Reflection of God (Pein Story)

Chapter 14.

There were so many questions in Kyo's mind, and she couldn’t answer any of them.

What would possess him to ask that? She was a member of the Akatsuki, just like the others—true, Konan called him Pein, but she had known him since they were children. Kyo worked for him and had pretty much been kept prisoner by him for a few days. Calling him by his first name wasn’t right! He was her boss, and she followed his orders, completed the missions he assigned for her and whatever tasks he wanted her to do. Some boundaries just shouldn’t be crossed, and this was definitely one of them. She had thought it was the kind of thing Pein would understand…and yet now he was the one standing there and asking her to do it in the first place.

She hadn’t exactly wanted to run away. Kyo had never liked to seem weak to those around her, and running away from Pein when he had just asked her to do something wasn’t really a strong thing to do. Whether he would be angry or not for her doing that was something else to consider, but for the moment Kyo pushed it aside, rushing back into the hideout. Whatever he would say, she would face later. But all that mattered to her now was getting away. Not that it would work particularly well, whatever she did. The thoughts followed her regardless of her position, and they wouldn’t leave. Starting to head to her room, Kyo abruptly panicked; it was the first place Pein would look to find her, and as she glanced to the side and saw the door to the kitchen, she dived inside. Though it wasn’t really a hiding place, it gave her a room to pause in for a second, get her mind under control and grab a drink while she was there.

Throwing her stuff into the nearest chair, glad no one else was around, Kyo went to the sink, grabbing a glass, but halted as she did so, simply leaning against the counter with an inward sigh, closing her eyes as she thought. What was she going to do? Experiencing new and unusual things was a regularity in the Akatsuki—everything was so different to how she had worked and lived before. But this…this was above and beyond anything Kyo had expected to surface—and from Pein himself, no doubt. She just didn’t understand. All of her life that had been the way it was: the leader was the boss, and she did whatever they said without question. She was the worker who did what she was told, and with the different sort of lives they led and the different things they had to do, there was no need for them to cross. But Pein was changing that, and confusion was all that filled her mind. It had shocked her completely—and Kyo felt almost…afraid. She’d never had that kind of friendship before, and a part of her worried that she’d almost get it wrong.

By calling him by his first name she was getting closer to him than most did. Things had been strange enough with their relationship how it was and how much time they spent together talking when they weren’t training, and it was getting worse. Getting close to people as a ninja was never a good thing. She had been close to her parents, like any child would be, and what had happened? They had been killed and she had been left alone. When she kept her distance and remained aloof to her employers and all the people that worked around her, Kyo had remained there for the majority of her life. She might not have fully enjoyed it, but the people remained. If she became close friends with Pein…it would end badly. Kyo knew it would.

Even if the idea did seem tempting…

Pein had begun to go after Kyo as she turned and ran off, but after a few steps he made himself stop and merely watch her disappear from sight. Clearly she wanted to be alone, and following her wouldn’t make her talk to him—if anything, it would be the opposite. It was best to leave things be for the moment. At least then he might be able to figure out a few things himself. So he picked up his own belongings, slipping his Akatsuki cloak over his shoulders and headed straight back to his room. He could rely on that being empty and for no one to disturb him there.

Upon arriving, he closed the door quietly, throwing his shirt away and grabbing a new one, slipping it over his head and pausing as he noted the places that had been burnt on his old one. Glancing back up, he padded over to the window, leaning against the wall and gazing down at the landscape below, knowing it would be impossible to do anything else right now. His mind was too busy thinking about Kyo for him to be able to occupy himself—and looking outside seemed to be the only thing that could calm him for the time being. After all, what else was he supposed to do?

Maybe he shouldn’t have asked Kyo to call him Pein. He’d known from the beginning she was incredibly obedient and if someone was higher in authority than her she would follow their orders to the letter, regardless of what it was or whether it went against her beliefs. Of course she was going to be surprised at the idea that her new leader was asking her to call him by his first name—but he had felt almost compelled to ask it. From the moment he had returned to her after the jutsu and saw how she reacted to what had happened and whether the flames had hurt him—from the moment he had heard the tone of her voice with which she said it to him—he had instantly thought of it. Every time Kyo said ‘Leader-sama’ he just wanted to stop her and tell her to say Pein. All the time he had walked back he had thought of it; so by the time she finally said it again, it was like he had no choice.

He just had to ask it. 

Over the days they’d been training they had developed a friendship, of sorts. Kyo had to have noticed it herself—their relationship wasn’t the same as if he had been training anyone else. It wasn’t as if Pein had ever seen himself as her teacher, and Kyo had never reacted in a way that was like she considered herself a proper student. Had she really still felt that he was her boss and nothing more when they sat together during the breaks they had in training, eating and talking as casually as anything? Sitting watching the sunset together, not even needing to speak, wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you’d do with your boss. And with what had happened today…he thought Kyo had seen it as more than that, too.

Rubbing his temples, Pein was torn between sighing and scowling at the situation. Things were going a lot deeper than he could ever have imagined. Kyo's attitude towards authority had been unusual to start with, but he was starting to understand that had just been scraping the surface. The closer he got to her, the more she seemed to push him away when she realised what was going on. Kyo hadn’t seen her former employers as her bosses—they’d been tyrants, dictating every little thing she did and not allowing her any room for anything else in her life that was to do with her being an actual person. Having been orphaned at such a young age and having to fend for herself for several years hadn’t exactly helped, either.

But no matter what he told himself, Pein knew he couldn’t just keep away from her. They had a lot in common; he could see that from when they talked and when they trained together. They had a connection, and all in all it meant he looked at Kyo in a different light to how he saw most people. To how he had seen the majority of people in his life. Maybe it had always been there, from the point where the subordinates had dragged her in and told him that there was something he needed to see; maybe it had been why he had reacted so strangely when he had been trying to figure out what to do with her. But whether it had been there or not, he couldn’t deny he was starting to care about her. Emotions weren’t something he came about very often; so when he could feel them in everyday life, he knew they were there.

And he knew they weren’t fading.

Kyo's didn’t seem to be fading, either—but she didn’t quite know what they were. They seemed familiar in some ways, but in others much stronger and in a different way. But they were getting to everything in her life, no matter how hard she tried to push them away. It had been what made her act differently when Pein had taken off his shirt; it was what made her consider treating Pein as more than just her leader. She felt that connection; she just didn’t quite know what it meant.

But emotions were emotions, and they were all centred on him.