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Chapter Text

Prologue: The Fool (Turning Back the Gears of Time and Rearranging Fate)

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The Rinne Tensei works unsettlingly well, Nagato realizes. As he dies, as he gives his life to resurrect the people of Konohagakure, his thoughts drift involuntarily. He's come so far, but for what? His thoughts drift across the rest of the Akatsuki, he silently thanks them all for everything they've done, and his mind comes to rest on Yahiko. Yahiko, Yahiko, god of the new world, deserved so much more…

An idea sparks in what remains of Nagato's mind. If he tries, if he focuses very hard…

"Konan," he manages quietly, while the jutsu is still working its way through the world, and she moves to stand by him. He murmurs in her ear, and as his eyes blur he sees her jaw drop.

"Please," he says. "Carry out Yahiko's will. For me."

Konan is probably saying something to him, she looks devastatingly upset. Nagato thinks of Yahiko, thinks of the rest of Akatsuki, disasters and secrets and all that they are. He reaches across time and space with the Rinne Tensei, latches onto the pinpricks of their souls as they fade into the cycle of rebirth, and pulls. 

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Uchiha Itachi wakes up confused, upset, and cold. He spends a long while staring at the sky, gray with clouds and darkening as the evening draws on, and he wonders why he's alive. He's sure he died, fighting Sasuke. He felt his lungs fill with blood, he felt his heart slowing down, it was all he could manage, to get to Sasuke before his own destroyed body took him down.

Speaking of that body…

Itachi sits up, and grimaces a bit because it doesn't pinch at his lungs to do so. He draws a deep, long breath, and it doesn't rattle in his throat.

Experimentally, he jabs himself in the stomach. He doesn't vomit blood. His vision isn't blurry, his head isn't pounding from the constant headache of the Mangekyou Sharingan's aftereffects. He frowns.

Possibly, he thinks, this is the afterlife.

If that’s the case, it’s not a very pleasant one, but he doesn’t know what else he’d been expecting. If anyone was going to hell, it was Uchiha Itachi and he damn well knew it.

He heaves himself to his feet, and surveys the area. He's still in the ruins of the Uchiha safehouse where he fought his brother, standing right where he fell. The wind blows his hair and he shivers, and sets off to find his discarded cloak.

He imagined hell would be more interesting than this, somehow.

Also, warmer. Significantly so.

Absentmindedly, he fiddles with his Akatsuki ring as he picks his way through the rubble. His cloak is tossed haphazardly off to the side among the destroyed remains of the building, and he picks it up. He doesn't necessarily want to put it back on -what the Akatsuki represents to him is something like an unpleasant, loud family that he was forced to marry into, whose rude cousins and horrible in-laws he's now responsible for dealing with. But he's cold, and it's starting to rain, so he drapes the Akatsuki cloak around himself and makes his way out of the ruins to go figure out whether he's alive or dead.

As he pulls the cloak tighter around himself, he's forced to acknowledge that whatever he thinks of the Akatsuki's less-than-stellar social graces and varying levels of psychopathy, they did take him in regardless of what he'd done. He was horrible and so were they.

Despite what ungracious adjectives he’d tacked on, he did refer to them as family. One gigantic, terrible, collective asshole of a family, but a family nonetheless.

He wonders if he'll even be able to tell whether he's alive or not; the world so far has looked remarkably like reality. He supposes he'll find out for sure once he discovers what day it is, if Kisame is at their rendezvous point, if he hears anything from Pain in the next couple of days.

With an unpleasant pang, Itachi realizes that he would really like to see Kisame right now. Any familiar face, really, except for maybe Sasuke (he doesn’t think he can face him), but Kisame always managed to tell things to him in such blatant terms that he couldn’t help but feel more at ease just by talking to him.

Itachi makes his way into town and surreptitiously ducks into an alley to turn his cloak inside out. Yes, the inside is bright red and he'll stand out a bit wandering around in a knee-length high-collared jacket the precise color of blood, but at least he won't be attracting the attention of any authorities or ANBU this way. He's a little too close to Konohagakure for his comfort level, and the last thing he needs right now is to find out he's alive by virtue of getting arrested and pitched in jail.

He finds himself a hotel and collapses on the mattress almost immediately upon entering the room. The bed is soft and doesn’t smell awful, and he immediately wants to curl up and sleep.

He assumes by this point that he's been catching a few too many breaks for this to be Hell, and he's sure he doesn't deserve Heaven, so Itachi concludes grimly that this must be reality and he is, in fact, alive. If so, how the hell. Sasuke should've killed him. He'd practically let him. He'd wanted to die. But somehow he isn't dead.

Itachi reaches for the newspaper he'd grabbed on the way to the hotel and peruses it. There's no news of the fire and explosions at the Uchiha safehouse, despite how close it is to this town. There's no notice saying there's an updated version of the Bingo Book for shinobi in town to pick up, with Itachi's face crossed out in red.

The date in the top right corner of the front page is two weeks after his fight with Sasuke, and Itachi groans and lets himself fall back over on the bed.

God damn it. So he had died fighting Sasuke. And he's been dead for two weeks. But if that’s the case, Zetsu would have eaten his body or something, so he has no idea what he’s doing back in it. Tensei ninjutsu, likely, and a powerful one at that.

Closing his eyes, Itachi focused his Sharingan inwards to see if he could detect any remnants of the Tensei ninjutsu user's chakra remaining in his body. Mostly he senses the grey-red aura of his own chakra, with faint flickering remnants of some far brighter red from using Susano'o in battle against Sasuke… but deep, locked in around his heart, is a softly shimmering fragment of chakra, pale white and sharp on his tongue and deadly familiar…

Itachi's eyes snap open and he feels a shiver run down his spine. The chakra belongs to the Akatsuki's leader.

Pain is dead, and Itachi has no idea who else besides himself might be alive or dead because of it.

Immediately he assumes Madara's involvement, which confirms his suspicions about Tobi. Means he can't trust Zetsu anymore either, because those two are practically attached at the hip. And god forbid, he's the only one who knows who Tobi really is, besides maybe Konan, and if Itachi's suspicion is correct that Pein likely brought back not just him but the rest of the Akatsuki…

Itachi stands up and throws his cloak back on right-side out, black and red fluttering over his reflection in the window. It's nighttime now, and he'll blend in better this way with the shadows.

He has to find Konan and the rest of the Akatsuki, before Madara notices. He has to find them all and get them on his side. Before Madara can raise himself an army strong enough to raze Konoha to the ground before him.

He’s sure he can manage that much. Even if they all learn the truth about him, he’s sure he can get the rest of the Akatsuki to follow him. He’s done things far more impossible than that. Itachi has a new lease on life. He does not intend to waste it. He'll raise up the rest of the Akatsuki, take over, and bring Madara down himself. The Uchiha clan will no longer be a threat to Konoha, to his life, his home, his only family. Sasuke will be able to go home safe.

Itachi braces himself on the ledge, gracefully jumps out the fourth floor window of his hotel room, and vanishes into the night.

His last mission as a member of Konoha's ANBU is unfortunately not over yet.

Chapter Text

Chapter 1 (Stopgap Measures to Contend With Hell)

The first thing Konan does when she sees Yahiko sit up alive is break down sobbing.

The first thing Yahiko does is ask Konan when he acquired all these hardcore facial piercings, and also where is Nagato? How did he survive? Why does she look so much older? The new uniforms are cool, but what happened to the battle? Is Amegakure still at war?

Konan has to tell him to shut up, because she doesn’t think she’s capable of explaining it all if he keeps barraging her with questions like this. She doesn’t think she can face him, knowing what she and Nagato turned the Akatsuki into after his death, but she has to. She helps him to his feet, and as they make their return to Amegakure she tells him the whole story anyway, because she feels like it’s the right thing to do. He has several years for her to catch him up on. Several times along the way, she has to stop to catch herself. There’s just so much emotion burning up her soul right now, between Nagato’s death and having Yahiko back and reliving her whole past as the Akatsuki built itself up from heroes of a revolution to Nagato becoming a tyrant and her an angel, the criminals they adopted into the group, pariahs and murderers, the reckless and lost and tortured and soulless.

She supposes, as they arrive at the outskirts of the Rain country, that she should go looking for the rest of those previously-dead members of theirs, to tell them Nagato’s new plan for the organization. Yahiko’s plan for their future.

She tells Yahiko about what his death did to Nagato, about his perfection of the Rinnegan, how he chose Yahiko to be his vessel for the path of god in honor of his dream. Yahiko turns away and makes sure to walk behind her so she can’t see him cry.

There is a burning red hole in both their hearts where Nagato used to be. Konan wants to fall asleep and never wake up again, she’s so broken over his death. He’s done a great thing, in the end he became the hero he always was supposed to be, he even made sure his legacy wouldn’t end with his death, but Konan honestly just wants to know if she’s going to have to spend her entire life having to watch her family die around her.

As they return to Amegakure, as she takes Yahiko up the stairs of their base, the tower from which she and Nagato had watched the city, she tells him of Madara. What she knows of him, anyway. It’s not much, and Yahiko grimaces at the memory of the man that convinced him to form the Akatsuki to begin with. Konan decides against telling Yahiko that Nagato’s rinnegan, given to him by Madara, still shines in his eyes. She thinks she’ll let him see in the mirror himself.

At the top floor, as she exits the stairs with the aim of standing at the tip of the balcony where Pain always did, Konan finds herself frozen in shock. Standing silhouetted in the light from the balcony is a figure in an Akatsuki cloak. Konan nearly runs to him, assuming somehow that Nagato has made a triumphant return, that the three of them will be together again.

There’s a flash of lightning outside, illuminating the figure before her.

“Itachi,” she says, hollowly disappointed, and she knows she shouldn’t be surprised. Nagato had told her his plan before he died. The Akatsuki live again. Mostly she’s amazed that Itachi’s gotten here so fast, considering he isn’t supposed to know how to get up to this level of the tower to begin with, and he had supposedly died somewhere in the north of the Fire country

“Konan,” he says by way of greeting, giving her a nod. He raises an eyebrow at Yahiko, and says, “…Leader?”

Yahiko shakes his head and introduces himself. Itachi takes it in stride and doesn’t ask too many questions, beyond the obvious “Why introduce yourself by name now, of all times,” and “How come you aren’t dead?” To some extent, he still sees Yahiko as Pain, and that’s going to take a while to fade.

Itachi then turns back to Konan, a grave look fixed on his face. “I have something I need to discuss with you,” he says. Konan nods. She has some things she’d like to ask him too, about Uchiha Madara.

Itachi doesn’t know what to make of Yahiko, but Konan says he can trust him so Itachi isn’t going to question his presence. He assumes, because she’s switched rings with Yahiko, that Konan has taken over leadership of Akatsuki, and she confirms this fact.

“Nagato –Pain,” she clarifies, “left me in charge of carrying out Akatsuki’s original goal. Yahiko’s dream. We will bring peace to the world.”

“I assume this no longer has anything to do with the jinchuuriki,” Itachi says. Konan shakes her head, then nods. She pauses and then shakes her head again.

“No, the bijuu still matter somewhat,” she says, “Insofar as we need to get them out of Uchiha Madara’s grasp.”

“Oh,” Itachi mutters, and purses his lips. “So you’ve figured out that he’s Madara as well, then?”

“With some help,” Konan replies. “What can you tell me about him?”

Itachi hesitates. Telling Konan everything he knows about Uchiha Madara involves confessing a large portion of his horrible life to her, essentially. Madara was there for all of it, he knew, he helped Itachi stop the coup d’etat, and Itachi was possibly the only person who knew he was alive at all. But if he's being honest with himself, it’s either tell Konan or let Madara win, and the latter is not an option. Itachi will protect Konoha, protect Sasuke’s future, protect the village he loves even if he has to make them hate him. He’ll do anything, he’ll do whatever it takes for the sake of this mission. And that’s why he steels his nerves and promises himself this isn’t going to hurt as much as he thinks, and he tells Konan everything.

Everything. The pressure from his family of joining the ANBU at thirteen, the pressure from the ANBU to spy on his own clan. Danzo’s adamant scheming and Kakashi’s trust, Shisui’s justice and loyalty in the face of death, his own grief in the face of Shisui’s suicide and having to hide that, knowing Danzo was the reason for his death and Danzo was the reason he was killing his family, in the end it was Konoha and his family both that drove Shisui to his death. He tells her about his mounting paranoia that he’d be found out, that he started losing sleep and shutting everyone out and lying to his own brother, his friends, everyone, he completely shut down.

He tells her about Madara, how the bastard’s somehow still alive, about his suspicions of Madara having summoned the nine-tailed fox sixteen years ago, how he promised to help Itachi with his mission in exchange for keeping his existence hushed up. Somehow he manages to keep nearly all emotion out of his voice when he speaks. He tells her it was a mission. He doesn’t tell her how he felt about it at all.

Nonetheless, he thinks he feels something inside himself break all over again when he tells her about the night he killed his parents.

After that, he explains hollowly that the remainder of his mission was to infiltrate the Akatsuki and keep them from wreaking havoc in Konoha at any costs. He tells her, the right hand woman to his dead ex-boss and the new leader of the most powerful S-class criminal organization in the world that he has been a spy all along.

He is a liar and a sneak and a double-double agent and he has no right to expect anything but Konan’s swift and painful recompense. He expects lots of paper cuts, and bleeding out by too many paper cuts is frankly a less painful death than he thinks he deserves for all that he’s done. He’s killed his family, destroyed his brother, appeared to betray his village, murdered countless more, and then lied to the only people that took him in despite what all he’d done.

He doesn’t deserve Konan’s kind hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t deserve the look of stoic pity that Yahiko gives him.

“We need to stop Madara,” Konan says, and Itachi gravely nods in agreement. He tries very hard not to cry. God, she doesn’t even question him. She doesn’t even make him own up to what he’s done, of course she doesn’t, she’s got murderers and mercenaries working for her, anything Itachi’s done is probably peanuts to the massacres Hidan’s incurred, the body count Kakuzu and Sasori and Kisame have racked up, the burning destruction that follows in Deidara’s wake.

Itachi is possibly the only one she’s ever seen express remorse, though. But she takes it all and accepts him anyway and lets him stay, god, he does not deserve this at all.

“I was going to gather the rest of us,” Itachi explains. “The more of us there are to fight him, the better. He’s incredibly powerful.”

