A/N: The following chapter contains, uh, spoilers for one of the books I mentioned in a recent chapter. I normally would not do that, but in this case, the actual content of the book was too relevant to leave out. "The Cat Who Saved Books" is about a boy who goes on 4 separate adventures, each of which helps him learn something about the purpose and value of books. Characters in this chapter will be discussing each of the 4 lessons he learns. There are no spoilers for the story itself, for what happens to the boy or the cat or anything like that.

Having warned of that... Onward!

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Hidan

As soon as Hidan picked up feelings of aching muscles and exhilaration, he raced out. He caught them before they even had time to leave the lobby. "How'd it go?" he asked, hopping from one foot to the other.

"As well as any dealings with the vampires can be expected to go," Konan answered.

Hidan threw an arm around her shoulders. "C'mon, gimme the details!"

"Why are you so excited?" Nagato asked. "We're scared out of our wits."

"It feels super similar," Hidan answered. "And I'm the one person here who the vampires are most important to, since they want to kill me, but I can't meet them myself for the same reason. If you guys weren't scared for my safety, and if I didn't have to worry about your safety, I totally would go to talk with them. Since I can't, I want to know everything."

"I have very good news," Konan said, gently detaching Hidan's arm from her shoulders. "You may soon get your wish."

Hidan blinked. Shit, I've sent a lot of questions to the universe lately. "Which one?"

"The one where you get to talk to a vampire," Yahiko said. He grinned. "At least one vampire has totally changed her mind about you!"

"No shit?"

"She's in a little bit of trouble right now," Nagato said, "so we offered for her to stay here if it gets any worse. Hopefully that doesn't happen. If it doesn't, then she'll still need to talk directly to you at some point to confirm all the stuff we've told her."

Hidan couldn't help but smile. I could get to talk with a vampire. Hang out with one. See her. "It's been a while," he murmured. "I don't like anger. That never made anyone feel more alive." He blinked. "Fuck, yes! I get to hang out with a vampire! Woo!"

"Yeah, she'll definitely have to talk with you at some point," Nagato said.

"Did I ever tell you guys about when I first came here?" Hidan said. "I think it was over there, west of town, on some road in that direction. That's where I first met Kakuzu. They must have been watching over me right from the start. And we're so similar, and - It feels kinda like a family reunion. I think. I don't know anything about family reunions." But I do know about warm fuzzies, and that's what I have living in my chest now. He thought about the vampires' constant supervision of him throughout his life and smiled.

"They want to kill you, but you think of them as family?" Nagato asked. His confusion was adorable, like the confusion of a child discovering something they'd never seen before.

"Well, we have a lot of stuff in common, they know some things about my background that I don't know, and they've been watching over me my whole life. So yeah, I do."

Yahiko sighed. "Everything, all of it, the whole entire conflict, it's all just misunderstanding. And it could all end right now if only they could see you and get to know you. So many bad things don't have to happen if only people would just try to understand each other. Why don't they? I don't get it."

Hidan nudged his elbow. "Imagine walking right out in the middle of dinner and showing everybody your girl form. To them, I think meeting with me would be like that. It would be so scary, putting yourself in a position where someone whose opinion you care about can judge you and say things and maybe attack you. They're just scared."

"Oh," Yahiko said. "Now I get it. Thanks." But if anything, he felt even sadder.

"So it's all just fear," Nagato murmured. "But fear is in the mind of the afraid. Nobody outside of them can fight it. There's nothing that can be done to fix that except say reassuring things and hope they decide for themselves to face their fears."

For no reason that he could articulate, these words brought tears to Hidan's eyes. "I love you guys so much," he said, sniffing. "Even if it means I can't just run off to meet them on my own, I'm glad you're here."

Nagato smiled back. Konan nodded. Yahiko tried to agree, but couldn't force himself to look happy. Hidan gave him another gentle nudge. You can let it out. It's okay. Yahiko sighed. "I just can't stand feeling so powerless," he said. "I want so many good things for the world, but I can't make any of them happen."

