A/N: There is a saying referenced in this chapter: "Curiosity kills the cat." From what I've heard, it is a misquote of the original saying, which was, "Care kills the cat." Care used to mean worry. This is a rare case in which being misquoted does not affect the accuracy of the saying, as both are completely true but in different ways at different times.

No cats will be killed in this chapter, or ever.

Mrow. :D

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Konan

They arrived at the dog shelter a little late. Marsha's face lit up when she saw Konan. "You again! How have you been, dear?" She turned to Yahiko. "And who is this?"

Yahiko's eyes sparkled. His smile was at its warmest and his aura was on full blast. "I'm here to see dogs."

Marsha stared at him with her hands on her hips. "You must be that friend who has the way with animals."

Yahiko giggled. "He tells me that all the time."

"Well, stop distracting him! That boy only just yesterday noticed he has his own way with animals because of you."

"Uh…huh?"

"You two distract each other very much," Konan told him. "I have been well, thank you. Is Nagato already in the yard?"

Marsha let them through. Konan took Yahiko's sleeve and guided him because he was so busy looking around at the cages, the walls and the lights and the atmosphere as a whole. "I like this place," he told her as they stepped outside.

"Hey," Nagato called. "Come over, but slowly, and don't reach out." He had Whisper sitting next to him. The dog looked up at the sound of his voice.

Konan stopped where she was and knelt. Whisper got to his feet. Cautiously, a flicking of his ear betraying his wariness of Yahiko, he came close enough to sniff her. Yahiko followed her example and did not move. Konan gently scratched behind Whisper's ear with two fingers. "How have you been, my friend?"

Whisper sat down, still chewing on his toy. His nose twitched as he continued to sniff. Yahiko edged around him and sat near Nagato. "Wow…"

"They get along really well," Nagato said. "It's too bad we have that symbol in our basement. It would scare him too badly."

"Yes," Konan said. "My apologies."

Whisper lay down on his belly and looked out at the rest of the yard. He did not seem to need an apology. What a forgiving creature. Humans can be so cruel to each other, but never beasts such as this.

Yahiko looked around. "Who should I meet firs -"

"Woof!" Jonesy leaped over Lilac's back as she and Kidneybean ran in front of him. Lilac yapped and changed course. Konan tensed, but nothing else happened. It was amazing how well the small dog reacted to nearly being stepped on. Jonesy didn't seem to realize he'd done anything wrong. He walked right up to Yahiko and started sniffing him for treats.

Yahiko lit up all over. "Oh my gosh! Hi!" He took hold of Jonesy's head and scratched him roughly. Jonesy barked again and lolled his tongue out. "Haha!" Yahiko let the dog lick his face enthusiastically.

Konan and Whisper stared. "Why yes," she said to him, "those two are clones of each other." Whisper chewed on his toy and did nothing.

Yahiko hugged Jonesy, still giggling. Jonesy's tail swung back and forth wildly. He flopped into Yahiko's lap. Yahiko squeed, looking and feeling ready to explode with happiness. His aura attracted the attention of every dog in the yard. Lilac and Kidneybean ran up to him and barked, the same bark as they used in their games. Mosey sat up (putting full weight on his formerly injured leg, Konan noticed). And Tipsy strode over with her ears and tail up. Yahiko noticed her and grinned. "Hi!" He even waved. It was as if he had not noticed what kind of dog she was.

"Yahiko, please tell me what kind of dog that is."

"What do you mean?" Yahiko looked at her with innocent confusion. "It's a dog-dog."

Konan sighed. Lord of mercy, let him not get on her bad side as Jonesy did.

"She's the dog version of Konan," Nagato said.

"Really?" Yahiko took another look at Tipsy. "Oh, yeah, she does look kind of focused." He held his hand out for a sniff.

Tipsy flicked one ear. She kept her eyes and nose trained on him. Yahiko let his arm awkwardly fall away. "Or not, that's fine too." He patted Jonesy and acted as if he was ignoring her, while making it clear he was not. If Konan had been more expressive, she would have smiled. Tipsy stared at him for a few more seconds. Then she turned and walked away.

Nagato sighed. "Well, that was perfect." He looked around. "Aw, you two look so happy with your pets. I'm the only one who doesn't have one."

"He is a little busy," Konan said, gesturing to where Lilac and Kidneybean were play fighting.

Nagato made a face. "I see what you mean, but I don't think so. It doesn't feel right."

Konan searched her memory. Which dog here did he get along with best? "Excuse me. Where is that other dog, the mutt?"

"Goldeneye? She's getting treated for fleas." Nagato slapped his knee. "Which explains why I don't have a dog friend right now. Never mind, everything makes sense."

