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Konan had explained to her team what had happened to Obito, and all thoughts that they might be hostile to the Konoha nin vanished after that – little Konan was quietly furious on his behalf, Nagato morose and speechless, and Yahiko had ranted angrily about the uselessness of Obito’s allies, abandoning him to such a fate. By the time they slipped through the border into Taki, all three teens were eager to meet the boy she’d saved.

Perhaps I didn’t share enough detail, Konan thinks now, watching the older teens’ faces at the sight of Obito, emaciated, half-blind, his smile uncertain as he rises to greet them from the sofa inside the safehouse.

“I’m sorry it took so long, Obito-kun,” Konan says. She gestures at the group she’s brought with her, indicating they should all take seats while she talks. After they do so, she perches on the arm of the sofa, directing her next words to Obito. “My mission was successful, thankfully, although it took some doing. How are you feeling?”

Obito’s eye is wide and red, the eyepatch she gave him curled in the palm of his hand, “I’m okay! I thought I heard someone coming on the third day, but it was just a herd of deer. Scared the heck out of me.” He admits, rubbing the back of his neck.

“You left the safehouse?” Konan raises her eyebrows.

“I thought you were – ah, I’m sorry. I guess I just… I was worried that maybe something had happened… and you weren’t gonna come back…” Obito fidgets, looking down at his lap.

Konan glances at her younger self and can’t help but sigh at the tender expression she sees there. Obito looks even younger than he actually is, and no doubt the seventeen-year-old Konan is having some big sisterly urges at the sight of him. Konan can’t blame her.

“I promised I would,” Konan says, smiling when he darts a glance up at her, “and here I am.”

Obito returns the smile, a little shy, but clearly pleased.

“What happened to your…” Yahiko starts to point, trailing off as if realising the rudeness of the question halfway through asking it.

“Everything?” Obito replies, a cheeky glint in his eye. “It’s okay, I know it looks weird. The guy who saved me – ”

“Kidnapped you,” Konan corrects.

“Uh, yeah, um. He used some weird goo to fix my left side after it got crushed by rocks.”

“Iwa nin,” Yahiko says darkly.

Obito nods, shivering a little.

“I don’t understand. Why didn’t Konoha look for you?” Little Konan pipes up.

Obito’s chin wobbles, ever so slightly, “Um. I guess they thought I was dead. If it wasn’t for the old guy, I really would be, so I can’t blame them… and we’re at war, so they couldn’t waste time trying to retrieve my body just to bury it. It’d already been buried, haha…”

All three Ame teens grimace. Ame shinobi would do anything to get to the corpses of their fallen. Leaving a person without a proper grave just isn’t done in Amegakure. Even Hanzo would pile his enemies into a pit, bury it, and leave a marker. It would inevitably just be a warning about crossing him, of course, but it was a form of identification. A sign that those that once lived now rested in this place. To simply leave a comrade behind just to complete a mission goes against Ame’s core philosophy. Though naturally, Konoha was the largest village, and thus had a surplus of soldiers to throw away. Ame cherished the few they had.

“Do we really have to go to Konoha?” Yahiko turns to Konan. “We can just take Obito back home. No one would care where he’s from, he’d be welcome. It’s not like Konoha would even challenge us for him.”

Konan doesn’t miss Obito’s tiny wince, nor how his eye flickers to the unoccupied side of the room.

“Obito-kun is from Konoha’s biggest clan, the Uchiha. If they knew he was alive, they would raise hell to find him. And it’s not just that – regardless of what we think of Konoha, it’s Obito-kun’s home. I promised I’d take him there, and I will.”

Yahiko rolls his eyes but doesn’t press the issue any further.

“Are we really going home?” Obito asks timidly.

“Of course. Once I explain everything, there’s something else I must do to ensure our safety, and then we’ll head straight for Konoha. No detours, no missions, we’ll take you right there,” Konan says, firm and irrefutable.

The thing she must do is cast the genjutsu on all of them, making them believe that Nagato’s eyes are perfectly ordinary, and Konan is her own big sister. Even Obito must be fooled, which is a little upsetting.

