Konan
The ice rumbled, shaking itself apart beneath her feet. Konan held on as tightly as she dared, wobbling first on one leg, then the other. The ice split the air with a sharp keening sound. It was screaming, a scream lost to the roar of the rushing water. Something rose, throwing the ice up in a swell to Konan's left. She fell hard, cracking the ice on her right. The swelling passed through again, widening all the cracks. They burst open into full rivers, rivers of tar. Konan could not escape. The heart of the world beat again, swelling all the cracks to bursting and causing that tarry blood to gush forth in torrents. It beat again, and again. The ice split directly underneath Konan and there was no way but down.
It was loud, so loud. Konan had never imagined paper could be this loud. She'd always thought it uniquely suited to her because of its quiet, unassuming nature. But now she witnessed the true, awesome power of billions upon billions of explosive tags blasting the world to pieces around her. Amegakure was too far away, the lake not visible from here. She would never return home. The walls of paper closed in on her, and Konan did nothing but continue falling.
The paper hit her like a mute button had been pressed, and the sound instantly stopped. It was so quiet, she began to hear on the edge of her hearing the sound of silence. The paper pressed against her, heated and pressing like a mother's womb. A bright heart-light filled Konan's vision. She had never seen how beautiful explosive tags were, how intricately they were drawn. Why hadn't she? Probably for the same reason she'd never heard that amazing sound before. It sounded like home. Konan mourned as she found a firmness, a place where the paper pressed harder than elsewhere, and took it. It was a way out.
The paper fell away. Pain pulled her from the heap with a great heave of his muscles. They stood on the broken rock where Jiraiya-sensei had died. The paper disappeared, flowing away down the hole where Jiraiya-sensei had been stabbed at the end. Konan heard a muffled heartbeat in the chest she was pressed against. Pain looked down as impassive as always. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards. So, he'd finally become what he was always meant to be. Nagato and Yahiko's true union. His hair was like a blood orange, and the outer two rings of the Rinnegan framed his warm brown eyes.
A great warmth spread through Konan's chest to see this. She stood to meet him, pulling upwards on the kunai she was holding. She'd always been holding a kunai. She'd forgotten about it. Pain hadn't forgotten; he couldn't have. The edge of it scraped against bone. Konan looked down and saw the great warmth spreading over her chest and his. He patted her on the head and followed the paper down the hole, draining away. Konan looked down at the kunai. It was a Hiraishin kunai.
The kunai teleported itself away, leaving her hands empty aside from cool red liquid. Konan leaned forward and took a cautious sip of it. She gagged, stumbling back. Jiraiya-sensei had left behind a bottle of sake once. It was a trap; the smallest sip of that bitter fire would instantly summon the monster. Konan tried to spit it out, reset the trap, but it was too late. The hole was overfilled. Everything it had ever held came gushing back up. Jiraiya sensei. Nagato and Yahiko. Blood spurted from the hole as it gurgled and heaved. Konan backed away from the acid, from the stench of sickness. She stumbled back on the Amegakure lake. Her legs would not listen to her command, would not find sure footing. She tripped over a crack in the lake and went sprawling. A crack? Too late, she understood that it had been a bad idea to retreat to the lake. The salt in the blood was drying it, turning the lake from liquid to solid. Another crack in the salt opened, opening a long wound down the side of her leg. Blood flowed into the wound. She tried to avoid taking it in, she really did.
But it seemed to be rather hungry.
Kakuzu
Kakuzu reached up and grabbed the wrist of whoever was shaking his shoulder back and forth, squeezing tightly enough to grind wrist bones together. It wasn't even hard. He might have accidentally broken the wrist in question if its owner hadn't swatted him lightly on the head and started complaining. "Yeesh, come on already. It's important. Get the fuck up!"
Kakuzu opened his eyes and let Hidan go. Hidan took his wrist back and looked at it carefully, pressing in several different spots to find out if anything was broken or out of place. He either didn't find anything or didn't care, because he turned back to Kakuzu and made another gesture to follow him. "Come on, sleepybones. Important day, remember? I need to ask ya about some shit."
