A/n: Ehhh...you know the drill? I guess not, seeing as there have been changes...so! Kai is my name for Konan, who might possibly be better known as Blue or Hana or The only competitor against Deidara for the Most Girly award, because I didn't know her name was Konan when I wrote it and a majority vote (hey, remember how I once compared this story to a reality TV show?) in combination with laziness determined that I'd leave it as-is and just say that I didn't freaking know her name at the time.

The...last...chapter...:sighs exhaustedly: do you have any idea how hard I strived to post this thing? It took me over an HOUR to get my computer to cooperate enough to even bring up Internet Explorer, and then I had to write this essay for English (on the first day of English, yeah, I got an essay), and then I had to go back and change all the previous chapters, and then I had to write my stupid rants while still trying to keep them from overwhelming the chapter itself...yeah.

Comments on this chapter itself...well, I'm amazed it took me this long to start making fun of Pein's piercings. And it occurs to me that nobody ever explained why Tobi started this escapade. Hmm...well, let's have the morals of this story be:
-Love comes in all different types
-Even cold-hearted S-ranked criminals plotting to rule the world need a little love (a little, mind you)
-Anyone can be your family, and
-Tobi's smarter than you'd think (because he's the one who realized all those morals even before the story started :nods:)
So Tobi just started all this because...he felt obligated because nobody else would realize it unless he pointed it out.

To the fans: Uhhh...this could take a while...oh well. I'm not doing this again. Ever. So, in no particular order, I would like to thank my fans, (deep inhale):
xXMonster ManiacXx, Lime Green Mondays, Lava Puppy, midday, Opera-Gypsy, IchigoCullen, Me And My God Complex, Kyoky13, Kimberly-SA, Primeval Eidolon Star, FaintMirage, Kawaii Chibi Shun, animelover123456, Icetor01, For Whom, Jager Nod, kittypurr714, Wyvren Wing, uchiha fan gurl, yuki takahashi, Thintellumaien, mooneasterbunny, Careless Whisperer, Errol the flying evil thing, Dukesamcules, cold hearted girl, Daemon-In-White, Insane lady of doom, Werewulf girl, LUIGAA, Shi.no.Tenshi.desu, darkmoonphase, Martial artist-Mariko. If I forgot you, I'm really sorry, but there are waaaay too many of you people to keep track of anymore! Also, I probably repeated at least one person...but, yeah! Thanks for your support!

And...for the hell of it, because it's the last chapter and why not? Thanks to those on deviantART: arekkusu2236, SakuraHaruno55, SumGui, XxKraitxX, and maybe someone else that I totally forgot. And, of course, MiharuNin and Joey-Sohma, my self-proclaimed fangirls who I may be enternally grateful for.

Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto--it would be like this, and ALL OF AKATSUKI WOULD BE ALIVE AND NEVER DIE!!!!!!! But instead, Masashi Kishimoto dictates their fortunes, and he seems to be out to get them.


The next morning, Pein awoke, expecting to roll over and see a mess of blue hair lying on the pillow in the bed next to his. However, instead of being greeted by Kai, his first waking thought was of a face mostly obscured by femininely long blonde hair being nuzzled into his shoulder with arms around his torso. It was rather comfortable, actually; Pein sighed and relaxed for a moment hugging the figure back, until he realized that—well, not only had he just gotten a splinter from contact with something behind the body, but more so the fact that the person cuddling with him was none other than Deidara.

At which point he gasped and scrambled away, falling off the bed with the blonde, who was tangled in the sheets with another body, thus bringing said body to fall on top of the both of them, making a wooden clattering noise as it did so. This in combination with a glimpse of red hair told Pein that it was Sasori who fell on top of Deidara and Pein.

Something was horribly wrong with the picture, Pein thought, even before accounting for the titles that Tobi had given them, and he was now struggling to separate himself from the tangle. This turned out to be harder than he expected; the harder he wriggled to remove himself from Deidara's grasp, the tighter the grip around him became, and Pein found himself discovering just how heavy Sasori had made himself when he became a puppet—which was very heavy indeed. 'Shit,' Pein thought. 'Why me? Why am I the one stuck under these people, why am I the one who woke up in this mess?'

