A/N: Halloween chapter! I got a nice, early shift today so I can go out trick or treating at just the perfect time! Unfortunately, it's nice and early, so I had to stay up very late last night to have this chapter and its promised omake completed. I'm a little less than halfway through the next chapter of my other fic, the one that I post once a month, which is due by today as well. More staying up late will probably be involved, if I can't finish it in two hours. But it's all worth it, every last bit. That's why I have deadlines and schedules for my stories.

Happy Halloween!

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General, cont'd

Yahiko found Nagato and Hidan sitting together on the edge of the flower rock in the backyard. Samehada gave both of them enthusiastic nuzzles. They petted him back. When everyone was smiling, Yahiko asked why Nagato had left work early.

"...You haven't seen the group chat, have you?" Nagato asked.

He quickly realized it was a bad idea to have asked that question. Yahiko pulled out his phone to check. Oh no. Now he'll have his first reaction in front of Hidan! Hidan doesn't need to see that...unless he does. First reactions are useful ones to know. Whatever happens, I guess.

Yahiko scrolled all the way back up to the point he already knew, and read from there. He smiled, frowned, looked worried, and smiled again in accordance with the messages he read. It was interesting to watch. Nagato knew when he reached the important messages. Yahiko got a very serious look on his face.

His eyes widened. "Why are they angry at you?" he exclaimed. "I really don't get it."

"Vampires presumably do not go into frenzies when they eat," Nagato said.

"Yeah, but…" Yahiko shook his head. "I just don't understand."

Hidan scratched his head. "What are you saying?"

Yahiko looked down. "That you're so much like them, so…"

"So?"

"So how can they hate someone nearly the same as them? They hate you because you're nearly the same as them. How does that happen? How do people hate their brothers more than total strangers?"

Hidan stopped scratching. It was possible that Yahiko had yet to think about Hidan's vampiricness in relation to himself, and when he did he might be scared. But the fact that he didn't think of that immediately was its own good news.

"Betrayal," Itachi answered. Despite the bright yellow laser blasts the aliens on his shirt fired at each other, nobody had noticed him sitting in the shadows of the porch. "Hatred is proportional to the amount of pain someone causes you. Someone close inflicts much more pain than a stranger can. It is harder to start to hate someone close, but when it happens the feeling is more intense."

Yahiko looked down. "Oh. I'm just not used to thinking of violence as a way of dealing with being hurt. What happened to crying?"

Itachi shrugged. "Different people have different styles."

"What do you think, Itachi?" Hidan asked.

"I think there is no need to fear a frenzy. As you said, it was a small animal. Something larger would take longer to die and feel more fear. You could not harm anything larger than a cat."

Yahiko blinked. "Fear a… Oh." His eyes widened. He imagined Hidan staring at him with wide eyes, eyes filled to the brim with hunger and desire and need. His teeth chattered. "It sounds scary though."

"Because you actually worry that you would be hurt, or because strong emotions in others are overwhelming to you?" Itachi asked.

Yahiko paused. "Wait, they are?" He thought back to all the times he had witnessed strong passions. Nagato looks really driven to protect sometimes. I like that; I don't have to do anything, just cheer him on. But the vampires were so angry, and Nagato was so hurt and needy and I… What was I supposed to do? "You're right. They are. I don't know what to do when that happens."

Itachi nodded. "Everything is alright, then."

Hidan stood up and hugged Yahiko. "Thanks, Sunshine."

Yahiko hugged him back. "Now I know why people wanting things is scary." He imagined a look of bottomless desire again and shivered. I don't know how to handle that. I don't know how to make it better. And if I can't, bad things will happen. It's a lot of pressure. Am I just bad under pressure? Like in general?

Nagato's mouth dried. He knew some of the reasons why he avoided telling Yahiko his true feelings. The biggest was fear that Yahiko would be hurt, thinking that their entire friendship had been a lie. Another was fear that Yahiko would withdraw the affection he gave so readily in an attempt to make their relationship more platonic. But now he had a new reason. Never before had he considered the possibility that Yahiko would be afraid of him. Nagato saw in his mind Yahiko's eyes widening in terror, him taking a step back, running away. No. Any progress he might have made toward building up the courage to confess his deepest feelings was instantly reversed, and then some.

