We were leaving for Konoha when it began to pour down from the sky.
I wondered if he had created it.
"Konan. Let's get a move on," Pein told me, striding a bit farther ahead of me, toward the exit and the rain. But he heard my slow footsteps trailing and stopped, half turned to face me, asking what was wrong in his silence.
I had a murky premonition about what was to come for us in Konoha, and looked up so that he could see the discomfort etched onto my face.
He was emotionless, but I could tell in his mind he was hesitating. He stepped forward to return to me, until he was standing directly in front of me, looking down at my worried face with rippled eyes, a darker purple than what I usually saw on battlefield.
It took him a long while to finally speak.
"You're so beautiful, Konan," he said.
I was struck by surprise first, at the unexpected comment, then confused. I felt my eyebrows slightly furrow.
"I don't want to see worry on your beautiful face."
I looked down, shaking my head. "I…I don't understand."
His hand tilted my jaw back up again so that I could stare again at his warm eyes. He tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
"This is going to be our last battle," he stated, repeating my thoughts out loud. "Don't worry about the end."
A hard rock formed at my throat, but I wasn't about to let my eyes follow the same fate as the rain.
"We're going to pass into a better place, be the base—the support—of a higher bridge that will lead to the peace we've always dreamed of," he continued.
I didn't want him to bring this up now, and stepped back to silence to him.
He stepped, swiftly, forward to counter the distance.
And closer.
"We don't have another time," he whispered into my ear, and while his breath still lingered on my right ear, he leaned in again.
His lips were gentle, one arm firm around my waist, crushing me to heavy fabric and muscle, the other hand softly caressing the back of my neck. Cold metal piercings stung my face, and they grew warm under the eternity of the moment.
I didn't know who he was. I didn't know who was kissing me.
The body? The one who controlled it?
We separated slowly, first holding each other's face just eyelashes away, then he stepped back completely to part. My mind was still trying to figure out what exactly had happened while he turned and started to move out for battle.
"Wait," I said, question hanging off my lips.
He stopped.
"Why didn't you bring me to yourself?"
He turned to face me.
"Because I know you loved him."
I froze.
"This body," he clarified, almost bitterly in regret of the past. "This…shell."
Speechless, I couldn't say anything to him, and I stood there in ice long after he finally left for the fight.
But I set my jaw and mind back into place. I gathered what movement I could to set off in the same suit.
For his sake. And also his sake.
For their sake.
:) I left the pronouns ambiguous.
Anyways, that trio definitely deserves more fics. :'(
thir13enth