A/N: Yayyyyy

I have made friends with a cat, and this chapter contains a spider, and these things are cause for celebration.

If anyone reading this is able to but has not seen The Dragon Prince, please do so. It's a good show. I very highly recommend. It's a lot like Avatar: The Last Airbender in tone and complexity and good stuff like that.

Anywhoos...

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Konan

No further sounds came from the forest. No eerie howls, no sounds of battle, nothing beyond normal night noises. Konan had suspected as much; from Ruta's description, she had surmised that the howl was an emergency measure used to end a fight, not to start or prolong one. But even a complete retreat could be thwarted by an enemy that refused to allow a battle to end, which was why she had established a guard. Hidan and her butterflies had reported nothing so far. If that continued for another half hour, she would judge the situation to be safe and go to bed.

Meanwhile, it was good that Kakuzu had stayed up on the roof with her. Something between them was strained, and that was bad. She needed to be able to count him as an ally. She went to him on the front right corner of the roof, the corner opposite where Hidan sat, and approached from that angle: as an ally. "What have you learned about the symbol?"

Kakuzu folded his arms. "Something I should have already guessed. The symbol's effects are specific to a single person, so there is no shield to put around that thing. I'm the one who needs to carry a shield. I would have to have runes applied on my skin, where they would stay, forever."

"They turn invisible. It would not even have as much impact as a tattoo."

"I know," Kakuzu grumbled. "Doesn't matter. I don't like altering myself permanently."

Konan took a moment to think about what he was saying. There is something horrible about permanence. How many times in the past week have I reassured myself with the knowledge that things change? Permanence gives everything it touches a terrible weight, a weight that is hard for a person to bear. Anything can become weightless, if only it is temporary. She remembered Madara's assurances that mass death and warfare did not matter in the slightest because they would all be undone anyway once he created his perfect world. "I understand. Permanence is a great burden."

Kakuzu looked sideways at her. "What do you know about it?" He could so easily have been dismissing her as a youngling who could not know what she was talking about yet. But she did not hear that in his words. Konan wondered when she had earned the respect of someone like Kakuzu, and whether that was a good thing.

"More than I care to," she answered. "I have experienced permanence, when Yahiko died. I have experienced impermanence, when I was promised that warfare would not matter because it could be undone afterwards. And I have experienced combinations of the two, and many things in between."

Kakuzu looked down at his arm. "Next to that, a permanent tattoo is a ridiculous thing to worry about."

"If it will work, I think you should have such a shield as soon as possible."

Kakuzu nodded. Then he sat silently, looking out over the front of their little abandoned base. The young forest up the road was visible from this height, but the road beyond was not. Or it might have been, but there simply wasn't enough light to see that far. "Why is it so dark in this world?" Konan asked. "Even now when the moonlight is low, there should be starlight. Does this world have fewer stars?"

By Kakuzu's standards, this was a perfectly good collection. What kind of shining celestial displays was she used to? "That's light pollution," he answered. Come to think of it, hadn't he had different standards himself once? "More light now than there used to be. It blocks out the stars."

Konan blinked slowly. "Where is this 'light pollution'? It is not helping me see the road."

"It's in the sky. Light from 50 miles away could be shining up into the sky and bouncing around and mixing with other light, just like a sunset. It isn't down here where it would be useful."

Konan looked up at the starless sky that was not quite black. "What an ugly sunset." Kakuzu shrugged. He'd never been much of a stargazer, but that was true enough.

Before his opportunity was gone, he seized it. "What's stopping you from talking about your world? And don't tell me I don't need to know because it doesn't affect me. That is bullcrap."

Konan had both hoped and feared this conversation would lead back there. "It is...complicated."

"I'm not on my deathbed. I've got time."

She closed her eyes to remember. "I had unfinished business. Nagato and I tried to remake the world. We failed. But there was another man involved, who did not die and did not realize that our plan was mistaken. I failed to stop him. It is true that we failed to finish step one: destroy the current world. But that does not mean the current world is safe, and I will never know, nor can I do anything about it." Her voice wavered, on the edge of breaking over the last sentence. It held. Barely.