“Do you think any of them will want to help?” Konan almost laughs. “Nagato told me to spread Yahiko’s mission among them as well. I doubt any of them will want peace. The purpose of the Akatsuki they joined was war.”

“I think some of them will,” Itachi presses. “They’ve faced their own mortality now. They might have a different opinion on what kind of future we really want to create.”

“If you’d like to think that optimistically, that’s fine,” Konan says. “I am not so naïve. Certain members of Akatsuki are not going to take kindly to the idea of eternal peace. They might even desire to follow Madara instead. Zetsu likely already has.”

“Zetsu was always kind of…” Itachi trails off. “Actually, doesn’t Zetsu eat the corpses when we’re killed? Why am I even able to be here?”

Konan shrugs.

Yahiko gapes. “What the heck kind of company have you been keeping?” he mutters to himself.

Itachi decides he doesn’t much want to keep thinking about being plant food, so he changes the subject somewhat. “Forget that,” he says. “In any case, I’ll pitch Yahiko’s mission to the others. If they want to join me in bringing down Madara, great. If they want to keep going after that to create a peaceful future, even better.”

Konan smiles sadly at him. “You truly can see some amount of good in everything, can’t you?”

“Not true,” Itachi says. “I just have to have hope that some amount of good can come out of anything.”

“Why is that?”

“If I didn’t,” he says, “I think I’d have killed myself out of guilt years ago.”

After a minor amount more discussion between Itachi and Konan, a good portion of which was updating Yahiko on the Akatsuki’s other members (“Why the fuck did you think these people were a good influence for a peaceful future, oh my god, Konan,”) Konan notes that Itachi still possesses his Akatsuki ring.

“I think, probably,” she says, “I could perform the hologram jutsu that Nagato used. Appear before the others, call them all here.”

“And you think they’ll show up?”

“They’ll show up if they see Yahiko,” she says, nodding at him. Yahiko pouts awkwardly.

“I don’t know if I could pretend to be as stone-cold of a badass as you’re telling me Nagato was,” he admits. “This Pain persona of his seems like serious business.”

“You’re still the image of their leader. They’ll listen to you regardless,” Itachi assures him. “Please, contact the rest of the Akatsuki. We have to get to them before Madara does.”

Yahiko nods grimly. Konan walks him through the steps of the jutsu. Once he’s connected holographically to the other members of Akatsuki, Itachi narrates to him and he repeats back every word. He explains the situation briefly –the Rinne Tensei, Nagato’s death, who he really is –and then tells of Madara. That the Akatsuki were used by him, and now they’re going to rise up and take him down. While he explains, Konan flits around the room, setting seals to keep Zetsu from getting into the building. With Pain gone, it’s impossible to tell when an enemy enters Amegakure anymore, she’d explained. Possibly Yahiko could be taught to do it, but it would take time that they definitely don’t have.

Once Yahiko is finished talking and he’s given the order for the Akatsuki to converge in Amegakure, he disconnects and frowns at the ring on his finger.

“You said every member has one of these?” he says. Itachi nods, and then horribly he understands what Yahiko’s saying. Tobi and Zetsu.

“Konan,” he says, “Zetsu and Madara will have seen everything Yahiko’s just said.”

Konan cringes. “It was only a matter of time before he figured it out anyway.”

“Not what I’m worried about,” Itachi says. “I have faith in most of our members’ ability to outrun Madara here, and I doubt he’ll show up when all of us have converged together. I’m worried about the fact that we don’t know whether Sasori’s come back as a human or a puppet and how that’ll affect him physically, and that we never actually found Hidan’s body.”

Konan looks like she’s going to throw up. Itachi feels rather sick himself.

“We have to beat him to them,” she says. “One of us will head for Sasori and one of us will intercept Kakuzu and find Hidan. Yahiko,” she turns to him and puts a hand on his forearm, gently. “If you’d stay here, please, and make sure Deidara and Kisame are alright when they arrive…”

“I can handle that,” Yahiko says, although he looks a bit gloomy at being left behind. “I’d like to get to know the new Akatsuki anyway.”

“Kakuzu was taken back by Konoha,” Itachi says. “If he’s smart, he’ll get out stealthily-”

“Pain destroyed most of Konoha,” Konan sighs. “They’re rebuilding, but god only knows where he ended up.”

“ANBU buries dead enemies they bring back outside the village,” Itachi says. “He should be able to get out if he’s careful. I don’t think it’s wise of me to go back to Konoha right now, so I’ll find Sasori.”

“Right,” Konan says. “I’ll get Kakuzu and Hidan.”

Itachi turns to Yahiko and tries to give him a reassuring smile. “When Kisame and Deidara show up, please reassure them that everything is going to be alright.”

Yahiko nods, and Itachi and Konan share a look of determination before they charge purposefully out the door and into the rain to find their comrades.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2 (A Truly Distasteful Morning After)

After Pain’s hologram vanishes, the first thing Deidara does is hightail it to town and steal a lot of clay. Following that, he also steals himself some clothes, because pockets are convenient and whatever he’d been wearing before he self-detonated had been caught in the blast and destroyed, and there’s no way he was traveling at a high velocity on a flying clay bird in the nude. Aside from being ridiculous, it’s way too cold for that shit.

Deidara wastes absolutely zero time getting himself on the back of a clay bird aimed in the direction of the wind country. Fuck the Akatsuki; regardless of how mad he is that Tobi had been lying about his identity and screwing around with him for the past few months, blowing him up from the inside out could wait. Master Sasori is too impatient for that.

Rather, that’s the excuse he’s telling himself, as he flies top speed in the direction of the old, destroyed Akatsuki cave. Truthfully, though he’s rather hesitant to admit it, if Deidara looks deep into his impulsive soul, there is a very large part of himself that’s worried about Sasori. It makes him nervous and uncomfortable and he doesn’t know what to do with himself when he realizes it. Why should he care about-

Anyway, there’s a very good chance that Sasori’s gonna be in really bad shape when he gets to him. Upon waking up, Deidara had been very surprised to not be dead and in a billion unrecognizable pieces. In fact, he’d come back better than he’d left; his arms were no longer reattached via Kakuzu’s obvious stitching, but were in fact connected to the rest of him as if they’d never been ripped off. From there, it follows logically that Sasori has probably not woken up in his puppet body, but in one that’s completely human, unguarded, and hosting a soul that is not prepared for a living vessel.

Deidara hunches down and urges his clay eagle on faster. The less he keeps Sasori waiting, the better.

Konan makes it to Konohagakure in record time and meets up with Kakuzu on the road, already en route to rescue his unfortunate partner. He ignores her as she falls into step with him, which is a bit difficult because he’s much taller than her and she has to hurry to keep pace with him. She’d thought he was more slow and methodical than this, and certainly more guarded. Right now, Kakuzu is storming down the road at a fast pace, wearing nothing more than the trousers he must’ve been buried in. He’s covered in graveyard dirt and his hair is a mess and he probably hasn’t eaten.

Luckily, enough of Konan’s mothering instinct has survived the criminal underground that she thought to bring food (intended for Hidan, mainly, who has unfortunately been alive this whole time), and new Akatsuki cloaks for the pair of them. She offers the larger of the two new cloaks to Kakuzu. He snatches it out of her hand without looking and throws it gracelessly over his shoulders.

Konan also hands food in his direction, but he ignores that.

“Exactly where are we headed?” Konan asks, after they’ve walked for a while. Kakuzu finally deigns to glance at her.

“To dig up Hidan,” he growls. “I assume that’s why you’re here as well.”

Konan nods. “Yes. I didn’t know you knew he was compromised.”

Kakuzu shrugs nonchalantly. “I may have spent a few minutes interrogating the stupid brat that fought him and came back alive.”

“Nara Shikamaru,” Konan clarifies, because she keeps their mission records and she knows everyone the Akatsuki’s ever fought. “You didn’t kill him, did you? That would hurt our chances at diplomacy, and we’re trying to lay low for now. How did you get out of Konoha unnoticed?”

“It was dark,” he says bluntly. “Don’t have it in me to kill anyone right now, anyway. Mostly I scared the living shit out of him by virtue of being alive to start with. At this hour it'll be awhile before they can mobilize anyone to come after me.”

“I see,” Konan says, and follows Kakuzu into a bleached-out forest of giant trees. He walks with purpose towards a thicker-wooded area. “This place is…”

“Nara forest,” Kakuzu says. “Watch out for the deer.”

Konan glances suspiciously around. She has no doubt deer are the least of her worries, but the atmosphere of the forest is making her nervous anyway. It feels like she’s being watched by a thousand eyes.

“You said we’re going to dig Hidan up?” she asks, to alleviate some amount of tension. Kakuzu nods. “So that’s how they kept him pinned down. They buried him alive.”

“Mostly alive,” Kakuzu says. “Nara brat blew him to pieces too.”

“That’s unusually cruel for a Konoha nin.”

“Woman, you’ve worked with Orochimaru and Itachi. Don’t tell me you don’t think Konoha has the capacity to breed cruelty.”

Konan almost refutes his point about Itachi, but changes her mind. Regardless of the fact that Itachi was clearly holding back a lot of pent-up emotion regarding his old mission, regardless of how clear it was that he was permanently changed because of it… that is not her story to tell.

Kakuzu appears to know where he’s going, so Konan picks her way through the undergrowth after him until they arrive in a clearing. The grass, thick and lush over most of the ground, is sparse and growing back quite badly over a large circle in the middle of the clearing. The dirt looks newly re-compacted, like something was buried there recently.

“I hope you brought a shovel,” Kakuzu says grimly.

Itachi and Deidara’s paths intersect about two-thirds of the way towards Sasori’s location, and from there on out things are very uncomfortable. Itachi’s still running almost entirely on adrenaline and he’s emotionally drained to the point of careless cynicism, which causes him to make a snippy comment about the fact that Deidara hasn’t been alive for more than 24 hours and he’s already stealing things. Likely only affronted by this because Itachi said it, Deidara gives him a quick once-over. Based on his exhausted appearance, he decides it’s safe to attack, and so he socks Itachi in the jaw and knocks him off his feet.

Itachi isn’t exactly expecting a pleasant reunion, honestly, and he lets Deidara hit him.

He wasn’t planning on letting Deidara kick the shit out of him afterwards, but that also happens. Eventually, Deidara stops repeatedly kicking him in the stomach, backs up, and sits down a few feet away to watch Itachi cough and pull himself back together.

“I assume that was at least marginally cathartic,” Itachi says, not really caring that Deidara hardly had cause to attack him. Deidara shrugs. “You aren’t actually mad at me about the insult to your stolen wardrobe, are you? That’s petty.”

“Shut your trap, Uchiha,” Deidara grumbles. “After dealing with your heinous kid brother, you’re literally the last person on earth I wanna see. I hate you and everything you stand for.”

“Yes, yes, I know, I’m literal Satan and I essentially shat all over your life, you’ve told me,” Itachi groans. He rolls onto his back and gives Deidara the calmest look he can possibly manage. Deidara smiles humorlessly and raises both middle fingers in his direction.

“I suppose you’re looking for Sasori as well,” Itachi ponders.

“Yeah. Get up, let’s go.”

Itachi heaves himself into a sitting position. “You’re actually requesting my company.”

“Don’t make me regret this, asshole. Get on the damn bird, and don’t give me any reason to push you off in midair or I swear to god I will not hesitate, and I will straight up cackle with glee as you plummet to your death.”

Itachi is surprised Deidara wants to have the least bit to do with him, but he doesn’t question it because it’s a free ride the rest of the way to Sasori’s location. He doesn’t say a word for the first three hours of the trip, until Deidara berates his silence. “God damn, would you say something already?” he snaps, whirling around to face Itachi. Itachi hopes the bird has autopilot.

“What sort of conversation would you like to make?”

“I don’t know, I just beat the hell outta you, aren’t you mad?”

Itachi shrugs. He’s been waiting for Deidara to finally snap and try to beat the shit out of him for the past four years and is somewhat surprised it hadn’t happened already. He supposes Deidara gave up this time mostly due to disappointment at Itachi not fighting back.

“You needed to vent,” Itachi says with a shrug.

“You’re not pissed I killed your kid brother?” Deidara asks.

“You didn’t,” Itachi replies. “He got away.”

“Bull. Shit. That explosion was miles wide!”

“You still didn’t kill him,” Itachi says, “Because hardly two weeks later he showed up and killed me.”

This sobers Deidara up a bit, but only for a moment, because then he erupts completely.

“Are you serious, not only did I fail to kill one smug Uchiha jackass, but then he goes and kills the other one I was planning to kill-”

Itachi lets Deidara rant for as long as he likes. He’s beginning to realize that being dead doesn’t do anybody any emotional good. He was only gone two weeks, and it feels simultaneously like a day and a lifetime. All the pent-up frustration and depression and regret he’d felt in the moments before he’d died are still with him, but it’s almost like an echo. The feeling is still there, but it’s out of place. It has to go somewhere. Mostly, Itachi is trying to distract himself from the grim, boiling, shame and regret by throwing his full attention at bringing the organization back together. He knew that wasn’t how Deidara worked, though, and pissing him off to force him to air his grievances was probably best for everyone. If he’d died fighting Sasuke, he’d faced the Sharingan, and the rant he was going on about smug Uchiha bastards implied it hadn’t ended on a high note.

Which should’ve been inherent, Itachi supposes, in the fact that Deidara decided letting himself die was the best way to end things.

The two of them are somewhat similar in that respect.

Neither Konan nor Kakuzu has brought a shovel, but Konan is able to make a mostly-functional one out of her paper, and that gets them most of the way into the ground. Unfortunately, paper only lasts so long before it gets soaked through, so eventually they have to do the hard work without its help.

“Should be a few more feet,” Kakuzu says absentmindedly. The paper shovel sits soggily outside the hole, and the pair of them continue to dig by hand.

“Nara Shikamaru was very thorough about this,” Konan complains. Kakuzu merely grunts in response.

“In a few years he’ll be worth quite the bounty, and we’ll get him back when the time is right,” he says. “Ah.”

“Ah what?”

Kakuzu holds up a horrible rotting hand with Hidan’s Akatsuki ring still firmly in place on its finger. Konan resists the urge to retch.

“That’s awful,” she says.