“Just tell me if you have a problem with this after I explain, and I’ll find another way,” Konan swears. If Obito refuses the genjutsu, she won’t be able to fool his Sharingan by force, nor would she want to do so.

But the way Obito leans forward, already anticipating her next words, it’s clear his implicit trust in her judgement has not wavered in her absence.

Her heart just a little warmer than before, she lays out the full extent of her plan – barring Danzo’s assassination – and sets up the next step they must take.

Madara and Hanzo are dead, her team is alive, Amegakure is free, and there is still so much more she must do.

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Obito had agreed to Konan’s plan to use genjutsu to alter all four of the teens’ memories. Konan hadn’t hesitated once she had his permission, and now she has four ducklings following in her wake as she takes the most direct route to Konoha. Little Konan looks at her differently now, a touch more reverence and gratitude, all traces of suspicion gone now that she believes she has found the sister she never knew she had. Konan will not abuse her younger self’s need for a family. She will do right by the girl, and the others, without going too far. It would be cruel to truly act like the perfect big sister, knowing it would all end one day.

All four teens now believe Konan is Kikyo, Konan’s older sister who finally came back to Ame to save her, and stumbled across Obito in distress on the way. They also have no idea Nagato’s eyes are not actually forget-me-not blue, but rather the rarest dojutsu known to man.

Chakra flaring in tell-tale bursts has Konan slow to a halt, throwing her arm out so the teens behind her will follow suit. There is a battle up ahead, numerous chakra signatures darting about. They’re still a fair distance away, so Konan cautiously leads the teens closer, bidding them to hide in the undergrowth. She leaves a veil of illusory vines to block them from view, then heads to investigate.

A blurred figure leaps from one tree to the another just in time for the first tree to be uprooted by a small but vicious rockslide, burying the entire trunk from root to treetop in seconds. Konan wouldn’t need to see the symbols carved into their headbands to know what this is: Iwa shinobi clashing with Konoha only a few days away from their own village. An advance this far into enemy territory could mean one of two things – confidence or desperation. As Konan knows Namikaze Minato’s slaying of a thousand Iwa nin has already occurred, Iwa have no reason to be confident. Desperation, then.

Konan recalls the frail way Obito had hugged his own body while discussing his near-death, the anger in Yahiko’s voice when he said Iwa nin.

It doesn’t take much more than that to send Konan into the fray, flinging two kunai at once, blocking the advance of the nin with the rockslide jutsu, while also stabbing deep into another one’s throat. The Konoha nin in the trees do not react to her appearance, but the Iwa nin swarm en masse. There are only six men still standing, so Konan does not feel the need to use her paper. Instead, she sinks into a reverie, casting a wide-range genjutsu to convince all six that the ground they are standing on has suddenly become water. They thrash violently, falling to the ground and writhing, their lungs convinced they are filling with water.

Before she can do more, an enormous man flattens the lot of them with a forward roll, breaking his momentum by plunging headfirst into the nearby rockface. All six chakra signatures cut off at once.

The man shrinks, removing his head from the rock and screwing up his face, something good-natured about the line of his mouth as he shakes stones out of his great mane. Two other men leap down from the trees to join him, one with a long blond ponytail, the other dark-haired with astute eyes that she instinctively wants to avoid meeting.

“Good morning,” Konan says, because it seems as good a greeting as any, considering the circumstances, “are you Konoha shinobi?”

The men are tense, shoulders a little too high, hands dangerously close to their weapon pouches. Their headbands are obvious, the symbol of Konoha borne proudly despite the risks of wartime.

“We are,” The blond says warily, “and yourself? You fought well. Thank you, for your assistance, though I feel it was unnecessary.”

That much was clear. The three’s injuries were only minor, and though they were outmanned, they were not outmatched. Konan may have assisted them, but she did not save them.

“I am…” It’s a struggle to keep the grief from her voice and judging by the furrowed brows of the blond before her, she might not have succeeded. “Unaffiliated. Formerly from Amegakure.”

The tension eases, ever so slightly.

Ame is not an ally to Konoha, thanks to Hanzo’s regime, but they have never truly been strong enough to pose a threat on an individual level.