Kakuzu had found himself unwillingly doing some strategizing of his own after falling into bed. What he would do about the succubus, what he could do, what the others might do. It was great to be thinking like that before a battle, but not when he was trying to sleep. Because of that Kakuzu had gotten to sleep late and was now waking late as a result. Late, in this case, meant at dawn.
He glared at Hidan, but was secretly grateful. It was best to have a consistent sleep schedule, after all. In gratitude, he pulled on his mask and followed Hidan out to the backyard silently, and did not ask what this was for until they were standing in the dim light of dawn.
Hidan grinned and rubbed his hands together like the sunrise that was behind him. "Aw shit, you'll love it when I get around to telling ya! But first, I had a thing I wanted to ask about. It's part of the strategy for today, promise."
Kakuzu raised an eyebrow. Hidan went on. "So I was thinking, for the strategy, of what kind of things everyone could do, and I remembered something. Didn't Konan tell you that you had tentacles or something inside you that time?"
Tentacles? Kakuzu thought back. "Huh. You're right. Now that you mention it, I do seem to remember her saying something about that." He fixed Hidan with a stern glare and growled, "I also remember thinking that was bullshit."
"Huh?" Hidan was not intimidated at all, just puzzled.
"You heard me." Kakuzu snorted. "Tentacles. Really? She thinks that I'll believe I somehow managed to overlook something like that in my over 90 years of living in this body?" He crossed his arms and shook his head. "Not likely. Our memories might not be real, but at least they're normal. Even if we didn't understand what it meant before, we all knew that we had strange features. Kisame didn't suddenly realize he looked like a shark, he's known that this whole time. If I had tentacles, I would know about them, wouldn't I?"
Then Kakuzu got angry. "Besides, if I did have tentacles, and if they were taking up all the space inside me, then I wouldn't have room for normal organs. I'd be -" He stamped his foot. "Claiming that is the same as outright accusing me of being inhuman! I would be -" He swept a powerful fist out to his side. "I'd be like some kind of esoteric tentacle monster that you might find in the likes of hentai. Who does she think she is, to tell me I somehow managed to miss being something like that?!"
He returned his arms to their folded position. "In short, I don't believe that for a second. I haven't even bothered to think of that since she first said it. I don't bother with lies." He challenged Hidan silently with his burning green eyes to refute this.
Hidan looked somewhere off into the distance. "That...would pretty cool if you were some kind of hentai tentacle monster, actually." What? Is he saying...what the hell?!
Hidan shook his head like a dog shaking off water. "Not in that way, like...not that! I just meant it'd be awesome and so fucking useful if you are." He stared Kakuzu straight in the eyes. "We need you to be some kind of tentacle monster, Kakuzu. We all do. If luck turns your way in today's battle, you could save lives with that shit."
He sounded disturbingly inspirational. Kakuzu imagined stirring orchestral music for a second in there. What the hell? Kakuzu moved his mouth, but no sound came out.
Hidan smiled again, and the illusion was broken. He was back to looking like a little boy. "See, it has to do with that strategy I said," he explained. "It would be good to hold the succubus lady still so we can beat her more easily and she can't cause trouble. Sasori's good for that because he has strings, but if there's one thing I've learned from monster movies, it's that you shouldn't have only one guy on the most important part of a job. So I really fucking hope you have tentacles, because if he can't get a good opening or something it'd be real nice to have backup."
He held up a finger to point something out. "And, before you say 'but I don't think I have tentacles,' neither did Itachi. Not tentacles, but those awesome eyes he's got. Those need chakra, and we never used chakra before. If you do have tentacles, Konan said they'd be inside where you can't see 'em, and if you never used chakra they'd just be sitting there, and how would you know something was inside you if it just sat there? So you have a definite maybe on the chance of having tentacles."
