Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and not me.

A/N: Another "truth" thing like last chapter that I wrote a while ago, although this one only has 15 truths. Because I don't know much about Konan I didn't want to get ahead of myself. She's a little bit of a harder character to understand. I got inspired to write this mainly from the "Believe" one-shot a couple chapters ago, if you've read it you'll recognise a couple parts from it. I liked the concept. Anyway, on with it then.

I guess there's a bit of KonanPein going on in here, by the way.

Summary: The Angel with Paper Wings... Her past crumples beneath her.

Paper Cranes, Fly Away with Me

1. It's been a long time since Konan has reminisced about the past. But she has many things to think over as she waits. She perches herself on the roof of a high tower, watching the landscape – not one of natural beauty, but of a more man-made setting. The shambling structures of metal reach for the sky, as if asking the sun to take pity and shine upon them although they are not beautiful. The rust covering the buildings are like old wounds, showing the scars of battling with the clouds that forever seem to curse them away from the sun and pour hatred upon them.

Konan does not smirk, although she wonders why they would beg the sun when Pain is their god. She knows that he will ultimately be the one to decide if they are beautiful or not.

She will not judge the city. Not until he has said she may.

She stares on, wondering when his fight with their former teacher will end, and if a man is capable of striking down a god. Because she knows – when a god falls, his angels will follow.

2. The first thing Konan remembers are bright colours floating above her. She cannot make out the shapes at first, but over time they come. There they are – birds. They do not flap their wings, but they soar above her, circling. Around and around they go, forever trapped in the same cycle. She watches them for a long time until she falls asleep. When she opens her eyes, they are still there.

Why haven't they flown away yet?

It is because they are made of paper, poorly imitating life as they circle, attached to the mobile they cannot escape.

When she is older, she wonders if it is her destiny to follow a set path like those lifeless birds.

3. Konan's parents were not always perfect people. Her father, although a seemingly innocent man, was always the one chosen to go and follow up debts owed to the local gangs. He hurt others, but only because he was trying to protect his own family. Her mother loved her, but her money was earned from performing deeds best kept from the ears of innocents. She was the only one to bring money home at the end of the day.

However dysfunctional and desperate they seemed, somehow they managed to raise their daughter. There were always moments that Konan wished would last forever: her father showing her how to play shougi with the broken set they owned, patting her on the head when she managed to make a good move; her mother showing her to fold paper, and one day bringing back a colourful book with origami designs that set her heart glowing with eagerness. She had felt a lot of guilt that day after the initial excitement – her parents went without proper food the next few days.

But still they encouraged her to keep creating, and everyday would bring back a piece of paper for her to use. She was careful to always get the folding right and not waste the precious resource.

Soon the little shack they lived in was filled with bright creatures and objects. Konan's parents said they were proud. It would be one of the rare times she felt proud of herself.

4. They could never afford many grand things, their house being one of them. The shack had three small rooms, just enough space for what they needed. Although it wasn't grand, her mother would always joke that 'at least we have a view of the water'. They lived on the edge of a shanty town built next to a lake. A rickety jetty jutted out into the centre, but the time of the lake's beauty was over. Konan remembers the piles of rotting fish that had been washed ashore one day after the water had suddenly turned a particular colour of brown. She pitied the poor animals. What had they done to be killed in such a way?

She wondered perhaps if the lake had been cursed by a spiteful god. It took her only a second before she shook her head and decided the lake had been cursed by humanity. Looking back at that moment, Konan thinks it was perhaps this that set her on the path to agreeing with Pain's beliefs.

5. She never told anybody, but she was meant to be a big sister. Konan smiled when she felt the baby kick against the skin of her mother's stomach. Her mother always let her listen to the baby whenever she asked, but as time wore on her face began to grow more worried.

It was the day her mother forgot to bring home a piece of paper for her that she began to notice. Her mother seemed more tired than usual, the colour drained from her complexion. When Konan had asked her mother about the paper, she had said they would have to be more 'frugal' with the money they earned. Konan didn't know what that word meant, but when she noticed the servings on her plate getting smaller, she felt like she was beginning to understand.

A month later her mother disappeared. Her father cried for a long time about many things – being unemployable because of his reputation, unable to support his family, and that he was a bad father. Konan had told him it wasn't his fault, but the look in his eye made it felt like her heart was being crushed.

When her mother returned a few days later, her stomach was silent. When Konan asked, she was told the baby had been taken away to a better place.

Konan saw her counting the money later that night when she was supposed to be asleep.

6. When she smelt the smoke, she awoke to an empty house. Her parents were nowhere to be found. She walked outside to find the grime-covered passageways of the town empty. When her foot landed in a puddle, she looked down expecting water. Red clung to her skin, dribbling down between her bare toes. As fear enveloped her, she ran back towards her home, hoping and hoping her parents would be there when she returned.