Kakuzu gave her silence, which she was grateful for. Then he asked, "How did you die?"

"Failing to stop him, as I have said."

"My condolences."

She did not know what or why, but something compelled her to venture out a little farther. "When I think of this situation, I see a great chain of my own failures. I've been very influential, you see."

Kakuzu snorted. "You say that as if there was an alternative. There wasn't. Unless becoming a ninja involves a complete personality transplant, there was no other option."

Konan opened her eyes. "But I did not understand. I didn't feel the awful weight of permanence. Only now do I understand how severe permanent changes are, how carefully they must be done, after I already put together a chain of lasting mistakes."

"Oh well." Kakuzu was not about to be sympathetic, especially because he understood the regret she hinted at. "It's your life now. Will you hold it, or not? It's that simple."

Konan took a sharp inhale, her version of a wince. "Simplicity is deadly."

"Yes it is." Kakuzu turned away. Simplicity was deadly because there was no way around it. No tricks, no help. You either did or didn't, and in that moment you knew exactly who you were. He couldn't change who she was, so all he said on this matter was, "Whatever. You'll do whatever you will."

Konan nodded. What will I do? Something in her, something with a powerful will that would blaze through anything, answered Everything. Well, if that was the case, if she held infinity in the palm of her hand… Kakuzu had asked her for an infinite thing. "He did not learn from tigers."

Kakuzu's green eyes glinted at her. She kept going. "He may have learned from some kind of cat, but not very much and not for very long. He learned mainly from men."

Kakuzu's eyes widened. "Original Hidan killed the way people kill?"

"Extravagantly, as much as he could, primarily targeting those he felt no kinship with and no desire to treat with respect. Yes."

"And hunted the way people hunt?"

"Yes."

"And related to others the way people relate to each other?"

"Dear gods, yes."

"Fuck." Kakuzu was very appropriately horrified.

"He did have a glint in his eyes and a way of scanning people. He did have this way of approaching," Konan remembered. "He must have learned from a cat at some point."

"You?"

When she did not understand what he meant, Kakuzu elaborated. "You have a look in your eyes too. What kind of cat did you learn from?"

What? Konan couldn't understand the question at first. When she did, she needed a while to answer it. "Domestic, possibly. I am playful sometimes." She did not mean a good kind of playful.

"I'll take that over a swaggering trophy hunter any day." Kakuzu wrinkled his nose in disgust. "No wonder Other Me couldn't stand him."

Konan wanted to defend the man she had known, but couldn't think of a way to do so that would be convincing and natural sounding. So instead she stood up, called her paper butterflies up to the roof, and announced that unless Hidan had anything to report they should all be going to bed. As Hidan was stretching in the backyard, Ruta met them. In between huffing and puffing, he told them what Konan already suspected: the enemy had been willing to allow the retreat and all was well.

But she was surprised to hear that the enemy they had been confronting was the vampires. What effect will that have on our alliance? On our negotiations with the vampires? She politely thanked him and offered to wake Sasori, if he had even fallen asleep yet. Ruta declined. "Nah, I'm tired. Keep it for now." He returned to his own base, leaving his laptop at theirs. Konan could not fathom why he would do such a thing. Does he really assume I will not look through his documents?

General

Sasori was the first one awake, by order of his body clock. He sat up with a groan and considered having a nap later, knowing he would not.

Yahiko dreamed of being on a creaky rowboat too wide for him to use both oars at the same time. The rowboat (or was it a car?) was about to crash into a tree when he woke up. He wondered what such a dream meant. If Nagato had been there, I would have been fine. If anyone had been there. He concluded that it was a dream of loneliness.

Nagato dreamed of being lost and unable to find a guide. He concluded the same thing. He went to find Konan. Yahiko went to find Sasori.

"You still haven't seen the river," Yahiko reminded him.

"Got to admit, the idea of walking on water does a lot to wake me up," Sasori murmured as he got up and put shoes on. Ruta's laptop still sat on his bedside table. Why had he not come back for it? Sasori cleared everything else away from it and aligned it with the sides of the table so it would look nice. They set off toward the lake.