"Tell me about her," Yahiko requested. Nagato smiled and described in loving terms a dog who was always running off and getting into places she shouldn't, but who always loved the adventure and never lost her spirit. The way he shook his head when talking about her was so full of love, Konan could imagine a human woman who saw it losing her heart right then and there. He really ought to have a partner. What is taking Hidan so long?

"I admire her," Nagato said when he finished.

"So do I." Yahiko had tears in his eyes.

Nagato ducked away. "What, um, took you guys so long?"

"We were having a pleasant discussion of gender norms and the various ways people can fail to live up to them," Konan said. "I confided that I am infertile."

"Really? You are?"

"Yes."

"Oh." Nagato cleared his throat. "Um, is that a bad thing?"

"No, I have grown used to it. I should not look after any form of life with needs more complex than a mushroom's anyway."

"Yeah, probably a bad idea." Nagato said that in the most casual tone he could. He leaned back on his arms and looked up at the sky. "I, well, you know…"

"What?" Yahiko asked.

Nagato opened his mouth. Konan's ears perked up. Right now was the easiest time to say it. It would be so casual, so easy, woven seamlessly into the conversation. Say it!

Nagato did not. He kept his mouth open for a while, then closed it. "I've never had those kinds of interests," he said. "I always preferred books over sports, hanging out to hunting. That sort of thing."

Konan restrained her chakra. Whisper looked up at her. She scratched behind his ear as Yahiko said something bland and unimportant in return. Inside, her chakra was boiling. Say something, you fools! But they did not. Yahiko finished saying something about painting and colors. Nagato said he shared those interests, and they chuckled. Nothing of importance happened.

"What about you?" Nagato asked her. "Are there any stereotypically feminine interests you've never had?"

Konan slid her eyes in his direction. She could restrain her chakra, but she was sure her eyes gave her away. She looked at both of them. "Or not," Nagato whispered. Yahiko's fake smile faded.

"I do not waste my time on trivialities of no importance," she told them. Nagato blushed. Yahiko shrank back.

They did not say anything more. They sat in silence until the play period was over. As soon as the dogs were away, Nagato embraced them both. He gave Konan an extra tight hug. "I don't know why I stopped," he whispered. "It felt like I was waiting for something." Then he hugged Yahiko and wished him luck in the fight against inaccurate stereotypes. Yahiko and Konan left together.

"It feels like anything not trivial is too big," Yahiko said once they were outside. "Like there's a hole in me I push things through, and it's only large enough for stuff that's not really important."

"Widen the hole," Konan advised.

"I'm trying." Yahiko reached for his phone. "Maybe I should do some more research."

Itachi had confirmed his acceptance into the hospital-visiting party. The demon boy has declared this acceptable, he said. Konan wondered about that on the way back to Yahiko's former apartment. What kind of interactions did Itachi have with their demonic neighbor? Could the demon boy be called an ally? When they reached Yahiko's apartment, she waved for Yahiko to do his research somewhere else. She found herself an isolated corner and sat in it. Another accounting for my resources is in order.

Hmm. I have my uniform, the contents of my pockets, and my jutsu. I have my mind, for now, and the support of the Akatsuki, for longer than now. I have allies beyond that - the Hatakes and the demon boy. Shikaku's status is unconfirmed. I do not have any enemies, for now. I have solid information about the lay of the land and the political landscape of this region. I am effectively a queen.

"Konan?" Yahiko called.

She went to the bed, which he sat on, and sat next to him. "Yes?"

"I just realized what the problem is," he said. "There's a difference between how I act and how I feel. I act like a chameleon, but how I feel doesn't change. All this stuff about gender fluidity isn't right. I need something, some kind of word, that never changes but allows things connected to it to change. What kind of word is that?"

Konan narrowed her eyes. "A word that describes a fixed identity but allows for great flexibility in behavior…" This way of thinking is new to me, too. What is an identity but how one acts in the world? That these definitions demand a description of an inner feeling is very bizarre. If they are meant to encourage discussion, why are they so restrictive? What is one to do if they cannot access their deep inner heart? If they are confused, if their view is obscured, if some trap of the mind has choked off communication? It is very dangerous to rely on clear mental communication, because it is inherently unreliable. Things of such vital importance as community and self-respect should not be chained to the whims of the unstable mind. "Perhaps your gender identity has two aspects?"

"No, I don't think I feel like two things at once," Yahiko said. "I just never saw a difference. I would look at girls playing on the playground and I wouldn't know what it was that made me different from them. I knew they were girls and I wasn't, but I didn't know why." He wrinkled his brow. "Until I hit puberty. Around then, I started to realize. There was something in me that…that…that had to do with how I was growing. I felt like something about it had made me a different person. That if I'd grown to be a woman, I would be a different person somehow."

