Konan
It felt like she was made of water. Everything in her body felt like it was filled with water, soft and heavy and gentle. The feeling of rocks tied to her limbs from the night before was a distant memory. Unlike that feeling, where she had almost been able to feel the rocks' lines pressing into the muscles of her legs, this water feeling could have fooled her into thinking she had no chakra system at all. There was no burning or sparking. No crushing emptiness, little vacuums running through her muscles. There wasn't even any freezing coldness. This feeling of being filled with water was very pleasant, almost like she could move easily if she chose to. It occurred to Konan that she probably couldn't, but she felt she could and that feeling was pleasant.
It occurred to her that the air was liquid, and so was water. Konan felt herself merging, liquid to liquid, and floating up to where beams of warmth shone directly above her. They were beams of light. The light warmed her very nicely. Best. The water inside her limbs felt even softer, rounder and happier. Cat. Konan saw a kitty with the softest, wispiest fur lying on the bed before her eyes, with its limbs curled beneath its body so they were invisible as it purred. It was white. This was a dream image; her eyes were still closed.
The cat yawned and spit out a cinder, which landed on Konan and went through her skin, into her leg. The cinder floated through her body as if it had someplace to be. It went down her leg, up her leg, swirled through her belly, down her arm, up her arm, swirled in her chest, swirled in her head, partially swirled in her chest, went down her other arm, up her other arm, swirled in her belly, down her other leg, up her other leg, swirled in her belly again. The circle repeated three more times before Konan grew tired of following it and asked the cinder to leave. It did not leave. Something felt strange in Konan's back, and that was when she realized she was full of cinders.
Konan opened her eyes. The rest of her body still felt heavy in a pleasant way, thank the gods. Even the cinder like feeling of her recharging chakra system didn't hurt. Now, if only she could muster the motivation to move, her day would begin.
She didn't muster the motivation to move. Konan knew she should. Her training harassed her; shinobi could feel like staying in bed, as any normal person could, but it was never, never to be acted on. Staying in bed and not getting up felt morally wrong, an alien and vaguely sinister act she was committing. Konan twisted her head to look around, which eased the guilt somewhat. She saw something unexpected on her floor near the door.
Konan dug deep for curiosity, wariness, or anything else that could help her get out of bed. She found the dream image of the adorable white kitty purring on her legs. That worked. She walked stiffly over to the door, sitting down out of its swing radius before reaching out and picking the unexpected sheaf of paper from the floor. Konan's eyes widened, and the cinder multiplied, strengthening her chakra flow. There was now a symbol of Jashin on the formerly blank sheets of paper. She flipped through the pages, seeing instructions for a ritual. It would require a decent quantity of blood, but the instructions specified that any blood was acceptable. Sap could be used for some parts, if enough red blood was not available. The central symbol required red blood, preferably shed in the middle of ecstasy or after hard exercise, but the surrounding symbols had no qualifications. Konan skipped to the end result and instantly realized why the demon boy had given this to her. That boy is a genius. I owe him. Konan felt remarkably refreshed after reading this.
The door swung open. "Woah," Deidara took a step back. "Um...breakfast, yeah!" He held a box of multicolored stuff, the transparent lid coated with moisture on the inside. He also held a spoon.
"Thank you." Konan accepted her breakfast. She wondered where it had come from.
"Yeah…" Deidara sighed sadly. He pushed the door fully back and sat across from her with his legs crossed. He stared wistfully at her box, looking away for politeness' sake, then looking back again. "How is it?" he asked after she finished the first spoonful. "I overslept and didn't get to have any, hm. Well, no one else did either, but I didn't even get to smell it!"
"It's delicious," Konan marveled. "Where did it come from?"
"Yahiko made it. Maybe I should run out of chakra, hm." Deidara looked enviously at her.
Konan stopped chewing and paused to consider this. Of course. Presumably, without any version of me, he and Nagato have learned to cook for themselves in this world. She swallowed and resumed eating. They weren't incapable before, but there was a difference between finding food in the wild to live on and making a real meal. It was strange to think of the two primary men in her life learning to cook like a woman. Of course Yahiko would, but Nagato? She couldn't imagine him doing any such thing. Perhaps Yahiko cooked for the both of them.