Nagato hovered outside Konan's door. How would he know if she was awake? She didn't seem like the type to bustle, and she was a ninja, so a quiet knock would wake her. If only he had a sensory power like Hidan's. Nagato went to find Hidan instead.

Hidan whimpered in his sleep. Should I wake him or not? Nightmares could be meaningful. Nagato chose not. So now what do I do?

"This thing, sloshing back and forth like it was possessed." Sasori stared at the lake with wide eyes. The early morning walk through nature had him feeling not just awake, but alive. He was all too aware what being alive meant. The idea of a lake feeling this way scared him. "Yeah, no. Show me a body of water that doesn't do that."

Nagato decided to do something incredibly stupid. If he can do it, so can I. He found good reason to question that decision as he stood on solid road that was somehow flaking away and looked down on a lawn that wasn't Astroturf. It looks completely wrong. Against the rules of reality. How can anyone call this home? He swallowed and took a step out of the world as he knew it.

"Wonder what kinds of water spirits are in here." Yahiko tried to see them, to not merely imagine them because he knew they should be there but to genuinely know that they were there.

"Maybe if you reach out with your chakra?" Sasori guessed. Yahiko tried it, lowering a hand into the river's current.

He gasped. "It's...doing something!"

He's a child, he's a child, he's a child. Nagato had thought of some very strange things as a child. He looked at the uniformly green bushes the same way. If he was a child with the power to treat reality like a video game, would he not plant bushes like these? He might've. Okay. It's not a crime against reality. It's just a badly designed version of reality. Flawed, not wrong. He smiled at the irony of calling plants that were too perfect "flawed" because they were too perfect.

Until the bushes rustled, making room for a ghostly arm to examine their branches. Aagh! It's doing something!

Yahiko held still until the water stopped tugging at his hand. He awkwardly said goodbye to the water while taking his hand out. "What?" he asked in reply to Sasori's bewildered stare. "I have soothing chakra. It might have been hurt."

Sasori settled himself. When he was calm, he couldn't help but smile. "You're closer to having the right relationship with spirits than I thought."

Nagato skittered inside, where at least the creak of a floor might alert him to ghostly arms. He listened. There was not a creak to be heard. There was, however, the rustling of pages. The pages continued to rustle for several minutes, and Nagato's fear turned to sadness. What are they looking for? Or who?

He walked up to the desk and stood to the side of where he guessed the ghost was. The pages flipped one after another at a rate that looked very much like the ghost was quickly scanning the rows of dates. Looking for a specific name, maybe? "I'm sorry," Nagato murmured sadly. He walked away, and realized he was no longer afraid. Hey, I'm getting along with the ghosts better than I thought.

"This is amazing," Sasori called out in a monotone as he danced around with a huge grin on his face. The water did not even splash around his feet. Could he see his shadow on the riverbed?

"Yeah!" Yahiko attempted a handstand and fell over. He was no good at handstands on land either. The water hurt much less to land on, he noted. He lay on his chest, arms spread in front of him, laughing.

Nagato was concerned about the stairs. Specifically, the fact that they weren't really stairs anymore. So many steps were missing, and what remained had noticeable gaps through their middles or at the points where they were supposed to attach to the walls or both. These were not usable. Well, they wouldn't have been to a caution-minded adult, anyway. It looked great to his inner child.

Hidan knows himself inside and out. He knows exactly what's there. He knows his inner child. I need to be like him. Nagato applied a bit of effort to make himself laugh as if he was unafraid, and surprised himself with the way the laugh continued by itself. He took a step, hardly thinking of it. The step held! He ran up the steps that were there, leaping over the ones that were not. At every footfall, they held! He danced up the steps, laughing.

Sasori suggested walking upriver just because they could. "It's as flat as a road and so much better!"

Yahiko turned as he walked, spinning in a circle while looking up at the trees that made an arched roof overhead. "Thanks!" he called up to them. This simple action reminded him of the moon moths that he and Nagato had watched on the night that Konan appeared. Nagato…

Nagato felt very confident as he stepped onto the upper landing. If anyone else had been there they would have seen him smiling shyly at the stairs he had just crossed. His had never been a boisterous kind of confidence. It showed mainly in the way he smiled at his surroundings, because that smile showed a belief that his surroundings would not hurt him.

