A/N: Hallelujah! Thanks to a friendly person on Youtube, I have discovered a word that accurately describes my gender identity: maverique. Basically, I treat masculine and feminine behaviors and expressions like sliders in a video game. I do feel like I have a gender, but my gender is a bubble encompassing a range of behaviors and expressions that I draw from according to my interests at the moment. I don't feel like my behaviors and expressions have any connection to my deeper self, but I do recognize their gendered aspects and enjoy playing with them. It's like my gender is that state of playfulness itself.

The following chapter contains discussion of video games. I must clarify that I have limited experience with them. The only real video games I have played (as opposed to Facebook MMOs) are Dragonfable, AdventureQuest, Fate, Aveyond, Dragons and Titans, Epic Battle Fantasy 5, Incremental Epic Hero, and a smattering of ones too small to remember now but which I feel must exist. That's where all the information presented here is coming from. The first game played in this chapter is Dragonfable, and the second is Aveyond.

Hope you love it as much as I loved writing it! Video games are cool.

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Yahiko

Driving a school bus, skidding all over the place but just managing to stay on the road…

"Hey, sleepyhead."

"Wah?"

The light in Yahiko's room had somehow turned itself on. It shone through his closed eyelids, waking him up. He opened his eyes, blinking forcefully to make everything less blurry. "You were really asleep, weren't you?" Nagato said. "Sorry."

"What is it?"

Nagato held up a piece of paper. It was close enough and Yahiko was awake enough that he could make out what was drawn on it. It looks like the symbol of Jashin, but someone made lines instead of a circle. "This is yours," Nagato said, putting the small piece of paper into Yahiko's hand. "Stand up and channel chakra into it."

Yahiko's head was still fuzzy, so he failed to follow the directions exactly. He sat up and channeled chakra into it. Immediately his eyes slammed shut. He opened them, wondering what had taken control of his body just then, and saw that he was not in his room anymore. He was sitting on the floor next to the lobby desk. Yahiko looked around, then got to his feet. The same symbol's on the lampshade. This must be the return to base jutsu he planned yesterday! Oh my god, he did it!

Nagato appeared next to him a moment later. Yahiko hugged him before he could even open his eyes. "You did it! And all in a single evening, too!"

"Yeah." Nagato squeezed him back. "I did!"

Yahiko let go with a laugh. Finally, he noticed what time it was. The front windows showed the sky halfway to daylight. "Did you wake up early just so you could show it to me?"

"No, I've been awake for an hour already. But yes, I think that's because I was so excited to show everyone."

"Do you have seals for everyone? Then let's go!"

Yahiko and Nagato snuck through the base distributing seals. They didn't want to wake anyone unnecessarily, so they usually left the seals in people's hands or on a bedside table. A few people were already awake. Sasori took the seal, looked at it with no discernible expression on his face, and channeled chakra into it without being told to. Kakuzu tried it, after being told it was harmless. Konan awoke as soon as she heard footsteps outside her door, and she tried the seal too. Nagato and Yahiko used theirs with a grin. They ended up in the lobby with everyone else.

"You figured out a way for us to teleport back here at any time," Sasori said, eyes wide.

"The idea came to me yesterday," Nagato said. "I was driving home and I thought about how useful it would be to have a return to base spell like in video games."

Konan watched him closely. "You are capable of designing jutsus to replicate abilities found in games?"

"Um… This one, at least."

"I shall have to study video games."

Yahiko checked with his phone. "You get a lot of results if you google 'video game spells.'"

"Would you like to assist me in my research?"

Yahiko's cheeks turned red. He did not know why. That's right, yesterday was my last day, I only have to stop in a week from now to get my last paycheck. "Yeah. I have the time to do that now."

Nagato smiled. "I have the chakra ink in my room. Top drawer."

"It's a shame I can't be here," Sasori said. "I look forward to copying the storage seal."

Yahiko promised to copy it for him. Kakuzu gave Nagato a fistbump, then they left. Yahiko thought he heard Sasori whisper, "Go for it," as he passed, but could not be sure. Why would Sasori have said such a thing? It was a trick of his ears, right?

Only Yahiko and Konan remained in the lobby. Yahiko's cheeks were still red. He still didn't know why. "Um… There are a lot of spells in video games. It's a popular mechanic. Where should we start?"

