A/N: Darn. Made sure to finish this chapter ahead of time in case of the blizzard knocking things out, but we didn't get even a single power flicker! Nothing!

And that's all I can think of. Hm. It seems, lately, I have been having less and less to say here.

We're finally covering the actual meeting this chapter. Haha! :) Enjoy.

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General

Next to arrive were Deidara and Laurie, flying in on Clay. They were smiling. There was no reason to expect that anything was wrong. They landed in the middle of the park's open entrance and looked around, hopes high.

Hidan sat on a park bench far to their left, beneath a lamppost, looking up at it. To their right, as far from Hidan as could reasonably be accomplished, Kisame and Kakuzu sat together on another bench. Kisame clutched the bench seat with both hands like he was going to fall off if he didn't and stared at the ground.

Deidara nudged Laurie with his elbow. She nodded. Very quietly, so as not to make anything worse than it already was, they approached.

Kakuzu nodded back. Deidara felt a burst of pride at having chosen the right approach to take. "Don't say anything," Kakuzu warned. Deidara held up his hands. Wasn't going to, yeah.

Kakuzu's expression softened. "I'll tell you one thing. Hidan's the one who chose to sit all the way over there."

Deidara grinned. "Awesome, yeah!" He brought Clay over and had the bird extend one wing over Kisame's head. There was a chance of rain, and being rained on seemed to be the last thing the shark man needed right now.

The undergrowth rustled, and Samehada emerged. He flapped his fins in excitement that more people had arrived. He waved his tail in the direction of the path and performed several combinations of sounds and movement that suggested lots of life, small scared things, and a snake. Deidara was startled to realize that he'd never wondered where the snakelike toddler lived. The boy looked after himself at least part of the time. A park was the best place to do so. It should have been obvious.

Kakuzu reached down to pet Samehada's head. "Your chakra sense is very useful and interesting," he told the shark. Samehada lolled his tongue out.

And promptly tasted something very interesting with said tongue. He raced off, past Deidara and Laurie, to the feet of someone who had entered so slowly and quietly that nobody had noticed his presence until now.

"Hi. Um, who are you?" Deidara asked.

The man said nothing. He looked down at Samehada with a look like he wasn't entirely pleased. His brows furrowed, making the scar that crossed his face stand out more. He rubbed the back of his head, just below the thick, dark ponytail.

It was obvious that he was thinking. But he did not say what he was thinking. Instead he waved back in reply to Samehada's cheerful warbles and turned to Deidara. "I'm Shikaku. Pleased to meet you."

"Oh, it's you, yeah," Deidara realized. "I'm Deidara. Everybody else will be here pretty soon, yeah."

Shikaku turned to look back at the entrance, where some more people - friends of his by the looks of them - were coming in. "Likewise." He took a seat on a bench in the middle, close to the path. "I'll take the opportunity to sit while I can, before the troublesome part starts."

Hidan had noticed him and approached. "Aw. I wanted to say hi."

"Hello."

"Fine. Be that way." Hidan crossed his arms. "I can friendly-chat later." He stalked back to his bench.

Shikaku shrugged. "I've never been a fan of small talk."

"That's okay. We don't really do small talk around here. It's all questions about your personal business and the nature of reality, yeah," Deidara said with a grin.

"Interesting combination."

Kakuzu snorted. "You'd be surprised how much they overlap."

Meanwhile, the other people saw Deidara's bird and took a closer look. "It does indeed look like it is made of clay," one of them remarked.

"His name's Clay, yeah," Deidara said. He walked around behind his bird and took something down from the base of Clay's tail feathers. "And this is Stitchy." He held out his small palm-sized clay spider.

Shockingly, none of Shikaku's friends fainted from the cuteness. They mostly backed away. One guy, who had entirely white eyes, stayed put and looked at it. "A spider?"

"Yeah! He's so cute, right?"

The white-eyed guy tactfully did not respond. Instead, he asked, "Are the stitches decorative?"

Deidara patted Stitchy's back. "Not entirely. Clay was wounded, so we impaled Stitchy to find out if my clay creations can be healed easily. Turns out they can't." He made Clay rear up, exposing some of the stitches in his chest.

"And he was named Stitchy after the fact?"

