A/N: IMPORTANT.

Yeah, using italics for all the Japanese is getting to be a bit… headache-inducing. I'm going to try to change that up a bit. I'll put [Japanese] at the beginning of a section if there is nothing spoken in English. If a scene has mixed languages (for instance, when Harry and Byelobog were talking during dinner and didn't want Hermione to understand, but otherwise spoke English), then the italics will be used as intended. I won't need to put [English] at the beginning of sections that are in English, I presume, unless they are immediately after a Japanese section.

We good? Good.

o.o.o.o.o

[Japanese]

The next day, despite the cold, found the Akatsuki in their usual place near the Willow.

"Any thoughts?"

"Plenty, but I don't think you want to hear them." Hidan smirked and lounged backward, only to yelp as one of the Willow's branches smacked him across the face.

"Thank you, Zetsu. Just be careful to make sure no one sees." Nagato didn't particularly enjoy watching Hidan get hurt as punishment, but… well, he'd spent too much time around the rude priest to bother with any other method of castigation. "However, back to the matter at hand…"

"Quirrel's too suspicious." Kakuzu mused, leaning back against the tree. "And given what happened yesterday, we need to figure out just what his plans are. He plays the fool—"

"—But is clearly dangerous." Sasori muttered. He glanced around the group. "Do you think Dumbledore knows?"

"Yes." Itachi slowly spun his wand across his fingers. "It's quite likely that he actually has some sort of plan for this exact situation. I doubt that the Headmaster would allow Quirrel into the school unless he genuinely believed that he was capable of preventing any of the students from being hurt."

"Perhaps, but no plan survives contact with the enemy." Kuro-Zetsu added one of his few contributions to the conversation. When he and his brother were together, he was fairly content to allow the more approachable half of the Haejigoku set to do the talking. The exceptions came when his shadier memories, the ones he had gleaned from Madara at the time of his creation, loaned experience and insight that Shiro-Zetsu, airheaded as he sometimes was, generally disregarded. "Dumbledore has a few extra things to worry about that he didn't expect. On that same note, however, so does Quirrel."

No one needed to ask to know that he was referring to them as a whole.

"So we simply stay back and hope that Dumbledore can take care of it?" Konan frowned even as she said it, the doubt clear in her voice.

"Of course not." Nagato confirmed what they were all thinking. "But we don't interfere unless it becomes necessary."

"Like the troll." Kisame.

"Like the troll." Nagato repeated the line, nodding. "We can keep tabs on Dumbledore and Quirrel, keep track of both of their movements to discern their focus, but we will refrain from interacting directly."

"For now." Itachi murmured quietly, and no one needed to say anything else for them all to know he was right.

o.o.o.o.o

[English]

Percy was well aware of the fast-paced beating of his heart, because it was pounding away inside of his eardrums, and he couldn't quite hear much else. He couldn't see anything, either, seeing as he was blindfolded and tied to a chair.

"Anyone else here?" The voice was familiar, very much so, and Percy wasn't sure whether he should be relieved or panic more when he realized it was Fred.

"Fred? Is that you?"

Never mind. The first one was George. This voice was Fred.

"Yeah. So, just you and me?"

"No." Percy said, but was surprised as two girl's voices joined his, almost in tandem. A surprised silence followed, as they all waited for someone else to speak.

"Percy?" One of the twins finally asked (he wasn't going to bother trying to guess which one, not again).

"Yes." He shifted in his seat. "Fred and George?"

"Yup. Who're the girls?" One of said twins replied.

"Hermione Granger." This girl's voice was the youngest yet, and Percy unfortunately know exactly who she was.

"Suzume Chang." Even more familiar than Hermione. Now, knowing who the five of them were, there were only a few connections he could make, and none of them made much sense.

"Congratulations! You've figured out who you are!" A new voice entered the air, and a light beamed down on…

A strange, disturbed gurgle emanated from Percy's left, presumably some reaction to the 'person' in front of them. White on one side. Black on the other. Yellow eyes. No features other than said eyes on the black side. Green hair. And an enormous plant resembling a strangely tall Venus Fly Trap on the man's shoulders.

And he was also in a suit, lounging back in a chair and holding a microphone as though he was a game show host.

