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Their battle did not go unnoticed.

Citizens of Ame are cautiously creeping onto the outskirts, barely a dozen people in clusters of sodden cloaks, all clearly expecting to see the aftermath of Akatsuki being permanently put in their place.

Gasps fill the air as soon as they come close enough to see what has become of Hanzo, their so-called leader, now a mangled mess on the ground. Small in death, as he ought to be. Konan had considered the best way to dispatch the man, toying with the idea of keeping him alive just so he could see how Amegakure could bloom when free of his oppressive rule, but had ultimately concluded that there was no threat best left alive. She’d used poison simply for the irony of it, not expecting it to actually kill him, just wanting him to be the one feeling the terror of realisation that his own body had been compromised. The plan had been stripped down to the basics – lay the foundation to take out his soldiers, separate and confuse them, set off the tags and wipe them all out, the destruction of the cliff inevitably leading Hanzo down to the clearing, where he would of course engage the paper clone she had left for him, she could then slice his mask to add insult to injury, distracting him long enough for the paper shuriken to strike, thereby getting the poison into his system, which would confuse and impair him enough for him to overlook the most simple of tricks, a genin-level trap. One explosive tag strapped to a kunai would be enough.

And it was.

In truth, she’d half expected the plan to fall apart the second it began. Perhaps the ambush would change location, rendering her preparation of the cliff pointless. Or maybe instead of leaping down to meet her clone in battle, he’d sense the trick and flee, the way he had when Nagato had massacred his men.

And deep down, buried beneath a steel layer of certainty that this time, the events of the day would play out according to her whim, there was a small speck of doubt. It took ten years for Nagato as Pain to finally hunt Hanzo down and finish him. He could have attacked at any point before that, but he had wanted to be sure. He had needed that certainty. Konan had tried to emulate that, with only three days to prepare for her own hunt. But still, she had doubted, just a little, that she alone would be enough. She should have remembered the desperation that had driven Hanzo to the point of betraying Akatsuki in the first place – his paranoia had left him alone, his subordinates made loyal only through payment, and his many victories had made him complacent. He’d thought himself immortal, so he’d stopped training, thinking he’d already reached perfection, so why aim higher? Nagato had taught him how wrong he was.

And now Konan has done the same.

“He’s dead!” She hears someone yell from the growing crowd on the sidelines.

Konan moves forward smoothly, plucking Hanzo’s bloodied mask from the ground and holding it up for all to see, “This is what remains of the man that ruled you through fear, pain, and cruelty!” She calls out, her voice echoing against the rocks, “One man believed himself above an entire village, but Akatsuki proved him wrong! The people of Amegakure are the strongest in the world, because we have had to endure the worst of it! Other villages took our home and turned it into a battlefield, time and time again! They brought endless destruction and death to our lands, burning our crops, razing our buildings, killing our people, all because we had the misfortune to settle in an area that proved convenient for them to fight their petty wars!”

The crowd nods along to her words, sounds of anger beginning to rise.

“But still we survived! We are the people that remain despite it all – when they poisoned our water supplies, we found a way to purify them. When they stole our food, we planted crops they could not plunder. When their armies came in numbers strong enough to shake the very foundations of this land, we stood steady and endured! We can weather any storm! Like the mountains that built this village, we remain strong, unyielding to the endless rain, and at long last, we have survived this one man’s reign of terror!”

The crowd cheers, voices ringing out with savage joy and triumph. She can see the naked relief across their faces as they hug each other, clap long and hard, and children jump up and down without fear of Hanzo’s men swooping in to break up the revelry.

“Amegakure!” Konan yells. “You are free!”

Her team come to stand beside her. Little Konan has tears in her eyes, and Konan almost bids her to wipe them, before she looks at the rest of the team and realises they’re all crying. Her team. Safe and whole.

And if Konan’s own eyes tear up, well. In Amegakure, no one’s face is ever truly dry.

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Konan takes them back to the abandoned house she’d set herself up in, refusing to go back to their hideout. She can’t go back. Never again.

Before she came to set the scene for Hanzo’s demise, she’d intercepted Danzo’s men as they ambushed the rest of Akatsuki’s core. She’d found out in her own time that they hadn’t been abandoned, Danzo had simply sent men to kill the members of Akatsuki who’d come to save their leaders. Good, strong, loyal soldiers, all cut down by betrayal that had only been possible because of the ideals they’d believed in so fervently.

