A/N: Hmm. A weighty chapter, this one.
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Konan
Her friends did not make it obvious, but they were terrified at the thought of meeting Jiraiya sensei's world clone. Konan told them everything she knew, hoping to reassure through information. It worked as well as it could. She then invited them to the backyard and rounded up a few clones for sparring sessions. That worked much better. Nagato complimented Itachi on his improvement in taijutsu. Konan dared to hope that relations would thaw as the clones improved their skills.
It felt like a very short time passed before her paper butterfly warned her of approaching people. She and her teammates met Jiraiya and Tobi as they came in. Tobi seemed to be in their usual lively mood. "Sir Knight!" Tobi exclaimed joyously.
"Tobi!" Clone Yahiko exclaimed back. He and the dolls were gathered on one side of the room, as Konan had left them. He held his arms out. Tobi ran into them. They embraced tightly. Like lovers. Konan blinked. No, that's not right. Two children at play. That image fit, but it was a hard one to maintain when looking at people who had adult-sized bodies.
Tobi let go and clasped their hands. "Where is Zetsu being held and who did this and why are they so mean?"
"Zetsu is with some friends of ours, they walked themselves over there, and they didn't do it to be mean," Yahiko replied. "I found out what happened. Zetsu and the king reached an agreement that they would split up for a little while. Zetsu had things they wanted to do by themselves, and the king is grown enough to look after himself for a day. Nobody expected you to come out."
Tobi tilted their head. "But I was summoned."
"What?" Yahiko pinched himself. "I mean, by who?"
"I thought the king did it."
"Clearly not. Obito would never have tried to bring you out without anybody around to look after you."
"Huh." Tobi seemed confused but, thankfully, not distressed. "Oh, friend dolls! Hiiiiiii!" The dolls raised their arms up in unison. Tobi got down on the floor to play with them.
"So…" Konan returned her attention to Jiraiya, who was puzzled. Wait. Was he ever informed? "You're the originals, huh?" Jiraiya said. Hm. Evidently he was. Good.
"Yes," Original Yahiko replied. He hesitated, looking awkward and adorable. "Hello."
"My original was some kind of ninja master, right?" Jiraiya asked with a grin. "Tell me all about it!"
"Alright," Yahiko said. His awkwardness faded away. Eagerly, he said, "Your original specialized in summoning jutsu…"
Konan left them and went to Tobi. Tobi was holding Solis and watching Warlic create balls of air and light that flew through the air and vanished upon hitting anything solid. He was throwing them at Manta, who sometimes made forcefields and sometimes let the balls hit him. Little One had made a single ball that was more light than air. He held it still, staring at it in fascination. Clone Yahiko was visibly overflowing with joy. "Tobi," Konan said as she knelt at their side. "How have you been?"
Tobi looked down at Solis. "Thinking."
"Of what?"
"The outer world has so many fun things, like dolls, but it's super scary too. It's not friendly like the inner world is."
"I believe that this outer world is very friendly. It's certainly a lot more gentle than the world I used to live in."
"It's full of hard roads, though. And grass, and trash."
"Yes," Konan agreed. "But it led Jiraiya to you, didn't it?"
"Huh?" Tobi had obviously never considered this before. "It can do that?"
"Yes." Someday I might explain to him that this so-called "outer world" is not really an outer world. It, too, is an inner world. The real outer world might be just as unpleasant and uncaring as he fears. They. This is not the Tobi I knew; I must keep an open mind.
"Ooh." Tobi raised a hand. "Hey, hey, I want one." Warlic tossed a ball their way. Tobi snatched it out of the air. Warlic threw three more. It turned into a game of seeing how fast Tobi could catch or bat away the magical air balls without getting hit. Manta had to join in because Warlic couldn't make the balls fast enough. Solis left Tobi's lap, freeing Tobi to stand up. The game expanded to fill the whole room, with all four dolls leaping on top of the desk and circling behind Tobi and Tobi leaping this way and that to catch the balls before they could land on the carpet (for they were now pretending that the air balls were fireballs). Everyone else had to back out of the room. Konan watched from the right hallway. Is Tobi using the Sharingan? Tobi usually moves very quickly, and their original surely trained their body to move gracefully from years of using the Sharingan, so I cannot tell.
She turned out to be not alone with this question. Itachi breathed noisily to announce his presence. Having cooled down from his sparring session, he now watched Tobi's game. They were alone; Clone Yahiko had disappeared somewhere. "Do you think Tobi is using the Sharingan?" Itachi asked.