Deidara waited until half her box was empty before making a small motion with his hand at the papers. "What's that?"
Konan turned it frontside up, so that the symbol was plainly obvious. Deidara looked at it, his eyes drawn to the symbol like a beacon.
"Creepy, but I like the color," he decided. The symbol was a harmless variant of blue. "Why is it creepy? I've never been creeped out by a logo before, hm."
Konan remembered that this version of Hidan did not talk about religion, so Dei would have no idea what it was. "This is the symbol of Jashin," she explained after swallowing. "That's the god Original Hidan worshiped. These pages contain instructions for installing a symbol of Jashin as a permanent fixture."
Deidara opened his mouth, thought better, and closed it. "Uh...so is that why it's creepy, yeah?"
"Yes."
"Where do you get instructions like that, hm?"
Konan put down her empty box. "These are the papers the demon boy left for me when Yahiko and I ventured out to the hospital, remember?"
"Oh!" Deidara faked understanding quite well, though she had not at all answered his question.
Before he could ask it again, Konan stood. "Thank you for the food. I have something to ask." When Deidara was standing before her looking attentive, she fixed his eyes with a sharp stare. "I do not know how relations between men and women are in this world. You are not to speak under any circumstances."
Dei gulped. "Of course! Totally, yeah. I wouldn't be believed anyway." Konan did not wear her cloak to bed, so she was currently dressed only in a blouse with straps instead of sleeves, and shorts that went about midway down her thigh. It was an exceedingly normal outfit by Dei's standards, and completely unrevealing. It was special only because she usually wore the cloak everywhere. That was of course why she asked him to keep mum, as anything less than the full cloak felt like nakedness.
"Very well." These were her original clothes that she had died with, so Konan was well aware that they were exceedingly normal, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. Who knew what kind of perverts her coworkers were in their private lives, anyhow. She reached for her cloak.
Dei thought of awkwardly saying something that he thought would be a nice compliment but instead would only make the situation more awkward, like they did in the movies, but thought against it. He left the room decorously, without any lingering awkwardness. God, movies were turning out to be so inaccurate.
Sasori
Sasori stood still in his workplace. What was he looking for? What was there to look for? His stomach rolled uneasily, and he didn't know anymore.
His boss was not happy, but he had no power to pull Sasori's soul anywhere, so he didn't matter. Sasori let the words roll over him as a breeze rolls around a dragon, and freed his mind for further explorations. His feet seemed not to be touching the ground. Sasori had the curious feeling that he was not really in the shop, but somewhere else.
Sasori thought it was possible the shop might not exist anymore. Not as it had before. His roaming eyes looked over his familiar space, and Sasori was terrified to notice that he was just on the edge of being able to see the colors hidden beneath them. Or maybe it was his own perception having changed; this was just the form it took. Sasori wondered if he was losing it.
Everything was small. The air smelled of oil and metal, tinged with sweat both effortful and angry. What the hell was he doing here? Sasori looked away from the angry man making loud noises, over to various large machines that sat silent and looming in the corner. He couldn't answer that anymore. Was Deidara right? Was there more, waiting for Sasori to find it? Sasori tried to tell himself he still needed to get back to alright, and when he did everything would seem normal again. But his workbench looked ugly.
Sasori turned back to his angry boss, who stood silent and fuming. He'd never given in to the manager's displeased ranting, but he'd never turned his head away as if it didn't matter either. Sasori remembered this later, after he accomplished the first goal. Goal Number One: get him the hell out of this place so I can be alone.
"With all due respect, sir," Sasori said in a voice filled with emotion, "go away." His voice sounded disturbed even to his own ears. It was faint, unsure, and trembled as if it might just disappear, walking out that door to never come back. It was the voice of You have disappeared, and other things have taken your place of importance. It carried a warning of, I realize my power. The manager turned interesting colors, before sulking off. Sasori turned back to the machines and was staring at them long before his boss left. Things were rearranging themselves, in reality and in the mind.
Sasori perceived this rearranging, but did not see how it was happening, or why. He did not think of himself at all. Rather, the world around him seemed to be upset, falling to pieces and coming together again somehow everywhere he looked. The machines - inadequate. Sasori had a fleeting vision of something else, too quickly to put it down on paper. He thought he might get it back, though. Was that it? Did I just see what I want to do, back home in that shed? He was suddenly overcome with the urge to go back; just leave this place that was not right, and start, now! Sasori gasped, and went over to the window. The urge echoed around inside, flinging Sasori back and forth like a small bird in a hurricane. He felt like he was spinning, spinning, and might never land. He looked out of the window for something solid and real.
