Reflection of God (Pein Story)

Chapter 17.

Things were much easier after that.

Kyo no longer felt so nervous around Pein when doing things, always conscious as to the fact he was her leader, and that by doing something wrong she would get punished. Slowly she could see that how she had been forced to see authority wasn’t normal, and after all, she had known things were different with Pein from the start, whether it was with the Akatsuki or Pein himself; and by calling him by his first name it was only cementing this fact. She no longer contemplated what she was doing or considered it strange when she talked with him in the breaks between training and spent time together after their trainings sessions had finished. She could see now that although Pein might be her leader…

He was still her friend.

Instead she continued on as normal—well, as normal as she could do. There was still something there that was quite incomprehensible to Kyo, whether it was in something Pein himself did or said as he went about his daily routine, or something she herself felt or thought as the day went on. It was never something she dwelled on; knowing how much trouble working herself up about something trivial would cause, there was no point in doing so, and she wasn’t about to let it happen again. For the meantime, Kyo just let it be, focusing on finally finishing her training and being able to start missions with the Akatsuki—though that in itself was something that brought about a strange feeling of sadness within her. She couldn’t deny she’d had a good time training with Pein. Maybe it was that; the idea that she would have to leave him and go off on missions that was getting to her. But it shouldn’t—it couldn’t. Missions were missions, and it was her job to complete them. Though her attitude towards it had altered, Kyo wasn’t about to change everything. Missions mattered, and she wouldn’t turn one down or try and wriggle her way out of it.

But it wasn’t something she would be forgetting easily. What she was going through was familiar somehow; as if she’d experienced it at some point in her life but had forgotten all about it. All she knew was that the more she looked at Pein, the more it seemed less like he was her leader. No matter how hard she tried to keep that fact at the back of her mind at all times, it would often fade when she spent time with him. All her life she had been alone and independent, having to survive on her own, with no parents, siblings or even friends to count on. Getting that job hadn’t helped; that had kept her at arm’s length and made her even more isolated than she had been before. But it wasn’t like that with Pein. With what had happened, she had gotten closer to him than she had ever done to anyone—even her parents.

Only…she liked it. If anything…she wanted more.

Pein could understand what she was feeling; unsure how he felt about having to let Kyo do missions after all of this. He couldn’t hold her back from completing her mastery of the Rinnegan; her skills ability to pick things up were too great for that. She was too thorough in perfection of her abilities for him to even point out she needed to go over something a few more times. But Kyo had shown him something different to how his daily life had been before; made a change in how things had gone on. He had enjoyed the conversations they had and the time they spent together, having never really had that sort of experience before but finally being able to understand it. Pein would only be wondering how her missions were going—and then there was the matter of who she was going with.

That was going to be a big issue. Pein knew Kyo had met the rest of the Akatsuki—he’d seen her with Itachi—but she had never spent time with them in the context of a mission. Working with them in a team, most likely spending one on one time with some as they travelled; having to sleep in the same places and eat together. Pein was her leader and the leader of the rest of the Akatsuki, he knew that, and he had to put everyone together in the best pairs possible in order to get the missions done. But when picking out a mission for Kyo, he would be crossing each Akatsuki member off the list one by one for trivial reasons that would most likely stem from jealousy for the most part, until he deduced that he was the one who she would pair up with the best.

But he couldn’t do that; his own biases couldn’t get in the way of the missions that needed to be done for the good of the organization! Distancing himself had always been a good way to stop that—but he couldn’t do the same with Kyo; and Pein didn’t know why. Now he was standing there trying to figure out a why of sorting everything out while still keeping Kyo close. But it wasn’t as if he needed to—before Pein had even seen Kyo had the Rinnegan he had known she was powerful, and with her training, that had only been increased tenfold. She didn’t need anyone to worry about her, and she could deal with anyone. It wasn’t as if she would instantly get affected by any of the Akatsuki members—she wasn’t like that. So why was he getting so obsessed?

For so long he’d been thinking about getting Kyo to call him by his first name, getting frustrated when she hadn’t reacted in quite the way he wanted, and then being so relieved when she had finally agreed. Pein had always thought, especially when he was trying to get her to talk to him again, that once she started calling him by his first name, then everything would fine—things could go back to normal. And in sense, he guessed, it had. But there were still things that weren’t right underneath the surface; things that remained affecting him, even more so now—things that he had most likely underestimated before and had ultimately worked their way inside his head.

Because now Pein had a hard time getting Kyo out of his head—though he was starting to think she hadn’t left from the moment he had first met her. First off it had been the shock of her having the Rinnegan, and then deciding what to do with her. Even then there had been something about Kyo that had caught Pein off guard and left him unsure how to react towards her, telling her things that didn’t even make sense. But once he had agreed that she would become an Akatsuki member, do missions with all of the Akatsuki members and allow him to train her to master the Rinnegan, his viewpoint on Kyo had altered. He still hadn’t known how to fully treat her, but as they began to train, he had done nothing but think about what Kyo's past might have involved; why she was the way she was. He had wanted to help her, becoming utterly engrossed in her training and spending time with her.

He should have known something was definitely going on when he considered the idea of asking her to call him by his first name—and not only that, but spent so much time beforehand contemplating whether or not he should do it. That showed more than anything that he considered Kyo special; and he knew she was—but in a way that was different to anyone he’d known before. Pein wasn’t about to stand there and deny it, backing away from the subject and acting like it didn’t exist. He couldn’t do that anymore; things had gone way past that point by now. But with the way things were going, he didn’t really want to. He could only accept it:

Pein cared about Kyo.

It was the first thing that flashed through his mind when he went to their training session that day. Now he’d accepted what he felt towards Kyo, he could only watch every move she made and analyse it, finally allowing himself to see her in a way that had always been evident, but he’d always pushed to the side.  He couldn’t keep his eyes away from her—especially as she took off her top layer—and understood more than ever he couldn’t just let it go. In the same way it had been with asking Kyo to call him by his first name, it bounced around his brain and made sure it was constantly in his notice.

Because he couldn’t let it be anymore.