"What was that thing?"

"I don't know." Yahiko rubbed his arms. "I felt different, growing stronger. But I don't think it's my muscles that changed me. I don't think it's my shoulders. Maybe my voice?" He hummed to himself. "It's true that I would sound a lot different if I hadn't gotten testosterone. Maybe it's my voice that I can't imagine being without."

"No discussion of this kind would be complete without genitalia," Konan said. "Can you imagine being without those?"

He blushed. "I can imagine. That doesn't make me who I am. I don't have it in my female form, and I don't feel like I've stopped being me."

"So then, this thing that changed you, it is not a physical feature at all?"

Yahiko transformed into his female form. "Maybe not," he said, putting a hand over his heart. "But it is something I can feel. Inside. There's a reason I'm not a woman even when I'm like this."

Konan took his phone from him and looked at what he had been looking at, giving him space for his thoughts. He had been looking at a page describing a kind of gender fluidity based around a term she did not recognize. Konan pressed the word agender. She did not remember where she learned that text in strange colors had been altered to take her someplace else if she interacted with it, but she had learned that at some point. She watched the page load, looked at the flag and read the first few paragraphs of description. Null gender? What, as if one was a machine, not human at all? What a strange concept.

Beside her, there was movement of air as Yahiko transformed back and forth repeatedly. "What's the same…?" he whispered.

"Your hair," Konan suggested. "The color of your eyes. Your hopes and ambitions."

"I…can't…quite…see…it," he groaned. "It feels like something's just over my shoulder."

"Perhaps you should stop trying to see it," Konan said. She laid a hand on his shoulder. "When you try too hard to see something, you may frighten away whatever it is."

He relaxed, panting. "Yeah. You're right. Maybe I'll dream about it or something."

Konan gave him back his phone. "Let us do research together. I've found this interesting term. What do you think of it?"

Hidan

Hidan and three clones worked in silence. Every so often, one of them swore. This was the sort of difficult task for which he would usually take many breaks and ultimately leave for another day. But today, he worked with singleminded determination. Today, he had a deadline, and it was a very important deadline that he had given himself. He could not miss it.

"How's this?" one of the clones asked. It held up a lumpy shape with a deep bowl in the center and two projections vaguely resembling brow ridges.

"Keep that one, make more versions of it," Hidan ordered. The clone went back to work. "Oh, and disperse so the rest of us know how you did that," Hidan realized. The clone did so. He made another clone and sent it to work in the first one's place.

He was accumulating paper cuts at a ferocious pace, but paid them no mind. The origami frog must be done by tonight. No alternatives. No delay. Tonight. All his clones agreed, which was why they were making fantastic progress. Knowing that he simply would have the frog done by that night, no matter what, gave Hidan a feeling of almost supernatural brilliance. He felt like he was gaining insights into the fundamental nature of origami as a craft. Maybe he could take it up as a new hobby and bond with her over it.

"Heh." He put his latest paper creation gently down on the desk at the side of his room. He had been working on the hind portion of the frog; it supported itself now on its own feet. He turned and pointed to one clone who was working on the same part. "You! Disperse. I just did a thing."

He fitted the lumpy shape that vaguely resembled a head onto the shape he had just created. It took a little forcing and twisting, and he bent a part of the paper to make a hook, but ultimately the frog stayed together. Hidan got the 3 pieces from his drawer and slid them into the frog's mouth. They fit. He raised an arm and cheered, then put everything back where it had been. Both of the shapes just created were worn and softened by previous practice. New and better versions must be made. The two clones working on the head both tried, at the moment, just to copy what their predecessor had done in a fresh sheet of paper. Hidan put the old head before them in case they needed it. Then he made a new clone and they both copied what he had done, using a fresh sheet of paper.

All versions of Hidan gathered in a circle on the floor. They now had two prototype frogs. Hidan put the heads on the bodies himself. "Hmm…" Something doesn't look quite right…

Eventually he figured out what it was. "Oh, duh! Gotta break out the white paper!" For a reason he did not remember, he had been using the red paper for both parts of the frog. He cursed himself lightly as he remade the head in white. He replaced the head of a prototype with a flourish.

"It still doesn't look right," a clone observed.

"It just looks like a frog with a white head," another said. "Nothing else."

"Didn't that guy have a long ponytail?"

Hidan scowled. "If we wanted to take the white part all down here, that would be a whole different shape. You fuckers up to that?"

