A/N: I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! And for today, Feliz Dia de los Muertos! May the spirits near you be friendly.

Yesterday was my second consecutive Halloween dressed as an Akatsuki member, and my first Halloween ever repeating a costume. It went well!

Now, on to a different holiday spirit.

.

Hidan

Eventually, Hidan started to sneeze, and that was when he knew it was time to get out of the leaf pile. He sniffled and wondered if any part of him was dry enough to wipe his nose on as he crawled out and shook himself off.

"Are you done?" asked Konan.

"Yeah. Sad." He looked mournfully at the leaves. "That was a nice present, but I can't enjoy it anymore. Literally can't. Nose doesn't like it."

Konan brushed the feather over his cheek, and he relaxed. "This is a trick," she said. "A very obvious one, too, like the tricks he played on us when we first visited the hospital. At least these ones involve no harm."

Hidan shrugged. "Those didn't either, at least not to him. I don't think he understands fear, and he doesn't give a shit about people having to regrow bones. I thought that was just a demon thing, but he does know a kid who can probably do that really easy." Hidan looked off into space, rubbing his chin. "Yeah, that makes a shit ton of sense. So he's not a sadist, really."

Konan filed the increasingly large amount of entities that could cause harm without intending to away in her mind to wonder about later. "Don't you have tricks of your own to plan?"

Oh shit, Dei! Hidan's eyes widened. "Fuck! Hope he hasn't been waiting too long."

They hurried to the lake, where they found Deidara petting Clay. "Who's a good owl, yeah?" he asked. "You are, yeah!"

"Aww," Hidan said. "Did he do something nice?"

Deidara stood up in a hurry. "Uh, um, yeah." He looked at the ground where Stitchy was sitting. "He found Stitchy."

Konan tilted her head. "The owl is under your direct control."

Hidan grinned, his mind racing off several steps ahead of hers. "Demon kid, huh? Yeah, he's good at the tricks." Deidara nodded while thanking his lucky stars that Hidan was not one to tease him, even gently, about treating his clay creations like real animals. Konan understood them as extensions of himself, and he was beyond the need for comfort objects now. It would be embarrassing to be caught by anyone else.

Hidan's smirk suddenly dropped. Oh shit. If the demon kid's already tricking everyone, what are we supposed to do? Quick, what was I thinking of before the leaves dropped? He had no idea.

Deidara blinked and said something very similar aloud. "It was already hard enough for me to need help before! He's ruining it, yeah!"

"Okay, okay, hold on. We gotta plan carefully now." Hidan took hold of Deidara's sleeve and lowered them both to the ground. "Gotta put our heads together and brainstorm shit. Okay. What is he doing?"

"What can he use his powers to do, hm?" Deidara asked.

Konan sat down next to them. "Almost anything, especially with the snake boy's help."

"Fuck. He better not have stolen all the good tricks," Hidan grumbled as he fished out his phone. "Fuck! If I ask, everyone will know we're planning something. But if I don't, we don't know what he's doing. What do I do?"

"Give it to me. I can feign ignorance," Konan suggested. Hidan handed his phone to her gratefully. Thank the stars! We're saved! Konan said truthfully that she and Hidan had been tricked by the demon boy, then claimed Hidan was still having too much fun in the leaves to answer her, so what was going on? Hidan took his phone back as soon as she was done and eagerly awaited the news.

He watched it come in. Oooh. Nice. Ha! Awesome! I should get that kid a bone. What emoji does this warrant? Aww… "Alright," he said while putting his phone away. "So what we got?"

Deidara glared. "Fine. I guess it's better to hear the stories firsthand anyway," he grumbled. "Well, on my end, hm, I was thinking something with explosions or animals. But I don't know how to make really small not-dangerous things yet, and I don't have any reason to make animals since I don't have anything to blow up, hm."

Hidan glanced up at Clay. "Nothing big you can keep, like him?"

"He's enough, yeah."

