Author's Note: This was written before the whole Nagato thingy.

Edited by RBMIfan

Warnings: AU

The Magazine

"Anko. This is not a good idea." The purple haired woman didn't even flinch, instead finishing the elaborate knot in the obi. It was tight enough that it felt like the bottom of her ribs were being crushed. She had been under the impression that obi weren't suppose to do that.

"Don't worry, Konan-chan. What could possibly go wrong?" The blue-haired kunoichi responded to her companion with a quiet sigh. As it was, it took all her willpower not to pull up the kimono so her shoulders were covered. She had never thought there'd come a time where she would miss her heavy Akatsuki cloak, and, more importantly, how it kept her completely covered. How had Anko talked her into this? "Besides, if this works out, you'll have an extra alias in the higher circle of celebrities. I'm sure Leader-sama could use someone with an identity like that." Oh. That's how.

No matter how true Anko's explanation was, Konan still felt relatively uneasy without her weapons on her. She eyed the other people in the room. From the sunlit windows on their right to the wide doors to their left stood dozens of girls, most no older than 16, waiting either alone or in groups. Catlike eyes glared scornfully at each other as they whispered amongst themselves. All were dressed in modern clothes of what Konan assumed to be the latest fashions, and all were apparently scornful of at least half of the other girls in the room. A vague sense of disgust wormed its way into Konan's stomach. "Regardless of the reason, we aren't properly dressed for this." She was grasping at straws, despite her steady voice, and they both knew it.

"So?" Anko had ditched her cloak for a simple outfit, mostly black, of a tee-shirt and pants. Sasori's ring missing from its traditional resting place on her finger, though, Konan knew the other woman had it on her somewhere. Her fellow kunoichi never forgot the ring. The origami master forced herself to be still as the poison master ghosted blush over her cheeks, so pale it blended right in with her skin. Not like the others with clumps of colouring decorating their faces like the clowns of a festival. If this had been a mission, she would have failed spectacularly: she did not blend in at all with the other girls.

People were staring at them, at her, and it was an odd feeling. Konan would have transformed into butterflies if she had known for sure that Anko wouldn't catch up with her later. The poison master could be very... subtle if she wanted and Konan did not want to be checking her food constantly. The group to her right giggled at the joke their 'leader' had made about her kimono being old-fashioned. She did not change her expression when she turned her head to them, the ice in her eyes told them what she could not.

Another girl walked past them and, in comparison, Konan was glad her friend had chosen silk robes, even if they didn't cover her shoulders. Heels clicked loudly against the stone floor, mini-skirts flashed with their leather shine, and a shirt that barely covered anything adorned her chest. Did any of these... girls have any modesty to speak of? If only Anko would give her a kunai or a senbon, then she would rest easy with the knowledge she could kill them all in under a minute. "We stand out."

Anko rolled her eyes at the comment. She placed the blush back into a case and fished out some eyeshadow, dark blue in one hand and a metallic version of the shade beside it. "That's the point. Now hold still." Obediently, Konan remained like stone as Anko attacked her eyelids with her chosen weapons. One would have never guessed the Interrogator of the Akatsuki to be so proficient at make-up. Konan didn't mind the concept of being pampered as much as she should have, which was a rather startling idea.

"I... don't understand." And she didn't. In the world shinobi and kunoichi grow up in, if you stood out there was a high chance you would be dead before puberty. If you were lucky, you might even make it to 15. She had yet to meet a shinobi that was loud and bold older than 17. Rumours of particularly strong shinobi abounded if you knew where to look; however, the strongest shinobi were the ones you simply couldn't find. They were the ones who could complete a mission and no one would know who did it. For this reason, their names were not in the bingo book, though the list of their victims grows weekly. Many of the Akatsuki fell into that category.