"Confused? You should be!" The man clapped, and it was honestly disturbing to see only the white side's mouth moving. "Quite frankly, there is a reason we called you here today, a very good reason."

"The reason we did this to them is because you, Hidan, and Kisame couldn't control yourselves and wanted to make the whole situation as ridiculously dramatic as possible." Without the mouth on the white side moving, they could only assume that it was the black side that had spoken. Paired with the tone, it suddenly brought to light the most likely, and thus most terrifying, possibility. "We could have just asked them to meet us someplace and explained instead of kidnapping them and setting up this ridiculous scenario."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." One of the twins said, probably Fred. "…Haejigoku?"

The white side of the man grinned, and the whole head tilted to the side. "After a fashion."

A rough clank of metal on stone echoed out across the room (at least, Percy assumed it was a room), and a relatively tall man with slicked-back silver hair and pink eyes stepped forward into the light, wearing only pants and carrying a strange, unwieldy-looking scythe. There was a smirk on his face, and he leaned against the side of probably-Haejigoku's armchair almost casually. The pendant that swung from his neck was almost familiar, because—

"Malfoy?" Hermione's voice was hushed, confused. Percy was willing to bet almost anything that her mind was racing as fast as his to figure out just what was going on.

"Close, but no cigar… yet." The grin grew wider, and the man easily swung his strange scythe around and onto his back, where it clicked into place and hung. "You're a little young for that, eh?"

"Way too young, Hidan." The next person to enter, unfortunately, was even more familiar than the first two (three? What of the dual nature of the plant man?), seeing as Percy could only truly recall knowing one person with blue skin.

"Okay, Krahsson. Gotta be." George, now. The twins were obviously calming down now, since they sort of knew who—

The thing on the blue man's back was growling.

"Calm down, Samehada." The man muttered, reaching over his shoulder to pet the thing. He raised an eyebrow at the three Weasleys and Hermione. "And the answer to that is 'ish.'"

"Ish." Percy repeated, deadpan.

"Like a fish." The man with the scythe said, smirking.

With a flash of something black, the man with the scythe no longer had a head.

Percy's heart sank at the sight, because he was suddenly struck by the feeling that, yes, this was as serious as he'd thought it would be, if someone would so callously kill another hu—

"What the f*ck, man?" The now disembodied head yelled, despite the impossibility of the situation. "Seriously, Kakuzu, what was the point of that?"

Percy heard whimpering from somewhere nearby. It may have been Hermione. It may have been one of the twins. It may have even been him.

"You were irritating me." The voice was deep and gravelly, and this time, the man that stepped forward was wearing a trench coat and a strange mask that left only his eyes and the tanned skin around them visible. The eyes themselves were strange, for they had no pupils, were a paler green than was normal, and had dark pink sclera.

"…Yeah, I got nothing." One of the twins muttered, quiet after the rather disturbing spectacle that had taken place just seconds before.

"I wouldn't expect you to." This voice, now, was smoother, calmer, and really quite monotonous. The man that stepped into the light now was pale, with dark hair in a low ponytail (the same hair that he often saw on Harry Potter), and red eyes, eyes that had what looked like commas spinning through them slowly.

"Harry?" Hermione squeaked, and the man nodded, a somewhat understated motion.

"As with the others, you are neither completely correct, nor completely incorrect." The red-eyed man took a seat on the arm of the plant man's armchair, and brushed his bangs out of his eyes.

"My apologies for this." The voice, this time, was that of an adult woman, the first female they had heard. As she continued, pale white butterflies flew into view, coalescing behind the plant man's chair into the form of a relatively tall woman with blue hair and orange eyes. "But several of our members were rather insistent on making a spectacle of the situation."

Percy's eyes, despite the fact that he was a young man with presumably rather overactive hormones, did not immediately drift to where he knew the woman's cleavage would be, despite how attractive she was. No, his eyes focused on the white flower in her hair, one that he knew he had seen nearly every day of school the year prior, as well as the current year.

"Cho?" Suzume sounded rather strangled, choking on the name, short as it was.

The woman's face was mostly expressionless, but she nodded slightly, a hint of apology entering her eyes. "To a certain point."

