A/N

Yeah, I have to apologize for this chapter beforehand. It is definitely less spiritual than the previous two because I half wanted to do humour. That's why it turned into a Frankenstein of a monster, humour and seriousness conflicting a bit too much to provide and easy read. Will you bear with it?

Oh, and Konan here is much younger, the Akatsuki has just been formed so I portrayed her as less sure of herself. Which sucks because I think people like her stoicness.

So, if you're one of those readers with odd tastes in writing, hope you enjoy this patch work monster.

And remember to review! Especially if you are one of those people who added an alert…

Paper Stitching

It was a dark and stormy night.

That was to say that it was night and the night was stormy.

But it was hardly considered the right kind of stormy, Konan thought. The right kind of stormy would be the rain created by Nagato.

Those were the sort of nights she could tolerate because only she knew the true extent of his jutsu.

Here however, the wetness was unfamiliar and even the colour of lightning was wrong. It was too whitish, not tinged with the orangey red like the one back in Amegakure.

Still, Konan kept her calm demeanour, back ram-rod straight as she stared out at the unfamiliar terrain. It would be her first night on this mission, far away from her partner. But the Akatsuki had just started and more risks were needed to truly get the money flowing.

Maybe deep inside she might have admitted she at the moment was terrified. But seeing no relief and discovering her inner self, she forced herself to keep ignorant.

Foreign rain, not Nagato's rain was where Yahiko had been killed.

She comforted herself that she would be back with Nagato by next week, her nineteenth birthday. Then she wondered why that would comfort her because happy birthdays really were a thing of the past.

Shuddering slightly, her posture broken for a moment, she sensed a strange presence. She turned around with forced slowness. That way, she would not seem panicked.

Either her deliberation would show Konan as being a calm and unflappable, capable kunoichi or it would reveal how she really was quite stiff with apprehension in what was meant to be an old abandoned and above all, empty house.

When she finally turned around, she came face to face with a hulking, terrifying creature, wet from rain and ghastly.

She relaxed.

"Kakuzu-san," she greeted. She allowed herself to insert surprise in her tone, but kept the delight back. It has been years since she was a child, scared of the dark and thunder.

Then again, in Kakuzu's eyes, everybody was a child. She didn't like that and perhaps this small coincidental meeting would somehow change his mind about her.

Vaguely mortified, she realized that despite the war-torn years she had struggled through and the pain she shared with her friends, the feelings she had was one of a vain prideful youth, desperate to please and easily insulted.

For a long time she had thought war killed off childhood, made her grow up and understand pain. She knew pain had shaped her, made her stoic, uncaring, but because that little teenage feeling of inadequacy and low self-esteem remained, she wondered when she'll finally be rid of youth.

Seemingly surprised to see her as well, he kept his greeting to a short, curt grunt.

Despite herself, Konan felt the same sting that happened when respect was not fully given. It was true that Kakuzu was one of the more respectful members, even willing to abandon his precious money trips if Nagato ordered.

Konan however, while she felt she was certainly respected, her authority as the Leader's partner was not there and Kakuzu viewed her as he would any naïve albeit important girl.

"I just arrived," Konan said. "I haven't had time to check the upper floors for traps yet. Would you?"

She arrived six hours ago and had sat in the dark corridor for just as long, watching the shadows on the floor creep and grab at her ankles.

After awhile, she took the trouble to draw a seal across a wardrobe that seemed to be staring at her.

If Kakuzu was puzzled by her request, he didn't show it, perhaps putting it down to a young girl trying to show her dominance in a chore that really did not matter.

Neatly, he placed one foot upon the creaking steps and when he was satisfied it was not going to collapse under his weight, he continued on upwards with Konan pressing close to his heels.

This staircase is unusually long, Kakuzu thought.

Konan thought, this staircase creaks an unusual amount, seems to be filled with a strange presence and the shadows seem to be clinging closer to us then is natural.

The problem was that Konan had an imagination.

Kakuzu did not.

Therefore, every flutter of the curtain, the hooting of some… creature or even the brief flashes of lightning and scream of thunder turned into a horrific plethora of sensations and images that Konan indulged in.

Kakuzu did not see the ghosts that Konan saw at every turn.

He didn't see the nail either that slit up his arm, leaving a gash from his wrist to his elbow.