Kakuzu clenched his fists, but said nothing. The idea of being some kind of...monster struck him as utterly abhorrent. But, aside from his feelings about it, he couldn't find any logical reason with which to deny it. Even his own observations that morning when Sasori had discovered the break in betrayed him now. Ugh. So, what, he wants me to be…? He'd never imagined Hidan to be so disgusting either.
Hidan sensed resistance, and put on his 'in charge' face again. "Kakuzu, I could walk around all alive and shit, perfectly fine, with all my guts hanging out. I could have all kinds of things done to me, all my organs out, whatever. You're not special, and if anyone's going to think you're creepy for having tentacles they'll have to go through me. Now, you need to stop freaking out, accept that you'd be a freak anyway just like the rest of us so it doesn't matter, and concentrate some fucking chakra around those stitches on your arm. Can you do that or not?"
Kakuzu was again silent. His eyes searched Hidan's. Where did this come from? Hidan's pink eyes looked deeper, almost purple, and glistened with focus. What has she done to him? The younger man silently challenged him back. ...Is he worth listening to?
Kakuzu was the first to relent. He took off his outer shirt and took a long look at the stitches around his forearm. They looked suspicious, almost sinister. He narrowed his eyes and channeled chakra down into his arm. He channeled quite a bit of chakra in an effort to get this over with, and several of his stitches unraveled, living thread escaping and leaving behind holes in his skin. It froze in the air a split second later when Kakuzu froze his chakra in horror. He also jumped and raised his other hand to cover it. He may have also given a short grunt along the lines of "Ah!"
Hidan snickered. "See, that's awesome! Do it again!"
Kakuzu clamped his hand down firmly over the offending thread (it tickled his hand. He clamped harder) and glared at Hidan. I will not. He slowly shook his head to emphasize this point.
Hidan huffed. "Fine. Be that way." He looked out into the forest. "But could you be that way after you get at least enough control to hold a person, please? You can be all alone, nobody has to be looking. And I won't tell anyone you jumped. I'll, uh...send Sammy to find you when we need ya. That'll work, yeah?" He gave Kakuzu a look that said it'd better.
Kakuzu gave his chakra an experimental wiggle. The thread moved back and forth across his hand. He suppressed a shiver. Now that he thought about it, he'd considered before if his stitches were chakra activated. He'd thought about testing it, but just...never gotten around to. Looked for other things to do. Made excuses. He sighed in a very aggravated manner. Damn you, Hidan.
Hidan smiled. "Awesome! You always sigh like that before agreeing with me. Give me a hug!" He gave Kakuzu a hug anyway. "Don't worry, this'll be cool. I'll show ya. You'll see."
Hidan left, confident that Kakuzu had heard all he needed to. Kakuzu's eye twitched. That little… He turned and stalked out of the backyard, into a place he had discovered which was fairly good for being alone in.
General
"Big day today! Wake the fuck up!" Hidan yelled into Kisame's room. He shut the door and proceeded down the rest of the hall, yelling variations of the same into everyone's rooms. He passed his room and was about to use the cross hallway to go to Yahiko, Nagato and Deidara, when he was struck by a brilliant idea. I love me. I am a fucking genius. He had his Akatsuki cloak on when he made his stops to wake up those three. "Meeting in the sunroom!"
After some consideration, he knocked on Laurie's door too. "Hey! Got plans to deal with the demon! Come on, we're having a meeting!" She mumbled incoherently and did not move. He knocked on the open door again. "No, seriously, you're the only one who doesn't know where the sunroom is. I'll have to take you. Wake up, it'll be awesome."
She cracked open one eye and was instantly awake. Where did he get those clothes? She'd never imagined it was possible for someone to look hotter with clothes on than off, but he did. Maybe the cloak had magical powers. She sat up, brushed her hair out of her eyes, and eagerly followed him out into the hall.
"By the way," Hidan said as they went, "I have like no time for any other relationships. Also, I like people who have power over me, who can kick my ass. So you're not really my type. Sorry."