"I can't tell. Tobi's normal way of behaving is fast enough and this game easy enough that I am not able to find conclusive evidence one way or the other."
"Perhaps I can." Itachi activated the Sharingan. After watching Tobi for a minute, he said, "I think that Tobi has unconsciously activated it. When Warlic and Solis threw balls at them simultaneously just now, they began to react to Warlic's ball while it was still in their peripheral vision. It's unlikely that a normal eye could have allowed them to do that. See how they fend off these balls just as well as someone with two eyes. Learned habits can only compensate for so much; I think the Sharingan has to be making up the difference."
"If Tobi activates the Sharingan for games, he must also deactivate it, or else it would have been noticed long before now. They, I mean."
"You are also trying to use gender neutral pronouns for Tobi?"
"As a way of reminding myself that this is not the Tobi I knew."
"The Tobi who was false, a deceptively harmless cover for a cruel man that ultimately killed you." Itachi sighed. "Yes. This Tobi is not that person. Cannot be."
"You are upset."
"Falseness, lies, deception - all concepts in that general family upset me. Why must people lie to get their way? Why can't the truth be good enough? Why can't the world as it is, or people as they are, be good enough? Using lies and deceptions is the same as saying that whatever you are lying about - yourself, your circumstances, the world, anything - it is not good enough. It is not worthy enough. You are ashamed of it and must either embellish it or hide it away. Why are so many people ashamed of so many things? They don't need to be. The world and the people in it are quite lovely. It hurts me to see that others don't perceive the loveliness that I perceive. My heart aches for them, and I want to share the beauty that I see in order to alleviate the sadness and shame they suffer under. But I can't. People defend their lies."
The sadness in his voice and the truth in his words moved Konan greatly. Although she did not show it on her face, his words pierced her heart. I have thought that too. Even in my original world, sometimes a ray of sunlight would pierce the clouds or a stranger would stop to comfort a crying child. In such moments, I have thought that not all of the misery of life is caused by painful things that one experiences. Some misery is caused by pleasant things that one does not experience - turns away from, ignores, devalues. This version of Itachi would have fit in well with the original Akatsuki, before Yahiko died. Before Nagato and I turned our backs on those pleasant things and joined in on the lies.
Tobi threw themself on the ground. "I'm tired!" They said that quite happily and immediately rolled over to let the dolls climb onto their belly and legs. Tobi does not lie. Tobi sees all of the world's beauty and is ashamed of nothing.
That man… The one who killed me… How could he have maintained such a personality and yet pursued the goals he pursued? Every successful lie must contain a kernel of truth. In order to act like Tobi, he had to see at least a little bit of beauty in the world. How could he have seen it and yet remained unaffected by it? Konan got a feeling of great disconnection, of broken edges that didn't quite meet each other. A feeling of wrongness.
"Not only are lies unpleasant, but they also do not function," Itachi said. "A life lived with lies is one that does not accomplish what it sets out to accomplish. No matter the intention, it ends up distorted. You look back at where you began and don't know how you got from there to here. Things seem broken, chaotic, out of control. I cannot stand to live that way. My devotion to truth is strongly rooted in fear. I dread the possibility of looking back on my life and realizing I'm lost, and I will do whatever is necessary to avoid that."
"My world was the same way," Konan replied. "Looking back, the way that events were linked to each other doesn't make sense. How did we get all the way here from there?"
If only her two oldest friends could have heard this exchange! Alas, they and Jiraiya had chosen the other hallway to flee to.
Original Nagato
Jiraiya's clone was exactly like the man Nagato remembered. He laughed just as easily, but possessed just as solid a strength beneath the surface. Nagato caught himself relaxing boyishly as Jiraiya's clone shared a story from his time looking after their clones. No. I have no right to this feeling. I cannot miss him or be glad to see him again because I am the one who killed him.
"I've heard some things about the world you come from," Jiraiya muttered. "It was really rough, wasn't it?" Yahiko nodded. "I'm sorry for that."
"Don't be," Yahiko said with tears in his eyes. "Your original looked after us well. You are just like him; it's good to see you."
"You're just like the Yahiko I know, too," Jiraiya replied. He turned to Nagato. "What about you? You've hardly said a word."
Nagato looked down. Not knowing what to say, he was reduced to shyness. "I am…not like the Nagato you know in any way," he eventually said.
"That's not entirely true," Yahiko said to Jiraiya. "Please don't take offense. He saw much more of the roughness of our world than I did."
"I get it. I won't pry." Jiraiya looked out at Tobi playing the game with the dolls. "Tobi's a nice kid. She would make a good princess."