“I intervened because I hoped your presence was a sign my mission was about to come to an end. You see, while I was scouting, I encountered a young boy, barely a teen. He told me he was a citizen of Konohagakure, being held against his will. It has taken some time for me to bring him this far, but I intend to bring him home, if possible. I thought perhaps the three of you could assist.”

The blond’s frown deepens, but the lanky figure with the brown, spiky ponytail suddenly stands up straight, all traces of lethargy gone.

“I’m Nara Shikaku, jounin of Konoha. These are my comrades, Yamanaka Inoichi, and Akimichi Chouza, both also Konoha jounin. If you have a story to tell, I suggest you get to it. We’ll listen,” Nara says, sharp eyes fixed on her face, “but not here. This was an ambush on their part, meaning there might be more.”

“There aren’t.” Konan shakes her head, then rushes to clarify when they look confused. “I am a sensor.”

“So am I.” Yamanaka says, raising his pale brows. “What’s your radius?”

“Considerable,” Konan replies, uninterested in giving away more.

“What’s your name?” Akimichi asks, the only one to look even slightly happy to meet her.

“Kikyo,” Konan says, the lie coming out smooth and unforced. It feels real, at this point. This is the name her younger self gave her. It’s just how Nagato forewent the use of his own name, taking on the mantle of Pain, because it felt truer to himself than his own reality. She cannot be Konan. Not to these people. And so, she will be Kikyo. “I’ll take you to the boy. He’s not far.”

“Thanks,” Nara replies, and although his tone is casual, there is an underlying intensity in his chakra that he cannot hide. He is ready to attack at any moment. It’s interesting, to see Konoha shinobi so on edge. During the invasion, every occupant of the village was hostile, of course, but before that, every Konoha nin she had encountered had had the same free spirit. The gift of peacetime is complacency, and it is clear that these shinobi have never known it.

Konan leads them to the spot she had bid the children to hide, proud when they do not immediately come into view the second they sense her approach. They have learned caution.

“You can come out, all of you,” Konan says, her voice gentle and low to make it clear to the Konoha nin that this is not an ambush.

Nagato emerges from the illusory vines first, his red head peeking out, timid and uncertain. Little Konan soon follows, pulling Yahiko behind her. And behind him comes the small, too-skinny form of Obito, his hair a tangled mess, his eye squeezed shut. He’s holding onto Yahiko’s arm for guidance.

“Is everything okay?” Obito asks, his voice thin. There’s a barely audible tremor, and Konan is struck by a sudden, inexplicable hatred for the man that had caused it.

Little Konan shushes him, standing so he’s covered by herself and Yahiko.

“It’s fine, Obito,” Konan says, “I encountered three Konoha shinobi. They’ve come to help get you home.”

“K-Konoha?”

“I don’t recognise him,” Nara says, “but he’s in a bad state. Inoichi?”

The Yamanaka comes forward, holding his hand out. “I can examine you, to make sure you’re alright.” He says kindly, but Konan knows exactly what he intends.

“If you harm him in any way, I will not hold back,” Konan warns him.

“And we’ll be right there with her, so don’t try anything,” Yahiko adds, staring the Konoha shinobi down with undisguised dislike.

“My technique is harmless,” Yamanaka says with a faint smile, “I just want to find out what happened.”

Slowly, Obito comes out from behind the others. Yahiko guides him to kneel in the grass before the foreign jounin, his other hand tucked behind his back. He’s almost certainly gripping the kunai he keeps strapped there.

The Yamanaka places a hand on Obito’s forehead. Konan tenses despite herself. She is competent and has the aid of knowledge of the years to come, but there are things she cannot prevent, and the need for Obito’s mind to be invaded is one of them.

It’s barely a few minutes before Yamanaka breaks away, sweat pouring down his face, which has drained of all colour.

“Inoichi?” Chouza says, worried.

The Yamanaka takes a moment, his chest rising and falling rapidly, “This boy is Uchiha Obito, Minato’s student thought lost during the Kannabi mission three months ago.”

“Three months?” Obito whispers, aghast.