Explosions, clay, flying. He's right! We should do something only we can do. "Can you use his flying for anything? Like swooping and dropping things on people, or…"

Deidara shook his head. "I don't know. That doesn't sound right. This whole past week's just ruined April Fool's Day, yeah. I can't surprise anyone anymore. I don't even know if I want to."

Hidan bristled. "Hey! You do not talk like that. Nobody gets to, but especially you don't." He crossed his arms. "Fine, so you're out. Maybe I could do scythe stuff?" He looked over his shoulder.

Deidara and Konan looked at it and thought the same thing. "What can it do, hm?" Deidara asked. "Does it do anything else, like it did when we fought?"

"If it can use chakra, it can use jutsu," Konan declared. "It may have special jutsu of its own that would be useful."

Hidan blinked at the both of them. "What the fuck are you two talking about?" Since when does slicing make a good trick? That's just weird.

"We don't know anything about what it does, yeah!" Deidara exclaimed. "It could, like, light up or something. Make noises. Transform into some kind of thing that would scare the wits out of people. I don't know."

Hidan scratched his head. "Pretty sure if we started asking people to test it and make it do things, that would also be a tip off. We can't do that."

Konan sighed. "True. It did not do anything until there was a strong reason to. We would need further testing."

"Dammit. If my clay's out, and so is your thing, what can we do?" Deidara asked.

Hidan growled. We need something impressive. Something cool. Something fun, not overwhelming. Something everyone can see and be impressed by. Something we can do in a really short amount of time. Something like… He waited, hoping for a word or image to float up to his mind to finish that sentence. But nothing came.

"What about a mountain?"

Deidara and Hidan stared at Konan, who had spoken so naturally and easily, as if a mountain was such an obvious idea. She smiled inwardly at the looks on their faces. "I can use my paper to transform the base into a mountain. It wouldn't be hard - the most difficult part would be collecting enough dust to stain it all gray, and doing so before anyone came along to see it."

Hidan's eyes moved off her face into space. Gargoyles. Dragons. Something cool. His thoughts petered out quickly. He groaned. "Aw, shit. All I thought of was gargoyles. I need more than that for inspiration."

Deidara's brow wrinkled. "It wouldn't really do anything, yeah. Where's the fun in just making a place look like a mountain? What does it do? It's not really fun, yeah."

Konan realized that she and Hidan were the only ones who used that crack in the corner of the roof, and she had only had thoughts of being on a mountain while she was up there. Therefore, nobody else would have any interesting resonance with their own thoughts about the place. "I see. Never mind."

Light. Hidan's mind returned to that subject. Light. We could use that, if only I knew how. How?

Dei fiddled with his ponytail. "But that's a good idea. We could do something with the building, make it look different, yeah. But what would be cool-looking?"

"It is a shame nobody here has a talent for genjutsu," Konan said. "Except for Itachi, of course, but I don't imagine you will tell him."

Light. Bright. Glowy. A path of light…

Deidara sighed heavily. "Maybe we could just leave something on everybody's beds…?" He was losing hope again.

"Lead them off," Hidan whispered. "A path of light...leading...where?" To come here, along the road, there are houses. And in the houses, no, no, before the houses… Past the houses… Yeah, past the houses is a fork. Where does it lead?

Konan was about to suggest another idea of hers, but stopped when she heard Hidan whisper. He was staring past her into the trees, looking around as if he could see some other scene. His head turned as he looked a little to the right of where he been looking before, still whispering inaudibly. She looked closely at his eyes, but saw no hint of purple. What could he be thinking?

Deidara wanted to lean closer to hear, but found Hidan too creepy to lean toward. He remembered how Hidan had spoken in such a monotone. It had been unnatural. Something in it had sounded so lacking in vitality, so alien and remote, and that was nothing like how Hidan usually was. Nagato had called it sleepwalking, but Deidara knew that nothing so normal could do that to a person. It was as if they had been talking to someone else, a stranger they had never met before that night. Deidara had seen strangers like that. It was horrible, and a sign that something was badly wrong. The bad wrongness of it had this way of paralyzing Deidara, though he knew that if he was right, he needed to do something quickly. But he couldn't do anything at all. The only thing he could do was sit and watch and start praying. To whom, he could not say.

