A/N: I swear I'm not dead, guys! Anyway, I've had this idea for days; I need to get it out! I'll probably work on this for a little while, and then go back to Purgatory, and then switch off.

Breaking her spirit was harder than breaking her bones. Her bones made a lot more noise, though that was drowned out by the screaming. He had already asked her not to do this to herself but she kept disobeying him. He told her that this hurt him more than it hurt her, but knowing what would happen if he didn't break her made the pain bearable. He tried to quiet her while her body broke, but his words sounded like silence to her.

She couldn't understand how he could do this. After spending so many years trying to avoid violence and pain, and now he was doing this. She thought things would be different. If things had gone like she expected, she'd be somewhere else. She'd be far away from the wars and pain and loneliness. She'd be far away from him.

As she lay perfectly still on the table, she realized that she should've expected this to happen. Nagato hadn't been the same since that day. That was the day his world flew out of control and he went with it. She should've known this would happen after the agony and despair he'd caused recently. Why would she be special enough to receive his mercy? Why would he let her leave?

She had asked to leave earlier that day. Wait, she didn't ask. She just told him she was leaving, and didn't ask for his input. He wasn't sane enough to give her a good opinion. However, he did so anyway.

"No," was all he said. His voice was weak, but something about his tone turned the word into a threat. She heard the malice, but chose to ignore it. She didn't want to think that he'd hurt her. Even as Deva broke her, she didn't want to think he'd ever bring pain upon her.

She should've expected that he'd try to stop her, but his frail state made her feel safe. She hadn't thought about his other bodies. It wasn't until she found Deva standing between her and the outside world that she had remembered them.

"You won't be leaving, Konan." Deva told her. His voice was much stronger than Nagato's, but his stance made the threat less effective. Deva stood perfectly straight but relaxed. It wasn't a fighting pose. She didn't think he'd be attacking her. She stepped close to the door and Deva shifted to block her. She tried to push her way around him, but he grabbed her arm.

"Don't make this difficult, Konan," Deva said, holding her in place. "It's easier for both of us if you stay. Go back now, and it'll all be okay. I'll forgive you."

She began to turn to paper to free her arm, but she was too slow. Deva pulled her to her knees in front of him, and sunk one of his many chakra rods into her stomach with a sickening wet sound. Her paper hand fell to the floor, and she stared down at the pool of blood forming at her knees. It was her blood, yet she felt disconnected from it. She felt Deva kneel behind her, and then his breath on her neck. She tried to turn to paper, but her chakra was being disrupted by the rod.

"I gave you a fair chance, Konan. I told you it'd be easier, but you didn't listen to me. Stand up, now. I'm going to help you."

He picked up her paper hand and grabbed her other hand, pulling her up to her feet. She couldn't breathe. He tried to help her walk, but realized she couldn't. He knelt down and picked her up. A hideous noise escaped her as the rod shifted.

"I'll take it out soon, it'll be alright." Deva told her, though the words were too empty to hold any comfort. She wondered where he was taking her, and then looked to see the room where Nagato stored his many bodies. He put her on Deva's empty table, and examined her for a bit. She stared back at him, unable to function or even think properly with her chakra being scrambled. She tried to speak when Deva began to walk away. Her words were turned into another gruesome sound by the pain.

"I'll be back." Deva told her. She watched him walk out of sight, and put her hand on the rod sticking out from her stomach. As she tried to pull it out, a wave of pain flooded her body. She dropped her hand to her side and heard another noise she couldn't believe any human being could make. She thought about how she could possibly escape from this place. Even if she could get the rod out, she didn't know how to get out of the room. Only Nagato could open the door.

Deva came back after what felt like hours. He put his hands over the table, and chakra rods of all sorts dropped from his sleeves.

"You tried to take the rod out," he said knowingly. "Don't struggle right now, Konan. Don't make this harder than it already is."

