Characters: Konan, Pein
Summary: The scene shifts and spins and her mind is left to wonder why it has to be like this.
Pairings: PeinKon
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Every time she tilts her head a little bit the image shifts, like a kaleidoscope. Konan looked through a kaleidoscope once, when she was fourteen in a shop in Amegakure. The way the colors sparkled made her head hurts.
The way the scenes shift now provokes the same reaction. Konan's head spins, her stomach churns, her mouth grows dry and her mind is sickened, confused, anguished.
Why does everything have to change? Why does it all have to slip from her into sand and dust and water and meaninglessness?
Konan is denied answers for anything, caught under the piercing scrutiny of the Rinnegan.
She doesn't think she will ever know what motivated Nagato to keep Yahiko's body and use it as a vessel with the Rinnegan in place of Yahiko's once vivid blue eyes. Nagato may whisper his excuses, his reasons out to her over the buzz of the machinery but Konan will still never understand, never fathom what was necessary about it.
She'll never understand why he had to do that, when it was obvious how much this hurts them both.
Konan can't stop thinking of this path of Pein as Yahiko. Even when she calls him Pein, she still says "Yahiko" in her mind, still keeps memory alive despite herself. Memory attacks, assaults, destroys her in his presence.
It does the same to Nagato. She can see the pain, the wistfulness in his eyes every time he looks at the path of Pein that in another life was Yahiko. But apparently, it doesn't hurt enough to make him stop, or maybe he's just that much of a glutton for punishment, that he doesn't care how much it hurts him.
And Konan would leave, except…
Except being with and near Pein is as close as she can ever get to Nagato, who has pulled away from her nearly completely.
And, when she walks behind the path of Pein dearest to Nagato's heart, and doesn't see the ringed eyes in front, Konan can almost believe she's with Yahiko again.