Konan was starting to get uncomfortable herself, when Hidan finally blinked and his eyes focused. "That's it! I know what we have to do," he declared. "Now I just need to figure out how to do it. Anyone know how to make light?"

Kakuzu

"Stay down," he growled.

"Mraa," squeaked his disobedient passenger as she wriggled out of her seatbelt. It wasn't hard, as the seatbelt was much larger than her.

Kakuzu growled. Yes, I get the damn symbolism. Now get this kitten away from me. I swear, if she doesn't go the second I stop this truck, I will leave her at the side of the road. I am not a shelter!

"Mraa!" She fell off the edge of the seat, into the footwell. She wriggled to her feet, swayed until she adjusted to the motion of the truck, then started exploring. No doubt this area was full of interesting smells. "Mraa."

Kakuzu lost his patience at the sight of the fork in the road. On a whim, he kept going, heading west instead of north. North was where Hidan was, and where Kakuzu had been planning to foist the kitten off onto him, but Kakuzu was suddenly unable to make it that far. If whoever sent this kitten to follow me saw this coming, then they must approve. And if they didn't see it coming, they shouldn't have made such a stupid decision. Kakuzu preemptively hardened the skin around his neck.

He turned and drove straight up into the heart of what he now knew to be vampire country. They were technically people. Best of all, they were people he didn't have to associate with on any kind of basis, so he would never have to see this goddamned kitten ever again. "Mraa?" she asked, as if she knew what he was thinking. Kakuzu growled.

He slammed on the brakes harder than was advised, coming to a hard stop in the same intersection Nagato and Yahiko had met the vampire leader in and sending the kitten tumbling onto her side. She whined in a high pitch that enraged Kakuzu instead of eliciting pity, as it might have done if he had been calmer. He snarled, came very close to snapping the steering wheel with the force of his grip, and probably damaged something as he threw the door open too forcefully. He went around to the other side of the truck before the kitten could finish another pathetic mewl, opened the door, picked her up, and shoved her into the doorway of an abandoned something-or-other he-didn't-care-which. He then raced back, slammed both doors shut, and accelerated faster than was advisable. His tires left marks on the pavement.

"Mraa!" the kitten squeaked, and tried to run after him. She was fast, but he was determined, and she lost sight of him quickly. "Mraa?"

The kitten turned and sniffed this way and that, making her way around the area, mewling curiously. She was sniffing at a pile of used bedding in the growing darkness when a voice spoke from nowhere. She turned and ran toward the voice, because voices meant people and people meant food. "Mraa," she greeted.

The voice took solid form and picked her up. It felt like a person. The kitten sniffed. It did not smell like a person though. She sniffed again, and tried to lick the hand that was holding her. It must be very interesting.

"If you insist," the voice said. "Though I do think Mraa is a very silly name."

Nagato

Nagato did not realize there was any trickery going on until he received Konan's message. Of course a half-minute of circus music had been strange, but he didn't make the mental connection between that and April Fool's Day until he saw the message, just as he was leaving the shelter. He stopped walking to answer, causing the woman at the front to cluck disapprovingly at him. He flushed, remembering where he was, and put his phone back in his pocket. It would have to wait until the parking lot.

"Sorry," he apologized. "I receive very urgent messages sometimes, though. I have to check."

The woman, who he knew the name of but privately referred to as Marsha (because it was a good name for the kind of dog he could imagine her being), shrugged. "Just don't let me catch you answering. If it's that important, you can take it out to the parking lot. No phones inside."

Nagato nodded, still flushed. "I know, I just...forgot. It's new."

She frowned. She had definitely seen him with his phone before, and not just recently. "What's new?"

