Hey, all. This one's a little shorter but I'm pleased with how it came out.

Please, enjoy.

There wasn't a soul alive that could tell Konan, the second-in-command of the Akatsuki, that life was fair.

For her, specifically, she started life in a country torn asunder by war. The Land of Rain was situated dead center between the other warring nations. It wasn't as grand or rich in resources and manpower as the countries that surrounded them, and as such they couldn't do much to resist it when those same countries decided to use their lands as the battleground for their wars.

Konan's mother, specifically, grew up in the heat of one of those wars. She spent her pregnancy learning how to dodge jutsu that could encompass an entire field. Konan herself grew up on rations and tree bark. She had an odd talent in catching enough rainwater in her mouth to sate her thirst.

Then, as if a legend, Hanzo the Salamander came through and changed all of that. He came to prominence in her mother's time and booted all of those other warring nations out of their land by himself. The other nations still wanted for war, of course, but none of them were brave enough to venture into the Rain to wage it. They could crush the small country if they really wanted to, but they would have to dedicate so much manpower that they wouldn't be able to survive the war with their original opponents.

Rain had garnered themselves a hero. Her mother had wept when she was presented with the idea of a peaceful life.

Then, of course, it turned out that a man as power-hungry as Hanzo the Salamander was every bit a dictator, and the people of Rain realized that they had traded one life of control and strife for another.

Hanzo implemented awful practices that saw their best and brightest become either soldiers or factory workers. A new war effort had descended on the people. One where their every possible hour was dedicated to protecting themselves. The only problem was that there was no more war. The last Great War had ended and peace treaties had been signed. They had no reason to be throwing away their lives in either factories or hellish training grounds.

Nagato and Yahiko's parents had died to them respectively. Neither of them ever really had the will to talk about it.

Then the Sannin, three ninja from the hated Konoha, came to visit. They had previously made a name for themselves fighting, and losing, to Hanzo. Of course, ninjas were tenacious creatures who very rarely let something as inane as defeat temper their actions. One of them, Jiraiya, stayed behind to teach them. It was his teachings that allowed the three of them to found Akatsuki and overthrow Hanzo, placing them as the new leaders of the home that they didn't expect to love.

For a while, things were starting to look up. Life didn't seem so tedious anymore. To exist wasn't to suffer.

Of course, there were no ups without downs. Life had a way of reintroducing turmoil into your day-to-day. Konan just never thought it would be something like this.

"Nagato. Eat your vegetables."

There was no official leader between the two of them. Not when Akatsuki was simply a paramilitary group of Rain orphans who had enough of being oppressed. The three of them—Nagato, Konan and Yahiko—lead the revolutionaries as a group of three, making decisions as a single unit. When Yahiko died and Akatsuki became a terrorist group, the only way to keep control over the insanely powerful psychopaths was through a show of power, something that only Nagato possessed. He became the leader of Akatsuki, while Konan had become something of a secretary. A secretary with power, mind you, but a secretary nonetheless. They still made decisions as a team, but her inputs were far more implied than enforced. It was an indignity, but one they decided to endure in order to keep the reigns.

Of course, there were far more indignities than that.

"Nagato, I'm not going to tell you again," Konan said, exasperation already showing through her voice. "You need a balanced-diet if you want to keep your health up, and you need to keep your health up if you want to keep generating enough chakra to use your Paths. So eat up."

She brought the plate holding his food closer. He had long since finished the fish, but almost everything else on the plate had been left conspicuously bare. She had seen him pick the food around, trying to make it seem as if he'd eaten some, but Konan was already used to the once quiet boy's antics.

"Couldn't you put it in a stew?" he asked. "I like vegetables better in stew."

"No," Konan said. Years of practicing being cold and emotionless had allowed her to keep her cool. It wasn't an act at first, honestly, simply a coping mechanism so that she wouldn't show fear in front of the bloodthirsty killers she now called her contemporaries. But after doing it so long it had become a part of her. "We don't have the ingredients to make it the way you like, and if we make it into a stew without it, you complain that the broth just tastes like watery vegetables." She sighed, then blew the hair out of her eyes. "So you're going to be a big terrorist and force down your vegetables. Come on, it'll only take a moment."

She speared one of the potatoes on a chopstick and held it to his lips. He was looking so frail these days, mostly because of the strain that the Rinnegan was putting on his health. Most of the energy was going into using the Six Paths, and not into building his body back up. His ribs showed through his chest and his face was gaunt and sunken.

If he ate more, Konan was sure that he would bulk up even a little. Of course, she knew that he wouldn't.

The plate, along with everything on it, went flying to the other side of the room. It was much like the way a child might knock his plate off the seat when he was tired of eating. For the child, this was an annoying, if tolerable trait.