Konan took him back to her room. She sat on her bed and looked through the results he had already gotten. "Many of these are similar to the spell Nagato copied."

"How so?"

"They are written."

Yahiko sat down next to her. He remembered the previous times he had been in this room. The decor was unchanged - namely, there was none. Hidan needs to finish up that present soon. It's sad in here. "So they would all have to be seals, not jutsus?"

Konan tapped at his phone. "Yes." She frowned. "Is there any way I can filter out the images that show characters and art from the games? I cannot find the spell icons in this mess."

Yahiko gave it his best shot, but could not figure out what to do either. "I'm sorry, I don't know how… Maybe a different search term will work?" He tried several, but none of them worked.

"You have experience, correct?" Konan asked. "Tell me what you know of video game spells."

"Um, okay. Where should I start?"

Konan guided him through a format she had already envisioned in her mind. How is she so organized? I wish I could think like that. First, she had him list different types of spells. Yahiko wrote it down in an email he would send to himself. Then, she asked him if there were any design elements common to each category of spell. Then she asked what were the usual requirements for each type of spell. Then limitations. Then any miscellaneous information he could think of.

The result looked something like Ruta's document.

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Summoning spells - Summons tame versions of monsters to fight for you. Looks like a drawing of the monster, sometimes in a circle. Needs mana and maybe a part of the monster. There's a limit to how many summons you can have at once and how long they last. Summoned monsters are usually weaker than enemy monsters.

Practical spells - Help you with game mechanics that would normally take time or materials. Identification, teleportation, healing, restoring mana, etc. All kinds of different appearances! Teleportation usually involves a circle? Healing looks like a cross. Needs mana. Limit to spell strength, usually weaker than matching items. Practical spells are usually the easiest spells to learn with the lowest mana requirements.

Attack spells - Creates lightning bolts, fireballs, ice spikes, etc. Looks like a drawing of the element involved, with elemental colors (blue for ice, red for fire…). Needs lots of mana, time. Limit to how fast you can cast them. There are different kinds of attacks - AoE, DoT, etc. (Area of Effect, Damage over Time.) May inflict status effects - burn, poison, freeze, paralysis. Status effects aren't caused by the spell though. They're part of how the elements work in game. Spells in real life would not have status effects because elements don't work that way.

Support spells - Helps defend yourself or others. Shield, stat boost, revive, etc. Shield spells look like a drawing of a shield. Revive looks like medical symbols - snake on staff, wings. Stat boosts look like the stats - muscley arm, boots with wings, etc. Needs mana, revive might need materials. No known limits. Support spells are usually class limited - only certain characters can use them.

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Konan went over the email before he sent it. Yahiko couldn't help but notice her lingering over the attack spells. "Are you thinking about how related they are to your jutsus?" he whispered.

"Yes." Konan looked up. "There are said to be four elements in this world. Air, earth, water and fire. But in games, you listed lightning and ice as elements."

Yahiko nodded. "There's also poison, magic, light and dark. Metal. Holy and evil. Lots of elements."

"Hmm." She returned to her contemplation. "Are any other kinds of spells affected by class?"

"That one changes by game. In games that have different classes, there's one that specializes in support spells. In games that don't, the best you can do is cast a shield or boost your attack power. Support spells don't really do much in games where you can learn any kind of magic."

"That explains why, unlike the other kinds, support spells in your experience do not have limits. They belong to fundamentally different kinds of games."

"I guess their limit is that only one person in your party can cast them."

"Party?"

"Yeah, games with different classes usually have you form parties with members of different classes."

Konan's brow wrinkled. "Cooperative games?"

"There are single player games where you control a party, too."

"Forgive me, but how can a single person control multiple characters?"

"There's a party leader, and menus, and… I'll show you later."

Konan pressed Send. "I pronounce this sufficient. You will show me now."

In order to do that, they had to leave the base and go to the apartment Yahiko had lived at before she appeared. The apartment had a desktop computer in it. "It's nice that you found an abandoned hotel for us to stay at while we do ninja things," he told her as they entered. "But hotels are only meant for travelers. They don't really have appliances like computers and things."