Before she opened the door, she looked down at the lake and froze. The water was no longer brown, but red.

For a long time she stood by the water's edge, staring at the claw-marks in the mud leading down into the lake. She stood there until the fire came, and burned everything away.

She always felt guilt that a tiny part of her heart had felt like it had been freed.

7. Konan was unsure why she had been spared. She would never find out either – a mystery that refused to reveal itself even in her later years. The culprits, the reason, they never surfaced. For weeks she stayed in the burnt-out shell of her home, the ashes of her creations crunching under her feet as she moved. The fires had destroyed every scrap of paper in the town and being unable to create burned a hole in her heart. Eventually, she moved on.

Covered in rags, she made her home next to where a town disposed of its garbage. Everyday she would rummage around in the freshest piles and dug out anything she could – wrappers, newspapers, even pieces of soggy cardboard. She would take her treasure to an embankment by the road and would start folding, making paper cranes. The embankment became littered with them, a flock of birds unable to take flight. She continued to make them for months even as her fingers became stiff and refused to work. And when the rain came and washed the flock away, she'd start again after wiping away her tears. She couldn't give up, even if her hands wouldn't move. Time went by, lost by her account as she continued to fold.

"Why are you making those?"

The boy was around her age, with the appearance and type of stubborn-looking face she knew adults would label as a 'snot-nosed brat'. But his eyes were full of inquisitiveness. It had been so long since she'd talked to anyone.

"If… if I make enough of them, an angel will come and grant me a wish," she replied in a tiny voice. She stared up at him, hope filling her bloodshot eyes. "Are… you the angel?"

It took some time before the boy answered. He seemed to think the question over, wondering what his purpose for being here was. Giving up, he scratched the back of his head and grinned. "If you want me to be," he replied.

He extended his hand, and she accepted. She accepted him as her protector, her angel, and her friend… but it would be some time before she saw him as a god.

8. Yahiko had been the little boy nobody wanted. He had been born to a couple in a place where tradition was strict. Whilst his mother and father were strong at playing the part of caring parents, they were despised by their village for having a child before marriage. They shielded him from the glares of those around him, and he grew up oblivious to their hatred.

War grew too close, however. In that moment when chaos reigned and none restrained themselves, they finally took their wrath upon the family. Yahiko had been thrown out a window landing bloody and torn. Unable to move, he lay on the gravelled road listening while his mother was mercilessly beaten and his father was hacked to pieces. They threw their empty shells onto the ground next to him where they stared at their son with lifeless eyes.

Somehow, he survived. Yahiko had started to walk through the slaughter around him and kept walking – until he had found her.

Konan would always cry thinking about the story her friend had told her. This country… not only did it rain, it poured pain over anyone it touched.

And when they stumbled upon the dark-haired child weeping next to a mass grave, she felt as though her thoughts were confirmed. She stared at the crudely-made grave markers surrounding him. Had he done all this himself? Had he buried every single of them?

When he finally noticed the two and lifted up his fringe, they saw his bloodshot eyes, tears never seeming to run dry. Konan saw something of herself in those eyes.

"You're not going to hurt me, are you?" he whimpered. Konan noticed the bruises covering his skin. How much pain had he suffered? How much pain had they all suffered? She felt a lump in her throat as she looked up at the rotting orphanage, still burning. The smoke formed a straight path to the sky, blending in with the dark clouds that began to drizzle.

Konan resolved that day she would hide her tears in the rain. The sun shouldn't have to suffer shining upon her grief.

It was her turn to extend her hand this time. When Nagato called her an angel, she smiled. "Maybe one day I'll be an angel."

9. When they'd met the three Leaf shinobi, they'd been living on the streets for at least half a year. They had become a close family. Yahiko was their older brother, stealing food for them and leading them to shelter each night, even if that meant next to a dumpster in an alleyway – he'd still protect them and find some way to keep them from the freezing rain. Konan had found her place as an emotional pillar. She let Nagato cling to her every night as he cried. He still had the nightmares even months later.

She pretended to be a piece of paper, absorbing his tears and his terrors. But she knew it would only be a matter of time before she would be no longer able to take anymore and would crumble apart.

It was raining the day Yahiko had bravely walked up to the shinobi and boldly asked for food. Konan prayed quietly whilst Nagato whimpered behind the other wall. If Yahiko died… Konan knew it would be the day she could take no more.

"Konan… Nagato, come out! He's not a bad guy!"

She nibbled at the crackers cautiously, still wary. But whatever Yahiko said, she believed it. If these people were good like he said, then she would say the same. She knew Nagato would agree too. When Yahiko began to follow the three ninja they followed as well.