“Imagine what it’s like to be him,” Kakuzu says absently, nodding towards the dirt. Somewhere under there is the rest of Hidan. He’s been alive and rotting away in pieces for the past month. There’s a high chance he’s in a coma due to the shock alone, and if not then it’s certain he’s not coming out of this without some amount of psychological trauma. What a hideous fate, to be immortal in a state like this.

Konan highly values not crying in front of her men, so she decides to not think about that anymore. Instead she climbs back out of the hole and lays out a clean tarp of paper upon which they can rearrange Hidan back into some semblance of a human form.

Kakuzu almost carelessly tosses terrible decomposing body parts out of the hole and Konan does her best not to be very ill as she arranges Hidan back together. It’s a long, gross, muddy process, and Konan really thinks she ought to have brought some amount of medical equipment. At least something to sanitize with. If they sew Hidan back together like this, no doubt something’s gonna get infected.

She voices this concern to Kakuzu, who says “We can find a lake or something and soak the dirt outta him.”

“Do you even know how medical procedures work?”

“Not in the least.”

“Ninety years on this planet and you never thought to learn?”

“Never needed to,” Kakuzu says, and finally emerges from the hole with Hidan’s head tucked carefully under his arm. “Outta my way. I got work to do here.”

Konan backs up, and Kakuzu sits down heavily on the paper next to Hidan. He lays his head where it belongs, at the top of his scattered body, and for a moment he simply stares. Konan can’t imagine how Hidan’s even alive right now. His lungs are in pieces. His heart isn’t attached to any other part of his body. His eyes are closed and he looks perfectly like death. Konan almost feels like giving up and letting herself cry for him. Hidan is an unrepentantly awful person, but this is a tragic thing for him to have suffered. She wouldn’t have wished it on her worst nightmares.

 Kakuzu reaches out a hand as if to brush Hidan’s cheek, and then his arm disconnects to reveal squirming tentacle threads and he begins sewing his poor partner back together.

After a good while of yelling, Deidara finally runs out of new creative ways to berate the Uchiha clan and quiets down for almost the entire rest of the trip. As they cross the border into the River country, he says uncomfortably, “You died too, yeah?”

Itachi hums softly in response. “Yes.”

“Was it bad?”

Itachi thinks of blood dripping down his chin, Sasuke’s face when he gasped his last words, the horror he had to play out to convince his brother it was right for him to die, and he shudders. “Could’ve been worse,” he lies.

“Did your brother really beat you?”

“No,” he admits. “I let him.”

“Why?”

Itachi ponders over telling Deidara that his whole life from the day he killed his clan has been essentially leading up to letting Sasuke kill him as a means of atoning for his crimes. But he couldn’t even admit that much to Konan, so he’s not about to hand that information over to Deidara, who might decide to use it for blackmail someday. No, that secret will die with Uchiha Itachi, and honestly? He’s fine with that.

“You’re hesitating, yeah,” Deidara notes as they begin to descend. “What’s a freakin’ prodigy like you wanna die for, anyway?”

Itachi doesn’t grace this with a response, which Deidara takes as Itachi being arrogant and having a complex. As they land, Deidara’s already threatening death via explosives hidden in Itachi’s food.

The old Akatsuki lair, now nothing more than a bombed-out crescent containing a lot of rubble, looks pretty much exactly as it was left after Sasori’s fight with Haruno Sakura and the old woman Chiyo, only there are a few less puppets around. No doubt the site’s been raided for anything valuable by the shinobi of Sunagakure. Glancing around casually, Itachi notes that he doesn’t see Sasori’s old puppet body anywhere among the broken dolls and scattered weaponry left behind.

Deidara hops up on a rock jutting out of the rubble and surveys the area, blond hair hanging lank in his face. He seems less on edge around Itachi than he usually is. He doesn’t even have his scope to let him see through genjutsu; he ought to be far more cautious of Itachi. It’s a good indication to Itachi that there’s something else far more important weighing on his mind.

Instead he looks… a different kind of unsettled. Twitchy. Hair-trigger. Possibly a leftover reaction from his fight with Sasuke, but maybe something else. Deidara perks up suddenly, and Itachi sees his expression change drastically as he notices something in a far corner of the destroyed cave.

“Master,” Deidara murmurs, and leaps down off his perch. He half-runs, half-stumbles through the destruction, Itachi following as best he can behind him. Deidara is nimble and reckless with his movements, and it’s his turn to be fueled solely by the power of adrenaline. Itachi may have himself dry, but Deidara’s just getting started.

They reach Sasori, and Itachi’s worst-case expectations are confirmed. Sasori has come back to life in a human body. Not only that, he’s come back as a mid-teenager; the point in his life at which his human body “died.” Itachi knows Sasori was short as a puppet, but now he just looks impossibly small, curled in on himself in a dark corner of the cave.

“Master,” Deidara says. “Master Sasori, hey.” Carefully, gently, he crouches down and reaches out to touch Sasori’s shoulder with the tips of his fingers. As soon as he makes contact, Sasori gasps and his eyes snap open. He whips his head around desperately, drawing short, painful-sounding breaths. His expression reads pain and terror and his eyes are wild with distress.

Sensory overload, Itachi thinks. He isn’t used to feeling so much of the world, and he can’t handle it. It’s tearing him apart. He used to experience the same thing trying to master the Sharingan’s stranger techniques. Izanami had nearly driven him insane with the creation of a whole new world inside his mind. He can easily see that Sasori is suffering from suddenly experiencing physical sensation after nothing but physical silence for fifteen years.

Itachi kneels down next to Deidara and Sasori, planning to place Sasori under a sensory deprivation version of the Tsukuyomi until he can bring himself back down to earth, but before he can, he witnesses possibly the strangest thing he’s ever seen any two members of Akatsuki engage in. Deidara leans in and catches Sasori’s head between his hands before he can jerk away and give himself whiplash, and he bends forward to rest their foreheads together. Almost immediately Sasori goes completely still, his breathing still thin and bordering on hyperventilation, his hands still twitching, but his eyes droop shut halfway and he looks more incredulous than anything.

“Dei…dara?” he gasps. Deidara nods against his forehead and closes his eyes.

“Shh, Master,” he says quietly. “Welcome back.”

“I died,” Sasori mumbles. “I was dead, I-” He takes another gasp of breath and starts twitching again, his eyes widening, expression frantic. Physical anything must feel so foreign to him. Itachi wonders if the hyperventilation is simply Sasori trying to figure out breathing all over again.

Gently, Deidara places one hand on Sasori’s waist and the other on his back and he maneuvers him carefully out of the corner he’s hidden himself in. Sasori stumbles a bit as Deidara moves him, and ultimately he ends up tipping over into Deidara’s arms. The sudden increase in contact makes him flinch, and he tries to draw back, but Deidara just wraps an arm around his waist and threads his fingers through Sasori’s red hair and holds him gently still.

“You’re okay,” Deidara says, sincere and sure. “Master Sasori, it’s gonna be fine. You’re gonna be okay, yeah.”

It’s the closest thing to true caring that Itachi’s ever seen from any member of Akatsuki, and his eyes widen in surprise when Sasori eventually leans into Deidara’s comforting touch. The pair of them seem as though they’re in a whole separate world from him, it’s like Deidara’s forgotten who he’s in front of (although it’s not like Itachi would ever hold this over his head, it’s actually a fantastic reassurance that the Akatsuki aren’t as inhuman as they sometimes seem). Either way, it feels uncomfortably intimate. Itachi isn’t exactly sure what to do with himself in this situation.

After a very long moment in which Itachi kneels awkwardly off to the side and Deidara whispers quiet reassurances to his master, Sasori’s breathing evens out and his whole body relaxes. His eyes still flicker back and forth; every motion he can see is probably incredibly distracting, his brain doesn’t know how to regulate all five senses at once anymore. But he’s not panicking, and that’s what matters. He shifts slightly in Deidara’s arms and buries his face in his shirt. Deidara smiles sadly down at him, and then, almost as an afterthought he looks up at Itachi with murder in his eyes.

“I swear to god, if you say a single word, yeah…”

Itachi holds up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “I wasn’t going to.” He smiles and he’s actually considering moving closer to sit with the pair of them until it’s clear they can move Sasori, and that’s when Zetsu erupts out of the ground right between them.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3 (Sentimental Reasons For Laughing In the Face of Death)

It takes Kakuzu upwards of an hour to finally sew all of Hidan back together, and by the time he’s done it’s edging on towards midnight. Hidan honestly he doesn’t look much better in one piece than he did in several. His face is gaunt and Konan can count his ribs jutting through his skin; he looks even more like death personified than he normally does. Kakuzu casually hefts him over one shoulder as he stands, as if this is a normal thing for the pair of them to be contending with, so Konan shrugs and picks her papers off the ground in preparation to return to Amegakure. She’ll find him proper medical attention when they’re safe and home.

She turns to go, and finds herself face to face with eight deer and a young man in a spiky topknot who looks impressively unhappy to see them.

“Nara Shikamaru,” she says.

“Akatsuki,” he growls, eyes flicking between Konan and Kakuzu. He looks back to her with a grimace. “I don’t know who you are, but he oughta be dead.” He jabs an accusing finger at Kakuzu.

“So should most of your village,” Konan points out, and Shikamaru’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly. He’s sharp; he’ll have easily understood that what she means by that is that the same technique that saved his entire city has brought back people that once threatened it as well. “I am the new leader of Akatsuki,” she says. “My name is Konan.”

“I don’t care who you are,” Shikamaru says. “All I know is I’ve got a team of ANBU ten minutes out and I’m putting that asshole back in the ground-” he gestures at Hidan, “–and the two of you are going in with him this time.”

Ten minutes, Konan notes. She has under ten minutes.

“Kakuzu,” she says, “Start heading back, I’ll catch up with you.”

“Can’t move,” he complains, nodding at the ground. Konan peers down at her shadow. It’s connected to Shikamaru’s. “Shadow possession jutsu. A real pain in the ass.”

Konan draws a deep breath. “Okay, listen to me, Nara Shikamaru,” she begins. “You know Uzumaki Naruto, yes?”

“What about him?”

“Recently, he defeated our previous leader, Nagato, who I know for a fact told him about Akatsuki’s original purpose. Nagato resurrected our founder, Yahiko, and the rest of the organization for the purpose of carrying out that original purpose. Naruto ought to have told your village about it.”

“He didn’t. Do enlighten me as to what that purpose would be,” Shikamaru prompts. Konan bites her lip in frustration. Leave it to Naruto to assume Akatsuki’s past is a secret he ought to take to his grave, or something like that.

“World peace,” she says.

Shikamaru stares at her for a long moment and then bursts into humorless laughter.

Zetsu’s timing couldn’t be more terrible. Itachi has a kunai at his throat before he’s even fully out of the ground, but that turns out to be a bad idea in the long run because when Zetsu doesn’t immediately vanish back from whence he came, Madara takes this as a cue to teleport himself onto the scene as well. He unfolds out of the air like a slow-motion whirlwind, solidifying into existence from his spiral mask on outwards.

Kunai still fixed at Zetsu’s jugular, Itachi shoots Madara a look of pure distaste, and then looks over his shoulder at Deidara. “Okay,” he says, “I’ll concede one thing: Having the Sharingan’s power pitted against you sucks a whole lot.”

Deidara stares incredulously at him. “Itachi.”

“Yes?”

“I’m gonna strangle you, yeah.”

“Can that wait until after we’re a safe distance away from these two?” Itachi asks, and tries to slit Zetsu’s throat. He osmoses into the ground and doesn’t reappear, which Itachi assumes means he’s not a contender in the fight anymore. Madara uses this opportunity to launch a kick at Itachi’s head. He barely ducks in time and as he spins around he performs the hand seals for his Grand Fireball jutsu. He’s still low on chakra, so it’s not very strong and it hardly grazes Madara, but it’s enough of a distraction for Itachi to get between him and Deidara and Sasori.

It’s an impulse. A strange impulse. Itachi should not have an impulse to protect S-class criminals. First of all, Deidara’s still running on sheer adrenaline and probably stands far more of a chance in this fight than he himself does, even if he is literally carrying Sasori around with him. Second of all, since when did he care? Alliance is one thing. Protection is something reserved for Sasuke. For the people he actually cares about. It’s an act born out of love.

Something in Itachi’s subconscious jumps at that, but he ignores it with all the force he can muster to do so and stays separating Madara from Deidara and Sasori anyway.

“Ah, Itachi,” says Madara. “What an unpleasant surprise.”

“I could say the same to you,” Itachi starts to say, but Deidara interrupts him.

“Tobi, you idiotic fuck!” he shouts. Itachi cringes. He’d mentally blocked out the period of time during which Madara had been pretending to be Deidara’s less-than-adept partner. Honestly, how he’d been let into the Akatsuki to begin with while acting like such a child was absolutely beyond Itachi. But he supposed that if Madara had been pulling the strings all along, it didn’t matter how likely it looked to the rest of the organization. He’d let himself in the back door.

Deidara gently props Sasori up against the rubble behind him and stands up to join Itachi, which is a surprise in and of itself. They’ve never fought together before; the necessity had never arisen and their fighting techniques really don’t complement each other in any practical manner. He didn’t think Deidara would concede to allying with him if his life depended on it, even though at the moment, it sort of did.

“Can’t believe you, yeah,” Deidara says to his ex-teammate. “You seriously spent like two whole months shitting around and messing with me, pretending to be a moron, when actually you’re literally five times the evil Uchiha this bastard is,” he says, jabbing a thumb at Itachi.

“This is not the time,” Itachi mutters. Deidara shows no indication that he’s heard, but he gets himself into a basic taijutsu stance nonetheless. Adrenaline notwithstanding, there’s no way he’s recovered enough chakra after blowing himself up to fight capably. Flying himself halfway across the continent in a day probably hadn’t helped with that either.

“I’ll distract him if you can catch him in a genjutsu,” Deidara suggests. Luckily, his persistent hatred of Itachi at least means he already knows and understands his entire repertoire of moves. Unfortunately Itachi can’t say the same about Deidara’s skill set, so he’s at a loss for planning at this point.

“Genjutsu doesn’t exactly work on the Sharingan,” Itachi points out grimly, “Especially not his.”

“Then what the hell d’you suggest we do, yeah?” Deidara says.

Itachi bites his lip and assesses the situation calmly. Neither of them are in optimal condition to be fighting, but even then Itachi knows they can’t take on Uchiha Madara. Certainly, Madara has not yet moved to attack again. He could easily teleport behind them and capture Sasori, but he hasn’t. He’s just… watching them. To see what they’d do. To see where the Akatsuki now stands.

