A/N The challenge continues. This week it was an ostrich. I wasn't going to continue this, but then I thought, why not?

There has been some debate as to the size of the Akatsuki Garden; in fact, great men have wasted their lives pondering it. Wars have been fought, battles lost and won, and yet we are still not sure about how big it is. Apparently it extended into the fields behind the house, and was large enough to contain a lake, forest and a hidden dimension out by the clearing.

But none of this is in any way relevant.

Tobi and Konan were walking through the well-tended menagerie outside Zetsu's greenhouse/ bedroom, where bushes cut lovingly into the shapes of animals almost completely diverted the attention from the rather large and angry-looking plants that snapped at you if you got too close. As she sat on a carved stone bench, Konan eyed up one of these plants; its leaves shifted into what she was certain was the floral equivalent of an obscene hand gesture. Covering her hand with her cloak, she returned the gesture, whilst Tobi sat beside her.

"Umm… why did Konan-senpai bring Tobi here?"

"Tobi…"

"Surely Hidan-senpai is more important? He could be pregnant!"

"Eh… yeah, it's about that, really." Konan sighed, and turned to face that innocent, innocent orange mask. "Tobi, has anyone ever explained to you… how babies are made?"

"Oh! Tobi knows!"

Konan's heart skipped a beat. "Really?"

"Yeah! Mommy and daddy pray real hard, and then a stork brings them a baby!"

"That's… umm… that's not…" Oh, God, why me? "That's not… strictly true…"

"Oh! But Tobi thought it was true! So what really happens?"

"Well…" Konan tried, but found she could not look him in the eye-hole. Instead, she addressed the leafy ostrich to her right. "Okay, you know how women are different to men?" Something in Tobi's eager nodding made her hesitate. "Can you explain it to me?"

"Well… Tobi knows that girls wear make-up except that so do some guys and, um, girls make better cooks and they can do laundry and clean and stuff but you mustn't force that role on them because if we do then they get mad and throw things at you. They have the right to chose, though I'm not sure what they have the right to choose, and Kakuzu says that's a bad thing. Umm… girls wear skirts more often than men and they usually have long hair like Tei-chan, and Hidan-senpai says they often have low morals and they deserve to be sacrificed. And, um, they're prettier than guys except maybe Deidara-senpai, and you have to give them lots of chocolates and flowers to make them be really happy… and they have boobies."

Konan blinked. Something in the final part of that answer was horribly, horribly wrong.

"Look, Tobi… you need a man and a woman to get pregnant."

"Oh! So Hidan-senpai has a girlfriend who got him pregnant?"

"No, Tobi… only girls can get pregnant."

"How come?"

"Well… only girls have the right equipment."

"Maybe Hidan bought the equipment?"

Although Konan was not entirely willing to dismiss this possibility, Tobi's naïveté was a slightly more likely suspect. Slightly. She was certain that plant was laughing at her. She gave the ostrich an apologetic look, and continued carefully.

"Tobi… guys are born with some… body parts. And those are different to women's. And they're not… well, for guys they're detachable, but for girls you can't change it. Only girls are born able to have children, and they're stuck that way." Damn, I'm good. Wait. He's looking confused. Why is he looking confused? This is bad. This is very bad. "Tobi, do you understand me?"

"Umm… not really."

"Okay…" deep breaths. Don't look at Tobi; you're not talking to Tobi. You're talking to the ostrich. Tell the ostrich all about the birds and the bees… wait, it is a bird! OH GOD! I'm explaining the bees! Konan could feel confusion mounting inside her, panic threatening her mind. Calm. Calm… "Well, you see, Mr. Ostrich, what guys have is a… a key. And girls have a lock. And if the key goes in the lock then the door opens, and there's babies behind it."

"Ooh! Tobi thinks he understands!" Thank God… Tobi was looking a lot happier now; how this was possible to tell behind a mask, we may never know. The Akatsuki were very good at reading body language. "So…"

All at once, there came a rustling; suddenly slipping into her S-class paranoid criminal ninja mode, Konan whipped out a kunai, but what fell out of the bushes was, in fact, a dishevelled, purple-haired young kunoichi with her clothes in disarray and her skin pale.

"Rei, there you are! Why weren't you at breakfast?"

"Oh, God, what a night…" Rei sat on Tobi's other side, massaging her temples. "I woke up in some cheap room above a bar in the next town, in bed with a stranger."

Konan beamed. "And that, Tobi, is how you get pregnant!"

"Hardly. This was a female stranger. She reminded me of Tei."

The awkward silence that followed was broken by Tobi, who smiled brightly and asked Rei, "Do you have a door with babies behind it?"

"Umm…" Rei looked across at Konan, who sighed. "Just say yes."

"Yes, Tobi, I have. So kind of you to notice. What's going on?"

Konan and Tobi looked at each other, then Tobi turned to Rei with an expression of utter seriousness, and spake thusly: "Well, Hidan-senpai has a key but there's no lock so he must have got somebody else to open the door for him and then he took a baby and now he's pregnant…" Tobi leaned in a little closer, whispering now. "And Tobi thinks Konan might be a bit crazy 'cause she was talking to an ostrich."

A/N They said an ostrich in 1,000 words... I give you an OSTRICH! In 997 words! Oh yeah, I'm awesome. Updated weekly (the next challenge will be next Thursday)

Peace, out