A/N: Yee hoo! Haha! I feel way awesome today. The sun is shining, I got out of bed early (which always makes me feel better yet I rarely do it), I finished this chapter yesterday, all good things.

And that's all I seem to be able to say. Huh. Usually I'm really talkative when I feel good. This is different.

Some good news: I have this other fic I've been working on a LOT recently that'll have enough chapters for me to start publishing very soon, I think. It's an Avatar: The Last Airbender fic. I think that when I start publishing, whenever that is, I might publish it on Tuesdays.

Anywhoos, today's chapter contains a great breakthrough, a development that I foresaw a while ago and it just turned out to happen now. This is earlier than I expected, but yay! Have fun with it!

.

Nagato

Nagato couldn't help but lie awake for a long time. His thoughts buzzed, keeping him from sleeping.

If Itachi was correct, he was going to have to scare himself out of his wits. The idea alone was scary. Nagato shivered to think of what he might have to do. He already had some ideas what "scaring himself out of his wits" would look like, ideas that both frightened and thrilled him. Bad thoughts? Not-bad thoughts? What kinds of thoughts are these? How do I deal with them?

Nagato swallowed and guessed that confronting his thoughts and feelings would be the first part. As far as he could recall, he spent most of his time telling his thoughts to shut up and go away. So now, Nagato took several deep breaths, pulled the covers more securely around himself, exhaled slowly, and thought about Hidan in a state of undress.

Fear and fascination outweighed pleasure, at least for now. Nagato soon moved on from those images to look further ahead. There was a void there where he had never had certain thoughts. Into that void, he spun a whole fantasy future. An elegant web of things both big and small appeared as he worked. Nagato stopped to marvel at it briefly. But that fantasy turned out to not be the true marvel. He ended up marveling at himself, as he was now.

Nagato stared up at the ceiling in the dark. He clutched his belly. Something in him that wasn't precisely an emotion, wasn't precisely a thought, wasn't anything Nagato knew the name of, spoke to him. It said Yes. It said that repeatedly, as Nagato thought about various parts of this imagined future he'd built. Nagato had no idea he had a gut-level ability to decide Yes or No about possibilities he knew nothing of. This must be what Yahiko feels like! It's a feeling of rightness. This future looks right to me. Maybe I never felt right about things before because I've never had such a detailed idea of the future. Now that it has detail, I know what to aim for.

It wasn't a very detailed vision, really. Nagato had just used his imagination to recreate scenes from stories, with himself in them. Kisses shared before he headed out the door. Cuddling on a couch. Talking in the depths of night about things of great importance. Holding hands. Buying flowers.

Even those images possessed the power to make him shiver. They were something completely different, and that made them scary, but also desirable. Were they also somewhat soothing? Nagato thought more about that. It does feel kind of soothing. I already knew that I don't want how things are now. Having something that I do want, some hope, might be helping me feel less dissatisfied.

Nagato pulled an arm out from under the covers and felt around. Right now, he lay in darkness, stillness, alone. But that was okay, because now he knew that he would not always be. Nagato sighed in relief. He rolled over and went to sleep.

Konan

Konan also lay awake in the darkness. Her thoughts also buzzed, keeping her from sleeping.

So this Yahiko was not like her own. He was different. He was not foolish enough to think that his own death or injury would solve a bad situation. He was less sure than her Yahiko had been, and would never speak with such awful determination. He wouldn't ignore her or Nagato. Overall, he was more considerate, careful, cautious, more aware than his original had been.

Those were all good things, but there was a catch to them. Now, instead of thinking endlessly about Yahiko's death and what had caused it, Konan's mind seized on and tore apart all the ways said death could have been prevented. Yahiko's clone was different now, but she was very sure he had not always been. Being around her and others as they fought to keep each other sane and alive must have had an effect on him. He was becoming more sensible with each passing day.

Could she have done that before? Could she have told him words that would have changed his mind, done things to change his mind? By far, the most obvious difference between the situation Clone Yahiko had been living in over the past weeks and the situation Konan remembered his original living in was her own behavior. She had acted very differently back then: more demure, more like what she thought she was supposed to be, more accepting of his guidance and his courses of action. if she had been ruder back then and had stopped him from taking risks as she was able to stop his clone now, would he have listened? Would he have paid attention and learned something from that? At the very least, he probably would not have ignored her as if she did not exist.

