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Konan

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Kisame Hoshigake bowed his head in silence as Nagato finished speaking, one blue hand resting on the back of his neck and the other holding his mighty blade upright. Konan thought back to their conversation when infiltrating Kumogakure, of comradery, and wondered what his response might be.

Though she had a guess.

"I suppose there's no helping it, then." He looked up at them, the small irises of his eyes looking back into Nagato's purple rimmed ones, which stared back with a sort of a calm resignation. He had seemed much more subdued with Tobi's revelation now made known to everyone. "I can't say I support it. The whole reason I left Kirigakure and the Mizukage was to get away from the deception and to find my own self, to find some truth. Instead I've found a, what, double puppetmaster?"

Konan glanced at Tobi, the Pain's standing guard while a seal kept the powers of his eyes contained. Gagged, he could only give a muffled laugh; Nagato, for all his fury for the other, had not decided to kill him.

Yet, at least.

Nagato nodded in assent to Kisame before saying, "You're not far off. We've all been manipulated."

"And the purpose for Akatsuki?" Kisame's temper seemed to be rising. "Have we been nothin but pawns for you all? Did Itachi die for a useless cause?"

Comradery. She couldn't help but think of Yahiko, the dead leader of an organization who's original principles and morals were as lifeless as he. She spoke up, looking at Kisame's anguished face. "Our purpose remains. What changes is that now we're in control. We call the shots now."

Both Tobi and Kisame snorted. "You say that. But what about those two we fought in Kumogakure? As you said, they sucked enough chakra out of the Gedo Statue to stop the process. Our purpose is intact, but it's at a standstill."

Konan gave a quiet sigh of relief as Nagato leaned back. Kisame would remain loyal, but he raised a good point. She glanced sidelong at Nagato, whom she had helped seat into the now bloodied couch. The beings had countered every attack thrown by the five Pains, outperforming at every angle. Their abilities were fierce; beyond anything any individual Akatsuki member had ever been capable.

"They will be attracted to the Gedo Statue," Nagato said firmly. "When they emerged from their dimension, it was what they first turned their attention to. We won't have to search them out; they'll come to us."

"And we what, fight them again?" Kisame asked with thinly veiled sarcasm.

"We have no other choice." He made to rise, and Konan was surprised that he was able to actually stand upon his feet for a moment before she came up to catch his arm, and to his credit he did not rebuke her.

Instead, he looked to her. "We will need Sasuke and his teammates back. Send a paper clone." He turned to Kisame. "Can I trust you, Kisame? Truly, can I?"

The other seemed taken aback. "You deceive all of us by lying about who you were behind those eerie puppets, and you ask me if I can trust you?"

"Trust goes both ways." Nagato straightened in Konan's grasp. "We may be an organization of criminals and liars, but we depend on each other one and other. So I need your answer."

Kisame's needle teeth bared a moment, and his eyes glanced between Nagato and Tobi, who was facing them blindfolded, as if he could still see the confrontation.

The former Kiri-nin turned back to Nagato, confident. "What do you want me to do?"

"I need you to perform faked assassination attempts on every remaining Kage, and to leave a cookie crumb trail that leads back to Amegakure."

The other's face contorted in confusion. "You're kidding me. After all this time of maintaining secrecy, you want to expose yourself now?"

"I have my reasons," Nagato said firmly. "Can you do this?"

Sharksin swung around to heft on Kisame's shoulders. "Probably easier than tackling those two beings," he mused with a glimmer of his former normal sarcasm. "I'll do my best... Leader."

"Nagato," the Rinnegan bearer said, and he actually held a hand out for Kisame to shake, taking both him and Konan aback. She looked down at the red-haired man. Did Tobi do this to you? "My name... is Nagato."

XXX

Nagato

XXX

Konan stopped before departing to get Sasuke, facing him. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he said easily, betraying nothing. "But we need Sasuke and his team. As many of us as possible to fight them."

She gave a hesitant blue-lipped smile. "I'm glad to see you're thinking this through and not charging recklessly ahead. You've had a bad tendency to do that in the past."

He smiled back with forced humor. He was in his much larger prison now, the same one he had confronted Naruto Uzumaki in. He looked down at her carefully hidden face- or rather, the mask that hid what she was really thinking. "Not this time. I won't risk what we've worked for."

For the moment it seemed to pacify her. She held her smile a moment longer before she jumped out the mouth and took flight.

He sighed, closed his eyes. Quickly, the four other visions of sight aligned themselves to him, looking down at the unmasked and gagged Tobi between them.

"You have much to answer for," he said through the mouth of the Preta Path, pulling Tobi up by the shoulders and holding him suspended in air. The other, still blinded by the blindfold seal, simply turned his face to the sound of his voice but gave no sound behind the cloth. "And perhaps I do, too. But there is a way we can be redeemed."

A snort. He continued anyways. "You are deeply concerned by the beings that came out of that space-time. So am I. Their intentions seem nothing if hostile to not only us, but our goal."

"The goal of peace."

