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Around three months after Yahiko is killed (murdered) Nagato and Konan pull themselves together to continue Yahiko’s dream. Through mutual but silent agreement, they wander out of Amegakure. Amegakure, which still echoes with Yahiko’s last words and Hanzo’s taunts. The shadow of Yahiko’s smile still follow the two of them wherever they go and the warmth of blood spilling past her fingers lingers even further.
Yahiko may be dead, but his dream still burned within the two of them.
As they wander from village to village, learning skills and information, Konan finds that Nagato always sends the Yahiko-Pein-avatar with her wherever she goes. She tries not to take it personally. He’s taken to finding and maintaining various “avatars” of each Path and moving himself tends to take more energy than he wants to expend. She gets it. She officially gives up on not taking his stalking personally after three villages where she spends the entire time being asked about her “strange, pierced boyfriend.”
Gathered around the fire a couple days later, Konan officially had enough with the words of the shopkeeper awkwardly asking if the gift was for her very handsome, quiet boyfriend with the piercing ringing in her ears. “We need to talk,” she said a little coolly, the papers she had been practicing with stilling then slowly gathering itself into a neat pile.
Nagato and Pein both blinked, a simultaneous but obvious movement. “Yes?” Nagato asked slowly, his purple eyes glancing into the darkness before meeting her own.
“Do you not trust me anymore?” Konan finally demanded after a long moment of silence in which she had attempted to phrase the question... better. “I know I got Yahiko killed-”
“That’s absurd,” Nagato, in a rare moment of impoliteness, interrupted, a faint frowning creasing his brow. “Why on earth would you think you got Yahiko killed?” His breath stuttered over Yahiko but forged on, determined and stubborn.
Konan remembers the feel of fingers tangled in her hair and a kunai held to her throat. She remembers how her skin parted like paper and the wretched expression on Yahiko’s face when she had bled. “Hanzo, he-”
“He killed Yahiko,” Nagato said firmly, his eyes shining almost preternaturally bright in the firelight. “Not you, Konan.” He said her name like a benediction and for the moment, Konan is too grateful to continue to complain about him stalking her with Pein. She fell silent and both of them stare into the fire for a very long time, the sounds of the forest and the night echoing around them.
-x-
It doesn’t take very long for Konan to once again get tired of being stalked by the blank faced facsimile of her best friend. After the last person that had attempted to persuade an unreactive Pein to buy flowers for his girlfriend, Konan spun around and stabbed a vicious finger at Pein’s chest, staring into the eyes that look exactly like Nagato’s. “I will finish the rest of the shopping by myself ,” she snarled dangerously, ignoring the way her paper drifts off her skin in a small whirlwind then settled back on her. “Alone,” she added when she takes a step and Pein moves to follow. Pein seemed to hesitate before he reluctantly slunk away. His chakra signature continued to burn inside her range like a warning until she reaches camp.
“Nagato!” she yelled, bursting into camp impatiently, the burning presence of Pein driving her wrath. “I don’t need a babysitter!” she snapped, gesturing angrily at a still Pein.
Nagato winced, sitting up slightly from where he had been slouched against a log. “It’s not like that,” he said slowly, the everpresent smoothness replaced with a slight frown. “I just thought-”
“That I couldn’t be trusted with a simple errand to fetch supplies?” Konan interrupted, raising a forbidding eyebrow. “A simple errand which will likely be complicated by the very obvious glowing purple eyes that Pein’s got?” she added, a sharp gesture like an accusation thrown in the direction of Nagato’s avatar.
Nagato shifted awkwardly then finally his jaw firmed and he met her eyes. “You loved Yahiko,” he said slowly, discomfort twisting his expression. “Love,” he corrected hastily, a flash of pain crossing his features. “I thought perhaps...” He trailed off then offered her a wry shrug, “I thought perhaps it would comfort you to have him.... close.”
Konan blinked slowly, staring with shock at way Nagato wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Oh,” she squeaked, remembering uncomfortably Nagato’s all seeing stare when she and Yahiko would sometimes speak and laugh between the two of them. “It isn’t,” she cut herself off and cleared her throat uncomfortably before resigning herself to the situation and plopping down beside Nagato. “It’s sweet,” she finally said reluctantly, her nose wrinkling slightly. “But ultimately absolutely unnecessary,” she added firmly, fixing Nagato with a flat stare. “You’ll stop,” she added, the order clear in her tone.
“Yes,” Nagato agreed, clearly still uncomfortable with this conversation. “I thought it would,” he stopped then shrugged, his shoulder dipping against her own, “happy,” he finished lowly.
Konan resisted the urge the scrub her face with her hands. She couldn’t suppress the way her papers fluttered, the agitation shining clearly through. “You make me happy, Nagato,” she said finally, gently bumping her own shoulder against his. “I am happy.” She frowned but couldn’t help her own small frown when Nagato jerked his chin to the meager meal over the fire and snorted. “Yes, okay. Fine,” she said, trying to frown but knowing her smile would shine through clearly in her voice. “The world sucks, Nagato,” she finally said after gathering her thoughts. She turned and forced Nagato to meet her eyes, “This world sucks a lot less with you,” she confessed quietly, waiting to see the realization settle in her eyes before she turned back to the fire.
The two of them sat in silent for a long while, listening to the branches snap and crackle in the fire. “Me too,” Nagato said quietly, eyes glancing slyly to her then turning away.