This time, Konan had proved those ideals were correct, and had quickly dispatched Danzo’s men. Kyusuke had taken her orders without question, convinced by her Akatsuki cloak, the rescue she had just performed, and most importantly, her strong resemblance to her younger self. Kyusuke had been a good man. She’d mourned his death, bitterly regretting such a pointless loss. It had only been compounded by the fact that it was her own abduction that had made it all possible.

“Kyusuke will act as the head of the village until we can either find someone ideal, or someone else earns the place,” Konan says now, settling down into the armchair she’d thoroughly cleaned in the days prior.

“It should be Yahiko!” Nagato protests, then flushes darkly when all three other occupants of the room turn to stare at him.

“Yahiko is fifteen,” Konan says calmly, “give him time.”

Now that he has it.

Yahiko gives a self-effacing shrug, “Yeah. It’s one thing, leading our team. But leading a whole village… I don’t know. If I do it, I wanna do it right. I don’t wanna mess things up for Ame.”

“You couldn’t!” Little Konan says, placing a comforting hand on his arm.

The three teens are squeezed onto the sofa, Konan on the left, Nagato in the middle, and Yahiko bracketing him on the right. Konan wonders if they’ve realised what they’re doing yet. It had become habit over the years for Konan and Yahiko to protect Nagato in all things – speaking up for him in conversation, pushing him behind them in combat, positioning themselves to block him from view when necessary – after finding out the strength of his power, and what others might do to take it.

“Kyusuke will do a good job,” Konan says, “besides, I intend to take the three of you out of this village for a few years, for your own good.”

As she expects, the three instantly protest. She holds up a hand, and they fall silent.

“I’m taking you to Konoha.”

Nagato blanches. Konoha shinobi killed his family in front of him. Konan would not normally ask this of him, but Konan had stood by his side during the invasion of Konoha and not once questioned his decision. It was only when he chose to die for the people he’d hated the most in the world that she’d disagreed, begging him to change his mind. But he refused. Even then, pushed to their limit, Nagato had still been capable of exceptional kindness for people who hadn’t necessarily deserved it.

“I have just killed someone they’ve wanted dead for a very long time. I did what the Sannin couldn’t. I’ve now made Amegakure an ally to them, strengthening their place in this part of the world. I did this for Ame’s sake, of course, but there’s no denying that it will aid Konoha greatly. In return, I am going to ask that you three be given safe haven – and myself, too, I suppose,” She adds as an afterthought.

She isn’t a fool. She is aware that Konoha houses another big threat to the teens – all of them, Obito included. She just knows that although Danzo is more than comfortable to act within his own village’s walls, it would be much easier for him to get to them on the outside. Especially if Konan was not there. And she will be. If she isn’t present in Konoha, she cannot guarantee that she can prevent the massacre.

She has many short-term goals, but her only long-term goal is simple. Make the world a good place for Uzumaki Naruto to be born. For that, she needs Konoha to be strong, and if Konoha is strong, they must be Ame’s ally. There is no alternative. They cannot treat Ame as a convenient battlefield. Not anymore. But if Ame was friendly territory, it would become a safe place for them to travel through, rather than cut through, to get to their enemies.

Konoha will be ten times as strong as they were in her time if the Uchiha clan survives. Not to mention the fact that Obito would be in danger if she did not actively work to prevent the massacre. She has not saved him from one awful fate simply to deliver him to another.

So, she must be close to Danzo in order to work against him, which means Konoha must accept her into their fold. Of course, she could slip into Konoha and assassinate Danzo, but the risks of that path outweigh the rewards. She must be very careful and patient for the coming years.

“Why Konoha?” Yahiko’s nose wrinkles, his eyes darting to Nagato. “Lots of villages wanted Hanzo dead. We’re not going to live in a place that treated us like we were worse than dirt.”

“Konoha is the strongest of the five great shinobi villages. They will make for a powerful ally, but only if we have something to give them. I’ve given them Ame as an ally, of course, with Hanzo’s death, but if I give them us, it will make us vulnerable to them. In times long past, daimyo would send their heirs to be fostered by the enemy. This was a show of trust on their part, because they were placing their future in the enemy’s hands. Of course, that would lead to great tragedy on occasion, but for the most part, it led to peace. And I know you three very well. Peace is all you desire. You have no grand ideas of rebuilding Amegakure to rival the great villages, or take up arms and seek revenge. You only want to rebuild our village and keep it safe. A way to do that is a show of good faith to Konoha. Proof that they are not our enemy, because we are not Hanzo. We are not tyrants. We are seekers of peace. Do you understand?”