“Grab Sasori and run for our lives,” he says. “Somehow I don’t think he’ll pursue us.”

Deidara glares out of the corner of his eye. “Oh my god,” he says, “You’re a maniac.”

“No, seriously,” says Shikamaru, torn between amusement and annoyance.

“Seriously,” says Konan. “Our initial aim, and our current goal, is world peace.”

Shikamaru stares at her in a way that suggests that he doubts either her sanity or his own.

“All right,” he says eventually, “For the sake of this pointless argument, I’ll pretend your organization’s horrid crusade of mass destruction, war, and murder, along with your indomitable quest for a power that no one man should ever singlehandedly control was all some sort of ploy to make it seem so much more impressive and heartwarming when you turned around and decided to be half-decent humans again.”

“That is not the case,” Konan sighs, but Shikamaru ignores her.

“What makes you think that anyone’s going to trust you after what you’ve done?”

Konan considers this for a moment. Unfortunately, he has a point. Nobody would want to trust them, considering the havoc they’ve wrought and the sheer volume of people they’ve killed. Hidan and Kakuzu on their own have a higher body count than the war that devastated Amegakure, and Deidara has been reclassified from S-Class criminal to walking natural disaster in four small countries. The Akatsuki are on nobody’s good side. She has to prove how serious she is about her claims.

“We can give Konoha a reason to trust us…” she says slowly. Kakuzu looks down at her, one eyebrow raised in curiosity. Shikamaru narrows his eyes, and Konan takes a deep breath. “We can give you Amegakure as an ally.”

This completely blows Shikamaru out of the water. Rather, Konan assumes it does, because he isn’t saying anything and his lips are pursed so tight they’re barely visible.

“With Nagato –rather, Pain’s death, the leadership of Amegakure has fallen to me. Get me an audience with your Hokage and I’ll tell her all of our city’s secrets. We’ll drop all of Ame’s grudges and animosity toward Konoha in exchange for your amnesty.”

It’s a gamble. It’s a horrible, huge, awful gamble. It’s the last thing Amegakure will want and there’s no way they’ll acquiesce to allying with the nation that trampled over them for the sake of a war they weren’t even involved with from the start, but it’s the only option she has. She has to secure safety from the law somehow. If the Akatsuki are to take up Yahiko’s mission of peace, they cannot go about it by creating fear anymore. All that breeds is hate, Konan realizes, and hate brings nothing but war. They have to start somewhere in repairing the damage they’ve done, and that will require sacrifice.

“Will you allow me to meet with the Hokage?” Konan repeats. “On neutral territory. Or in Konoha, even.”

“Okay, first of all,” says Shikamaru, “There is literally no way anyone will let you back in Konoha after what you’ve done to us. Second, you can’t meet with Tsunade-sama anyway. She’s at the summit with the other four Kages discussing what to do about the Akatsuki.”

“Pardon?” says Konan.

“Killer Bee, the eight-tails Jinchuuriki, has gone missing. Presumed kidnapped. By the Akatsuki,” Shikamaru states, spelling it out slowly for her as if she’s a child. “Apparently, by Uchiha Sasuke at that.”

“We never authorized Sasuke joining the Akatsuki,” says Konan, a little unsettled. So Madara’s already started forming a new force after all. This is the worst case scenario. She’s already dreading breaking the news to Itachi that his brother has ascended from delinquent punk with an enormous grudge to actual international terrorist.

“Well, looks like someone’s been playing you all in the shadows then,” says Shikamaru. Konan nods.

“Yes,” she says, “And I happen to know who. His name is Uchiha Madara.”

Shikamaru raises an eyebrow. “He’s dead-”

Kakuzu interrupts the conversation with a well-timed cough. “Hey,” he says. “Proof that dead doesn’t mean jack anymore.”

Shikamaru sighs deeply and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Well,” he says, irritated. “This changes a lot of things, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” says Konan. “Get me a meeting with the Hokage. I can help change them for the better. As we speak, the rest of the Akatsuki are assembling themselves under Itachi’s orders for the sake of bringing Madara down once and for all.”

“Wow,” says Shikamaru, and for a second Konan thinks he actually sounds impressed. Then he says, “If you’re convening under Uchiha Itachi, you realize there is literally no way Konoha will ever trust you, right?”

Konan thinks that Konoha’s top brass might have something very different opinions on that, but she doesn’t mention it.

Instead, she concludes that there’s no way they’re arguing their way out of this one in the next… three minutes.

“Kakuzu,” she says, “Can you get us out of here?”

“Probably not,” he admits. “Chakra’s not restored enough to bust his jutsu.”

“What do you suggest we do?” she says, straining her neck against the Shadow Possession jutsu to look at him. He’s smiling, which is just about the most terrifying thing she’s ever witnessed in her life, and after a moment of confusion she realizes why. The deer that had been gathering around Shikamaru are gone. The forest is upsettingly silent.

In the shadows behind Shikamaru is Zetsu, grinning like he’s about to do something really nasty.

“Uh,” says Konan, because Zetsu is Madara’s and he is even less on their side than Shikamaru. “Behind you.”

Shikamaru scoffs. “That’s so lame, I’m not falling for that-”

“No really,” says Zetsu, and Konan can see the disturbed shiver run down Shikamaru’s spine, “Behind you.”

In an attempt to save himself, Shikamaru drops the jutsu and absconds into a tree, which is frankly exactly what Konan would’ve done in his situation. She could feel his jutsu weakening throughout their conversation, and if he’d tried to keep it up while avoiding Zetsu (which was something people who were seeing him for the first time tended to do instinctually), he’d have run out of power far faster than he’d liked.

Konan’s uncomfortably grateful for Zetsu’s timing, even though she knows he showed up to try and get to Hidan before they did. She nods at Kakuzu as the jutsu breaks. Not stopping to wait for Zetsu to interact with them or Madara to potentially show up, the two of them bolt out of the forest at top speed and they don’t stop running until they’re a good five miles away.

“Never thought I’d be happy to see that freak” Kakuzu mutters grimly. Konan pointedly does not comment on Kakuzu’s mild hypocrisy, because she knows Kakuzu is mainly a freak by his own doing. Zetsu, unfortunately, appears to have been born a monstrosity.

“Well, don’t count on being happy about it again,” Konan sighs. “He’s definitely on Madara’s side.”

“And that’s another thing,” Kakuzu says, readjusting Hidan on his shoulder. “I don’t know if I accept the fact that Madara’s behind all this. If Uchiha Madara’s alive, he’s older than me.”

“And you’re old as balls,” mumbles Hidan, who Konan hadn’t realized was even conscious. Kakuzu glances at him for a moment, shrugs, and then casually drops him off his shoulder with an unpleasant thump. “Ow, god,” he moans.

“Are you alright?” Konan says, kneeling down to help him up. She adjusts his Akatsuki cloak around his shoulders, slings one of his arms around her neck and helps him to his feet. He’s unfortunately light. Hopefully Yahiko has thought to go out and stock the refrigerator or something while they’re away, because Konan’s mothering instincts are kicking in and this boy really needs to eat.

Konan hates the fact that she feels the least bit motherly towards the Akatsuki, but considering the fucked-up backgrounds most of them came from, she feels almost obligated to at least pretend to care.

“Yeah, sure,” Hidan says, but it sounds hollow and fake. His voice rasps uncomfortably. “Peachy fucking keen. What year is it?”

“It’s barely been two months, dumbass,” says Kakuzu, starting off down the road in the general direction of Amegakure.

“Bullshit,” Hidan sighs. “You goddamn forgot about me for at least a decade, you… you pissbucket. Motherfucker. Ass-backwards heathen. Hate you. Why didn’t you come get me?”

“I was dead, Hidan,” Kakuzu says quietly, and Konan thinks she hears a terrifying note of regret in his tone.

Konan readjusts her grip on Hidan and starts down the road after Kakuzu. It’s a long way back to Amegakure from here, and there’s nowhere to rest safely along the way.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4 (Throwing Caution to the Wind and Pulling Out All the Stops)

Remarkably, the “Grab Sasori and run like Hell away from Madara” plan actually succeeds, which really makes Itachi nervous. It means Madara let them escape, and that cannot possibly bode well. He overthinks it for a good half of the clay-bird flight to Amegakure before Deidara gets tired of the silence and broaches the subject himself.

“Okay,” he says cynically. “Why are we still breathing, yeah? That shouldn’t have been that easy.”

Itachi sighs deeply. “You’re right,” he agrees. “By all rights we should be nothing more than awful bloody smears in Madara’s wake by now, but here we are.”

“Real beautiful imagery, pretty boy,” Deidara sneers. He shifts position to cross his legs, and Sasori relaxes against him. After about ten minutes in the air, he’d curled up practically on top of Deidara and tried to make himself sleep in an attempt to not have to deal with feeling things. He hadn’t moved a whole lot since, and Itachi had to keep glancing at him every few moments to assure himself Sasori was still remembering to breathe.

“It’s the truth. Even at full form, I don’t think you’d stand a chance against him. I don’t think even I would’ve stood a chance against him,” Itachi says grimly. Deidara glares at him.

“The heck’s that supposed to mean, even you? You keep acting like you’re better than me, I’m gonna push you-”

“Off the side of the bird and cackle maniacally as I free-fall to my untimely death,” Itachi intones glumly. “I heard you the last time. What I meant by that is that you may have trained yourself to counter the Sharingan, but if you lost to Sasuke clearly you need to train a bit more. I, on the other hand, have in-depth knowledge and understanding of the majority of the Sharingan’s nuances, and as such would be able to last maybe ten minutes against Madara, as opposed to your five.”

“I would last way longer than five minutes, yeah.”

“Teleportation jutsu,” Itachi points out. “Nowhere you can run he couldn’t chase you, unlimited capacity to dodge, at least until he ran himself out of chakra, and you’d be dead long before that happened.”

“Glad to know I’ve got your vote of confidence, asshole,” Deidara spits.

“I am just saying that Madara is not your ideal opponent-”

“Shut up,” Deidara groans, dragging the words out long and agonizing. “Seriously though, why did he let us go, yeah?”

“Tracking us,” mutters Sasori. Itachi hadn’t realized he was awake, much less listening. Sasori forces himself into a sitting position and says, “He’s probably following us, scoping out our potential base of operations. Or something.” He pinches the bridge of his nose like he has a headache, which he probably does. By the tone of his voice, he sounds monumentally unhappy.

“Master,” says Deidara, “How are you feeling?”

Sasori considers this for a moment, eyes narrowed, lips pursed.

“Like shit,” he decides, and collapses with his head in Deidara’s lap.

Deidara, Sasori and Itachi return to the tower in Amegakure sometime after Konan’s group does, which means they show up just in time to see some really strange shit. Hidan, who’s in absolutely awful shape, is face down on a low table, along with a couple of cups of tea and a steaming teapot. On the couch next to this table is Kisame, casually sipping tea out of one of the cups, and Kakuzu, who looks impressively mad and in desperate need of a shower. On the table’s other side, Konan is trying to convince Pain that he should be capable of using the Rinnegan to figure out medical ninjutsu, and Pain is acting distinctly not like himself. Mainly, he’s a little flustered. Konan keeps calling him Yahiko.

Itachi draws in a deep breath when he sees Kisame and crosses the room to meet him. He sits down on the couch next to Kisame, picks a cup of tea off the table, and with a deep sigh he leans back into the couch. His permanent poker face is back, and Deidara hadn’t even realized it was gone until it’s returned. He notes the hardness of Itachi’s expression, the blank apathy he’s made into a mask.

When it was just him and an unconscious Master Sasori around, he’d let just a bit of that drop. He’d frowned, he’d pouted, he’d glowered a bit.

Perhaps crowds make him uncomfortable or something dumb like that, Deidara muses.

Deidara, meanwhile, is still standing in the doorway, supporting Sasori. He’s not exactly sure what to make of this whole situation. The Akatsuki are damn weird, that’s for sure. And this isn’t even the weirdest shit he’s seen them do. The bi-annual meetings get really out of control. These are not people you want to leave open bottles of alcohol around.

“Loud in here,” Sasori mumbles, and Deidara purses his lips.

“Leader,” he says, helping Sasori into the room. “Got a spare room we can put Master Sasori in? He needs a rest.”

“And a stiff drink,” Sasori mutters.

“You can forget about that, yeah,” Deidara laughs. “Primarily because you’ll make yourself sick, but also because technically speaking you’re underage.”

“I am thirty-five years old, brat.”

“Piss off, you’ve physically regressed into a hormonal teen and you know it,” Deidara says. “Leader?”

Pain turns around and gives him the most confused look Deidara’s ever seen in his life. The Akatsuki leader should not be making faces like that, he thinks. It’s even more unsettling than the realization that Uchiha Itachi had shown emotion in front of him.

“Don’t ask me, I’m new here,” he says, which only serves to boggle Deidara more. “Uh, I’m Yahiko,” he says, extending a hand in greeting. Deidara stares at him incredulously, but eventually shakes his hand with some reluctance. The mouth on his palm gives Yahiko an unfortunately-timed lick, and he nearly knocks Konan out yanking his hand back.

Deidara glares at him. Whatever the heck’s happened to the Akatsuki leader, it appears he’s gone from Pain to simply pain in the ass.

“That’s Deidara,” announces Konan. “Don’t mind the extra mouths; it’s a kinjutsu.”

“You hired the circus into the Akatsuki,” Yahiko mumbles. He shoots a baleful look at Hidan.

“And the red-haired young man is Sasori of the Red Sand,” Konan adds, gesturing at Sasori. He waves half-heartedly and mutters a quiet hello into Deidara’s shoulder, which he’s still leaning heavily on. “Usually he’s significantly less… human,” she says, pursing her lips. “Sasori, are you… okay?”

“It’s been fifteen years since I’ve experienced three of my five senses,” he says. “I’m adjusting. Also reminding myself to breathe when talking,” he says, and inhales sharply. From the table, Hidan snickers.

“My immortality beat both you fuckers’ immortality,” he says airily. He sounds like he’s on some kind of medication, which he probably is, if the sheer amount of stitches are any indication. “Praise be to Jashin-sama!”

Yahiko sighs heavily and gives Konan a look that speaks volumes of distress.