"The urgency." Nagato wondered how much was appropriate to say. She doesn't really need to know any of the gory details. I shouldn't say too much. "You know the woman with the blue hair that came in yesterday? She's, well, my sister. I haven't seen her for a while, and she only recently showed up here, and the reason for that is...a lot of complicated things happening."

Marsha straightened and softened her face, suddenly looking motherly. "Family troubles? Oh, I'm sorry."

"You could say that," Nagato said. He looked down, unsure how he felt about being mothered like this. The idea always made him uneasy. I miss Mom. "This message wasn't like that, though. But the newness of it all still... " He gestured at his head. "I'll try to remember in the future."

Marsha clapped him on the back. "Tell that girl I wouldn't object to seeing her again, will you? She's a good girl. I can't believe I didn't see the resemblance. You two are so sensible!"

Nagato chuckled. "I guess so." We do kind of think about things in similar ways. Not as similar as me and Yahiko, but enough that she could talk easily with both of us that one time. Maybe it's a side effect of being ninjas taught by the same person.

He raised his hand. "Anyway, have a good day. I need to help a friend with something. Can you visit Golden for me? She's been nervous ever since yesterday. I'm afraid I accidentally started talking about complicated things when Konan was there, and Golden saw it in my body language, and now…"

The woman nodded. "Of course. I'll have her back to her usual begging-for-more-food self in no time."

Nagato nodded. If anyone could, it was this person. Or maybe Yahiko. He really needed to drag Yahiko in here sometime. Curse our matching work hours!

Once in the parking lot, he told everyone about the circus music, then sat on the hood of his car and stared at what everyone else had gone through. Woah. Sasori and I got the lightest treatment. But it also sounds like the least fun. Kisame and Itachi sound like they're having a lot more fun. Can I make it over in time to see Samehada? Aw, man, I can't. Nagato groaned. If anybody's listening, please send me a fun trick to participate in.

He got no answer, but if there were any powers that be, they wouldn't need to answer. They'd just do it. And if said powers really were everywhere and all-knowing, it wouldn't matter too much what he did or not. Then again, fortune favors the bold. There might be cool things, but they aren't going to make an effort to get me to see them. Nagato bit his lip. Should he go looking, or not?

In more concrete terms: should I pick up Yahiko and head straight back like normal, or circle around town? In town, there are a lot of people. All NPCs, though. Back home, there are… Wait, I've got everything reversed! I live where all the weird things are! Nagato slapped himself on the forehead. Going straight back is looking for weird things. I have no choice to make here. So he got in the car and left, his mind solidly made up.

Yahiko saw Nagato's fingers tapping against the steering wheel as he put his book down and got in. While he buckled his seatbelt, he asked, "Is something happening?"

"Everybody else is having fun that I'm not," Nagato told him. "But the day's not over yet, and I know where we can go to get some more fun."

Yahiko started to smile. "All that happened to me today was a bunch of words and pictures looking at me. I could use some fun. What are you thinking of?"

"I'm not thinking of anything myself," Nagato replied. "But knowing where we live now and who we live with, we'll find plenty."

Yahiko giggled in anticipation, and filled his ride with imagination. Would they stumble into some ridiculous situation contrived to give them good things? He forced his mouth to remain happy-looking as he remembered what the demon boy had put him through, locking him in that room full of watching, staring eyes. Even so, that had also been contrived to give him good things. He had won a medal for bravery, and that red blanket that Sasori liked. That room had been crazy; upside-down, filled with things he couldn't name or even describe, twisted somehow, and yet he'd come out of it with a prize and some interesting memories. The more Yahiko thought about it, the more he was sure that a situation of that sort must be what awaited them.

An unusual feeling startled him out of his memories. Yahiko looked around, not knowing what had startled him at first. Then he realized, "Why are we slowing down?"

"Look," Nagato whispered.

A brilliant glowing spot lit up the road in front of them. It wavered slowly back and forth, as if inviting them. Yahiko saw that it stayed at the same distance, even though they were still moving. "Nagato, it's moving! Follow it!"