“Kikyo-san saved him,” Yamanaka continues, “the rest of the details need to be shared with the Hokage. We need to go back to Konoha, now.”

“Minato’s student…” Nara mutters. “Well, shit.”

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The Konoha shinobi allow Konan and her team to follow behind them, but they are no longer the ones by Obito’s side. Now, as they travel slowly, careful not to attract undue attention, it is the Yamanaka who guides Obito through every step. Nara leads the group, and Akimichi stays behind, a large, lingering presence.

They stop to camp with only two days to go, a decision Konan questions, but not openly. These men evidently know more of the world’s current situation than she does, and if they feel it is necessary to take the journey at this agonisingly slow pace, it must be. Little Konan was telling the truth when she said she read maps for fun, but it didn’t mean she’d had any kind of grasp of what the world outside of Amegakure had been. Konoha had been just another painful name at first, the one featured in Nagato’s stories, until Jiraiya had come. Then Konoha had become a dream of sorts. The three of them had talked about it endlessly, the possible future in which Hanzo was defeated, Ame was free, and they could visit Jiraiya’s home as adults, proof that his lessons had not been for nothing. When Konan had imagined it, Konoha had been a vague forest of huts filled with people as colourful as Jiraiya. She hadn’t really considered what Konoha had actually been like.

Now, it seems Konoha is a village at war, with threats on all sides.

The Ame trio bed down next to each other, using their cloaks as blankets. They’ve curled up under an overhang of rock. Konan feels a touch of fondness at the sight of them, subconsciously sheltering from the rain that won’t come. Their hearts are at home, even if their bodies are in the wilderness.

“Are they your kids?” Nara asks, sitting down on the log beside Konan.

“Konan is my little sister,” she replies, keeping her eyes on the sleeping teens, “the others are her teammates. I care for all of them.”

“You care for the Uchiha kid too,” Nara says mildly.

“He was in a terrible state when I found him. Desperate to go home, but too kind to wish to leave his own captor in peril. I hadn’t met many children like him. They usually don’t survive.”

“It’s interesting, that a missing-nin just so happened to stumble across a Konoha genin in trouble, and then coincidentally found yet more Konoha shinobi in trouble. You have a strange fortune, Kikyo-san,” Nara drawls, his unbothered tone taking the sting out of his sharp words.

“A missing-nin?” Konan murmurs. “I suppose. Finding Obito was chance. I told you I’m a sensor. I felt chakra beneath the ground, very deep. A weak child, and someone old, but strong. I had to see what was happening. I couldn’t simply walk away.”

“You could have,” Nara corrects, “just like you could’ve walked away from our fight. You didn’t know the child beneath the earth. You didn’t know us. Ame and Konoha have a difficult history. I’m sorry, but it’s a little tough to believe your actions were motivated by compassion. Most shinobi in your position would have done far worse.”

“You said it yourself. I am a missing-nin, despite myself. Unattached. Neutral. Therefore, it does not matter that I grew up watching your village burn mine,” Konan replies, the rebuke clear in her voice, “I did not see Obito as a genin of Konoha. Just a boy of thirteen. And your fight lay directly in the path to Konoha. It was a coincidence, and hardly a useful one. I didn’t need to help you to bring Obito home. I did it because I wanted to.”

“How old were you when they cast you out?” Shikaku asks. He smirks when she gives him a startled look. “It’s obvious. You don’t wear a scratched headband, you talk about your village fondly, but distantly. You love your sister and her team. You didn’t leave by choice. Am I right?”

Konan folds her hands in her lap. Ame was taken from her when she was seventeen. She helped take it back as an adult. She’d done her best to protect it since then, but Madara’s last act had soured her perception of her own leadership.

“Young,” she admits quietly, “very young.”

“Must’ve been difficult to leave Konan behind,” Nara replies, sympathy lacing his words.

Despite herself, she gives a bitter laugh, “you’re trying to establish a timeline, Nara-san, using my age and Konan’s. Perhaps it was difficult to leave her. Perhaps she had yet to be born. Either way, it is not your business.”

“You’ve been alone for a very long time,” Nara says, and this time, it doesn’t sound like an attempt to dig for information. Just a statement of fact.