The three remain silent. Yahiko looks sullen. Little Konan is clearly planning to agree with whatever her team wants, not her older self. But Nagato looks pensive, likely close to being swayed by her talk of peace.

“I should remind you of my origins. What I know, what I saw, what I endured. If I had not acted today, you would become all too aware of these things. I’m asking you to trust that I know exactly what must be done to forge the path to peace. Spend at least three years within Konoha’s walls. Grow strong with their food, training, and bask in the sunlight. Come back home with the certainty that it will survive.”

“Is Konoha safe? Would they even accept us?” Nagato whispers. He’s close to agreeing with her, she can see it. Judging by the sour look on Yahiko’s face, he can too.

“No shinobi village is safe, but they would accept us.”

“But Nagato…” Little Konan presses herself against the boy’s side, apparently unaware that she is doing it.

“I can hide the Rinnegan.”

All three gasp.

“You know about that?” Yahiko demands.

It’s only from decades’ experience of restraining herself that Konan manages not to roll her eyes. “If your Konan knows something, I know it,” she says pointedly, growing a touch impatient. She’d assumed they would have agreed by now, but they don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle. Obito, Madara, Danzo. They aren’t fully aware of her plans.

“You’re our Konan too,” Nagato says quietly.

She has to look away. “I suppose,” she says, equally quiet.

When she looks up, Yahiko is gazing at her, something knowing in his eyes, “You’ve been through a lot. Something worse than what would’ve happened today. Can you tell us about it?”

“No,” She says, suddenly very tired, “I don’t want you to ever know. Everything I’m doing is so that you will never, ever have to know.”

Little Konan very deliberately holds her hands together in her lap. They must be trembling. Konan remembers doing the same move, many times, to hide her weakness.

“Konoha has mind-readers,” Little Konan says, “they can’t know where you came from. And if they look in our minds, they’ll know about Nagato’s eyes anyway.”

Konoha’s Analysis Team had been the source of many of Akatsuki’s headaches over the years. They could use a technique to explore a target’s mind at will, reading memories like the pages in a book. Nagato had tasked Konan with countering it. In the end, they’d come up with a ninjutsu that could place mental blocks in a person’s mind that would prevent someone from accessing certain parts. If Konan did that to the teenagers, it’s possible some of the Analysis Team would miss the signs of mental protection, but if they have even one Yamanaka, it would stand out. She can’t deliver them to Konoha with evidence that someone has meddled with their memories.

Instead, she will have to do something much worse.

“I have a genjutsu technique that can plant false memories in your minds. If Konoha accesses your memories, they will be aligned with the story I will provide them. This does mean, however, that you will believe the false memories are from real events. And the story I intend to tell Konoha is that I am Konan’s older sister, who fled the village many years ago, only to return upon hearing my sister was in danger.”

Little Konan goes pale, “I’d… I’d think you were really my big sister? That you’d saved me because – ”

“That’s far too cruel.” Yahiko smacks the arm of the sofa. “No way.”

“I will also convince Nagato that he does not have a dojutsu, that his eyes are ordinary. They will appear as such because of these.” Konan holds up paper lenses, designed to give the user blue eyes.

Nagato stares at the small, circular pieces of paper.

“Can’t you say you’re someone else? Dye your hair, change your – ”

“We look exactly alike,” Konan says, slightly frustrated, “and our relation would strengthen the story. Without that, I have no reason to simply swoop down and save a group of teenagers I have never met. My position will already be tenuous, as I will be claiming to be a shinobi that abandoned Ame years before. A missing-nin. If I come to Konoha seeking sanctuary for my family, that is very different from an unaffiliated missing-nin wanting protection.”

“This is ridiculous. Why can’t we just stay in Ame? I’m really grateful that you saved us and killed Hanzo, but now’s the time to rebuild and strengthen the village, not run off to play house in Konoha, risking all our necks for some stupid plan you won’t even tell us – ” Yahiko rants.

“I’m going to assassinate one of Konoha’s village elders,” Konan says.

Yahiko almost stands up, then plops back down again, his eyes round in shock, “Huh?”