Hidan sighed. Fuck. How long was it going to be before he could talk openly and honestly with either of them? He had to hide things from both of them because they were both so ruled by fear. Gaaahhh! Frustrating!

"I suggested that, whether Laurie intends to visit or not, it would be a good idea to eat outside tonight," Itachi said. "Konan agreed that this was wise. The group chat lacks face to face interaction that is crucial to fully understanding the news that we have to share."

"I'll get firewood," Hidan offered. He took his scythe and walked into the woods, where absolute silence preceded the whoosh and thump of a falling branch. It was eerie how efficiently the scythe could cut when it was sharpened by wind chakra. Nothing should make so little noise.

"And I," Nagato said, "should ask about fire jutsus." He needed to be busy. If he wasn't busy, the disappointment (Just when I was starting to think I could!) would crush him. His frustration (I need to! If I can't tell him I will never be free!) felt best expressed in fire.

Itachi sat on the back porch and said nothing. He would not say anything until he knew whether what he had just done was the right thing.

.

"Step back," Nagato said. "More back. Still more back. Finally." With everybody scattered to the fringes of the backyard, he made the hand signs, gathered chakra, and blew out a stream of fire. It was too much for the small fire, and too little for what he needed to release. I should have "practiced" this technique over the lake first.

"Your control of the amount of chakra used is sloppy," Konan said. "Go practice over the lake." Nagato could have worshipped her. He took off running instead.

Sasori and Deidara were notably absent. "Where are they?" Kisame asked, scanning the area of the fire where they usually sat.

Hidan snickered. "Dei asked about a movie. 'Something' came up to change Laurie's plans just as they were getting out… Hehe. You do the friggin' math."

"Makes perfect sense," Kakuzu agreed. "But where the hell is Sasori?"

Sasori was in his room, having arrived soundlessly under the cover of darkness and slipped into Hidan's room through the window. He took deep breaths and replayed Laurie's words, as well as Konan's discretion and Deidara's reaction. Nobody is going to think I'm suddenly going over to her side. Nobody is going to think I'm crazy. It will be fine. He opened the door, crept soundlessly through the halls (Laurie was right), and pulled his cloak more tightly about himself before walking out the back door.

He wasn't noticed at first, which was very irritating. He wanted to just get it over with! But then Kisame looked up and dropped the stick he was holding, and everybody turned to see what he was looking at, and the moment was upon him. For the first time all day, Sasori felt completely at peace, even eager to impress. He started to smile. There was nothing to fear anymore.

"Fuck it looks good," Hidan said in a gasp.

Yahiko started to grin. He nearly split half his face off, then started laughing. A wave of delight and pure joy washed over the yard. Konan smiled because of it, but looked at him sideways. Why was he so happy?

Kisame and Kakuzu stared with wide eyes and slack hands. Kisame was just a bit betrayed. How could one of the only reasonable people go over to her side? Kakuzu no longer knew what to expect. He didn't have a natural understanding of the type of person Sasori was, but he'd started to form some basic expectations of how the engineer would act. Now Sasori defied them all, and anything could happen.

I don't want to be misunderstood, so now's the time to get my story out before anyone else makes up their own. Sasori walked up to the fire as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. "I realized I have my own reasons for staying and I'm not doing it just because I'm forced to, so I might as well acknowledge that." He sat down in his usual place. "Hidan, I'll be honest, I thought you were exaggerating. But this thing really is very comfortable."

"Fuck yes!" Hidan nodded firmly.

"Congratulations on being liberated from your imagined slavery," Itachi said.

"Thank you."

"Can I hug you?" Yahiko asked.

"Okay." Sasori's normal seat was across the fire from Kisame and next to Yahiko, so all Yahiko had to do was shuffle over a little bit and drape an arm around Sasori's shoulders. He still seemed in danger of breaking his face. He gave Sasori a quick tight sideways hug, then let go out of respect for Sasori's personal space preferences. That was appreciated.

"How common is that?" Konan asked. "Does anyone else here feel as though they are only here out of obligation?" Kisame and Kakuzu raised their hands. "What kind of obligation?"

"Hidan."

"Itachi and Samehada."

Konan tilted her head. "What obligations have they imposed upon you?"

"Just existing."

"I don't want to be a bad friend. They seem really happy here; I would be a dick to make them choose."