"IS NO ONE GOING TO PUT MY F*CKING HEAD BACK ON?!" The sudden yell drew attention from everyone, proving that, yes, pseudo-Malfoy was still in two pieces.

Black threads snaked out of the sleeves of the man with the two-toned eyes, sewing together the head and body of the shirtless man.

"I was wondering when you were going to do that…" The voice came from the right, and Percy bit back a dismayed noise because he recognized the large, wooden piece.

Hiruko.

One of Ron's puppets. It was the one that could open up and actually hold someone inside. In fact, opening was what it was doing just now.

Inside the puppet was another puppet, humanoid, but with real emotion in its eyes, a sort of reluctant pity. 'He' wore pants, but his torso had a hole through it, and the delineation of the joints was clearly shown. It was a puppet that Percy had never seen before, but neither nor anyone else there had any doubts as to who it was supposed to be connected to. No one, however, attempted to say anything.

"Enough." Yet another figure (it was beginning to grow rather tiring) stepped forward. The man was slim, much thinner than the others, and his thin, straight hair only intensified the look. The hair was red, a bloody red that bordered on purple, and his eyes were very pale, with a pattern that seemed akin to ripples in a pond after a rock had been thrown in. "They seem confused enough for you to have enjoyed yourselves in terrifying them."

"Too bad."

"Hidan!"

"Alright, I'll stop!"

The man with the ripple eyes side and shook his head. "Names."

"Zetsu."

"Hidan, formerly of Yuugakure."

"Hoshigaki Kisame, formerly of Kirigakure."

"Kakuzu, formerly of Takigakure."

"Uchiha Itachi, formerly of Konohagakure."

"Konan, formerly of Amegakure."

"Sasori, formerly of Sunagakure."

"Nagato, formerly of Amegakure." The last man finally said, and clapped his hands together, upright, as though in prayer. The ropes around Percy loosened and pulled away on their own, granting him freedom of movement once more. He heard similar shuffling noises coming from the left, and only needed a glance to confirm that everything said earlier was the truth. He turned back towards the strange 'adults' in front of him, and took a step forward, immediately taking charge of the 'normal' students in the room, due to both his age and his position as a prefect.

"What is going on here?" He demanded.

A pitying look crossed the face of Nagato, and Percy watched as the man stepped forward, cementing the notion that said man was the leader. "Do you believe in reincarnation?"

The lights came on fully, and Percy found that they were in the room that had become Ron's workshop over the past several months. He turned back to the adult group in front of him, which had broken whichever formation they had been holding, had they been holding one at all. A single glance downward informed him that the 'ropes' that had been holding him were, in fact, vines. It didn't quite look like Devil's Snare, but what other plant would act like that?

"You can sit back down." Nagato spoke quietly, gesturing at the seats they had been sitting in before, even as he pulled up a chair for himself. "This talk will be a long one, and it will be more comfortable if you aren't left standing throughout."

Percy opened his mouth to protest (and he was sure that several of the others did as well), but was cut off as his chair nudged against the backs of his knees, seemingly unaided. The reprimanding look sent his way by Nagato was similar enough to the ones he'd seen from teachers and his parents that Percy snapped his mouth shut and sat down, crossing his legs and folding his arms. "Fine."

"You mentioned reincarnation." Suzume muttered, and her eyes had not yet left the face of the blue-haired woman, Konan. "What do you…?"

"To put it in the simplest manner possible, what you see before you is what we looked like in our first lives." Nagato gestured around him. "We were the Akatsuki, a… revolutionary group."

"Depending on who you asked." The black side of Zetsu sounded almost condescending. "That was your plan, and I don't doubt that Itachi and Kisame would have agreed, but—but nothing. Let them keep talking. Don't confuse people further."

The sudden switch was just as confusing as it was when the Haejigoku suddenly disagreed, cementing the idea that, whether the incarnation story was true or not, the people they assumed were involved actually were.

"So who exactly are each of you?" Hermione was already grasping for information. Good girl, though perhaps not quite subtle enough. Fred and George were being too quiet for Percy's comfort, but hopefully, they were planning something helpful.

Nagato tilted his head to the side. "You should be able to guess simply based on what you know so far, and I do not doubt that you have already done so. However…" On some unseen signal, the supposed adult figures burst into smoke, and Percy's dread grew deeper as his fears were confirmed.

