Reflection of God (Pein Story)

Chapter 26. (The End)

Immediately Kyo jumped up to face Pein from her position on the bed, surprised.

It was like she had called something into existence; the moment she began to think about approaching Pein to talk to him about everything, and he appeared in her room a second later. She glanced up at his face, seeing a calm expression on his face, though a firm determination was evident in his eyes; as if he wasn’t about to leave this room until he had said what he needed to say and done what he needed to do. She could understand his opinion, though—they needed to get it out into the open if anything was to come to a conclusion. But clearly he had accepted things a lot quicker than Kyo had done, though Kyo had gathered that from the start.

After all, Pein had been the one to ask her to call him by his first name, and when he had kissed her, it was he who had instigated it. When she pulled away and said she wasn’t sure it was a good idea, Pein hadn’t agreed with it and asked her to forget about it. He had looked confused and almost disappointed at what had happened and how Kyo had turned and walked away from him. It wasn’t as if Kyo didn’t want to accept all that had gone on, but there had been so many conflicting things in her mind as to how she should act. Her instinct told her to go along with it—but what she had been brought up to believe had consistently got in the way.

Now it had all changed, and it wasn’t like that anymore. Kyo could look on the same situation with new eyes, and truly determine how she wanted things to go. The emotions that had been surfacing throughout her time in the Akatsuki—as she adapted to the environment and spent all her time with Pein as she trained and just generally hung out with him—were ones she hadn’t understood. They had confused Kyo and ultimately made things harder when she had to make a choice as to what to do about them. But now time had passed and altered things, and Kyo was starting to comprehend them in a way she had never thought she would be able to do before. The feelings she could see and feel coming from Pein were ones she now shared.

Something that he couldn’t help but be relieved at.

True, Pein had known something within Kyo had to have changed when she had decided to break out herself and confront Nikushimi on her own. But a battle situation was very different to one like this. Both of them had always been emotionless throughout their lives, and although they had things they would fight for and protect, it had never been openly that they had expressed their feelings. However, that idea and gone out the window as the emotions came more and more to the surface, and to achieve some sort of normality between them both and just generally in themselves, it had to be accepted.

He had seen where his feelings were headed when he started contemplating asking Kyo about dropping the formalities around him. The more time he spent with her, the more Pein understood just what was happening, and he had realised just what he felt for her. But even if he had accepted them quicker than Kyo had done—or even comprehended them—he still had held back. He’d never exactly dealt with it before, and as such he didn’t quite know how to react to all of it—which had only brought it out in a more potent form than he probably would have liked. Pein had been slightly concerned as to how Kyo would return his actions when he went to talk to her; whether she would be willing to have this conversation and allow him to speak—to say what she felt herself. But upon seeing her standing there now, Pein knew she was fine with letting this happen, and as such, as Kyo nodded in greeting at his presence, he responded quietly,

“I know this is a little unexpected—and I apologise for not knocking.”

But shaking her head, Kyo dismissed it. She would have done the same, and it didn’t matter that she hadn’t known he was going to be there. She just wanted to hear what he had to say—prompting him to take a slight breath as he went on,