I am glad partnerships in my world translated as friendships in this one. It has made everything so much easier for me from the start. "I hope you eventually have your own reasons to stay as well."

Kakuzu snapped a stick and threw it into the fire. "I don't." He normally would have dismissed the possibility, but that was before realizing that he had come to enjoy playing pool, of all things. Her hope was an actual risk now. Whether or not he enjoyed it, he would fight it as long as he could.

"Is Deidara with Laurie right now?" Itachi asked.

"Yes."

"Ah. Hidan thought so, but I thought it best to make sure. We live with demons and vampires; accounting for everyone's whereabouts is important."

"I understand," Sasori said. "He had a disc copy of the movie with him. They're likely at his house. It's on the edge of the abandoned houses, but not so close that he's rubbing elbows with vampires. I think they're safe."

That was a good place to stop and get food. Konan had taken two packages of beef and sliced them into small thin chunks earlier. She showed Yahiko and Itachi how to arrange them on sticks to cook over the fire. Nagato came back in time to ask why they didn't just use the hot rock, like before. Then he saw Sasori. "Nevermind. What did I miss?"

"Sasori believed he was being held here against his will, but learned that that is not the case. He got the cloak to celebrate," Itachi explained. Sasori opened his mouth to protest, but couldn't. It was true, if a strange version of the truth.

"Where were you?" he asked instead.

"Practicing fire jutsu at the lake."

"There are water spirits in that water," Sasori admonished. "Don't piss them off."

"I aimed above the water."

"Well, there were water spirits in the river," Yahiko said. "I'm not sure about the lake. I was only looking for the strange thing in it, not any of the normal spirits."

"Still a bad idea to piss off spirits."

"I was stupid," muttered Kisame. In his desperation to find other reasonable people he'd overemphasized the parts of Sasori he agreed with and ignored the fact that the engineer was a freakin' loon. Itachi patted him on the shoulder.

Another break was taken while the meat was watched over, removed when ready, and consumed. "This is much like the dinner I ate when I first arrived in this world," Konan said. "Except the meat then came from a fat little rodent."

"Hold a sec. Waddles a bit, normally hides under cover?"

"Yes."

"That's the thing I ate!" Hidan exclaimed.

"How is he sleeping so soundly?" Sasori marveled over Samehada, who lay curled up on his side on top of the flower stone with his tongue out, sleeping. The shark had briefly warbled in his sleep when Yahiko expressed joy, but aside from that was dead to the world.

"I have no idea how he hears in the first place," Kisame said. "If he has ears, he can probably close them. If not, I have no clue."

"Did it taste...thick to you?" Konan asked Hidan.

"I know just what you mean," Hidan said. "And yeah. Its smell drove me nuts."

Itachi cleared his throat. "Ahem." He raised his hand. This was very unusual behavior, so they all fell silent and listened. "Does anyone here have a problem with what Hidan has revealed? Any problem at all?"

Kisame raised a hand. "I do. We'd better hope no vampires find out about it, because we're screwed if they do."

"We'd better shut up about it, then," Kakuzu said. "The sun's nearly down."

"Does anybody else have any concerns?"

Sasori raised a hand. "How much of our originals is in us? If Hidan can be that much like his original, even for a few seconds, what about the rest of us?" He tugged uncomfortably at his sleeve.

"Do not worry," Konan said. "Your original's desire to become a puppet was cold, planned, a response to his beliefs about the value of humans and desire for eternity. It is understandable that Hidan can act like his original when overcome by intense emotion. Your original was not intensely passionate. That should not be a problem." Sasori relaxed and stop tugging at his sleeve.

"So how has everyone been doing lately?" Itachi asked.

"I have somet -"

Before Sasori could finish his sentence, there was a crashing sound in the trees. Everybody reflexively tensed, because they had just been talking about vampires. But what emerged from the trees was not a vampire. It was Ruta, a dark-haired man, and an equally dark-haired wolf. "Hey guys!"

"Makuto? Wave?" Nagato asked. "What are you two doing here?"

The dark-haired man nodded at his wolf and waved her forward. She circled the fire, sniffing at everyone. "There were some concerns about whether our alliance would last," he explained. "But now that those concerns have been put to rest, we feel more confident that we will be enjoying your company for a long time yet. That means Wave and I, as the protectors of the pack, have to get to know your scents so we recognize you as friendly."