Hidan frowned and scratched his head. He was reminded of anecdotes he had often heard about the surprising impact a single small gesture could have. But those anecdotes were the exact opposite of what Yahiko was complaining about. On the level of a community, a single person could be hugely powerful. On the level of the world, insignificant. "I think you're getting too ambitious," he said. "You can make tons of people's lives better from talking with them, seeing them, right here. You can do all kinds of good shit. You just gotta focus on your community, and not the whole world.

"I won't be frustrated by not being to do the things I want to do if I just stop wanting to do them. Great advice." Hidan and Nagato were left speechless. Neither of them knew what to make of this mood. They'd never heard Yahiko sounding almost bitter before. He didn't usually use sarcasm. What was this?

Konan came to take a closer look at him. Yahiko couldn't meet her gaze. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said -'

"This is a great development," Konan interrupted. "Continue."

What?

Several seconds passed. She looked around, saw the need to explain herself, and obliged. "These are the sort of thoughts you formerly would have had about yourself, are they not?" she asked Yahiko.

"Uh, I don't… What do you mean?"

"You are exceedingly cruel to yourself," Konan said. "You have used this tone before, but only towards yourself. Blaming yourself for being inadequate, incapable, weak. Haven't you?"

Yahiko swallowed. "But now I'm saying that stuff out loud, and not towards me. Towards, what, existence in general I guess? That's progress?" Konan nodded.

"Yahiko," Nagato exclaimed. He put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "You're taking on too much responsibility. One person can't expect to remake the whole world."

"But I want to, and I am one person. I can't become more than one person."

"That's what movements are for," Hidan said.

"But how can I get people to think the way I do and support what I support? I know now how impossible it is to change anyone's mind. Nagato's told me things for years that I still don't even believe him about, though I want to." Yahiko's eyes shimmered with tears. "It's impossible to reach anyone else, change anyone else's mind. The only thing I have power over is my own mind. All I can do is change myself, change my opinions, be more accommodating, be nicer. But I…" He grit his teeth. "I don't want to do it anymore," he sobbed. "I don't want to live in a world where someone who's been nice to me and put her trust in me could be killed and all I can do is invite her to crash at my place instead of actually helping."

Nobody had a reply for him. He was only expressing what everyone else felt. Hidan wiped away his own tears and tried not to start crying, because that might create a feedback loop and make everything worse. Or it might be a bonding experience and make everything better. He had no idea what was true anymore. I'm like a little kid lost in the woods. The only thing I know is I don't want to be here! He tried to get ahold of himself. Then, he noticed Nagato and Konan staring directly at him. "What?"

Nagato shrugged awkwardly. "You're the one who knows about…power and stuff…"

He's right. I do. Hidan sat on the desk and let himself start crying openly. He let sadness, lostness, and all kinds of unnamable things surge through him. They took his breath away, made his hair stand on end, stretched him to the limits of his capacity and made him wonder if he could take their force. But he could, because he had the strength to. Hidan let all the power of sadness surge through him, imagined himself to be an electrical outlet. When the power finished surging, he gasped in relief. But he also found, as he had found before (how did I forget?), that some of the power remained with him. It clung to him, making him feel stronger and more capable than he had before. Strong and capable enough to comfort Yahiko, perhaps?

Yahiko murmured apologies to no one in particular. "I'm sorry, I know that was the best move, I was there…" He had not let the power surge through him as Hidan had. He was still trying to block it off.

"Stop that," Hidan ordered. He gave Yahiko a hug. "You're tapping into a fundamental force in the universe. You wanted power? Then fucking let it come to you, you dumbass."

Yahiko gasped and let his knees give way. Hidan held him up as he trembled and shook like a ragdoll pounded by ocean waves. Yahiko held on for dear life. Eventually the surge of emotion finished passing through him, and he was able to stand on his own feet again. Hidan let him go. He wiped his eyes and face, which had gotten rather wet, and looked at the world anew. He looked at Nagato and Konan like he'd never seen them before. "She'll come," he muttered. He looked back at Hidan. "She has to come talk to you. There's no way she can avoid it. No matter what, it'll happen. You'll get what you want."

Hidan gave him a thumbs-up. Yahiko smiled, a real smile. "Why do I feel stronger all of a sudden?"

"It's what happens when you brush up against a force of the universe," Hidan said casually. "Some of it sticks to you." He yawned. "Oh shit, it's late. We should go to bed. I'm tired all of a sudden."