“Roll with it,” she says gently, placing a hand on his arm. Yahiko pouts, but he sighs and plays along anyway. Konan’s charisma is kind of impressive that way.

“There’s a hallway of spare rooms over there,” Konan says to Deidara, pointing him down a hall off to the left. “You can put Sasori up in one of the ones that’s still open, and then select one for yourself. We’re laying low here for a while until we’re able to get around more easily.”

Deidara grimaces. “’Cause of Tobi, right?” he guesses. Konan nods, then shakes her head.

“Tobi –Madara, rather, yes. And also the five Kages. They’re presently having a meeting to discuss what to do about the Akatsuki. Madara’s been taking action while we’ve been out of commission. Speaking of which,” she says gloomily, and glances over at Itachi, “I have some bad news about who Madara’s been recruiting.”

Itachi looks up blankly. Konan lets out a deep sigh. Kisame nods his agreement. “I wasn’t going to mention it,” he says, with a careful glance at Itachi. “I’ll let you do the honors,” he says, in the sort of voice that says he wants to be in Konan’s position about as much as he’d like to be Zetsu’s next meal.

“But that’s for later,” she says absently. “In the meantime, I’m going to make an appearance at the Kage summit in an attempt at securing us, who are not involved with Madara any longer, some amount of political diplomacy.”

“Diplomacy,” says Kisame incredulously. “We’re international criminals. Do you think they’re going to treat us diplomatically?”

“I think we have a lot more of a chance than you’d expect.”

Deidara actually just cracks up at that. “You’re nuts, yeah,” he says, and then smirks at Kisame. “Man, you’re the least of their worries, even! You got the excuse of the Bloody Mist in your past. The rest of us ain’t as easily excusable. I’m a terrorist for hire, Master assassinated a Kazekage, and so did I for that matter; all of us have laid waste to several cities, Hidan’s got a body count larger than the population of the Rain country-”

“Yes, Deidara, we get it,” says Itachi. “We are reprehensible excuses for human beings and there is no possible redemption out there for such scum as us. Is there a point to your ranting?”

“I think I like you better when your expression matches your vitriol,” Deidara snaps. God dammit, at least earlier his sarcasm had sounded like actual sarcasm, instead of just… blank, void words. He’d responded to Deidara’s taunts, which had probably been the most satisfaction Deidara had ever gotten out of an interaction with him. But now he’s boxed himself back up and suddenly he’s all empty and impossible to deal with again. With a start Deidara realizes that it’s Itachi’s emptiness in the face of his passion that pisses him off the most. It’s actually that simple.

“Forget it,” says Deidara, “I’ll hear Konan’s lunatic diplomacy pitch later, yeah. Master, let’s get you resting, okay?”

Sasori nods, his hair brushing softly against Deidara’s cheek, and Deidara helps him down the hallway. He finds the first open room and assists Sasori with getting into bed, which ends up actually being Sasori getting impatient with Deidara’s pace, trying to walk on his own, and nearly collapsing on the floor. Deidara catches him and lifts him effortlessly onto the bed –he’s even lighter than he was as a puppet, when his body was full of coiled metal wire and iron wings. Now he’s flesh and blood again and it’s almost terrifying to Deidara, that he can finally touch Sasori and know that Sasori can feel him in return.

“Deidara,” says Sasori as Deidara turns to leave and let his Master rest, “Tell them if they so much as wake me up, I’ll start repopulating my puppet army with their corpses first.”

“Hmm, maybe I’ll just let them wake you up then,” Deidara muses teasingly. Sasori scoffs and rolls over to bury his face in the pillow. His shockingly red hair stands out against the stark white of the sheets and the austerity of the room. He’s noticed it several times before, the contrast between the pair of them and the world. They stand out in the crowd even without their uniforms on. Caution tape yellow and stoplight red.

Deidara pauses in the doorway, wavering back and forth between whether or not he should stay by Sasori’s side.

“Brat, I can hear you breathing,” Sasori growls, waving a hand indignantly at Deidara. “Get lost.”

Deidara is already a little lost, he thinks, but he leaves anyway.

Itachi takes the news of Sasuke joining Madara’s Akatsuki with as blank an expression as he can manage, because regardless of how snarky he’d been towards Deidara, how vulnerable he’d been in front of Konan, that was just to blow off steam. To regain his footing. Purge his anxiety over coming back to life in such a state of unsettlement, or something, he can make all the excuses he wants. There’s no way he’s letting the entire Akatsuki know that he’s actually got emotions. A lot of emotions, by god, he’s going to remove Madara’s entrails with his bare hands-

Actually, he’s probably going to let his thoughts stew in the ugly depths of his soul and fester away and make him feel so much worse. Sasuke was supposed to go back to Konoha and live a normal life. He was supposed to return a triumphant hero, having vanquished both Orochimaru and Itachi, and be celebrated. The Uchiha clan would have been redeemed at long last.

But god damn Uchiha Madara just had to interfere, didn’t he? He just had to go after Sasuke, why was it that all the evils of the ninja world seemed to want to get their claws into Sasuke? He didn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve this.

Konan’s still talking, she’s saying something about the other kids of Orochimaru’s that joined with him. Something about the Eight-tailed Jinchuuriki being kidnapped. A lot of stuff Itachi couldn’t be bothered to care about.

What lies has Madara told Sasuke about Itachi and the village to get him on his side? What truths? Itachi wants to scream, he wants to break something, he wants to murder Madara up close and personal and tear the light out of his eyes while he begs for mercy he hasn’t deserved in decades.

“In any case,” says Konan, and her voice sounds so authoritarian that Itachi snaps out of his murderous reverie to pay attention, “If we are to change the course and purpose of our organization, I cannot let the rest of the shinobi world to continue associating us with Madara. I am going to the Kage summit, despite the personal risk, and I will convince them of whatever I can to our benefit. Meanwhile, you should all lay low here and recuperate. Some of you gravely need it,” she says, nodding at Hidan, who flips her off with a chuckle. “None of you are to make any move toward locating or attacking Madara until I return,” she says, and she distinctly catches Itachi’s eye. He purses his lips and does not break his poker face. He definitely does not.

“By the way, about that changing the course of the Akatsuki thing,” Kakuzu says. “I’m not going to stop bounty hunting.”

“We’ll discuss this later,” Konan says evasively.

“I’m still going to sacrifice heathens,” Hidan adds pleasantly.

“I’m still gonna blow shit up,” Deidara adds as he enters the room. “What are we talking about, yeah?”

“We will discuss this all later,” Konan emphasizes. Itachi groans internally. Does she really expect them to change their ways just because she told them to? Itachi and Yahiko aside, Hidan and Deidara do what they do for fun, Itachi assumes Sasori does as well, Kakuzu appears to hoard money out of obsessive-compulsion, and Kisame’s a straight-up mercenary as far as he’s told Itachi about his past. The Akatsuki are not exactly paragons of peace and justice.

Remarkably, nobody presses the issue with Konan, despite how sociopathic most of them are and how easy it looks to drive Konan up the wall right now. She says a few more words on what her plan of attack is, or rather her plan of please-don’t-attack-me-I’m-on-a-mission-of-peace, and then she sweeps out the door in full uniform.

Nobody tries to stop her going. Nobody says anything. Itachi boils internally with a frustrating desire to leave and return with Madara’s head (Zetsu can keep the body).

In the ensuing silence, Yahiko scratches his head awkwardly and says, “I, uh, guess it’s guys’ night in then?”

Chapter Text

Chapter 5 (From the Angels, With Love)

It takes Konan a very short time with Amegakure’s intelligence network –Nagato’s intelligence network, really –to figure out the location of the Kage summit. It’s in Samurai territory, and unless something really strange has happened, that’s somewhere Konan can enter and leave safely. The Akatsuki’s scope of targets has never quite extended that far, and the Samurai code of honor dictates that if no wrong has been done to them, then regardless of what their allied forces think they have no qualms about allowing foreign fugitives and criminals within their nation’s borders.

Unfortunately the trip takes Konan almost three days, and she’s got a feeling the summit’s already begun.

Konan loiters outside the building where the summit ought to be happening, masking her chakra. It’s not like she can just waltz into the room like she’s supposed to be there. She has to consider the fact that literally everyone in the room is an enemy until proven otherwise. Certainly, there are exceptions such as the Tsuchikage, who has hired the Akatsuki several times to carry out missions he doesn’t want even his ANBU performing, and probably a few independent others that may or may not be in attendance. But the Tsuchikage is old and doesn’t want to risk trouble with the other nations; he’ll take whatever side is most convenient to him. The new Mizukage certainly won’t be on her side; nor the Kazekage, considering they killed him. The Raikage is the reason the summit’s happening to begin with…

Konan’s best hope, unfortunately, is to appeal to the Hokage. Tsunade, oh god. Jiraiya-sensei’s old friend;  there’s no way she’s got a chance.

Luckily, that’s what she’s used to. That’s sort of just been her lot in life. Parents died in the war; no way she’s gonna live to next week. Keep on living? No way she’ll find purpose. Become a ninja, start a revolution, shouldn’t have been possible but she did it anyway.

Talking diplomacy to a bunch of stupidly powerful ninja paragons of order and lawfulness shouldn’t be too hard, in comparison.

Also, she has to make sure she gets here and at least joins the discussion before Madara decides to make a move. There’s no way he doesn’t know about the summit, considering his order to kidnap the 8-tails is what’s caused it. Konan takes a deep, grounding breath and reassures herself that she has impeccable methods of escape in the event of an emergency. She vows to visibly protect people in the case that Madara or Zetsu or one of their new ex-Orochimaru-experiment children shows up. She will do anything in her power to grant the Akatsuki some amount of political amnesty.

Konan readjusts her cloak, lets her chakra concealment drop, and steps through the door into the Kage summit.

In three days, Hidan is pretty much completely healed. This really pisses off Sasori, because he’s still on forced bedrest most hours of the day, courtesy of Deidara. It also pisses off Kakuzu, because Hidan in pique condition is not something anyone should have to deal with first thing after crawling out of their own grave. Frankly, everyone’s kind of pissed that Hidan’s the first of them to be completely back to his usual self, because they’re effectively under house arrest until Konan returns, so they’re all stuck with him.

Some of them, Yahiko lets come and go as they please. Itachi doesn’t even get told to mind himself; he just goes and doesn’t return for hours at a time. Yahiko has a feeling he really needs his personal space right now. He’s got a lot to worry about.

Konan left him a note telling him that he was to expressly forbid Hidan and Deidara from leaving the building. “I don’t care how much they look like average civilians,” says the note, in Konan’s sharp, narrow script, “they’re unstable. Keep a close eye on them until we can assure their alliance with the new plan.”

The postscript on the letter contains the page numbers for Yahiko to find all these men in the bingo book. He looks them up. He wishes he hadn’t. Yahiko starts to sleep with one eye open because honest to god, the only person he trusts in here is himself. The rest of the Akatsuki may have fit the purpose of the organization’s old goal, but he doesn’t believe for a second that any of them could act in the name of peace. It’s strange, he thinks, to be a criminal. That’s what the world takes him for, thanks to Nagato completely losing himself after Yahiko had died for him and Konan. Leader of Amegakure (now Konan’s responsibility), leader of the Akatsuki, most feared group of S-Class missing nin the world’s ever known (also now Konan’s responsibility, at least once she returns). Pain, destroyer of cities, master of the legendary Rinnegan, the shinobi world’s most wanted, tantamount to a god on earth. The most dangerous man alive.

Despite himself, Yahiko feels like he must be underwhelming.

This is the first time in quite a long time that a lot of the Akatsuki are seeing him in person. He probably isn’t living up to their expectations at all.

But then, he isn’t Nagato. He doesn’t want to be, either, for that matter. Whatever Nagato was when he died, it hadn’t been the Nagato he’d known. That bothers him, somehow. It makes him wonder if it was worth it to die the first time around. To raise up an organization like this… he can’t understand how Nagato came around to it. In lieu of that, because Nagato’s not around anymore for him to ask, he tries to understand the new Akatsuki instead.

When Itachi’s in the tower, he’ll talk a bit, but it’s nothing like the night they met. It’s like the fire’s gone out of Itachi’s eyes and the passion out of his voice. He hides himself so well, and Yahiko thought so the first time they met too, but compared to that he now feels completely dead. Soulless. He refuses to show anything like weakness in front of the rest of the organization. He barely makes eye contact, and when he does, it’s with the Sharingan blazing coolly in his eyes.

Kakuzu and Kisame are actually pretty cordial. They occasionally even have meals with Yahiko, which he appreciates greatly for the sake of having company. He’s a man out of time, after all. It’s not like he can call up his old friends from his revolution days and ask if they want to come over and chill. They’re either dead or have forgotten him. In any case, Kisame is unusually polite for a monster raised in the Bloody Mist, and Kakuzu is a fascinating conversationalist when he actually deigns to put more than three words in a sentence. He’s been around the block, so to speak.

“The people have changed,” he mentions to Yahiko over breakfast one day, during a discussion of the history of the Hidden Rain. “The politics haven’t. There’s always chaos and war, so long as there’s disagreement. It’s a fundamental aspect of life.”

“That’s pessimistic,” says Yahiko, and he truly believes it is.

“That’s realistic,” Kakuzu sighs, and he looks like he knows it to be true.

Konan’s arrival at the Kage summit is surreptitious enough to not raise a lot of alarms, but also sudden enough that everyone reacts in awful surprise. The Raikage starts yelling almost immediately, which causes the Mizukage to start yelling in order to be heard over him, and all the yelling means the Tsuchikage is also yelling because he’s threatening to leave before he gets a headache. Gaara tilts back in his chair a bit, which for him is probably equivalent to falling off his seat in shock.

The Hokage, Konan notes with dismal surprise, is not Tsunade. It’s an old man she’s never seen before, with one eye covered and his right arm tucked into his kimono, out of sight. With his one visible eye, he stares Konan down like he knows something she doesn’t. Konan gazes coldly back. There’s an unknown variable in the mix, with him, and she’s not sure she knows how to handle the situation anymore.

“May I have a seat?” she says calmly to nobody in particular. “I have some things I’d like to discuss.”

Hidan chats with Yahiko about human sacrifice during dinner. Pretty much nobody is fazed, although Deidara tells him to button his yap or he’ll blow off his head. Apparently this is normal dinner table discussion among S-class criminals; the usual topic of conversation tends toward bounty hunting as a lucrative business when Kakuzu’s in the room, or mass destruction in the name of art when Deidara’s around, or god only knows what when more than one of them is at the table at once.

