We all try to be somebody

But the world around us makes it so cloudy

When we all trust where we're supposed to

But the blood on our hands says we're not close to the answer yet

I heard that lyric and randomly thought of Pein, and maybe Jinsei too, with his talk of somebodies. It's from the song What Do We Know by Thousand Foot Krutch. Anyway, done quoting for now. But I love finding snatches of lyrics that fit a story I'm writing or reading.

I updated a day early, with a pretty long chapter too, if I do say so myself. I thought that writing with Pein and Konan together would be easier, but it's actually not. Disappointing. Oh well, I got this one done, and let's take it one step at a time, shall we?

Chapter 10, for your pleasure (mine too, 'cause I'm not that generous.)

Chapter 10 - Appearances

Pein let the rain stop once she was asleep. It was surprisingly easy to control; as simple as letting his mixed animosity and amity towards her cancel each other out. He stretched as the sky gradually lightened. Looking around at the grimy streets, he could see why she wanted rain. The rain left everything glistening, somehow. Fresh. Not filtered, but a bit more wholesome than before.

If the unexplored powers of his eyes could reach as far as the heavens, perhaps he really was limitless. Could he convince the dawn to show itself earlier? He tried, but it took its own sweet time. Oh, well. Mother Nature was not one to be hurried.

When morning at last lifted its dewy head from the pillow of night, they awakened with it.

At least she did. His eyes, however, were open to see the sun's first timely, timid rays. But they had a better place to look than at the sunrise, no matter how exquisite it was.

Pein had been watching her face for longer than she had been looking upon his, and he didn't think she was beautiful. 'Beautiful' was a meaningless term for him - it had never played enough of a role in his life to make a lasting impression on him. Beauty and ugliness seemed irrelevant to him when there was difference. Difference was impossible to overlook - everyone saw difference, felt difference, reacted to difference. Sameness? There was no such thing. Similarity, yes, but even similarity was rare in Pein's field of vision. He didn't know whether this made him more or less observant than the average person.

But he couldn't even agree with the word 'average'. If everything and everyone was so different, so individual and separate, there couldn't be any average, could there? He didn't think so.

Thinking, he found, was what you did when you had nothing else to do and were desperate for something, anything, to hold you down and make you real. And once it became a fully developed habit, it could be startlingly annoying. Sometimes he was sure that thinking distanced you from reality. Other times he would have told anyone who asked that without thinking, there could be no reality.

And there he went, thinking again.

Her face, he felt, was living proof of his private theories. Nothing in it was quite like anything else. The angle of her chin - slightly square, yet pointed at the same time, that was unique. The wave of her hair - the way it fell beside her scalp, more jagged than a rock at its ends and smooth as silk the rest of the way through, that was uncommon. The heavy, accented eyelids - covering half of her dark irises, but never hiding her intensity, they were different. It all was. She was. It pleased him, kind of.

What would she think if he confided his reflections to her? Would she look at him the way others tended to, one-third scared, one-third fascinated, one-third something unidentifiable that varied from person to person?

Thoughts, he concluded, had their own realm. And even if you were supposed to reign over that kingdom, you rarely did. They ruled themselves, without the need for democracy or politics or any type of government at all.

How odd, and yet logical, that humans, so much more solid and definable, couldn't do the same.

Konan's thoughts were not much more typical than Pein's, partly because of the originality of what she was looking at. The sight of his serious features jolted her into wakefulness more effectively than any ear-splitting alarm clock could.

Either her mind had been subconsciously changing her visual image of his face over the years, or he had transformed. Everything was still there - the many confounding rings in his sharp azure eyes, the frown lines (which, absurdly, seemed to make the smoothness of his skin more apparent rather than less so), and the russet, energy-charged hair. But the balance was completely off now. Some features were so prominent that they blocked out others, while some seemed to have retreated and were now just faint stamps lying under a layer of skin. She realized with a start that he was older.

And, oh my, the piercings. The piercings. She counted them - there seemed to be twenty-two. Whatever had possessed him to get so many...so many...what could you even call that?

Still, the effect wasn't bad, if you looked at it as a whole. They attracted attention to his ears, which had an exceptionally nice shape to them. And they also took attention away from his dizzying eyes, which were a bit too concentrated to provide pleasure to an onlooker. But the piercings themselves were so outlandish.

They were no weirder than his eyes, she supposed. Those were watertight eyes, eyes that could betray you or save you within the space of a blink, eyes that never made a slip. Eyes that did so much more than just see. They were elegant, raw, and deadly. They were not something that could be properly described in words; they were not something that could be properly felt in emotions. But they certainly stirred up plenty of feelings in the bosom of the viewer. She was torn between wanting to lose herself in them and needing to look away from their brutality.

She was irresistibly drawn to his movement. If he blinked, she stared at his deep, coarse eyes. If one of his knuckles jumped, her gaze flew to his hand. And now that his lips moved, she watched his mouth, as he spoke the words with no more emphasis than if they'd been a breath.

"Konan," he said, then paused. "Are you...frightened of me?" It was something he badly needed to know.

"Do you think I should be?" she asked, taken aback. His inquiries were never what you'd expect.

