Prompt Nine: Putting Her Foot Down

Konan liked to think she was a patient person. She'd put up with an awful lot over the years – being an orphan who lived on the streets as a child, being taken in and trained by a man who happened to be from an enemy Hidden Village (who also happened to be a raging pervert), being forced to watch one of her best friends die (and then forced to watch her other best friend gleefully slaughter their tormentors), and then being forced to watch your best friend transform a peaceful organization into a group of warmongers. All in the name of "peace".

Yeah. Konan had been through a lot. And the hits just kept on coming, because clearly life had decided she hadn't suffered enough.

"Could you repeat that, Nagato…?"

Nagato made an irritated sighing sound before complying.

"I sense Jiraiya's presence in the village."

"And you want to do what?"

Nagato narrowed his eyes in frustration. What part of this was so hard to understand?

"I need you to go and seek him out. Keep him pinned long enough for my Animal Path to catch up with you, and then…"

Yup. This was the final straw. Konan could not be held responsible for her actions anymore. Life had been nothing but unfair to Konan, so now it was time to stand up as a kunoichi… and beat life down to get it to cooperate, repeatedly stomping it in the balls if necessary. And if 'life' and 'Nagato' got mixed up in there somewhere… Oh well. Accidents do happen.

"Nagato, I have quietly stood by you for decades now." Konan spoke up in a deceptively calm tone, garnering a raised eyebrow from Nagato, but the kunoichi did not seem to care about that. "Battle after battle, we've always fought side by side. We've endured the same pain, the same torment… And up until now I've tolerated just how much you've changed since Yahiko's death. I've helped you seal Tailed Beasts away.

Nagato started to perspire, but he wasn't really sure why. This was Konan, his closest confidant. His hench-wench. … Right?

"I've waited so long for you to wake up and come to your senses…" Konan trailed off as she took a deep breath. "And now this comes up. I could probably tolerate it if it was some run-of-the-mill spy, some cannon fodder that the Hidden Leaf sent to attempt to gather information. But this is Jiraiya-sensei. You are asking me to kill Jiraiya. The man who took us in when he didn't have to, when people from our own nation wouldn't even look at us, people who would rather chase us out of the market than let us have scraps of food to survive. He treated us like family, like his own children. The man taught us how to survive, taught you so that you wouldn't frequently go on Rinne-Rampages. The man who was able to write a whole damn book because of your determination to find peace – he even dedicated it to you! Jiraiya-sensei gave us a childhood to look back on fondly, in a time of war no less."

Nagato was sweating buckets now. The tension was becoming palpable, and Konan was just getting angrier with every logical point she brought up.

And then the fool had to go sticking his foot in his mouth.

"B… But he abandoned us…" Nagato argued back in a quiet, fearful tone. He hadn't felt like this in ages.

Konan twitched, having heard his 'point' regardless of how quiet he said it.

"No, he determined that we were strong enough to take care of ourselves. There is a difference." Konan's eyes flashed like steel. "I will be the first to admit the man had his faults. Do you not remember the last thing he said to me? It sounded innocent, sure, but Yahiko became a damn pervert because of him. And while he could have stuck around more, he had a village to return to. If you expected him to become the bigger man and go rogue for our sake, then you could equally say that we could have gone with him to the Hidden Leaf, to make sure we stayed together. He was simply ensuring that no one had to break ties with their respective nations. Jiraiya-sensei believed we could make a difference, he believed you were the Child of Prophecy. Nagato, does that sound like he abandoned us?"

Nagato had now gone reticent. Konan just kept heaping on the logic and making him feel terrible. Why? Why did she have to speak up now of all times? Three Tailed Beasts was all they needed. Three steps away from world peace. Okay, sure, they had been rather… cold ever since Yahiko had died. They'd associated with the scum of the nations. Severed all ties with the man they had once called 'Sensei', simply because he hadn't reached out to them in years either.

"Why…?" Nagato muttered weakly as he started rocking back and forth in his specially-made chair. If he could be in the fetal position, he would so be doing that right about now. "I can't… he wasn't there, Konan… And all this time… just nothing… he hasn't checked up on us at all."

Konan sighed breezily before yanking the chair-thing along with her. She was hell-a strong when she wanted to be.

"Then let's go ask him… I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation."

Nagato adopted a thousand-yard stare as he was forced along for the ride. He hadn't had to leave the tower in ages – oh, sure, he'd been planning to do so to go and fetch the Six-Tails himself, but then Konan had used logic, and now he was utterly terrified. If he absolutely had to face Sensei, he wanted to do it through one of his Paths; at least that way he'd feel safe. Though that did kind of speak volumes of how perverse he had become, if he felt 'safer' talking to his Sensei through a corpse.

For once he felt as weak as he physically looked, and that was saying something.

Well, it'd gone about as well as one would expect. They'd caught up with Jiraiya just as he was en route to the tower, and boy was he surprised to see the pair of them. As the rain was still coming down on them, the three had agreed to take their chat to a nice restaurant that was cleared out by the manager just for them.

It went downhill from there, really. Nagato put his foot in his mouth again and started the shouting match between himself and his Sensei, demanding to know why Jiraiya had abandoned them. Jiraiya, of course, did not let that slide, and shouted back that he had heard tale of their deaths at the hands of Hanzo. What was he supposed to do after hearing that news? Even if he'd dropped everything again, Hanzo had stepped up border patrols, and it would have been hell of a lot harder to get in there and confirm the rumors. Nagato was poleaxed at this bit of information, but obviously that wasn't enough for the redhead. He just had to call Jiraiya a filthy liar because he was such a 'spymaster'. Jiraiya of course loudly defended himself, and the discussion nearly devolved from there.