"Shit," he cursed quietly, mainly from the sudden if small pain.

"Kakuzu-san," Konan had seen the dark liquid that smeared across the handrails where his arm had been and her imagination went into overdrive. However, she still had enough composure to not start whimpering. She decided that concern was okay to keep in her voice. "Are you alright?"

"Just a scratch," Konan heard the empty rough voice in the darkness.

"Konan, watch your footing, steps are uneven."

Was that an insult of her abilities as a kunoichi?

In truth, it wasn't an insult. An insult hints that Kakuzu knew she was a good kunoichi and decided to belittle her. Instead, it was the statement that he really didn't think she was any good.

Konan pushed that thought aside, because no matter what Kakuzu said, at least she was hearing something other than that low crying sound that came from just behind her right ear.

She heard a story awhile back, about ghosts. They say if the crying sound is loud, they are far away, and if the voice is soft, they are very close.

Wa… wa… wa…

The soft sound continued and Kakuzu wasn't talking.

Panicked, she flung her arms outwards, only to find no physical contact leaving her to trip and nearly plunge headfirst and painfully down onto the wooden rotting steps.

For a moment, she thought she could see a blurry white figure from the corner of her eyes, bloody and reaching to brush her cheek. She thought she could even see the face, a long white oval with black holes where eyes should be and a gaping mouth.

The scream that was building up from the back of her throat faded as a more physical hand gripped her elbow and roughly pulled her upwards.

She found herself leaning against his body, arms clinging desperately to his black cloak as the step which she had been on collapsed, debris falling down a lot further than she thought she climbed.

With a grunt, he managed to swing her around to his step.

There would be a time, many years in the future when Konan would look back on this memory with mortification and embarrassment. She would have that same irksome feeling even when climbing steps in the hide-out and so happened to brush by Kakuzu. She swore he would have a self-satisfied smirk behind his mask, uncharacteristic for the old miser.

However, that is the future and this is now. For the present, she was incredibly relieved. Right now, gripping his cloak in small fists and her head pressed to his chest where she could hear five hearts thudding in a not very rhythmic manner, minus the awkwardness of the moment, the crying soft voice and the brief moment of terror were gone.

Slowly, Konan, eighteen year old co-leader of a criminal organization, unclenched her fingers from his cloak and stood straight and composed once more.

"Sorry," she said, with forced stoniness.

"You might as well hold on," his green black eyes peered at the gloom ahead. "I think there are at least three flights of steps left."

Konan gripped his right sleeve with her left hand. Feeling like the little girl she was to his eyes.

He made an annoyed sound when she insisted on being on the same step he was on despite the already narrow passageway. But because Kakuzu was not much of a conversationalist, and it was quiet most of the time on that torturous journey up the stairs, Konan fancied that the crying noise had gone even softer than before.

For Akatsuki members, the partners normally have two single rooms.

This norm was breached on this particular instance for two separate reasons.

Kakuzu felt it was sensible to share a room as the house was unfamiliar territory.

Konan felt that if she stayed in a room by herself, she would be strangled by her own bed sheets.

Funny though, she thought. None of them felt like sleeping despite what undoubtedly was a very late hour.

While the rain slowed to an almost bearable growling, Konan gingerly leaned back on the mattress, avoiding going near walls that might be easily breached by spiritual forces.

Lazily, she glanced over at her unexpected companion.

He was examining the wound on his forearm with a look of disinterest. Quickly, a thin black thread stitched the two flaps of skin together again in a messy if effective way.

"I can fix that for you if you like," Konan found herself saying.

Kakuzu gave her a quiet stare.

She pulled her needle and thread out from a pocket and walked towards him. Bending down, she squinted at the blackness of the room and picked up his arm to examine the wound more closely.

Konan first attempted to cut the black threads out so she could re-sew the wound in a more delicate fashion but found her small sewing scissors not up to the task. Kakuzu realized this and obligingly pulled the threads back.

Murmuring a thanks, Konan pushed the needle through the skin and began stitching almost invisible lines.

It probably would have been easier if he took the cloak off, but the weather was cold. And from what Konan knew of the man, he wasn't too keen on showing off his other stitches that ran up his arms.

Even so, she caught a glimpse of them as she pushed his sleeve up, tips of her fingers brushing along their textured raised feel.