Deidara flipped the spider over and made his little legs wiggle. "Aw, yeah, because he's so fucking adorable. Who's a nice little guy, yeah?"

Laurie had been trying to hold back and see how ninjas interacted with each other. But she couldn't any longer. She started to laugh. "He is!"

"Uh huh." The white-eyed guy moved away, joining Shikaku on the bench. The others continued to look around. One of them looked like a normal guy, but the other two had white hair and purple hair. Kakuzu alternated between watching Kisame and watching them. He was already putting together a plan. We're definitely going to talk about the Byakugan. If there's time, it would be worth mentioning the strange hair colors, too. If we talk about those, we're going to have to mention that we are physically different from normal people, with a whole separate organ system that normal people don't have. They might not take that well.

Kisame took a deep breath. "I feel like I'm in freefall," he muttered. "I have no idea what's up and what's down."

"Will you be more comfortable once the meeting starts, or less? It's normal to have no idea what's going on during our meetings."

"Yeah." Kisame relaxed his grip on the bench. "It is. I'll feel a lot more like my usual self."

"Do you want to hold Stitchy?" Deidara asked.

"Sure." Kisame took Stitchy and clutched him tightly to his chest. Samehada joined him on the bench and chirred reassuringly.

Konan arrived shortly. Nobody else was with her; she had raced ahead in order to have a firm idea of what was happening. Kakuzu stood up to meet her. "We're going to talk about the Byakugan," he told her, indicating the white-eyed guy. "We might have to explain why we have strange hair colors, which would lead into explaining that we're physically different from normal people. That would be a shock." He looked around slowly, searchingly. After making sure that nobody was within hearing range, he whispered, "And Shikaku had a strange reaction to Samehada. He looked like he was thinking, and we don't know about what. I have a feeling you were right about unexpected factors."

"Thank you." Konan lowered her head in gratitude. Then she walked around, performing her own reconnaissance. What she saw was both reassuring and eerie. Laurie and Hidan were chatting with Shikaku's friends already, which boded very well for the success of her core strategy. However, with Kakuzu's tip in mind, she couldn't help noticing Shikaku sitting on his bench. He appeared to be relaxing. But on closer inspection, he was looking around alertly. His eyes seemed to dart over to Kisame and Samehada frequently. Konan, too, suspected that her prediction was 100% accurate.

Before long, the others arrived. Nagato and Yahiko grinned and set to work greeting the newcomers. Sasori inconspicuously slid around the side to join Konan under a tree. Itachi inconspicuously walked right through the main area to sit with Kisame.

"Are we ready to start?" Sasori asked.

Konan crept over to Shikaku's bench. "Are all of your companions here?"

"Most of them." Two more people walked into the park. "And that's almost everybody. Much as I'd like to sit here a little longer… Let's start."

"Almost everybody?"

"I didn't ask anyone to promise they'd show. It would be just like him to find something better to do at the last minute."

Konan nodded. "Alright then." With Sasori following, she went around to all the Akatsuki members and indicated that the meeting was starting. They clustered together in the general area of Hidan's bench. Shikaku's friends took up the space on the other side of the trail, including Shikaku's bench, which he had not moved from. For a moment, the tension in the air was palpable. There was suddenly a barrier that needed breaking.

Nagato cleared his throat. "So, all of you know why we're here, right?"

The white-eyed guy replied, "You have answers about our strange powers."

The atmosphere relaxed. The barrier was broken and the meeting was off to a great start. Or it would have been, if a walking bomb hadn't entered the park and blown all their plans straight to hell.

Itachi

"Hello! Sorry I'm late. I had to help a beautiful maiden carry some bags, haha."

Silence.

"Jiraiya?!"

Twin bursts of joy came from Nagato and Yahiko. Jiraiya stopped, startled. Then he laughed. "You two? You've grown up, I see!"

They ran up to him. "Jiraiya!" Yahiko exclaimed. "I thought you weren't around."

'It's been ages!"

"When did you get here?"

"A few months, maybe," Jiraiya estimated. "I've spent a lot of time at the bar with those hypnotic women." He sighed. "Now that my soul's repaired, I mean to go back, and don't either of you try to talk me out of it."

"That explains why we haven't seen you," Yahiko gushed. "Because we don't go to the bar often, and the one time we did, a demon attacked and we haven't been back since."