There it was. That was what it all came down to, wasn't it? Her own insufficiencies, her own mistakes. Even now, she was small, weak, blind, the way a caged animal is blind to the world outside of its cage. Falsehood lay in every direction. She was not enough of what she was supposed to be, or too much. Right, then wrong, then right again. She was never sure, could never be sure. Konan had spent a whole lifetime chasing after the person she was supposed to be, and she had less and less idea of who that was! Or what that was. Or if such a thing existed at all.

Konan felt her chakra surge, tensing in preparation. If she released it, she would have paper claws. She wanted, more than anything, to tear aside all these lies and falsehoods, find what was real, true. But paper claws could not do that, so she did not release her chakra.

Instead, she sat up and closed her eyes. Meditation was said to allow one to perceive the true nature of things. She had time and had remembered about it, so she meditated now.

Concentrating on her breathing, she paid attention to how her body felt in the here and now. She felt her chest rise and fall, felt her shoulders rise and fall. She felt the muscles in her back, maintaining tension in order to hold her upright. They were strong muscles. Konan traced all the major muscle groups outwards and downwards. Neck, arms, abdomen, legs, all the way down to her feet. She was interested to find that as her attention moved, each part of her body tingled. The touch of her mind felt only a little less substantial than the touch of her fingers.

If that was the case, then she could think of much better things to use her concentration for than a simple body scan. Konan settled her attention on her arms, first the left, then the right. She focused on a specific area of the upper arm on both sides, imagining that someone was holding her steady. With that established, the touch of her mind moved up to her face. Konan paid riveted attention to her lips, then to her brow. Finally, she settled on the area in between: the bridge of her nose. Right between her eyes.

She imagined something pressing there. What, she could not have said. Just something. She pressed her attention there so firmly that the spot began to itch, but she dared not break her concentration to scratch. She stayed focused on the spot between her eyes, blocking out all else.

Nerve impulses seemed to radiate out from that spot, sweeping back through and around her skull, causing her ears to prick forward. Konan's eyelids trembled. A low growl rose deep in her throat. She felt her own touch all the way at the very ends of her fingertips, though nowhere else on the hand and arm in between. Her chakra formed paper claws. Konan sensed she was approaching the truth of what she was deep inside, what she would be if her body could be reshaped by her mind.

Paper wings sprouted. These were not the same wings she had used to impress the people of Amegakure. Ever since arriving in this world, her wings seemed to have changed, or perhaps they were simply adjusting themselves to the way her mind was changing. Either way, they were dangerous now. They were less like wings and more like razor-tipped appendages that happened to be useful for flying. Konan had a sudden image of herself perched in a tree. She was bent over, leaning forward, with her paper claws digging into the bark and her wings raised slightly above her back, ready to lash forward or sideways. Yes; that was how they should be used.

The feeling of approaching increased. Konan now felt as if the touch of her attention was the touch of her own fingers. She was touching her own face, pressing deeper and deeper. She was looking into her own eyes?

Yes.

In her mind, she saw them fly open. She was surprised by the depth of color in them: a golden amber, so solid it might have belonged to dark honey. Through the warm appearance, though, shone brightness. It was the bright wary look of something feral. Her eyes shifted back and forth, assessing the situation, before settling. Upon settling, it was as if she rose from a crouch to her full height, pressing forward and towering over herself, even though that shouldn't be possible since she was the same height as herself. In her mind, Konan stepped back, intimidated. The eyes that intimidated her glowed with victory.

Suddenly, the being those eyes belonged to leaped back, away. Konan saw her then. She looked human, but moved like a cat. Her teeth were sharp, as were her wings and claws. The sturdy heels Konan wore in the outside world were simply hard feet here, as hard as a horse's feet were when they were in the ribs of an unfortunate handler. The cloak she wore in the outside world looked much the same as usual, except that it followed the movement of her arms perfectly like skin. Her hands were curled, her ears were flattened back against her head, and the way she settled from a standing to a perching position was flowing.