She almost protests – Nagato had been by her side for most of it, and Yahiko had been there in his own way, and yet… her Nagato had been lost. Buried deep beneath his own pain. Living only for his dream. Yahiko had been there, right before her eyes, but gone. Dead.

Konan lowers her head.

How strange, not to realise how lonely she has been for all this time. That the deep, permeating numbness of her existence had been the weight of loss, not a normal state of mind. It had been so long, she had forgotten how she was supposed to feel. Joy had been a thing of the past. Something to strive for, but impossible to achieve in a world like this. There was only pain.

“Solitude is the reality of a missing-nin,” Konan replies, “I cannot expect more than what I am given.”

“How lucky, then, that it was a boy of Konoha you saved,” Nara says.

She frowns, pressing him for more, but no matter what she says, he simply tips his head back and closes his eyes, and that is the end of it.

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Konoha arrives on the horizon as a beacon hidden amongst the trees.

Konan stares, unsure why she feels so raw at the sight of the village she once helped to destroy.

Obito has removed his eyepatch, taking several shaky steps on the branch they’re perched on to get a better view. His Sharingan is glossy with unshed tears. Konan looks away to give him a moment of privacy, this poor boy.

“Are they home?” Obito asks. “Rin, Kakashi, Minato-sensei – are they all here?”

“I don’t know.” Chouza says kindly, resting a heavy hand on Obito’s back. “Shall we go find out? You can climb on my back, there’s plenty of room. This’ll be the first time I’ve carried an Uchiha. It’s quite the honour.”

Obito gives a watery smile, then hesitantly clambers onto the jounin’s back, steadied by Konan’s hand, “You’re coming too, right? Nee-chan?”

Nee-chan? Konan blinks. Is that me?

“Yes,” Inoichi says reassuringly, “Kikyo-san has to tell the Hokage all about what’s happened. We’ll be going together.”

Konan gestures, and the Ame trio leap to her side at once.

“Behave yourselves,” she warns under her breath, “remember what I told you. We’re here to help.”

Yahiko nods with clear reluctance.

“Just don’t start any fires. It’s a pain in the neck to clean up,” Nara says.

And with that, they set off, aiming for the main gates. It takes less than a minute, which is just enough time for Konan to become taut with nerves. Her plan seems ridiculous on the surface, because it relies on impossible knowledge, which makes it very difficult to have faith that it will work. Right now, it simply feels as though she is marching them all to their deaths.

Nara doesn’t put a hand on her, but angles his body while he walks in such a way that she is forced to keep moving to avoid brushing against him. How vexing to be corralled like cattle, she thinks.

“InoShikaCho!” One of the guards at the gate calls out with a grin. “You’re a little late. With visitors?”

“Our mission was a success, and then some.” Nara says with a careless wave. “I’ll fill you in later.”

It seems far too easy, and yet that is all it takes for them to walk right into the village without being challenged.

Little Konan’s hand finds hers. She takes it without much thought, pulling the girl against her side.

The village is teeming with life. In a way, it’s almost how she had imagined it, only much, much bigger. She hadn’t stopped to take in the details during the invasion, but this time she does. She stands still, neck craning around as she takes in the view. The buildings are enormous without being threatening, built of warm stone, with wooden ladders for easy access to the roofs. The people walk around without care, heads held high, each one dressed in different colours and styles. The ground is dry, but not barren. Glimpses of green are everywhere to be found, tiny plants growing between the cracks in the stone. The sky is crayon blue overhead, white fluffy clouds drifting by lazily. A cat is sunning itself on a nearby bench, fat, and content. Despite the war, here, there is peace.

Konan realises in horror that she is shaking.

She had destroyed all of this. She had crushed the buildings, ripped out the foundations, cut down the crowds of screaming people, broken the ground and burned the remains.

“How is it so big…” Yahiko breathes, eyes wide.

Little Konan presses into her side, overwhelmed. Nagato stands at her back, too tall to be hidden from view, but clearly trying anyway.

“Come on,” Yamanaka says, not unsympathetic, “it’s not far to the Hokage Tower.”

