Naruto 1. flowers sleep in paradise

_flowers sleep in paradise _**; PG - gen - Pein x Konan**

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It's the sullen click of night that draws Pein out.

He sees the silhouette of her body, her back, blue hair standing not out at night but in. Only the flower bright, dimmed under the moon. Even though he may not see her eyes they are upon him.

"Konan." He starts, he finishes, walking out to step from behind her, beside her. And for the barest moments they stand together, before she stands just a little back. Not looking at the stars any more than she had the moment he entered an exit's opening. Not looking at him more than she had started looking at the stars.

"By the time this year ends you have numbered every star."

Konan does not say a word in reply, head tilted to the barest abbreviation upon the left. Paper does not wither, the petals could not wither. He's never seen her stood by real flowers. He thinks that if ever such a time comes he will always remember it, though he doubts it would ever be. To not stand directly under sun or rain. All a lunar flower needs is the moon.

But he sees how she looks at the rain and he questions only this fact.

--

r&r


	2. the way false people talk

_the way false people talk _**; PG - gen - Pein x Konan + Jiraiya**

Heaven does not open its eyes to her.

And hell does not open its mouth. There is only the world. She. He. There is only paper and flutter of the wind, but the wind could cut worse than the paper and she has seen this occurrence before. She stands before Jiraiya, not stock still, but unmoving, cloak fluttering like paper, flutter like wings that will not fly for any other purpose but-

_"I'll go, Pein."_

The cause. Ambition. What makes the world move and what makes her move are two entirely different things; but soon she can only think that some day it will be the same. Whatever memory that remained. Whether it was tan skin and the flush of orange hair (but unlike to his) or blue eyes that matched the sky Konan knew that it was the present that was. Is. Even if these memories were written across every scrap of paper, every inch, curling, invisible ink, her heart, her mind. Her body. Even if this was all that she was made of- a god's word was law, mortal law. And is she mortal?

She certainly isn't a god.

(Let me be an instrument.)

And the very air itself.

Students should always surpass their teachers- that way of the world, would it still exist in the world Pein was creating? And just a little does she look up to the blue sky, it peeks from grey clouds, rain no longer falls, the wind falters. At her glance. (At his barest movement.)

There was only one way to find out.

--

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	3. eaten decade

_eaten decade _**; PG - gen - Pein x Konan + Akatsuki**

They have been through every country more than twice and it is the amusement of the members dead or alive that only they are the first of the founding members, the first original members of the akatsuki, just the two of them and they who neither run or walk in the shadows. But they. Pein and Konan, it is the shadow from which they are derived, their words, their ambitions, their power. It is from shadow they were really born, it is from Madara's words and the shadow over and over, that they follow, Pein following the leader and leading, leading over and over, and Konan steps on every shadow. She steps on the puppet maker's, she steps on the immortal, she steps upon bright explosion and over to a pool of water, the stain of blood and wry laugh of the old wanting to be young again, cultivated sunlight and the clinking rosary. But never his. Never Pein's, and you cannot possible step upon your own shadow, so they do it for her in return. But never Pein's. And it is their system.

So every single piece of paper may be the same width and height as the last.

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r&r plz.


	4. mortal world

_mortal world _**; PG13 - gen/angst - Pein x Konan**

Under the beautiful streak of midnight, a shooting star evaporates within the sky. And Konan is stepping upon the streets of a dry city, abandoned and empty, desolate in being she is not wandering without purpose.

And then it is here that she meets him, in the street filled with moonlight. Names forgotten, teammates forgotten, all forgotten but- "I knew you'd come."

He says.