They brainstormed ways to better make the frog resemble Jiraiya. Ultimately, they found that there was only one solution: "Alright, I'll raid their rooms for markers," Hidan said. "You come with me and be a lookout. The rest a' you, do whatever you want."

Hidan and his lookout clone crept through the halls on full alert. Hidan kept a hand on his chest in case his heartbeat provided early warning. The clone did the same, but with an increasing look of confusion on its face. But it stayed quiet for now. It knew better than to jeopardize the mission.

Hidan found markers and other art supplies in Nagato's room. He debated using paint instead, but conceded that he did not have the art skills to do so with confidence. They crept back to his room with markers in hand.

The other two clones were gone.

"Okay, what would I do if I was left alone in a room with a clone of me for a while?" Hidan asked. He peered at his clone suspiciously.

The clone looked left, then right, then left again. What should it do? It agonized over its decision in silence.

Hidan stared. And stared. And took a step back. "What the fuck?"

"What?" the clone asked. "Do I have something on my face?" It rubbed its face.

"A look like you were confused," Hidan said. "But I didn't feel confused. I didn't feel shit."

The clone's conundrum was resolved. "That's just what I was thinking about just now," it said. "I realized I wasn't sure if I could be a good lookout. I assumed I would have that ability, 'cause we always have, but I started to doubt it all of a sudden."

Hidan asked the clone to pinch itself. It did. "I didn't feel that," he whispered, awestruck.

He then pinched himself in a different place. "And I didn't feel that," the clone said.

"Shit. My feeling power doesn't work with my clones."

They looked at each other. What else differs between us? Hidan knew where his other two clones must have gone. Without a word, they turned in harmony and left the room. The other clones were now plainly visible, bickering with each other at the top of the basement stairs just a short distance away. Hidan broke them up. "You two fuckers can go into the basement, can't you?"

"Yeah," said the clone on his left. "We totally could. We should!"

"No fucking way," shot back the clone on his right. "There has to be a reason why we're normally afraid to go there. Maybe us clones aren't scared just because we're clones and dying isn't a problem for us."

"That room doesn't kill people."

"It might kill us!"

"Why? Our original was a priest of that religion, right?"

"Which is why we normally hate anything to do with that! Maybe he made us allergic!"

"I don't feel allergic," the left clone said, sniffing in offense.

"Stop arguing," Hidan said. "I'm the original here, so you two have to do whatever I say. And right now, I'm fucking ordering you both to go down there."

The left and right clones looked at each other. "It is a little scary to think about what's down there," the left clone murmured.

"Eh, we'll be all right," the right clone said. "Orders are orders. Come on."

They went down the stairs together. Hidan watched them go. The look of the basement door made him uneasy. The thought of being down there, down, at the base of the stairs like being at the base of a roaring vortex… He was covered in goosebumps, and did not know why. It was impossible to analyze his fear to find out where it came from. The feeling of being caught in a vortex when he tried to imagine going down there was so strong that it put his mind in that completely unreflective state people's minds go in when they are in the middle of a life or death situation. All he knew was that he must avoid going down there, and he was perfectly happy to know that. Of course he was curious about what might be down there and why he couldn't see it. But as the clones reached out for the door, he averted his gaze. The saying might be inaccurate, but that didn't make it any less true.

He heard the door close behind them. A few seconds later, he allowed his gaze to return to the bottom of the basement stairs where they had just vanished. "You're covered in goosebumps," the remaining clone observed. He ran a hand along Hidan's arm. He got a bright look in his eyes and put a hand on Hidan's chest. "Look at it again?"

Hidan did so. He imagined being at the bottom of those stairs, about to turn the handle. A tilting feeling came over him, and he no longer saw the outside world but didn't see anything else either, and he was entirely unable to think about himself. When he scrambled to safety in the present moment where he was at the top of those stairs and not the bottom, it was reflex. No decision was involved.

"Oh yeah," the clone said. "Definitely fear. That was some forceful pounding there." The clone looked down the stairs himself. "Now I want to see what's down there."

Before Hidan could reply he found his head turned to the side as if pushed. What? He heard the door open. He was not able to turn back until he had heard it close and his clones were climbing the stairs.

"What was it?" begged the clone who had stayed up with him. "Come on, tell me what was down there!"

"Not much," said one of the other clones. They both looked confused. "There wasn't…anything down there."

"We saw the symbol," the other said. "But it was just a piece of floor decoration. Nothing was there."

The thought of the symbol set Hidan's heart pounding again. Does my feeling power have to do with that thing? The symbol is what freaks me out, but they're immune to it, and they're immune to my feeling power too. But how the fuck can my feeling power be tied to that thing? It's completely different.

"Is our feeling power the thing that lets us be afraid of the symbol?" the third clone asked. "Maybe it's sending out signals along that channel."