Laurie turned red and squeaked. Hidan muttered, "Oh shit." He elbowed her to get her attention back. "By the way, I can feel other people's feelings. That's how I knew. I don't mind feeling it, I just don't want ya to get all hurt."
"Oh." She was silent the rest of the way.
Hidan walked into the sunroom like a king. He was greeted like the world's most incompetent town criar. He did not mind in the slightest. "All you guys are here? Awesome! I got stuff to present." He didn't actually. He had no materials, nothing visual, so it was more of a speech than a presentation. Accuracy shmaccuracy.
"Why are you calling a meeting?" Nagato asked. Yahiko and I need to get cloaks like those. Black and orange… He swallowed back any excess saliva that may have appeared in his mouth.
Hidan grinned at him. "Because Konan passed the fuck out finally and left the strategy planning for me, that's why. She'll wake up whenever the fuck she wants today." He looked around at tired faces which were steadily gaining interest. "Did I mention I thought of a strategy? Because I totally thought of a strategy."
"Where's Kakuzu?" Yahiko asked.
"I already talked to him about training something important that's part of the strategy."
"Just tell us about it already," Kisame snapped.
"Sure!" Hidan bounced up and down. "Okay, so, basically, since the best way to handle a succubus is strength in numbers, I thought all of us would be going after her at once today."
"I already called off earlier this week…" Yahiko murmured. "That could be difficult for some of us."
"We are the only two people who work there regularly," Sasori noted. "But I'd rather be fired than have anyone hurt on my watch, so go ahead." Laurie seconded that.
"Well, do whatever you guys have to do," Hidan said. "Gonna have to be quick to get her today, or else it'll be two work days messed with. More incentive to get busy."
"So what are we going to be quick doing?" Nagato urged.
Hidan clapped. "Well, I realized something important about the fact that we're all going to be there. Since we've got more people that are into women than people who are not, that means if everyone's going after her, she's gonna have to stay in succubus form just to keep from getting creamed."
Itachi asked, "But what if she realizes you've expected this and deliberately acts otherwise?"
"I thought of that," Hidan barely managed to edge out around a grin so overpowering his face threatened to split. His cheeks finally hurt enough for him to stop it. "Get to that later."
He made a shoving that aside gesture. "But the main strategy will be centered around our small team of people that aren't into ladies. That would be Sasori, Konan, someone else, and wait, do you want to do anything?" This last was directed at Laurie. "I was kinda thinking of the rest of us, but if you can do anything and want to that'd be fine."
Laurie straightened unconsciously. "Um...I know some hand to hand stuff, and I've been sparring with Sasori." She gestured between herself and her coworker. "I know I'm out of my league with actual ninjas here, but maybe if I partnered with him? He's terrible at that stuff. No offense."
"Sure." Hidan shrugged. "Doesn't make much of a difference, seeing as how once we get to the actual fighting, step one's going to be to get her captured. That means getting her in Sasori's reach since he has the strings. Basically everyone's going to partnered with him for that."
"Once we get to the actual fighting?" Deidara quoted. "Did...did you actually think of stuff beyond that, yeah?" Hidan rose several notches in his estimation. Likewise in Itachi's.
"Fuck to the shit yes." Hidan put his hand on his chin. "The entire point is to not let her hurt people, so we shouldn't be fighting in town, and I don't want to be fighting and spilling blood and doing damage around here, so I was thinking we move her somehow to those abandoned houses west of town. That sound good?"
Itachi hmm'd. "That choice of terrain opens up interesting possibilities."
Hidan looked to him. "Seriously? I was just thinking of keeping people out of the cross fireballs. What possibilities?"
Itachi stared at the floor. "If we could set up something very simple and quick to execute, a maze of abandoned houses is perfect for traps or ambushes."