Yahiko looked down at himself. "I'm a power outlet?"

"Duh. You thought that shit was yours? Of course you don't have any power of your own. No one does." Hidan waved over his back as he left the lobby. Letting things flow through him from or to a place he dared not contemplate always left him rather drained. He collapsed onto the bed in his room and couldn't find the strength to move. He went to sleep instantly.

Deidara

Deidara was woken up the next morning by Itachi. He looked up and blinked slowly. "Mm?"

"Deidara, wake up," Itachi said. "I must read to you about cats and books."

Deidara yawned and rolled over. "Cats and books. Okay, yeah." Itachi found a seat on the edge of the bed and began to read. He started reading in the middle of some already-established story about a kid and some girl and a cat going to somebody's workplace, except it sounded more like a trip into wonderland than a real place. Deidara had no idea what was happening. He wondered if he was dreaming.

Itachi read to him for a long time, finishing the story of the boy and the girl going through some dystopian scientist's fever dream. Deidara yawned and sat up. "So the moral of the story is that the journey is part of the reward?"

"Yes," Itachi said. "It seems like every mini adventure in this story has its own moral. Perhaps they will combine into one larger lesson at the end."

"Is this your first time reading it, yeah?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you read it in your room then? Why'd you barge in to wake me up?"

"Because the role of writing is not as limited as we have made it over the centuries." Itachi put in a bookmark and closed the book. "There was a Roman general once who received a very important message. He took it from the messenger, held it out and read it silently. This was very uncomfortable and awkward because at the time, writing was known as a substitute for speech. To read silently, as if the people around you did not exist, was very strange and alienating. Imagine if someone put on earphones in the middle of a meeting."

"...I don't get it."

"I read to other people and had other people read to me yesterday. It was wonderful. The social element of it was very enjoyable, and I want to have more of it."

He just wanted some excuse to hang out with a friend? Deidara felt simultaneously honored to be that friend and bad that Itachi had felt such a need and needed to resort to such methods to satisfy it. Deidara would have been happy to spend time with him for any reason or no reason, if asked. "What was the first moral, yeah?" he asked.

"The first moral was that books are, in a sense, living beings, and because of that they deserve to be treated humanely."

"Books are alive and you have to be nice to them. Books should be read slowly like they were intended, because the journey is part of the destination. Okay. let's find out what the third moral is, yeah." After some debate, they decided Itachi should keep reading since he seemed to enjoy it so much. They found out the third moral together.

"What's the moral here?" Deidara asked, squinting. "Mass production is bad? Some books are less valuable than others? That seems kinda weird, yeah."

"No; the publisher's crime was not making too many copies of books or publishing the wrong kinds of books," Itachi said. "His crime was that he only cared about making money, and so he only produced the newest and shiniest of books while discarding older ones as worthless no matter how much they were loved."

Deidara remembered instantly people who he had met who touched his life. Sasori, his best friend, was much older than him. Kakuzu was really cool. Sasori's grandma was also cool - though Deidara had never met her, Sasori had told him about the pranks she liked to play. He wanted to be that cool when he was old someday. And it was a guarantee: he would be old someday. "Books can get old. And it's wrong to toss them away when that happens, just like it's wrong to toss an old person away," Deidara said.

"It's too narrow minded a way of thinking," Itachi said. "By the metric of how much money you can make, older often performs worse than younger. But that is one metric out of many, many of them. Human life is filled with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of metrics. What the boy really taught the publisher was that there is more to life than money, and you must decide based on your own values and the specifics of the situation what metric you will choose to use at any one time. You can't just apply one metric to the whole of your life forever."

"There's more to this book," Deidara observed. "There's usually three adventures to a series. This is the third, but there's a lot more pages. Enough for a fourth adventure, yeah. Maybe they'll do what you said and add all the morals together." Deidara began to count on his fingers. "Books are alive and need to be treated well. They need to be taken the way they are, as slowly as that is, and not 'optimized.' And they shouldn't be thrown away when they get old because they still have worth even if they don't sell well."

"Patience," Itachi said. He then sat silently for a while, not saying anything more.