Obito is still on Akimichi’s back, but rather than gawping at their surroundings like the rest of them, he’s pressed his face into the man’s hair. Is he afraid?

“It’s alright,” Konan says, forcing her voice to sound firmer than she feels, “we’re safe, I promise. Let’s go.”

They are led through bustling streets, the jounin expertly weaving in and out of the crowds, until they come to the base of a great tower of stone. The jounin look at each other, seemingly communicating without words, then all of a sudden, Chouza vanishes, taking Obito with him.

“Wait!” Konan cries out, but Nara steps in the way.

“Calm down. Chouza’s taken him to the hospital. Unless you want the kid to collapse on the way to the Hokage?”

Konan glares at him. How cruel, to use her obvious affection for the boy against her. Obito was weak and underweight, not to mention traumatised, but he would have survived the journey to the Hokage’s office. Nara just doesn’t want her to make a fuss, since he needs to take her directly to the Hokage, and knows she would have insisted on going with Obito had she known he was heading for a different place.

She doesn’t say a word, just grips little Konan’s hand and makes her way into the building, head held high.

The Hokage’s assistant is a wiry-looking woman, who rockets to her feet the second Konan steps into the room, “Um, excuse me, you need clearance to – ”

“Mission complete.” Nara drawls, dropping a scroll onto the woman’s desk. “Excuse us. We need to debrief Sandaime-sama.”

“But I – ” The hapless woman wrings her hands.

“Thank you so much.” Inoichi says warmly, ignoring her mounting panic, then opens the door.

He slips into the room with a deep bow and a muttered, respectful greeting.

Nara lingers, gesturing for Konan and her team to follow suit. Konan looks them over, making sure they’re okay, then takes the lead. She will not be afraid of her own plan’s success. Entering this room and speaking to this man had always been a vital step. All she has to do is do it.

The room is dark, shutters drawn against the bright afternoon’s sunlight, and the scent of incense and tobacco hangs heavily in the air.

Konan is greeted by the slightly raised eyebrows of the Sandaime Hokage, dead before she’d ever entered this village, but very much alive behind his desk.

Nara walks past her bedraggled group, sweeping a quick, but sincere bow, “Hokage-sama, apologies for the unexpected intrusion, but our mission encountered complications that could not wait. Inoichi has news.”

“Is that so?” The Hokage intones, placing a sheet of paper back down on his desk to regard them all with his full attention.

“Uchiha Obito has been found alive,” Yamanaka says, pressing on when the Hokage’s mouth opens in surprise, “he was rescued by the woman we’ve brought before you, Kikyo-san, formerly of Amegakure, accompanied by her team, also of Amegakure.”

“Obito-kun is alive?” Sarutobi sits up in his chair, shock rippling through his aura. “You are certain?”

“I verified his identity myself, Hokage-sama.”

The Hokage stares into space for a long moment, seemingly lost for words. He comes back to himself and gestures to the chairs in front of his desk, “please, by all means, be seated, Kikyo-san. I have a feeling this story might be a long one, so you may as well be comfortable for its duration.”

Konan hesitates, looking back at her team, but little Konan just widens her eyes meaningfully, letting go of her hand without a fuss.

Konan takes the seat very slowly, suddenly all too aware of the dirt clinging to her clothes, “Sandaime Hokage.” She murmurs, inclining her head just so. “Good afternoon.”

“Isn’t it just?” The old man returns amiably. “Fine weather. Drier than I’d wager you are used to, of course.”

It’s probably an attempt to warm her up, make her laugh with a joke she’d be familiar with, but Konan finds her shoulders rising slightly in indignation. Ame’s perpetual rain is a gift in itself, and yet foreign nin always find ways to poke fun at it.

“Yes,” she replies after an awkward beat, “should I just tell you what I know, Sarutobi-san?”

“Hokage-sama,” Nara corrects.

“Not my Hokage,” Konan says mildly, then clarifies for the sake of the old man before her, “I am a missing-nin. There is no authority that I recognise save the one I helped create myself.”

“That sounds like a story on its own, but let’s begin with Uchiha Obito, Kikyo-san.”