He took careful note of that prefix 'do you think'. It made it a question of opinion rather than fact. He weighed himself, compared her to him in a complicated equation of emotions, actions and guesswork. "It would be better if you were."

She smiled at him, then stopped suddenly as if afraid she'd offend him with a manifestation of happiness. Then, stubbornly, the smile returned, refusing to be conquered by an outside source. "I'll consider it, then."

It was all he could ask for, even if he didn't particularly want it anyway. He stood, and she stood with him. Even though they stood at approximately the same time, he waited for about a second for her to reach full height. He had a fluidity she didn't, an imitable, steady grace. She felt strangely outclassed by him, even if she didn't hold with things like inferiority complexes.

He was observing her, and she felt obliged to say something. "I'm all right now," she said, more hesitantly than she'd intended. And she was, mostly. Her moment of weakness had passed, washed away by the rain of salvation, and she could live again, gain and lose and hold together. He simply nodded.

She waited for him to lead her somewhere, to ask her something else, but he didn't. He looked at the sky, at the newly risen sun. He didn't even squint against its painfully blinding light. Perhaps his eyes didn't need to. She followed his gaze as far as she could without damaging her vision, and said, "Isn't the light beautiful?"

He didn't glance her way, and when he spoke his voice was so definite that debate wasn't an option. "No."

But still he kept on staring, staring at the sun and its not-beauty.

The strangest thing about his eyes was that they were just as bright in the unadulterated rays of the sun as in the deadest of darknesses. Trivial things like night and day made no difference to the wicked luminescence of those green coals sunk into his face.

Perhaps he was proud of his neon emerald orbs - no one had ever cared to get close enough to ask. One thing was for sure, they were his only distinctive facial feature. The rest of his head was smothered in a swathe of grey fabric, effectively concealing all of his expressions. This was something to be thankful for, as the select few who had been unfortunate enough to gaze upon his smile were still regretting it to this day. Maybe he was proud of that too.

Or maybe, in the tradition of most crude yet skilled criminals, he didn't care what anyone thought as long as he got out with the money.

At the moment, he exercised his patience as he waited and watched from his vantage point. His fingers itched as electric blue Chakra shimmered at their tips. His Chakra was more impulsive than he was; it circulated in his system, mingling with his frozen blood and tugging at his ligaments. It was like a springy elastic, coiling inside him. Finally, giving into its pull, he let the blue threads of energy shoot out of his hands and wrap themselves around a helpless, forlorn tin soup can lying on the ground. He put it out of its misery with one well-placed, powerful squeeze.

It was crushed so abruptly that not even a crunch was heard. Water, a product of last night's rain, dripped from its flattened ends.

He hadn't taken his eyes off the target throughout this process, but he felt the relief of releasing his pent-up anticipation. He followed every movement of his next victim, the cells in his fingers buzzing as they prepared for their upcoming role.

How did that amateur get such a huge bounty on his head? he wondered, staring malignantly at the tousled auburn mop of hair that stood out in the centre of the marketplace. This guy, his target, was new to the business, had only been in it for a year. And yet he was already widely known for his utter lack of mercy and insensitivity to the pain of those who got in his way. This blue-eyed boy was trouble, but that bounty was temptation personified.

Maybe he felt some light measure of remorse at the fact that he was contemplating the murder of a minor. Maybe somewhere in his corrupt, hard-wired hearts, there was a trace of empathy, the last dregs of an empty cup of coffee. But innocence was for idiots and weaklings, not grown men who looked out for themselves and strived for luxury.

He settled back, blending in with the flecked alley walls, setting himself up for a long wait. A long wait, but hopefully not a dull one, with such a unique opponent to observe and shadow.

He listened to the beating of his multiple hearts, thumping in sync with one another. He would keep to the rhythm and wait for his chance. When the opportunity came around, it would be worth his while.

Almost imperceptibly, his fingers twitched.

The cobblestone surface of the street sparkled, silver wrappers reflecting the sun's brilliance, shadows trying to evade the light by hiding in the cracks. But they couldn't - it chased them and encompassed them. Konan was glad of that.

Pein turned to her. "Where do you want to go?" he asked. He enunciated phrases clearly, consonants smoothly connecting the vowel sounds, but his lips never came further apart than about a millimetre.

"Anywhere is good," she told him. She just didn't want him to leave her. She couldn't take being alone any longer.

She wouldn't be saying that if she had an inkling of the wide range of areas that "anywhere" includes, Pein thought, grimly amused. Most of the places he'd been spending the last 365 days in were enough to send her into an instant relapse.

He decided that they were both hungry, so he purchased a loaf of bread and some fruit from a local grocery store. Despite his lawbreaking habits, he normally paid for the things he bought - it was the money itself that he obtained by dishonest means. He glanced at her as he handed the coins to the cashier, looking for a glimmer of accusation or disgust in her face that would tell him she suspected his crooked ways. He tried to tell himself that he didn't care if she didn't want to assort with criminals, that if she walked out, he could make it as if she had never been in his life in the first place.

But he already knew he was perfectly capable of pretending.