Nagato gasped. "'Scuse me." He ran back and took Konan's hand, led her to Jiraiya. "This is my new big sister, Konan." Konan did not resist, but she stayed very still. Her face was impenetrable. She nodded stiffly. Yahiko took her other hand with a big smile.

"Oh. Well, hello there." It was a very good thing Nagato had introduced her the way he had. Otherwise, Jiraiya would have made an inappropriate remark that would've caused Konan to stiffen up even further. It was hard enough being introduced to him as a stranger.

So this is the unexpected factor Konan predicted. One of Shikaku's friends is not a stranger. Itachi wondered how this would affect the meeting. He activated the Sharingan and looked around. Shikaku was interested, but not surprised. Why would he not be surprised? Did he somehow know of this before the meeting? But not even Jiraiya knew… Uh oh. There are more unexpected factors in play. Itachi kept looking. All of Shikaku's other friends were surprised, as they should have been, though less so than Itachi would have expected. Their attention didn't stay on Nagato and the rest. Some of them glanced toward the rest of the Akatsuki. Itachi turned to see how his own comrades were taking it. Kisame looks ready to…faint?

"We'll catch up later," Nagato said. "Back to the meeting. Yes." He and Yahiko reluctantly separated and went back to stand with the group. Konan followed like a puppet on strings. Jiraiya sat on the bench next to Shikaku, who stood up for the first time in half an hour.

He walked out in front of his group and cleared his throat. "Ahem." He stuffed his hands into his pockets. "There's something I would like to address before we begin. Since we first set this up, I've learned that there's a possible problem here. It leads me to question if this is a good idea."

"You no longer wish to talk?" Konan sounded surprised, which meant she must have been truly flabbergasted.

"I'm a lot less eager to than I was before." Shikaku looked around, his eyes narrowed as if the whole of the Akatsuki was deeply suspicious. "We could learn what we need to know on our own. It would be a lot of trouble, but I might not mind that."

Itachi's guts twisted as a powerful aura of guilt hit him. "Oh, fuck," he heard Kisame whisper.

Nagato blinked. "What do you mean?" He and Yahiko exchanged confused and hurt looks.

The aura of guilt became more vibrant and powerful, less sickening. Kisame clenched his fists. "Nothing. He means nothing." Kisame walked out to meet Shikaku. "There's no problem."

Shikaku raised an eyebrow. Samehada chirped a question. Jiraiya's eyes widened.

"This is what's going on," Kisame said. "Hidan here -" He gestured to Hidan. "- has special powers that make him very charming. Everything he says sounds like a better idea than it would if anyone else said it. If you're conflicted about something, like part of you wants to go for it and part of you wants to hold back, he can make you think it's a good idea. He can't force you to do something you really don't want to do. He can't make you sell your children or anything like that. He doesn't have mind control powers. He's just really charming. And it's exclusive to him - it only works if he tells you things. It doesn't make anyone else sound any more convincing than they normally would."

Shikaku tilted his head. "That was not the impression I got."

"That's because I was ranting about my problems," Kisame snapped. "Why would I admit that yeah, part of me did want to find out what being a ninja was about?" He glared at Jiraiya. "And fucking when did I give you permission to blab about my personal issues?"

"Why wouldn't I tell anyone what a new friend and I talked about?" Jiraiya asked. "I didn't think it would matter. Jeez."

Kisame shook his head. "I should have known you would be involved in this. Should have fucking known. I wouldn't have said anything if I'd known." He stomped back to his place beside Itachi and buried his face in his hands. Itachi just heard him whisper, "I didn't want anyone else to be hurt because of me."

There was a pause. Then Nagato coughed. "Yes. I can confirm everything Kisame said just now. Hidan is very convincing. We already planned for him not to say anything, if you would prefer that."

"I prefer to have all my wits about me," Shikaku agreed.. Hidan crossed his arms and pouted.

"So, now that we've clarified that…" Nagato took a deep breath. "What do you want to know about first?"

Shikaku went back to his bench and sat down, looking thoughtful. Nobody else had an immediate question, either. Likely they were so reluctant to meet us that they did not fully plan for what they would talk about if they did. They probably assumed this meeting wasn't going to happen.