Konan turned and looked at the way the firelight glinted off Nagato’s edges and the way the shadows pooled in the hollows of his cheeks. Despite the echoes of tiredness and pain on his features, despite the clear discomfort in his expression, Konan thought he looked beautiful in this frozen moment between the two of them. A single frozen but irrelevant moment in this cursed world.
-x-
Konan remembered the acrid taste of anger and failure from when Yahiko died and from when she held Nagato’s still and entirely too light body in her arms for the last time. As she stared across her table to meet the strange gaze of a form that she had laid to rest, the all too familiar taste of failure and the hot rush of anger welled in her throat. There was only one person she knew with the knowledge to desecrate graves like this.
“How dare he,” she snarled, half rising from her desk, already planning how she would tear Orochimaru to shreds for this trespass. “I’m going to kill him.”
“Konan,” the shell of her best friend, her partner, said quietly, staring with large eyes at the table to the hat and haori slung behind her chair. “Konan,” it repeated, a faint smile beginning to grow on its face. Konan cursed the way it ached to her old friend’s smile even on this cursed form. “I see you’re doing well.” The wry, slight tilt of its lips is all too familiar to her.
“I’ll make him beg me for death,” she said slowly, her heart heavy at the all too rare expression of joy that she had always wanted to bring on her old friend’s face. The expression she had desperately hoped appear on his face once they managed to complete the plan for world peace.
“Oh.” There’s a wash of wry amusement on the form’s face then it carefully met her eyes, “Konan, it wasn’t Orochimaru.” Konan snorted. The smile widened slightly, “Well, yes it was Orochimaru. But it isn’t like you think, Konan. It’s still me.” He reached forward then abruptly stilled the movement, the all too familiar expression of wariness washing over his face when papers began to slowly rise and fluttered in the air. “I just wanted to tell you something before I...returned.”
Returned. To death. “Nagato,” she half sobbed, making her decision. If this was a fake dream, then at least she would have him for this one moment yet again.
“Konan,” he repeated. He stepped around the table and took a step closer, eyes shining fondly as they glanced from her face to the clear signs of Kage around her. “You managed what Yahiko and I never could, huh?” he asked slowly, one hand slowly moving forward to touch her shoulder.
“I only completed what we were all doing to begin with,” she said quietly, unable to help the smile growing on her face. “I could only do it because of you two.”
They smiled at each other for a while, allowing the peace and happiness that had always been in short supply for their own lives. “I just wanted to tell you something before I returned,” Nagato said slowly, his smile all fondness and gentleness. Konan had a moment of gratefulness that Nagato had achieved the happiness and peace, the joy, that he had never been afforded in life.
“I’ll listen to anything you say, Nagato,” Konan said fondly, remembering all the moments when Nagato to make that expression of realization and she had turned, silent and expectant.
The rueful smile that crossed Nagato’s face told Konan he was likely remembering the same moments. “I should have said before,” he said slowly, expression stilling with seriousness. “But death has a way of making you realize things.”
“Yes,” Konan agreed, remembering the aching vast void that had settled in her for the first couple months following Nagato’s death. She remembered feeling utterly alone and adrift. She remembered the blind panic, the desperate desire for connection, that had finally driven her to seek Amegakure, hoping to at least see the shadows of her friends.
“The world needed fixing,” Nagato said slowly, a gentle hand brushing away the aching sadness that had grown on Konan’s face. “But I never would have wanted to even fix it without you in in Konan,” he said slowly, expression adorably awkward.
Konan frowned faintly, trying to parse through the declaration.
“What I’m trying to say,” Nagato said firmly, shifting his weight slightly, “is that I believe I spent the majority of my life in love with you so I’m glad you’re happy now.” The words slipped out like a flood, like an inevitable conclusion and a jumbled rush of emotions. Konan felt her whole world still. “That is to say,” Nagato continued, cheeks washing red as he noticed the still shock on Konan’s face, “We promised to die without regrets and that was only regret I had. That I never....told you.”
When Konan continued to stare at him blankly, Nagato cleared his throat and took a careful step back. “No,” she burst out, grabbing his arm, wild panic on her face. “Me too. I mean, I love you too. Loved you too.” She cut off her panicked words with a shy smile, “You made everything better, Nagato. Always.”
Nagato stilled, then took another step back as he felt the slow creeping sensation of Edo Tensei ending. He had wanted to leave before this. He had never intended for Konan to ever watch him fade away. “I’m returning,” he explained hastily at the stricken expression that fell over Konan. “I never wanted you to....see that.”
Konan shook her head, her expression all fond at the familiar kindness from Nagato. “Stay,” she said quietly, keeping her eyes fixed on his eyes and not on the slow fading of his edges. “Just a little longer.”
Nagato glanced at his fingers, slowly breaking away into the air but turned back to Konan, a small smile on his face. “Just a little longer,” he promised, taking the hand Konan reached out to him. “Just a little longer.”
As Nagato slowly faded away, Konan remembered all the gut wrenching moments of absence she had survived. All the moments without hope where the only thing she and Nagato clung to were the presence of each other. Yes, she could live a little longer. She could work to make the world that Yahiko and Nagato had always wanted for next generations while holding onto the warmth that this moment had given her. “Just a little longer,” she reminded herself, a little smile crossing her face as she turned back to the paperwork in front of her. Just a little longer.