Those eyes widened, intimidating Konan even from a greater distance, and she heard the word as if it had been spoken: Power. This version of herself had plenty of it, and plenty of forms of it, forms Konan was not usually aware existed. The power to scatter others, as she was making herself back away now and as she had made Kakuzu want to back away in the past, or to graciously welcome. The power to destroy or protect. The power to give mercy or pass judgment, the sort of judgment usually spoken of in stories about deities. Final judgment: the power over life itself.

This being sat where it was, watching her, and she knew it was deciding not to use any of this power, but only to show it. Konan pressed forward, her fingers digging deeper. Show me.

There was a sense of retreat, though the amber-eyed being did not appear to move. Perhaps the background was coming forward. The being suddenly was indistinguishable from her surroundings, which pressed forward with just as much power and grace as she had. Wind. A tall, strong tree. The earth. Shadows and light, dappling the flower in her hair as she sat. A wide sky, insubstantial yet imposing by its sheer openness, making Konan feel as if she was in danger of being lifted off her feet.

Of course. Power was not everything; in order for it to exist, there had to be something to exert power over. The being was indistinguishable from her world. She was as inseparable from these wilds as Konan had once been from Amegakure. Lady Angel and the village she ruled were not different. This here was a wild angel, a battle angel under the right circumstances. Or she would be if Konan could find her anywhere. Where was the being with the dappled flower and the amber eyes? The surroundings pressed into Konan's vision until they were all she could see. It was as if that being had merged with her surroundings, become nature itself.

It was like falling, falling into a deep blue chaos, being torn apart, becoming one with it. Chaos and joy and power, power over life and death.

Konan gasped and pulled her hand back. No. I will not fall in. And that was another form of power: the power to decide that. It was respected, and she was freely allowed to step back.

She opened her eyes in the darkness of her room. Only starlight shone in through the small window, as it was the time of the new moon, and even that starlight had been filtered through the trees. It was almost completely dark.

Konan sat there, breathing in and out, tasting air that was settled, alright, neither especially fresh nor stale, neither warm nor cold, neither thin nor thick. She wished it was thinner, fresher, colder. Konan rose, put on her cloak and her heels, and made her way silently through her dark den. She needed to be outside, to know the vision was true. If she felt that power stir within her, it would be very reassuring, and she would return and sleep warmly.

From the broken corner of the roof, she looked out over the night forest. The night forest looked back. It was true.

Konan crept back to her warm bed and slept.

Kakuzu

Kakuzu lay awake in the darkness. His thoughts buzzed, keeping him from sleeping.

He had said and done nothing at the meeting. That was because he hadn't been able to, hadn't felt the need to. Nothing of great importance had happened to him recently, or at least none that he wanted to share.

But all that had changed after the meeting. On what appeared to be a whim, the tiger kid who'd arrived with Samehada had heavily hinted that maybe he could be persuaded to read what he had, maybe out loud, unsubtle nudging, hint hint hint. Kakuzu had only rolled his eyes. The kid had no poker face. He looked ready to be eaten alive.

Kakuzu had been the one to snarl at him to go on and read it. Maybe his writing would be an improvement. Ruta had grinned then in a way that shook Kakuzu, caused him to lean back and rethink everything he thought was happening. It was a grin very similar to Hidan's. Hidan also did not appear to have a poker face. Kakuzu bumped the tiger kid several spots up on his list of people to watch out for.

And all that was before Ruta had read out his work…

Kakuzu still didn't know what to make of it.

Certain questions Ruta had included in his document still whirled through Kakuzu's head. Is chakra God? Well, if it was, it certainly wasn't the entirety. The god they kept in their basement did not appear to affect anyone's chakra. Kakuzu wasn't sure if Jashin sama could change the laws of physics or not. It seemed to operate in a different way, affecting people and their feelings and things like that. Perhaps Jashin was one of many deities, all of which did different things. The god that affected people could be completely different from the one that affected the laws of physics.

If there was a big-G, all-encompassing God, Kakuzu was seriously considering praying to it. But would that help? If there was such a being, it wasn't doing nearly as much work as the smaller deities were. Jashin sama was screwing with everyone and sending prophets to vampires. What was the God of this world doing? There's a reason why I've never been religious. No use praying for help you won't get. Kakuzu doubted he was ever going to change that. If a generalized God was unhelpful, and a smaller god was too dangerous for him to consider going near, there was no divine being that Kakuzu would ever be able to ask for help. I don't "do" asking for help anyway. Not my style.