Deidara looked at him and wondered what to do. Should I try to break him out of it? Or… Should I try to solve the riddle myself? I'm smart. I'm not useless! I can add up some morals. "Treat them well, don't mutilate them, don't throw them away," he repeated to himself. "It's all just an expansion on the first moral. Those are all ways to treat something well, yeah."

"I am approaching it from a different angle than you are," Itachi murmured at last. "Those are all things I have struggled to do."

Huh? He mistreats books? "What do you mean?"

"I struggle with empathy," Itachi said. "Recognizing another as a living being and not as a tool. Accepting them for what they are instead of trying to bend them to my convenience. Looking for the possibilities in them instead of making snap judgments. I have struggled with all of these things." He turned to Deidara. "In the past, I've made others angry with me and caused offense by jumping in where I was not wanted or needed. Instead of recognizing another's wants or needs, I thought only about my wants and needs and tried to impose them outside of myself. If somebody was doing something in a different way from me, I would think that was wrong and try to correct them. If they were moving slowly, I would itch all over with the need to make them move faster, to get them out of my way as if they were an obstacle. I never cared about what role doing things slowly might play in their own development. It never occurred to me that there could be valuable lessons in their defiance of my priorities. The way these antagonists treat books is how I've treated other people in the past. I have not been kind." He closed his eyes and looked very, very sorry.

Deidara put a hand on his shoulder, trying to offer comfort. "Hey. It's okay, yeah. You're not like that now."

Itachi opened his eyes. "The moral of this book is that books teach empathy. By taking them as they are and learning to see the different kinds of value they have and pondering what the purpose of a book's life is, you practice empathy." He picked up the book and opened it again. They read the final section. Indeed, that seemed to be what the main character said at the end, though his use of language was so different from Deidara's that the blond doubted he would ever have understood the message if Itachi hadn't been there to translate. Deidara didn't really understand the rest of the events that happened outside the telling of the main moral, either.

"So…why the fuck did that make so much of a difference to that lady?" he asked.

"All beings need to know that they have a purpose."

"I thought she was upset about books being mistreated though. How does this one kid knowing the purpose of books fix that?"

Itachi furrowed his brow. "I do not know."

"This book is confusing as hell, yeah."

By now, Deidara couldn't help but be aware of a growing feeling of bodily discomfort. His stomach complained sharply. He got up to get some kind of food in himself. Itachi followed.

Konan

Konan did not notice their absence because she was not there. It was difficult to fall asleep; her mind kept thinking new thoughts about what Hidan had said, about Soye, about many things that had happened to her recently. She'd started to worry that her racing thoughts indicated that strange and destructive mood's return, which made her heart beat fast with worry. She fell asleep reluctantly, and only because of her training. Then, before anyone else woke up, her eyes snapped open. She gasped, staring into the darkness but seeing instead the cliff upon which Hanzo sama had held her. She'd dreamed of that event. She'd dreamed of struggling, twisting and pulling and straining with all her might but ultimately helpless to save anyone or anything, including herself…

That was how she found herself at the Hatake campground before the sun had even finished rising. It wasn't where she wanted to be. Soye's face flashed before her mind's eye, the face that reminded her of her own. Konan was filled with a longing to go west and hunt down any and all vampires that would harm Soye. She was well aware that her desire to protect Soye was based in her own issues and did not reflect any real concern for the vampire herself. She didn't care. Were her own issues any less important than the issues of another? Anyway, the only practical way to resolve either set of issues was to go east to the Hatakes, so she did that.

She knocked on the door of the large cabin with wolves outside. This woke the wolves and made them perk their ears up. They looked around for threats. Konan had expected them to snarl at her for disturbing their humans. Do they think of me as one of their humans now? Someone who can be trusted? Her mind started racing again on the topic of pack-hunting animals and how much they had to teach the world.

Perhaps a wolf had crept off to the end of the cabin where people slept, because it probably wasn't her knocking that summoned Sakumo to the door disheveled and wearing the clothes he had slept in and with his hair not even tied in its ponytail yet. He woke up immediately when he saw her. "Has something happened?"