"And I tagged along because I like being here," Ruta added. "I didn't bring my laptop. I want to have the full experience of people."

Samehada yawned. He rumbled a bit, then woke up. There was new chakra in the air. As he tasted it and recognized that it was from his new wolf friend, he squealed and raced off the rock. Wave wagged her tail and sat down next to him.

"You are more than welcome to stay," Konan said. "Additional meat can be cooked."

Makuto looked at his companion. "Okay." He and Ruta sat down, Kisame and Itachi shuffling aside to make room. "It will be nice to see how your pack works."

Konan left to get more meat. While she was gone, Nagato asked, "What did you mean when you said concerns?"

Makuto said, "There was a clanwide hunt a few days ago, intended to increase solidarity after an argument broke out between two branches. We ran into vampires. Nobody was hurt, but their leader met with Sakumo, She was angry when she heard we had allied with you, or rather with him." He pointed his head at Hidan. "She said he was a danger and we shouldn't trust him, or something to that effect. However, Konan visited us and reassured Sakumo that Hidan is safe and the vampires will not attack us just because of him."

"They were angry at you too, because of us?" Yahiko shivered. "I'd understand if you didn't want to be so closely allied. Not if it means having the vampires angry at you."

"That's just what I'm saying. We were promised that the vampire leader could be persuaded to rethink her position."

"Well…" Nagato wavered. "She can be persuaded not to attack anybody, at least."

Konan returned with meat. When she had finished putting it on to cook, Kisame asked, "What the hell did you promise these people about the vampires?"

Konan took a moment to remember. "They are mistaken about the core principles of Jashinism. Now that they know Hidan can be relied on for accurate information, they will accept what he had to say about the core principles. They will correct their beliefs."

"Why would they trust Hidan?" Kakuzu asked. "He's the one person they don't trust."

"It is more complicated than that." Konan did not glance at Nagato or Yahiko, but they knew what she was getting at. They glanced at each other. What should they share?

"What'd I say again?" Hidan asked.

"Properly worshipping Jashin sama requires vitality, joy, pleasure," Konan said. "That's the real reason why the vampiric humans make better worshippers than vampires. It is not just because they can sacrifice more blood."

"When'd I say that?"

"The night when Nagato and Yahiko first met with the vampires."

"Oh." Hidan remembered that night. That was the night where his ideas about Nagato had changed for reasons that he could not remember, but could still be affected by. He still wanted to know what had happened. What had Nagato done to make him feel so loved?

Makuto was confused. "Why don't you remember things you said?"

"Oh, that's because it wasn't me who said them," Hidan said. "I was in some weird state where I wasn't myself."

Ruta's eyes grew wide. "You have multiple personalities? Wow! I've never met someone like that in real life."

Hidan blinked. "No, I'm not like that. I don't suddenly start speaking like a little kid or anything."

"It's not like that," Ruta said. "That's the dramatic movie version. Real people with multiple personalities mostly just feel a kind of shifting, like they're not quite in control of themselves, and it can take different forms."

"Really?" Hidan scratched his cheek. "Shit. Makes sense."

"Not that I know for sure," Ruta added in a rush. "That's just what I think from what I've read. I don't really know anybody. I could be wrong. I'm not a professional."

"It's okay, kid. It's okay." Hidan smiled to reassure him. Ruta blushed. He still wasn't comfortable with possibly being wrong about something so incredibly important.

Konan was flabbergasted. It showed on her face as a slight widening of the eyes. "That is a known condition in this world?"

"Yeah, I think I heard it was about as common as bipolar disorder," Ruta said. "Don't quote me on that. I don't remember the source."

"What is bipolar disorder?"

"That's a thing where people swing from dangerously high to dangerously low moods."

Konan went very, very still. Ruta didn't seem to notice. "I think the statistic was something like 1 to 2 percent of the population. That's a lot of people! That's millions of people who dissociate from themselves regularly. I was totally astonished to hear that. If it's true, it's really surprising."

"Back up to the part about dangerous moods," Sasori said. "How dangerous are we talking about? Does committing crimes count?"

"Clinical standards for a full-blown manic episode are that it has to last for a week or more, or be so severe as to require hospitalization," Ruta said. "You only need to have one of those to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder."