Cultivation of ice to accumulated fire, the wind does not blow it out and she does not shiver, standing a smooth edge, a fluttering tangent completely touched as they stand apart facing the other, shutters upon a tattered window bang open and shut, half torn, the red lantern halls from the corner of the roof it hung from. She remembers names, she remembers teammates, she remembers the city of her birth and dissonance. But they are of no concern now. Only this offer, presented to her on the finest paper, layer after tireless layer, her mother and her father had been healthy once. Father would make paper the old fashion way, with water, with wood fiber and the dyes he would create rivaled the old lady who made fabric down the street and the young man who was said to have spun silk with only his fingers. It was the most beautiful paper, bent, written upon, folded, torn, burned- it did all those things beautifully, it did nothing and was still beautiful. But then he fell sick while she was in the academy, the war ragged on. No one appreciated pretty paper any more. They appreciated steel, they appreciated iron. They appreciated blood. (And his ye did rival each and every shade a dying man could make. Spill.) The war ragged ever on and father, died with shaking hands, died even though mother had folded a thousand cranes out of the pretty paper he had made.

At the time he died she had been out of the academy and on a team for the barest of days upon months, and the war still raged. And they told her tough times were further ahead. Looking on, looking on (Minato does not shrug his shoulders as often, it is the first time she has ever had to wear all black in her life, father had traded his coloured paper for coloured fabric, he knew vibrancy in sight was vibrancy in life). Ever looking on.

(Jiraiya-sensei places a hand on her shoulder from behind, head bending over to match her height, he tells her things about the world she already knows, she is already tired but listens attentively, waiting.)

Days, years. Hour upon hour, she is waiting, waiting to be able to wear something with vibrant colours once again and he- he is there. He is here.

The envelope had been of greens and oranges and reds, there was no blue, only the dark of the ink on the crisp of creamy paper, grey fragmented within it. Pulling it out, unfolding the folds, creases running in four straights. You were supposed to fold a business letter into three sections, but it still did not matter, let her life be a four. Let it be-

"I knew you'd show."

She replies.

And their eyes are like their words, the wind overrun and outdone. Konan stands only this tall to see that he stands ever taller over her. That pretty paper, she had burned it away upon the day her mother sick in bed, coughed once more before, with darkened eyes joined her father. Konan likes to imagine that somewhere he is making beautiful paper, and somewhere mother is folding the made paper again.

Her mother's ashes were set into a vase aside her father's, and not sweeping the hard floor of their small one story house ever again, had she- as one does for graves- laid flowers upon the tops of the closed vases, ashes unable to help grow flowers within the smooth expanse of cupping porcelain. Dutifully she made a bouquet of paper flowers for them to share, before leaving with shuffling steps- taking only one to hold in memory. Like a deserter. The war raged on.

In her hand she holds that flower out to Pein.

"Help me find soil to plant this flower in."

Because paper flowers could not grow in ash.

And he takes the flower from her hand, the breath in her chest still, his movements still, as simply as he had plucked it from her hand (attachment of the body) he steps only a little forward to tuck it against the holdings of her tied up hair. Her eyes focus on closing at this action, only open when his hand draws away. He does not touch her and she does not touch him.

He asks her for the first time.

"Will you go?"

And a flower, planted, roots dug deep should not be able to move, but her flowers are paper flowers, they are different. They are-

"I will go."

And they went.

--

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	5. No wrong or right

_No wrong or right_** ; PG – gen - Pein x Konan**

A flawless face does not mean a flawless shadow.

They call her an angel because they have seen the devil, his right hand and his left. They call her an angel because she does not draw out her blade to draw it into them, because they are always the ones who sees the back of her wings and never the front (never the over loom of the front front front, above) they may look a little up and she will not be looking down, because she is looking up exactly like them, she is looking up because then she too will be able to look at god.

And he is-

Oil slick and sliding down her, abandonment, running since that day, two halves become a whole and Konan must adapt kindness to cruelty, the dull blades into sharp ones. She used to make flowers and now she makes cranes. Crows. Ravens.

The hawk.

And the swallow is defeated.

If he is god, then who is the devil?

The angel must muse over this.

Pein steps from behind her.

"Jiraiya-sensei." He says, and it's not the smell and feeling of oil that makes her shudder.

She cannot help but think god is the devil.