“If Konoha is going to be a good ally for Ame, I must first rip out the rotten roots. There is someone like Hanzo operating in the shadows of the village. Their kage is weak, bowing to the will of his advisors, not realising one has poor intentions. This person is responsible for much misery across the world. To get to him, I need to be placed inside the village, with a solid story and good reason to be there. The fact that you three will be much safer there is merely a bonus. It is not the end goal.”

The three fall silent for a long time, giving each other meaningful looks that they likely assume she cannot read. She follows along their nonverbal discussion quite easily.

“Well…” Little Konan begins, sounding wary. “If you’re going to be my sister, you’ll need a name of your own.”

Konan blinks. She cannot believe she overlooked such an obvious fact.

“And if you’re going to make me believe you’re my sister, you better be the best damn sister a girl could ask for,” Little Konan says, giving a little sniff to punctuate her point, “and I get to name you. I’m guessing you know everything I’ve ever wanted, right? All the stupid, pointless, impractical things I could never afford. A good sister would get them for me, wouldn’t she?”

“I was never a brat,” Konan says tonelessly, “I’m not quite sure where this is coming from.”

“You were never a little sister,” Little Konan says, a rare flash of mischief lighting up her face.

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Little Konan insists she’ll come up with a good name at some point. Konan can only hope her younger self is as level-headed and sensible as she remembers herself being. She’s starting to wonder how much of her personality was derived from circumstance, and what might change from now on.

Kyusuke gladly takes the reigns of the village, promising to protect the civilians along with the rest of Akatsuki, who now all watch Konan with the same level of troubling fervour. Removing herself from the picture can only be a good thing. If she had stayed, no doubt they would demand she become the next village head, and she would have to deny them, lest she risk being grounded in the village, unable to move against others without dragging Ame into the fight. Danzo is not an enemy she can allow Ame to face. Not head on, at any rate.

She’d beheaded Hanzo the moment she’d had time alone with the corpse, not wanting the civilians to see, and safely sealed his head up in a scroll for later. The soldiers on the cliff had been a mixture of Hanzo and Danzo’s, but they only wore clothes identifying them as Hanzo’s. Danzo was a slimy, deceitful creature.

Unfortunately, she is not strong enough to carry all three of the orphans to Takigakure to retrieve Obito, forcing them to make the journey on foot.

She pushes them hard, aware that they all feel torn – relieved that they are safe, happy to be free, but sad to be leaving their village right after its liberation – hoping that the relentless pace of the thirty hour journey will be a sufficient distraction. They chat among themselves as they go, telling stories around the small fire she allows them, and brighten up the longer they stay out of Ame’s endless rain.

Little Konan matches Konan’s pace with a little burst of energy, giving her a side look, “Do you know where we are?” The teenager asks.

“Kikyo Pass,” Konan replies, keeping her eyes on the horizon.

“I thought so,” Little Konan says, clearly struggling to keep up with her older self’s pace, “I used to study maps in my spare time – though I guess you know that. Anyway, it gave me an idea.”

Konan doesn’t reply, unsure of where she is going with this.

“I’ll call you onee-san from now on, but you should introduce yourself as Kikyo. Okay?” Little Konan says. On the surface, she’s wearing a playful smile, but Konan senses a thread of insecurity beneath it.

“It should serve as well as any other name,” Konan says, as neutral a response as she can manage, but somehow, it’s enough for little Konan’s smile to bloom.

They’ve planned for Konan to place the genjutsu on all four of the teenagers once they meet up with Obito. Little Konan has become more and more withdrawn the closer they get to their destination, presumably thinking about the ramifications of believing she has a family, only for it to be inevitably swept away once the truth comes to light. Hopefully her smile is a sign that she’s accepted the necessity of the plan.

Konan herself has spent the journey contemplating the whereabouts of Akatsuki. Not the team founded by the trio of orphans by her side, but her team. Pain, Kakuzu, Hidan, Sasori, Deidara, Itachi, Kisame, all of the members from the past who had fallen in pursuit of their dream of peace. Every shinobi she had taken great pains to recruit, only for Kakuzu to collect their bounty as well as their head, or for Sasori to grow tired of them and turn them into a puppet. The youngest members will now only be children. Kakuzu is already a missing-nin, wandering the nations in search of his next bounty. Sasori has already left Suna. Pain will never come to be. Zetsu was never a true member, nor was ‘Tobi.’ Kisame will be in his twenties, still working within the village he remained loyal to until his death. They may have cast him out, but at heart, the man was always a shinobi of Kiri.