Kakuzu, whom she had always known to be someone who could stay still for hours at a time, shifted uncomfortably.

"Does it hurt?" she asked.

His stare spoke volumes on how much that needle did not hurt.

Biting her lip, she ran her needle through his skin again until a neat white line of stitches slowly closed his wound firmly shut.

Kakuzu stared at the top of her head, with a bemused expression at the care and precision she took that he lacked.

Konan wondered if helping out with injuries were a way to gain respect. Perhaps it was demeaning for her, a combat ninja, hardly a medical one to help with injuries. Thoughts towards the enigmatic Falls Nin were common and often contradictory. The more she thought of how she could get his attention, the more she wondered on whether some of her past actions could be considered terribly unprofessional.

His threads seemed to have a sort of semi-sentience. It was easy to say Konan found the sewing difficult as thin black tentacles wormed there ways around her fingers. One extended far enough to brush the back of her hand. As her sewing neared completion, there seemed to be a passive aggressive force blocking her needle from finishing – perhaps a defence mechanism against foreign bodies.

Eventually, the black threads put too much pressure on her brittle fingers that she resorted to bringing them to paper form so that harmless paper was ripped rather than her bones shattered.

The noise seemed to wake Kakuzu from his trance and he murmured an apology, black threads retreating back into his skin.

Done with her work, she neatly ran her fingers over the smoother white thread that sealed up his cut. It stood out in stark contrast to his dark skin and thick black threading.

Finally, Konan released his sleeve, letting the black material cover the grotesque collection of stitches that adorned his body. She was surprised however, to see Kakuzu lift his sleeve again to examine her work.

A bit self-conscious but nevertheless determined not to show it, Konan got up to walk to her personal corner of the room again slow enough that she caught a quiet, "Thank you," from the miser.

Her back was facing Kakuzu now; the only way to keep time was count how long the rain was lasting. Even then, it was not reliable for the rain quickened in spurts before slowing down to a drizzle before once again slamming against the window with a vengeance.

Konan had often wondered what Akatsuki would be like. How close the members would be to their partners.

Now however, she seemed to be faced with the enigmatic shinobi, who kept distance from her. Irony, she thought. She was meant to be the one to be distant. The far-off co-leader, mysterious and from a height far above the members.

To be a God, or in her case, to be an angel was to selectively ignore.

And though in this situation, she could ignore him, the feeling she got was that the much senior shinobi was the one ignoring her.

It was at this point in the stormy rain that she realized not everybody who joined would share the ideals of Akatsuki, but would come with hidden agendas and personal vendettas.

Konan should ignore Kakuzu, treat this as the mere coincidence of a mission. However, often the most intriguing of individuals were those that remained distant from the heart with a cold detached personality.

Thinking of this, she absentmindedly strolled over to him once again, and held a black rather expensive looking box in his face.

This was quite a feat as she was now sitting cross legged and facing away from him.

"Would you like some?" she had asked.

Inside the box were some sweet biscuits of a kind. Those offered to God's Angel for good luck.

Kakuzu refused and Konan fell back onto her mattress with a sting of dejection, more severe than her own good.

Gazing at her prone form musingly, Kakuzu decided she was not like Leader. It was Leader who had recruited him, and the cold deadly aura that was his chakra burned painfully. He carried a sense of purpose, conviction.

He decided that this girl did not. She was so young, it was difficult to even imagine her doing the missions he did, killing like he did and not feel a thing just like him.

Her eyes were like a pond in winter. Water never fully freezes and the layer of ice lay on the top. Below the ice would lay sleeping fish in rather fluid water.

From experience, and he had a lot of it, he could tell that this façade of Konan's was merely that – an act. What her true nature was like, he was willing to say that it was a lot kinder that Konan wanted it to be.

A bit curiously, though not regretfully, he told himself firmly, he wondered if maybe he should have just accepted that damn box and spared her feelings.

There will be a day, and Kakuzu knew it to be true, that the little girl's brave act would become reality and her personality would harden and freeze to what would truly become emotionless.

Today however, was not that day.

But maybe she'll feel better when she returns to the hide-out and realizes he had stolen the biscuits right out of her pack.

X.X.X

A/N

Whew, thank you for reading. It seems all my chapters take place in the rain. That will have to change…

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