"I know. Civilians have stupid ideas." The bluntness was to be expected when dealing with Anko, not that Konan minded overly. There was always a price to pay in a companion, and for Anko it was a tolerance of crude language and bluntness. She was the only other female in Akatsuki and, while Pein was incredibly powerful and she would not have anyone else at her back in a fight, the males simply did not understand some concepts. Like her current predicament: a Girl's Day out. "Just think of it as a mission."

A mission could be done. Konan didn't have much time to reflect on the idea before Anko had the lip-stick out. Silence descended; Anko focused on the task at hand, and Konan did her best to ignore the stares. The background noise seemed to amplify as the minute hand drew closer to the hour, and all but the two of them grew more and more excited. Anko's hand pulled away and she stepped back, running her gaze over Konan checking to make sure everything was covered.

Anko scowled slightly when she came to the hair. Leaning in, she carefully brought a piece of blue bangs to semi-cover the corner of Konan's eye. A grin broke out on her face and she stood back at attention. "Done!" Before Konan opened her mouth to comment on "What was done?" the clock struck the hour. And the wide double doors swung open to admit a finely-dressed young man who, hands up in a dramatic fashion, assessed the girls in front of him in a manner that would have had her reaching for a kunai if she had one. He gestured behind him, and a group of decidedly less finely-dressed men hurried to set up a large camera in the center of the room. He stopped just behind it, and seemed to wait.

The silence in the room was palpable. Konan wondered what they were all waiting for. She glanced from the corner of her eye to find Anko, but the poisoner was nowhere in sight- and if she was in chakra range she was hiding it well. Up at the front, the man was scanning the crowd again with a frown, apparently dissatisfied with something. Konan remained very still as his eyes passed over her section. Whatever was going on she no longer wanted to be a part of it, even if she had to put with Anko's complaints and poisons for a year. She had made up her mind to slip out at the first distraction, when he started a sweep backwards... and this time paused.

Konan didn't lower her gaze as his eyes slowly took her in, and wore her usual expression when dealing with strangers: a cold indifference, as expressionless as a portrait. It tended to set people on edge, which suited her purposes. Not so with this man. He seemed, if anything, pleased by her demeanor, and he wasted no time in closing the distance between them, resting his glasses on top of his head. The other girls tried to crowd closer, to draw his attention away from this strange woman, but he waved them off without even a glance in their direction.

His expression remained composed, but pleased, as he walked around her in a circle. It was only from watching him from the corner of her eye that she noticed his pause at the obi Anko had tied. If it was like anything else Anko created or even half as elaborate as the poisons she made, it was probably down right beautiful and equally complex. The photographer continued his round, coming back to where he started. He grinned for the first time. "Tell me, what brings a beautiful young woman like yourself to a common modeling shoot?"

There was a carefully measured indifference in his tone, no doubt put there for an aura of mystique. He struck her as that sort of person. But Konan only ever allowed one person to ask questions of her, and this man was not Pein. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "I am wondering why I am wasting my time here." The man drew back a bit at that, though Konan's expression had yet to really change.

"Truly? But you are here, nonetheless. Surely something caused that to happen." His tone was friendly, conversational; obviously intended to put her at ease. But he was interested. She could tell by the glint in his eyes, the slight widening in the corners, and the way he shifted all of his attention to her face.

"Something, perhaps." She considered the man, then their attentive audience, and decided that there was no cause for deception here. "I was talked into this by a…friend. But I was just about to leave." She stood at that. Regardless of what Anko insisted, there was nothing to be gained in having influence here. The man quickly stepped in front, blocking her way. The disinterested look on his face was gone.

"No, no. Your friend was right in bringing you here. Look at yourself! That graceful posture, that arrogant look, that outfit- old and traditional enough to be refreshingly new." He stepped closer, and she narrowed her eyes and backed away. "You could go far in the modeling world, you know. At least let me see your audition." She studied him for a minute. He wasn't lying. And she sighed. Well, it was what she'd come here to do.

"Very well." The man beamed, and with a gesture had his men shoo the other girls out the door and was leading her to the camera. In minutes she was seated in front, listening to the gentleman guiding her into strange poses...