Hidan put his hand on his chin again. "I don't know how to steer her with great precision, and I've heard that saying about no plan going right when it starts, so I don't like traps. As for ambushes, that might be a good idea if she realizes what you said earlier, and after she starts trying to change into an incubus to be confusing. 'Cause then, planning to keep her in one form will have gone belly up. But I think keeping her in one form is better so we should try that first. We got…" He counted. "Ten people, and I'm not gonna be there, so actually nine. We need everyone to keep her a girl."
Itachi nodded. "Sound reasoning."
"You're not going to be there?" Laurie asked.
"When I said I like anybody who's impressive and pretty, I meant anybody. I'm useless no matter what form she's in," Hidan explained. "I'll be off somewhere watching, probably. No way in fuck I'm going to stay out of it. But I won't be able to fight."
Nagato turned red, realized he was doing so, and blurted out, "So how are you planning to move her there?" before anyone could notice.
"Um…" That was one part Hidan hadn't quite figured out yet. "I don't have exactly how figured out, but I want to shoo her there somehow. Like lions. You ever seen a documentary where one lion runs after the prey, and another one leaps out from the side so it goes the other way, and they have another one there waiting for it? Like that, except only the first two and then she'll be in the houses."
"Cool, so you've got a place picked out and everything!" Yahiko thought that was brilliant. "How's the actual thing gonna go?"
"We'd be fucked if it wasn't for Sasori," Hidan started. "Fucked fucking sideways. I said it before, how we've got to get her captured. That's some important shit! So, Sasori can move around and try to get a good position, and Konan'll be like an eye in the sky keeping a watch over everything because she told me last night she does better in a support kind of role like that, and anyone else who can function fight her and try to get her into a good position for Sasori. That's the first part."
Deidara raised his hand. "Uhhh…" He yawned before he could say anything.
Laurie said, "Are you okay? Those are some dark bags under your eyes."
Deidara slumped back and said, "Yeah." He rubbed his eyes. "I was training my explosive clay moves with Konan yesterday, and I made a bird, but it's huge and I don't know how to defuse it so it's still in the garage, yeah." He yawned again. "What Hidan just said about eyes in the sky reminded me. I couldn't sleep because I was worried I might blow it up in my dreams, so I'm wiped, but I can still fly. Maybe if I can't see her clearly I'll be able to be okay, hm."
Hidan smacked a fist into his opposite hand. "That's fucking brilliant! Hey, Dei, how far away can you blow something up from?"
"I don't know." Dei suppressed another yawn. Why's he so excited all of a sudden, yeah?
"Well…" Hidan grumbled. "Okay, so we'll have to take some time to figure out a couple things before we go out. We gotta figure out how high up you have to be so that you can follow someone but not see 'em clearly, and we gotta find out if you can blow shit up from that high. Because if you can, that's fucking amazing for getting her over to the houses in the first place like we were just talking about!"
Dei's eyes widened. Not much, but enough. "Oh, damn." I...could be useful blowing stuff up. And without even really hurting anyone, hm. It's perfect!
"Fuck yeah!" Hidan felt like dancing. "Did I mention that Konan's going to be the one in charge of finding her? Because she's good at that shit. So Konan finds her, Deidara gets her to the place, Sasori holds her, and then...um...does anyone actually know how to beat her? I thought if Konan was suggesting this someone had to have figured it out." He looked around.
Nagato pointed out, "You did. Last night. You said her soul would collapse if she was hurt enough."
"I did?" Hidan scratched behind his ear. "Well...that sounds really fucking weird, but yeah! Let's go with that! Kakuzu says when I say really weird stuff that I don't remember saying, it's either right or he never found out if it was right or not, so I'm willing to trust I was right."
Nagato gulped. "You don't remember saying that?" His tone of voice indicated that this was a problem. Everyone looked at him. "Because...the idea of just hurting someone until something happens sounds like torture to me, and I'm not willing to have a part of that, so I was really hoping you'd elaborate on what you meant." He had a look of dread on his face.