At that point Konan stepped in, forcing the grown men into silence by slapping layers of paper over their mouths. She gave each of them a pointed look before explaining the rules. No one got to talk unless it was a civil discussion, and the paper would be staying on until it was their turn to talk. Konan, of course, was exempt from that particular rule, because she was the mediator.

Essentially, on further prying, they deduced that Jiraiya's toad had seen the wrecked cabin they'd once shared, and had assumed the worst when their bodies weren't present and when it had spotted gear that Hanzo's men used. Akatsuki had never returned there after it was invaded, and really, Hanzo wasn't notorious for his boundless mercy.

So Jiraiya could be forgiven that much, as far as Konan was concerned. Nagato was still surly about the 'great' Jiraiya making such a mistake… But Konan subsequently revealing every last detail of their exploits after Yahiko's death… That got him to change his tune.

Oh, Jiraiya-sensei was pissed. Nagato had taken all of his teachings, thrown them on the ground, and trampled on them. And Nagato couldn't even walk. But then he'd gone and one something that Konan and Nagato never thought he would do… Well, okay. Konan knew, because she's cool like that, but she humored Jiraiya-sensei and appeared shocked.

Jiraiya forgave them.

When asked why he would forgive two S-Ranked criminals, his official response was that he'd lost so much in his life and failed so many people that he didn't want to kill two of his remaining students. Unofficially, and this is completely off the record, but Jiraiya also sheepishly admitted how Tsunade would bend him into a pretzel for killing off the kids she barely even knew but had still found charming.

They weren't on the level of, say, Naruto, but Tsunade had just been distraught and depressed when Jiraiya told her of their 'passing'. Wouldn't she be surprised to find out who was coming home for dinner?

… In a few days. Because travelling would be that much longer with Nagato's chair tromping down the roads. It'd also bring lots and lots of inquisitive stares…

"The eye transplants were a success, and you got fully functioning legs now." Tsunade beamed down at the abashed redhead.

Jiraiya-sensei had relayed all of the information of their misdeeds to Tsunade, and the busty blonde had chalked it up to the Rinnegan screwing with Nagato's head. She planned to medically examine them to confirm this hypothesis, but if Nagato's much calmer demeanor was any indication, her educated guess was mostly likely correct.

At this revelation, Konan had twitched and demanded that Nagato get an eye surgery to have his eyes replaced. Kami knew she wasn't going to let him go back and run Akatsuki. Madara would just have to find some other gullible pawns.

The surgery did have the downside of Nagato losing a lot of his 'power', though. Not only had he been confined to that chair for so long that he was physically emaciated, but too many of his ninja skills were chalked up to the Rinnegan. They might as well have crippled him, but Konan still didn't care. As far as she was concerned, the risks were still too great. For once in decades, Nagato was listening to the voices of reason, and Kami help anyone who tried to mind-fuck him ever again.

Besides, it wasn't as if he couldn't get back into shape. They could return to the Hidden Rain and run it after he'd gone through enough training to make himself worthy of being a village leader. The least Nagato could do for the Hidden Leaf was supply it with information on the remaining members of Akatsuki. There were three Tailed Beasts left, and now that she and Nagato had broken off from the group, finally, all Akatsuki fittingly had left was three members. One of which wasn't even a fighter.

They were so screwed.

"Um… Not that I'm ungrateful, Lady Tsunade…" Nagato meekly spoke up. "But did you have to do the leg surgery without anesthetics? The pain made me black out a few times."

"Don't be silly, Nagato. I told you that hospital supplies are very expensive. There were patients who were in far more need of it than you. Like the old lady who had fallen down and got a nasty bruise. The little boy who got a papercut."

Nagato wasn't an idiot… well, not anymore… But he could tell when Lady Tsunade was being vindictive. And he couldn't blame her, really. He'd been targeting a boy who was arguably family to her, and had been on the verge of killing her longtime teammate and friend.

Thank Kami Konan opened his eyes in the nick of time. Did she have to look as gleeful as Lady Tsunade, though? Did his pain instill pleasure in them?

… On second thought, he didn't want to know. At least now Jiraiya-sensei would be teaching them again… Jiraiya would be getting him back up to speed, and he would be teaching Konan how to use, oh what did he call it… Sage Chakra? Why did that fill him with inexplicable dread?

Tobi wasn't sure what gave it away, but somehow he knew he was screwed. It could've been the fact that Konan had somehow punched his mask to smithereens. It could've been the fact that he had tried to invade the Hidden Leaf to recover Madara's Rinnegan with only Kisame, Zetsu, and Sasuke and his band of followers as his backup. It could have been how each of his followers had been systematically taken down. Or it could've been how pissed the infamous Copy Nin had looked when he realized just who 'Tobi' really was.

Choices, choices. Whatever the case, Tobi now knew he had made a Bad Boy boo-boo error somewhere along the line, and now Akatsuki was being eliminated. Just three Tailed Beasts away from reforming the Ten-Tails… but they had still failed.

Author's Note: Not so much centered on the 'Anti-Quirks' character this time, moreso the 'effects' of putting her foot down, but this was fun. I tried making it as different from Sakura shaping up, but it was still kinda similar. Ah well. Hope you guys enjoyed!

Black' Victor Cachat, this was for you! XD