Konan had never particularly liked children.

Sure, when they were being quiet, relatively clean, and weren't getting their chubby little fingers fingers into anything - they weren't terrible. Unfortunately, most children weren't clean, quiet, or fingerless. The little creatures in Ame, especially. As a result of this mindset, the blue-haired kunoichi had never thought of having children. She wasn't like the other women her age – kunoichi, or no – who pined and doted and longed for a child to hold and cuddle and care for. The nurturing urge had been beaten out of her long ago by the sheer primitive need to survive in a war torn area. She had been desensitized - burnt and broken of all motherly feelings.

Or so she had thought.

Children should not be on the mind of the right-hand of God. Her duty was mingled with him, and their organisation's success – not mired in the lowly, earthly realms of growing, and fertility. She had not even considered them as an option. She couldn't - wouldn't - bear having a child and casting it aside, not like her, not like them. That is, until she found out she was pregnant. Her panic had been swift and all consuming. Kami help her, she had no idea how to take care of a child.

Could she even do that? Pein and Madara were just starting to bring in recruits for their organization, a child...would set her back - them all back.

Konan sank to the forest floor in a more undignified manner than her usual poise and grace and idly folded a small piece of paper into a flower. Tiny, near imperceptible, shudders could be seen in her deceptively delicate fingers. It was getting cold and she'd have to build a fire soon. She closed her eyes and dropped the origami flower onto her lap.

Pein.

He would not be happy at all. They had decided a few years ago that a romantic relationship would not be the best thing for them. It had been unpleasant for a while - so awkward on her side, so cold on his - but they had slowly but surely slipped back into the role of brother an sister, comrades, best friends. Like pieces of a wrinkled puzzle, they smoothed each other and fit their jagged edges together to create a family.

Konan had slipped and slept with a man a month ago in snow country.

She remembers his bright red hair - almost, almost, unnervingly close to the colour of Pein's in the right light. She hadn't meant to, she really hadn't - and kind green eyes, the way he didn't ask for anything more than a night. She had been weary and worried for Pein - Madara isn't trustworthy, this organization that Pein plans to change the world with, its pitfalls. She had let him take her home, all the while knowing that she could destroy him with a twist of her wrist. It had been fun - touching someone so untainted, pressing her lips to sweet, unscarred skin...but she was gone before he woke up.

But now... Now, she had a child growing within the confines of her womb who was not planned or necessarily wanted. Could she bring a child into this insane world?

Slowly, almost of its own will, her deadly hand crept to the flat plain of her abdomen. She felt the smooth, cool, metal of several of her naval piercings and thought, dimly, that she would have to remove them, lest they cause her pain and problems when her stomach began to swell. In a few weeks there would be a bump there, then a child.

Could she risk it?

What would it feel like, to hold something of her creation? Something she had held inside of her for months?

Her thumb started to gently stroke the fabric of her stomach, her eyes stayed closed.

She tried to picture it, this thing - this little human who would like like her, the man with green eyes, her parents and his. Konan imagined little fingers tugging at the hem of her robe, asking to be held. She imagined bath time and coloring and unconditional love.

If she kept it, would it be a boy or a girl? Her hair or his? Advanced chakra pathways or civilian tendencies? Would it be calm and collected or loud and energetic?

She took a deep breath of forest-dampened air - so full of life and death and everything in between. Pein would not be happy, but maybe he wouldn't be too angry, either. Madara probably wouldn't care, as long as his plans and ambitions stayed untouched by the child. Her pale fingers splayed over her stomach in a possessive display only a mother can manage.

She was keeping this baby.

.

When the kunoichi returned to their base in the outskirts of Ame, her figure had changed considerably. It had been three and a half months since that day in the forest and she had since recruited a strange man who would do wonderfully on reconnaissance missions. Since then, she had been preparing for the birth of her child. Konan figured that the farther along she was, the less angry her dearest friend would be.