For Nagato, it was an exercise in self-preservation. Shinra Tensei was meant to repel enemies that would cause him harm, and protect his loved ones. It was not meant to avoid eating your vegetables.

"Damn it, Nagato," Konan all but shouted. Of course, this was barely above her normal speaking voice, but she was sure that Nagato knew her well enough to tell the difference and feel her ire. "Stop being a child."

"You stop being a child!" he responded, maturely. "Why are you trying to make me do something that I don't want to do!"

"Because it is good for you!"

"So is fish!"

"Eat your damn vegetables!"

"You can't make me!"

Unfortunately for her, he was right. Nagato, crippled as he was, was still one of the strongest ninjas in the village, if not the entire world. She couldn't make him eat his food any more than she could beat him in a fight, and they both knew it.

But, of course, she didn't have to beat him in a fight.

"Are you sure you're not going to eat your food?" she asked, a frown marring her normally impassive blue lips. She held out a hand, and a loyal paper crane carried the plate Nagato had blasted away back to her hand. "And there's nothing I could say to convince you?"

Nagato, having heard this tone before, looked suddenly cautious. "Yes," he said, though he hesitated.

"Fine," Konan said. "Then you leave me no choice."

Konan couldn't get any attacks through to him on account of his almighty defense, and even if she took in the time between the cooldowns, he had other ways of defending himself in the interim. She would need to bring out some pretty strong attacks in order to get anything through, and she wasn't cruel enough to do that over some potatoes and mushrooms.

But, of course, she didn't have to get attacks through to him.

"Nagato," she ended up saying. "I want you to know that this is going to hurt you far more than it's going to hurt me."

"Wait, isn't it supposed to be the other way arou—"

The same paper crane that brought the plate back zipped up into the air. It stopped vertically, unfolded itself…

Then wait straight down, cutting a thin line into her fingertips.

The cringe that overtook Nagato's face was so prominent that she didn't need a Rinnegan to see it.

"What are you…"

Another paper crane flew over. It zipped up into the air, unfolded itself and…

"Stop!"

… then it went straight down, cutting a thin line into her fingertips. This one crossed over the first papercut, a detail that she was sure Nagato noticed with his excellent eyesight.

"Damn it, Konan!"

"Eat your vegetables," she said evenly. She brandished the rest of her fingers like weapons. "I have a lot more fingers."

"This can't be pleasant for you!" Nagato cried.

"It isn't," she said, truthfully. "But it is something that I'm used to. I got these all the time when I first started folding cranes." She looked at her fingers, noting each of the faded scars from a time long past. They were faint now, barely visible, but the memories they carried were still fresh. "You, however, have no resistance. It is futile to continue."

Nagato, who was always an empathetic child, looked on the verge of tears already. He could barely withstand the onslaught, and Konan was more than ready to continue it as long as she needed to.

"I… I suppose that I could spare a bite or two…" he said sheepishly, eyes not even meeting her own.

Which was as good as any, because her eyes narrowed.

"That's not good enough," she said. "You are going to eat everything."

"Konan, be reasonable…"

Another paper crane flew threw the window. It unfolded itself, then positioned itself above her middle finger this time. Her face was perfectly impassive as she awaited the coming pain.

Nagato's face, however, was a rictus of fear.

"Please, Konan," he nearly whimpered. Konan nearly broke, there. The poor, sweet boy rarely ever let himself show emotion anymore. That the only one he showed was such weakness, and because of her, was devastating. "I don't want to."

Her heart hurt something fierce, but she knew that she couldn't back down. Not here. Not now.

"It's for your own good," she whispered, though mostly to herself. Then she closed her eyes and prepared for the cut.

Nagato's scream was heard throughout the tower.

XxX

Several hours and a severely bandaged hand later, and Nagato's plate was finally clean. The poor boy was paler than usual as he sulked in his chair.

"I hope you know that I love you," she said. She continued wrapping the bandages around her hand. It stung something fierce, but she was already used to the pain. The extra wrapping was so Nagato wouldn't have to see even a hint of the blood stain. He so hated the idea of paper cuts. "You needed to eat the vegetables."

Since he was sulking, Nagato didn't bother to turn to address her. He continued staring at the wall away from her, his lip pushing out in a pout.

"You'll thank me for this one day," she continued. "When you're strong again."

No answer, though Konan wasn't deterred any. She knew that he heard her, and she contented herself with his compliance.

"I'm going to go wash this now," she said. She picked the plate off the table. "You can get yourself into bed, right?"

That question usually embarrassed him. That he didn't respond meant that he was particularly angry. Konan sighed. That was fair. She did just use one of his icks against him. She would be angry too.

"I'll come in later. Unless you don't want me to?"

No response. That was fine. She turned to the door and moved to let herself out.

"Bring some fruit," he said, just before she closed the door behind her. Konan turned, only to see him staring out the window.

"I will."