There was a bicycle in the parking lot outside. Sasori shook his head, his mouth hanging open. What? What? He turned back, crossed the room to sit down somewhere, and pressed his hands against the side of his head. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Everything's insane, but I don't have to be. Sasori did not believe this. Was everything insane, or was he? I saw things with my soul! Someone call Kakuzu, ask him to bet on both. That was a great idea. Someone else who had been there was exactly who he needed to be talking to right now.
Laurie had her personal laptop open on her desk, and was absently scrolling through it. Sasori couldn't even see what she was scrolling past before it was gone. She looked up at him and asked straight out, "Do you think there's something else?"
Sasori stared back. There were many, many things she could be referring to. He realized the odds were very good that the answer was Yes no matter what she was referring to, and nodded.
She turned back to her small computer and propped her head up with one elbow on the desk, staring forlornly like the device was a portal to another world. "It's just like, what am I doing sitting here? I… There has to be something else to do. I keep wanting to just get up and go somewhere, but I have no idea where. I can't even focus. It's like nothing's real anymore. Yesterday was real. Today…"
Sasori leaned against the wall behind her. "I had my soul pulled partly out of my body and touched, yet I realized this morning that I now have increased understanding of many things and my boss has shrunk to a tiny, annoying mosquito. It's better now. How the fuck can that be true?"
Laurie shook her head. "He is really meaningless, right? I thought I was hallucinating that."
"I'm hallucinating that my space is too small, unless you've seen that too." Sasori leaned back and looked at the ceiling. Two fluorescent tubes created twin circles of light that barely reached to the walls. The corners looked dingy, and Sasori thought they would feel dingy too.
"Not hallucinating that." Laurie sat up and leaned back in her chair, spinning around to face Sasori. "What are we doing here?"
"I keep shaking with this weird urge to just race home and start in my own space," Sasori admitted. "I mean, the hotel. When did I start thinking of that as home?"
Laurie shrugged. He continued. "Anyway, I looked at the machines and saw something, maybe what I want to build. I keep having to resist the urge to just take my tools and the bike and get the hell away from here."
"How much carrying capacity does the bike have?" Laurie asked.
"Um…" Sasori tried to remember. "It was just a normal racing bike. I think those come with something attached to their frames to hold a water bottle."
"What?" Laurie asked. "I thought...what about your bike?"
"My bike?" Sasori remembered that he rode a motorcycle. "Oh, yeah. I'd have to come back for one of them on foot, then. I've run to the base from here before; it wasn't that difficult."
"Where is this racing bike?" Laurie looked confused.
"You remember the little one I fixed?" Sasori reminded her. "Yeah, there's another one sitting out in the lot now. I haven't gone out to see what's wrong with it yet."
"Oh…" Recognition dawned in Laurie's eyes. "Like that other one! You fixed the little bike that day the boss was out, and then there was another one. What happened to that other one?"
"Which other one? The one that was conspiring with my bike?"
"Yeah, that one."
"How am I supposed to know?" Sasori shrugged. "Not broken, not my problem. It was gone anyway by the time I left. The one with the broken chain was easy to fix outside."
"Right." Laurie counted on her fingers. "So there was a kid's bike, then those two we saw that day your laptop got stolen, and now another one. That's four bikes showing up under mysterious circumstances. What the hell?"
"Do you get an eerie feeling from this?" Sasori asked. "Everything we're talking about now feels like a return to normality, to reality. I think my definition of normal's gone backwards."
Laurie paused. "Oh my god, you're right." She glanced at him. "Do you think this is a sign?"
"A sign?" Sasori did not ask this as a request for further explanation. He tilted his head at her, making Laurie blush. What kind of person didn't have at least some superstitions? Her new best friend, that was who.
She tried to explain herself. "Yeah, um… You know, gut instinct, if you want to call it that. What if what feels right is right, and what feels wrong is wrong? Would you rather fix bicycles than be here?"