 It’s clear that aside from their partners, the Akatsuki haven’t spent a whole lot of time together; they don’t know how to socialize for shit. Yahiko is an outlier among them. He was a leader out of charisma, which none of these men seem familiar with, nor do they respond to it in any way he’s used to. He considers that Nagato must have been leading the organization out of fear, and the thought makes his chest feel tight with regret.

Hidan gives details over instant noodles about ripping out the guts of heathens and reveling in their death throes. It’s very graphic. Yahiko manages to hang in there for half an hour listening to Hidan’s ecstatic descriptions of gore and fanatical raving about his god before deciding he can’t handle this kind of audacity.

“Do you ever regret killing anyone?” Yahiko asks, pushing away his cup noodles. He suddenly isn’t hungry anymore.

Hidan looks at him like he’s grown a third eye or something.

“Fuck no,” he says, sounding genuinely surprised. “Why would I ever regret purging someone of the sin of living and sending them to Jashin-sama in heaven?”

“Oh,” says Yahiko, and quietly clears his Styrofoam noodle cup.

Nobody moves to pull up a seat for Konan, so she paces about the U-shaped table as she readies herself to talk.

“Why have you come here?” says Gaara, beating the others to the punch in an attempt to at least start the discussion civilly.

“I wish to discuss diplomacy,” Konan says coolly. The Raikage laughs mirthlessly.

“You kidnap my brother and now you want to chat diplomacy,” he says. “Fantastic tactical thinking you’ve got there. You wanna trade him back to us for some kind of truce?”

“I have not kidnapped your brother,” Konan says. The Raikage looks like he’s about ready to commit murder. “Uchiha Sasuke and his gang are not affiliated with me. The name of Akatsuki is being purported by a third party, who has been manipulating our purposes from the shadows. Now that we’ve discovered his influence, we’ve broken away and the true Akatsuki have nothing to do with the Eight-tails Jinchuuriki’s kidnapping.”

“You keep saying ‘we’,” says the present Hokage, who Konan heard someone refer to as Danzo. “I was under the impression your leader and most of your members were dead. Who’s we?”

Konan explains the “we.” She explains Yahiko. She explains the whole “brand new return to old goals of peace and harmony” thing.

She is about to explain Madara, but the Raikage cuts her off.

“You realize we don’t give a damn, right?” he says. “Regardless, all of you were in the bingo book individually long before your affiliation with the Akatsuki, and frankly I don’t care what you have to say. Honestly, now all you’re telling us is that we’ve got a bigger problem, and that’s that there’s a whole lot of criminals back amongst the living that we gotta deal with. I want to know why Konoha hasn’t dealt with it’s missing nin problem yet.”

“And I was about to explain,” Danzo intones grimly, “That I was entirely in favor of dealing with them, and it was on Tsunade’s orders only that we did not move to eliminate Sasuke in advance. She claimed it would enrage the nine-tails Jinchuuriki to take him out.”

“Knowing Naruto, that’s a valid point,” Gaara notes quietly. He certainly commands quite a lot of respect, Konan muses, for a fifteen-year-old. His voice is soft and his tone is even, but he is very conscious that the whole room is paying attention to him. Konan nods at him in agreement and gives him a small smile. Even if she doesn’t know what he’s talking about in terms of allowing Sasuke to live for the sake of Naruto’s temperament, she has to establish some basis of camaraderie in the room. Certainly Gaara is not a good first choice, considering he was once a Jinchuuriki and the Akatsuki already killed him once, but he’s also young and judging by his opinion on the Sasuke situation being catered to Naruto’s feelings, he has little enough experience to still be swayed by individual’s emotions.

Not ideal, but she can work with this.

Deidara sets something on fire at least once a day. It’s unfortunate that he’s the only one who knows how to cook anything that isn’t instant, and he just can’t resist the burners.

“I miss my clay,” he says, as he and Yahiko stare at the horrible burnt remains of what was once fried tofu. Before lighting it up, Deidara had molded it into a nasty little effigy that looks suspiciously like Itachi. “You sure I can’t go out and buy some?”

“You don’t have any money to buy some,” Yahiko sighs, which is a lie because the Akatsuki definitely have money; they have to be purchasing the groceries somehow, and apparently Kakuzu has like twelve secret bank vaults in several countries. The truth is, Yahiko isn’t psychologically prepared to deal with Deidara’s aesthetic sense on a larger scale just yet, and neither are his eardrums for the resulting explosions.

Deidara stays on edge for the entire week, hands twitching when he’s got nothing to do, fingertips tapping on any available surface to break the silence. Yahiko can tell he can’t stand being boxed in. As patient as he is, he cannot handle boredom. By day three, he’s sleeping (or pretending to sleep) for over fifteen hours a day, and he spits death threats at anyone that tries to wake him and convince him to eat.

Yahiko visits Sasori every now and then to check on his recovery, and if he’s awake Sasori talks Yahiko’s ear off about art. Possibly because he’s the only one who has yet to tell Sasori to shut up, but it’s more likely that Sasori’s just incredibly bored cooped up in his room while he readjusts to the physical world. He’s a little disorienting to be around, because his body is that of a young teenager, but he speaks wry wisdom and sardonic truths that you only learn after decades of being a shinobi. He knows his way around the world. He’s got a lot to say about a whole plethora of topics. It’s clear to Yahiko that Sasori is quite intellectual.

His art is fundamentally horrifying, though. He tells Sasori this point-blank, and then realizes he’s spoken that aloud and braces for his painful, untimely death.

Sasori gives him a blank, half-awake stare, and then he laughs.

“If you’re horrified by art, you’re not paying attention to reality,” he says. “The world is just as disturbing as anything anyone creates. Artists just make it into pretty metaphors that let you notice how fucked up it is. You get to relate it back to reality on your own.”

Yahiko doesn’t sleep that night. He’s too unsettled, pretending he doesn’t understand the metaphor between turning people into puppets and the blind faith people tend to place in their leaders.

Konan watches the Kages argue back and forth about Sasuke’s continued existence for a short while longer. Danzo, she comes to realize, is quite the capable equivocator. Everything he says in response to the other Kages’ accusations deflects the blame off of him and onto any other possible target. Frequently his scapegoat is Tsunade, and despite the fact that Konan knows Tsunade would’ve made about ten attempts on her life since her arrival at the summit if she were in Danzo’s place right now, Konan feels pretty bad for her. Danzo’s really slandering her in front of the other Kages, and even with Konan’s minimal knowledge of the situation, she’s already starting to understand how certain decisions of Tsunade’s were probably the best possible ones at the time. Danzo’s practiced scapegoating is all based on his present knowledge of how events turned out post-decision; all the decisions were made without any knowledge of the potential outcome, and as such Konan finds herself oddly coming around to agreeing with Jiraiya-sensei’s old friend.

She’s really starting to like this Gaara kid’s political approach, additionally. It reminds her of Yahiko’s, only more soft-spoken. He’s playing to the other Kages’ emotions with his defense of Tsunade’s decisions on Naruto’s behalf. He knows they all had Jinchuuriki in their villages, regardless of whether it was during their time as Kage or not. He was one himself; he knows how to emphasize the fear and apprehension surrounding them.

“I would argue,” he says to nobody in particular, although it’s certainly aimed at Danzo, “that Lady Tsunade’s actions to keep Naruto happy are done in the same mindset that caused Lord Raikage to call this summit. He summoned us out of concern for his brother,” –Gaara flashes Konan an odd look before returning his gaze to Danzo- “And I believe Lady Tsunade’s refusal to put out an order for Sasuke’s death was out of her concern for Naruto, and as such for the entire village. He and I, when I was a host for the one-tailed Bijuu, are very similar in that high emotional stress has caused the bijuu within us to run wild.”

“What are you getting at?” says the Mizukage. Konan wonders if she’s thinking about Utakata, the missing nin Jinchuuriki from the Mist village. From the rumors Konan’s heard, it seems he once lost control of his Bijuu and killed his teacher before fleeing the village.

“The recent attack on Konoha is exactly the kind of threat Lady Tsunade was trying to avoid in keeping Uchiha Sasuke alive,” says Gaara, and Konan’s eyes widen in understanding.

“I see,” she says, picking up Gaara’s train of thought. “Uzumaki Naruto’s transformation into the nine-tailed fox was triggered due to the emotional stress of his village being attacked and his comrades killed, and he caused almost as much havoc and terror as Pain did. You’re saying she aimed to avoid something similar by keeping his best friend alive, despite the danger he posed, because Uchiha Sasuke posed less of a threat at the time than Uzumaki Naruto releasing the nine-tails?”

Everyone in the room stares at Konan. Gaara blinks slowly, and nods at Konan.

“Yes, that about sums up what I was going to say,” he says cautiously.

“I’d like to point out,” says Danzo, “That this woman is a member of the organization that destroyed Konoha in the first place, so she is not to be trusted.”

“It was also the leader of our organization that brought your citizens back to life,” Konan notes coolly.

“Along with six of the most dangerous criminals the shinobi world has ever seen,” adds the Raikage vengefully.

“None of whom are responsible for the capturing of your brother,” Konan says, but it’s clear the majority of the room has made up its mind about her. Aside from Gaara, who appears to be reassessing his opinion of the Akatsuki (or at least Konan) in the wake of her defense of his political discourse, the rest of the room is becoming increasingly hostile. The bloodlust they’d been holding back before was now boiling to the surface; the Akatsuki are none of these people’s friends, and frankly it was a little overly-optimistic to have assumed Konan could make any changes at a time like this.

Konan is about to cut her losses and start making a tactical retreat, because at this rate she’s just digging herself even deeper into a bad situation. Unfortunately, at that point, at the worst possible moment for Konan’s purposes, is when Zetsu’s white half bursts out of the ground in the middle of the Kage summit.

Yes indeed, she thinks to herself, definitely not happy to see you again.

Chapter Text

Chapter 6 (All Fun and Games Until Somebody Attempts Political Subterfuge)

At the end of the third day after Konan has left, Yahiko sits at the tip of the huge stone tongue affixed to the godly face at the top of the tower. He feels a strange sense of Déjà vu, and wonders if Nagato sat there too, as him. He stares down over the city, over the darkness, as the rain pelts down upon him.

The city’s still crying, to this very day.

The Akatsuki, he thinks, are some really fundamentally fucked up individuals. Not a single one of them operates with a normal psyche. Yahiko’s a people person, a charismatic –if not kind of blunt –individual. He can see through their terrifying, violent exteriors how broken these people are. They’ve all got horror stories they’ll never speak of to anyone. He was lucky to hear even a part of Itachi’s. The Akatsuki seems less to him like a collection of criminals brought together by the sole desire to wreak havoc and kill, but more that they’ve gathered under a collective understanding that the rest of the world has racked up some majorly bad karma that’s in desperate need of being repaid.

Yahiko thinks of Nagato, of how long he suffered and how broken he must’ve been to have fallen so far, and he starts to think he agrees with the Akatsuki, just a little bit. He wonders how Itachi could hold onto any optimism at all in the face of what he’s had to live through.

It dawns on him, suddenly, that he hasn’t actually seen Itachi in two days.

“…god damn it,” he says, and runs back inside.

“Where’s Itachi?” Yahiko asks nervously, leaning heavily on the doorframe while he catches his breath. He’s been running all around the half of the city Pain had under his control, searching for any trace of Itachi for several minutes now, having absolutely zero success. All he’s managed to do is exhaust his lungs and get completely drenched.

“Up your ass and around the corner,” replies Hidan gracelessly from the sofa. He’s sprawled out in a way that suggests he intends to take up as much space as humanly possible, which means poor Kakuzu is relegated to the far corner of the sofa while he clicks away on his pocket calculator, sorting through Akatsuki’s expenses.

“Excuse me?” Yahiko splutters.

“You asked where Uchiha is,” Hidan drawls. “I answered.”

“That’s not an answer, asshole,” Yahiko snaps, and then realizes he probably shouldn’t sass guys he literally can’t kill, especially when they’re under house arrest and not allowed to make their usual ritualistic murder quota.

(Yahiko assumes Hidan’s got some kind of quota he must fill. It makes him more comfortable with the whole demonic cult of human sacrifice thing if he assumes Hidan’s not just murdering for shits and giggles. Unfortunately, somewhere in the back of his mind, in fragments possibly left over from Nagato’s use of his body, he knows “shits and giggles” are apparently pretty close to the actual reason.)

Hidan smirks at the insult. “You’re gettin’ used to it here after all,” he says with a chuckle. “A few more weeks and you’ll be completely desensitized.”

“To what, the fact that you nutcases have a predisposition toward horrifying violent crime?”

Hidan nods, smirking wider. “Just wait ‘til Sasori’s back to making puppets; he’ll be hanging corpses in the shower to drain out their blood-”

Yahiko pretends to retch. Unfortunately, he is getting desensitized –at least to Hidan’s sadistic ravings. “Right now, I don’t care as long as it isn’t my shower,” he complains. “Do you know where Itachi is or not?”

“No, fucker, I don’t,” Hidan says slowly, like Yahiko’s too stupid to understand. Yahiko smiles at him in a way that he hopes suggests he’s plotting Hidan’s imminent evisceration, but Hidan smirks back and it’s even creepier so he stops.

“Kakuzu?” Yahiko asks, turning to face him. He hasn’t said a single word yet, which tends to be the case with him towards Yahiko unless he directly addresses him.

“Haven’t seen him since the day we all got here.”

“Maybe Deidara did him in while he was asleep,” Hidan suggests helpfully, and he flops over unceremoniously on top of Kakuzu’s pile of taxes, scattering papers everywhere. Kakuzu looks like he’s about to completely lose his shit, and that’s something pretty much all the other members have warned Yahiko he wants to avoid.

“Thanks,” Yahiko mumbles, and backs quickly out the door as Kakuzu cracks his knuckles.

Itachi, at that moment, is outside the hall of the Kage summit. He can’t enter; it’d destroy any diplomacy Konan had managed to garner if he showed up;  he’s pretty much the worst criminal in Konoha’s history, excluding Madara. But he can at the very least suppress his chakra and lurk menacingly in the shadows outside while he eavesdrops.