Konan remained very, very still. She felt as if frozen in ice. There is a name? It is a sickness? It is not a moral flaw in my personality? It is not just me being unpredictable and giving up control over myself? She couldn't believe it. The idea that she wasn't a bad person for allowing herself to be so reckless was insane, foreign, and completely at odds with everything she had always believed about herself. It was incredible to know that this world contained such a wild notion. Who knew what exotic things could be found here? Was she going to hear about red skies and hot ice next?

Nobody was currently speaking and they were gathered to talk, so she went ahead and asked. "Does this world contain red skies and hot ice?"

"Mars has lots of iron oxide in its skies, which makes everything look red, and I've heard of forms of ice that form because of pressure, not temperature, so they can be hot," Ruta said. That is it. I have lost touch with reality. This planet is insane.

Ruta looked around. What he had said about bipolar disorder was still being processed, so nobody provided anything else for him to respond to. "Anybody have news?" he asked.

Sasori blinked and shook his head. "News. Right. I can't believe I'm forgetting something so important." He cleared his throat. "Do you happen to know anyone with an interest in paperwork or bicycle repair? Some skill at crafting knickknacks would be preferable."

"You need new employees?' Yahiko asked.

"Yes."

"What kind of paperwork?" Ruta asked.

"The boring routine kind, like insurance and payroll."

"What's bicycle repair like?"

"It's incredibly detailed manual labor interspersed with periods of waiting."

Ruta's eyes widened. "Detailed manual labor you said?"

"Delicate, too."

The tiger man vibrated. "My favorite way to play with legos as a kid was to go through them color by color and pick out all the blocks of a certain dimension and gather them on sheets in rows."

Sasori nodded. "You're hired."

Ruta took lots of quick shallow breaths. "When do I start?"

"The shop keeps normal working hours."

"Ruta, wait," Makuto said. "This sounds like a job where you wouldn't get to talk to anybody."

Ruta let out a controlled scream. "No talking for hours on end?!"

"Yeah." Sasori opened his mouth to add, You can talk to Laurie or me occasionally, but Ruta raised his fists in the air and did a sitting version of the Tobi dance. His face was ready to split. That was good news.

"Ah, right. You are tired by talking. This would be very restful for you," Konan recalled. Ruta nodded.

"You are?" Makuto asked.

"Yeah. You never noticed how sometimes I don't answer in words?"

"I just figured you like squealing and making weird sounds."

"I do. That's why I like it."

Samehada left Wave's side and came up to Ruta. He warbled questioningly. Ruta squealed in anticipated excitement. Samehada rumbled. Ruta made a low cooing sound to show his appreciation. Samehada licked his face.

The general consensus on this was ...Okay. Sasori shook his head. "That'll be much appreciated. Laurie and I could use the help. Now I just need to find someone who is good at paperwork."

"I'll look around," Kakuzu said. He had contacts who worked with papers, for obvious reasons. If any of them were looking to get out of their line of work he would send them Sasori's way.

"Why do you need crafting skills?" Itachi asked.

"The bicycles can only pay me in what they can carry. They can't bring money, but they did say they could carry things to be exchanged for money. I figure that means raw materials."

"If you need any help with that, let us know," Nagato said.

"I don't know, we're kind of busy…" Yahiko scratched his head and tried not to blush.

"Yeah, but we know places to deliver things."

Yahiko sighed. "You're right. I should make time to relax. I haven't sat under that bench we like in forever. Let's do that again."

Nagato's face grew warm. "The bench with the moths?" The last time he had sat there, he'd come so close...but so torturously, agonizingly, far. Just a few inches more, and one kiss on the cheek would have said everything he wanted so badly to say. Just a few inches, a few seconds, more. So close! He wanted so badly to say something, to have the ability to speak, now that he had tasted the joys of speaking and seen its power in Hidan's easy confidence. Suddenly he felt like a starving tiger.

Hidan remembered the groundhog and swallowed saliva. This hunger couldn't be his own, for he had just eaten that day. But the hunger was so similar to his own that echoes of his own longing ran through him and he worried that he was going to break out into a frenzy. "I, um… I'm tired. See ya." He got up and left, shaking with suppressed longing. Fuck. I really am like that. What would that guy Makuto think if he knew?