Sasori's eyes grew distant. He seriously considered the possibility. "I do know one thing," he said slowly. "Once is weird. Twice is creepy. A third time is proof someone's sending me a message."
"Oh, so you do believe in at least one normal superstition." Laurie was relieved.
Sasori looked offended to have been so accused. "No, I don't. Why would you say that? Three times shows someone's making an effort. There's a purpose to all these bikes showing up here. I just need to figure out what it means."
Laurie drummed her fingers on the desk. "So, do you want to fix it?"
"Yes. It's a reflex; I can't help it." Sasori turned back to get his tools. "Back out to the real world. I can't believe I just said that." He shook his head as he left.
Laurie nodded behind him. Left alone again, she closed her useless device and sighed. She bit her lip and looked around. What was she going to occupy her time with now?
Deidara. The idea burst into her mind. Spending her time up here chatting with people was exactly what the boss had disapproved of strongly enough to keep the incubus away, of course, but Laurie was still riding the waves of freedom that came with feeling like her world had been shattered and reglued. She ran after Sasori to get his friend's number.
Hidan
"Where'd you get this?" he asked. Hidan turned the ball over in his hands and sniffed it all around. It smelled of earth and many places that were not inhabited by humans. He liked that smell. The ball was smooth, dark red, and showed the scratches of having been bounced many times over many surfaces.
There was silence. The mute boy whose ball this was stood across from him in the clearing, staring up at Hidan. His black hair framed his pale face so he looked sadder than ever. The stuffed snake was draped over a rock within arm's reach.
"What do you do with it?" Hidan asked, handing the ball back.
The boy began to bounce it on the hard packed ground. Hidan watched him do this for around five minutes until the boy stopped bouncing it and held it out for Hidan.
"That looks like fun!" Hidan agreed, and stood up to bounce it more impressively. He frowned and crouched again after the first few bounces. The ball wasn't bouncy enough to make it that high. It was only a good ball for someone around the boy's size.
He handed it back after a few minutes. The boy took the ball and held it, looking off into the forest. Hidan sniffed the air and looked around. He didn't see anything. Maybe the kid was thinking.
The kid put down the ball, picked up his snake, and started rolling the ball away. "Aw, a shame," Hidan murmured. "Hey, you can see me if you need anything!" The boy stopped rolling for just a moment to indicate he heard.
Hidan sat enjoying the sun for some time, then remembered about Konan. How long have I been out here, anyway? But first, he got up and started walking in the direction the kid had been looking. It was entirely possible the kid had been looking for some far-off cool thing.
Hidan came upon a very tall tree. Looking up, he saw many birds in its upper branches. "Aw fuck yeah!" he grinned and started racing up. The birds cleared all around the branch where he sat, then resettled a few minutes later. Pretty! They had many different colors on them. Hidan promptly named this spot the Bird Tree in his mind as he watched the flock.
Wrrrrbbb. Hidan's phone made a low trilling/rumbling sound, as if it was an obscenely cute sci-fi creature. He pulled it out and answered without taking his eyes off the birds. "Yeah?"
"Dei here. Konan's been awake for a while, and she's doing something with a ritual in the basement, hm. She wants to know if you could catch some deer for her? Uh…" There were indistinct noises on the other end of the line, then Deidara came back on. "Two. She might need a third, but just in case she doesn't, she'd like two. And she says they need to be alive, yeah."
"Aw…" Hidan whined. "I'm watching the coolest birds here! How soon does she need 'em?"
"As soon as you can," Dei answered. "She expects it'd take you fifteen minutes or something like that." There was a long silence.
"Dei?"
"Where the fuck are you, and what are you doing, hm? It's been a couple hours! I thought you'd come back in as soon as she felt better, yeah," Deidara finished.
Hidan thought back. "I chased some squirrels, went back to visit my former place, avoided a bear, then I picked up some familiar signals and spent a while bouncing a ball with that mute kid, and now I'm here in the Bird Tree, looking at birds. They are awesome birds! But fine, I'll just come back later, when all the best ones are gone somewhere," he finished grumbling.
"..." Deidara made thinking noises. "Konan's doing really well! She's got a thing to mess around with, and I think she's getting some chakra back, yeah." Deidara's voice dropped to a whisper. "Hey, do you know what she wears under that cloak?"