Itachi took advantage of the pause to elbow Kisame. "You needn't feel guilty," he whispered. "Talking through your troubles with a new friend is a good thing. We planned to address this issue anyway, thanks to you."

Kisame whispered back, "I just wanted to get away from all this. From this group, from seeing other people in relation to this group, all that. I wanted to be like normal. I wondered who he was, but I didn't do anything to find out because I wanted to pretend it didn't matter. God, I'm a coward."

"No," Itachi disagreed. "Call it what you like, but not cowardice. That term implies that your character is shamefully flawed and your actions were morally bad. They were not, and your flaws are nothing to be ashamed of."

"...Thank you."

Itachi shrugged.

"Why are my eyes entirely white?" the white-eyed guy asked.

"What does that have to do with our weird magic powers?" one of his companions hissed.

"A lot," Nagato said. He held his hand out. Konan took the document out from beneath her cloak, unfolded it, and passed it to him. Nagato flipped to the appropriate page. "First of all, there's a name for your kind of eye. Second of all, there are several kinds of weird eyes. And third, weird eyes are part of a whole phenomenon that goes along with being the way we are. It is completely normal for people like us to have body parts that have their own powers. People like us are referred to as ninjas, by the way. So, yeah. Your eyes have their own special powers. It's actually kind of neat."

The white-haired guy scoffed. "Ninjas?"

"That's just the name that's used. No relation to actual ninjas. You might also hear Konan refer to us as shinobi."

"Your eyes have rings in them," the white-eyed guy observed.

"Yes. I have one kind of special eye. Itachi has another." Itachi activated the Sharingan in time for them to see what Nagato was talking about. "And you have a third. What you have is called the Byakugan. It allows you to see in a full sphere around yourself for a very long distance. You can see through things, and see chakra."

"When you activate it," Konan clarified. "The Byakugan must be activated, like the Sharingan."

"Really? That was not clear. Adding it in pen now." Nagato got a pen from Yahiko and pressed the document against his knee in order to write on it.

"If you've used your powers, you know what chakra feels like and how to control it," Itachi told the guy. "Chakra is the energy flowing through your body that you use to cast techniques. Channel it into your eyes."

The white-eyed guy did so. The blood vessels in and around his eyes became very obvious. He gasped. "It… It's just like he described. I can see ants crawling through the grass."

"Wait a sec!" Hidan shot upright. "My scythe. It has a chakra system, but we don't know what that looks like. Look at it!" He took the scythe off his back and held it out to the white-eyed guy.

The white-eyed man looked at it and grew increasingly confused. "I can see vessels running through it, but they look empty. There is a long vessel running the length of the handle, which branches at the base of each blade. The part in the handle is porous. At the base of each blade, there's a loop. In the blades, it branches like the veins of a leaf. The ends of those veins are closed."

"Keep looking," Hidan told him. He channeled chakra into his scythe. "Now what do you see?"

The guy gasped. "It looks like light! You… The vessels in your hand are also porous. It entered the handle, went up to the blades, and filled them. Although…" He squinted. "The rest of the blades, outside those vessels, is also glowing?"

"What kind of chakra it has in it changes my thing's abilities," Hidan explained. "Kakuzu!"

Kakuzu had already gone to fetch wood. He brought back five logs balanced carefully on his arms and dumped them on the grass. He picked one back up and awaited instructions.

"Just drop it," Hidan told him. Kakuzu held the log over the blades and did so. The log split in two without a sound, cleanly enough that it wasn't obvious until both parts hit the ground and rolled in different directions.

Most of Shikaku's group gasped. "What kind of chakra was that?" one of them asked.

"Wind chakra."

"Wind? Wait… What did you mean by 'kinds of chakra'?"

Nagato tapped Hidan on the shoulder, reminding him that he wasn't supposed to be talking. Hidan handed his scythe over and sat down on his bench, pouting again. Nagato tried to avoid swinging the scythe dangerously as he used both hands to flip to another page of the document. "Chakra is divided into five 'elements.' I know, there are considered to be only four elements. That's just what the people in Konan's world call them. The five elements they use are the four we know, plus lightning."

All of them turned to look at Konan. "Her world?"