Orochimaru must have abandoned Konoha a few years before – and when asked about it, he had claimed he’d been betrayed, set up to fail, all sabotage meant to prevent him from claiming his rightful place as the Hokage’s successor. Konan had considered his story to have some grain of truth, but heavily coloured by the man’s own personal bias. The fact that the man had turned on Itachi – a child at that point – and betrayed Akatsuki in turn, did not bode well for the legitimacy of his claims.

Konan was aware how the world had seen Akatsuki. A frightening group of seemingly unaffiliated missing-nin, whose methods and desires were both unknown. The monsters of the shinobi world. Konan had seen them very differently. They had been a team, a group of people with shared ideals, who all had one thing in common – they had been rejected by the very society that created them. Kiri, a village that encouraged rampant murder and savagery, had balked at Kisame’s inhuman appearance. Akatsuki made the occasional joke about the man’s looks, but always in jest. They’d found out the hard way what it meant to turn someone away for something as petty as looks while under Akatsuki’s roof. Konoha, the village that prided itself for its founding being achieved through the peace between clans, was the same village that loudly distrusted the Uchiha for the crimes of their founder, that pushed and pulled a small child to the point of madness. Itachi had been hollow when they’d found him, ready to kill anyone if given an order. Deidara’s own unusual anatomy had made him an outcast in Iwa, treated similarly to the jinchuuriki he would later hunt, and then they had the audacity to be offended when he left in his own, explosive way.

Akatsuki had been ready for them, all of the hated, feared outcasts, all with blood on their hands and unforgivable acts in their past. Akatsuki had taken them in, given them purpose, and helped them find their way.

Konan can’t imagine she can do that again.

The likes of Hidan had only been sated by the constant violence their dream had demanded, but the future Konan intends to build has no room for such things. Not anymore. She is no longer the bitter, quietly vicious orphan of the past, using idealism to mask the desire to spread her pain throughout the world that had caused it.

It had seemed fair, back then. A group of jinchuuriki, already hated and cast out by their own people, turned against those same people that would have left them for dead at their own convenience. Now, Konan thinks of the empty corpses those jinchuuriki had become, and the peaceful looks on their faces in her memory suddenly seem much more ominous. Peace cannot be found through such methods. She knows that now.

But is there a chance that the outcasts of the world could find a place under Akatsuki’s symbol once more?

***

Hello, friends!

PSA: I’m not currently accepting constructive criticism for this fic.

So going back to writing 4k chapters has really reminded me of why I started writing 10k. What do you MEAN Konan’s not even met Tsunade yet?? Who wrote this damn chapter outline?! Oh, me? I wrote that? Whoops.

I’m really enjoying writing Konan so far! I’ve only written her once before, back when I had a Konan/Hidan fic all planned out and then lost the file with all my notes T___T fs in the chat pls

So Akatsuki canonically set mental traps in their minion’s minds specifically in case someone used a technique to read their memories, and also every damn member of Akatsuki got to be OP as hell, and I want that for Konan, so yeah! Magic genjutsu paper powers! I have no shame!

It’s funny how often time travel fics require the MC to have a moment of breaking down in realisation at what’s happened and all they’ve got left to do, etc. and then Konan’s just like okay great this really helps structure my to-do list, I’m so ready to add Danzo’s head to my collection.

Look I’m not saying I’ve already written the next chapter and it’s my favourite. I’d never say that. I might imply it though. I might do that.

Konan: I miss my terrorist organisation. I wonder how they’re doing?

Sasori: painting the sand with blood of his enemies

Hidan: eating glue

Itachi: is four years old

Konan:

Kyusuke was a real member of the OG Akatsuki, he dies trying to save the Ame trio from the ambush, and he had feelings for Konan.

In terms of ships, obviously we have room for fun here, since Yahiko and Obito shouldn’t be alive at this point (or at least Obito shouldn’t be publicly alive), and Nagato and little Konan shouldn’t be where they currently are, so like… that’s cool. We can do something with that.

If you’re enjoying the fic, please let me know! ^^

Quick poll for fun: What was the last film that made you cry?

Fun fact: I don’t cry at movies, as my soul was stolen by bees long ago, and I’m evil now

(jk I cry at twitter clips from shows I’ve never seen because someone I don’t know is pretending to be sad)