Chapter 9
Pein watched her as she went in and out of sleep, studying her. Her temperature had been rising and falling every so often, so he knew he couldn't leave her alone until her fever broke. But it had yet to do so. Though, that wasn't the only thing on his mind. He kept puzzling over her warning. Then a thought came to him, did she bring anything with her? He thought back to the day she came, and nodded at the memory, she had come with a back pack. He was startled when Tobi came up looking worn out, "Is this going to enough?" He asked coming up with this time cold water for her to drink, and more hot rags. Pein nodded, "For now, take care of her, I need to attend to something." He then grabbed Koratani's backpack and left.
Tobi nodded, "Tobi's a good boy, Tobi will take good care of her. What are you doing with her bag?"
"You can cut the act Madara, she's asleep."
Tobi nodded, "You haven't answered my question Pein." He said in a deeper voice.
"I will tell you soon."
"You had better, you answer to me, remember?"
Pein gave a light bow of his head, "Of course."

Pein silently thanked Tobi/Madara in his mind for providing the perfect opportunity to go through Koratani's stuff. Not exactly the most respectful thing to do, but this was an urgent matter. If there really was a man whom was a danger to not only Koratani but the rest of the group, then he needed to find out who it was, how to protect her and his family, and how to defeat him.

Tobi sighed and took off the mask, and raked a hand through his spiky black hair in concern, "Jeez you're causing a lot of trouble kid." He continued in his normal voice which revealed that he was more of a man than he let on to his other subordinates. He stroked her face lovingly, "You're going to be okay, I promise. Your fever should break soon…but what I really want to know is what happened to your mom? How did she die?"

Pein carefully rifled through her red backpack but he couldn't find anything useful so far. She had five outfits tightly rolled so as to make more space, a pack of unmentionable lady items, a sketchbook, a pencil box, and charm bracelet. He wracked his brains trying to figure something out. A diary was what he was initially looking for, but it was apparent that she wasn't the diary keeping type. Then again that was a clever thing to do. No one could pick a lock to locked diary and read her life, so it's possible she really was a lot more knowledgeable than she let on. He sat against the door tearing at his hair in frustration, and suddenly from his angle, he saw that her charm bracelet, which was the band kind, where you keep attaching small square charms to it, on the inside, there was words! He snatched up the bracelet and carefully read the words, 'A picture is worth a thousand words'.
He sighed, it was just a silly phrase. He let his head rest against the door and then he saw the sketchbook again, he didn't give it a moment's thought before…but…it came to him. Was it just a silly phrase? Or was it a coded hint?
"A picture is worth a thousand words." He breathed and then looked at the sketchbook skeptically. He chuckled and shook his head, "Smart kid. Who'd ever check a sketchbook to find your life's secrets?" He dropped the charm bracelet and opened the sketchbook.
In the top left corner of the first page, was a beautifully drawn picture of Kakuzu as a dark and foreboding man, showing just his torso and dark grey shadows in the background with black eyes. The entire page was a collage of little pictures showing that Kakuzu was a man of a shady business, and found the woman he loved. The next page shocked him and made him pink a bit as he saw the picture. It was done sideways showing Kakuzu and the woman making love; thankfully a blanket covered certain areas. There was a collage of Kakuzu and the woman falling even more in love.
Pein turned his eyes to see in the next picture was also a full, it showed Kakuzu arguing with people, and him looking all kinds of angered and worried, then on the next page it showed a three quarter view of him crying at a desk with ink spilling all over it, and several crumpled papers and a tear stained paper that had a few words written in calligraphy. It was apparently a goodbye letter.
He flipped through each page getting more of the story. Kakuzu gave the woman the letter and kissed her. They cried as they held each other in one last embrace. Kakuzu left. The woman became with child and smiled at the picture of Kakuzu. The woman was into shady business that Kakuzu didn't know about. She was in a gang just like them. She was shown at a dinner table at her house talking with another man, Orochimaru.
Pein frowned; Orochimaru was an old rival of theirs before his gang had disbanded. He kept the thought in mind.
It showed Orochimaru falling in love with the pregnant woman, and soon helping her giving birth to Koratani. The following pictures were him helping the woman raise Koratani. Koratani was happy, she was introduced to a young man who recently joined the crew, whom was a little older than her. Pein thought he recognized the older kid, but couldn't remember the name.
Koratani became best friends with the kid, even falling for him. She seemed to like Orochimaru as a father figure as well. Soon she celebrated her 13th birthday with the now young adult, Orochimaru and her mother.