	6. Lost in a city

_Lost in a city_ **; PG - gen - Pein x Konan**

If he is faceless he should be nameless, but he has a million faces and a million more tales to tell and that is fine with her. Intricate and different, every sheet of paper will be different from the last, similar shade, a misplaced fiber, pattern and pattern and texture, which burns better and which drowns better. She and he have both seen blood running like a river and a sun that never sets as a moon that never rises. They've cried the same tears as soldiers and they've fought just as many battles if not more, as children their world was destroyed, so to compensate they will destroy the world back. The world of the world, stretched farther is the sky, but beyond it and the stars they still find themselves lost within the city, wandering with their bloody purpose, wandering with their heavy feet and heavier hands, pausing to see if their tears will come out as black as ash that had fallen from the sky all those days and not ago. In the country that always rained.

Trying to cleanse itself over and over of the soot. Trying unable. Trying desperate.

It's within the city that as they walk along (almost side by side) that- sometimes their hands will brush against the each and every other's, and it is then fine that they remain lost.

Always lost.


	7. Some forks may not bend

_Some forks may not bend_ **; PG13 - gen - Pein x Konan**

Konan does not touch him because everything is not his.

But he can touch her and there the difference lay. For every body she'll make something of paper and he'll tell her to not bother, they are not weapons- they are sentiment, but only through the paper may her kindness remain so she continues, for every body, folding and folding, over and over. She makes a ram, a snake, a dog. Over and over the assortment of who he is with every sheet, every scrap she has made, taking the most ugliest trodden paper and making the image of beauty from it over and over. To make something pure, she will at times use white, but the paper will end up grey- she likes to use red with him, she likes to think that it will bring him luck and bring them fortune. It will bring them the world, end, rebirth.

You draw air in to blow it back out.

She's making a ram again when he comes into their room, fingers on her knees but not, her fingers pause within skill and he is looking up at her face and only her eyes look down. "I want it blue."

But she will not comply.

There is comfort in power, and she has not forgotten.

(weakness.)


	8. living beings can be dead beings

_living beings can be dead beings_ **; PG13 - gen - Pein x Konan + Madara**

They visit the curtained enclosure of a nameless town to rest, even though the rain is tireless.

Incense, a single stack, encirclement is burning, rising and she takes the flower from her hair and sets it upon the ashes that are already there. Dark-lidded eyes surveying, dark fingertips not touching the ashes, and the flower does not burn upon ember, it will never burn. (For if it would, if it could-)

Pein is with her and together they recall not the day before but the day after.

He walks in and slides the door shut, the floor, the ceiling and walls are wood, and some are paper, there is a lantern, it too is paper. She thinks this place is crowded but pleasant. She can tell he does not like the smell of the incense, but makes no motion to put it out, the smell is cloudy and fills the room in languid swirls (that may never reach heaven) just as languid her hands move back about her sides, hands prompt with the other, "Shall I get you something to drink?"

There is a small kitchen and a small room, they are still practical, they are still mortal she will remind them.

She will remind them not to remember.

She retrieves a glass and fills it to the near brim with water only to pass the door they both entered, past the entrance with the enforcing stand and its tray – blue blue dark dark vase and the incense is dark about the top as if water has turned it out in seeping and the flower is no longer there, she walks on by without a pause, a slow straight walk above the narrow and seeking no space below it. To the small room with the smaller bed, he sits aside it on the floor, contemplating, she bends to give him water and he reaches up to pluck the flower into her hair, apathetically direct and determined. He takes the glass and the flower is in place, without a speck of ash, not even the slightest upon the backs of the petals or the stems.

Where would they go from here?

She's spoken to Madara only once on the matter. ("And after the world?"

"It's almost funny how optimistic you are Konan."

And she did not agree with him.

She only agreed with-)

"Pein."

She takes back the glass and it is half empty.

"Get some rest."

She finishes. And drinks the other half.


End file.

Naruto, Romance