"Yes and no." Konan made her way inside. "We must discuss the vampires." Sakumo grabbed a table and pulled it in between the two couches, making another makeshift meeting space. They sat on either side of it. "My people finally got around to telling Soye the truth about Jashin sama, as we discussed at our last meeting. That Jashin sama is the god of hunt-joy, that she need not fear vampirics like Hidan, etc. Last night we found out what our news resulted in…" She gave him a summarized version of everything they had learned.

Sakumo's eyes widened. "Uh oh."

"Yes. Exactly. We must take some kind of action. It has already been determined that interfering directly in the vampires' politics would not be wise. But something must be done. I cannot allow stubbornness and a closed-minded desire to stick to the hateful ways of the past to carry the day."

"Nor can I," Sakumo said. "But what can we outsiders do?"

"That is what I wish for us to plan together."

She and Sakumo discussed all the possibilities they could think of. He remembered and described again what he had done the night of the hunt, initiating a pack-wide howl to help the vampires avoid fighting. She shared Nagato's description of how he and Yahiko used the vampires' surveillance for their own purposes. They came to agreement that turning the vampires' own tendencies on themselves would be the best way to indirectly influence them. They then discussed ways this could be done. Konan reluctantly disclosed that she had no idea how much surveillance the vampires carried out, or whether they carried out any at all. Was that their only avenue, or could another be found? It was possible that the vampires had no contact with non-vampires except for watching; if that was the case, she and Sakumo were helpless.

Konan was very desperate to not be helpless, so she brought up something that she normally would not have even remembered. "They have other ways of interacting with outsiders besides watching us," she told Sakumo. "Kakuzu realized the vampires were angry with Hidan when he found evidence that they had been manipulating local politics to interfere with Hidan's activities. They must have human contacts, ways of staying informed of local laws."

"Find their human contacts and get them to suggest peace?" Sakumo frowned. "That seems too indirect."

Konan would normally have agreed, but she was still desperate. "We must give this plan more consideration," she insisted.

Sakumo laced his fingers together, rested his chin on top of them and did just that. After intense consideration, he said, "Actually, it's not a bad idea."

Konan almost smiled. "Does that indicate that you've thought of a method?"

"The idea of human intermediaries reminded me of something," Sakumo said. "You've only met with two sides in this conflict. What about the third?"

"A third side?"

"There's always a third side in any conflict: the people who don't care. What about all of the vampires that aren't religious or have better things to worry about or are too torn to make up their mind? There must be some. Perhaps we can go to them, tell them what we've seen of the conflict, and help them make themselves into a force for peace."

Konan narrowed her eyes. "That sounds very much like interfering in their politics. Yet, if we are careful…" She gave it some thought. "We must not try to persuade anybody to anything. I will send in Nagato and Yahiko to act as sort of a documentary crew, gathering opinions and thoughts on the conflict. Wherever the vampires have inaccurate information about what we said, we can try to correct them. Spreading correct information and allowing the neutral vampires to see us personally and know that we are not evil people who hate vampires may create enough of a change for our purposes, and would be just mild enough to avoid immorality."

"Take one of my people with you," Sakumo said. "Someone levelheaded and calm; Chiki would be ideal. I remember how last time you said Hidan was similar to us half beasts. He would be too risky to send, but seeing a person who is literally half animal yet quite calm and reasonable would do wonders to show them that she was right."

Konan shook her head. "We can't expect this operation to be thorough. It needs to be visible what they are at a glance. I would prefer to take one of your half tigers with the striped hair."

Sakumo stood up, went into another room, and came back with a hair tie. He put his hair in its usual ponytail. "Follow me."

They went outside, where the sun had now risen. Nobody was active yet, but the wolves were beginning to stretch. It wouldn't be too unreasonable to wake people at this hour. Sakumo walked up to one of the cabins and knocked forcefully. They heard shuffling inside, and then the door opened. The woman that had showed Konan the lion pictures the day before leaned her head out. "What's happening?" She saw Konan. "Hey, you came back."

"I have a question to put to all the tigers," Sakumo told her.

The woman's slit pupils widened. She disappeared inside. In no time at all, the entire tiger cabin was standing out in the central area of the camp. Konan had a mental flashback to how Sakumo had looked and acted the night she first came to this world. They look so much more like shinobi now. They've grown up. The half tigers all treated Sakumo's request with great seriousness, and their body language was like that of soldiers receiving orders.

