Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters.
Sunyata
Konan is paper.
As a small child, before Amegakure had become engulfed in civil war, Konan had loved the blank whiteness of paper. It seemed to suggest a sense of endless possibility, the ability to be folded into any shape or have any words written on it. There was nothing she couldn't make it into if she tried hard enough.
When the war came, she learned to make it into weapons. There were those who were so desperate that they would even steal a loaf of bread from a child, so she learned to defend what little she had. She didn't think that the blank whiteness of paper was so pretty when it was stained with the brilliant red of blood.
The first time she turned herself into paper was shortly after Yahiko's death. She had been so miserable that she wished she could float away, above the grime and the blood and the rainclouds. She had been shocked to see lines appearing on her skin, her hands bleaching to the stark white of paper. It had been painless, which was a change. She had drifted for hours, her grief blunted by the wonder of realizing that she could see and hear through every bit of paper. She had willed herself higher, until she broke through the cloud cover. From up here, Amegakure barely seemed to exist, as only the tallest towers poked through the clouds.
When she learned to become paper, she remembered that quality of paper that she had loved during her childhood, its ability to be transformed into whatever was needed. Nagato and his followers were embroiled in an all-out war with Hanzou's forces, so she made herself into a warrior. She discovered that she could suffocate people with her paper, that she could turn it into explosive tags, that she could make clones of herself from it, and she put all of these skills to deadly use.
Their followers who had seen Nagato use the Gedo Mazou statue began to whisper that it was no ordinary summon, that Nagato had the power to command demons. When he reanimated Yahiko, rumors spread saying that the Rinnegan could breach the veil between life and death. But it was his stunning defeat of Hanzou and subsequent destruction of Hanzou's entire faction that truly cemented his reputation as something more than human among the Ame shinobi. They began to speak of him as a kami, a divine being that watched over their nation. Nagato saw an opportunity to use his newfound reputation as a god to unify the Rain and quash any remaining opposition, but his followers didn't know how badly his real body had been crippled, or what a toll the summoning of the Gedo Mazou had taken on him. Nor did he want the secret of his surrogate bodies to be uncovered. To communicate with the Rain citizens and those few foreigners who were allowed into the village, he would need a messenger.
The god of Amegakure needed an angel, and so Konan became one.
She relayed Pain's decrees, conveyed mission assignments and reports, meted out punishment to anyone foolish enough to defy him. She soared above the streets on paper wings, and carried messages on paper butterflies.
But none of Pain's followers saw Nagato's weak and emaciated form. None of them saw the hope dying in his eyes, or heard his sobs in the dead of night, when he thought no one was listening.
Konan wasn't quite sure what Nagato needed. She thought it might be Yahiko, but that was impossible, so she tried to fill the void in whatever way she could.
She had always been his friend and his comrade, but following Yahiko's death, she made herself into something more. When she saw Yahiko's body sitting slumped in a chair, ringed eyes downcast, she sat beside him. She put an arm around his shoulders, or ran her fingers through his hair. He would look up at her then, and she could see Nagato's gratitude in his eyes. Sometimes, she pressed her lips to his. Sometimes, she took his hand and led him to her bedroom on the highest floor of the tower. Sometimes, she thought that Nagato was trying to become what she needed too.
In the early hours of the morning, when a sickly sort of sunlight filters down through the clouds and Pain lies sleeping in her arms, Konan holds up a hand and lets it turn into paper. She watches the creases and calluses etched there by years of battle fade away, until only blank whiteness is left. She contemplates the paper that is her body and soul, and wonders what destiny for the world Nagato will write upon it.
A/N: This is a rather darker take on PainKonan than I usually write, but I think it turned out well.
"Sunyata" is a concept in Buddhism that literally means "emptiness" or "nothingness". The idea is that no object or person can have a truly independent and permanent self, since everything is interdependent, and everyone changes as they go through their lives. So the "emptiness" refers to that lack of an immutable self.
Thanks for reading!