From behind, she looked no different - but that is where the changes ended. Now not even the volumous Akatsuki cloak could hide her drastically changed shape from anyone who cared to glance in her direction. Her previously flat stomach had rounded and expanded to fit the growing baby and her breasts had started to swell. Her figure, over all, had turned softer and more motherly - a stark change from the hard muscle and lean physique of a seasoned kunoichi.

It took a long moment for the pierced shinobi to realize what was wrong with his comrade. He stared at her swollen abdomen with a blank silver gaze.

Konan stood tall as she endured Pein's scrutiny. Despite her travel wearied state, she had done her best to appear healthy and put together. In a way, this was the first time Pein and her child would ever meet, even if they couldn't look each other in the eyes. In response to her slightly elevated heart rate, her growing child shifted just slightly.

"You," Pein narrowed his eyes at the bulge under his partners robe. "Are with child."

She laid a gentle hand atop her stomach in a blatantly protective gesture. "I am."

Konan was hesitant. At this stage in her pregnancy, if something were to happen, her child could not survive outside her body. If Pein tried to harm the baby, she would have a high probability of surviving, but her infant would have none. She doubted he would try, but if he did she would destroy him. Not even Madara would find the pieces.

Pein's silver-ringed eyes scanned her figure curiously. It was strange: seeing her this way.

He had known Konan for what felt like his whole life and for most of that time, she had never really changed. It was odd seeing a change so drastic in someone he had perceived immovable. She was the solid floor beneath the ever moving stream of life - untouched, unchanging, keeping him tethered to reality...

Not to mention the fact that it was nearly impossible for him to register the fact that she had a small human inside of her - one she hadn't eaten, unlike their most recently recruited member.

Slowly, he approached. Konan tensed, but did not move away when the tips of his fingers settled against fabric covering her abdomen - even a hint of chakra, and she'd stick a kunai through his windpipe. She loved him. She loved him more than she'd loved anyone else, but her child was coming into this world - with or without his approval.

There was another tiny shift within her womb. The orange-haired shinobi cocked his head to the side and pressed his palm against Konan's enlarged stomach. Another shift.

He leaned down, almost nose to nose with her rounded abdomen and said: "Hello."

.

It was raining. A storm swirled above a delapidated little inn near the center of Ame. Water fell in great, unbroken sheets against the shoddy structure.

Pein tilted his head towards the familiar, roiling sky and tried to relax.

The day had finally come; Konan's child was arriving. The hunched midwife and her mousy assistant had ussured him out as soon as she was on the bed. Kami only knew what was happening in there.

He had been under the impression that the birthing process was a loud and agonizing one, but so far Konan hadn't made a noise. Although, he could be wrong - it's not like he had been through this before.

Konan was strong - the strongest woman he had ever known - but there could be complications. What if she doesn't stop bleeding? What if the baby is born still and cold? What would happen to his closest friend and partner?

The rain splashed off of his barbells and studs with tiny ting, ting, tings. He tried to lose himself in the noise of the rain and wind and not in the deeply unnerving absence of sound from within the inn. He almost, almost wished she would scream just so he could hear her voice and know there was enough breath left in that precious body to do so. Konan would live. She was not leaving him - not after all they had been through.

Ting, ting, ting.

He needed her, Kami, he needed her. He was a God, but she was his saving grace - his kindest angel. He couldn't fix the world without her, he wouldn-

There! A thin, high wail - striking and haunting and entirely new to the world. Ting, ting, ting. Slowly, as to let in the least amount of rain and cold as possible, the door opened. A shaft of light, flickering and golden, passed over his figure as the midwife beckoned him inside.

Compared to the near frigid temperature of outside, the birthing room was stifling: the air heavy and humid with a cloying, organic scent. He was by Konan's side in an instant, looking over the damage. She lay on her side, a pillow propped under her head - her beautiful origami hair piece left out and sapphire hair down, for once - and her eyes were staring intently at the apprentice in the corner. Not once did she look his way, not even a flicker when standing directly beside her.