Konan nodded. "I have only seen full-sized computers at the library and at Kakuzu's house," she said. "I initially thought they were more powerful than your miniature computers because of that."

"Wait. You've been to Kakuzu's house?" Yahiko had never thought about where Kakuzu lived before. Kakuzu was just…Kakuzu. Yahiko couldn't imagine him in any other setting besides the ninja one. How did I never think about the rest of his life before? He must have one.

"Yes. It is unremarkable." Konan pulled out the chair for him. Her meaning was clear.

Yahiko got into it and opened up a game that he thought would make a good starting point as fast as he could. "Okay, let me start a basic quest so I can show you my abilities, and…" He moused over each move in the menu and read their descriptions aloud to her, sometimes explaining what certain abbreviations meant. He played through the quest to demonstrate to her how the moves were used, equipping and unequipping inventory items as he went. "This game allows you to form a party, though it's not one of those ones I described where parties are central to the game. Like, you don't really have to. But it helps." He chose his favorite two party members and equipped his pet dragon, then tried the quest again. "In this game, since you don't have to make a party in order to play, they don't have as many abilities as your character. But the way you control them is the same. See how I'm going through the same menu for all of them? And now, when I move, only my character is shown moving. That's what I mean by 'party leader.' The party leader is the only character that you move around on the map. The rest appear when you enter a battle, and they all have move menus. That's how you can control a party of characters."

When he turned to look, Konan's eyes were fixed on the screen. "I am strangely taken by the simple, yet sensible nature of this game," she murmured. "Its art is compelling as well. Is there a plot?"

Yahiko grinned. He took his character to a certain NPC, then left his seat. "Here. You try it."

Konan went through the NPC's entire quest chain, which wasn't long and had a very short and snappy plot. "This is very well written," she said. At the end, she asked, "Who is this character?"

"That's the main bad guy," Yahiko said. "This game has a long overarching plot made out of a lot of smaller plots, and there can be smaller plots supporting those, and so on. I'm not sure if it's…um…pleasant or annoying that the developers don't level-lock anything. All the content is available right now, whatever you have the battle power to beat. Which means you can do all the subplots out of order and miss some of them unless you check the book where they tell you how the main plot is supposed to go. The game doesn't guide you along the main quest line at all once you hatch your dragon egg."

"It is…what is that term…"

"No, it's not sandbox. A sandbox game wouldn't have defined areas and paths. But it is more open than most RPGs."

"RPGs?"

"Role playing games. Games where you have a character that you control, move around and fight with and so on."

Konan studied the game. "Can you show me a game that does provide guidance?"

Yahiko showed her such a game. Since this game had tutorials, all he did was show her how to start a new game and then back off. She played through it on her own. Yahiko watched her until she reached a certain point that he had had trouble with in the past. "Oh, um, don't follow the path here. The path leads to somewhere you can't go yet. There is no path to the city." Konan murmured her thanks and turned away from the misleading ladder, heading through the wilderness. Yahiko figured at that point that she was capable of playing on her own. He sat back in another chair and checked his phone.

He had to scroll up the group chat before he found the message that had started the current conversation. Itachi had said, Would anyone like to come with me to the hospital tomorrow? The demon boy has requested that I play for him and his people on Saturdays.

I'm in, Hidan said.

Me too, Deidara said. I've never been there before. But if you guys will be there too, I'll go, yeah.

After that, Kisame asked what the hell Itachi was doing wandering into the creepiest place in town without even telling him, and a conversation about risk taking and relative dangers ensued. It seemed to have died down already. Yahiko typed, I would like to go too. He hesitated before hitting Send. The last time he had been to that place, the demon boy had trapped him in a multidimensional horror room filled with piercing judgmental eyes. He, too, drew courage from the idea that others would be there. He hit Send.

"What frightens you?" Konan asked without turning around.

"Itachi's organizing a group trip to the abandoned hospital. I, um, didn't have a pleasant experience last time I went there. But with other people around, it'll be okay. I'm sure of it." He took a deep breath. "Hidan will be there, and Itachi, and Deidara. And the kid invited Itachi to play for him. Nothing bad's gonna happen." No, I used the word bad. Um…aw, it's too late to fix it. I'll let it go.