Hey wait a second! I remember this! "Duh," Hidan said. "Nagato told us about this, remember? There's a prophet, something to do with the symbol, sending out the same sorts of waves, I pick that shit up and that's why I'm afraid of the symbol 'cause I don't want anything to do with that guy." He grinned at the clones. "Good news: you fuckers don't have my feeling powers, which means you can do whatever the fuck you want. Stare at paintings all day and make Jashinist graffiti, whatever. You're immune to this shit."

The clones' jaws dropped. "Seriously?" one of them exclaimed.

"Immune to…" The other one trailed off. His face turned bright red. His pupils dilated. What could he be envisioning?

Hidan realized it. Then the third clone, then the second. "Huh," Hidan said. "That's an idea. We gotta test it at some point." He gestured in the direction of his room. "Gotta finish her present, though."

They all went back to the room. They examined the two prototype frogs. As far as the paper-folding went, Hidan pronounced them adequate. He asked all clones to disperse while he got out some more sheets of white paper. He gasped. The papers fell from his hand. He blinked, and found himself kneeling on the floor, white papers scattered around him. What…was that?

He had received the memories of his clones. But try as he might, he could not find the memories of their visit beyond the basement door. That part had been replaced with a void, a blank. It was this blank coming over him that had made him drop the papers. He picked them up and tried to avoid thinking of the missing stretch of time. It made his head hurt.

He remade the frog all in white, placed it on the desk, uncapped the red marker, and colored it from the bottom up. He did his best not to think of that missing span of time. Why does it even bother me? I have missing time all the time. I don't trip over it. Indeed, to his relief, the void was rapidly closing over and becoming just another empty place in his memory. It did not make his head hurt to fail to remember something. But just then, at the moment his clone dispersed, he had been able to perceive that there was something to be remembered which had gone missing. Like being able to see the dust cloud in the shape of a cartoon character who's run away very fast. He was just as glad to not see that shape anymore. Or, more accurately, he was just as glad to not see where his missing memories had gone, because it was not like a cartoon character that had run away but rather like a cartoon character that had fallen through a trap door and for just a moment the trap door was open… But he did not remember what, if anything, he might have seen in it. That's a good thing, he told himself. That's a good thing.

Even so, he put the marker down for a moment. Did I ever decide it was a good thing? Or did I have that decision forced upon me? He was prepared to work up a frothing cap of righteous indignation at his unseen other self for putting him through this. Something stopped him from getting indignant, though. He couldn't answer the question. …I had it forced upon me, right? I don't remember ever deciding to live like this. It just happened to me. I was forced. But no matter how much he tried to think that, he still couldn't answer the question. Did I decide it?

His eyes narrowed. Back before he could remember, in those eight years that were lost, had he decided it then? Hidan's jaw fell open. He might have lived differently back then, mightn't he? And decided that it was too terrible to live that way, that he would prefer to live this way instead. Did he, on some level, the same level that allowed him to remember Nagato being so kind to him, remember how terrible it used to be?

He sat at the desk with his head propped on one hand and a marker in the other hand, an unfinished frog in front of him. Those years… I ran away. I started again. A new life, a new memory. Tabula rasa: a blank slate. Or maybe not blank. Maybe I knew. He thought about those eight years and noticed a small shiver run along his back. Yeah. I knew. On some level, I was always afraid of remembering.

He resumed coloring. This was what it was to be a creature of amnesia. The condition itself might keep him from ever knowing why he was that way, but he must never forget that a long time ago, someone who used to be himself had made that choice. He must trust that it was good.

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A/N: This last part isn't specific to Hidan. I remember my father telling me a story he knew once. There was a cave of souls, and every so often a soul would be called out of the cave to begin a new life. The angel that did the calling would press a finger to the soul's lips and make it promise never to speak about what it knew. This is why most people have that little dip in their upper lip just below the nose, and why we can't remember a life before we were born. I don't believe this story exactly. I don't believe human souls are special and separate from other souls, or that humans are the only ones to have souls. I don't believe human souls are created from nowhere - I believe there is general soul energy suffusing all things, and it takes different shapes wherever it ends up. But in this sense, as conglomerations of soul energy that have had other lifetimes before they took their current form, I do believe that people have had previous lives. We don't remember them. If there is any hint of having lived a previous life, it manifests itself as something beyond control or understanding, a way that we are where we cannot explain why we are that way. As I was writing this last paragraph, I thought that this is true of everyone. We are all creatures of amnesia.

Haha, enough about my spiritual beliefs! Big things coming up. Something I've had planned for years is unfolding. Ah, I can't wait!