Memories came back to him of the previous day and his little spat with Kai. And he felt a sudden urge to buy her flowers and take her to a nice day spa before dinner at a fancy restaurant, and maybe after that—who knows what the hell they'd do, but Pein was willing to do whatever the fucking hell Kai wanted if it meant that he wouldn't again be kicked out of his room on account of needing space between himself and Kai in combination with the fact that she was a lady, and thus it would be oh so very incredibly extremely rude to force her to sleep anywhere but her own bed. Technically he should have been sleeping in the kitchen, but Hidan had entirely decimated it, so he should have been sleeping in Hidan and Kakuzu's room, but as it was, there was only one single bed because Kakuzu sold Hidan's bed in an attempt to pay for the damage made to the kitchen. Itachi and Kisame made some kind of excuse, something about Kai the fish splashing water around, and Zetsu and Tobi…well, Zetsu had a pot of soil, and Tobi had a dog-bed. So Sasori and Deidara's room was the only one that, at the moment, seemed reasonable.

Now, of course, Pein felt as though he should have taken his chances sharing a dog bed with Tobi; Sasori and Deidara said that they'd share Deidara's bed, and he could have Sasori's, but sure enough, there they were, piled on the floor next to the bed that they said they'd leave alone.

Deidara yawned and tightened his grip on Pein; it was starting to hurt.

It seemed as though Pein had pleased one god or another with the capabilities of sending someone to knock at the door loudly enough for Sasori to grumble something groggily and dismantle himself from the pile, dragging Deidara up as well, whose grip pulled Pein up like a rag doll. The visitor knocked again; Sasori slurred, comprehensibly this time, "I'm coming!" and abandoned Deidara and Pein to get to the door.

The impact on the floor, this time, seemed to wake Deidara up a bit more; he opened his eyes in a squint and groaned, "Sasori-chan, stop…" His eyes widened. "O-oh, um, s-s-sorry, l-Leader-sama…eheh, when d-did you get—"

Pein stood up, knowing quite well that Deidara would simply fall off this time, and he was indeed alone now on the floor as Pein marched toward the door to see who was knocking. And who should he see in the doorway, finishing a brief greeting with Sasori, but Kai, the flower usually present in her hair was now resting in her hands and her eyes, with some distant and sincere expression that he didn't recognize, already locked on Pein even as he approached.

"Good morning," she began, her voice monotonously blank, "Leader-sama."

Pein opened his mouth, about to answer cheerfully (well, in comparison to Pein's average expression), before he remembered his image. It was a wonder that Deidara hadn't remembered his name, or that he remembered that Pein didn't like it being known, he couldn't let himself slip up and show emotion while his image was still weak or he'd never live it down. He instead muttered, "Excuse me," before moving out of the room with Kai and closing the door behind him.

Pein found himself smiling brightly at Kai before some instinct of his that he wasn't sure he recognized had him throwing his arms around her neck, burying his face in the nook between her neck and her shoulder. "Kai-chan, I'm sorry about yesterday," he apologized, keeping his voice as low as possible for him to know Kai could hear and nobody else. "I don't think I meant it."

"You don't think," Kai repeated, her voice remaining flat.

"I'm sorry," Pein reiterated. "Kai-chan, it only took this morning for me to really realize how stupid it was for me to be so snappy with you."

Kai's arms went to Pein's waist for a moment before she broke the bond and separated from him again, smiling slightly. "I'm glad we're on terms again." With that being said, she turned around and left Pein standing there, vaguely comprehending a slight weight behind his weight. Pein took a moment to sigh and reminisce on that moment of mutual embrace before strolling onward down the hallway. As he went, a door opened, and Itachi left his room, followed by none other than Tobi, his mask mysteriously missing…

Itachi took a moment's pause to allow Pein to pass, blinking and inclining his head slightly in acknowledgement, while Tobi grinned and waved, greeting rather loudly and cheerfully for so early in the morning, "Good morning Pein-leader-otousama-sama!"

Pein flinched just before he reached the top of the stairs. Tobi remembered his name…and Tobi used his name. There was an imperceptible stutter in his voice as he ordered, "Tobi, please, if you must refer to me, could you please leave it as simple as Leader-otousama?"

Tobi's head rotated slightly in confusion, his smile faltering for a moment before regaining more light than it lost. "Yes sir, Leader-otousama, sir!"

Pein grinned a little as he lifted his foot to descend the stairs, only to be interrupted by Itachi politely mentioning, "Leader-otousama, why are you going downstairs when the kitchen's still not yet repaired?"

' Oh, right,' Pein thought, irritated at himself for having forgotten. "I knew that," he lied convincingly. "I was just going to take a little stroll." After all, Kai, too, had gone toward the stairs rather than her room. It would be worthwhile, he thought, to find her and maybe do something nice for her.