Konan recites what had happened with some omissions. She mentions encountering Zetsu, then sensing the chakra below ground, venturing beneath to find Obito and the old man, but does not mentioning knowing Zetsu beforehand, nor the reason why she had been in Mountain’s Graveyard.

“Obito-kun was in bad shape. I noticed he was missing an eye. I checked on the old man, who was also missing an eye. Both occupants of the room had one Sharingan each,” Konan says, noticing lines of tension appear like cracks around the Hokage’s eyes, “Obito-kun said the man had called himself Uchiha Madara, and that he was refusing to let Obito-kun leave, that he had use for him.”

“I can confirm all of this, Hokage-sama,” Yamanaka interjects.

“Uchiha Madara…” Sarutobi muses, his tone dark with foreboding. He meets Konan’s gaze before continuing, “and what of his eye?”

Konan holds a hand out, a paper box unfolding in her palm, “I assumed he stole it from Obito-kun, so I retrieved it.”

The Hokage takes the box and frowns down at it. “Thank you, Kikyo-san. This will be examined thoroughly.”

He does not say it will be returned to Obito, which rankles Konan.

“This was all unplanned, but it occurred on my way to save my sister and her team. I’d received word that they were going to be ambushed by Hanzo, almost certainly killed for their rebellion. My sister’s team founded Akatsuki, the rebels who fought against Hanzo’s tyranny,” Konan says, with no small amount of pride, “he promised them peace, then betrayed them.”

“How did you save them? Hanzo’s forces are said to be quite formidable,” Sarutobi says, troubled.

“Well, I killed Hanzo and all of his men, of course,” Konan says calmly.

The Hokage’s pipe falls onto the desk with a loud thud.

Konan stands, unfolding a scroll. The two jounin in the room tense, but the Hokage waves them off.

Konan splays the scroll across the desk and Hanzo’s head appears in a puff of smoke.

The Hokage makes a small, guttural sound, locking eyes with the dead man.

“I believe Konoha had a bounty on his head,” Konan says, “collecting it is one of the reasons I have come here today.”

“Kikyo-san… I… this is…”

“I have instated a trusted member of Akatsuki to rule in Hanzo’s stead. Amegakure has a new leader, but Konohagakure can rest assured that our village intends to be an ally to yours from this day forward. I swear upon my word and the lives I have taken to further this course, Ame will no longer be hostile to citizens or shinobi of Konoha. However.” Konan leads forward, meeting the Hokage’s gaze. “The day Konoha decides to fight a war across Ame’s lands is the day Ame will cease to be friendly territory for your people. We are no longer willing to endure the destruction you and the other villages recklessly bring upon our heads. Do you understand?”

Sarutobi’s mouth opens and closes. He takes a sip of his flask, pressing his hand against his lips for several silent minutes.

“I have killed two fearsome enemies of Konoha. Hanzo and Uchiha Madara. I have brought back one of your own shinobi that was thought lost. I did all of these things for good reason – Madara died because he could not survive being transported here to give information, and I refused to risk his escape if I left to bring you word of his survival. Hanzo died because he was a tyrant that had gone beyond being reasoned with. I saved Obito-kun because he did not deserve the terrible things that happened to him. I did all of this of my own accord, but it is not lost on me that every action I have taken has benefited Konoha greatly. Because of this, I have several requests.”

“Requests… not demands?” Sarutobi asks slowly.

“It is hard to demand anything in return for an action that has already been done. My first request is that myself and my team be allowed to live in this village for a few years, long enough for Ame to be rebuilt, so that I can be assured that my team will be safe there. I will gladly work as a shinobi of Konoha to earn our place here. I also ask for you to send word for Jiraiya, because I need to speak with him very urgently. The last thing I ask is assurance that Obito-kun will be treated well here, not forced back onto the frontlines as fodder for your war.”

Though he is dazed from the onslaught of information, the man is clearly not unintelligent, as he replies, “to become a shinobi of this village, you will be required to undergo examination and interrogation, to prove you are not a threat. That aside, it will not be difficult to grant you the rank of jounin, assuming you pass the tests necessary to achieve it. Tracking Jiraiya down and bringing him home will be more troublesome, and may take some months to achieve, but it will be done. Obito-kun is a member of the Uchiha clan, and as such, his care is their responsibility. If he is cleared for active duty and his clan have no issues with it, I am afraid he will be reinstated.”