He turned down the right hallway, walking slowly and turning from side to side. The hall was quiet, but he had a feeling of invisible activity around him. Thankfully he did not feel himself to be intruding. Just another guest.

His smile faltered at the same time as his step did. Uh oh. He had encountered something infinitely scarier than a ghost: one of Konan's paper butterflies, hanging in the air. Hers had the decency to flap. Whatever controlled this one couldn't or didn't make it act real, so it hovered through the air like a paper puppet on strings.

Nagato tightened a fist and forced a smile back to his face. You borrowed a butterfly? Fine. Don't bother me, and I won't tell her you're doing such a poor job with it. The smile became real. It was funny to think of tattling on a demon child.

As if in response to his accusation of doing a poor job, the butterfly's wings began to flap. The poor thing still looked like it was being tortured. Its wings might be ripped off any second. Nagato stifled a laugh, and abruptly the butterfly zoomed into his face. One second it was harmless and amusing, and the next it was perched on his nose with its wings spread over his eyes.

This doesn't feel like a feather, and its wings don't look like moonlight shining on water. He remembered the butterfly that had perched on Yahiko's nose so beautifully, like something too delicate and gorgeous to be real, and tears filled his eyes. Yahiko…

Sasori stopped suddenly. Yahiko jumped and came up behind him, hands readying for...something. The people sitting on flat rocks staring at them also had their hands ready for something. Their eyes didn't look quite right, nor their skin.

Yahiko stood up, waved and grinned. "Hi! I'm Yahiko and this is Sasori. We're the neighbors. Same group as Kisame." Who else would bask on rocks but animal people? He wondered what kind of animals they were.

One with green eyes and faint green flecks in his skin looked at Sasori. "Huh."

"What?"

"My name's Satori."

Nagato took the butterfly off his face. He raised it up and tossed it into the air. It hovered through the air and disappeared into a room with an open door. Nagato followed and found a plant with square leaves growing in bright sunlight. How do its veins fit that shape? He bent down to examine it. The door closed behind him.

Not being a fool, he spun around and held out a hand, chakra at the ready. The boy standing there grinned. Nagato lowered his hand. He had seen this boy at the training battle, like everyone else, but otherwise knew nothing about him. "Hello." The boy smiled at him. Nagato found himself smiling back. "What's your name?"

"You guys are Hatakes?" Sasori asked. "In that case, I have a question."

Instead of answering, the boy took Nagato's hand and led him to another room. This other room had a television perched on a table. The boy muttered something under his breath angrily. "What was that?" asked Nagato.

"Unpermitted recordings."

Then Nagato saw what was playing on the screen, and his jaw dropped. It was a forest at night. Their forest. He sat on the edge of the bed and, not quite taking his eyes off the screen, partially turned to the boy.

Satori sat up. If there was a question, he would answer.

"What happened last night?"

Deidara

Deidara was one of the last to wake up, as usual. He guarded his pillow jealously. "Nah, mine. 'S not a zoo exhibit. No, not a cage!" He whimpered and woke up. Stitchy sat on the ground right before his eyes, uncaged and not in danger of being stolen for an exhibition of rare spiders. It was a dream, yeah. Deidara unwrapped his arms from the pillow, relieved for more than one reason.

It had been a surprisingly tame dream. The only person in it who he knew from his real life was the grocery store lady he'd met a week ago who he only vaguely remembered. Well, Kakuzu might have appeared in one part. But Dei hadn't seen any of the people he'd served with, and he hadn't seen anybody burn to death nor anything explode. It had been a bad dream filled with people trying to steal his beloved creations from him. But it had not been a realistic dream, and that made it very tame and ordinary by his standards.

Deidara leaned over the side of the bed and made Stitchy crawl onto his hand, then lay back on the bed holding the little spider close to his heart. He hadn't had any trouble with keeping Stitchy in his room, either. After blowing up the other two spiders with Sasori and rediscovering his appreciation for the power of explosions, he'd wondered if his fears would improve. That same night, he'd covertly kept Stitchy with him, hoping nobody would ask. And then he'd stayed up for a while, restless and fearing what nightmares might come. No nightmares had come, but that didn't prove anything. The lack of nightmares this night as well only started to suggest something. I'll give it another night before I get hopeful, yeah.