Wave did another patrol of the edges of the backyard. She raised her head and whined. Makuto rose to a crouch. "Where?" Wave indicated the grass she had just been sniffing. Makuto leaped over and sniffed at that same patch of grass while Wave continued to investigate. She whined again and circled a part of the forest's edge where dandelions were already growing.

"Oh, I recognize that spot," Yahiko said. "That's where the snake kid used his powers the day we had that practice fight. Does it smell like snake? Maybe he came back."

"It does smell like snake," Makuto confirmed. "What child are you talking about?"

"A little boy, a toddler, who has snake eyes and healing powers. We see him around all the time."

"I've never seen a toddler like that, or heard of him." Makuto's jaw dropped. "He's half snake? And wandering around alone?"

Konan raised a hand. "He is not of your clan, and he is not alone."

"How do you know he's not of their clan?" Kakuzu asked.

Konan did not answer.

In the silence, eyes turned toward her. It wasn't like her to have no answer at all. How does she know he's not from their clan? The silence grew oppressive, heavy, dense.

"Because you know who he is," Itachi said. "Don't you?"

The silence grew charged. What? If she knew, why didn't she tell us? How long has she known? Konan's eyes darted around, taking stock and evaluating how much danger she was in, before she nodded.

"You've known ever since you first discovered him," Itachi said. This is what she wanted to say about the children, but didn't. She knows who and what they are. Why would she keep that from us?

Konan wished Hidan were there to back her up. Instead, she glanced at Nagato. Then she opened her mouth and told everyone what she knew, from world clone formation to the boys' originals to the demon boy's origins. She only left out their names. Nobody had ever expressed any interest in having a real name to refer to the children by, so that was no loss.

When she was done, mouths hung open around the fire. Nagato facepalmed. "Oh, crap. I thought of something and completely forgot about it until just now." The eyes turned on him. "If that's how we were formed, then the things we share with our originals must be the most central things, that their entire soul was saturated by. The things we don't share weren't as central so they got left out. That means that Kisame doesn't betray people, so his original must not have been the sort of person who was inherently disloyal. Maybe he just did it because he had to. And Deidara loves blasting but doesn't love hurting people, so maybe Original Deidara just turned out wrong from circumstance."

Crickets chirped. The fire crackled. "You didn't remember to mention that?" Kisame asked slowly.

"Y-yeah. It's all super complicated." Nagato waved toward Konan. "Sorry."

"Why didn't you tell us you knew them?" Kakuzu asked Konan. His green eyes seemed to glow. Now it was Konan's turn to tread carefully before an intimidating gaze.

"I had only just convinced you all to give the idea that you were clones a chance," she murmured. "Confessing that my idea was wrong would have undermined your confidence in me. It undermined my confidence in myself."

"What does this mean?" Yahiko asked. "Does it mean the snake kid isn't really as nice as he seems? What about the demon kid?"

"The demon boy has no knowledge of his main body, so he must have separated from it early and lived all this time in isolation," Konan said. "He is a separate person. The snake child… I don't know. Perhaps that is what he was like when he was a toddler."

"What is he, if not half snake the way we are?" Makuto asked. Konan shook her head. She did not know.

Kakuzu looked at Ruta, who was petting Samehada. "Do you have any ideas?"

Ruta shrugged. "Not really." He went back to petting Samehada.

"Not even one?"

"It's not really that interesting a topic to me."

Eyebrows raised. "Dear God," Kisame exclaimed. "We found a topic you aren't interested in? And it's the whole mystery of why and how we exist?"

Ruta shrugged again. "I like my existence. I kind of don't care where it came from?"

"You're weird," Sasori said. "So I'm not inherently a puppet person. That's just what Konan's messed-up world twisted my original into becoming." A great weight was lifted off his shoulders. Being the sort of person who would turn myself into a puppet isn't at the core of who I am. It's not even close. That is a relief. He wondered about the qualities he had that his original did not. Did those qualities arise in him, or did everything he had come from his original, in which case his original must also have had those qualities but never expressed them? Would Original Sasori sit and hold someone's hand, letting them cry in peace and safety?

"I hope so," Kisame said. A similar great weight had been lifted from him. He reached out and laid a hand on Samehada's lower back. He was not doomed to be a bad friend. That was good. He would try his best to be an amazing friend then, the kind that Samehada deserved. He felt much more capable of becoming the kind of person he wanted to be, much less trapped by his original. I didn't know I was trapped.