Okay, he thinks, tugging at the oversized gray rain cloak he’s swapped the Akatsuki uniform for, not particularly menacing after all. But the lurking and eavesdropping is successful.

As he listens, he comes grimly to the realization that the voice that responds when the others address the Hokage is not Tsunade, but Danzo. Itachi wants to beat his head against the wall, or more preferably, beat Danzo’s head against the wall in sheer frustration. Who in their right mind would let him be Hokage? Itachi despairs over this for a moment before realizing it also means that something’s happened to Tsunade, who by virtue of being connected to Uzumaki Naruto through Jiraiya, was Sasuke’s last hope of returning safely to Konoha with only minimal criminal prosecution.

Briefly, Itachi considers bursting into the Kage summit and putting Danzo out of everyone else’s misery. Unfortunately, that would be diplomatic suicide, and as convenient as it is to be outside the law, the hiding out and sneaking around and associating with criminals is starting to get tiring.

Associating with criminals that you step in front of and defend in battle, points out a particularly egregious piece of Itachi’s subconscious, and he sighs deeply. Criminals who you yourself went out of your way to regroup with as your new allies against Madara.

“He’s a common enemy,” Itachi mumbles to himself. “I would have trouble defeating him on my own. It’s just convenience.”

Whatever you say, whispers Itachi’s subconscious, and then he’s promptly –and thankfully –distracted by a sudden commotion inside the summit hall. Something is happening, and he refuses to miss a second of it.

Konan does everything in her power to make it clear she’s just as threatened by Zetsu as the five Kages are, and backs up from him. The Kages’ bodyguards all leap onto the table and prepare for combat. One eyepatch-wearing man from Kirigakure keeps eyeing Danzo like he’s about to lash out and attack him, but instead he simply backs down off the table and mutters something to the Mizukage. She draws in a sharp breath of surprise, but she doesn’t take her eys off Zetsu.

“Why have you come here?” Konan asks, breaking the silence but keeping the tension. Zetsu peers at her curiously and gives her a terrible half-grin with the part of his face that’s actually there.

“Somewhere in the building,” says Zetsu, taking care to make eye contact with all five Kages, “Is Uchiha Sasuke.”

This statement has exactly the reaction Zetsu’s likely hoping for: everyone begins to look around and chatter uncomfortably among themselves, exchanging tales and rumors of Sasuke’s exploits –part of the team that killed Zabuza and Haku; alleged member of the Akatsuki; older brother’s a mass-murderer. The Raikage leaps to his feet and grabs Zetsu roughly by the neck.

“Where is Uchiha Sasuke?” he shouts, holding Zetsu a foot in the air. The ground peels away from his legs as he’s dragged out of the earth, morphing back together in ugly soundless bloops. “Answer me!” the Raikage continues. “If you don’t answer, I’m not gonna go easy on you!”

Zetsu, possibly fearing for his own safety, glances nervously at Konan. She shakes her head; no help from her as long as he’s on Madara’s side.

“Fine,” he acquiesces as the Raikage’s grip tightens around his throat. “I’ll give you a hint…”

The Raikage doesn’t seem to care about hints, however, and snaps Zetsu’s neck instead. Konan bites her lip in discomfort; she’s a little worried about herself now.

“You didn’t need to do that,” says the Mizukage. “We could have interrogated him.”

“The Akatsuki don’t easily share their secrets,” Gaara says, eyes flicking toward Konan curiously. “Interrogation is pointless; they’re too loyal.”

More like too afraid of what Nagato could’ve done to them, thinks Konan grimly, but she figures mentioning that little tidbit of information won’t exactly endear the Akatsuki to anybody in the room.

Everyone starts bustling around, trying to organize into some sort of search. The Mizukage taps her eyepatched retainer on the arm and nods at Danzo. Eyepatch man nods in return and braces himself with one foot up on the table, visible eye fixed on Danzo. Gaara waves his siblings off and crosses the room to stand before Konan. She’s aware of the entire room watching them out of the corners of their eyes. The only one ignoring them is the Kirigakure nin with the eyepatch, still watching Danzo, and the Raikage, who’s just punched a hole through the wall while shouting for his retainers to follow him.

“Sorry about that,” says one of the Kumogakure jounin as they awkwardly follow him out.

“Itachi?” says Sasori, in between mouthfuls of food that Deidara keeps forcing on him. “He left two days ago.”

“I noticed,” says Yahiko, who looks like he’s about to have a frustration-induced breakdown. “Where to?”

“Followed Konan, yeah,” says Deidara. “He’s going to the summit. Something about his stupid kid brother seems to get him on the warpath, y’know.”

Yahiko pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. “And how come nobody thought to mention this to me?” he wonders.

“I thought you knew,” says Sasori, backing away from another spoonful of soup. “Stop that, brat.”

Deidara smirks and pushes the spoon into Sasori’s mouth anyway before sneering at Yahiko. “You never asked, yeah,” he says cheerily. “Fuck that guy anyway.”

“If you’re really that worried about him,” Sasori adds, with a tone of voice that indicates he honestly couldn’t care less, “I think Kisame followed him.”

“Great,” Yahiko says stiffly. “Two of you got out without me noticing. Incredibly reassuring.”

Face to face with the young Kazekage, Konan is very aware that despite their chatter, everyone is paying very close attention to Gaara and her right now. What is about to happen between them, the leader of the most feared criminal organization the shinobi world has ever known, and the youngest leader of Sunagakure in history, is absolutely unprecedented and unpredictable.

Gaara is shorter than Konan, and decades younger, but his presence is overwhelming up close. It’s very clear to her why he was able to become the Kazekage at such a young age; even without hosting a Bijuu, he’s quite powerful, and he commands a lot of respect despite himself.

“I know you Akatsuki are not inclined to expose your purpose or your secrets, and I doubt going after Sasuke is going to aid us in any manner as far as discovering Akatsuki’s goals,” says Gaara. Konan shrugs and nods faintly; she has to concede that he’s correct.

“We’re not affiliated with Madara and Sasuke’s group- ” Konan starts to say, but Gaara holds up a hand to stop her. In the background behind him, Konan takes note of who else is leaving the room to hunt for Sasuke- some samurai, Gaara’s entourage, the female Iwa nin. Danzo is paying rather close attention to her and Gaara, with an ugly scowl fixed on his face.

“I heard you the first time,” he says. “Regardless, I do not presently intend to rethink any harsh sentiments I hold toward your organization.”

“I would honestly be surprised if you did,” she admits. Gaara nods levelly and crosses his arms.

“However,” Gaara says, “I recognize that you’ve come here of your own volition, and have nothing to do with the fact that Uchiha Sasuke is here now. You clearly came here with a purpose; I intend to hear you out, and I hope you may be willing to share further information with us.”

“If you’re willing to believe what I say,” Konan says, “Then I’ll take that chance. I can give you Amegakure as an ally in return.”

“Alliance,” murmurs Gaara, incredulously. “Is that your true purpose?”

Not quite, but she’ll take it.

“If you’re willing to believe me,” Konan repeats, holding out a hand for Gaara to shake.

Gaara doesn’t take Konan’s hand. “Give me a moment to speak with Uchiha Sasuke first,” he says. “He’s like I used to be; I want to see if I can talk him down from whatever he thinks he’s trying to do here. In the event that I cannot, I’ll attempt to capture him, and regardless of the outcome of that I’ll return to speak with you.”

Konan nods warily. Gaara turns to leave.

“Stay here, if you wouldn’t mind,” he says, nodding at her, and then he exits the room.

Konan feels rather uncomfortable with nearly all the eyes of the top brass of the shinobi world trained directly on her, but she stays anyway. She’s got something to prove, after all.

All Itachi hears is Zetsu’s voice telling the whole summit that Sasuke’s in the building before he’s running through the high-arched halls, Sharingan blazing.

He knows the summit attendees aren’t going to let Sasuke traipse around like he owns the place, and god forbid they catch him because no matter who does he’s not getting away scot-free. Sasuke might be a good fighter, but up against potentially more than one Kage at full power, plus their ANBU or their retainers or their personal assistants, he’s got no chance. Even if he brought the other experiment children he liberated from Orochimaru, there’s only so much he can do to hold his own.

It occurs to Itachi, as he searches the summit building for Sasuke, that there’s a minor chance Madara’s told Sasuke about the truth of the Uchiha massacre, and Sasuke’s come for Danzo. Danzo, with Shisui’s stolen eye, with god knows what other purloined powers and conniving tricks up his baggy sleeves, Sasuke cannot fight Danzo.

Itachi hears explosions in the distance, and he picks up his pace. It’s nice, he admits to himself, to be able to run around like this without fear of hacking up a lung by accident. It’s convenient, considering he has to take out any threat to Sasuke before it’s too late-

-What is he thinking?

Itachi skids to a halt in the middle of an empty hall as the sound of crumbling pillars echoes in the background. He literally can’t do anything. He can’t fight off any threat to Sasuke without revealing himself completely. Literally all his moves are so signature that anything he does would be a dead giveaway: Uchiha Itachi is back from the dead, and he’s in the mood for murder.

Itachi bites his lip in frustration.

Danzo, he thinks, considering briefly if he should do something about him. Taking him down would be beneficial in the long run, but there’s no guarantee he can get to Danzo without any interference either. There’s nothing he can do.

“I suppose I’ll go try to warn Konan about Shisui’s eye,” he mutters to himself, and turns back the way he came. Sasuke ought to have unlocked the Mangekyo Sharingan now anyway. He can probably manage to hold his own.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7 (War, Death, Tragedy, and Other Things That Make it Hard to Sleep)

“So,” says the Kirigakure nin with the eyepatch, breaking the uncomfortable tension in the summit room, “Does the Hokage want to show us what’s under those bandages on his face and explain to me what he’s doing with Uchiha Shisui’s eye?”

Konan perks up at that. Uchiha Shisui… Itachi had mentioned him. Friend of his from the clan; the source of Itachi’s Mangekyo. He was very cagey about it, but it was clear to Konan from the way he approached the topic that Shisui was dead and Itachi wasn’t particularly content with it.

Danzo glowers and grits his teeth, and the Kiri shinobi –Ao, the Mizukage had called him –continues. “I’m not exactly one to talk as far as stealing eyes is concerned, considering I adopted this Byakugan off an old foe of mine,” –he taps his eyepatch and the Konoha nin shoot him violent looks- “But it’s allowed me to see the Hokage’s chakra during this summit. Shisui was a prodigy with the Sharingan, and he was able to use its genjutsu to control people’s minds without them even noticing. I sensed him using it to begin to gain control over the conversation. I couldn’t tell you who on, though,” he says with a shrug.

The reaction to this is immediate. The Kages and their retainers, or at least the ones who remain in the room, start arguing with Danzo about him breaking their trust, and how they can’t trust anything that came out of his mouth anymore.

Konan’s mainly glad the negative attention’s been shifted away from her and onto Danzo. She’s nervous though; who’s to say if Danzo’s been using the jutsu on or against her? For all she knows, the rest of the summit might’ve been far more agreeable towards her pitch of diplomacy without him present to manipulate their thoughts.

There’s discussion in the room of ousting Danzo as Hokage, and something about a united shinobi army for the sake of bringing down Madara. People keep looking at Konan with emotions ranging from apprehension to curiosity to outright bloodlust.

They’re trying to decide if they’d rather contend with us as an enemy or put up with us as an ally, she realizes. She doesn’t know what to say anymore, though, to put in a good word for the Akatsuki; the unknown variable of Danzo’s meddling in their discussion has put her on edge, and there’s once again no way of knowing how any of them will react to her any longer. Perhaps if Gaara had stayed in the room, she could continue to trust him… but then again, he could’ve been under the jutsu at that point as well.

Someone mentions instating Hatake Kakashi as Hokage in Danzo’s place, which makes good sense to Konan. He’s young, he’s a student of the fourth Hokage’s, and more importantly, he’s on particularly good terms with Uzumaki Naruto. If Naruto told anyone about Nagato’s story of them and the formation of the Akatsuki, it’s most likely to be him, and as such he’s most likely to be sympathetic to the new Akatsuki mission.

Of course, this is the perfect time for Sasuke to appear on the scene, hanging from the ceiling of the Kage summit, Sharingan blazing threateningly in his gaze.

Itachi finds Kisame before he finds Danzo, which is both unexpected and distracting.

“What are you doing here?” he says, making his best effort to continue on his way while re-affixing his poker face as fast as he possibly can. He hadn’t realized he was storming through the halls with actual emotion in his expression until he’d seen Kisame appear from around the corner.

“I came to secure the eight-tails,” says Kisame, “because that’s what Madara and Zetsu think I’m doing right now.”

“Is that so,” says Itachi, stifling his curiosity. Having let his guard down for his first few days back amongst the living, it’s become increasingly difficult for Itachi to tamp down his emotions and pretend to be the stone cold walking nightmare he used to be.

“Yep,” says Kisame. Itachi attempts to edge around him and continue on his way back to the summit room. Kisame matches his sidestep and blocks the path. “He probably still thinks I’m working for him. And he’s got good reason to,” adds Kisame, who’s clearly reading right through Itachi’s blank demeanor. “Considering I’ve known a lot of Madara’s plans from the beginning.”

Itachi wants to scream something, like You WHAT now? or perhaps go fuck yourself with one of Deidara’s bombs, why didn’t you say anything sooner, or something equally undignified as that. But he doesn’t. He sidesteps in the other direction, and Kisame blocks his path again. The summit room is literally two doors down, this is so frustrating.

“You may tell me all about your spontaneous and now-incomprehensible change of allegiance later, Kisame,” Itachi sighs, continuing to try and get past Kisame. “Presently you’re being immature-”

“Madara and your brother are in there,” says Kisame, interrupting him. “Possibly you don’t wanna go in just yet. In my experience as your partner, unplanned Uchiha family reunions don’t usually go too well.”

“How do you know they’re there?” says Itachi.

“There was an explosion, someone shouted Sasuke-kun and then I heard Madara’s voice,” Kisame says. Itachi takes a deep breath to calm himself, stops trying to get around Kisame, and Kisame stops blocking the path. Having come to some kind of silent agreement, they both make their way down the hall. They take up position on either side of the door to eavesdrop, just in time to overhear Madara declaring war on the entire shinobi world.

“That was sooner than expected,” says Kisame, and Itachi makes a snap decision about Kisame’s allegiances and pins his partner to the wall with a kunai at his throat.