"Yes," Konan said. "All of this - these powers, these parts, chakra - it all comes from another world that has brushed up against this world and partially merged with it, creating this space where two worlds overlap. I come from that world. You all are clones of people from that world, which is why you have the ability to use chakra."

Her claim was met with incredulously blank stares. "Right," Shikaku said.

"No, really," Laurie said. "It's impossible for anyone else to just learn to use it. I've kind of tried." Her face grew beet red at that admission. She appeared to be trying to grow a turtle shell and retreat into it.

"You don't have these abilities?" Shikaku asked.

"No. I'm not a ninja. I'm just a normal girl." Her voice threatened to break. Itachi's vision blurred with tears as he saw, down to the finest detail, how sad that made her. Deidara put an arm around her and tried to say something reassuring. It didn't work.

Sasori came up to her. "Hey. That's not a problem."

"You guys are able to do such cool things," she said. "And I can't. I don't have the power to do anything. I can't fight demons."

"You don't need to fight demons."

"That was just an example. There's so much you guys can do and make and change, and the best I can do is cheerlead. Or else I'd just get in the way."

"No," Sasori snapped. He put a hand on her shoulder. "No, that is not true."

She looked away. "You know if another demon attacked, I would."

"You know we need normalcy," Sasori told her. "If another demon attacked, your vulnerability would remind us that we can't use our powers too recklessly. Your inability to use them reminds us how to not use them. Everything you accomplish without them is a reminder that they aren't good for everything. Do you have any idea how relaxing it is to be around you? It's nice."

"Really?" She looked up at him and sniffed back tears. "I do something other than cheerlead?"

"Yeah." Sasori smiled at her. "It's really refreshing to sit around making phone calls. I don't have to risk my life everytime I want to get something done. Sometimes it feels like I do."

"I don't want to hold you back from doing all the cool things you can do," she said.

"Trust me, these forces need holding back. Have you ever heard Konan describe her world? It sounds like a hellhole. Ninjas fight each other all the time, throwing fireballs around and reshaping the land, and then they move on to another fight without any regard for the people whose homes they just destroyed or the people who relied on that forest they burnt down. For the love of all that is good, remind us about phone calls! This little area we have isn't very big. Do you have any idea the damage a fire could do? Itachi doesn't dare use fire jutsu because the forest is all we have."

Her eyes widened. "You're saying I should hold you back?"

Sasori nodded.

Itachi entertained himself while this drama played out by watching Deidara. Deidara was growing increasingly uncomfortable, and Itachi suspected he knew why. Although it's a well-known fact that Sasori has no interest in women, it's impossible to deny that they connect with each other very well. From watching movies and television shows, Itachi knew that jealousy was often unreasonable and could spring up at the slightest provocation. I only hope that my friends are more rational than sitcom characters and better able to resolve their problems.

"If we didn't have to hold back, Clay and Stitchy wouldn't exist," Deidara said. "My clay creations are meant to blow up, but I didn't want to blow up something as big as Clay is, so I kept him. That means I had to find a way to fix him when he got wounded, which is where Stitchy came from. If I didn't have to hold back, I wouldn't have the cutest spider ever and the best ride ever, yeah."

"See? It's really nice to have people around who aren't ninjas and need accommodation," Sasori added.

Laurie started to smile. "Thank you. I - I don't know what to say."

"Nothing, yeah," Deidara suggested. He pulled her closer. She leaned into his side and closed her eyes.

Shikaku's group stared in silence. "What just happened?" Jiraiya muttered. "Wasn't this supposed to be an information exchange? Jeez, you people get distracted easily."

"Very easily," Sasori agreed. "It's our thing."

"Sorry, yeah," Deidara apologized. "So… Okay, here's the deal, yeah. So two worlds collided. That created this in-between space, and also messed with the worlds, so now in Konan's world at least people who die are getting caught. Pieces of their soul come off and end up here. That's how we were made, yeah."

"Except for her," Shikaku said, looking at Konan.

"Yeah, except for her, yeah. We have no idea why."

"There is something that has occurred to me recently," Konan said. "When I died, I was fighting to hold onto my own hopes and perceptions. I fought to hold myself together. Perhaps that prevented my soul from being divided, forcing the entirety of it to become trapped in this space."

"Makes sense," Nagato said.

"Okay, so now we know why, yeah." Deidara chuckled. "You guys have any questions?"