Deva opened her cloak, having only snagged the left side with the rod. She tried to push his hands away, but he easily fought through her attempts. He pushed the cloak off of her as much as he could until he was stopped by where the rod held it to her wound. He bundled up the slack and dropped it in her lap. He was pleasantly surprised to remember the rather large hole near the stomach of Konan's shirt, making it possible to remove the small garment without getting it caught on the chakra rod. He sat behind her as he did, telling her he didn't want to make her uncomfortable. She probably would've laughed at that if she wasn't in so much pain. She turned her head to see Deva pick up a very short but sharp rod. In an instant, she knew what he was doing. She shook her head slowly, but found that she couldn't speak.

"This is going to hurt." Deva told her bluntly, ignoring her pathetic plea. "The pain will be gone soon. I don't want to hurt you more than necessary. It hurts me, too. More than you know."

She didn't believe him. She wanted to. But Deva's voice was too flat to hold any emotion. His eyes were the only thing that ever held any sort of feeling, but she couldn't see them right now so his apologies rang hollow with her. It bothered her that he would say that. She wondered if he knew that, and was using it to his advantage.

She felt Deva's fingers slide down her spine, and then back up to the top. Just between her shoulders, he felt the softer flesh on either side of her spine, and then pulled his hand away. She felt the cold metal rod being pushed against her skin just where Deva's finger had been just moments ago. She shook her head again, and tried to reach back and grab the rod from his hand. She couldn't reach it. She felt the rod break her skin, and then quickly dive in further until only a stub of the rod stuck out of her skin. She shook her head harder now, slamming her hand down on the concrete and gripped the side of the table until her knuckles were white. She heard Deva swear, and then felt something warm dripping down her back. It took her a second to realize it was more of her blood.

"I've never done this on a living body." Deva muttered to himself, not intending for her to hear. He looked over her shoulder to see that the rod in her stomach wasn't bleeding as profusely as he thought it was. That was good. She wouldn't die from blood loss.

He picked up another rod, identical to the one he had just forced into her back. She felt that one sink into her body on the other side of her spine, just opposite the first one. More of her blood dripped down her back. She saw Deva pick up two more of the rods, but tried to ignore it. She had to think right now. She had to find a way out of this.

One by one, the rods were forced into her body, and her blood forced out. It felt like hours until Deva finished, leaving a line of rods like faithful soldiers down either side of her spine that stopped just before her pelvis.

"We're done for today," he said casually, resting his bloody hand on the table. "I won't make you endure this any longer. You'll rest, now."

Deva helped her onto her back, metal rods clinking against the table, and then disappeared again. She wondered how he expected her to rest, lying in a pool of her own blood on a concrete table. Perhaps he didn't.

Yet, just as she had started to accept the situation, Deva came back in with gauze. He stood over her, looking at the large rod still lodged in her stomach.

"I'll take this out, now," he told her flatly.

He did it so quickly that it took her a moment to feel anything. She heard a sucking sound that made her want to vomit, but the pain of retching with the wound would have been unbearable. Her jaw dropped and another impossible noise escaped from her. Warm tears fell down her face, but she hardly noticed them. Deva pulled a ripped piece of the cloak out from the wound, and then began to bandage the gaping hole. She doubted it would do much good when she saw the bandages stain red on contact. He sat her up and wrapped the gauze around her back, covering the rods he had put in a few minutes ago. Even after her stomach was covered, he continued wrapping the gauze around her ribs, and then her chest. He covered her all the way up to her neck, and then stopped.

"I'll change these tomorrow, Konan," he told her. Deva turned her toward him, and then knelt down. He put his arm under her legs, and then pulled her head onto his shoulder. He lifted her like this, making sure not to touch her back. He brought her to her bed, and rested her on her side.

"I'll stay here tonight." He said, sitting down on the windowsill. Her thoughts still weren't clear to her, but she knew she wanted to speak. She wanted so badly to hurt Nagato with her words. Before she could try to tell him what she felt, she had passed out.

Don't tread the water, just stay still

-Believe

A/N: Oh, god I feel like a sadist.