The midwife and her student worked quickly and silently. He supposed that working in the presence of a God and his angel was an awe-inspiring, bone-chilling experience - not to mention that, to them, a God's right hand had just given birth. Whether or not the child would be as holy to them as Pein and Konan would take time to find out. The orange haired shinobi brushed his fingers over his partner's sheet covered ankle, wordlessly asking if she was alright.

Konan's honey-colored eyes flickered to his with a tired nod before turning her undivided attention to her child - now being carried in the arms of the old midwife over to them. The woman's gnarled fingers laid a tiny bundle of blankets next to the kunoichi's head. It squirmed and made a faint gurgling noise. The old woman touched a corner of the blanket with a twisted finger.

"Would you like me to tell you, or do you want to find out for yourselves?" Pein peered at the bundle. Contrary to what he had heard, babies fresh out their mothers were not, in fact, cute. This thing was red and a little wrinkly and it looked vaguely slimy. It opened its little eyes and stared back at him. Maybe this thing could be somewhat attractive one day. Maybe.

Konan stroked its miniature cheek with the tip of her pointer finger. It was more than slightly amusing to see her child and her partner staring at each other - one mildly disturbed and the other curious and hungry. The kunoichi had a strong feeling that she already knew the sex of her child - a girl, it had to be a girl, girlgirlgirl - but she wouldn't care either way.

Her labor had been fast and hard. One minute she was sharpening her kunai - and storing them somewhere where little hands wouldn't find them - and the next she was nearly crippled by the pain. Then she was in this stuffy little room with the old woman and her granddaughter and suddenly there was someone else in there, too. One cry, long and high, and her child had announced to all of them that she - girlgirlgirl - was here now.

"We'll do it." Konan whispered, not wanting to disturb her lovely, lovely baby. The woman was out of the room as fast as her old bones would take her.

Without any pomp, she lifted the lip of the soft blue blanket and peered underneath. "Nagato," he flinched. "I want you to name her."

The shinobi inspected the tiny human as he stepped closer the bed and its occupants. What does a God name a child? He had no idea. Something profound, probably. His gaze scanned her tiny, scrunched face. What did he see there?

Her eyes, wide and sparkling in her little face - a faded green now, perhaps darker when the color settles. Her hair, colorless in this light, looked like the downy fuzz of a duckling. Her nose, a delicate button above a plump little mouth.

She was delicate - fragile like the spring flowers that couldn't bloom in Ame. He wondered what they were going to train her in. She certainly wouldn't be one for taijutsu - too small, too breakable. Maybe ninjutsu. He lifted a powerful hand - a hand that had taken lives, many lives - and touched the back of his scarred knuckle to her pink cheek. A smirk tweaked the corners of his lips. Pink and green.

"Sakura."

The new mother arched a fine navy eyebrow. Honestly, she had no idea how he had gotten there. If that smirk was anything to go by, she probably was better off not knowing. She gazed at Sakura - beautiful, lovely, magnificent Sakura. Her baby, her child, her offspring, her progeny, her creation. And she knew - she knew - that her daughter would be strong. She would be stronger than her, stronger than Pein, stronger than Madara.

Staring into the pale green eyes of her daughter, Konan had a gut feeling - the feeling of warning, of purpose, of knowing what you have to do - even if you don't know why. She knew with the certainty of a mother, that she needed to shield her precious creation from their leader's dark influence. This pretty, pretty, little thing with her big green eyes and her soft white hair was going to interest him, she was sure.

Sakura managed to wriggle a tiny fist from the blanket binding her and bopped her mother on the nose with a firm-sounding glrug.

A tiny, rare smile tugged at the corners of her full lips. Oh, her daughter would handle her own just fine.

It wasn't until a month later that they realized Sakura's hair was, in fact, pink. Konan thought Pein looked just a little smug.


Prologue writing is awkward. A huge fish to my carzyawesome beta, Ophelialovesthefishes - because apparently she likes them. First Naruto fic - funfunfun!

- Vene