All this, and in response to just one sentence of a multi-page document!

Kakuzu couldn't quite remember if the litany of Miscellaneous uses of chakra included using it to grow new body parts. He was going to have to go over the copy that Ruta had emailed them all again, and again. It could take weeks to fully digest that document. How the hell had Ruta managed to assemble all of it from talking with Konan? He should have been overwhelmed by the deluge of information, but he clearly hadn't been, as evidenced by the coherency of the writing. His writing had turned out to be an improvement over his speaking.

And it wasn't just Ruta! The first thing Nagato had opened his mouth to say was, "What about space chakra?" And he'd explained what he meant by that, and how his powers felt, and Konan shrugged and admitted that she didn't know exactly how the Rinnegan worked, and all this had happened while Kakuzu was still sitting there horrified. Was nobody thrown off by the way Ruta read out, "Is chakra God?" so casually?

Kakuzu sighed. Maybe he shouldn't have been so harsh on the poor kid. I don't kill everybody I work with, but I might have a temper problem. He had yelled at Ruta, going from zero to snarling in less than a second. The tiger man had ended up on his back, sprawled on the grass, leaning as far backward as he could get. Kakuzu didn't even remember what he had been yelling for; he remembered accusing Ruta of treating everything like a giant game, but nothing else. Ruta had replied that it was like a giant game though, in a very plain voice like a child's when they tell an adult something obvious.

Kakuzu remembered sprouting tentacles and threatening him with them. After that, the most surreal thing he had ever seen occurred. Such a sight seemed to defy reality: Konan, standing with her left arm reaching out toward Kakuzu and her right arm spread at her side, shielding Ruta, who was shyly peeking out from behind her shoulder. Konan, guarding somebody. Since when did she do that?

What did it matter? The important part was that somebody had needed guarding. Hidan, Kisame, and now a completely innocent kid he didn't even know who had only been in his presence for half an hour. What is wrong with me? Why am I losing control of myself, nearly hurting people? Kakuzu was very, very glad neither Kisame nor Samehada had been there to see it. Even lying in bed with his weight supported by the mattress, Kakuzu could feel the weight of his body. He was large, well muscled, powerful. He could all too easily kill somebody with a single thrust of a hardened hand.

The reading of the document was like a second hammer blow, equivalent to the shock Konan had given them with her paper that first night. Kakuzu needed to do a lot of thinking. Didn't I used to be curious? I had to restrain myself from asking about further mysteries, for everyone else's benefit. Now everyone else is curious and would need to restrain themselves for my benefit. Why?

What happened to me? What is happening to me?

There was one possibility that quickly came to mind. Kakuzu felt no closer to sleep, so he got up to investigate it.

As he stood at the side of his bed, he recalled the memory of Ruta asking a question that could upend their entire lives in that casual way he had, as if it was all a game. Kakuzu felt some muscles in his chest and arms tighten. Stupid kid.

As he stood in the hallway, he recalled the memory of Hidan casually referencing a bunch of things that he'd forgotten nobody else knew. How could someone with his ability be so oblivious? Kakuzu's hands tightened into fists. How do I put up with him?

As he stood at the top of the basement stairs, he recalled the memory of Yahiko running off to ask a demon how to kill demons. He felt a very strong desire to hit something. I can't believe I work with such morons!

As he stood in the basement, he recalled standing here before, unable to do anything but glare at the symbol that he was glaring at now. He couldn't bring himself to go any closer, or to turn his back to it. Every muscle was tense. What's more, Kakuzu couldn't even treat that as a bad thing. Good. It's good to be angry. I need to be. I need to defend myself from this thing. It is fucking dangerous and I wish it didn't exist.

Kakuzu noticed all of this, filed it away in his mind, and left. He did not think about what it meant until he was on the rooftop in the cold night air, as far away from the symbol as he could get. This was the spot where he'd forgiven Hidan and agreed to change the way he acted. Kakuzu filed that away in the same file, which he now kept open for perusal.