He allowed the words to hang a moment before he had the Asura Path remove the gag. Still, even with his mouth freed, Tobi offered no response, though his mouth was framed in a morbid smile. Nagato wondered if his words were surprising him, and he was only holding a mask of emotion like Konan, or whether he truly no longer cared and only sought to spite him.

"I told the others we needed all the help we can. And so we do. I want you to train and enhance Sasuke's use of the Sharingan for when the two beings come here."

The smile fell away instantly, but was quickly turned into another mocking grin. "You must be joking, Nagato."

The Preta Path casually moved one hand from the shoulder to his throat, and Nagato allowed his impatience and long-bottled fury to come through. The Preta flung Tobi against the wall, then pressed the chokehold on the other. To Tobi's credit, his expression did not change much. "Listen to me," Nagato himself said, speaking aloud from across the room. "You may lave lied about who you were, but I can tell your intent has been genuine. You want to end this miserable world as much as I do, and create a perfect one, a peaceful one. That has not changed. Akatsuki still lives to serve that goal. But if we allow those two beings to capture the Gedo Statue, or absorb it's chakra, that belief is dead. Do you understand me?" Nagato licked his lips, his throat hoarse. "I want you to understand we have no other choice. As much as I hate you for what you've done, what you've been responsible for- I need your help. And you need mine."

He loosened the grip on Tobi's throat, then released him entirely. The other staggered but then stood tall. He seemed to be deep in thought, though Nagato could not read much with the blindfold.

"Spoken so sagely," Tobi commented. "So wisely. You have the mind of a God, at the very least."

"Will you help?" Nagato demanded.

"Yes." Tobi moved a hand to his blindfold, then paused. "And after? If we defeat them? What will become of our partnership?"

Nagato already knew the outcome, so he lied through the truth. "Konan will act as my liaison. If all goes well, I will allow you to decide what happens with the Rinnegan." He narrowed the said eyes, though Tobi could not yet see. "This is a new deal between us. One of which we will both keep, Tobi."

"Never have I doubted your honesty. Only your usefulness." The bluntness of the words didn't faze Nagato, and he did the hand sign. The seal of Tobi's blindfold faded, and the other removed it. The other blinked, getting used to sight again, before he turned to face to Nagato.

"My name is not Tobi," he said hazardously, seemingly in inner conflict. "It's... Obito. Obito Uchiha."

Nagato raised an eyebrow. "Why are you telling me this?"

The other adopted a serious look as the Mangekyo phased in. "It means nothing to me any longer, but if we are to be equal partners in this conflict... perhaps it is time I treat you as one."

His space-time activated, and he was gone. Messengers and allies, doing his bidding. His stomach knotted uncomfortably. Now... I must do my part. No- our.

XXX

Momoshiko Otsutsuki

The man these people called Raikage disappeared into his palm, and the delicate ret fruit formed before him. He bit into it, savoring every bite, feeling the power of the man filling him. New forms to turn his lightning chakra into deadly weapons, new methods for hand-to-hand combat. The red juices ran from the corners of his mouth, filling him with glee. He could finally feel his severed arm reuniting with his regular chakra network properly.

Kinshiki also fed, though of course on lesser beings. His large mouth ate fruits in much fewer bites, his brutish face looking out over the landscape. Sensing for the Gedo Statue, perhaps.

He finished his own fruit, stretched with his own sensory skill. The village was utterly empty besides those so wounded and close to death there was no point in feeding upon them. This civilization, like many others, was over. It was time to move onto the next.

"Are we moving, my lord?" Kinshiki asked of him, quickly getting to his feet.

"Yes... where to?"

Kinshiki shrugged. "These lands are foreign. But I meant... to pursue the statue, or another village?"

Momoshiki laughed. "What can they do? They are men, Kinshiki. What could they do to get in the way?"

His subordinate hesitated, arms held at his sides. "Lord... they may be men, but they still wield powerful chakra. We should be wary of them, especially the one bearing the Rinnegan-"

"He does not bear it." he spat on the ground, his saliva red with the juices of the chakra fruit. He stood up, holding a loose rock in his left hand. "It is impossible for a man to have them. He stole them from one of our kind." His hand closed around the rock, cracking it as if it was a chunk of gravel. "Not that it matters. Lesser beings will always be put in it's place, no matter how they may dare to challenge their betters."

"These beings have come a long way, despite their inferiority," Kinshiki still pressed. "We should-"

"Don't tell me they've given you a scare?" The rock turned into dust in his hand, and he let it trickle out upon the ground, and he turned his pale face upward. One white hand came to pull the veil off his face, letting the planet's air brush over him. Not as good as others, but still fresh, sweet, and promising.

Kinshiki was speaking, but he did not care and interrupted him mid-flow. "Another civilization, Kinshiki. We will make ourselves known to these people, just like every other time. And just like every other time, we will take what is rightfully ours."

His partner gave the familiar rough laugh. "Chakra."

He released the veil and smiled in the direction of the next greatest source of chakra. "Power."