“I will expect to hear all about Madara’s plans from you later,” he says. “Return with Konan to Amegakure and I will reconvene with you there.”

“Going somewhere?” Kisame wonders, not looking at all worried about the kunai, and rightfully so because Itachi doesn’t have the heart to stab him so unceremoniously after almost ten years of working together. If he were to fight and kill Kisame, it would need to be grander, he thinks, trying to convince himself it’s not just him being sentimental and pathetic. Either way, his threat toward Kisame is as empty as Itachi feels right now. His brother’s essentially gone feral, his truth-obsessed partner’s been going behind his and the Akatsuki’s back for years, and literally all his plans are backfiring or unraveling before him. Itachi wants to give up. He wants to cry.

“Yes. To remove Danzo from power,” he says instead, and starts mentally blocking out a new plan in order to stifle his feelings.

“Why?”

“He’s not worthy of the Sharingan he’s stolen,” Itachi says, and while it’s certainly not a lie, it isn’t the correct truth either. The village must be made safe for Sasuke’s return, and Danzo in power means the exact opposite of that. He’ll have a firing squad already primed at the gates of Konoha the day Sasuke comes home.

Danzo’s got to die, Itachi decides grimly. And he’s taking Shisui’s eye back. Give him something besides Sasuke and his busted plans to be upset about.

“What’s the real reason?” asks Kisame as Itachi removes the kunai and sweeps down the hall in his ridiculous raincoat. He doesn’t grace that with an answer.

Gaara and the Raikage return to the room in the wake of Madara disappearing with Sasuke and Karin. Danzo has fled the scene, and everyone is more than shaken up. People are eyeing Konan apprehensively; they’re beginning to realize she wasn’t lying about Uchiha Madara after all.

“Where’s Danzo?” wonders Gaara’s sister, and someone fills in the returning group about Shisui’s eye and the mind-control Sharingan. The Raikage looks like he wants to break another wall, and he suggests going after Danzo.

“He’s already been removed from his position as Hokage,” mentions the Mizukage. “He has no power anymore.”

“Who’s Hokage then?” asks one of the Raikage’s retainers.

“Someone mentioned Hatake Kakashi as an option,” someone says, but Konan is no longer paying attention. She’s slumped into the empty chair Danzo left behind, and is turning the situation over in her head. Madara is going to envelop the world in endless genjutsu, and she has no idea how to stop him. She doesn’t even know if Itachi, as another Sharingan user, could stop him. This is a little over her head.

Gaara circles around the table like a polite human being, instead of vaulting over it like most shinobi would be inclined to. He does, however, like most fifteen-year-olds might, perch himself on the edge of the table right in front of Konan instead of pulling up another chair. He doesn’t mention that the seat she’s sitting in ought to belong to the Hokage.

“I am aware this is not the best time,” says Gaara, “And I will admit I am nervous about the situation with Danzo.”

“You and everyone else,” Konan mumbles. She’s exhausted. This is the most psychologically draining thing she’s experienced since Yahiko’s death, but she has to pull it together and be mature here. She is not about to be out-matured by a fifteen-year-old boy, even if he has died more than her. Jinchuuriki lifestyle aside, his personal tragedy is nothing compared to the war she’s faced. She can handle this.

“I am still willing to hear you out,” Gaara says. “If you’re still willing to talk.”

Konan has already told her whole life story once this week, and heard Nagato tell it once more to poor Uzumaki Naruto. But she steels her nerves anyway and looks Gaara in the eyes.

“I would like to tell you about the Akatsuki and our original purpose, and our new-old leader Yahiko,” she says.

“I would like to hear it,” says Gaara.

“It’s not a happy story. It’s about war, and death, and tragedy,” Konan warns, straightening up in the Hokage’s chair.

“I will still listen,” says Gaara, crossing his arms. His brother and sister come over to sit on either side of him. “I have seen my fair share of death and tragedy. Perhaps it’s time I started to understand how war can have such an impact as to forge the Akatsuki.”

Konan nods solemnly, and then she begins to talk.

Itachi tracks Danzo all the way out to a high stone bridge that leads out of the country in the direction of the land of Wind. He conceals himself atop the arch at one end, chakra masked and hood up, because Sasuke and his red-haired friend have followed Danzo as well. They practically melted out of thin air and appeared on the bridge blocking Danzo’s path. Itachi suspects Madara’s involvement, and when he looks up, there Madara is, perched on the arch at the opposite end of the bridge.

Itachi spares a glance down at Sasuke preparing to fight Danzo, and then he levels his gaze back up at Madara. He feels the hazy burn of the Mangekyo Sharingan enter his eyes as he glares Madara down through the mask, and he can almost see the chakra pressure of Madara’s Sharingan blazing back at him.

It’ll be difficult to keep an eye on Sasuke if I have to contend with Madara, Itachi thinks, glancing down to where the fight between Sasuke and Danzo has begun. Also, I’ll completely blow my cover here if a fight starts.

Unfortunately, Madara is not about to let Itachi make his own decisions about the situation. Before Itachi can fully register what’s going on –Sasuke and Danzo and his own thoughts taking up most of his concentration as it is –Madara twists away into space-time and reappears right in front of Itachi.

“Not here,” Itachi tries to say, wanting to move their fight away from Sasuke both to keep his existence quiet and also to minimize the chance of catching Sasuke up in their battle. A fight between him and Madara, despite Itachi’s own obvious disadvantage, is sure to be hideously destructive at the very least.

“I don’t think you’re really in a position to decide,” Madara says, and levels a kick at Itachi that almost sends him flying. He skids to a stop inches from toppling off the arch and straight down onto the bridge. Before he can get close to falling, however, Madara is in his face with a kunai in hand and there’s literally nowhere for Itachi to dodge but off the edge.

In slow-motion, Itachi faces the fact that there’s a very high chance he’s about to reveal himself to Sasuke. He recognizes this is an inevitability, and it’s only coming a little faster than he’d expected it to.  He just hasn’t had time to consider what he’s going to do when he has to face his little brother again. Sasuke might try to murder him all over again; or worse, Madara may have told him everything, and from there Itachi can’t even imagine what could possibly transpire between them.

Nothing simple, Itachi supposes, but then, when he’s involved nothing ever gets to be simple.

Fortunately for him, ten years acting as a double-agent means he’s had plenty of cause to work on his improvisation skills. He’ll figure something out.

He takes a deep breath and vaults backwards off the arch, letting fly a volley of shuriken in Madara’s direction. Madara dodges or blocks most of them, and Itachi shoots off a fireball jutsu on his way down. He manages to jump far enough miss landing on the bridge, catching a high-speed glimpse of Sasuke and Danzo in combat as he falls –was that the Susano’o? Sasuke’s figured it out that quickly?- and lands gracefully on the surface of the water far below. Madara follows him down with a quick interdimensional twist and throws a punch at Itachi that he only barely manages to dodge.

Ignoring the sudden increase of chakra pressure from atop the bridge, Itachi does his best to focus on dodging Madara’s blows. He has no time to be proud of his brother for unlocking the secrets of the Sharingan so easily; his life is on the line here. Madara’s ability to jump through space at the drop of a hat makes him unpredictable and dangerous, but Itachi’s spent the past ten years with the Akatsuki; unpredictable and dangerous is pretty much his lifestyle at this point.

Madara leaps through space and takes a swing at Itachi, which he blocks with a kunai. They trade blows briefly, before Madara spirits himself away again and leaves Itachi desperately trying to guess where he’ll appear from next. Itachi senses a spike in chakra pressure behind him, and jumps to dodge a barrage of shuriken from Madara. He lands twenty feet up the bridge, holding himself in place with chakra. It occurs to him that unless ninety years off the radar has caused Madara’s abilities in combat to deteriorate drastically, Itachi should not be evading him this well. Possibly it’s the fact that his resurrection seems to have cured his blindness, making it easier for him to dodge, but an interesting thought has stuck itself into Itachi’s mind. Uchiha Madara is a legend, remembered in history for pretty much being a one-man army, capable of such levels of destruction as could rend the land in two and control even the nine-tailed fox; Itachi should’ve been dead in seconds fighting him. Yet something seems… off. The best and brightest of the Uchiha clan should not be going this easily on him.

He hardly has time to contemplate that though, because Madara has spatially warped an array of giant shuriken out of nowhere and launched them at Itachi. He dodges backwards up the wall of the bridge and barely manages to keep himself from having to jump into Sasuke’s line of vision.

From this close, he can hear the red-haired girl shouting at Sasuke as he fights, something about eyes on Danzo’s arm and sixty seconds.

Itachi risks a glimpse at the battle, vaulting onto the bridge behind a pillar. He catches sight of the fight just in time to see Danzo, with an entire arm covered in stolen Sharingan eyes, take a Susano’o arrow to the heart and walk away completely unharmed.

Horribly, in his mind, the dots connect themselves. All the Sharingans, sixty second limit, his taking no damage… Danzo’s gotten a hold of Izanagi.

This is literally the worst-case scenario, thinks Itachi. If Danzo has the Izanagi, he’s going to be near-impossible to defeat. And from the looks of it, with the many eyes implanted into his arm, he’s going for a chance at multiple uses of it. Theoretically Itachi could subdue him via Izanagi, but he doesn’t want to risk losing that trump card if he doesn’t have to. And anyway, if Danzo’s still got multiple uses of Izanagi left, there’s always a chance he could sort out a way to break through Izanami’s eternal paradox looping with its power…

If Sasuke can keep him in combat long enough for him to run out of uses of Izanagi, Itachi thinks, and then he notices Sasuke’s red-haired ally staring at him from a pile of debris. She locks eyes with him and she opens her mouth to yell. Itachi holds up a finger to his lips to shush her, and she gives him a look that somehow manages to perfectly convey the exact feeling of what are you, my mother?

At this point, literally everything that could possibly go wrong does, all at once. The girl shouts –“Sasuke, your brother” –and he turns his back on Danzo, making eye contact with Itachi. Danzo uses that brief moment of Sasuke’s inattention to take the girl hostage –is this Itachi’s fault, he wonders, that she’s been captured by Danzo? –and in that same moment, as Sasuke’s eyes widen upon recognizing his brother, Madara appears in the air before him and jabs Itachi sharply in the stomach.

It hurts more than it should, and Itachi sees stars. He tastes blood in his mouth –that attack shouldn’t have done so much damage as to make him cough up blood; didn’t he come back to life healed of his infernal disease? –he’s unbearably dizzy and in far too much pain…

The last thing he sees before he blacks out completely is Sasuke in the distance, looking devastated, furious, and afraid.

“Itachi, you awake?”

No, Itachi is not awake. Itachi is rather enjoying not being awake. The darkness is familiar, even comfortable around him. His lungs ache though, unfortunately. Perhaps he’s not completely cured after all. He’d like to ignore that particular problem for a little while longer though, so he leans into the darkness. For some reason, it’s pleasantly warm and seems to have the same fabric texture of an Akatsuki cloak…

Itachi blearily opens his eyes to find that Kisame is carrying him like a child, heading off down a dreary, misty road.

“I can walk,” Itachi says, shifting in anticipation of being let down.

“You’re lucky Madara still thinks I’m working for him,” Kisame notes, ignoring Itachi’s attempts to climb down out of his arms, “Or he wouldn’t have let me take you away. He’d have made sure you were dead.”

“Thank you,” says Itachi, although he’d still like to prove he can function on his own and does not need to be carried anywhere. He feels thoroughly ridiculous. Kisame readjusts Itachi’s position in his arm, and he finds himself with his head cushioned comfortably against Kisame’s shoulder. This should not be quite so pleasant as he finds it. Itachi feels his resolve to move around independently crumbling rapidly. He sighs and resigns himself to the fact that Kisame probably intends to carry him at least until they stop to rest. He’s always been unusually chivalrous, for an S-class criminal. “What happened to Sasuke? Is Danzo-”

“Dead,” Kisame says bluntly. “Killed by your brother.” Itachi’s eyes widen in shock. Sasuke’s become a killer. “He stabbed him with that lightning jutsu of his, right through that girl comrade of his.”

Itachi’s head swims. He feels guilty for having changed the outcome of the battle for the worse for the red-haired girl. His appearance on the scene caused her to be captured. And Sasuke not only killed, but he betrayed a comrade to do it. He can’t wrap his head around that. How could his plans have gone so hideously wrong to have turned Sasuke into …this?

Possibly, his subconscious notes bitterly, it was the whole “murder your best friend for the Mangekyo Sharingan” line that did it.

Itachi would argue that he was thirteen and on the verge of a severe post-patricide emotional breakdown when he’d said that, and for god’s sake that was nearly ten years ago, how could Sasuke possibly have remembered… but then, his own flashbacks to that night are notorious for their memory of the little details that make it seem all the more real; why wouldn’t Sasuke experience something similar?

It occurs to Itachi that he may have made a couple of glaring mistakes in his master plans.

“Where are we?” he asks Kisame, in an effort to distract himself from his terrible failings for a little while.

“On our way back to Amegakure,” he answers. “Konan hadn’t left the summit yet, so if we’re careful we can get back before her and she’ll never know we followed her.”

“Why did you follow her anyway?” Itachi asks, feeling himself sinking sleepily back into unconsciousness. He reluctantly concedes that Kisame’s arms are quite comfortable, at least. Very muscular. Quite pleasant. Itachi hesitates to admit to himself that he feels safe, but he can’t necessarily deny the feeling either.

“I told you; Madara thought I would be there, and I couldn’t risk him thinking I’d betrayed him yet.”

Itachi hums softly in response, which is the closest thing to laughter he’s able to manage right now. He’s feeling rather melancholy, and as guilty as he’s been in years. Even Kisame’s roundabout declaration that he’d rather follow Itachi than Madara isn’t enough to boost his spirits. “For someone so intensely focused on truth,” he says, “you certainly appear alright with lying to your old boss about your allegiance.”

Kisame says nothing to this. Itachi figures he has his reasons, and doesn’t force the issue. He does, however, let out a horrible, racking cough that has him tasting blood in the back of his mouth.

“You never mentioned you were sick before,” Kisame notes. Itachi doesn’t answer this one, and he hopes Kisame understands that he too has his reasons. “Get some rest,” says Kisame, after a long while. “I’ll wake you when we get somewhere to eat.”

Itachi nods half-heartedly, and allows himself to drift off once more.