It was hard to believe that after all she had seen in this country that people such as this would show kindness. When Yahiko demanded they teach them ninjutsu, Konan took the wrapper from her crackers and folded it into a rose. It wasn't much… but maybe it could show them some ounce of appreciation. The man with the white hair smiled at her. It had been a long time since seeing a smile from an adult, and before long she found herself sitting at a table smiling and laughing with those she thought of as her family.

But the moment was soon gone as Yahiko's outburst about the war startled her. Many times she'd heard him mutter about hating the war, but never had she heard him say such his reasons, let alone his deeper opinions. She'd… never heard him sound so grown-up before. If the war was to stop, people would have to feel the same pain?

Somehow it made sense. What had brought the three of them together in the first place? It was the acknowledgement of the same pain of losing people close to them.

It seemed for so long that all she had been thinking about was how pain affected her. She had never thought about how pain could be used as a tool to make others understand, though it was as if she knew it all along.

"When I grow up, I'm going to make others understand pain," she whispered. She saw Nagato glance at her. In that moment, it was like they had made a silent pact.

Konan had no idea just how far that pact would lead her.

10. Paper… when Jiraiya had begun to teach them ninjutsu, she had no doubts that she would work with what she knew best. Although the rain made her paper weapons frail at first, she continued and learnt to mould her chakra. In every piece she made, she would strengthen the paper until the rain barely affected it.

The first time the paper shuriken hit the mark, she smiled. It was a step. How far would these paper ninjustu take her?

She lifted her hands up and let the paper crane she'd made flutter into the sky. The lifeless birds she had known from her youth had been given the will to take flight. It seemed to her that paper wings worked just as well as real ones. She wondered if an angel could be accepted even if their wings were fake.

11. It was one particularly rare sunny day that Jiraiya had asked Konan to take a walk with him without the others. She had been unsure what was going on at first, but as they walked down the path towards the town they got their supplies from, she became convinced.

"You'll be going soon, won't you?" she asked.

"I can't argue with a woman's intuition,'" replied her sensei with a crooked smile. "Tsunade could always tell when things weren't going right either. You're a lot like her really – with the exception of her gambling, drinking, and breaking my bones habits."

Konan could only raise an eyebrow at him. Jiraiya-sensei liked to ramble on about Tsunade and Orochimaru. She guessed that if she were in the same situation, she would probably talk about Yahiko and Nagato a lot too.

"Konan, I never want you to let yourself think you're any less worthy than the boys.'"

She blinked. Her sensei had never quite talked like this though. "I don't think I'm any weaker than them," she replied.

"Good. Because I just know you'll become a graceful kunoichi if you keep at it. Don't submit to anyone – you have the sort of strength and kindness that would make people kill for you. Live to protect those you love, and don't let anyone take your spirit." The man had pulled something from his pocket and placed it in her hair – the paper flower she had given him when they first met. "Promise me?"

"I promise."

Although she wanted to, she could not bring herself to smile. Perhaps it was because she felt she already knew she'd end up breaking that promise. Soon four became three once more and they set off to wander the country. Filled with a sense of purpose by Yahiko's beliefs, they did what they could to bring the unrest to an end. Years passed. Konan became a spy, seductress, silent assassin slitting throats without a second of sympathy. Although she had been kind, she could not be kind to everyone.

"To make peace, sometimes you must make war," she often whispered before the start of a mission. At the end, she would be the one standing on the battle ground, her partners sinking into the background so nobody would ever know of their existences.

Konan had decided to make her kindness something to only be shown to those who proved themselves to her. The victims were discarded, their worth was little more than unusable scraps of paper to her. The villagers who had bravely fought were rewarded by her kindness. The children called her an angel. She would smile for them, but she only ever laughed for Nagato and Yahiko.

12. She never quite liked the darkness, and never quite cared about the stars. The stars were nothing more than weak points of light, useless decorations made for love-struck fools.

However, it soon became apparent to Konan that she had become one of those love-struck fools. The snot-nosed brat had vanished from her life, and she was sure he had taken that muddied little girl with desperate dreams along with him. Left in their place was a young man with ambitions to protect the world and a young woman who knew nothing but how to follow his words.

And the boy who had been a cry-baby had become a warrior with piercing eyes. She had tried to block out the guilt every time she looked at him, but it always filtered back. It seemed unfair to love one of them more than the other.

She knew that Nagato wasn't ignorant to her feelings for Yahiko. It had been years since those old feelings of being a frail piece of paper had filled her, a sheet of crumbling paper soaking up the emotions that spilled over their limit. She knew… again it was only a matter of time before she reached that limit again.

The only thing she ever envied about the stars was that they'd stand strong and shine on for far longer than she ever would. The truth could never be ignored – paper was never meant to last.

13. Konan knew they had been lucky… so lucky to get as far as they could. But of course it was all bound to come to an end sometime.