Sakumo cleared his throat. "I need someone to volunteer for a special mission," he said. "The vampires that we met that night have something of a bias against people who act animalistic and run wild. They think it means you'll get dangerous and kill people. Konan has done her best to convince them that is not true of anyone who lives here right now, but they need a little more convincing. We'd like to send some of her ninjas into vampire territory to gather opinions, as well as one person who is visibly half beast yet also calm and composed. If you have stripes in your hair and think you can handle this, please step up."

The tigers looked hesitant. They looked around at each other uncertainly. Finally, one of them said, "They didn't attack any of us that night."

"Yeah, I'm not sure if this is really a problem?"

Sakumo turned to Konan. "How much more should I explain?" he whispered.

"Leave it to me," she replied. She stepped forward. "Perhaps it is not a problem for any of you," she said to the assembled tigers, who quieted. "But one of my own is in danger because of this belief. Hidan, as some of you know, can be considered animalistic. He also requires blood as part of his diet. The vampires look upon him as a dirty, uncivilized, shameful cousin of theirs who they must distance themselves from by any means. I would like to change their minds about him before something provokes a direct attack. For this, I ask my closest allies for help." She met each of their eyes. "Will anyone here help protect my packmate out of the loyalty in their hearts?"

There was a moment of silence. Many of the tigers glanced away or flushed, hunched their shoulders, showed great inner conflict in their bodies. Konan understood. It was not easy to face hostile beings of great strength and numbers, protected only by people you had never met before. They didn't know the battle capabilities of the team she planned on sending. Konan had just decided to tell them more about that when she saw one of the tigers clench his fists and look forward again. "I will," he said.

Konan was surprised. She recognized this man. He had watched the game with them, but barely interacted and held himself aloof. He seemed to care little about anyone. But then he had gone off with Hidan to a location where they could talk privately and he hadn't returned… Ah. His loyalties run beyond the impersonal concept of alliance. The new powers this version of Hidan has gained are extraordinarily useful.

"Bro," the woman with slit pupils exclaimed, shocked.

"Thank you," Konan said. "Your help will be very appreciated. And if there is any trouble, you ought to be safe - I am sending with you a man who can pick up and throw away damn near anything of any weight with the movement of a hand, another man with a talent for seeming unthreatening, and a paper creation of mine that will alert me should I need to fly in and rescue you all. This is not considered to be a dangerous operation. My apologies for not mentioning that before."

Sakumo whistled at her description of Nagato. All the tigers looked reassured. The sister of the man who had volunteered made no further protests. The man nodded and asked, "Will it be tonight?"

"Yes. As soon as possible."

Konan then nudged Sakumo's elbow and indicated they should leave. It would not do to stand there staring awkwardly at everyone and she had no ability to formally dismiss them. She and Sakumo returned to the outer cabin. "One of your people is now involved. Are there any modifications you would like to make to the plan?"

"I have some questions," he said. "Who are these people again?"

"Yahiko is the man with orange hair, and Nagato has medium-length straight red hair and ringed eyes."

"Ah, those guys. Yahiko… He seemed very harmless looking. I heard that he befriended Wave before Makuto even had a chance to assess him. Can Nagato really do what you said? He seems so mild."

Konan nodded. "He does not have the ability to deliberately harm anyone, even an attacking enemy, but he can use that power to keep them away from him. I have…fewer restrictions on causing injuries. Hence my availability."

Sakumo rubbed his chin. "And the vampires aren't keeping proper watch. The most they could possibly have to worry about would be one of these hostile groups, which would be a dozen or so vampires… Against three ninjas, one of whom can just blow them all away… How close will you be?"

"I think I will follow behind them at a distance of approximately one neighborhood," she said. "I could be on the scene in less than a minute. Likely less than ten seconds."

"I have no further questions then."

Incredible. This man, who saw me at my near-worst as his very first impression of me, now trusts me. That would be excellent, if I did not know for sure I will betray his trust at some future date. Her gut twisted. "I will not let you down tonight," she whispered.

.

A/N: Heh. It seems like sometimes, somehow, this thing can transform into a proper story after all. I am very proud of this chapter.

*heart*