They ate as they walked, the refreshing air of the outdoors strengthening their spirits and appetites. He abstained from eating too much, preferring a small measure of hunger to the unpleasant, bloated feeling of overindulgence.

She was shooting sideways looks at him, a sure sign that she wanted to say something. He surreptitiously cocked his head in her direction, a subtle way to let her know he was listening. As predicted, she spoke up. "Sorry about last night," she said, her voice becoming matter-of-fact in an effort not to sound feeble and spineless. "I just...I was having a hard time."

He blinked. An apology? Now there was something he didn't hear often in the circles he was part of. "It happens," he said diffidently, in guise of forgiveness. He fingered a coin in his pocket, his only not ill-begotten one. It happens to everyone.

Konan withheld a sigh of relief. Last night had certainly taken its toll on her pride. But there was something she had to know. "Pein..."

She faltered. She realized that she was afraid of him. But this, she told herself, was one of the reasons why her interrogation was necessary. So that she could make a decision - to trust or not to trust, to fear or not to fear. "...what do you do? Are you a - like a..." Such eloquence this morning.

"...A criminal?" he finished for her, unembarrassed. He had been waiting for this topic to come up. "In essence, yes."

She was wide-eyed, but she tried to be casual as she inquired, "How bad?"

He matched her nonchalant tone. "Murder. Theft. Various felonies." The works, he thought, but he didn't say it out loud. Wasn't it obvious anyway?

She sucked in a breath, stepping a little to the right, away from him. He noticed, but he didn't try to breach the added distance. "Did you - have you ever -" The words got stuck in her lungs on the way up, and they obstructed her airways. It was self-preservation - if she relived through conversation the scene that had traumatized her yesterday, recovery might not be possible.

He spared her, answering unprompted. "I have never touched a woman." Willing or unwilling. He had never thought that there would be some of the former, but believe it or not, there were. He had learned his lesson about getting involved with people, especially females, however. Besides, behaviour like that repulsed him. There was blood on his hands, but he would never be stained that way.

Maybe she could read his absolute denial in his face, because she cautiously came a bit closer. He suddenly felt angry and defensive. What right did she have to assume anything about him? How dare she question his principles? What right did she have to make him feel like he had to defend himself to a complete stranger?

People needed to stop judging him. They didn't know! They didn't know, for Heaven's sake!

He looked straight at her, his gaze closed and steely. "I don't need condemnation," he said coldly, "or absolution, either." He kept walking beside her, but only because he made a point of never leaving his back unprotected.

She lowered her head slightly, allowing her cobalt hair to drape itself over her face and hide her from his peripheral view. Then suddenly she snapped upwards, chin high. "I'm not giving you any." He had already seen her open and vulnerable once, and she'd be darned if she'd let him leave her presence thinking she was a delicate, pathetic girl.

He stared back at her, and they challenged each other. Then she said, feeling it was about time she broke the news, "I know. What they did to you, I mean."

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and then he returned to his icy, indifferent demeanour. "Is that why you left?"

"How did you know I left?" she asked immediately. Had she inadvertently poured out her story to him last night?

In answer, he smoothly slid an object from the folds of his cloak and held it up - her damaged forehead protector. She winced at the sight of the rude scratch running through it; that had been a little harsh. I guess that would pretty much give it away. Anyway, what were the chances of her meeting up with him, an outcast, if she wasn't an outcast herself? Now that she thought about it, the chances of their meeting even if they were both outcasts were quite small.

She noticed that he was still holding out the forehead protector, expecting her to take it. She shook her head vehemently. "I told you, I'm not a kunoichi anymore. You're more of a ninja than I am. Far more." The words tasted bittersweet coming out of her mouth; they were true, however, and a relief to admit.

"You think so? Really?" he said, almost playfully, and yet he was serious. He tossed the forehead protector up and caught it neatly in his palm. He wasn't sure whether to disagree or let it be. He wasn't sure if disagreeing was correct, either. But she was most definite.

He reached up and tied the forehead protector around his own head. It was an impulse, and he chose to act on it. He let his hands rest on the knot for a moment, debating whether to tear it off or not. He saw a multitude of emotions flit across Konan's surprised face - resentment, relief, annoyance, amusement, astonishment. Then a small, surprised smile took over, and he let his arms fall to his sides.

"It suits you," she told him. He let his eyes meet hers so that she'd know he accepted her opinion. Personally he found acknowledgment to be a pointless waste of energy, but others seemed to like knowing that they were being paid attention to.

"Thank you," he said quietly. He touched the metal that covered his forehead - he could already feel sweat gathering under it. But he somehow knew that the forehead protector was a part of him now, just as he had realized that the piercings belonged in his face the moment he'd looked in the mirror.

Life took on a new look every day.

A/N: A bit of an odd chapter there. Then again, I say that for every chapter, so by now I'm sure my readers no longer bother to pay attention to my opinions. Which, you know, is fine with me. :P

I'll give you one and a half guesses to figure out who I was talking about in the middle section. What's the half for, you ask? Nothing, because you don't need it. I'll even give you a hint: Pein does not have green eyes. In case you didn't notice.

Okay, I'm done making snide remarks. The customary thanks goes out to readers and reviewers - you make my day:)