Itachi made a small affirmative noise before adding, "Sir, are you aware of the flower in your hair?"

' Flower…?' Pein felt his head, and realized that Kai had slipped her flower into his hair while he was distracted by her embrace. "Of course I am." There was an unspoken ending to that phrase that went on in his mind: ' Of course I'm losing my touch.' Honestly, his image was slipping; his name was known, he had flowers in his hair, and to top it all off, he didn't even realize he had a flower in his hair. Which was really saying something, considering how big that flower of hers was. "Do not interrupt me again," Pein added, his voice as solid and commanding as he could muster in an attempt to bring his image back to it's proper place.

"Of course I won't, Leader-otousama."

And then he realized another question that he probably should be asking: why was Itachi suddenly considering Pein his father? If that was the case, wouldn't it mean that Itachi was declared as Tobi's brother or sister? His brother or sister whose room he just left, this early in the morning…without his mask…? Had he been sleeping in Itachi's room?

' My, this is getting…interesting,' Pein thought, almost worried, as he reached the bottom of the stairs. He shrugged it off, crossing the entrance hallway to leave the house, because Kai was obviously nowhere to be seen within the house.

' Why am I following Kai anyway?' he asked himself. ' What am I, in love with her? I am Pein, feared leader of the evil Akatsuki! I feel no emotion, much less love! That can't be it! …can it?'

Even as he argued with himself, he was walking, and he didn't realize where he was until he finally looked up and saw that his feet had taken him on a path in the forest near the house. He paused for a moment, comprehending this, before shrugging again and continuing down the path at a leisurely pace, until a small spot of white caught his eye and Pein looked down. What should be standing not two feet to his right at the side of the path but a white flower, rather a lot like a miniature version of the flower that he'd been too lazy to remove from his hair?

Barely aware of what he was doing, Pein stooped to tug the blossom from the ground before straightening himself and continuing, his pace halved. He held it in one hand, the other feeling around the edges of a petal, until some instinct within him finally truly took over and the petal was removed, and then another, and before he knew it, there was a little chant going in his head as he pulled the petals… 'She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me, she loves me not…'

He'd strolled about five yards before thinking, ' She loves me, she loves me n— …what the fucking hell am I thinking?' He proceeded to rip all the petals off at once, throw them on the ground, followed shortly by the stem, and quite deliberately stepped on them, "accidentally" twisting on his heel over them as he continued. Pein held his face low, for it had become instinct for him to hide any pink tint on his cheeks, any twitch of his lips, behind that freaking awesome huge collar, even if he wasn't wearing it at the moment. Suddenly realizing that he was wearing only a tank top and flannel pajama pants, Pein realized how naked he felt without it, how cold it seemed without that heavy black coat. His hands held his shoulders in an attempt to warm himself and imitate the weight of his cloak as he continued to walk down the path in the woods, a lot more briskly than before.

Before long, he reached a clearing, the border of which included a very distinctive tree that leaned slightly under the weight of a great many large white blooming flowers. Pein looked up into the branches, staring blankly at it for a few moments, before going on to continue down the path…except, there was no path. There was nowhere else to go.

Pein's eyes wandered back to the tree. 'Hmmm…a tree…' Pathetically enough, his mind was blank except for those three words as his feet inched him toward the blooming tree. He reached the roots and looked up, realizing an instinct of his and deciding that boredom was a good enough excuse to act upon it. Stretching his hands to the lowest branch, he grasped it firmly and pulled himself up, climbing up the old-fashioned way until he was on the second from the highest branch, looking out over the forest at his house.

Looking over toward the brief field near the house, Pein noticed two figures standing quite close together as they strolled rather slowly back into the house; considering the burning orange in place of a face, one of them was Tobi, and the other had black hair so much longer than Tobi's, so it was most definitely Itachi. Itachi and Tobi…were most definitely up to something in the way that Pein wouldn't admit to wishing he was up to something with Kai.

So, according to this family thing…Pein had two sons and a daughter, of which one son was most certainly in a rather romantic relationship with his daughter and the other son seemed to have a thing for Itachi…

'Damn,' he thought. 'I made one fucked up family here.'

He continued a blank stare in the general direction of the house for a reasonably long time, until he realized the presence of another body next to his, and he tensed slightly. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, Pein saw that it was just Kai, and he relaxed, perhaps even more than before, as she inched toward him.

"Pein," she began quietly when she was only a few inches from him, "I brought your coat." She offered her arm, over which was draped that lovely black silk with that wonderful high collar.