“Ridiculous.” Konan says, dismissing his words with a sharp hand gesture. “I will liaise with his clan. They will listen to reason. Obito-kun will receive as much mental and physical rehabilitation as he needs, and he will only be reinstated as an active shinobi if that is what he wishes. Is his team alive, by the way? He was very concerned.”

“Alive but grieving his loss.” He sighs, but then a smile starts to spread across his face for the first time. “They will be overjoyed by the news. Truly, Konoha is very grateful for what you have done, Kikyo-san. Is that everything you need?”

“No. If you have a map of Mountain’s Graveyard I can mark the exact location of Madara’s hideout, where you will find his corpse, and that of his follower.”

She turns her head to the side, looking for little Konan, but instead catches a flash of amusement dart across Nara’s face.

“Well… to say thank you would be a grave understatement,” Sarutobi says heavily.

“Where will I be able to collect Hanzo’s bounty? I intend to use the money to find my team somewhere to live, whether it be a small apartment we could rent, or – ”

“Kikyo-san,” Nara says, mirth audible in his voice, “I will give you the goddamn keys to Konoha’s treasury if you ask for them. Hanzo’s bounty’s a decent portion of it anyway.”

“Yes, thank you, Shikaku.” The Hokage interjects, not quite rolling his eyes but coming dangerously close. “Shikaku and Inoichi will help you through the next steps, Kikyo-san. Now, if you will excuse me, I must summon a squad to head to Mountain’s Graveyard at once.”

Konan stands up, then falters.

She’d known what joining Konoha would mean, but right now, it feels wrong.

Still, she pushes herself into a shallow bow, a few shades off respectable, and mumbles. “Thank you, Hokage-sama.”

The Hokage just nods, his gaze thoughtful as it follows her out of the room.

***

Hello, friends!

How did this chapter end up 2k longer than I planned? It looked very 4k-shaped in my notes. Whoopsie.

I’m really, really loving writing Konan. It’s very fun to write logical characters, and when you add Konan’s compassion, it’s even more enjoyable. I really wish we’d got to see more of her in canon. I just really like the contrast between her stoic, logical demeanour, and her faith in prophecies and aesthete nature.

Konan has a to-do list that just says, ‘kill bitches, get bitches.’

InoShikaCho are all in their early twenties at this point btw. Konan always looked very young to me, certainly younger than her thirty-five years, so I’ve decided everyone else has the same problem I did. This means InoShikaCho think a baby nin tried to rescue them and it’s a cross between cute and insulting.

Sarutobi: Actually the Uchiha clan is extremely unreasonable and also murder-flavoured

Konan: I’m a vegan and a paragon of reason. I will crush them

I swear every single one of my fics has the MC confront Sarutobi in his office at least once. I’M SORRY I JUST HAVE UNRESOLVED ANGER ISSUES REGARDING HIS BATSHIT DECISIONS –

I toyed with the idea of Hanzo having a bounty. It seemed a little… war-provoking, to have a bounty on a village head, but then when you remember Hanzo literally wiped out an entire Konoha battalion, yeah. It suddenly becomes a little more plausible. I didn't think Madara would have a bounty, since Hashirama killed him, plus it seems a little unsporting, trying to encourage your village's shinobi to go after your nemesis for money. Or ninja clout, I suppose.

I wrote about three Konan chapters in one day and felt like I needed to fall into a magical coma to revive my flagging spirit. I needed a nap in the hyperbolic time chamber. Or a just a brief sojourn inside a microwave.

Btw I’ll turn thirty next month which means I’ve been writing fanfiction for seventeen years. I started out with Teen Titans and Kim Possible, then fell headfirst into Naruto and got stuck. Can’t get out. Help?

Quick poll for fun: What is your favourite video game? (if you don’t play games, tell me what existential dread fills your soul in the early hours of the morning)

Mine’s Persona 5 Royal! The Persona series is my favourite in general. I can’t recommend them enough.