He knew he was stretching his luck. A single night of blowing up blunted gears was not the same as a course of therapy. It would be smarter to avoid pushing himself too hard. It still hadn't been a full year since he'd returned from service. If he was crippled by a night of poor sleep again, that might leave him unprepared for something important. Whatever caused the howling could come to them, and then his lack of caution would have let everybody down. Again. Like it had in his short-lived ill-planned military career.

All of these were true, and were reasons to avoid testing himself. But something in Dei's heart told him it was all false truth. Wasn't having fun again what he needed? Wasn't life kind of meaningless if he couldn't have any fun? What was the purpose of caution? Surely it couldn't be to make life less worth living. It would be smarter to avoid pushing himself too hard, but maybe, just maybe, it would be wiser to go for it. Maybe. He was only 22; he wasn't going to claim wisdom just yet. He grinned with pride anyway.

With that spirit in mind, he swung himself up onto his feet. Alright, yeah! I should get out there, do stuff, have fun, yeah! He placed Stitchy on his shoulder and left his room to find out what was happening.

A commotion led him to the basement stairs, where he found Hidan holding a panicking groundhog, Konan gesturing down the stairs, and Kakuzu looking most unhappy. Kakuzu wanted to go up to the roof. Konan argued that the symbol made blood easier to clean. Hidan tried wearing the groundhog as a hat and nearly got an eye scratched out in the process. Deidara's bravado ran and hid itself in a corner. He recognized the look of those papers Kakuzu was holding.

Hidan nearly lost his other eye. Deidara took a deep breath and dove in. "It doesn't want to be a hat, hm."

"I know, but its belly would be so soft," Hidan whined. He held the frightened mammal in his arms where it couldn't scratch him easily. "Where can I get something that would willingly perch on my head?"

"Could you train a cat to do that?" I have no idea what cats can or can't be trained to do, yeah.

Hidan shook his head. "Best I could get a cat to do is sit against my head when I'm lying down. I shall have no warm fuzzy hats." He sighed forlornly and readjusted his grip. The groundhog had nearly escaped.

Kakuzu's grumbling died down to wordless angry sounds. He was defeated. Konan turned to Deidara. "Remain up here. This will only take a moment." She took the groundhog from Hidan and carried it down into the basement, Kakuzu following behind her.

As soon as the door closed, Hidan's shoulders slumped. Dei hadn't noticed they were tense before. "It was terrified," Hidan said. "Part of the reason I wanted a soft hat."

Deidara smiled and placed Stitchy on top of Hidan's head. "There you go! He's not soft or fuzzy, yeah, but he's there."

Hidan gave him a thumbs up. "Thanks!"

"So…" Dive in. "What the hell is happening down there, hm?" Please don't tell me that cute little groundhog is an animal sacrifice for drawing more of those symbols!

Hidan narrowed his eyes. "You already know something."

Deidara fiddled with his ponytail. "Okay, you caught me, yeah. What symbols is that poor thing going to be used to draw?"

"Protection. Kakuzu thinks the big symbol's giving him temper problems, so he wants protection from it." Hidan crossed his arms and stood tall. "Smart move! I'm proud of him. Don't tell him I said a fucking thing."

I thought the way he snapped at Ruta was out of line, yeah. I thought maybe he had a problem. But I didn't say anything because I'm just a kid. Deidara looked up at Hidan. So was he, even more so. He seemed to be physically older than Deidara, but not by much, and the way he acted was so much younger. How did he boss Kakuzu around? Was that a side effect of that prophet thing, or something Deidara could learn?

"How do you do it?" he asked. "Boss around people older than you like it's nothing?"

Hidan slung an arm around his shoulders and leaned in to whisper. "Wanna know a secret?"

"Sure, yeah."

"He's not older than me."

Deidara blinked, then blinked some more, then a little more. That made no sense.

"He's a grown person," Hidan explained, "and so am I. We're in the same category. We have different subcategories 'cause of different skills and experiences and things, but same stage of life here."