Put together, the evidence pointed one way: he was right. The symbol was affecting him, making him angrier and more defensive when he was near it. He hadn't been relaxed for a single day since it was installed. Curiosity? Please! Who could afford to be curious when all of their instincts warned of imminent danger? Even when he was far from the base, he wasn't fully letting go of those effects. He saw things to defend himself against everywhere while he was here, so he was more than a little paranoid in town as well, always looking for those kinds of things.

And now it was getting worse. The effects were spreading to other people now, causing them to have to be protected. From me. All the guilt in the world wouldn't do anything to undo what he had almost done in front of nearly the entire group. Konan had looked at him in a very critical way, the same way she had looked at him after the fight with Hidan. Yahiko and Nagato had sounded so confused, even hurt, by his actions. Nobody else had been able to say a word. The silence had been crushing, the weight of it unbearable. It had driven Kakuzu from the backyard, trembling.

What was he becoming? What was that symbol making him into? Kakuzu was more than a little afraid now, in a way that anger couldn't defend against. In the basement resided a god which, despite being one of many small-g deities, possessed many infinities of power over him. And, to make it worse, the kind of power that it possessed was not one he knew how to handle. He could handle physical power: blunt, straightforward, clearly visible, hard and punishing. But Jashin sama didn't work like that. This form of power was not blunt but sharp, slicing into him from unexpected angles, quick, coming from all directions. It was not hard and punishing, but soft and airy: a question in the back of his mind, whispering words he didn't want to hear. That was cruel. I hurt him. What have I done? What am I doing? What am I?

Kakuzu could do nothing to defend himself against such sneaky attacks. He wasn't like Hidan. Hidan was light, fast, adaptable. He could suffer like any other person, but he suffered less strongly and for less of the time than Kakuzu did. Kakuzu almost envied him. But he did not, because there was no use in envying Hidan. He could never be like Hidan. That was a known fact.

So what could he do?

I need to talk to the two of them: him and her. She installed it, and he has residual Jashininst connections. Between the two of them, they must know a way to guard against the effects of the symbol. That thing needs restraints. I don't know why restraints weren't put on it before, but it's high time that mistake was fixed.

?.?

Hidan lay awake in the darkness, his head buzzing and keeping him from being either fully awake or asleep. He felt like he was in a trance, sick, or on an illegal mind-altering substance. Maybe all three.

He was curled up on the bed with the pillow on his head. It did little to shield him from the outside world, because all he could manage to do was lie there limply. He thought of holding the pillow down in brief flickers of passing thought, but couldn't muster the strength to raise his arms. He couldn't even move a finger.

His breathing was hard and fast. His eyes rolled around the room, taking in blurry areas of light and darkness through his half-closed lids. Hidan couldn't make sense of any of it; he didn't really see it. His thoughts were scattering. The only one that stayed with him was a persistent awareness of how fast his heart was beating.

Earlier, it had been so nice with the two kids down by the lake. The lake was refreshing and cleansing, and those two kids were different. Very different. The demon especially. He was a world away, different, untouchable. Hidan did not think about why those words came to mind. He was not able to think about his own thoughts at all. They simply came in whatever form they would, and he let them.

They were nice. A break. No power. The demon is separate, no power, no connection. Separate is good. Together is good; those trees. Not separate not together not good, now, bad, hurts. Hidan's eyes rolled closed.

Can a clone go down to the basement?

Where do their memories go?

Kakuzu… Leaves, cold road, crying? What did you find, Kakuzu?

Maybe some of it was Ruta's fault. He'd asked if chakra was God. Of course not. Bad question. No, it wasn't bad, it just… It just hurt. Screaming to their gods for months on end. It hurt all the time. Wake in the morning, that afternoon Kakuzu says it's been a week. Where did the time go? Questions like this cut my head to pieces.

Kisame wasn't the only one making Hidan's head spin. He sensed there were others awake. There had to be others for this mixture to be so confusing. Hidan couldn't decide on anything. Did it feel right or wrong? To think, or to have a mental wall forbidding thinking? Hope or despair? Here and now, or somewhere else? Hidan wasn't sure where he was. He might be in a fantasy or a dream. Was he dreaming?

He...he must have been. The cold road and the leaves were a long time ago. So was 9/11. Hidan had just been feeling them happen; he couldn't remember in what order or at what time, just that it was a time close before now. The real times were far from now. So those must have been dreams.

Was he dreaming right now?