Konan took her hand away from the keyboard. "Don't we have an appointment with Nagato at lunchtime today?"

Yahiko's heart skipped a beat. "Oh, whew. It's only 11:30," he panted. "We haven't missed it."

Konan left the chair. "Save my progress and close the game. We ought not to be distracted."

Yahiko did just that. "So what are we going to do until then?"

He did not receive an answer.

He looked back. Konan shrugged at him. She was not going to decide what they should do. It was all up to him. Yahiko flushed again. He had an idea of what they could do. No way. It would take too long. And be too distracting. And I'm not at all prepared. But he did kind of want to… And hadn't everyone close to him advised him to trust himself more? I guess… I can do it for a little while… He lowered the blinds halfway and moved away from the window. Then he performed hand signs that he barely had to think about anymore and assumed his female form.

Konan tilted her head. "Your original never assumed this form in front of me," she said. "He was too embarrassed. Most likely because I was his girlfriend." She walked around him, inspecting him from all angles. Yahiko prepared to fend off a wave of intense discomfort. But no such wave materialized. Instead, he was just curious to know what she thought. He grinned and silently cheered. I'm getting more comfortable! I'm not so scared anymore!

'Have you studied female anatomy?" asked Konan.

His comfort immediately evaporated. Had the temperature risen by ten degrees? "M…maybe," he squeaked. Oh no. Is something wrong? Am I not doing it right? Is this form off? I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just playing dressup with a whole body. It's not real, I look silly -

"I can tell," Konan said. "It's very accurate." She came around in front of him again. "I would have liked to have met this version of him. I've never had female company. I've heard it's supposed to be special. Different and…nice in ways male company is not." Her eyes were on his hairline, but she was not looking at his hair. "Of all the words ever thought or penned, the saddest are these: what might have been."

Yahiko's blush faded. She looked so sad. Worse, he couldn't fix it. He wasn't a real girl. He couldn't be that company for her. But there was something he could do, and he did it. He hugged her. She stiffened in surprise, then relaxed. Awkwardly, as if she was not used to being embraced, she held him back. Yahiko realized that he had reflexively put his arms around her neck, and her arms were around his waist. It was the opposite of the way they would have positioned themselves if he was male. It really does make a difference what form I'm in. I just can't interact with people the same way in my real form. Everything feels different.

Konan shifted her arms. "I have never hugged a woman before." Was she feeling the same way?

Yahiko released her and stepped back. He looked down at the ground. "I…"

"Yes?"

He sniffled. "I'm not a girl."

A pause. Silence. Konan frowned. "And?"

"I'm not a girl," Yahiko repeated. "I don't feel unhappy in my real body. I still think of it as my real body. I don't…take this form because of feelings I have inside me. I take it for reasons outside me." He blinked, and tears fell down his cheeks.

"There is nothing wrong with that," Konan said. "We all must put on certain faces to interact with the world. When a mission calls for it, a shinobi will transform without hesitation. There is nothing fundamentally dishonest in giving yourself the appearance of a cat or a plant or an enemy operative. Those forms have nothing to do with who you really are."

"I just want…" Yahiko wiped his face. "I just want to be seen differently. Treated differently. There are lots of things that aren't okay for a man, but they're okay if I look like this. I thought if I was a girl, it would make everything easier. It would make sense why I'm like this. Why would a guy like fashion and want to be pretty and hold babies? Wouldn't it make more sense if wanting those things meant I was really a girl?" He was sobbing. "But I'm not. So why am I like this?"

Konan pulled him in for another embrace. She squeezed him without reservation this time. "You do not need to perform all the functions of a man in order to be one. You do not need to be seen as a man in order to be one. Your worth as a man is not dependent on what anyone else thinks should or should not define you. Those people are wrong. You are worthy, no matter what."

Yahiko sobbed into her shoulder. "This isn't real. I'm not really a girl. I have no right to look like this. I'm just pretending."

"Is pretending a bad thing?"

"There are lots of other people who are more -"

"No," Konan snapped. She squeezed the breath from him. "Other people are not more deserving or true or worthy than you are."

Yahiko sniffled. "But I'm not what I should be."

Konan grabbed his shoulders and held him at arm's length, forcing him to look into her eyes. "Neither am I," she said. "Look at me and dare to tell me I am less of a woman because of that."