Pein smiled slightly, his head instinctively lower as if the collar was already there to hide it. "Thank you, Kai," he muttered, taking the mass of black and red cloth and working to put his arm through the sleeve before Kai stopped him, wriggling her shoulder into the beginning of the sleeve and slipping in close enough to Pein that they just barely fit together under it.

He allowed a brief silence before murmuring, "Why didn't you tell me this cloak was so much bigger than I?"

"I'm sorry," Kai apologized quietly. "I lied a moment ago. It's actually Kakuzu-otousama's."

Pein blinked before realizing her train of thought for Kakuzu's title, but mentally shrugged it off, sighing slightly as he relaxed and leaned in on Kai.

It seemed a bliss, to be sitting there with Kai, so close to her that the wind twitched her blue hair into the corners of his vision. Such paradise it was to Pein that he remained there for some time, such a long time doing naught more than sitting and staring at the roof of the house, which was currently occupied by the distant figures of Itachi and Tobi, sitting at least as close together as Pein and Kai, their faces seeming to be stuck together…

At some point, Pein thought he heard a rustling in the branches below, as if they weren't the only ones who came with the great inspiration of climbing that tree, but he dismissed it; an issue would show itself as an issue rather than just sounding like a really big and clumsy squirrel.

Pein didn't notice that Kai had tilted her head to face his until her hand was around his to turn it towards hers with a faint smile that, with eyes like hers, seemed almost seductive. She leaned forward, or maybe that was Pein, or maybe it was a mutual motion that brought their lips together.

As if on cue, the wind began to blow, sending spirals of petals like snow swirling about them, a dance in jubilation of their newfound bond, a performance for the enjoyment of their love in its first appearance in the world. Pein's eyes were closed, and he never would know of this ballet until the airstream blew a single petal astray, a single snowflake in the summer sent toward his face, brushing against the bridge of his nose as it went off, unsuspecting of the danger lying within that action.

Pein truly hated those piercings in his nose. Perhaps they, in the end, did him some good, having been reminders that he really was drinking too much and had to stop, and it was that sobering that brought him to terms with his dream, and so perhaps he should be only thankful to those studs for bringing him into this family, but it was really quite hard to appreciate them when motion even so light as this breeze and its goddamned snowflake petal could twitch it just enough to ruin any given moment with an explosive sneeze of the velocity that once shattered every window in his mother's home.

It was like an explosion; petals, leaves, twigs, hell, even one of the tree's smaller braches went flying. If the petals were waltzing about moments before, they were now evacuating a burning building. The leaves rained upon the ground like a snowfall on a midwinter night, falling from the branches and showing Kai and Pein the world beyond their fallen shelter as they revealed the couple to anyone who could see.

Immediately, the first to see gave out an alarmed cry from below: "Otousama! Uh, what are you doing here?"

Pein sniffed and looked down to see who had dared to be close enough to potentially witness his apparent weakness, to see Deidara, blushing madly as he looked up, his one visible eye wide in something like fear, at the same time that Sasori, sitting closely next to him, started to look up, one eye twitching slightly in a wince as he realized that Pein was sitting in the branches above him.

Kai looked down at her "children" and smiled faintly as she turned to Pein. "Sugar-cakes," she began, her voice sounding sweeter even than the title she had given Pein, "I mean you no offense, but we made a really fucked up family."


...Sequel?


Yeah, okay, so I had this stupid annoying plotbunny kinda thing in my head and I succumbed, and I really really really really really like how the first little bits came out, so here's a preview. By the way, it wouldn't exactly be out of the question for this to be a sequel. Mind also that I have no idea where I'm going to go with that plot idea, I just have two characters and an idea as to how they'll meet, and what they don't know but want to know, and maybe they'll somehow find out, but I haven't the least idea how that would work. Anyway, first paragraph!


For the octillionth time, she stared into the mirror, her piercing blue spiraling gaze meeting equally that reflected back at her. She took in all her features, every detail of her face from the curve of her cheek to the three silver rings in each ear to her mouth that neither smiled nor frowned to the way her long blue hair fell over her shoulders with such minute curve that it would be better considered straight. But mostly, her attention focused on her eyes; no matter what her mouth showed, her eyes seemed constantly to show that same expression, a kind of disdainful frown that told the world that she thought herself so much better than them, because she was, and just because they knew their parents rather than spending countless hours staring in the mirror and looking for some detail that she hadn't yet seen that could have come from them and identify them didn't mean they could possibly outdo her.