Kakuzu's thoughts were less uplifting. So it's central to my personality that I like taking advantage of people, hunting, being similar to Hidan. Great. I prefer to think of myself as more civilized than that. But he had always delighted in his strong muscles and quick mind, hadn't he?

A general feeling of being able to transform permeated the air. When the things that had seemed to be important and unchangeable were revealed not to be, what manner of mutation might be possible?

.

A/N: First omake to take place in the present time. It just made the most sense.

Mutation

Hidan, away in his room, had an odd dream. It was early in the night, so this was not a dream he would remember in the morning. But some part of him would remember how the different elements in it had combined, and in that way the dream would live on.

He dreamed of a game he had once played, wherein a virus gave people fantastical powers of mutation, far beyond any creature's natural ability to reshape itself. Hidan was afraid of this virus. He did not want to lose what he was. But when it came down to a choice between him or Konan, he decided in a hearbeat that he wanted her to continue to be what she was much more than he wanted that for himself. She was beautiful. So he was bitten himself with a smile on his face.

He arose as a terror, a monstrous beast that could make the world tremble in fear. When given the chance to become whatever his psychology tended toward, he became a great zombie-vampire-bird hybird, with bloodred skin and the power of flight. He lifted whole human bodies up into the air by their necks, drinking them dry, the blood racing through him to fill his membranous wings and give him the power of flight.

He hunted. Swooping silently among empty streets, his gaze jumping from car to empty car, he felt a great sense of peace. He was free. This was what he should be. He lifted over a streetlamp with graceful ease and spotted movement. He continued on, towards the movement, towards the prey. He loved its life. He loved its life so much that he would keep that life in himself, tucked away in his flesh for safekeeping. His bloodred skin was stretched near to bursting with actual blood.

He came upon the prey silently. There was no sound. He made no sound. It made no sound. He swept it up with his talons. It looked so delicious, so beautifully red.

But was there something wrong with it?

This delicate thing that he held was so beautiful. It was like something he might decorate his nest with. Beautiful streaks of red and white, emphasizing power and control. Beauty. That was what power and control amounted to. Beauty. He wrapped his wings around the priceless treasure. It was soft, and warm. It smelled good, sweet, with a hint of something else he could not identify but which reminded him of other days. It was so beautiful. He must have it. He must save it. He didn't normally do this, but he wanted to keep all of it for safekeeping, every last bit. Normally he only took their life, leaving the empty bottle behind. But this one was so soft and marvelous. His stomach was under intense internal pressure from all the fluid filling his body, but he would make room. It was worth it for this wonderful thing that he loved more than anything else.

The prey began to move. Its movements were amazing, elegant. Worth keeping. But was there something wrong with them?

It began to make sounds. The sounds were deep, melodious, soft and soothing and pleasant all over. If he could eat sound he would have taken that and kept if for safekeeping, too. But was there something wrong with it?

He smelled it. Beautiful. He simply must eat. He lifted the prey to his mouth, shivering in delight. But was there something wrong with it?

Its smell reminded him of days long ago. Back then...

The sounds it made seemed like they could have had meaning, once. He cocked his head, entranced. A long time ago, had he loved sounds like these? They sounded harmonic, musical, yet thrumming with meaning. Something about them touched him, deep inside. "Hidan, please. Please. If you remember me at all... Don't do this. It's me, Nagato! Please!"

He sniffed it and listened to its sounds. They were very nice sounds. But something was wrong with them. Something was wrong with its smell. It was growing less beautiful by the second, wilting, rotting. Nothing his eyes or ears told him changed, yet everything changed. It was not good to keep this one.

He passed it from his talons to his wings and lifted it down, placing it on the barren blood-soaked street. Maybe it would recover its deliciousness. Maybe not. Either way, the music from long ago continued in his mind. There had been other things beautiful like this once. One of them so beautiful, it cleared his mind as sunlight clears fog. He wanted it. He wanted to keep it. Forever.

He knew just where to find it. He lifted off, eternally patient, knowing that this was right and that his power would carry him to the ends of the earth in search of things that were beautiful. Those things would all be his. Forever.

.

A/N: This is the premise of the fanfic idea I had, that I've mentioned before, for a Naruto/Dead Frontier crossover. Dead Frontier is the name of the videogame.