She couldn't stop it… the tips of her fingers squelching against the blood flowing from his bubbling wound. The paper she held against it was quickly becoming drenched. Bubbles blossomed and burst as he tried to breathe. His lungs were trying to empty the liquid filling them. The coughs hacked up blood every time. It ran down his chin, covering his hair and shirt with red and eventually pooled beneath him.

She wasn't a medic! She couldn't do this!

"I said I'd protect you."

"Shut up, Yahiko!"

"Konan… I don't want to die."

Tears… She willed them to stop so her vision would not blur. She thought they had dried up long ago. She glanced up at Nagato and thought he was a child again. Even in this rain, she could see his tears. She didn't ask for his help. She couldn't. Jiraiya had taught them so many things, and Nagato had conquered them all. But he'd never learnt how to heal. Neither of them had.

It felt as though time suddenly had no relevance – it was like they were those little kids again. All the fears they'd had came flooding back, and the many times they'd joked about death felt twisted and wrong. Who cared about having a brave face or dying in some kind of blaze of glory now? All there was now were three small children, holding their friend's hands as the realities of life sunk in.

Konan can still vividly feel Yahiko's grip lessening around her wrist. She still remembers how he was coughing, with a trembling smile on his face.

"I remember those times… All those yesterdays…"

His eyes drifted to the sky, where the clouds refused to show the sun to him.

"I wouldn't change them… ever…"

Konan had been the one to close his glassy eyes, so he would stop seeing the rain that he had despised his entire life. What more could she do now? The grief was almost too much. The man she'd secretly loved for so long had ceased to be. The one she had devoted herself to… spirited away and leaving her sitting in the mud and rain.

He'd left her the same way he'd found her.

She couldn't hate him, she couldn't. It wasn't his fault. There was only one thing she could do now.

"I'll be the angel now… I'll be your angel."

She didn't even blink when Nagato lifted Yahiko's body up and cradled him in his arms. "I'll show them your pain, so that nobody will be hurt again. We'll show them your pain together… Yahiko."

Konan had been left alone once more that day. All that she once had had vanished into the distance. And yet still… everyday she would wait at that spot, hoping and praying that the man she loved would return.

Yahiko's message of pain and loss had never hit her harder.

14. She can't remember a day that went by where she didn't train. She had resolved not be left behind to become weak. She would be strong when he returned. It was the least she could do.

Eventually, however, she would run out of paper. The pieces she had used had become so torn and tattered that they were unusable.

The ache of feeling so useless drove her mad. For days she had stared at the back of her hands. Her nails were ragged and dirty. She had stared at the pale colour of her skin, which seemed to glow in the morning sun. It reminded her of her childhood when she awoke to the rays of sunlight glowing off the origami animals around her bed.

The thought entered her mind – perhaps… could she literally become paper?

Konan, once having said she would not be like paper, decided that the paper would become her instead.

When the paper first peeled from her skin, she felt like she was being sliced, layer by layer, by thousands of knife edges. It was as though she was demolishing herself. She had to stop, fight back tears and remind herself this pain was nothing. It was nothing compared to the pain she'd already experienced.

She gritted her teeth as her skin shed itself, flickering from her form like the pages of a book.

And then… she was free. She saw it all, felt everything… the caress of the wind hundreds of times over, weightless, the warmth of the sun on a rare rainless day… and she was sure… she was sure she could hear Yahiko, telling her all about how he wished everyone could feel like this.

This was the dream of freedom. Her paper wings were for him.

15. Konan had been sitting in that muddy clearing that he had found her again. Her eyes were closed and arms raised to the sky, wrists ending in nothing but stumps as tiny paper cranes flew around her.

"Konan," came the whisper.

The cranes began to tumble from their flight, reforming delicate hands on the young woman's wrists. Her eyes hardly dared to blink as she stared at the man, with her body beginning to tremble. He… he was here, as if he had never died. The man stretched his arms out beside him, palms facing her.

"Konan," he repeated. There was no emotion in his voice, nor in his eyes. His face was blank, but still, Konan ignored it. He was here, that was all that mattered.

She could not refuse herself as she ran to his outstretched arms and clamped her own around him. His scent filled her nose, and it was still the same. The man gently placed a hand against her face and brushed loose strands of hair from her sight so she could stare up at him and see.

His eyes…

"Are you Yahiko, or Nagato?" she asked. It was like this person was a stranger, but still so very familiar.

"I am Pain," replied the man. "I am their legacy – the man who was struck down, and became a god in return for his pain." He'd pulled her close, placing her head against his chest so she could hear his heart. "And who are you?"

Nagato… Yahiko… The one she loved, and the other she wished she could love… had they both sacrificed themselves for the sake of this dream? Why had she been left behind then? Why?

Legacy…?

Was that it? Someone had to help this legacy?

She closed her eyes, listening to his heart beat in an excruciating rhythm. This was her purpose, her promise, her pain to bear.

"I am… God's Angel," she whispered.