The white-eyed man raised a hand. "Does this affect us in any way?"

"Not really," Deidara admitted. "Konan knows some of our originals, so she can tell us about them. But if she wasn't here it wouldn't make a difference."

"Do you know anything about my original?" Shikaku asked Konan.

Interesting. Has nobody else noticed? When it was first mentioned, he didn't believe us. Laurie's argument wasn't terribly persuasive. Yet, after that little interlude, they are all talking about other worlds and originals as if they have accepted the truth of it. Itachi was fascinated. How could this have happened? Perhaps they were on their way to accepting it already, and just needed time. In that case, the interlude could have contained dead silence and awkward shuffling and they still would have come around. But Itachi tried to picture that, and he couldn't see it. No, something about the discussion with Laurie helped change their minds. Perhaps they could not accept it as long as they consciously thought about it. It had to be processed by the back of their minds, not the front. Yes, that made more sense. Itachi had often had ideas in dreams that seemed like the result of long deliberation, yet he had never directly thought about them before. They tended to be really good ideas.

"I knew him by reputation," Konan said. "He was a chief strategist and tactician."

"And mine?" the white-eyed guy asked.

"I only know Shikaku and Jiraiya's originals. Nobody else's."

"Really?" Jiraiya chuckled. "How did you know my original?"

Konan gave him one of those glowing-eyed looks that so intimidated Kakuzu, accompanied by a blast of forceful chakra. "I will not discuss that."

Jiraiya shrank back against his bench. "Fine. I was only asking a question."

"What did you just do?" another one of Shikaku's friends asked.

"Chakra moves freely, circulating between living things and through the air," Konan said. "Because of that, people who have strong chakra systems (by which I mean most shinobi) generate an aura around themselves. Chakra is partially composed of soul energy, so this aura contains emotions and attitudes and other related things. I did nothing more than project chakra at him."

"But you can't fake feelings," Shikaku's purple-haired friend said slowly. She and the white-haired friend looked at Konan with more than a little fear.

"Indeed."

"Wait a sec. Are you the only ninja woman in this group…?" Jiraiya asked.

"You shut your fucking mouth," Kisame snapped. Itachi winced. The blast of rage Kisame let off was bad enough at his side. He couldn't imagine how it felt to be on the receiving end of its full force.

Jiraiya grimaced. "Okay, okay. You people have tempers." He shook his head at Nagato and Yahiko. "I never thought such sweet kids would end up with friends like these. Are you sure they're good for you?"

"Yes," Nagato and Yahiko answered simultaneously.

Jiraiya rubbed his chin. He was very puzzled by what he saw so far. He would need to think intensely to figure out how it all made sense.

"I love all these weirdos," Hidan said dreamily. "I'm allowed to say that, right? I'm not convincing anyone of anything?" Konan patted his head. He purred.

Nagato looked down and remembered he was holding Hidan's scythe. "Ahem. We printed this out for you." He handed the document to Shikaku. "It's a mostly complete compilation of everything a friend of ours could glean from talking with Konan. It explains everything she knows about chakra and what it can be used for and what we are. Mostly everything." He shot her a look. "There's a lot of stuff she apparently forgot to mention."

Shikaku began to read the document. While he did so, Jiraiya raised a hand. "What's the deal with those frogs?"

"'Presence of chakra fosters sentience in nonhumans,'" Shikaku read.

Konan nodded. "Many types of animals have the ability to talk, think as well as a human, and perform humanlike tasks in my world."

"Oh, is that where this one learned to hold a conversation?" Jiraiya held out a hand to Samehada. Samehada came right up, but Kisame warned him away again before he could lick Jiraiya's fingers. Samehada settled for nuzzling his legs.

"Not quite." Konan turned to Nagato. "Since you have the scythe, explain more about the different kinds of chakra."

"Alright. A detailed breakdown of their characteristics and why they work the way they do is in that document," Nagato said. "For now, all you need to know is that people have one dominant type of chakra. Hidan's scythe will gain different abilities depending on the kind of chakra you run through it, so it can be used as a test. Who wants to learn what kind of chakra they have?"

Slowly, everyone on Shikaku's side raised their hand.

"Alright. Kakuzu, get more wood. Konan, can you put up a windshield, or would that not work?"