He might wonder what species she was, but he had never doubted her gender. "No," he said. "I can't. It wouldn't be true."

"I will never hold a child. I will never nurture anything more closely related to me than a dog. Does that make me less of a woman?"

"No."

Her eyes bore into his. "Why do you treat yourself in a way you would never treat anyone else?"

"Because I'm…not…like…anyone else." The last of Yahiko's breath evaporated in a whisper. There it was: the truth at last. He was a freak. He was not a normal person. All the rules that applied to normal people did not apply to him. It was the moral thing to do to be kind and forgiving towards all peoples, but surely that didn't apply to him. He was exceptional. Exceptionally bad.

Konan continued to pierce him with her amber gaze. Softly, with the control of a surgeon, she whispered, "Yes, you are."

He tried to believe that. He really did. But he could not.

Her grip on his shoulders tightened. "I, too, have failed the basic measure of a typical woman," she said. "Even if I was surrounded by female friends, I could not experience the easy understanding that I hear of in stories. I am forever outcast."

Yahiko blinked. "What?"

"Haven't you noticed? It's been a month. Precisely four weeks."

At first, Yahiko had no idea what he was supposed to have noticed. After "four weeks" had echoed around in his head a few times, he finally realized. "You haven't had a period?"

Konan let go of his shoulders. She nodded.

"That's pretty normal. There are plenty of women with a condition that prevents that," was his first reaction.

Konan narrowed her eyes. Something about his answer displeased her. What am I doing wrong? "How are you failing to do the blindingly obvious and apply that same logic to yourself?" she asked. "I could just as easily say to you, 'That's pretty normal. There are plenty of people who don't fit in with others of their gender.' It's as if you refuse to see what is right in front of you."

"But…" Yahiko squinted. He tried to see it. He told himself all the myriad ways in which people could defy gender stererotypes without being some other gender entirely. Yes, other people could do that. But when he tried to think, I can too, it felt wrong. As if… As if, no I can't. As if… I'm not allowed to?

Konan snorted. "I have never had that experience that is so central to other women's organization of their lives. I do not have to buy those products. I do not have to be concerned about pregnancy. I did not have to seek out a medical kunoichi to apply to me the seal that allows women to be shinobi at all. I cannot commiserate over the pain of cramps. The whole structure of my life is different. If I were to talk with other women, it would not be as fellows. It would be as an alien." She shot him a look. "Yet you unquestioningly count me as one of them."

Yahiko's eyes widened. Oh. My. God. That's why Hidan kept talking about my parents. He wasn't trying to say they were bad people. He was trying to say that I haven't let them go. It's always as if my dad was going to walk through the door and tell me I was setting myself up to be a laughingstock. I'm still living as if I was a child under their rules. I haven't really grown up.

Konan turned to him again. "Why will you do so for me, but question your own legitimacy at every turn?"

Yahiko's eyes focused. He saw her. "Because you didn't live with my parents. Their rules don't apply to you. They only apply to me."

Konan blinked. She shifted backward. "Your parents?"

"I'm still living as if my dad was going to walk through the door at any second," Yahiko said. "And he would see me playing with my sister's doll, and he would tell me that's not right and all the other boys are going to make fun of me. Or my sister's going to walk through the door, and she's going to snatch her doll back and yell at me for taking what's hers and not mine because she's a girl and I'm not." His eyes filled with tears again. "They're gone, but not to me."

Konan's whole face softened. She cupped the side of his cheek in her palm. "You have a new family now," she told him. "New rules. Hidan sets the standards around here, not your father. This is a group of friggin' weirdos. Celebrate it. That's the new rule."

Yahiko nodded. "I was already thinking that, sometime when Hidan transforms in front of people, I could transform too. Like I was just following his lead."

"That's what we do around here," Konan said. "Are you a part of this family? Then act like it."

Yahiko nodded again. I'll do my best.

"And, for the record," Konan added, "I do not believe there are others with my condition. I experienced a perfectly normal puberty in all other respects. My ovaries clearly function. They just refuse to host any new life."

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A/N: ...

The condition they're talking about is Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, in case anyone was wondering.

So, have a wonderful week everyone!