Except… the puppet hadn't become Ron. Ron was, even now, slipping the puppet onto a scroll and… now… it… was gone?

Percy's eyes met Ron's, which were curiously full of pity and even some fear (fear of rejection?), and Ron nodded. "It's complicated. I'll explain later."

The two that they'd been unable to identify, Percy noted, were actually Blaise Zabini and Cedric Diggory. Given what he knew, it really was as self-apparent as Nagato (Cedric?) had made it out to be.

"Do we get an explanation now?" Fred asked.

"This is plenty interesting, don't get us wrong," George began.

"But even we're a little tired of the games." Fred finished.

Cedric exchanged glances with Cho and the darker Haejigoku twin, and Percy was suddenly struck by the dynamics in the group. Despite the arguing that had occurred, and even how the Haejigoku were twins, the leadership of the group actually circled around Cedric, Cho, and Chernobog.

Harry Potter's fame meant nothing. Malfoy's political power and apparent immortality meant nothing. Zabini's wealth meant nothing. Krahsson's strength meant nothing. Ron's intelligence meant nothing. The fact that the Haejigoku were twins meant nothing.

Everything was centered on Diggory, with Chang and the Chernobog Haejigoku quickly behind. And Percy couldn't figure out why yet.

"Wait."

Diggory looked up at Malfoy, eyebrow raised.

"Let me take care of explaining how it happened." Malfoy was insisting now, but the looks on the faces around him made it clear that they knew exactly why he wanted to be the one to explain.

"Very well."

Malfoy's grin was almost disturbing, and as he wove a tale of mercenaries and samurai, of gods and demons, of madmen and the apocalypse, Percy saw surprise enter the faces of the ones that called themselves Akatsuki. It wasn't surprise at the story, clearly, but… perhaps they were surprised at how well Malfoy spoke? The story wasn't quite masterfully told, but it was intriguing and kept them interested, even as it spun into realms of impossibility that Percy couldn't quite believe.

The tale finally wound down into complete destruction, wherein the villains of the story were offered a chance at redemption, and… "that would be us."

On the one hand, Percy was still reeling from the 'history' that he had just been told. On another hand, he was relieved to finally have an explanation for Ron's actions as a child. Finally, he felt… lied to. Lied to and defensive and angry.

"Prove it."

No. Fred had not just… no.

Several tense moments passed as they all stared at Fred, and then amongst one another.

"Cutting my head off wasn't enough?" Malfoy snarked, but was summarily ignored.

Harry put his hand to his mouth, and in a move lifted straight from the story they had just heard, breathed out a large fireball that—

"PUT THAT OUT!"

The fire was gone within seconds, and Percy blinked as he noticed that Ron was absolutely enraged. "We are in the middle of my workshop. Filled to the brim with wood and with sawdust in the air. You just breathed fire. Do you have any sense of self-preservation whatsoever?!"

Percy was glad to see that he wasn't the only one that was wide-eyed at the sight of Ronald losing his cool for once.

"This workshop is full of sawdust, especially in the air. Have you never heard of combustible dust? Just a little too much friction or static can set it off! You're lucky there wasn't a dust explosion from what you just did!"

Apparently, this was a bigger deal than any of them had realized.

"Perhaps," Cedric finally hazarded, "a Genjutsu would be better?"

Ronald just crossed his arms and glowered around the room.

"A Genjutsu of what, though?" Harry took off his glasses and stared around the room, his eyes now red and spinning again.

"A fight?" George suggested, and a stricken look crossed many faces before them.

"I don't… I don't know if…" Cedric sighed. "Fine. Itachi… Edo Tensei, against Kira Bi and Uzumaki Naruto."

A quick nod, and then—

Fire. Gravitational changes that twisted his stomach. A large man with dark skin. A young man with whisker marks. Large animals that couldn't possibly exist. Enormous armor.

The adult Nagato was there. The adult Itachi was there. The—

The illusion was gone, and Percy shook his head as he sat up straighter, noting that the others were doing the same.

"A little too intense?" Zabini suggested, almost mockingly.

"Perhaps." Harry, on the other hand, seemed completely serious.

There was silence, for the most part, as Harry checked to see that they were all fine, which was finally broken by Suzume.