Inside a wide circular wall of paper, the members of Shikaku's group tested their chakra. Jiraiya had fire chakra, and Shikaku earth. The white-eyed guy had wind chakra. The purple-haired friend and the white-haired friend had earth and lightning, respectively. The other two both had fire.

"It says here that the use of elemental names isn't arbitrary," Shikaku said. "Lightning chakra can literally turn into electricity."

"Yes," Konan replied.

"That's not what he said before."

"These things aren't really elements," Nagato argued. "They don't make up the entirety of the world. They're just different types of chakra. They're named after natural forces, not elements."

"Yes, the term element has historically been used to refer to the substances that make up the world," Itachi agreed. "In other contexts, those same substances go by different titles."

"That makes sense," Shikaku said. "But 'natural forces' is a mouthful. Let's just call them elements."

"Alright!" Yahiko grinned. "This is going well so far. We've covered where we came from, the different elements, and the Byakugan. Anything else?"

"If I may." Konan tapped Deidara on the shoulder. He took his arm away from Laurie. She led Laurie out in front and told Shikaku, "Please tell her something very surprising."

"I can make my shadow come to life," he said.

Laurie giggled. "Really? Wow, is there anything you guys can't do?"

Konan took down the wall of paper and looked around. One other person was sitting on a bench, reading. She beckoned for Shikaku to pay attention and walked up to the person. She stopped on his right side. "Excuse me. May I see what book you are reading?" Without waiting for an answer, she turned to paper and reassembled on his left side. "Ah. On the Origin of Species. It sounds interesting."

The person scowled. "Would it kill you to just walk? I hate the sound of so much paper rustling."

"My apologies." Konan returned to the space where the meeting was being held. "As you can see, ordinary people do not react to the unusual and strange. They treat everything we do as perfectly normal. Only we can identify anything as being unusual. Sasori knew you must also be world clones because you found it strange that people in dark cloaks should be running at superhuman speeds. Any of the NPCs around here would be more likely to complain about the disturbance."

"Why would it be strange?" Laurie asked. "If I had warm clothing and super fast reflexes, I'd want to show off too."

Konan nodded. "You do not need to fear demonstrating your powers or talking openly about your otherworldly heritage in public. Nobody will notice."

"The same is true over the phone," Sasori added.

"There's a censor on our Internet. The same's probably true online," Kakuzu added.

"You're kidding," the white-haired friend exclaimed. "So we've been going all the way out to the deepest part of the woods in total secrecy for no reason?"

"No." Itachi shook his head. "Not no reason. Remember what Sasori said about how destructive chakra techniques can be. It's not wise to practice them in town. That's why we stay away from town on the edge of the forest ourselves."

"Well, some things could be used in public," Shikaku said. "It's nice to know I don't have to go to so much trouble to practice making my shadow move. But I see your point."

"How well can you make shadow puppets?" Itachi asked. "The dog shelter is having an event in a few weeks. You might be hired as entertainment."

"Eh… Sounds like a drag."

"Aw, come on," Jiraiya said. "It sounds like fun! You could really use more fun, you know."

Shikaku shrugged. "Alright, I'll consider it."

"You sure we can't friendly-chat?" Hidan asked, rubbing his chin. "I wanna hear more about these shadows. They sound like fun!"

"Wait a second," Nagato said. "I don't remember living shadows being in the document."

Konan blinked. "Ah. That's what I had the feeling I'd forgotten about. Light and dark natures."

"What? So there are five elements, and also light and dark?"

"Light nature is part of medical ninjutsu, I think," Konan said. "I'm not sure what dark nature does. When we learned about the five elements we asked what elements medical jutsu and other techniques used, and light and dark were briefly mentioned then, but never followed up on. It never became relevant."

"...What kind of chakra does transforming your whole body into another substance use?" Nagato asked.

"Alright, perhaps he wasn't as thorough a teacher as he could have been. I have no idea," she confessed. "I discovered how to do that half by instinct. I don't know how it works exactly."

"May I have that pen?" Nagato gave the pen to Shikaku, who used it to write a note on the document. "This is a section we would fill out on our own, I see."

"I am not a chakra scientist," Konan said. "Though that reminds me of other things you ought to know about. We must tell you about the dangers and allies in this area."