Anko managed to pull her out of a contract before the man even finished asking, claiming that "Tenshi is very tired and has to get home before her" the purple haired woman raised her pinky and smirked, "sends out the search parties." Konan would have blushed if it she hadn't known it would have ruined the reputation she had established. To silence Anko, Konan merely commented that she was pretty sure that a certain blond was probably getting lonely without his... partner. The poison master quickly put her jaw back in its proper place.

So there she was, nearly a month later, in her chambers folding some paper into birds and listening to rain pound against her window. She had only seen Anko once after that whole mess; apparently Deidara was not being all that helpful with her task of capturing shinobi to be used for interrogation. How had she described it? Oh, yes; "that birdbrain fails to understand that to interrogate someone I need them alive and together and I really don't care that they called him a girl! He certainly acts like one with all the drama he uses! I'll just have to do it by myself!" Thus, Anko had been trying to complete the information quota by herself. Konan wished her luck. It was quite a large quota.

Another fold and she was half-way to completing the bird. Konan quickly but carefully lined up the pieces of paper together, not even pausing when his presence appeared in her doorway. She did not turn to face him. She preferred to wait until he decided to announce himself. After a few minutes, when she had finished an entire bird and had started on another, Konan realized it wasn't a mission. If it had been he would have breezed in, told her what they were doing, and then breezed out. "Konan."

That was her cue. She halted in her work and faced him to the best of her abilities while in a chair. An eyebrow was raised at his appearance. His cloak was off, leaving him in a simple tee-shirt and traditional baggy pants, and he was leaning on the frame of her doorway. There was no expression on his face. Shocking orange hair was spiked as usual and the various piercings on his face glinted in the light, though his ringed eyes were lighter than normal. It was as if he was amused by something. Konan was instantly on guard. "Yes, Pein?"

It was around this point in time that Konan noticed a rolled up magazine in his hand, slightly hidden by the way he had his arms crossed. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of it. Pein was not someone who normally read such utterly useless trash. As it stood he rarely read anything other than the front page of the newspaper. She assumed that whatever had caught his attention in it was also what had brought him here.

He slowly pushed off from the wall, eyes closed as if in contemplation. Then he opened them again and walked to her desk, dropping the rolled magazine in front of her. At least he was kind enough to avoid damaging the origami birds she had made. With a careful hand, his painted nails kept visible, the magazine was unfurled. And, with a start, Konan remembered her little outing with Anko the month before. Of course, and she fought to keep the blush off her cheeks, someone would have noticed that and informed Pein.

Without a doubt, Konan was going to kill Anko.

On the cover, carefully posed with her head tilted just so, and her hands carefully folded on her lap in a delicate manner, was Konan. Anko had made sure she looked the same, just... different. White butterflies fluttered around her. She remembered distinctly that several had landed on her hair and shoulders. The blue eyeshadow Anko had painted on matched her hair and extended slightly past her eyes, her lips were of the same shade and the top lip was covered in shimmering version of the lipstick. A real white rose was in her hair, accompanied by two tiny jewel flowers, while Anko had freed some strands to dangled around her ears. She wasn't watching the camera; her attention had been on a butterfly floating a few feet in front of her. Her eyes were the same, while her lips were ever so slightly parted.

The kimono revealed her shoulders, pale and thin like the rest of her glowing with the faint blush that had been added, silver roses on the silk reflected well on the sapphire dye of the base. With the way she had been positioned the elaborate knot of the obi was seen, keeping with the motif Anko had decided upon, it was like a giant silver butterfly had landed on her back. The scene was a traditional garden straight from a history book; a bridge had even been added in the background.

Konan was brought out of her musing when Pein leaned slightly over her shoulder, eyes staring at the picture. He glanced at her, tilting his head slightly, the light in his eyes, though unreadable, was still there. "Why are you on the cover of a magazine?"

This time, she did blush.

Fin