That quieted the mood in the room at once. There was a minute of silence as everyone looked around at everyone else, mostly at Hidan. I'm not willing to do that either, they silently agreed. If nobody can…
This could sink everything, Hidan realized. He hadn't thought about this at all. And now they were all looking at him. Uhhhhhh….. He scrambled. "Uhh…" Crapity. He had to say something. They were all looking. All those eyes. Hidan began to panic. Say something say something He smacked the heel of his hand against his head. "Uh, uh, uh, collapsing her soul, collapsing her soul, collapsing her soul, uh, hit her enough, uh, restraint, uh, demon demon demon, uh, soul…" He continued rambling, producing incoherent syllables. What what what "Piss her the fuck off and squeeze her really tight and put salt on her!" he yelled.
He then bent almost double, sitting on the floor with his head bent over his lap and his hands squeezing his head as if his brain would explode. Ow. Ow. Ow. What do I do? He had no idea. Ow. Why did his head hurt all of a sudden?
No one quite knew what to make of this. Yahiko shuffled over and rubbed Hidan's shoulder. "Hey," he prodded. "We can do that. It's fine." He looked back to Nagato. Nagato shrugged. I don't know either! Yahiko looked back at Hidan, who was now looking up at him.
"Do what?" Hidan rubbed his head and winced.
"What you just said?" Yahiko answered.
"What?" Hidan winced again. "I hadn't thought of anything, and I kinda panicked, and I didn't think of anything and now my head hurts. What saying what?"
Yahiko stared. "Um…" But some things started to seem like they could make sense if they were put together the right way. "You don't usually know any of the weird things, or else you would remember them. But you don't, so maybe the normal part of your mind doesn't know? So then, if you start panicking and you can't think normally…" He shrugged. "That means you probably came up with more weird but accurate things, right? Is that how it works?"
Hidan's ears pricked forward towards Yahiko. "What'd I say?"
"You said we should make her angry, and squeeze her tightly, and pour salt on her," Yahiko recounted.
"Oh." Hidan was glad his head hurt too much to remember exactly what Yahiko had been talking about before that. "Well...bad folklore things hate salt, and agitating her could do something to a soul maybe, and physical stuff...It makes sense. Let's go with it." Oh thank fuck someone came up with something! I hope I didn't just pull it out of my ass because I was freaking out.
Sasori noted, "She hates me. That should be easy."
Dei blinked himself awake more. "Maybe a bunch of us should carry the salt, yeah. And a bunch of salt. Who knows how much we'll need?"
Itachi cleared his throat. "The logistics should be easy. But you said you had some thoughts for if she does anticipate us?"
"Oh...yeah." Hidan was still feeling really good, but the inevitable letdown was coming. "Basically the same, except then everyone else would be able to pitch in whenever she's not female. Also, I already asked Kakuzu to go out back and see what he can get those tentacles Konan mentioned to do. Just in case he gets a chance, he could be another guy who can hold her still, because y'always need backups." Something occurred to Hidan just then. "I didn't think of a backup for Konan, but if Deidara was fine he could fly lower and do similar stuff. It'll probably be fine."
That took care of anything anyone else could think of. Hidan smiled and bounced in place again. "See, I told you guys I was more than just a pretty shirtless guy!" He saw agreement in everyone's eyes, and his own sparkled. I'm useful! I am. He couldn't wait for Konan to wake up, to hear and see and feel what she thought.
Sasori glared at him in a friendly way. "Don't get a swelled head. You completely forgot something. It doesn't happen to be a problem, but still." He told them of the succubus coming back at lunchtime the previous day, still angry at him. "And we would both have been screwed if the incubus' powers weren't so weak. The hypnosis was enough for me to handle. If his powers included making people caught in them actually do anything, I might not have been able to hold her." Sasori shrugged. "They don't, so it's fine, but I thought your plan making skills should include looking at what you're not saying. What you didn't say was what everyone else who was caught in her aura would be doing. This time the answer's nothing, but…" Hidan nodded eagerly. Next time it might not be, and he didn't want anyone to be hurt because of him either. Note to self: Check your assumptions.
With that, the meeting concluded.
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