Hidan's mouth fell open, and his other hand clenched. "Hey! You better not be offering to fucking tell me, or I will come back and punch your little dickface off! What the fuck kind of asshole goes around blabbing about something like that? I will fucking tell on you."
"Um…" He could almost hear Deidara going pale. "Not - nothing like that, hm. Just wondering. Two deer, ten minutes. Bye."
Hidan stabbed the screen of his phone to disconnect the call. What a little dick! What kind of asshole goes around disobeying orders like that? I'm definitely telling Konan. He knew she would not take it well, and Deidara would suffer something fierce, but it was for the greater good. I know it's supposed to be funny 'cause there's nothing to tell, just normal clothes and shit, but fucking still! He leaped straight off the branch and managed to somehow not break anything upon landing. Woah, I'm an acrobat!
Hidan put his acrobatic skills to the test over the next half hour. First, he separated two deer from their herd. Then came the hard part, where he had to chase both of them in the direction of the base and keep them from splitting up on the way there. With the help of his images, all went well, until one of them took a hard right and the other veered to the left. Hidan sent his images back, cursed, and threw his scythe in one direction while his main body went in the other direction. Both deer whirled up on their hind legs, turned back to the forest to face his images, and were successfully redirected towards the base. They were too panicked to escape the paper weaving around their legs before it was too late.
Konan floated both deer off the ground so they wouldn't kick anybody in their frantic struggling. Hidan dismissed his images and stood, panting, as she approached. Konan stopped a foot from him, looking him in the face. Her own face said nothing. For a minute, there were just the two of them, looking at each other. Hidan started to purr. Konan's lips and eyes twitched. She reached out for him.
They embraced. Hidan, shocked but very pleased that she was initiating it, slowly raised his arms to embrace her back. His deep rumble vibrated through both their chests. Konan ran a couple of fingers through his hair. "Thank you," she whispered. "For being different from my Hidan. For being more." She buried her face in the side of his. "I tell no one."
The words different and more sent shockwaves through Hidan's body. He didn't know what she was really referring to, but the way it made him feel left Hidan embracing her back, not saying a thing. He almost definitely didn't want to know what she was referring to. His chest hurt. Huh? Why? He stifled a sob. Why was he crying? Was it good or bad crying? Hidan thought it was good, although he was getting signals clear as a thundercloud. What had she said? Oh shit, I really can't remember what she said. Hidan could no longer recall any of her specific words.
He wiped his eyes with a sleeve when she drew back. Konan was smiling when he looked up at her. Hidan was completely confused, unable to tell what kind of smiling it was. She stroked his hair, her hand running gently down the side of his head and over his ear. "It's alright," she told him. "Thank you for your help." Then she was turning away, bringing the panicked deer inside to meet their fates, leaving Hidan where he was to watch her. He sniffled. What the fuck?
Deidara, who'd been watching from the back porch, came up to him. "Are you all right, yeah?"
Hidan stared. Where the fuck had he come from? Hidan rubbed his eyes one last time. "None your business," he growled back, and turned away.
Deidara scratched his head sheepishly. "Sorry about earlier," he muttered. "I just thought things were different with you and her, yeah."
"They are," Hidan shot back, "which is how I know that you don't get to say shit." He crossed his arms.
Deidara looked around for a way to make amends. Hidan could almost hear a Ding! sound when inspiration struck. "Hey," Dei said excitedly, "how about we look in the training rooms? Konan's doing her own thing, so we should do something. You can tell me what you did, yeah!"
Hidan agreed to this course of action. He retrieved his scythe, then they went to the training room to the right of the stairs. Hidan pointed to various spots around the room, giving Deidara a guided tour. "So the remote control cars will have targets put on them to practice with randomly moving shit, the trains are for less randomly moving shit, that's what the targets will look like over there, they're covered in ribbon so you can see when you miss, we weren't able to get any firecrackers to attach to the ribbon so…"
Deidara waited until he was finished to ask, "What'll we use these targets for, hm?"
Hidan shrugged. "It's for practicing with your own shit."
"Our own?"
"Yeah. What, you thought she was going to let everyone go without weapons? Fuck no. Anyone who stays gets their own pouch from now on." Hidan nodded as if to say, And that's that.
Dei's phone rang.
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