decided not to worry about how he needed to get to sleep and instead try to bring that feeling back. Command. Authority. Competency. He imagined himself as a hero and, as a proper hero would do, set up a separate cycle in his mind to observe and keep track of the ways his thoughts were spinning. His job. His boss. The woman-man thing. The blood. Hidan crying. Konan on the rooftop. Monsters. The target is stronger and poses a greater threat than an ordinary person. Hidan purring. Some mental training to better withstand the stresses of shinobi life might be useful. The sound of the woman-man thing crying out. The corner of the rooftop. A cliff. Monsters?
Yahiko's nerves tingled. His heart thumped in his chest. He squeezed the sheets, desperate all of a sudden for something that was emerging. Eyes open. Itachi. So quiet, always thinking. What about? The paper blizzard. Butterflies. Water misting and curling in the air. Nagato was so fun to play with, wasn't he? The lake. Fish. Samehada. Kisame. The forest. Monsters. Werewolves. Half-wolves. Big beasts. Sharp teeth. Maybe the next time we meet that large dog, you could try to calm it. A chair breaking. Monsters. Claws. Hidan.
His grip on the sheets relaxed. The feeling like there was something was fading. What was it? Where was it? Yahiko didn't know. He tried to return to the previous track he'd been on. The woman-man thing. The bar. The blood. Where had he started? His job. The feeling faded faster. It was gone.
Yahiko sighed. I really was almost about to do something. He felt tears come up to his eyes. With his shirt sleeve, he wiped them away. No. I shouldn't give up. That's not what heroes do. Did he want to be a hero? On the one hand, that was what every child wanted to be. On the other hand, Yahiko reasoned, what more could one aspire to? Maybe children just had more hope than grown people did. Children. Hope. Hidan.
His eyes flew open wide. His breath caught in his chest, and Yahiko held utterly still. He even managed to stop himself from thinking, knowing that if he thought the feeling would leave again. His hands twitched. It was fragile. It could disappear, would disappear in a moment like a bubble bursting. The moment would end, and it would hurt. His hands twitched. Yahiko carefully permitted exactly one thought to pass through his mind. He had to allow this one to pass in order to be able to reach out, feel around for something to write on. Nothing. One more thought passed through. His skin. It would hold until morning. Yahiko moved slowly, as little as he could, trying not to scare the moment away. It was already at the limits. In just one more instant…
He reached up, bit with his left canine sharply into his left thumb. The cold, pure sharpness preserved the moment for a little longer. Quickly, before it wore off and he thought again, Yahiko's hand moved automatically against the skin of his opposite hand. The moment burst, and the feeling of understanding disappeared. The first thought to come flooding through was a feeling of disappointment. Then, an urge to preserve it. He got up and walked quickly to the door, swung it open. The lobby. He found a pen there, and some scrap of something that held ink. He ran back to his door, eased it shut quietly. Underneath the lamp on the stand at his bedside he copied down the message on his hand as thoroughly as possible. The pressure of holding the pen reopened the wound and his thumb bled again. He tilted the pen at more of an angle so the message would be farther from his blood. It could not be destroyed or covered.
This didn't help very much, since his blood was dribbling down the pen in any case. But it dribbled slower this way, so he was able to finish transcribing the letters without dirtying the message. It was good. He took the pen away as the first drop dripped from its point to the carpet. Only then did Yahiko blink and look down.
His heartbeat raced for a second or two with fear, and he took a step backward. My hand is covered in blood! He raced to the bathroom and came to his senses only after the cold water from the faucet splashed over his fingers. He watched the red swirl down the drain. Now that the pen's movement was not smearing it everywhere, he could clearly see that the actual wound was very small and inconsequential. It was much less attention drawing than the red smears on the back of his other hand where it gripped the sink. His eyes moved to the right of their own accord, and he stared at what he saw there.
Stay, it said. Stay? Where? Yahiko sighed and hung his head, thinking about what he had just been thinking about. Monsters. Some things Konan had said to him. Hidan.
Wait… Monsters. Konan. Hidan. Heroes fight monsters. What did it mean? Yahiko looked at his hand again. Monsters, Konan, Hidan, heroes, stay. What do they mean?
All his efforts collapsed again. The more he tried to build a mental bridge out the further reaches of his consciousness where all this had come from, the faster it collapsed. It was a bridge made of toothpicks. It was like something he had to lure out of hiding. But how could he lure himself out of hiding? It was as impossible as a snake eating itself by its own tail. Yahiko looked at himself in the mirror, at the way his wide eyes shone in the light and his hair fell clumsily over his ears. Could he ever be a hero?
Before turning the water off, he hesitated. He looked down at the message written on his hand again. It had not changed. Stay. He put his right hand under the water and washed that off too before turning it off. Yahiko looked back at himself in the mirror as he shut the lights off in the bathroom.
Next to his bed, the warm orange light was still on. He sat on the edge of his bed and took the scrap, looked down at the message he had transcribed. His eyes widened. It was not the same message! Somehow, in the frenzy of urgency, as he'd gotten lost in his urge to preserve this important thing, something else in his mind must have come out of hiding. He didn't remember making any additions to the message. If I didn't add anything, then this is really the same message! I just got more of it down! He stared at the completed message. Then, in case he figured something else out later, he took the pen and wrote beneath it the five words he had connected.
Monsters. Konan. Hidan. Heroes. Stay. He supposed the last no longer mattered, but wrote it down anyway. Above these five, in big scrawling letters, a command spoke itself at him. Stay here.
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