"Cho, is this why you could always speak Japanese so much more easily?"

The girl in question nodded, seeming rather sad. "As well as the origami, yes."

"Did you ever tell anyone at all?"

Cho shook her head again, and Percy saw Suzume relax. The girl was relieved that, even if she hadn't been told beforehand, no one else had either. However, the question itself triggered a sudden panic as Percy remembered more oddities from his childhood.

"Ginny! You—you were always—Ginny and Luna, you—"

"Stop." Ron held up a hand, and his eyes held steel now. "I'll explain, but you have to be patient."

Percy clenched his jaw and stayed where he was, watching the silent request pass between his youngest brother (could he even say that anymore?) and Cedric.

"In the shinobi nations, non-clan shinobi rarely had more than one child. It was a given fact, and most children did hope for younger siblings, but rarely got them unless they were part of a clan. Of the shinobi you see before you, only Itachi had a sibling, a younger brother, and… well, we don't talk about how that ended." Ron glanced at Harry, who only nodded for a second, and then surged on ahead. "I, like most shinobi children, wanted a younger sibling, but the parents I had in my first life died when I was five."

Oh, look. Now Percy could feel a spear of guilt stabbing him through the heart. And pity. Hello, pity.

"When Ginny was born, I felt… protective. Very protective. And… I may or may not have told her the truth piecewise over the past several years." At least he seemed somewhat ashamed. "As for Luna…"

Percy was distracted, along with most of the room, as Malfoy began to snigger from his place. Krahsson soon joined in, and even Cho let slip a small smile. Ron only rolled his eyes. "Luna Lovegood was once known as Deidara, formerly of Iwagakure, known for mass arson and as the youngest explosions expert in the Elemental Nations, and the youngest member of Akatsuki. Deidara was also, er… male, in our first life."

"Effeminate as h*ll, though." Malfoy was chuckling now. "Son of a b*tch probably had the best death out of any of us, though. Blew himself up like a nuke."

Percy felt the blood drain from his face, but was distracted as Hermione began to ask questions. "How old were you all when you died?"

"Complicated." The Haejigoku twins answered in tandem. Byelobog grinned apologetically. "It really is, though. There's the thing with the Hashiarama tree, the thing with Madara, the thing with swirl-face…"

"We don't talk about him."

"Kakuzu, why don't you go first?" Malfoy suggested snidely, earning himself a dark glare from Zabini, who nonetheless acquiesced.

"Ninety one." The answer nearly made Percy choke. "I was one of, if not the oldest surviving shinobi in the world when I died."

"L-lovely." Hermione's voice was strangled, and Malfoy was laughing his head off… perhaps literally, if Zabini got any angrier.

"Thirty six." Cho said, somewhat embarrassed.

Cedric nodded next to her. "Same."

"Thirty five." Ron admitted, and Percy felt a tiny bit of his brain cry out in protest.

"Thirty two." Berilo seemed utterly unaffected by releasing the information, contrary to so many of the others.

"Twenty two." Malfoy grinned at them, almost relishing their reactions.

"Twenty one." Percy heard Hermione make a dismayed noise at Harry's statement, and could somewhat understand it. Unlike Malfoy, Harry was her friend, and he had just admitted to dying very young. In fact, he had just at the same age as his parents in this life, the Potters, had.

"And Deidara was nineteen." Ron ended the list, and Percy's heart sank a little further. There were countries where nineteen wasn't even the age of adulthood.

"So." Fred leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, lacing his fingers together, and George did the same to his left. "What now?"

o.o.o.o.o

A/N: What?! It's a week late?!

Finals popped up. Sorry. But I do have GOOD NEWS.

READ THIS

NUMBER ONE! I've decided to make a tropes page for this. It's not up yet, but I'm working on it. Look forward to that.

NUMBER TWO! Wait for it… I made a Q&A tumblr. I am willing to answer questions about my stories, about the characters, reply in-character, write advice columns, and will, on occasion… release spoilers, sneak peeks, and hints as to the future. Moreover, the more I talk to people about a given story, the more motivation I have to write it, hence, I will be more likely to make my deadlines.

As you probably guessed, the URL is phoenixyfriend. What a surprise.

Ja ne,

Phoenix