"I got this," Kisame said. "I listed them off for Sakumo once. Let's see… You guys know how, if you head outside of town and take the turn up through the suburbs, there's a fork? And if you turn right, you go to the forest? Well, if you turn left, you get to a street with lots of abandoned buildings, a lot like the houses you have past the suburbs. That street is where we are."

Shikaku nodded. "That's good to know."

"In the forest, east of us, about north of the suburbs, there's the lake Sasori told you about. You know what that can do. On our street, there's a demon boy. He's friendly but likes to play pranks, and since he's an all-powerful demon with the power to twist reality his idea of a prank might involve nearly getting you killed and scaring the crap out of you. He'll do whatever it takes to get you to do interesting things. I guess you can call him friendly - his idea of what's interesting has gotten a lot better recently."

"An all-powerful demon that can twist reality," Shikaku repeated.

"Yep. As far as I know, there's nothing in the suburbs," Kisame said. "In the abandoned houses to the west, there are vampires. They're reasonable and they don't cause trouble for humans. I don't think you people have to worry about them."

"Don't go into the forest at night," Nagato said. "They go hunting then. Hungry vampires are easily angered."

"In town, there are a couple different things. There are the demons, which you already know about. And there's also a little snake kid. He's a small toddler with snake eyes, carrying a stuffed snake. He's pretty shy and doesn't talk. If he shows up, it's to help you. He has healing powers. But those powers can't be used in town, because they cause anything living to grow and everything dead to rot. Yes, that includes clothes. He can only heal you someplace away from buildings."

"He's really nice," Yahiko said. "So adorable!"

"I think he lives here in the park," Deidara said. "Same picked up traces of snake, yeah."

"He can also be found with the demon kid at the demon kid's place on our street, because they are best friends," Nagato added. "So, um… Is that everything?"

"Think so," Kisame said.

"You sure?"

Kisame looked at him suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

"Do you think the other guy's worth mentioning?" Nagato's eyes flicked over to Hidan.

Kisame thought about it. "If you visit our place, you might get a weird creepy feeling," he told Shikaku. "That's because we have a god living in our basement. It puts out a vibe that hits you differently depending on your personality. If you're closely aligned with it, you like it, for some batshit insane reason. It's weird and creepy otherwise. It's just in our basement. You only have to worry about that if you come to visit."

"What."

Kisame stared at the white-eyed man enviously. "I remember what it was like to be like you. Ah, the good old days."

"Perhaps it is not so good to know," Shikaku said.

"Yeah, by all means, stay away. That's what I've been trying to do for the past few days. It hasn't been working, but maybe you'll have better luck."

"There's a god involved?" Jiraiya shook his head sympathetically. "Everything makes a lot more sense now."

"Yeah." Kisame blinked. "Hey, mind if I talk to you for a sec?"

He and Jiraiya walked away, far enough that they couldn't be heard. Nagato and Yahiko did their best to answer questions about the demon boy and other strange phenomena. Itachi didn't listen. He kept the Sharingan on and watched Kisame and Jiraiya as they talked. From his angle, he could barely see their lip movements. Instead of trying to read lips, he focused instead on body language. Kisame was hesitant, stiff. He made several repeated and useless movements. He is trying to do something he's not used to doing. Jiraiya had no such problem. He was perfectly at ease. He thumped Kisame on the shoulder and pulled out his phone. Kisame did the same. Ah, they must be adding each other as contacts. Of course. Kisame isn't used to making new friends. Itachi smiled. And with someone who isn't reserved, as Kakuzu and Sasori and I are. Jiraiya is not his usual type. He's stepping outside of his box. Does it have to do with Hidan? Hidan has great power to pull people out of their boxes.

For once, Itachi truly was optimistic. Everything is going to be alright.

.

A/N: Shikaku's group might seem oddly accepting, considering how the Akatsuki members and Sakumo's group reacted to hearing much less. But, um... I'll come up with something to justify that later. I've been really, really caught up in a new video game I got on my phone. It's a serious problem for me, okay?

Jiraiya's way cool.

If the main characters are easily distracted, it's because I am. Although anyone reading this story probably gathered that by now. The diversion with Laurie was completely unplanned. Itachi's right, though. That's exactly what led to the creation of this story.