The car accelerated, and they drove up the road through the suburbs, following the glowing spot of light. It wavered more as they moved faster, and its distance from the car varied slightly, but it was remarkably steady. They both noticed these subtle clues, but shoved them out of awareness. It would spoil the fun if they figured out too much.

At the last of the houses, where they would normally turn left onto the bumpy road leading to the dilapidated hotel, the light drifted right. Nagato grinned. "This is what I was talking about!" He joyfully pulled the steering wheel to the right. Yes! Woohoo!

"I have no idea what's up here," Yahiko said as they pursued the light. "What's north of town?"

"The forest," Nagato answered. "There could be something in the forest it's leading us to."

"Woah…" Yahiko was sure now. It must be a journey or adventure of some kind that they were being led on. It couldn't be anything else.

A stand of sunflowers growing entirely out of place greeted them at the official entrance to the forest. Yahiko looked up at the fully-leafed trees and down at the ground devoid of rotting leaf cover. Nagato drove right in. As soon as he began his turn, the light disappeared.

"It's gone," Yahiko said sadly.

"This is a path," Nagato murmured. "It might only lead to one place."

They drove slowly along the forest path, with Nagato keeping an eye on the packed dirt road ahead for animals and Yahiko scanning the plant life around them. "I guess it was just the sunflowers," he reported. "I don't see anything else around." The plant life was ordinary and covered in half-disintegrated leaves. Yahiko was not sad though, because it looked beautiful. Something about the grown sunflowers and the bare ground had seemed lacking, as if the fun part of the journey had been skipped over to bring them right to the end. Yahiko felt himself in the middle of something as the car ambled past a broken branch.

"Maybe that's his power," Nagato thought aloud. "I can see healing and growing going together, but rotting doesn't seem to match. Rotting, healing, and growing are all things that will happen eventually, though. He just speeds it up. Maybe his power is really just speeding up the activities of living things."

Yahiko bit his lip. "Does that mean that if he used his power on someone with a wound that would kill them, they'd die instead of heal?"

"I hope not." Nagato looked more closely at the road ahead, disturbed by this thought. "No, it can't. Burns don't heal back to normal; they leave scars. Hidan's legs looked unmarked like they'd never been burned." He sighed. Whew, that's a relief. It means we can ask him for help with very bad wounds, the exact sort of wounds we would need his help for in the first place.

Yahiko relaxed too. "That's good. I wonder how he decides; if it really does speed everything up, and you had a wound with bacteria in it that would give an infection if you left the wound like that, and his power doesn't give you an infection, even for a little while as the healing passes, then how did he choose? He must have not sped up the bacteria."

"It's just an idea," Nagato said. "That's a good point you bring up. I would need to know more before I could say anything for sure."

They both looked around for more evidence to revise their theory with as they drove. This is why neither of them noticed the gradual turn, or the campsite, until Yahiko's view was interrupted by a building. "Hey, I think we're here." Nagato braked suddenly, throwing them both forward in their seats.

They got out slowly, stopping to refresh their minds and take in the human-made buildings that stood around them. The campsite consisted of several cabins, all of them very large and resembling full-sized houses that just happened to be made of wood. The buildings had thick roofs and large porches. One building stood out for not having any such porches; Yahiko guessed from what little he knew of camps that this might be where the showers were. Considering the size of the cabins, he doubted such a building was needed, though it was theoretically possible the cabins had extra rooms for people to sleep in instead of showers.

Nagato turned back to the car and peered down the path. "Did we pass any forks in the path?"

"I wasn't paying attention," Yahiko admitted.

"Neither was I. I'm just wondering if this is really the only place that path led to. It doesn't look like an official site, where you would find supplies and maps of trails or anything else a visitor to a forest would like to know. This looks more private." Nagato looked around for signs of people. I hope we're not intruding.

Yahiko had the same thought. "We should move the car. We stopped right in the middle of the road." He went to do so while Nagato looked for people.