I want to talk about Tobi even less than I want to talk about Jiraiya sensei. "Do you write books?" Nagato asked.
"I do indeed," Jiraiya said proudly. "I self-publish a beloved romance series. I am one of the few men who have any sort of reputation in that field, haha!"
"Did you ever write a story that was not romantic?"
"Eh… One," Jiraiya said, less proudly. He seemed embarrassed. "Just a little…passion project, you could say. I don't know where the idea for it came from. I just woke up with it in my head one day and needed to get it out."
"What was the main character's name?"
Yahiko and Jiraiya both stared. "Did my original write books, too?" Jiraiya asked.
"Yes. He wrote a story that mattered very very much to a select few people."
"I'm guessing you're one of them."
Nagato looked away. "I doubt the book you wrote is anything like it."
"Hey…" Jiraiya straightened. "You're upset about something, aren't you?"
"Nothing that concerns you."
"Want a hug?"
Nagato glanced back. Jiraiya looked serious. He held out his arms. Nagato's skin crawled at the thought of accepting any kind of comfort from this man. Before he could stop himself, he heard himself say, "Your original died because of me."
Yahiko's jaw fell open. Jiraiya's clone lowered his arms, but did not cross them. "Oh, so that's it? I'm sorry. If it helps, I don't remember anything bad about you, so whatever happened can't have been too meaningful."
"You had approximately a half hour of knowing that the three of us were not all dead. Of course it left no mark on your - on your original's soul."
"Knowing that we weren't dead?" Yahiko asked. "Nagato, what happened? I've heard nothing about this from you or Konan."
He's going to break up with me if I tell him. Our entire semi-romantic relationship is based on lies. Nagato couldn't ignore the steadily growing feeling of dissatisfaction he'd been experiencing. The thing he'd craved for most of his life was not the paradise he expected. Because of that, although he tried hard to make himself be grateful, he secretly felt that it was worthless. Anyone else would have tried to reinforce their relationship no matter how flawed it was, but he wondered if it wouldn't be a relief to let the whole thing crumble. "For good reason. We didn't want to upset you. When I say 'because of me,' I mean that in its most direct way. I fought him and delivered the killing blow."
Now both of them stared at him. Nagato watched Tobi cuddle with the dolls. They would either say something or leave. Until then, he needn't do or say anything more. He'd already done enough.
"I think I'll go check on Konan," Jiraiya's clone said. He departed at a fast walk.
The two of them seemed to be isolated in a bubble. Although Tobi wrestled with dolls just a few meters away, it felt like they were alone. Nagato could feel Yahiko's aura brushing across his skin. "Nagato…" It felt like a sad aura. Disappointed, perhaps? Probably.
"You came back for me," he whispered, tears pooling in his eyes. "But you shouldn't have. The Nagato you remembered no longer exists. After your death, I turned my back on our dream. I listened to someone else's dream instead. I betrayed you."
Yahiko should have backed away, should have muttered something face-saving and left. That would have made sense. But instead, Nagato felt arms wrap around his waist. He held his breath, trying not to breathe in Yahiko's comforting scent, trying not to relax. What is he doing? I do not deserve this. "That must have killed you," Yahiko whispered.
"Yahiko -"
"Because it killed me to realize I'd betrayed you."
What?! Nagato pushed him away. "No. You came back for me."
"I made you kill me just because I was more comfortable with dying than facing reality," Yahiko retorted. "I inflicted such horrible trauma on you. I'm not surprised you didn't want to think of me anymore after that. I deserved it."
"No. No, you're perfect."
Yahiko grimaced. "I'm not perfect."
Am I hurting him? Nagato took a closer look at the friend he'd always idolized. Yahiko seemed to be in genuine pain. And as Nagato kept looking, as Yahiko's words sank in, he started to see the truth of them. The haunted look in Yahiko's eyes was not the look of someone who had never erred. Neither was the slump of his shoulders or the way he opened his mouth to speak but closed it again, saying nothing. Yahiko wasn't a shining ray of light ready to illuminate the world and banish darkness forever. He was only a person, trying to do the right thing and sometimes failing.
"I was afraid that if you knew what I'd become, you'd never want me."
Yahiko blushed. "I've always been afraid that if you knew what I really was, you'd be disappointed."
I have been disappointed, Nagato realized. He opens his heart to me and I am disappointed because it's not as open as I wanted, or in the way I wanted, or whatever selfish excuse I tell myself next. Do I really love him? Or is it only the idea of him that I fell in love with?
"...We should continue this discussion some other time."
"Maybe that's a good idea."
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A/N: Perfect.