"Oh. So, it doesn't matter that he's like decades older than you, because…"

"Because all that does is put him in a different subcategory. Still both adults."

"How?" Deidara asked. "How can you keep thinking of yourself as an adult even around people so much older than you? I'm a kid in comparison to everyone."

Hidan shook him lightly. "If you don't feel grown when you're alone, you're not gonna feel it with anyone else either."

"How do I feel grown?"

"Now you're asking the right questions." Hidan scratched his head. "I dunno. It came naturally when I dealt with shit and felt all accomplished and competent."

Deidara groaned. "That's my problem, yeah. How do I do that? I can't seem to just jump in, go for it, yeah. I… I wish I was more like how I was when I was younger. I could do that before. Now, I'm all hesitant, yeah." It's like a part of me I need went missing. I want it back.

Hidan's eyes misted over. "You miss you?"

"Yeah. You could say it like that."

Hidan began to smile. "Use that, Blondie. Use it to be personal. Anybody can do a thing for someone else, like a tool. Being personal is different. Nobody can beat you to that."

Deidara looked down. "But I want to do things."

"One step at a fucking time! Get used to doing shit without having anyone take your chance first, then get out there and fight for your chance. You ever thought that you hesitate to do things because you're just not confident about the things? It's not a problem with other people, Blondie."

"I just need to build up my confidence?"

"That's the spirit."

Sounds like good advice. I can try it, yeah. In the meantime, Deidara thought of something else. He was surprised he'd never thought of it before. "What did you do?"

Hidan tilted his head. "Whaddaya mean?"

Deidara chuckled nervously. "You were a kid once. Not in the same category as other people you would talk to. You must have been unconfident at some point. How'd you handle it?"

Hidan tightened his arm around Deidara's shoulders as he thought. Dei realized that the direction of who was supporting who had reversed. He stood up straighter to give Hidan more of a boost. Hidan smiled at him. "See, you're getting it."

"Answer the damn question, yeah."

"Ugh, fine. It's hard to remember. That was a long time ago, and I don't think about it much." Hidan lowered his head. "But you're right. I used to not be so confident. I used to be a little bit afraid that other people would reject me."

"Did it ever happen?"

Hidan snorted. "Pretty sure I was afraid of that because it happened, sometime before I was eight. But after that, nah. I don't remember it ever really happening, which helped reassure."

"That's it? You just needed time?"

"Fuck no! Well, yeah. But also no." Hidan frowned. "I needed to find my people. Guess you could say that took time, but it was more than sitting around and waiting. I had to find my people and settle in and have trust with them and shit. Then it wouldn't matter if anyone else hated me."

Deidara's eyes widened. "Itachi said that! He said I just had to hang out and make friends and stuff and I'd become more like a part of the group, yeah."

"Awesome! Sounds like Itachi's one of your people. Who else do you have conversations with? Nice, personal ones?"

"...Huh. I guess when me and Konan fly in the forest, and we end up talking under Clay's wings, it's like that." That's talking. That's hanging out. I'm almost like friends with her. How did I not realize? I'm almost friends with her. He started to grin.

Hidan shook him again. "It's awesome to just hang out and talk with her, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Not the same way you find it awesome, but yeah." Deidara blushed.

"My hanging out with her involves cuddling," Hidan murmured dreamily. "It feels good to hold her and have her holding me. That is really good." He shook his head. "But I think the actual talking is the same kind of awesome."

Deidara thought of Laurie. Talking to her included other things, but it was the same kind of talk as she had with Sasori. "Yeah. I get that."

"I know you do." Hidan waited a few seconds, then took his arm off Deidara's shoulders. "So how's Laurie?"

"I don't know. Haven't talked to her in a while."

"Talk to her." Hidan looked down toward the basement door as he said this. "It's good to indulge sometimes."

Deidara chuckled under his breath. He felt something like pride for Hidan too, but wasn't about to tell him. "Smart move, yeah."

.

A/N: Ahhh. Very good chapter to start a year on.

Nuzzles to everyone reading this regardless of when. You're kinda amazing. *heart*