A low, deep sound stopped Nagato in his tracks. From underneath one of the porches came a large black dog, one of the largest he had ever seen. Its mass was not fat. Its legs were long and muscular and he had no doubt it could run just as easily as a normal wolf, probably faster. To his eyes, it looked as tall as he was. And it was looking right at him with tail raised confidently, snarling. The blood drained from Nagato's face. We are intruding. I was right. We should leave. But - Yahiko - His adrenaline spiked at the thought of Yahiko being pinned beneath this beast.

Just then, the beast stopped snarling. At least Nagato thought it did; he couldn't be sure his ears were really hearing that low sound stopping. He didn't believe it until he saw the beast's ears relax and its lips lower. It still stared at him alertly, but no longer looked ready to attack. Nagato gathered his courage and glanced directly at its eyes, and realized it was actually looking past him.

Yahiko walked by him, approaching the beast. He approached slowly, with his hands up, and stopped several feet from it, not far from Nagato. "Hi!" he greeted it. "Um, it's nice to meet you."

The giant wolf moved one ear. Yahiko smiled at it and held out a hand. "My name's Yahiko. Um… What's yours?"

The wolf did not move, but did sniff the air. It could probably smell Yahiko from where it was. Nagato swallowed and whispered, "What are you doing?"

"Trying to be nice," Yahiko answered. "Somebody said something a while ago about me using my Disney Prince powers to charm a big dog. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw this one." He shrugged and laughed nervously. "I don't know why it was the first thing."

Nagato stared at him. What kind of person is he that the first thing he thought of wasn't danger, or running away, but trying to make friends with it? What if it didn't work? He shouldn't - Nagato realized his mouth was about to say something angry-sounding. He clamped it shut and wondered about his own reaction. Well, it obviously is working, so there's no need to yell at him. But why was I angry just now? I didn't like his first instinct. I didn't want him to go up against this thing. Yahiko had gone up against a monster before, one that refused to be charmed. Nagato remembered the succubus taking the most dangerous form it could and clawing at him, ripping open his cheek. The demon's powers had addled him, so he hadn't seen the battle clearly, but he could remember a vague blur of combat and the tears in Yahiko's clothes and skin afterward. He was pretty sure that Yahiko had fought it willingly. I'm thinking like Konan did. She forced him away from the demon.

Nagato shook his head. But I shouldn't. It's good to want to protect him, but I shouldn't protect him so viciously, like she does, or get him to doubt his instincts. I don't want him to doubt himself. If I'm afraid for him, then I should handle my fears myself. If I can face Hidan, I can face this thing. I'm supposed to have all this power, so I should be able to use it. Nagato's face burned because this was the first time since hearing the beast that he had thought of his powers at all. He might have used them reflexively if it had attacked, but he was ashamed that he hadn't thought of using them to defend Yahiko. I'm sorry. I'll be braver. I won't be afraid. He turned to face the beast.

The giant wolf was still sniffing the air. Yahiko had gotten over his feelings of silliness and was talking to it. "Yeah, um, we were led here by somebody. Are there any people? I think we're supposed to meet someone here?" He approached, taking two steps and then stopping for the canine to sniff the air again.

Its tail began to wave, and its ears twitched more. Nagato let out a breath he just then realized he'd been holding. It's working! Yahiko really can charm dangerous animals! He smiled as the wolf took its own cautious steps towards Yahiko. It no longer seemed as tall as himself; that must have been an exaggeration brought on by fear. But it was still very large as canines went.

Very quiet footsteps coming from the outer parts of the campsite went ignored by them both until the owner of the feet spoke. "Who are you two?" Nagato and Yahiko turned to see a confused young man with short black hair staring at them. He held a knife.

.

A/N: I have no idea what I am doing here. Usually I have a kind of vague something, at least. Writing this now feels like that time I rode a scooter down a steep hill that made me go very fast, where I had to focus very much and balance until it ended. Come on, guys... What are you going to do?

Extra hour! Whoo!

Increased art responsibilities. Less whoo.