He hoped not. The kittens he was petting were still absorbing the strength they needed to grow into full-sized lions. If he was dreaming, then they would never grow up.

Hidan floated, drifting, on the border between asleep and awake, between conscious and unconscious, neither and both at the same time and unaware of it. His mind was loose, its normal connections broken. There was no way he could remember anything that happened here.

So there was a book, and Hidan read it. It didn't have any letters on its pages. Hidan made the letters. He made them. He was… What was he?

Nobody knew. When he was born, he did not cry. He didn't know how to. This body was foreign. He plugged soul energy into it and twisted the soul energy. The body responded in all kinds of meaningless ways. Which ways would help it? What did help even mean? On the level of bodies like this, there were differences. Things could be separate from each other. He'd tried to learn what that was like before, but he couldn't make himself understand differences. Difference and not-difference were merged; there was no separateness. Everything was together and not-together. No separateness here. The separateness was over there, indistinguishable from the not-separate.

So he plugged only a little bit of soul energy into the body and hoped the body would work on its own.

It didn't though. Just like the other time, this one didn't come out right. There was too much influence. He couldn't step back enough. Doctors looked at the body thinking something was wrong. The body followed an abnormal course. The human feelings in it were not being nourished, they were starving. This was not the life of a human.

Hidan sobbed, just a little. He certainly hadn't felt so. Alone, feared, criticized, and unable to express himself enough to solve any of it. It had been like being buried. He was just too small.

Yes, that was it. Too much soul energy. That was the problem. So, to reshape the soul, to twist it, make it from spirit into substance…

Well, this was workable. The body systems were running much more smoothly now that a human end of the soul had been crafted, and that was the end plugged in. This method created a life shape where the human feelings were not starved. That was the shape that was needed.

Each life shape was an art. Existence was the making of them, over and over. Some of them had to have soul energy plugged in. They had to because they did have soul energy plugged in; that was the way they were, and they couldn't be any other way, therefore it was necessary. Soul shaping produced one that was not starved, though it was shorter than usual. That was what happened, so it was what was needed. Reality was shaping itself as it created itself. Life paths were part of that.

Hidan felt honored to be a part of something so great. In his dreams, he saw the endless existing, saw how it was not a passive process but an active one where reality was making itself, and he thought that was really cool.

But only for a second.

Kakuzu was shaking his shoulder. Everything was forgotten as Hidan opened his eyes and blinked. He mumbled something that he didn't understand. Wait, if he didn't understand it, how could he have said it? Who was that who mumbled?

He groaned. Ugh. Hate this shit. Sleep already! Kakuzu left. Hidan turned his head, found that the mixture of feelings had quieted down some, and dropped like a stone into sleep, forgetting that those borderlands between asleep and awake even existed.

.

A/N: Yay! It is a shame that this site does not allow me to have multiple question marks or exclamation marks in a row. I would use 3 question marks in a row if that were not the case. But since it is the case, I suppose 2 question marks separated by a period will do for titling scenes in which it is not clear whose thoughts we are hearing. Expect more of this ambiguity in the future.

The meditation method Konan used is based on my real experience. When I do a body scan and focus on feeling different parts of my body, the part I focus on does get warmer or start to tingle as if touched. I can't include my back on a body scan for that reason. But, before writing her scene, I had not thought of deliberately using that effect for a purpose. After writing her scene, I tried it myself. It kind of worked, like I got the spot between my eyes to tingle noticeably and my cheeks to feel like they were brushed, but turns out that concentrating on a spot so close to your eyes involves being very aware of your eyes. You know, those things that are constantly making little movements and focusing and refocusing? So distracting!

'Twas nice though.

As for this last part: I will admit, I have no trouble with the idea of the universe creating itself. It feels like the words I write create themselves as I write them, like I don't plan these things or make nay conscious effort to put these sounds together. It just happens. So why can't the universe make itself? I'm not gonna tell the universe what it can or can't do. That would just be rude.

Kakuzu changing from exposure to the symbol was not planned. I just realized that he is acting a little different from how he was tat the start of my story, and oh look here's this thing that can explain that. Hooray for convenience!

This story kind of shapes itself as it creates itself, too. I'm not about to wonder why. I just want to be here to experience it, the wonder of things just coming into existence. Creation is amazing.